The US has tried to bribe everyone. They tried to brtbe Iranian ship’s captains – the information is open on the net. They bribed the Kurds when they were still trying to do regime change. Every single person in Iran leadership, dead or alive have received offers of bribes combined with threats.

The “No Bribe” Stance: During diplomatic tensions and subsequent framework discussions, President Trump explicitly stated, “You can’t bribe them. You’ve got to beat them,” (I guess he must have tried).

Pakistan dripfeeds these things out in order to attempt to keep themselves important and relevant in a negotiation process which is not there.

Iran is talking to China direct. Not through Pakistan. There are big articles in the regional press on how responsible the ‘mediators’ are. Iran keeps a good thing going with Pakistan for economic purposes.

What makes sense and I don’t know if it was said here .. Russia and China need Iran and will support.

Here is but one of the Iranian ship’s captains that I could find quickly and this is a little older but illustrates what happens if you don’t take the bribe

… In August 2019, Brian Hook, the head of the State Department’s Iran Action Group, directly emailed Akhilesh Kumar, the captain of the Iranian oil supertanker Adrian Darya 1 (formerly Grace 1).The Deal: Hook offered the captain several million dollars in U.S. taxpayer funds to steer the vessel to a country where it could be seized by the United States.The Result: Captain Kumar refused the offer and was subsequently sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department.The Backlash: Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif publicly condemned the move, accusing the Trump administration of resorting to “outright blackmail” and bribery….

I am not guessing. I know.

Iran is not fearful to expose these bribes. There are so many that they just go by the wayside.

I said in one or two Dailies past, that the Pakistani influencers are now changing stuff from other sources, like PressTV, they make it look like a PressTV or other Iranian outlet, and they misrepresent – in fact, they openly edit the X post. Again, I am not guessing. I am looking at it. That was only one that I kept as I do not follow the work, but it was about Imran Khan – that is why I kept it, and also from a sense of outrage because of the irresponsibly re Khan.

Again, watch freely and post freely. This information is via Pakistani influencers.

Geez .. ask Prof Marandi. He is drowning in the offers of bribes followed by threats. Take this bribe or else. But to get him to lose some shine, he is now called a .. wait wait, I cannot say that – but a soft candy. Private sources.

The question is rather if there is anyone that the US has not attempted to bribe.

I have no problem with someone being paid for his work. But let’s keep it honest work.

“I am getting altogether too much news about USA and Israel coming my way. I don’t like it, but it is what it is.”

Yes, I tried to explain that we have some major projects running … for the mid-terms, for the Israeli elections, for the hellscape unfolding around the Brazilian elections, to hide the Iran fiasco, and to make Israel great again.  These, driven from think-tanks mainly, are saturating the US LLM’s.  Hence the AI slop everywhere … Hence the God-Model taking shape – with sheer intimidation present in all the slop.

I see it on X as well, where I set up a generally controlled environment with lists.   Some of those old and reliable commentators have gone bananas.  So I am searching out reliable journalists and commentators and not even then can I take what they say with a level of comfort.  Old news is told as new news, overwritten facts etc.  I had a fight with Qwen, with a database older than six months.  Qwen did not know that the US Dept of Defense is now the Dept of War.  I feel to go to Open Library or Archive or those sites and just spend a day downloading older books.

This goes on inside of the alt commentators as well.  I was just looking at a video which I won’t watch .. Title:

Iran LAUNCHES Offensive!? Missiles SLAM UAE — US Army FLEES Middle East

Iran has not launched an offensive – Missiles did not slam the UAE – US Army are not yet fleeing.

OK, there is a spate of weather balloons up from the US side from Reuters, from Bloomberg, from NYT and anyone that you can call US media. One cannot see anything that is dependable. The weather balloons are of two kinds .. Iran is in shit, and Iran is going to lose and USA USA and the US owns the Strait of Hormuz. Many articles are out in terms of how many ships actually tranship, and pass their crude along to other ships, playing games with turning transponders on and off, (some of this happens but small) but nobody talks about satellite imaging. It is a game to confuse the ones that do not know that an on or off transponder does not blank out a carrier to a satellite. Talk about the transponder, don’t talk about the satellite .. from all of these US media.

Oh yes, and they are hauling Kushner out to beat in a message. “KUSHNER : Iran engaging in very strong way and that is quite positive but we are NOT there yet on understanding and President Trump will be very PATIENT. He doesn’t want to rush to a deal”

And they are hauling this guy out to tickle the nuke business: “Mark Levin STRONGLY HINTS at Trump to DROP THE N BOMB on Iran. Says Iran — ‘like Japan’ — has NO intention of SURRENDERING

Says US was ‘unfortunately’ FORCED to drop 2 nukes before Japan SURRENDERED ”

There is a desperation.

Iran has just had a major exchange of leaders. Immediately they won’t be fully in coherence but Iran says they are not talking to the US or negotiating and it is enough of this bullshit being spread. They are on the verge on continuing this war – because there was not MOU that lasted and none of what is said there were honored by the US, therefore there is no more agreements and there will be no more agreements. Iranian info comes from the IRGC in the main … and this is not Iranian leadership, but it is Iranian leadership. From the military side they stand with what they demanded and screw the leaders. It is not a big division in Iran, but we see a division. Just now we will have the Ayatollah speaking again.

Trump is out spreading all the old news of how he controls the Strait of Hormuz and how he is going to bomb the shit out of Oman (new) if they don’t behave.

I am not saying this fellow speaking with Afshin Rattansi of Going Underground is wrong or right .. I am saying it is not possible to judge at this time. There is too much disturbance in the field.

Rattansi interviews for ‘bombshells’. I like him, but do understand his style.

China is in the process of killing off the US in terms of economics and oil trade and I cannot believe that they made secret agreements with the US in order to stave or not stave off an oil shock. China will work in China’s best interest as is very clear these days. China has oil to beat the band as they collected now for a long time. They are not in the business of helping out the US. And if there is a problem, there is now the North East Corridor where China and Russia can send oil all day and night long. It is still summer.

So, give it a bit …

RT has done somewhat of a transcript – The interview is speculative:

Philip Pilkington: ‘China🇨🇳 SAVED the US🇺🇸 from a disastrous OIL SHOCK, but the serious economic problems will arrive BEFORE the midterms.’

‘Before Trump went over to Beijing, China cut their oil imports in half, from about 12 million barrels a day down to 6 million barrels a day, and that held while the MOU held.

The MOU was supposed to be for 60 days, and then the moment Trump tore up the MOU, the Chinese started importing again.

Now, what that tells me is that the Chinese and the Americans struck a deal. I don’t know what else was included in that deal. We could speculate…

The Chinese probably said to the US: “60 days, Sign this MOU, it’s going to be brutal. You guys are going to basically sign a surrender document. And you sign that, and we’ll give you a reprieve. We’ll give you we’ll cut our oil imports in half.”

That wouldn’t have completely solved the crisis, but I think the Americans calculated that will probably get them up to the midterms.

But then, because the Trump administration is so chaotic, Trump got got out of the wrong side of the bed one morning and decided to tear up the MOU.

The moment that MOU was torn up, tanker traffic started to show the Chinese started ramping their imports up again. So I don’t think the current situation was planned for.

I reckon they came up with a coherent plan to get them through the midterms that involved the MOU, and it rode or die on the MOU, which is now dead, and it’s not coming back.

And the Iranians aren’t interested in negotiating anymore. So I think I think there’s a fairly decent chance that the that the serious problems will hit before the midterms.’

Another US warship gossip. I found this at DD Geopolitics but it is all over.

USS Benfold (DDG-65), a US Navy Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, was left dead in the water for four days in the South China Sea last month after its generators failed and knocked out all power. USNI News confirmed the breakdown happened on July 24 during routine operations, with 7th Fleet spokesperson Cmdr. Matthew Comer saying no crew were hurt.

With no power, the crew had no working kitchen, toilets, air conditioning, or clean water for days. The nearby George Washington Carrier Strike Group had to step in and help, with the cruiser USS Robert Smalls supplying meals to Benfold’s stranded crew.

The destroyer finally reached Subic Bay in the Philippines on July 28, where Navy repair crews met it and moved sailors into shore lodging the next day. Power wasn’t back on until July 30, six days after it first went out. Repairs wrapped up by August 7, and the ship left port on August 8, later arriving in Yokosuka, Japan. Notably, Benfold didn’t sail through the Malacca Strait with the rest of its strike group, which appears to be heading toward the Middle East. The Navy says it’s still investigating what caused the failure.

For this one they probably want the stuff that they paid for, maintain a berth in the Mediterranean and the headchoppers can have the part that can be used for commerce. It is only business and for headchoppers, I remind again of Nelson Mandela, who was quite a major headchopper as well. One person’s freedom fighter is another person’s terrorist. The lines sometimes are very fine. (Not talking for headchoppers at all).

The whole of X is full of Donald Trump’s new wig.  And what he looks like when the wind blows around the old hair.

Today … I have an early dentist. Dentist to me is obscene and invasive and I come out of there quite shaky. But this needs to be done and will take a few visits.

So, go wild! Boss is out.

The story that the US strategic gas reserve will run out in two weeks: It is not so easy. Mainly Larry Johnson gave that information. But now, the person who gave him certain information, is telling a more complex story.

Time ago we got this from a fellow by the name of Jorge Vilches, and he wrote a number of columns to show the complexity. I remember some of it but Jorge has gone to ground.

I thought it was worth while reading the updated part from Larry’s site, just to understand the complexity.

https://sonar21.com/refinery-configuration-matters-but-markets-matter-more/