Iran Stands Firm on Hormuz as US Desperately Dangles Carrots to No Avail

Iran Stands Firm on Hormuz as US Desperately Dangles Carrots to No Avail

Simplicius

Amidst the funeral for Supreme Leader of Iran Ali Khamenei, the Saga of Hormuz has continued taking some interesting turns.

Iran has refused to make any concessions to the US because it knows the treacherous Trump administration has no principles whatsoever when it comes to honoring deals. All the while, the US has resorted to outright begging and making every possible concession to avert the humiliation of accepting a Hormuz with tolls:

https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/u-s-dangles-rewards-for-opening-the-strait-of-hormuz-iran-isnt-budging-07d99135

WSJ writes:

The U.S. and Oman are looking for ways to break Iran’s insistence on charging tolls for ships to pass through the Strait of Hormuz. Their chief lever in indirect talks was a promise to unfreeze some of the $100 billion in Iranian funds held overseas.

The U.S. diplomats offered a trade-off to Iran, the people said: Relinquish its claim to control the strait and renounce toll payments in exchange for billions of dollars of unfrozen funds.

Europe, on the other hand, is now convinced that bowing to Iranian regional hegemony is the only remaining rational choice as the rest of the world simply lacks cards to play in prying Hormuz away from its rightful proprietors:

As the most striking example of this came Vice President JD Vance’s eye-opening admission two days ago that Trump merely used the MOU as a brief pause to give the world some time to refill its oil stocks and stave off economic collapse, before—it is strongly implied—continuing the unprovoked aggression against Iran as needed.

The frankness is shocking, to say the least:

“So, I think what the president has told us to do is use this MOU to sort of refill the world’s oil economy. To refill some stocks, and then to see where the hand is.”

What most immediately becomes clear is that our previous reporting here was accurate in regard to the true extent of economic danger the US and the world was facing, and how secretly aware Trump was of it all despite his theatrical bravado toward Iran. It’s clear that Trump cried uncle because Iran won this round of Chicken, but as Vance here implies, the threat is not over as Trump believes he can simply wait out an economic stabilization period and then give it another go.

Regarding this, there have been reports that all kinds of “historic-level” mass airlifts from the US toward the Middle East have been ongoing this past week, with many believing they represent US preparations for a ground invasion of some kind. The main trigger for this was the sudden flare-up of military activity in the Baghdad Green Zone which allegedly turned out to be a large-scale American-led anti-Iranian coup, wherein Iraqi forces hunted down pro-Iranian factions and “traitors” to—as some believe—set the stage for something bigger:

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Russia on track to take over all of Donbass

Russia on track to take over all of Donbass – ex-Pentagon analyst (VIDEO)

RT

The recent liberation of Konstantinovka – a key Ukrainian stronghold in Donbass – could pave the way for Russian forces to take control of the entire region in short order, former Pentagon security policy analyst Michael Maloof has told RT.

The Russian military announced on Friday that its troops had seized the heavily fortified Ukrainian stronghold, which is part of the Slavyansk-Kramatorsk-Konstantinovka agglomeration in the northwest of Russia’s Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR).

Speaking to RT on Saturday, Maloof described the liberation of Konstantinovka as a “very significant development” in that “it opens up the way, it breaks a logjam, if you will, for Russian troops now to basically take over all of the Donbass and to expand.”

The Ukrainian leadership should engage in talks with Russia at last, “if they have anything left to negotiate,” the former Pentagon security policy analyst told RT.

“They’re not going to have much to bargain with. I think that’s basically what it’s getting down to. Their armed forces are in retreat. They don’t have the manpower. They can’t recruit fast enough. They can’t even train them. And now, basically, the Russian army is going to become a steamroller, and President Putin made clear that he was going to be accelerating this effort now,” he said.

President Putin inspected an auxiliary command post on Friday, where he was briefed by Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov and senior frontline commanders, and called Konstantinovka the “key to liberating the entire territory of the Donetsk People’s Republic.”

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Iran: We’ll ‘definitely’ charge Hormuz fees, friendly nations may get ‘special treatment’

Iran: We’ll ‘definitely’ charge Hormuz fees, friendly nations may get ‘special treatment’

TOI STAFF

Times of Israel is liveblogging Saturday

Report: Hamas decides to stall for time in talks for Gaza’s future, waiting for Knesset election results

The Hamas terror group has decided to stall for time in negotiations for its disarmament and for the implementation of US President Donald Trump’s plan for postwar Gaza, recognizing that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is doing the same due to the upcoming Knesset election, the Kan public broadcaster reports.

The outlet cites an internal document discussed in the past few days by the Palestinian jihadist movement. It says Hamas believes Netanyahu views any concession on Gaza as political suicide, and that he therefore is intentionally stalling in the indirect negotiations, which haven’t made meaningful progress in months.

Kan reports that the document reveals a proposal made to Hamas by mediators Qatar and Turkey, suggesting that the terror group show flexibility by making “tactical concessions,” including on its weapons. The mediators expected Netanyahu to reject any reciprocal concession due to electoral concerns, resulting in Hamas appearing to be the more cooperative side.

However, the report adds, Hamas decided after extensive discussions to reject this proposal, fearing that any concession it makes will become a starting point for future pressure to make further concessions.

Therefore, Hamas decided to adopt a strategy mirroring Israel’s — to stall for time until the end of 2026, and to see how the next Israeli government shapes up, the report

Iran envoy says friendly nations to get ‘special’ Hormuz fee treatment

Iran’s ambassador to China insists that new fees will be charged to ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz — an idea rejected by Washington — while assuring that “friendly” nations would receive special treatment.

The initial deal struck between Iran and the United States to end their war stipulated that commercial ships would transit the strait free of charge for 60 days, but it remains unclear what will be in place after that period.

Iranian Ambassador Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli tells the World Peace Forum in Beijing that his country is working in “collaboration and cooperation” with Oman on “new arrangements” for the vital waterway.

“As a country where the Hormuz is part of its territorial waters, we will definitely charge service fees,” Azli says in translated remarks, while insisting such fees would not be a “toll.”

“These new arrangements will be concerning guaranteeing the security of passage through the Straits of Hormuz, supervision of the passage of the vessels… and also guaranteeing and dealing with the environmental consequences of the massive number of ships,” he says.

“We will definitely consider special treatment for the countries that were friendly to us and specially stood by us during the hard times,” he adds.

The United States has said any final deal will bar Iran from charging any sort of fee for passage in the waterway, casting the difference between service fees and tolls as mere semantics.

Satellite images show Iran reconstructing Pickaxe Mountain tunnel complex, in apparent MOU violation

Lapid: Israel should have bombed Iran’s oil, energy infrastructure during war

Iran-backed Hezbollah and Hamas attend Khamenei funeral ceremonies

Erdogan accuses ‘war-addicted’ Israel of tying its political survival to regional conflicts

US-Iran negotiations reportedly set to resume July 11, will include nuclear talks

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Flock Safety CEO Says If You Don't Like His Pervasive Surveillance Cameras, You're A Terrorist

Flock Safety CEO Says If You Don't Like His Pervasive Surveillance Cameras, You're A Terrorist

L Todd Wood

Garrett Langley is the founder and CEO of Flock Safety, an Atlanta-based public safety technology company specializing in automated license plate readers and drone surveillance. 

In the video below, Langley refers to the organization 'DeFlock' that works to stop the expansion of his products, as terrorists.

Langely also freely admits his company tracks people. In the video he admits his company uses AI to integrate massive amounts of data to track anything that moves in the view of his devices. 

The Flock System has also been disclosed to contain microphones and other capabilities, to track audio, bluetooth, etc.

This is not freedom, this is Big Brother.

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Digital Sovereignty?

Digital Sovereignty

Karen Schumacher 

Where did it all start?  Computers, data collection, data storage, artificial intelligence, data analysis, advanced data collection technology, interoperability for sharing data between computers, data centers to store more data.  With such “investments” by the government in these new technologies, the government now has to take action to protect all of it.

Now that the United States, and the world for that matter, continues building these digital infrastructure monsters, there is a term that has been recently garnering more attention called digital sovereignty.  The easiest way to explain its meaning is that it is the “capacity of a state, organization, or individual to independently control digital infrastructure, data, and decision-making processes within their jurisdiction.”  Of course, everyone wants control over their own monster.

As the digital age continues to explode, both the United States and other countries are scrambling to get control over their own infrastructure and data systems.  Continuing to believe in its omnipotence as the one and only authority, the United Nations (UN) released its Global Digital Compact in 2025 for digital cooperation and governance over artificial intelligence (AI), a primary nucleus in a technological monster.

The UN doesn’t like the idea of sovereignty in anything, including the digital world, and opposes tech companies having control over their own digital world.  Instead, the UN wants “global cooperation on digital development, access and inclusion” and that “digital technologies – including AI – are governed in ways that protect human rights…”.  Its main emphasis is multilateral cooperation over unilateral control.  What the UN really wants is access to everything for its own global control appetite.

The U.S. Department of State has its own ideas on digital sovereignty while mocking the UN kumbaya ideology.  However, its interpretation is somewhat different than what is espoused by the UN, instead describing it as the UN wanting “every nation to build its own AI stack.”  

Instead, the State Department explains, “Digital sovereignty was never a wall, and it was never a copy. It was always a frontier—and the only nations that will be digitally sovereign in the age of intelligence are the ones bold enough to keep pushing it outward, into the territory no one has built yet.”  Sounds like a spin-off from Star Trek.

So, in place of the U.S. being digitally sovereign, it has instead chosen to drag another twenty-four countries into its Pax Silica Declaration.  

Built around an economic concept, the declaration incorporates many facets of digital technology, including technology supply chains, software applications and platforms, information connectivity and network infrastructure, compute and semiconductors, advanced manufacturing, transportation logistics, minerals refining and processing, and energy, ecosystems of AI developers and vendors, information and communication technology systems, fiberoptic cables, and data centers.  It is a digitally sovereign conglomeration between countries.  

When looking at this, it appears there is a whole technological world being built that humanity will be forced to live under.

Initially resistant to cooperation, the European Commission has now relented to being part of the Declaration, perhaps because of a $250 million dangling carrot.  Already, there have been summits that fully mesh governments together with the private sector and other organizations.  Once called fascism or corporatism, it has been renamed “collaborative governance“, now on a global scale.  Naturally, it is only for our well-being and security

This was even more evident with its Joint Statement on AI Opportunity, with even more countries focusing on “empowering builders, startups, developers and the private sector while securing global AI supply chains.”  A new workforce development school will be formed by Stanford University and the State Department called the FoundrySchool initiative.  With a $50 million carrot, it also created Pax Pass that will streamline the movement of critical AI goods.

Under Secretary Jacob Helberg “framed the initiative as an alternative to approaches centered on digital sovereignty”.  Helberg’s resume is concerning as the Senior Advisor to the Chief Executive Officer of Palantir Technologies, former lead for Google’s internal global product policy efforts, and Sam Altman is conducting his marriage.  Just another technocrat undermining our Republic while usurping control away from citizen representation.

This approach isn’t an alternative to digital sovereignty; it is isolating control under one massive group of countries acting collectively as a sovereign, having supreme authorityand power over digital infrastructures.  Helberg himself even describes the Foundry for “those who can harness AI to transform the physical world” and foster an “AI economy“.  What the heck does either of those thingsmean?

In a post by Nayef Al-Nabet, he states, “Building #Digital_Sovereignty is not about isolation; it is about building national capabilities through strategic partnerships.  For countries like #Qatar, its participation in #Pax_Silica, together with its strong strategic partnership with the United States, should create more opportunities for collaborations of this kind—connecting researchers, universities, and future policymakers to world-class AI ecosystems.  That is how countries build lasting #Digital_Sovereignty.”  Pax Silica isn’t a country; it is a thing.

This whole misnomer of “digital sovereignty” was previously addressed at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in 2025.  It has nothing to do with sovereignty as an American may understand the term; it has to do with control and economics to “include fostering entrepreneurship and funding innovation”.  Essentially, sovereignty is about “control over your own digital destiny – the data, hardware and software that you rely on and create.”  

Pax Silica, by controlling the goods, supply chains, and elements that make it work, creates that economic sovereignty by controlling every element.

WEF clearly understands this digital sovereignty spiel is a “strategic concern – rather than a purely technological one – due to geopolitical tensions, intricate financing structures and the digitization of public services” and that “economies should shape their AI infrastructure choices around flexibility and future readiness.”  That is exactly what Pax Silica is doing.

In fact, this WEF article lays out the framework exactly for Pax Silica and what it is doing.  Maintaining “strategic control over critical technologies, ensuring sovereignty becomes a stimulus…for innovation and growth.”

“No single country or company controls the entire value chain”; that data sovereignty “encompasses multiple dimensions of sovereignty…including “control over data storage, access and governance; executing digital operations; and technical development and control, including hardware”.  Doing this requires “intelligent partnerships” which is pure unadulterated globalism, that is, collaborative governance.

According to WEF, this is part of the AI revolution that will help move the world where “digital sovereignty and global competitiveness are no longer trade-offs, but two facets of the same, shared objective.”  Given the level of control that can be achieved with this technological swamp, collective control over mankind may just be the shared objective.

This Pax Silica is a “thing”.  It is not a person or group that can be questioned or challenged.  When “it” makes a decision or takes an action that is not representative of United States citizens, there is no place to file a complaint, challenge a decision, or vote someone out of office.  It is a pure form of technocracy where decisions are made based on technological needs.  Rather than digital sovereignty, perhaps it should be called “technological sovereignty“.

As Patrick Wood suggests, Pax Silica is just another acceleration towards you owning nothing.  It is a guaranteed infrastructure that will firm up the technocratic control grid.  With this huge pile of data, even the most sophisticated computers are stressed.  

Quantum computing is perhaps the final tool needed to have the capability of analyzing all of this data.  With Trump’s executive order, Next Frontier of Quantum Innovation, it enables his technocratic buddies to develop “quantum-enabling technology” as a U.S. leader in quantum technology.  His second executive order addresses the anticipated need for protecting this technology, just like Pax Silica protects the goods and supply chains.

John Titus interviewed Iain Davis about his book, The Technocratic Dark State: Trump, AI, and Digital Dictatorship.  Included in the discussion is this machine being created, those who are involved, which include technocrats and Trump, and where humanity is being taken.  At the 1’15”:17 mark, Iain reflects that 2030, so often referenced in everything, is most likely the target date when the final takeover will happen, as the needed infrastructure has pretty much been put into place.

The Solari Report also has a timeline with information on what actions have been taken that accelerate the building of the control grid.

It is disheartening that a president is taking America down at such a rapid pace towards the worst trajectory possible into a technocratic state.  His relationship with technocrats has essentially put them in charge of where America is now headed; he has turned over our government foundation as a Republic to corporatism, executed decisions that have circumvented citizen representation, and driven America into deeper debt doing it.