digyobrrr

@kaitlancollins You missed the best bit🤦. He said they are forced to attend the talks.

The US sent Iran a list of broad points they wanted the Iranians to agree to in advance of the next round of talks. But as Vice President Vance prepared to board Air Force Two, days had gone by without the US getting a response.

@Dersfox @rocinante2d @joekent16jan19 “Concepts of a plan”.

@rocinante2d @joekent16jan19 By getting out of it.

This is a good move—it buys us time. It’s essential that we use it wisely. Acknowledge that under current conditions, there are no military solutions and a true settlement is unlikely. Follow the Reagan-in-’84 model: pull our forces out of the region, let our Gulf allies negotiate to reopen the SOH, and refocus on the issues at home and winning the next election, like Reagan did. This is the opposite of what Israel wants us to do. To prevent Israel from pulling us deeper into this war, we must impose real restraint by limiting military aid to Israel. The escalation game is a losing hand. Dump it and walk away.

@KenGardner11 @ornithopter16 Lmao British maritime ship tracking & intelligence company founded in 1734 u berk.

@ornithopter16 False report.

The US has just called every remaining Iran bluff, while keeping the blockade in place. Iran now has three choices: (1) agree to our terms (with the IRG publicly having to indicate its approval), (2) take the first move to break the ceasefire against a restocked and reinforced US/IDF military force (with the resulting devastating consequences to their country), or (3) start shutting down oil wells and rationing other goods while continuing to incur unsustainable economic losses because of the blockade and related sanctions. As far as I can tell, no one is coming to save them. China is figuring out that the regime has exhausted its usefulness, and they are now better off mending fences with the Gulf states than continuing to help Iran. Putin has his own hands full with Ukraine.

@AmbJohnBolton The 40,000 figure is a bald-faced propaganda lie with zero evidence to support it, revealing you as the deceptive warmonger your critics assert you to be.

What the Iranian regime has done in the Strait of Hormuz is absolutely unacceptable. Tehran has to be prevented from closing the Strait. If we don’t re-establish deterrence, Iran will close the Strait in the future and name any price they want. youtu.be/QBHVjBoDFOg?si…

@XurtanF @rocinante2d What do you propose instead? Escalation is lose-lose even if one side loses more. Civilians get killed. Iran has already won, at some point cash in. If you don’t like the terms walk away. Realpolitik diplomacy is what happens when there is power imbalances.

@rocinante2d He’s giving everything the Americans want.

Ayatollah, he of great mercy and generosity, has given his blessing for the talks to go ahead in Islamabad. May our brothers gain strength in the face of evil, and bring back historic bounties for the Nation of Iran. - IRGC

@BartDePalma @SohrabAhmari An election?

@SohrabAhmari Washington’s response: “You have nothing with which to bargain. We do not rely on Gulf oil. Accept our terms of surrender or we level your economy and infrastructure.”

Iran's top negotiator is telling his own people, in effect: Look, neither side has inflicted total defeat on the other. They're a superpower. We have to negotiate. But he's also telling Washington: Although we're weaker in mathematical terms, we hold the field through asymmetric planning. You can't impose capitulation. Let's bargain.

This is a fantastic read, real eye opener.

Palantir vient de publier son manifeste. Lisez-le. Pas pour ce qu'il dit sur la tech. Pour ce qu'il dit sur le politique. Sur l'idéologie de Karp et Thiel. Sur la guerre. Sur vous. Quand une entreprise privée se donne pour mission de définir qui doit être surveillé, ciblé, prédit, neutralisé, et qu'elle publie simultanément un texte expliquant pourquoi contester cela serait de la faiblesse civilisationnelle, on n'est plus dans la stratégie d'entreprise. On est dans la privatisation du souverain. Le droit de décider de l'ennemi, qui fut toujours le geste politique fondateur des États, est en train d'être racheté par une entreprise cotée au Nasdaq. Ce manifeste repose sur un seul tour de passe-passe, répété sous vingt formes différentes : rendre l'inévitable ce qui est en réalité un choix. Les armes à IA ? Elles seront construites de toute façon, alors autant que ce soit nous. La surveillance algorithmique ? La réalité géopolitique l'exige. Le réarmement de l'Occident, la hiérarchie des cultures, la disqualification du pluralisme comme naïveté dangereuse ? Simple lucidité face au monde tel qu'il est. C'est le geste idéologique par excellence : ne pas interdire la question, mais la rendre indécente. Ce que Palantir appelle réalisme est en fait une décision philosophique radicale : le conflit est la vérité permanente du monde, la délibération démocratique est une fragilité que l'adversaire exploitera, et une élite technologique privée est mieux placée qu'un peuple pour tirer les conséquences de cette vérité. C'est du schmittisme en hoodie. C'est littéralement la structure de leur pensée. Le danger n'est pas qu'ils soient fous. Le danger est qu'ils soient riches, cohérents, et déjà à l'intérieur des États. Palantir ne frappe pas à la porte des gouvernements pour vendre un outil. Elle arrive avec une cosmologie complète : voici comment fonctionne le monde, voici vos ennemis, voici pourquoi vous ne pouvez pas vous permettre de débattre, et voici notre contrat. Palantir est l'ennemie des peuples et de la démocratie. Ce qu'ils construisent, c'est un pouvoir technocratique que personne n'a élu et que personne ne pourra destituer.

WSJ has a nice article on Trump’s decision making process. I commented a bit on how to read Trump in my last FSD video. The WSJ article confirms the idea that Trump is pragmatic not ideological. He also throws out extreme anchors to negotiate. Observations: 1) Admin severely miscalculated the speed of SoH closure. US military war gaming was flawed. Advisors did not see the SoH closure coming so quickly. 2) Trump wants a TACO. He does not want casualties. His advisors see the conflict as a political albatross. 3) Trump gained over-confidence from Venezuela success and thought decapitation strikes would cause compliance 4) Trump’s ‘end civilization’ comment was a type of extreme anchor for negotiation. Even though that term is reprehensible, the point is that comment was Trump’s style of negotiating. WSJ says he wanted to ‘scare the Iranians’. (Incidentally, that was the day stocks sold off too much and I said it was time to start buying stocks. Fade fear.) 5) Trump was conscious about his words’ impact on stock markets Having a Trump ‘Theory of Mind’ is necessary to navigate the wild swings. The main takeaway here is that there is a Trump Put. DoD miscalculated. He wants out. He is sensitive to economic costs and will TACO. The article helps to clarify Trump’s utility function. Now we have to make sense of the disparate factions of the IRGC… The S&P bottom is intact despite the volatility ahead.

This minewarfare configured ship was missing from operations for almost 50 days. It left the PG at the start of the war and was off India, in the Seychelles & Diego Garcia … pretty much everywhere except where the war is. It also represents 100% of our counter mine capability in the Middle East since 6 March. That’s it. That’s the ship. All the other ships were sent to Asia for repairs. One is back in Diego Garcia. Two old Avenger class MCMs are coming for Japan to help. This is incompetence in action.

⭕️ NEW: Instagram Removes Comra Wire With No Appeal Comra Wire, a left-wing alternative media outlet that maintains reporters and sources in Palestine, Lebanon, China, and Cuba, said Instagram removed its page of nearly 150,000 followers with no mechanism to contest the takedown. The outlet said tens of millions of monthly viewers have been cut off, and described the removal as part of “an escalating pattern of information warfare by big tech monopolies, deeply intertwined with the ruling elite” — and a broader rise in censorship of alternative media directed from Washington and Brussels. The takedown comes amid documented widening of social media censorship tied to coverage of Gaza and the Iran war. Comra Wire is directing followers to its Telegram channel @ comrawire.

@PalominoOMG @Osinttechnical @MarineTraffic IRGC have mined it. Hardliners won’t allow it to open. Don’t blame them.

@Osinttechnical @MarineTraffic Trump assured us that the Strait of Iran is open

Numerous ships making the break for the Strait of Hormuz this evening have made abrupt U-turns and are heading back towards the Persian Gulf. Over a dozen ships have already turned back.

Iran is winning the war, so why would it voluntarily agree a deal with the enemy aggressor? A short article for the purposes of understanding the counter-argument.

Intervention is different from destruction. What did neighbours Jordan Egypt Syria do? to intervene. Only Iran Hezbollah Houthis imposed military pressure. Biden has blood on his hands. Agree but AIPAC is foremost a Republican Party ally because of shared far right wing ideology.

@rocinante2d @WarMonitor3 1. Practically no jews support the destruction of Israel. 2. Democrat politicians like Republican politicians are not the same as their voting base. Joe Biden carried the genocide in Gaza.

Trump has told Dutch officials at a private dinner event that he wants the Iran war to end quickly and plans to do it via a increasing squeeze on the Iranian economy causing them to come to the negotiating table with concessions-WSJ

@dampedspring Since US is freezing everyone’s money, inconfiscatable money has valid utility.

Clear the air My view on $MSTR I own BTC via $IBIT since 69420 At a small allocation of my wealth. I prefer gold I have been bearish MNAV of $MSTR since 11/20/2024. The MNAV has fallen massively and now rests at 1.09. That is NOT ridiculously rich at all. However the company is pursuing a strategy which will likely keep pressure on MNAV going forward. That pressure is offering $STRC at a decent size discount to fair value. By selling STRC at par particularly like today when it is full to the brim with dividends the company is selling this security at a 1-3% discount to fair value. Honestly that's not a bad thing for the company to do given the modest discount to fair value and the high proceeds they are taking in. BUT it does harm the common shareholders in two ways. 1. The discount itself is paid by the common shareholders to the preferred holders and 2. The preferred dividend (given that BTC/the companies asset pays no yield) represents forward issuance or forward BTC sales which are bad for the company's shareholders You may notice I've repeatedly said that the company is selling STRC at a discount. That explicitly means that the investor in STRC is getting to buy something cheap!!!! As an investor you have to like STRC. It's cheap! I am not a bear on STRC. I simply don't like it vs what it does to the common shareholders. My view on STRC is it is highly likely to generate pretty nice returns if BTC doesn't get crushed. Its risk is simple. BTC gets crushed and issuance liquidity for MSTR in all its forms falls and BTC sales become necessary to pay dividends. Fwiw that seems well prepared for given the fiat cash reserves the company has built up. So STRC is pretty sweet as a thing with probably 200bp per year of excess dividends vs fair with a substantial but unlikely left tail risk. BUT it's not good for shareholder MNAV Let's jump into MNAV dynamics. 1.09X is not that interesting as a short AT ALL. As long as the company has access to preferreds issaunce even at this 1-3% discount it can avoid issuing common shares or manage to issue just a bit. There are literally NO arbs short MSTR long BTC today at current prices and no downward pressure likely from new arbs going short. Why would they at 1.09? Could frustrated BTC investors with long equity positions in US equities (NDX) also sell their long MSTR such that it would go to an MNAV discount ? Sure. But with BTC anywhere within 40,000 of current spot the company has infinite flexibility to manage its issuance such that it won't trade at a sizable MNAV discount for much time. For instance let's say it traded at a .9MNAV while STRC traded at par. That would be the best arb of all time. Saylor could sell STRC and buy $MSTR back Basically with BTC doing fine my picture of the company is a slow convergence to MNAV of 1.0 and ongoing STRC chilling at par. The elephant in the room is the true believers in the common shares who still truly believe that the MNAV can massively expand back to its former glory or 2+. That time has past. Saylor will sell infinite shares at 1.5 if he has the ability to. And there is essentially infinite capital to do the short MSTR long BTC arb at levels like that. The MNAV expansion is a delusion built on meme stock experience where "the faithful" can stick it to "the man". STRC and the growing dividend expense makes the arb even more attractive than ever. Anyway that's where I stand.

@dampedspring A Ponzi scheme is only a Ponzi scheme after the fact. Something something but not the madness of people.

@ArtemisConsort Literally the opposite. Low IQ ppl don’t know they are stupid, mid IQ ppl know a good deal, high IQ ppl know what they don’t know.

@ShipingTang Slowly at first, then all at once.

For the first time in my life, I think that the world is moving into an epic catastrophe!

💯and they have so many tools they can use. Non-interventionism into sovereign affairs should be applauded, but if China don’t act they may miss a once-in-a-multigeneration opportunity, whilst having moral high ground. China should do the world a favour if it wants everyone to buy their stuff.

@policytensor Chinese are slow to action - their last resort. So am excited to see how China responds. Frustrating to see Russia China drawn into proxy wars designed by West to choke, subjugate & control. I would rather Russia China engage directly, proactively dismantling threat at its root.

Thanks. Let me add that this is much more serious than people are recognizing. The Chinese have declared their intention to defy the blockade. The US now finds itself in a zugzwang. Letting them pass is the safest option, but that directly undermines not just US military prestige in general but the specific claim to global maritime hegemony. Sinking Chinese vessels would be an act of war against the People’s Republic of China. It will almost certainly elicit the blockade of Taiwan, or another equivalently coercive move. Seizing Chinese vessels and parking them at Djibouti or another port would result in a diplomatic crisis that exposes the US even more to Chinese coercion. As I have said ever since he announced this harebrained scheme, he has exposed himself to Chinese coercion.

@Communislamism @YousufNazar @grok @Jazzysnoop75767 @HormuzLetter My bad, maybe it is real after all. Soz

@Communislamism @YousufNazar @grok @Jazzysnoop75767 @HormuzLetter You appear to have farted from your brain without thinking for yourself again. It’s a social media plant that accounts like this out out on websites they set up to encourage morons like you to engage with them. Chatbots get their info from the same place as you do.

BREAKING: In a direct message to the Trump administration and the US Navy, China's Defense Minister Admiral Dong Jun says Chinese ships will continue transiting the Strait of Hormuz through agreements with Iran, and warns the US not to "meddle in our affairs." Also from Dong's statement: 1. Says Chinese ships are currently "moving in and out of the waters of the Strait of Hormuz" 2. Confirms China has existing "trade and energy agreements with Iran" that China will "respect and honor" 3. Explicitly states: "Iran controls the Strait of Hormuz and it is open for us," recognizing Iranian sovereignty over transit