8/13/26: US Loses War Games To Ukraine, Israel Behind Iran Threat Intel On Trump, Kalshi Humiliated In Wisconsin Elections

US has total control of the Strait of Hormuz; Iran is broke, has no navy or air force, and is 'all talk, no action'

This is really a forever-blockade strategy to force Iranian capitulation, built on Israeli intelligence claims of Iran's imminent collapse

Iran is intentionally rationing and cutting investment to sustain a drawn-out resistance to sanctions and the blockade

A roughly 5% GDP contraction is painful but historically insufficient to force a sanctioned state to capitulate, citing Cuba as precedent

Iran may eventually escalate to fully unrestricted attacks/blockade closure once economic desperation reaches a tipping point, as Germany did in WWI

Iran has already used demonstrated military capability (shooting down a US jet, the Jordan base attack) to force Trump back to the table before, and could do so again

Gas is at $4.07/gallon nationally and even a heavily Republican town near him has signs blaming the GOP for high prices

The administration, surrounded by wealthy oligarchs, is disconnected from how badly sustained high gas prices and rising debt are hurting ordinary people

US and NATO forces lost repeated war-game rounds simulating Ukrainian drone warfare, improving only marginally by the last round

If Ukraine's tactics beat the US, Russia and China—both drone-warfare powers—could presumably do the same or worse

Iran adopted Russian/Ukrainian-style drone-and-missile saturation tactics to exhaust US Patriot interceptors and strike a base in Jordan

Iran deliberately studied and now understands specific US aircraft and air-defense vulnerabilities, which should alarm US planners for any future conflict

The 2027 defense budget seeks ~10x more PAC-3/THAAD interceptors, but delivery timelines of 3.5–5.5 years mean the stockpile won't exist for years

Trillions in military spending are enriching contractors (visible in McLean, VA mansions) rather than fixing the current munitions shortfall; Raytheon blocked Ukraine from making its own Patriots to protect profit

US intelligence viewed the Israeli-relayed Iranian assassination threat against Trump as low-confidence, not US-generated, and not compelling

Israel is using unverified threat intelligence to psychologically manipulate Trump into staying confrontational with Iran, echoing how Israeli intel drove the original war decision

Kalshi's 96% odds show a democratic socialist as the clear favorite in Wisconsin, evidence the movement is expanding beyond urban strongholds

A 5% outcome winning isn't a market failure—it should happen 'one in 20 times,' and Washington Post analysis shows markets are well-calibrated overall

Prediction markets just amplify polling errors and conventional wisdom rather than adding real predictive insight, as shown by the blown Hong-Crowley call and the misleadingly lopsided odds given to El-Sayed despite a razor-thin actual result

NY sought to force Kalshi into gambling compliance and sued for $36B in damages; Trump's CFTC chair Mike Selig declared an 'emergency' to keep Kalshi operating nationwide instead

Don Jr.'s paid advisory roles and equity stakes in both Kalshi and Polymarket represent a corruption angle behind the CFTC's intervention, and unchecked prediction-market gambling (even on flight cancellations) is normalizing corrosive, potentially rigged betting nationwide