Saturday, June 27, 2026

Self Awareness: Zero

Huh. Neither will Trump. Ever get re-elected. And as for the GOP: ETTD. Everything.

It’s a curious fact of American history that the Democratic Party is the oldest one in America, extending back to Thomas Jefferson. The slam on it by pundits who parrot each other’s talking points is that the Democrats never have a central message. Trump’s GOP does. How’s that working out for them?

Will Rogers famously said: “I don’t belong to an organized political party. I’m a Democrat.”

Maybe that’s why the GOP only dates back to Lincoln. And may not survive Trump.
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This Runs Until July 10

So the North Carolina “exhibit” is a car.  And two video screens displaying the Confederate battle flag. 

North Carolina didn’t pay for the exhibit, so private interests did. The state has objected to, and disavowed, the flag videos. 

But this is the “Great American State Fair.” Where every state has to pay (the reason NC didn’t participate; too expensive) for a room that looks to be so small you couldn’t cuss a cat without getting fur in your mouth, which is why people in the video are running into the people trying to turn around and walk out. There’s no there, there.

Two white guys behind a counter, and a race car. Even if the room is an escape from the heat, nobody wants to stay in there. And this continues until July 10.

What’s the over/under that the Fair closes early out of sheer embarrassment?

(Congress authorized a proper 250th celebration. Trump took away all the money from that group, and made the 250th about him. ETTD. It’s an iron law of the universe.)
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Friday, June 26, 2026

We’ll Stop Obsessing Over It When He Does

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The Corpse At Every Funeral

To illuminate that last remark:
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…cannot be too careful…

 I cannot confirm the intelligence, but I understand the housing bill has not been “presented” to the President, in accordance with Article. I, Sec. 4, cl. 2. Which means it won’t become law without Trump’s signature. Not yet, anyway. (The signing ceremony was set up in the Capitol. Does this make a difference? Perhaps.)

And the Senate has left town for the 4th. Which means they aren’t coming back until the 6th, at least. (I’m too lazy to look up their schedule.) But if the bill has not been presented, Trump cannot veto it irredeemably (a pocket veto cannot be overridden). 

I’m not sure Trump can schedule a signing ceremony with the Congress, refuse it, and never have the bill properly presented. (Perhaps having the signing in the Capitol, so the Congress could get some visibility, does have something to do with it.) But it’s a fine point, and I don’t know how history and jurisprudence on the relevant clause, have worked. If there is a risk of an attempt at returning the bill, which sets the veto in motion, the Senate surely has someone authorized to receive it. 

So, will the bill be presented after the 4th? Probably. Will it become law? One way or the other, I’m sure. But it looks like Congress doesn’t trust Trump anymore, and wouldn’t “present” the bill until the July 4th recess had passed; from an abundance of caution.

Which fits the understanding that Congress is starting to wake up to the problem Trump poses in November.

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He Promised This Wouldn’t Happen

Johnson: If we lose the midterms, these Democrats will turn every committee of Congress into an investigative body, and they'll go after the president's family, the cabinet, his donors, friends, half of you in this room will be targeted. I run the protection program. We’ll take care of you
Corruption for everybody (with enough $$$$)! As long as I can still be Speaker! And it’d be a shame if anything should happen to youse guys. "Nones” (the clumsy term for people acknowledging no religious affiliation) is up 6 points from
2023, to 29%. Then again, Trump thinks his approval rating is 65%. Rising? In 70 years I haven’t seen as many churches close as I’ve seen in the past five.

Although this is good news: I’m sure Trump would try to connect it to “mutilization,” though.

And yes, He wrote that all out before he said it. And yes, we are apparently facing the biggest Communist threat since the McCarthy era. Because three people won primary races…in New York.

Which, if it had happened in Arkansas or New Mexico, or even upstate New York, nobody would have noticed. Let’s be honest.
The liar's paradox. Also known as the Costanza escape clause: “It’s not a lie, if you believe it!”
Trump: Communism is very easy to sell. It destroys everything, but it’s very easy. I’ll be honest, I think I’d be the greatest communist in history.

I’d give free rent. Ladies and gentlemen, from now on, you don’t have to pay any rent. From now on, anybody who wants a house, don’t worry about it. Just pick the house you want. Everybody gets free food. Everything is free from this point forward. Everyone’s going to vote for me.

That first year, you’re the most popular
Every accusation is a confession. What ever happened to the cheap gas and low inflation and high wages and affordable housing and no more foreign wars that he promised? He promised that wouldn’t happen.
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Sleeping Through The Midterms

How interesting:
Praising a proposal to require Texas public school students to read Bible stories and passages in class, supporters say the perspective is an important acknowledgment that the nation was founded on Judeo-Christian values.

Rabbis and Jewish leaders, however, criticized the biblical passages chosen by the State Board of Education as heavy on Christianity and dismissive of Judaism, reducing the term Judeo-Christian to “a fig leaf at inclusion.”

The State Board of Education kicked off a week of meetings Monday by hearing from more than 400 experts, teachers and concerned citizens on two proposals — one that would overhaul the state’s social studies curriculum, and another that would create a required reading list for K-12 public schoolchildren. Both proposals include biblical references, passages and stories. A final vote is expected by Friday.

Many of the speakers who praised the proposed reading list said it was important to teach children about Judeo-Christian heritage and values.

“Don’t lie about where we came from as Americans,” witness Richard Green said. “It was the Judeo-Christian value system that produced the greatest, most powerful, the wealthiest, most free, the most benevolent nation in the history of the world.”

Larry Holland with the conservative grassroots group Citizens for Education Reform endorsed the reading list because it was aligned with “a nation founded on the principles of Judeo-Christian heritage.”

Several rabbis and Jewish individuals rejected the use of “Judeo-Christian” to support the list.

“One would think that this phrase is meant to evoke friendship between the two faiths, but I do not find that here — or in the language surrounding support for this list,” said Blake Ziegler, a Texas field organizer for the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism.

Cameron Samuels, executive director of Students Engaged in Advancing Texas, which works to include young people in state policy decisions, objected to using “Judeo-Christian” to characterize Texas values.

“Not in my Jewish faith shall you mandate entire chapters of the Bible for over five and a half million students in Texas and proclaim that this speaks for Jewish people,” Samuels said.

...

For many of the Jewish leaders who testified before the State Board of Education, the required readings signified the contradictions behind the term Judeo-Christian.

Of the roughly dozen scriptural passages included in the reading list, many were taken from the Hebrew Bible — the shared text between Jews and Christians — but most of the excerpts are from distinctly Christian translations.

Ziegler and Houston Rabbi David Segal criticized the reading list’s inclusion of Lamentations Chapter 3, the only biblical passage taken from the Tanakh, the Jewish translation of the Hebrew Bible. The Texas curriculum requires using a translation produced in 1917 by the Jewish Publication Society, and many contemporary Jewish communities no longer use it.

Ziegler told the education board that the translation was outdated and said he was concerned that the passage’s “graphic violence isn’t appropriate for eighth grade.”

Lamentations 3 details the physical, mental and spiritual effects of God’s wrath on those who stray from him.

Ziegler also criticized placing Lamentations 3 alongside Holocaust literature, like Elie Wiesel’s “Night,” in the curriculum.

“Lamentations understands the destruction of the ancient temple in Jerusalem as God’s punishment for the Israelites’ sins,” he said. “When it’s taught alongside Holocaust literature — suggesting that was similarly a divine punishment for Jews — that is an unacceptable implication that invites antisemitism and hurts Jews across the state.”

Segal agreed. “Of course, [the translation] is outdated, but worse, you’ve anchored it to Holocaust literature, which invites eighth graders to consider whether the Holocaust was God’s punishment for the Jews,” he told the board.

“I assume this poor choice comes from ignorance, not intent, but either way it’s unacceptable, as is the proposed list as a whole, which I ask you to reject and start over,” Segal said.

Joshua Fixler, rabbi at Houston’s Congregation Emanu El and a member of the Religious Action Center, said the curriculum’s near-exclusive use of Christian interpretations and scriptures will result in the “further alienation of non-Christian students.”

Speaking after his testimony, Fixler said he is almost always troubled by invocations of “Judeo-Christian,” which to him “make actions that Christians are doing seem more inclusive by including Jews in the phrase.”

“It feels like a fig leaf at inclusion,” Fixler said. “They’re promoting a particular version of Protestant Christianity in our public schools and trying to use Jews as cover by using the term Judeo-Christian.”
Because the real point is to keep our kids away from Sharia law:
“We do not need to emphasize other cultures like Islam,” Patricia Franklin of Lubbock told the board of education. Focusing instead on Judeo-Christian ideas “will foster our students’ understanding and pride in our moral, cultural and civic traditions,” she said.

Laurie Cardoza Moore, the evangelical Christian founder of Proclaiming Justice to the Nations, a group that mobilizes support for Israel, emphasized Judaism’s impact on Western civilization.

“For more than two decades, PJTN has warned that anti-Israel propaganda and historical revisionism and ideological activism are entering classrooms,” she said.

“Students are being exposed to narratives that minimize the Jewish roots of Western civilization, distort the history of Israel, ignore the contributions of the Jewish people to America’s founding,” she said.

The Judeo-Christian Caucus says it unites pastors, legislators and citizens to “uphold and promote our Judeo-Christian heritage.” Contacted by email, Dran Reese, president of the group, said the term “Judeo-Christian” recognizes Christianity’s heritage “and affirms the timeless moral and ethical principles shared by both Jews and Christians.” The group was not present at the hearing.

“United by these common values,” Reese said, the caucus seeks “to strengthen faith, family, freedom, and the biblical foundations that have blessed our nation and civilization.”
So there is no separation of some churches and the state. Other churches need not apply. They are separated; because of how we define “the state.”
Fixler, the rabbi from Houston, has a different perspective. Though Jewish people were in the United States at its founding, he said, “we were not the founding fathers.” Using “Judeo-Christian” to describe the nation’s origin is “a prime example” of how the term rewrites the Jewish experience, he said in an interview.

The founding fathers were a “group of men representing a variety of religious beliefs” who built “the world’s first government that was explicitly not rooted in religion,” he said.

Fixler wore a tie depicting the Constitution when he testified before the education board — a choice he later said reflected his concern that the “sacred principles of the United States Constitution and our secular democracy were under threat.”

“The reading list and the social studies standards are part of a concerted effort to chip away at the wall of separation between church and state, which has been so important to people of all faiths in America for its 250-year history,” he said.

For Fixler, there is “a big difference between teaching about religion and teaching religion.” In his view, the list accomplishes the latter, and he would rather the vast majority of scriptural references be eliminated.

The Jewish Federations of Texas and Shalom Austin recommend using the 1985 Jewish Publication Society translation for passages from the Hebrew Bible, as well as additional representations of the Jewish experience beyond Holocaust literature.

Segal is similarly open to including some scriptural passages on the reading list.

“I do think it should be taught” to foster religious literacy, Segal said in an interview. But he said Jewish texts should not be taught “through a Christian lens” or be insensitively paired with Holocaust literature.

Ziegler said if lessons include religious texts, “they should reflect the diversity of our society.”

“The First Amendment does not permit the state to anoint one religious tradition above others. Texas students deserve an education that broadens their understanding of the world’s religious traditions, rather than narrowing it,” he said.
That's the point of the legal doctrine of separation of church and state. Patrick’s argument the phrase is not in the Constitution is correct; but neither is “free speech.” And Patrick used to make his money spouting nonsense on the radio.

And Patrick’s knowledge of religion is as empty as his knowledge of the Constitution.

(The term Judeo-Christian was popularized during the Cold War — a conflict frequently characterized as a spiritual battle between those of faith and “godless” enemies abroad, said Robert O. Smith, associate professor at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago.

In the United States, the term united Protestants, Catholics and Jews under a banner of shared religious origins that excluded Muslims, he said.

“The Protestant, Catholic, Jew construct” of the Judeo-Christian ethos is based on the “rejection of the atheist and the rejection of the Muslim,” Smith said in an interview.

Though Judaism is embedded in the phrase, the partnership has not been equal, Smith added. The term Judeo-Christian “implies a Christian construction of Jewish existence” in which “Jews exist inherently to fulfill Christian purposes,” he said.

“Christianity, from its very beginnings, has had a very ambivalent relationship with Jews and Judaism,” Smith said. “There’s a desire for Jews to convert — and therefore for Judaism to disappear into Christianity — but there’s also a recognition that Judaism is the foundation of Christianity.”

Even the code words have code words. Important to understand that.)

In Texas, the GOP will run on the fear of Sharia law, and the righteousness of the Judas-Christian ideals, heavy emphasis on the “exclusionary” Christianity. And Trump will run on the fear of communism.

We’ll see how that works out.
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Tell Me You’ve Never Been To A State Fair…

...yadda yadda yadda... I’m pretty sure what Trump knows about state fairs he learned from a movie. Or maybe he just doesn’t know shit about them.
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They All Walked Away To Dip Their Hands In The Reflecting Pool

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Corruption Visible

U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan said Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche essentially admitted the violations by failing to address allegations from independent journalist Katie Phang in a lawsuit seeking broader access to the records — including allegations against President Donald Trump.
Trump does carry the burden of proof. And the BBC is not in merger negotiations with an American corporation.
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AI 🤖 Is Inevitable!

Two Utah commissioners lost their jobs over their votes to approve the controversial Kevin O'Leary data center.

The president of the Utah State Senate, who had pushed for the huge data center next to the Great Salt Lake, was also defeated in his primary Tuesday night.

This especially shocking result saw J. Stuart Adams, one of the longest-serving and most powerful politicians in Utah, lose a primary he had easily won multiple times before.
Change the voters, change the country.
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We Are Not A Serious Country

I was 17 when the Watergate story broke. I remember it better than Rep. Alford. It was a long time between the initial WaPo report of a break in at the Watergate, and Nixon announcing his resignation. A great deal of real journalism forced the Congress to set up a joint committee to investigate, and when those hearings went live, and Nixon was forced to release the tapes…

Well, it would have disappeared if the Congress hadn’t represented we, the people, and done their Art. I job.

Just sayin’….
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Dear JD Vance:

 Fuck you:

A Florida judge ordered lawyers to stop filing briefs calling President Donald Trump's $1.776 billion IRS deal a fraud on the court, even as she praised their help.

U.S. District Judge Kathleen M. Williams of the Southern District of Florida issued the order Thursday, telling three separate groups of attorneys that the case was "sufficiently briefed" — while adding that she "greatly appreciates" what they had offered.

...

Scores of former federal judges, state attorneys general, and former senior government officials flooded the court with briefs demanding that Williams reopen the case and investigate.

"The parties have used this lawsuit as a justification for 'looting' American taxpayers," 35 former federal judges wrote, calling it a "fraud on the court."

Twenty-three state attorneys general called it a "corrupt effort to 'defile the court itself'" — arguing the settlement handed Trump's family immunity from IRS audits with no legal basis.

Former IRS and Justice Department officials — including the agency's former commissioner — argued the deal would enshrine two separate tax codes: one for Trump's family, one for everyone else.
Nixon didn’t go down for the Watergate break-in. He was forced out because the public was outraged by his corruption.

Read the room, idiot.
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Making “Fetch” Happen

MacFarlane: Democrats wanted that bill signing. Everybody wants to go home and tell their constituents they're doing something to reduce prices. So it's not just Republicans who got burned on this, but let's not undersell the master's degree in knuckleheadery that went through this whole process.

If the president is going to hold hostage critical pieces of legislation his party wants. in the name of the Save America Act, that is like trying to find a shortcut home by driving the wrong way on the highway. You are getting farther away. If you're trying to help Republicans by messing with the Save America act, you're making life harder for Republicans. They want actual work product to show.

Oh, by the way, if this thing did get passed by a miracle, it wouldn't be implemented in time to affect this election.
MacFarlane: Him dunking on the bill is a much more pernicious problem for his party. His own staff was saying this was a big landmark bill that was going to help make housing more affordable for Americans. And he says it's not a big deal. Where are we going in an election that is clearly being driven by prices, by inflation, by costs?
"Affordability” is not a word.
President Donald Trump has been seemingly weathering a barrage from all sides, according to a report from The Atlantic. He's faced mounting bipartisan criticism over the deal he struck with the Iranian regime. Meanwhile, inflation is up, and Trump's poll numbers are sinking among several key demographics. In turn, Republicans are fearing a "November wipeout," according to the report, as "Trump, whose political image revolves around strength, finds himself diminished."

But people around the president are singing a different tune, according to the report. They believe the war "won’t have much political staying power," the report noted. They also reportedly believe that recent Supreme Court decisions about cultural issues and the World Cup will overshadow Trump's war follies and help him change the subject.

“The midterms are months away,” one official told The Atlantic. “We’ll have lots of plot twists by then.”

Trump faces an uphill battle to change the subject, even with the help of his seemingly optimistic aides. After all, he's faced with a Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool project that has become an "on-the-nose metaphor for the state of his presidency" and a MAGA state fair that several big acts pulled out of because they found the booking invitation to be misleading.

"In the face of these struggles, Trump has continued to try to create his own reality," the report added.
What does he have left? Well, there’s that.
Trump cannot fail. Only they can. Besides, the war’s gonna be a distant memory by November, right?
It’s not like Iran gets a vote.
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Come For The Fascist Racism

I get the fascist racism in Miller’s message. 

But it occurs to me, this is precisely what Talarico and Ossoff and Platner and Mamdani are doing: changing the voters. America has chronically low voter turnout because too many people don’t think their votes matter, or see no one to vote for. It’s not like Trump ever won in a landslide or drove an historically high number of voters to the polls. 

(Nixon won reelection in one of the greatest landslides in history. Two years later, the American public wanted him out, and not because of his policies, but because of his corruption. JD Vance should remember that.)

So Miller is getting what he wants. Democrats are “over performing” precisely in response to Trump and Miller overreaching. It’s not just Iran and gas prices, it’s ICE and Pretti and Goode and Los Angeles and the ballroom (“Let them eat cake”) and racism and fascism and predatory capitalism. Trump wants the rich to get richer at the expense of the rest of us. 

And it’s Epstein, and DOGE, and a Supreme Court that thinks it sits on the right hand of God the Father Almighty and wields the sword of justice in the name of white America. It’s all of that, actually.

Like Trump, and even the Sinister Six, Miller keeps forgetting that the opposition has a vote. Always.

So sure: change the voters, change the country. But that door swings both ways. And in this country, we, the people, always get the last word.
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Thursday, June 25, 2026

I Blame The Boomers…

...for cheering on Nixon’s resignation, and trying to bring an end to the Vietnam War. And the Congress wasn’t absolutely supine in ‘72. So, there’s that. Yeah, you do have to consider the source….
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“We Are Winning By A Lot”

The UN’s shipping agency, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) has stated that it is temporarily halting efforts begun last Tuesday to evacuate stranded sailors and ships in the Strait of Hormuz, following an Iranian drone attack earlier today on a commercial shipping vessel off the coast of Oman.
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that according to two senior U.S. officials, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Navy attacked a Singapore-flagged cargo ship transiting the Strait of Hormuz today, damaging the vessel's bridge. No casualties were reported.

The attack comes just one week after the U.S. and Iran reached an agreement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and ensure the safe passage of commercial shipping.

In response to today's attack, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) has paused its evacuation operation for ships waiting to leave the Persian Gulf while it reassesses security guarantees.

The incident also follows Iran's warning earlier today that vessels transiting without its authorization could face "consequences."
I was told categorically that the entire Iranian navy was at the bottom of the ocean.
MacFarlane: What do you think of the briefings you’ve been getting—or not getting—on Iran?

Larson: Briefings? We should have the president here. He’s not following the Constitution. This is an illegal war. He has to come before Congress. In July, he said he obliterated everything, that there was nothing left. If there is nothing left, why are we there?
"We are winning by a lot.”
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Trillions Of People!

Um...sure?
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That Wasn’t So Hard

Politico:
A federal judge in Massachusetts barred the Postal Service on Thursday from restricting the delivery of mail-in ballots to states that don’t hand over a list of eligible voters, rebuffing President Donald Trump’s efforts to crack down on a voting method he has long targeted.

The agency, charged with delivering parcels to every address in the nation, neither possesses the constitutional authority to administer elections — a responsibility delegated to the states — nor has it been granted power by Congress to create binding regulations on voting by mail, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani stated in the decision.

...

Talwani’s decision also blocks another part of the executive order directing the federal government to compile a list of American citizens residing in states.

The White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment and the Department of Justice declined to comment, but the Trump administration will likely challenge the ruling.

Talwani — an Obama appointee — furthermore ruled that the executive order’s timing made it impossible for the Postal Service to propose the rule through the proper bureaucratic channels, providing “no allowance for Congress’ mandated procedure regarding USPS rulemaking.”
I really don’t understand what authority USPS thinks they have, here.
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SNAFU

U.S. President Donald J. Trump has said that the Iranians have communicated to the U.S. that they will not charge tolls or fees for safe commercial traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. This comes following the Omani announcement that the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) current transit framework, known as the Traffic Separation Scheme, is no longer viable. Per the Omani release, which we will cover in more detail in coming posts, they will work with the IMO to guide ships through the strait for no fees using an amended route framework.
Iran’s IRGC-N has rejected the Omani-International Maritime Organization transit framework announced earlier. Per the release, in what is seemingly a veiled threat to resume the targeting of commercial shipping and/or limit mine clearance efforts, the IRGC-N said “The proposed route is unacceptable and poses serious safety risks.”
Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz appears to be increasing despite Iranian announcements attempting to regulate passage.

MarineTraffic data shows at least 50 vessels transited the strait over the past 24 hours, with 39 utilizing the U.S.-recommended traffic separation scheme through Omani waters.

The actual number is likely higher, as some vessels continue to transit with their AIS transponders switched off and are not publicly visible.

For comparison, 130+ vessels transited the Strait of Hormuz on an average day before the conflict.
The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) has issued an attack advisory after receiving a report that a vessel was struck on its starboard (right) side by an unidentified projectile 7.5NM off Oman, causing damage to the bridge.

No casualties or pollution have been reported.

The incident comes hours after Iran warned that vessels transiting the region without its authorization could face "consequences."
This is fine:
According to the Wall Street Journal reporting, Iranian officials are boasting to Middle Eastern neighbors that a lucrative new revenue stream is imminent. The Islamic Republic estimated that charging for "security, safety, and environmental services" in the strait could generate $40 billion annually for "participating states."

The scheme would represent a dramatic reversal of pre-war conditions. Iran has positioned itself to control and monetize the "global shipping chokepoint" it effectively seized when the war began, causing worldwide pain.

To gain regional buy-in, Tehran pitched the toll arrangement throughout the Middle East and to Beijing, proposing that Persian Gulf neighbors share in the revenue, with the Journal noting the model "mirrors" Turkey's system in the Dardanelles, where ships pay a tax known as the gold franc for passage.

"Everyone needs to know that management of the strait will never return to the way it was before," declared Iran's chief negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, during a visit to Oman on Tuesday to discuss the arrangements, the Journal reported.
And so much better than the JCPOA Obama negotiated with several nations! Who aren’t talking to us anymore….
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