13: Iran

11: Iran

Why is Iran acting like it is holding all the cards in Hormuz talks? .......... on Saturday, Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, laid out the conditions for reopening the Strait. They include the U.S. permanently ending the war, lifting its naval blockade, withdrawing forces, ending all sanctions, freeing Iran’s frozen assets, the payment of war reparations and ending threats and insults, among other things. ........

“It shows that they believe they have the upper hand, they believe they’re winning, and they are emboldened,” former Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Sunday

............. Trump often looks at negotiations in the frame of a power dynamic: Who has the cards? Who has the leverage? ............ The U.S. and Israeli militaries have pounded Iran hard for more than five months, destroying much of its military and killing numerous top leaders. Iran is using the Strait of Hormuz as its final point of leverage. ............ This is somehow proving effective, because there isn’t an easy way to replace this waterway in terms of global trade in the Middle East. Just a few missiles and drones can create a lot of havoc in that waterway. And Iran knows the U.S. has been reticent to send in ground troops to clear out the Strait of Hormuz (not to mention the continuing questions about how many missiles the U.S. military has available).

Trump's top options to end the US-Iran war Iran’s list includes the end of the blockade, reparations for the damages caused, and the release of frozen assets. Iran also wants the US to remove its millitary from its neighborhood......... Top experts like the University of Chicago’s Robert Pape and John Mearsheimer warn that he has no easy way out........ Earlier this month, he warned that he would bomb Iran’s key infrastructure like power plants and bridges. ......... The reality, however, is that Gulf allies like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait are running out of defensive weapons. Recent media reports show that the US is also running out of sophisticated defensive and offensive weapons. ............. Trump can also decide to launch a ground invasion, potentially to capture an island. Such a move, however, would lead to more US casualties, without achieving any goals. ............ Iran no longer trusts the US, having been bombed three times during previous rounds of negotiations: in June last year, on February 28, and again in July. ............ it will demand a complete ceasefire in Gaza and Lebanon, and instant financial resources from the United States.

Iran says US must meet these six demands if Strait of Hormuz is to reopen “Until America corrects its behavior, the Strait of Hormuz will not open,” the notice read. .......... Never threaten Iran with any language or insult the sanctities of this nation.............. End the war and aggression against Iran and its allies in Lebanon, Palestine, Yemen, and Iraq forever................ Lift the naval blockade and withdraw its military forces (naval and air) from around Iran.............. Pay the damages of the two wars of aggression and imposition on Iran without any reduction or reduction.............. Lift the cruel and illegal sanctions against the Iranian nation............ Unconditionally release the frozen and stolen assets of the Iranian people. ........... “The U.S. government continues to proudly announce that it is besieging Iranian ports and harassing Iranian ships. In this situation, the United States has no moral or legal standing to complain about the Strait of Hormuz not being open. In short, you reap what you sow” ............... “We are only semi-negotiating with them. We are just watching Iran with its huge inflation and the fact they have no money,” he told Axios, arguing that Iran "is in very bad shape" economically because of the U.S. blockade on Iranian ports.

Trump hit with a dire warning from Republican pollsters Republican pollsters and strategists are sounding the alarm that a Democratic wave is building ahead of the midterms as voters sour on Donald Trump’s handling of the economy. .............. Trump promised a “golden age” for America. So far, voters feel he has fallen well short of that promise, particularly on the economy, where there has been a huge swing to the Democrats in the latest polls. ..............

That is largely due to Trump’s historically unpopular war with Iran, which he began without congressional authorization and has seen gas prices climb from around $3 a gallon before the conflict to more than $4, squeezing household budgets.

.................. The White House has insisted that the price rises are temporary, but Republican strategists have warned for months that price rises will seriously hurt Trump and his party in November’s midterms. .............. “If Democrats could sustain leads on the economy and win double digit margins among independents as some polls show, a Blue Wave is possible,” GOP strategist David Winston said. .............. things could be especially bad for the Republicans in the battleground states. ............ while voters turn against Trump, polls show that Democrats are also gaining ground on economic credibility. .................

Fox News polling shows them leading Republicans on the issue for the first time since 2010, by 9 points in July. That marks a sharp reversal from 2022 and 2023, when Republicans held an advantage of as much as 15 points on the economy.

............... A Reuters poll from last month also showed independent registered voters, 67 percent of whom disapprove of the war in Iran, breaking toward Democrats. .............. Independents said they favor a Democratic congressional candidate by 36 percent to 20 percent. Independent voters also said they trusted Democrats more than Republicans to handle the economy. .............. Surveys also show that economic anxiety is putting some Republican-leaning voters at risk of staying home or switching sides. ............... Americans for Prosperity Action says economic concerns have put roughly 20 percent of Republican-leaning voters in swing states at risk of either sitting out the election or backing another candidate. ................. “The specific economic circumstances we’re dealing with are not really necessarily an inheritance from a previous administration. They are due to very specific decisions that this administration has made” .............. only about one-quarter of respondents rate the economy as excellent or good, while about three-quarters say it is in fair or poor shape. .............. For the first time since 2010, Fox News polls find voters citing Democrats as better on the economy than Republicans. Democrats led by 4 points on the question in April and by 9 points in July, whereas the GOP was viewed as the better economic manager by as much as 15 points in 2022 and 2023.

5 charts show how nearly 6 months of war have hammered Iran's economy

Iran's economy is showing signs of serious fatigue as the war heads for the six month mark. ......... Inflation and unemployment have soared, while oil revenue has cratered amid the US blockade. ............. Iran's Misery Index hit a record high in the first quarter, and the economy is shrinking.

........ President Donald Trump told Axios over the weekend that he's shifting his approach in the war, with the US ready to let the economic pressure quietly mount until Iran is forced to return to the negotiating table. ......... A report from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies estimated that the blockade was likely costing the nation $435 million a day, given that oil is a key source of revenue for Iran. .......... "Iran's financial lifeline has been cut by the US blockade, and the economy will remain in a very depressed state unless it can secure concessions," William Jackson, a chief emerging markets economist at Capital Economics, wrote on Monday. "But whether this happens ultimately comes down to the degree of economic pain that the Iranian regime is willing to bear to achieve its military and geopolitical objectives." ................ The Misery Index, a sentiment gauge that's calculated by adding Iran's point-to-point inflation rate and the unemployment rate, hit 91.1 this spring, the highest level ever recorded, according to data from Iran's statistics center.

How militant attacks on Saudi oil could force Trump to quit Iran war
Iran's economy buckles as blockade chokes oil exports and households cut meat, dairy and medicine
Raytheon, Lockheed Martin worry Ukraine will build better, cheaper versions of Patriot missiles
Yen sinks as US-Japan intervention unravels

A Birthday Present - If you know you know.
I broke mine putting out a forest fire in the remote Sierras a couple years ago, and I honestly have not felt “complete” without it.
On this fine day, my quiver is finally complete again. Many thanks! pic.twitter.com/u5sHXhmaYs

— Damon Zumbroegel (@DamonZumbroegel) August 10, 2026

28: Iran

26: Iran

Russia is now losing the war in Ukraine Russia entered 2026 with a familiar claim: time was on Vladimir Putin’s side. Moscow still held more territory and expected its larger population and industrial base to produce an eventual victory. Ukraine’s long-range drone and missile campaign has made that conclusion much harder to defend. ....... Russia later rerouted fuel from Siberia and increased imports from Belarus after refinery damage reduced gasoline output and created shortages ......... Moscow suffered about 1.4 million battlefield casualties, including as many as 450,000 deaths, from February 2022 through June 2026 for marginal gains. ...... the idea of an inexpensive Russian victory has collapsed. ......... Russia must protect the front, Moscow, strategic airfields, oil infrastructure, ports, power plants, factories, and commercial logistics. Ukraine chooses where to concentrate each wave, creating a defensive allocation problem the Kremlin cannot eliminate. .............. Moscow can add radars, guns, electronic warfare, and interceptor missiles. It cannot place the same layered defense around every fixed site across 11 time zones. The Omsk attack showed how one successful penetration can create national supply consequences. .............. Russian forces still advance in parts of eastern Ukraine, and Kyiv faces serious manpower, ammunition, and air-defense shortages. Moscow remains capable of inflicting enormous damage. Those facts do not give Putin a credible path to his stated objectives. ..............

Russian advances have slowed sharply while the cost of sustaining them rises.

.............. Putin invaded to subordinate Ukraine, weaken its military, block its Western alignment, and demonstrate Russian power. Ukraine now operates one of Europe’s largest militaries, produces long-range weapons, strikes Moscow and Siberia, damages strategic bombers, and forces Russia to disperse air defenses. Moscow occupies Ukrainian land but has failed to secure the political outcome intended to justify the war. ................ The expectation of inevitable Russian victory depended on Ukraine running out of men, weapons, and time before Russia’s internal costs became decisive. Ukraine’s deep-strike campaign transfers more of the war’s cost into Russian territory while Moscow’s ground forces continue paying heavily for limited movement. ................... As of July 22, Russia faces fuel disruption, repeated attacks near its capital, vulnerable strategic aircraft, slowing advances, and no credible timetable for meeting its territorial demands. Putin began the invasion expecting Ukraine to break. Four years later, Ukraine can strike the Russian interior while Russia remains thousands of square kilometers short of completing its campaign in Donetsk.

21: Iran

‘This is what a quagmire looks like’: Trump enters bleak new phase with Iran the president is rapidly running out of ways to extricate the U.S. from an unpopular, expensive conflict ahead of the midterms. .......... “People, generally, are concerned,” said James Jeffrey, a former ambassador who served in the Middle East in three presidential administrations, including the first Trump administration. “I mean, Americans are dying. It's very serious. This is a real war.” ........ Republicans close to the White House are also distressed about the war’s economic impact on everyday Americans in an election that is expected to hinge on cost-of-living issues. The average price for a gallon of gas surpassed $4 for the first time since mid June, up 13 cents in the last week. ............. And Iran’s demonstrated ability to survive punishing U.S. bombardments while inflicting casualties on American troops and allies and choking off the Strait of Hormuz underscores the challenges Trump faces in trying to win a war against an adversary that is merely trying to survive it. ......... “I don't think anybody likes the in-between position of having an Iran where these terrorists are still in charge and could affect our domestic politics going into November. For them, winning the war is surviving,” said Trump pollster John McLaughlin. “Their whole existence is based on an ongoing war with us that we'd rather not have. But they're leaving us with an option that we don't want to have to do.” ........... Still, some are hopeful that the president’s latest threats are a means to get Iran back to the negotiating table. Mediators passed to Iran a proposal to deescalate the war with the U.S. that would establish a 10-day ceasefire in an effort to revive the agreement reached by the two countries last month, Reuters reported on Monday. ............ “Anyone talking about boots on the ground, I think, is disconnected from the administration and certainly disconnected from the president,” said Alex Gray, who served as National Security Council chief of staff during Trump’s first term. “They're pushing an agenda that has certainly no buy-in from the president and his team, and certainly doesn't reflect the Republican Party today.” ......... “As the U.S. military degrades the terrorist Iranian regime’s ability to attack commercial vessels and disrupt the free flow of energy through the Strait of Hormuz, oil and gas prices will plummet back to pre-conflict levels,” said White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers. .......... the military deaths and promises of revenge are casting a grim shadow over the summer campaign season, during which the president and his party were hoping to refocus on their popular tax cuts, Trump accounts for newborns and lower drug prices. ........ “The war has become a persistent dark cloud that is souring the national mood which typically depresses the base of the party in power and motivates supporters of the opposition,” said former Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R-Fla.). ......... Administration allies believe there are a number of military options open to the president that fall short of boots on the ground, including escalating the U.S’s naval blockade and attacks on Iranian infrastructure. ......... Even though Trump last month conceded he was unsure if Americans had the “appetite” for a longer, broader war, some of the president’s supporters say Tehran is underestimating his tolerance for political risk.......... “They were hoping, because they’ve had a lot of experience with this, that they’ll simply outlast us,” Jeffrey said. But “Trump really has no choice. He put a compromise on the table. He’s not going to surrender, even if he loses the elections” in November. .......... “His patience has always been limited, but I think we're now seeing the consequences of that,” the person said. “A good indicator of where he intends to go is his massive defense budget request to Congress. He wants to ensure the United States has more than enough capability to sustain any future operations if necessary.” ......... In addition to the $1.5 trillion defense budget, the White House also requested $67 billion to cover the costs of the war. ...... That defense budget, however, is stalled in the Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has argued that the legislation, which reliably becomes law each year, was tantamount to “a permission slip for that recklessness that we see occurring in Iran” and last week, Senate Democrats blocked it from advancing to the floor.

20: Iran

14: Hormuz

The stock market is on the verge of doing something that's never been observed in 155 years -- and it has worrisome ramifications for Wall Street

Suddenly, Hormuz is Less Crucial Than It Was Why? Because the real energy crunch is coming from the Russia/Ukraine war ........ And of course the overarching moral of this story is the immense folly and criminality of a war that has left America and the world in a much worse place than they would have been if Trump and his enablers had just left things alone — or, better yet, had preserved the pretty good deal Iran and Barack Obama had agreed to in 2015.

i thought this was satire, kept looking for the handle to be spelled c1audeai or something https://t.co/4AVBA93Z27

— Sam Altman (@sama) July 14, 2026

Thanks @nikitabier and the xAI team for a much improved algorithm here on X.

For anyone who is seeing me for the first time in a while, I'm now writing about San Francisco AI innovation pretty much all the time.

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— Robert Scoble (@Scobleizer) July 14, 2026

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Before vibe coding became a thing, programming was already evolving in that direction. It already increasingly consisted of installing and configuring stuff other people wrote, without reading the source.

— Paul Graham (@paulg) July 14, 2026

I was in YC W10 when @paulg was my group partner (because there were only 4 @ycombinator partners).

Half the dinner table had CS degrees from MIT or Stanford. We argued about database indexing like it was politics. If you couldn't whiteboard a B-tree you had no business…

— Lloyd Armbrust (@larmbrust) July 13, 2026

GPT-5.6 sol is half the price and ~twice as token efficient as fable in many cases for accomplishing the same task.

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— Sam Altman (@sama) July 14, 2026

Trump says the US will take out Pickaxe Mountain in Iran "We're going to hit them very hard tonight and we're going to hit them hard tomorrow. And there's not a damn thing they can do about it," he said on the Hugh Hewitt Show.

Christian Bale explains why he daily drives a 2003 Toyota Tacoma despite being worth over $120M
Jeff Bezos' ex-wife MacKenzie Scott donated $26.3B in 5 years — yet she's richer now. The 'giving' math most people get wrong Beyond the numbers, Scott’s method is unusual. She operates through Yield Giving (5), the philanthropic platform she founded in 2022, and uses what’s known as trust-based philanthropy, a model the Chronicle of Philanthropy describes as providing unrestricted funding that nonprofits can spend as they see fit, with minimal application and reporting requirements (6).

Zelensky says the war’s next battlefield makes territory almost irrelevant — ‘It matters far less whose territory is larger’ “Russia is pummeling Ukraine with salvo after deadly salvo of drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles; Ukraine is using ever more sophisticated and longer-range drones to drive Russia’s fleet away from Ukraine in the Black Sea, starve Russian-occupied Crimea and, most effectively, strike oil facilities and military installations deep inside Russia,” Schmemann writes............ “Long lines for gas in Moscow and black smoke billowing from a refinery in distant Omsk, and images of victims being pulled out of demolished apartment blocks in Kyiv tell the rest of the story.” ....... “If you stop the enemy on the battlefield, if you stop the war on land, and if you deny him dominance at sea … then the next battlefield becomes the sky,” the president said. “And frankly, in that contest it matters far less whose territory is larger.” ........ the Ukrainian president said that Ukraine needs 300 Patriot missiles for the winter, including 100 per month. ........ “Interceptors, and specifically Patriots, have replaced artillery shells as the indispensable weapon for Ukraine in what may well be the endgame of this war. ........... a “robot army” is changing ground warfare in the conflict. .............. “Battalions of ground robots — tracked and wheeled machines that deliver supplies, haul ammunition, evacuate the wounded, lay mines and, increasingly, hold land — now conduct thousands of missions every month........... That has made them an indispensable tool for Ukrainian infantrymen who spend monthslong rotations in buried bunkers hiding from flying drones,” the report said.

Newt Gingrich likens Iran strategy to Lincoln's 'Anaconda strategy' Newt Gingrich, former House Speaker, likens President Trump's Iran strategy to Abraham Lincoln's Civil War 'Anaconda strategy.' He details how the U.S. is methodically applying pressure on Iran, noting that allies are increasingly frustrated with Iran's actions, not America's. This measured approach aims to achieve long-term foreign policy objectives.

WSJ exposes Trump’s 'unprecedented' state capitalism According to the Wall Street Journal, President Donald Trump has sought to fuse government with business and create a “state capitalism” that is “unprecedented” in recent history. Many commenters have suggested, however, that “this is not state capitalism” but “another ism MAGA is always yelling about.” ............ As the Journal explains, Trump played an instrumental role in Apple CEO Tim Cook’s decision to go into business with the microchip producer Intel, which was struggling after sitting out the early AI boom. Trump pushed Cook to hire Intel to manufacture some of Apple’s new device chips, and Intel has since shown a dramatic turnaround — a financial windfall that has benefited Trump personally, as he bought a “significant share” of Intel stock before its value shot up after the deal with Apple was announced last month. .................. “I think we found the communists,” posted HuffPost White House correspondent S.V. Date. “Something something communism,” posted Lincoln Project co-founder Rick Wilson. “Seems kind of socialist,” noted journalist Brahm Resnik. “State ownership,” came another response. “And he calls Mamdani a commie.” ........... A year ago, the CATO Institute wrote that Trump’s policies mirror the “populist authoritarian movement” spoken of by libertarian thinker Roy A Childs Jr. when in 1982 he warned that the New American Right was working to build a country that would be “hostile to free markets and committed to some form of managed economy. Forty-three years later, Donald Trump is president, and the Wall Street Journal’s chief economics commentator describes his policies as ‘state capitalism,’ a ‘hybrid between socialism and capitalism in which the state guides the decisions of nominally private enterprises.’” The Journal takes things even further, arguing that

Trump is “imitating the Chinese Communist Party by extending political control ever deeper into the economy.”

.............. Another example came last week, when Trump announced the launch of his “Freedom Fuel Network,” which imposed price controls on a series of Philadelphia gas stations, prompting a slew of comparisons to the “ism” so vocally reviled by Trump. As one commenter said of the news, “I thought we were fighting against communism?”