Hank, if you think that my system is too funny, I welcome you to dive a bit into it(link). Several did and doing very well. The whole idea is to find great risk/reward funds, small AUM is a plus, an uptrend is a must + owning only 2-3 funds.

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“The foreign tax withholdings are lost money in an IRA.”
... Why should I care that my mutual fund, held in an IRA, has to pay these taxes as normal business expense? It's not lost. It's part of the funds expenses that translates to my total return. I understand tax generated expenses are part of owning a mutual fund. And how is that different than the expenses a domestic fund held in an IRA has to pay in dividend income taxes?

Except for the last sentence, I think MikeM has it right. Note he is not saying that the taxes the fund pays is part of the ER. Whether they are part of the ER (like management fees) or not (like trading commissions), it is an expense of the fund doing business and reduces the net return of the fund.
Typically global funds do this. They pay taxes to whatever countries they are invested in.
This reduces their net return (thus size of divs), end of story.

Some (not all) foreign funds pay the taxes but report them on your 1099 somewhat fictitiously. They pretend that the fund did not pay the taxes but rather that they passed the tax bill to you (reported on line 7 of the 1099-DIV - foreign tax paid). So they report a fictitious dividend that equals the real (net) dividend plus the amount of taxes they say that you paid.
In terms of actual cash, you get the same amount either way - whether the fund pays the taxes and says so (reporting divs net of taxes), or the fund pays the taxes but says that you paid them (reporting divs as gross, without netting out the taxes).
If the fund made $10/share (excluding taxes), and paid $2 in taxes, you see $8 in cash. Regardless of how the fund reports it. Inside or outside of an IRA, you get the same $8.
Tax treatment is different. When the fund (or ADR, I assume) says that you paid the taxes, it reports the $10 div and also reports that you paid $2 in taxes. If you choose to take a foreign tax deduction for the taxes, you wind up reporting net income of $8. Same as with the global fund that simply paid out $8 in divs, no muss no fuss. At 22%, you pay $1.76 in taxes.
If instead you choose to take a dollar for dollar foreign tax credit, then you report the $10 div, and pay 22% x $10 = $2.20 in federal taxes. You also get a credit of $2, so you pay only $0.20 in federal taxes. (You'll pay state taxes on the full $10, though.)
It would not surprise me if tax treatment of ADRs were more complicated than mutual funds, since US mutual funds are usually sold only to US investors. So some of the issues raised by the divdend.com page may be specific to ADRs. Haven't researched it though.

U.S. equity funds had their biggest weekly outflow in 10 weeks in the seven days to June 7 as investors, worried about rising inflation and an economic slowdown, pulled out their money.
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Refinitiv Lipper data showed investors offloaded a net $16.44 billion worth of U.S. equity funds in their biggest weekly net selling since March 29.
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Among U.S. funds, large- and mid-cap funds experienced net outflows of $7.53 billion and $1.07 billion, respectively. However, small-cap funds saw net inflows totalling approximately $1.15 billion.
Tech sector funds faced outflows of $1.31 billion after five consecutive weeks of inflows, while industrials and consumer discretionary funds pulled in $616 million and $399 million, respectively.
Money market funds received inflows of $19.83 billion, according to the data, reflecting investors' continued preference for these funds as net buyers for the seventh consecutive week.
U.S. bond funds witnessed withdrawals of $561 million, following five consecutive weeks of inflows.
Investors sold U.S. general domestic taxable fixed-income and short/intermediate investment-grade funds amounting to $1.79 billion and $1.45 billion, respectively, while purchasing government funds totalling $1.76 billion.