h/t WRSA

They argue that the sunk cost fallacy of Trump’s war will lead only to the diminishment of US’s negotiating leverage the longer it drags on, which is essentially an admission that Iran is now running away with its victory and the US should simply cut its losses:

The administration has repeatedly fallen prey to the sunk cost fallacy. In the face of this strategic failure, President Donald Trump has mostly acted as if the problem were one of scale or duration. In reality, U.S. negotiating leverage has diminished as the war has progressed and will likely continue to erode as the United States exhausts its munitions and domestic political consequences mount. New Houthi attacks on Saudi oil exports add precarity to a war that has already induced global economic shocks, damaged U.S. credibility, and put America’s regional allies in the middle of a conflict they advocated against.

It is true, especially given recent admissions by Admiral Brad Cooper that the US has ran out of worthwhile targets to even hit along Iran’s coast, and due to long-range standoff weapons shortages, is unable to consistently hit anything deeper in the country anyway.

Read the entire Simplicius post …

Roth Note: Regardless of all the blather about another huge bombing run this weekend, it appears, as of this Sunday morning, that we have another TACO. Good.

Update:

Roth Note: TACO confirmed.

Translation:
Whoever despises the people has no right to govern them.

Trump Defends Anti-Weaponization Fund But Admits It’s Effectively ‘Dead’

Chaos Agent: Anthony Fauci Represents A System That Needs To Be Cleansed

Britain’s Problems Didn’t Begin With Brexit

Wichita Man Sues City To Rip Out Its 200-Camera Flock Dragnet

Judge Rejects States’ Attempt To Block Medicaid Work Requirements

Demoralizing The Whole Citizenry To The Max

A Wolf In New York City Mayor’s Clothing

Islam, Marxism, Tyranny Ascendant

Another Historic UK Church Torched; Cause “Unknown”

Doug Casey On The Surveillance State Quietly Taking Shape Across America

Bondi Claims DOJ Produced ‘Everything Required’ In Epstein Files Release

Roth Note: Epstein? The Save Act? Europe allowing invaders to replace their native populations? Covid? Chem-trails? I could spend the rest of the day posting links to examples, but the reader should get the point by now.

“We’ve convinced the entire world that we don’t know what we’re doing, and we can’t be trusted, and we don’t keep our word, and we don’t even stay consistent from one day to the next,” former ambassador Freeman recently told Davis. “So how can you deal with us? That’s the question everybody has out there.”

As Alastair Crooke sees it, US diplomacy may never be the same. Summing up the effects of Trump’s multi-front assault on trust in America, the former British intelligence agent, diplomat and founder of the Beirut-based Conflicts Forum told Glenn Diesen, “The American ability to negotiate in the old-fashioned diplomatic idea, I think, is gone. I mean, we’re in a new era.”

Read the details at Zerohedge …

Roth Note: The article suggests that our diplomats will no longer be taken seriously. My question … what diplomats?

Details are still sketchy, but at least some are reporting that the good guy took out the bad guy.

If COVID-19 nearly broke civilization with a 1% fatality rate, can you imagine the pandemonium a more lethal pathogen would cause? According to national security journalist Annie Jacobsen — author of “Biological War: A Scenario” — society should be reckoning with that very question because genetically modified pathogens with a 100% kill rate are sitting in laboratories right now.

In an interview with Glenn Beck, Jacobsen explained that these pathogens aren’t theoretical — and that a real-world release would move far faster and more destructively than most people grasp.

“The trust is gone. It’s just gone,” Glenn says. “If an outbreak happened today, half of the country would not believe Donald Trump. If it was … Kamala Harris, half of the country would not believe her.”

See the entire article here…

Okay. So, Covid was deadly, sort of… a lot of people died from the actual disease, and a lot more died from the “treatments”, and vastly more died (and are dying) from the “vaccine”.

Today trust in government, which was already at an all-time low, is nonexistent. Same with doctors, except even worse. We were gaslit to the nth degree about something that was, although indeed a deliberate attack (the intentional release from Wuhan) far less dangerous than they claimed, followed by another deliberate and far more deadly attack (the vaccine). Understandably, we now don’t trust ANY of them, with very good reason… they CANNOT and MUST NOT be trusted.

So, now what? What if their covid test-run was nothing more than that? I don’t think anyone believes that they are not working or have already engineered diseases with a 100% kill-rate. The question is, can they (or have they) weaponized it to have an R₀ value that guarantees widespread infection? If they have, and they release it, and you somehow, miraculously discover (since in no way will you actually believe them this time… I wouldn’t) that you are actually at risk before you and your family are infected and die, what is your plan? How will you survive? Can you truly isolate yourself for long enough to let the storm pass? How long will that be? And most importantly, what will you do afterward?

Have you thought about that?

While you are enjoying your weekend, please give a bit of time to this scenario. Maybe nothing will happen. Maybe our own government really doesn’t want us dead. Maybe the Chinese really don’t want us dead. Maybe the Muslims and the Jews really don’t want us dead.

Maybe.

… or is it just another scam …

I woke up and as I had my morning coffee, I realized that everything is about to change. No matter how I vote, no matter what I say, something evil has invaded our nation, and our lives are never going to be the same.

I have been confused by the hostility of family and friends. I look at people I have known all my life–so hate-filled that they agree with opinions they would never express as their own. I think that I may well have entered the Twilight Zone. You can’t justify this insanity. We have become a nation that has lost its collective mind!

If a man pretends to be a woman, you are required to pretend with him. Somehow it’s un-American for the census to count how many Americans are in America. Russians influencing our elections are bad, but illegals voting in our elections are good.

It was cool for Joe Biden to “blackmail” the President of Ukraine, but it’s an impeachable offense if Donald Trump inquires about it.

People who have never owned slaves should pay slavery reparations to people who have never been slaves.

People who have never been to college should pay the debts of college students who took out huge loans for their degrees.

Immigrants with tuberculosis and polio are welcome, but you’d better be able to prove your dog is vaccinated.

Irish doctors and German engineers who want to immigrate to the US must go through a rigorous vetting process, but any illiterate gang-bangers who jump the southern fence are welcome.

$5 billion for border security is too expensive, but $1.5 trillion for “free” health care is not.

If you cheat to get into college you go to prison, but if you cheat to get into the country you go to college for free.

People who say there is no such thing as gender are demanding a female President.

We see other countries going Socialist and collapsing, but it seems like a great plan to us.

Some people are held responsible for things that happened before they were born, and other people are not held responsible for what they are doing right now.

Criminals are caught-and-released to hurt more people, but stopping them is bad because it’s a violation of THEIR rights.

And pointing out all this hypocrisy somehow makes us “racists”?! Nothing makes sense anymore, no values, no morals, no civility and people are dying of a Chinese virus, but it racist to refer to it as Chinese even though it began in China. We are clearly living in an upside down world where right is wrong and wrong is right, where moral is immoral and immoral is moral, where good is evil and evil is good, where killing murderers is wrong, but killing innocent babies is right.

Wake up America, the great unsinkable ship Titanic America has hit an iceberg, is taking on water, and is sinking fast. The choice is yours to make. What will it be? Time is short, make your choice wisely!

h/t WRSA

War On Iran: – U.S. (Again) Blocks Strait Traffic

This ain’t gonna solve Trump’s problem …

A Qatari tanker passing taking the Iranian channel through the Strait of Hormuz was a quite hopeful development for energy markets.

Al Mayadeen English @MayadeenEnglish – 6:27 UTC · Jul 30, 2026

The first Qatari LNG shipment in three weeks has successfully passed through the Strait of Hormuz along an Iranian-designated route with Tehran’s authorization, Fars news agency reported.

Three weeks ago, following a US violation of a memorandum of understanding, Tehran mandated that all maritime traffic through the Strait require Iranian approval.

Fars said that the Qatari tanker presented clear identification data and adhered to the Iranian-designated route, allowing it to sail smoothly through the waterway.

—

The U.S. though, despite being an ‘ally’ of Qatar and Pakistan,  did not like the precedence …

MenchOsint @MenchOsint – 9:40 UTC · Jul 31, 2026

The U.S. has blocked a Qatari LNG tanker from continuing to Pakistan simply because it used the Iran-designated safe corridor, and not the US-backed one.

In consequence the Strait is again closed.

PGSA | نهاد مدیریت آبراه خلیج فارس @PGSA_IRAN – 13:07 UTC · Jul 31, 2026

In response to repeated inquiries, we would like to reiterate that due to continued aggressive actions of U.S. forces in the region, passage through the #Strait_of_Hormuz is not feasible. Once stability is restored, all requests will be reviewed and permits issued progressively.

Trump Orders Heavy Attack On Energy-Related Targets In Iran, To Commence This Weekend

Summary

• Trump orders major strikes on Iran, likely to start this weekend.
• US adds sanctions, Bessent says Tehran can’t pay troops, as Iran faces growing pressure.
• Most Americans say the Iran war isn’t worth fighting: AP poll.
• Iran claims drone strike on US base in Kuwait – after no new US strikes overnight.
• Oil rises as fears of wider conflict grow and lack of talks.

But this Friday’s somewhat ‘quiet’ state of things could likely dramatically shift at any moment, as has been the pattern this summer. The aforementioned Tehran-based analyst Dareini describes a serious change and overhaul in Iranian leaders’ strategic thinking, which has gone from defensive to proactive, with an understanding of the need to inflict pain on the US side in a preemptive way.

“Iranians are tired from suffering from limited US attacks,” Dareini said, charging that the US uses its declared pauses as a “deception tactic” merely in preparation for future attacks and operations.

“There has been a profound change in Iran’s strategic thinking,” he added. “The era of restraint is over. Iran has decided that, if needed, it has to take preemptive military action against the US.”

h/t WRSA for memes