The Free Press74%
Trump’s Iran Blockade Is Back. Plus. . . 29%
By The Free Press22%
7/14/2026, 10:01:54 AM
Topics: Geopolitics, Foreign Policy, Energy Markets, Legal Battles, Immigration Enforcement, Financial Crimes, Media Mergers, Celebrity Deaths
Keywords: Iran, Trump, Blockade, Strait Of Hormuz, Middle East, Oil Futures, Aaron Maclean, School Of War, Mike Doran, Irs, Tax Returns, Immigration, Maine, Fergie Chambers, Money Laundering, Lindsey Graham, Darline Graham Nordone, Paramount, Warner Bros Discovery, Madonna, Billboard 200, Sam Neill, Jurassic Park
BS Summary: This article contains 28 faulty reasoning types, including Quote-first Misdirection, Unattributed Quote, and Appeal to Authority, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 19.3% saturation with 146 hits. Analysis detected 1,315 faulty-reasoning hits from 755 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 39.4% and a BS Rank of 29% (15,013 of 20,921 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 71.80% of the article peer group.
It’s Tuesday, July 14.
This is The Front Page , your daily window into the world of The Free Press —and our take on the world at large.
Today: America’s abandoning a crucial ally.
Arthur Brooks on how the self-help industry can survive AI.
Prince Harry’s much-needed life lesson.
And much more.
But first: What’s going on with Iran?
The on-again, off-again war against Iran is very much back on.
Consider yesterday’s developments alone:
Trump ordered U.S. forces to “reinstate” a blockade on Iran in the Strait of Hormuz and proposed a 20 percent toll on all cargo that travels through the strait;
The White House sent a letter to Congress, dated July 10, declaring a resumption in hostilities with Iran beginning July 7;
The U.S. conducted a third consecutive night of strikes on Iran to “impose a heavy cost on Iranian forces and degrade their ability to attack shipping in the strait”;
The UAE said that Iran had struck two of its tankers in the strait;
Oil futures saw their largest single-day gain since April;
Trump told radio host Hugh Hewitt that the U.S. might strike the Iranian nuclear site at Pickaxe Mountain with “a nice big fat shot right near the front door,” and that the U.S. would hit Iran “very hard” Monday and Tuesday.
Free Press columnist Aaron MacLean saw much of this coming last week, when he argued that the reality of the president’s predicament pointed to him reinstating a naval blockade to take control of the strait.
That now appears to be the administration’s strategy.
But will it work?
And at what cost?
To make sense of the flurry of Iran news over the last 24 hours, read Aaron’s latest column.
And for more on the conflict, don’t miss the latest episode of School of War .
He talks to Mike Doran about the state of play in the Middle East, just how weak the Iranian military actually is at this point, and whether or not the conflict’s end is in sight.
MORE FROM THE FREE PRESS
Commercial cargo vessels and crude oil tankers are anchored in the Gulf of Oman, off the coast of Muscat, Oman, on June 21, 2026.
(Shady Alassar/Anadolu via Getty Images)
A federal judge ruled Monday that President Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS over his leaked tax returns was filed for “improper purpose.”
The Obama-appointed judge claimed the IRS settlement with Trump was an exercise in self-dealing.
She did not explicitly void the deal that created the $1.776 billion legal defense fund for alleged victims of Biden DOJ lawfare, though she recommended disciplinary action for one of Trump’s lawyers.
A federal immigration enforcement officer shot and killed a man in Maine on Monday.
Senator Angus King said Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told him the motorist, a 26-year-old Colombian national, attempted to use his vehicle as a weapon against ICE agents.
Fergie Chambers was arrested Friday morning in Spain on a U.S. extradition request for alleged money laundering, among other offenses.
The heir to the Cox family fortune has spent the last decade funding radical left-wing causes and has worked alongside anti-Israel activists like Calla Walsh .
(Read Suzy Weiss’s profile of Fergie Chambers: “ He’s Got $250 Million to Spend on Communist Revolution .”)
Lindsey Graham’s sister Darline Graham Nordone will serve out the remainder of his term in the Senate after South Carolina governor Henry McMaster formally appointed her on Monday.
President Trump and Senate Majority Leader John Thune publicly indicated their support for Graham Nordone in advance of her appointment.
Twelve state attorneys general are attempting to block Paramount’s $81 billion acquisition of Warner Bros.
Discovery.
The lawsuit, filed Monday in federal court, alleges the combined entity would control almost a third of theatrical films and basic cable assets in the United States.
Paramount, The Free Press ’s parent company, says the suit “distorts settled antitrust law and is based on a misrepresentation of competition in the entertainment industry today.”
Madonna’s latest album , CONFESSIONS II , hit number 1 on the Billboard 200 this weekend.
The record, a spiritual successor to her 2005 dance-pop hit Confessions on a Dance Floor , marks the 10th chart-topping album in her four-decade career.
Sam Neill, Jurassic Park ’s leading man, died Monday at 78.
The actor starred in more than 150 movies and TV shows during his five-decade career.
His family announced his death via Instagram on Monday, though the cause of his death remains unknown.
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9speakers30%attributed speech527writer words
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100%flagged-word coverageSuzy Weiss
18 attributed words7.9% of attributed speech75% writer coverage
Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.
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Analysis
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