Another Iran update: More Jihadis dirtnaped, Iran’s neighbors want the Islamic regime finished off, Mossad gives regime members person-to-person call warnings, Uncle Sam fast-tracks a lot of weapon sales to the Middle East, and the BRRRRRRRTTTTTTTT of Freedom rings out over the Strait of Hormuz.
Israel Defense Forces killed top Iranian intelligence official Esmaeil Khatib and Hamas commander Yahya Abu Labda in separate airstrikes in the Middle East overnight.
The IDF confirmed Khatib, Iran’s intelligence minister, was killed in the strike in Tehran on Wednesday morning.
“Khatib played a significant role during the recent protests throughout Iran, including the arrest & killing of protestors and led terrorist activities against Israelis & Americans around the world,” the IDF wrote in a post announcing Khatib’s death. “Similarly, he operated against Iranian citizens during the Mahsa Amini protests.”
The Hamas commander was reportedly killed during an IDF airstrike in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, according to the Times of Israel.
The strikes come a day after Israel killed Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran’s National Security Council, in an airstrike.
Abu Labda was a prominent figure in the development of Hamas’s precision missile project, according to the Times of Israel.
The Israeli Air Force (IAF) for the first time hit Iranian naval targets in the Caspian Sea on Wednesday, striking infrastructure and ships at the port of Bandar Anzali in northern Iran, at a distance of some 1,300 kilometers (over 800 miles) from Israel.
In addition, the IAF continued striking targets belonging to the Iranian regime’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the Basij militia, and the Air Force, among others.
The Israeli military confirmed on Thursday that the strikes in Bandar Anzali hit several ships, a repair facility, as well as a headquarters controlling naval operations in the Caspian Sea.
The US has deployed A-10 Warthogs attack jets, Ah-64 Apache helicopters, and 5,000-pound ground penetrator bombs to take out Iranian drones, boats, and mines to help secure the Strait of Hormuz, America’s top general said Thursday.
Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, vowed at a Pentagon news conference that the US would “hunt and kill” all of Tehran’s weapons facilities and assets being used against the strait, a critical trade route through which 20% of the world’s oil supply is transported.
“We continue to hunt and kill afloat assets, including more than 120 vessels and 44 minelayers,” Caine told reporters alongside War Secretary Pete Hegseth.
Simon Whistler has a meaty update on the war, including how all the Persian Gulf nations now agree that the Islamic Republic of Iran must go.
“Iran’s response to this war has managed to achieve something truly remarkable. [Ali Larijani]’s own neighbors, who had previously gone to bat for them, are now done dodging missiles and are reportedly pushing Washington to eliminate the Iranian threat for good, destroying the tools of repression.”
Skipping over the deaths of Ali Larijani and Gholam Reza Soleimani, previously reported here.
“Since the war began, American and Israeli forces have been running what amounts to a parallel campaign alongside the more headline grabbing strikes on nuclear sites and missile infrastructure. This campaign has been aimed squarely at the regime’s domestic repression capabilities and infrastructure, and it’s been accelerating massively in recent days. These targets should tell you something about what this part of the campaign is actually designed to do. Destroying missile launchers and stockpiles might degrade Iran’s ability to hit back, but destroying a law enforcement station and the men who run it degrades Iran’s ability to keep the lid on a country that it only barely had a grasp on before all of this kicked off.”
Skipping lightly over news of Iranians celebrating the traditional Chaharshanbe Suri fire festival, and the regime cracking down on same (no Zoroastrian fire festivals allowed in Islamic Iran), because it’s hard to get a sense of scale there.
“Noras, or Persian New Year falls on March 20th this year. This holiday is historically one of the largest public gatherings in Iranian life and has often been a flash point for protests against the regime. Last year, they arrested dozens of people across multiple provinces during Nar and that was before any of this broke out. this year. Suffice it to say, the situation has uh changed a bit. We don’t want to rest too much on Naras as a make or break moment, though. But it nevertheless represents a significant test of the coalition’s core theory for ousting or at least seriously pressuring the regime. Degrade their tools of oppression enough and the population will be able to do the rest.”
“The Guards have never been a domestic military force, but instead an ideologically driven group of hardliners explicitly set up to defend the Islamic Republic’s continued existence, no matter what the cost. Whatever comes next on the streets of Tehran, it does not appear likely that these men will simply lay down their weapons and go quietly into that good night.”
“The IRGC’s hardliner stance did not just reveal the power dynamics going on in Tehran, though. It helped to reshape the entire region’s posture in ways that would have been difficult to imagine just a few weeks ago. Before the war started, the Gulf States were the closest thing that Iran has to a coalition against American military action. Despite hosting US bases, most of them had adamantly pushed the White House not to strike Iran and were actively working to try and find common ground between Washington and Iran so they can avoid conflict.”
“While this was partially out of self-preservation interests, they knew the conflict in the region is never good for their bottom line, at least in the short term. They were still some of the best friends that Tehran had left. The Emirates had spent years rebuilding its relationship with Iran, and Aman’s foreign minister was in Washington discussing the matter with Vice President JD. Vance the day before the strikes took place. None of them doubted that Iran posed a threat. They hosted US bases for a reason, after all. But they calculated that living with the Iranian threat would be preferable instead of being largely defenseless in a war.”
“Iran’s response to Operation Epic Fury settled that debate in about 72 hours. Since February the 28th, Iran has launched over 1,800 projectiles split between ballistic missiles and drones at the UAE alone.”
“Bahrain took it even further, branding Iran treacherous. Bahrain even took the lead in sponsoring a UN Security Council resolution condemning Iran for its targets in this conflict which passed with unusually lopsided support. While not everyone throughout the Gulf was quite as forceful as that, they’ve all been moving in the same direction.”
“Behind the public statements urging peace, the private messaging to Washington has been far more direct: ‘Finish the job.'”
“Gulf officials have been pushing the Trump administration for what amounts to a permanent end to Iran’s ability to threaten their infrastructure.”
“In the space of three weeks, Iran has managed to turn every Gulf state that was lobbying Washington on its behalf into a partner actively backing the campaign to destroy its military capabilities. It is by almost any measure one of the most self-defeating foreign policy decisions a country has made in the modern Middle East.”
“A recent Goldman Sachs stress test published on March 15th showed that if the strait remained effectively closed through April, Qatar and Kuwait could see their full-year GDP contract by 14%, the worst since the 1990 Gulf War. The UAE and Saudi Arabia wouldn’t be quite as hard hit, but they’d both take a 5 and 3-point hit, respectively.”
Whistler also offers up a nice roundup of the current state of Israel’s incursion into Lebanon: “By March 16th, at least three separate IDF divisions were operating simultaneously inside of southern Lebanon, pushing through Kiam, Bins Jabel, and Marion in the most significant ground operations since their 2006 intervention. Evacuation orders are now covering everything south of the Latani, which when combines with the evacuated areas in the Bekaa Valley and southern Beirut totals to roughly 14% of the entirety of Lebanon’s territory.”
“Israeli Defense Minister [Israel] Katz has said at least parts of the operation are modeled explicitly on Gaza, offered no timeline for withdrawal, and some ministers are already floating the idea of a semi-permanent security zone. For now, there are no signs of a push toward Beirut or anything beyond the Litani.”
“In the last 48 hours alone, [Lebanese President Joseph Aoun] publicly called Hezbollah’s decision to enter the war a trap and an almost overt ambush serving Iranian interests, warned that the country is on the path to become a second Gaza, and floated a four-point plan calling for an immediate ceasefire, international backing for the Lebanese armed forces to oversee disarmament, direct negotiations with Israel, and long-term border security agreements.”
“While all of this is unprecedented for a Lebanese president, Beirut is currently falling short of Israeli expectations for two reasons. First, Lebanon has a long history of promising to finally get tough on Hezbollah that, well, hasn’t exactly materialized. Second, and more pertinently, the LAF [Lebanese Armed Forces] are already struggling to implement the ban on Hezbollah’s military operations that we reported on just a week ago. Hezbollah’s attack was earth-shattering for Beirut, which appeared to have finally found a moment of cross sectarian agreement that Hezbollah simply had to go. And while there were initially promising signs that the LAF was taking this seriously, the army has largely stalled. LAF commander [Rodolphe Haykal] has essentially refused to enforce the government’s ban on Hezbollah military activities, and the United States has even suspended some coordination with the LAF over it. The country’s prime minister has considered firing him for the whole debacle.”
“Now look, in fairness to Haykal, this isn’t just some random act of indifference where he’d rather sit around and watch Warfronts than go out and disarm the group. Though we couldn’t blame him if that was the case, could we? Rather, his calculation is that 20 to 30% of the LA Shia and would possibly refuse to mobilize against Hezbollah entirely, risking a total fracture of the military. Keep in mind that in Lebanon, sectarian identity is front and center just about everything that happens, especially in politics, and the LAF is broadly considered to be the last cross-sector institution in the country.”
“All that said, the inaction here is seriously jeopardizing the country’s sovereignty. The lesson that Israel took away from the October 7th attacks, rightly or wrongly, was that they couldn’t afford to allow a hostile force to exist along its borders anymore. In the aftermath of the 2024 ceasefire with Lebanon, Israel made it clear that disarmament of the group was an absolute bare minimum condition. And the tragic thing is that the LAF largely delivered on this. Earlier this year, they completed phase one of the operation. And while it was slowgoing, potentially so slow that Hezbollah was actually rearming faster elsewhere in the country than it was being disarmed, the LAF nevertheless demonstrated that it could deliver.”
“And all of this isn’t helped by the fact that even today, right now, Hezbollah continues to launch on Israel. While their stockpile has been severely reduced and seems likely to be further reduced in their ongoing clashes with the IDF, they don’t appear to be anywhere close to surrender.”
One of the reasons Iran was caught off guard at the opening of this war is that its leadership did not take Yahya Sinwar or Hassan Nasrallah’s approach. The Iranian regime—a state built on terror—was acting like a state and forgot what happens to those who spread terror. What Hezbollah and Hamas understood, and what Iran forgot, is that when you attack Israel, you become prey.
After the regime’s decapitation on the first day, Larijani grasped that reality. As Iran’s most senior surviving security official, he never stayed in the same place twice, and maintained exceptionally high security awareness.
In the end, it took a combination of precise intelligence, special ground capabilities, and rapid decision-making at both the political level and the by chief of staff to complete the operation. The time between the intelligence alert and the order for the strike was less than an hour; that’s an incredibly tight kill chain. This wasn’t a Hamas or Hezbollah target; exploiting this opportunity meant scrambling aircraft all the way to Iran.
Snip.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Israel is chasing internal repression forces from their headquarters to secret muster points at sports stadiums, even to neighborhood police stations. All in an effort to demonstrate to the Iranians that the regime’s fangs have been removed.
Meanwhile, Israel is calling mid- and low-level commanders, threatening them and their families if they don’t stand aside in the event of an uprising.
One conversation is worth recounting.
“Can you hear me?” a Mossad agent can be heard, speaking in Farsi. “We know everything about you. You are on our blacklist, and we have all the information about you.”
“OK,” the commander said in the recording.
“I called to warn you in advance that you should stand with your people’s side,” the Mossad agent said. “And if you will not do that, your destiny will be as your leader. Do you hear me?”
“Brother, I swear on the Quran, I’m not your enemy,” the commander said. “I’m a dead man already. Just please come help us.”
Last night, a very senior Israeli source outlined to me Israel’s five objectives in this war:
To act jointly with the United States to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
To permanently deny any future Iranian regime the ability to again close the strait — including through the development of alternative pipelines.
To dismantle Iran’s weapons industry, with an emphasis on ballistic missile capabilities — this time targeting not just equipment but the factories that produce it.
To complete the destruction of Iran’s nuclear program.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has authorized the country’s military to kill Iranian and Hezbollah officials without explicit approval from higher-ups.
Katz announced the blanket order as he alerted Israeli residents that the military had taken out top Iranian intelligence official Esmaeil Khatib. Katz said he and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu authorized the directive overnight.
The purpose of the authorization is to thwart the possibility of delays in Israel’s Operation Roaring Lion against Iran, according to Israeli network Channel 12. Katz vowed that there were more “significant surprises” to come as part of the development.
In the past several days, targeted Israeli strikes have assassinated several top Tehran officials, dealing a devastating blow to the Iranian regime’s power structure as the war moves well into its third week.
Snip.
The assassinations come as Israel has ramped up its attacks targeting Basij checkpoints and infrastructure. The Guard’s Basij unit has notably been targeted in the war, as the paramilitary force has long been seen as the leading military unit behind the deadly crackdown on Iranian protesters over the winter and behind repression in general against regime dissidents.
The Israeli military is targeting Basij personnel and facilities as the country seeks to weaken the Islamic regime enough to encourage Iranian citizens to topple the power structure.
“We’re undermining this regime in the hope of giving the Iranian people a chance to oust it,” Netanyahu said in a statement on Tuesday.
Next regime figure to get droned announced. “Hossein Dehghan, who was sanctioned in 2019 for his alleged role in an attack that killed 241 American troops, has been named to replace the assassinated Ali Larijani. According to a report by Iran International, Iran appointed former Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan on Thursday as the new secretary of the Supreme National Security Council,”
The Trump administration announced plans to sell more than $16.5 billion worth of radar systems, air defense equipment, and fighter aircraft weaponry to the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Jordan Thursday, as Iranian missiles and drones continued to hit sensitive infrastructure across the Gulf region.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued an emergency waiver to bypass the mandatory congressional review period for the sales, the Pentagon said in its press release.
For the UAE, the State Department approved $2.1 billion worth of 10 FS-LIDS counter-drone interception systems, along with 240 Coyote backpack-carried drone interceptor systems, along with related sensors and munitions.
Another planned sale to the UAE includes a THAAD long-range discrimination radar, as well as Sentinel A-4 uplinkers and THAAD tactical operations and launch and control systems. A third sale set for Abu Dhabi includes $644 million worth of F-16 munitions and upgrades, including GBU-39/B small diameter bombs and Joint Direct Attack Munitions guidance systems (JDAMs), along with 400 AIM-120C AMRAAM air-to-air missiles and eight guidance sections, the Pentagon said.
Kuwait is set to receive $8 billion in Lower-Tier Air and Missile Defense Sensor (LTAMDS) radars, the administration further announced Thursday, along with a slew of accompanying electronic equipment. Jordan, meanwhile, is slated to receive $70.5 million worth of maintenance, logistics, and munitions support for its F-16s, C-130s and F-5 aircraft.
The planned sales come as Iran has targeted sensitive early warning and missile defense radar sensors in several US-aligned countries in the Gulf. Iran has also repeatedly struck civilian centers and, increasingly over the last 48 hours, oil and gas infrastructure with drones and missiles.
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Thursday praised Gulf states for their support for Washington’s war effort, saying Iran’s “reckless” pattern of counterattacks has brought some of those countries “squarely into our orbit.” He specifically named the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
Speaking alongside Hegseth at the Pentagon, the US’ top-ranking general, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine, said the US military will continue to work with Gulf states “to help them to improve any defensive capabilities that they need.”
Missile plant hit: “Karaj Surface-to-Surface Missile Plant” destroyed by U.S. strikes. This was March 1, but CENTCOM only released the images today.
Iran evidently managed to damage an F-35:
“Likely hit by a Qaem-118 short range SAM.” The pilot returned to base safely and made an emergency landing.
Once again, this was just what I was able to gather from various sources. If you think I’ve missed something, feel free to share it in the comments below.
More regime honchos dead, America and Irseal are (try to contain your shock) winning, a bad weekend for the KC-135, a Dem uber-lawyer backs Trump on Iran, and Israel is hunting Basij in the streets of Tehran. It’s your Iraq war update, incorporating news from late Friday until now.
Also, I keep getting the occasional 429 errors that require Bluehost support to snip long-running processes that they won’t give me access fix without handing them more money (which isn’t happening). An optimization scan brought up suggestions for improving performance, some highly impractical (no, I’m going to hand-optimize WordPress generated JavaScript), but one of the things spinning up long threads is Twitter embeds, so I’m going to try to do less of that and just link and summarize rather than embed. I’ve also updated and turned the caching plugin back on (turned off in a previous Bluehost troubleshooting session), so I’m hoping that will speed things up as well.
Israeli forces killed the Iranian regime’s security chief and de facto leader, Ali Larijani, in a Tuesday morning airstrike that has the potential to foment greater chaos within the Islamic Republic’s remaining leadership.
The IDF announced that Larijani was killed through “a precise strike” on his location near Tehran.
“His elimination adds to the elimination of dozens of senior commanders and leaders of the Iranian terror regime, who were eliminated by the IDF during Operation Roaring Lion, and constitutes a further blow to the Iranian regime’s abilities to manage and coordinate hostile activity against the State of Israel,” the IDF wrote in its statement.
After Ali Khamenei’s death, Larijani emerged as the country’s de facto leader, consolidating his power and overseeing combat operations against Israel and other Arab nations in the region. Along with his brother, Sadeq, Larijani waged outsized influence in the Iranian leadership and positioned himself as a successor after Khamenei’s death. He also served as secretary of the Iranian Supreme National Security Council, the body that orchestrated attacks on Israel and led efforts to violently suppress the Iranian people.
“During the most recent wave of protests against the Iranian terror regime, Larijani advanced violent enforcement measures and repression operations, and personally oversaw the massacre that was carried out against Iranian protestors,” the IDF said. “Larijani led the regime’s national-security coordination and directed its international activity, including engagement with members of the axis.”
Hilarious if true: “Missile hit Sepah Bank digital security center in Tehran.”
A missile strike hit the digital security center of Sepah Bank in Tehran early on Wednesday, according to information received by Iran International.
The building, located on Haghani Street, was destroyed in the attack while the bank was processing salary payments for military personnel.
The services at Sepah Bank and Melli Bank Iran remained widely disrupted for a second day, with online banking unavailable and only card-based services operating.
FACT 1: Iran’s missile capability has been functionally destroyed.
As of Day 6, Adm. Brad Cooper (CENTCOM) confirmed Iranian missile attacks declined roughly 90 percent since strikes began [ISW, March 5, 2026]. Per joint intelligence assessment (IDF/CENTCOM briefing), approximately 75% of all launchers destroyed; 100–200 remain. The IRGC Aerospace Force — Iran’s primary instrument of long-range conventional power projection — has been catastrophically degraded in nine days. “Hundreds” of warheads destroyed (conventional missile warheads — Iran has no deployed nuclear warheads). Defense industrial base under systematic attack. This is not a setback. This is the functional end of Iran’s power projection capability.
Fact 2 has been edited back from Iran’s nuclear program being 8-15 years to reconstitute, to being substantially destroyed for the the immediate future.
FACT 3: The Strait of Hormuz is closed — not by mines, but by insurance actuaries.
Seven of twelve International Group P&I Clubs cancelled war risk coverage on March 1–2, 2026. These seven clubs insure approximately 90% of the world’s ocean-going commercial tonnage. War risk premiums surged over 1,000%. The result: tanker traffic through Hormuz collapsed from a pre-conflict baseline of approximately 138–153+ vessels per day (figures vary by data provider: Lloyd’s List/Kpler cite ~138; CSIS/Starboard cite 153+) to as few as 3 commercial transits recorded by Windward.ai AIS tracking on March 7; a near-total shutdown. Iran achieved a de facto blockade by making the risk-reward calculation of commercial transit economically irrational, without firing a single mine.
FACT 4: The US is the primary economic beneficiary of this crisis.
Brent crude has risen from $72/barrel (pre-conflict) to $106.81/barrel on March 8, 2026 (Day 9), with an intraday spike to $110 when Asian markets opened Sunday evening — the first time Brent has exceeded $100 in nearly four years, and up 50%+ from the $60/barrel that started 2026. WTI (US crude futures) hit $106.57 (+17.2% on the day). A new cascade has begun: Gulf producers are being forced to cut output as storage fills — Iraq’s production has collapsed 60%, UAE and Kuwait have begun cuts. Goldman Sachs warned Friday night that the Hormuz shock is now “17 times larger” than the peak Russia disruption of April 2022 and projects Brent could reach $150/barrel by end of March if Hormuz flows remain depressed. The US is a net petroleum exporter. Every $10/barrel increase in oil costs China and Japan hundreds of millions per day while benefiting US shale producers and LNG exporters (Cheniere, Shell, ExxonMobil). Qatar suspended LNG production. CSIS senior fellow Clayton Seigle: “A deficit of 20 million barrels per day is hitting global oil market balances with no sign of relief.” The Washington Post confirmed explicitly: “The conflict has hit Europe and Asia harder than the United States.”
FACT 5: Ali Khamenei is dead. His son is not a legitimate successor.
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was assassinated February 28, 2026, in a joint US-Israeli airstrike on his Tehran compound — Israeli jets dropped 30 bombs in daylight with zero effective Iranian air defense response. Mojtaba Khamenei, his son, was named Supreme Leader by the Assembly of Experts on March 8. Mojtaba is a Hojjatoleslam (mid-ranking cleric), not an Ayatollah — his theological credentials are below what the constitution’s spirit requires. He has never held a formal government position. The regime has chosen dynastic succession in a self-described revolutionary republic. This legitimacy deficit is the long-term vulnerability. [CONFIRMED — NYT, Reuters, P1B]
DataRepublican assume there will be no land war. But she’s working from the assumption that such a land war will require occupying all of Iran, rather than, say, Tehran and various oil exporting ports.
FACT 7: China is losing 1.7 million barrels per day of discounted Iranian oil and faces secondary sanctions.
China bought approximately 90% of Iran’s oil exports at sanction-discount prices. That supply is gone. Higher global oil prices hit China’s economy directly. The February 2026 Executive Order imposes tariffs on any country purchasing Iranian oil — aimed directly at Chinese “teapot” refineries in Shandong Province. The US simultaneously disrupted both of China’s discounted petro-state suppliers (Iran and Venezuela). China is watching US military capabilities through its satellites and reading the Taiwan signal.
FACT 8: The Mosaic Defense kept Iran fighting but cannot project offensive power.
Iran’s 31 autonomous provincial IRGC commands, each with pre-delegated launch authority, are firing pre-authorized strike packages without central coordination. This means the regime cannot be decapitated; missiles keep flying. But the same decentralization that enables survival prevents the complex multi-axis offensive operations that would actually threaten US interests at scale. The 90% launch decline is the empirical proof: what remains is dispersed residue, not a coherent military campaign. [ASSESSED — CEPA, P1B, P2A mosaic paradox]
FACT 9: The Iranian economy was already at collapse threshold before the war began.
Pre-war data: rial at 1.45 million per US dollar (December 2025 peak); 49% inflation; negative GDP growth; government budget deficit at 6%+ of GDP. The January 2026 protests — the largest in Iranian history, with 3,000–30,000 killed by the regime — were triggered directly by rial collapse. The war adds destroyed infrastructure, disrupted trade, severed oil revenue, and accelerating secondary sanctions. The economic collapse is not a future risk; it is an ongoing reality that predates Operation Epic Fury.
FACT 10: The Axis of Resistance has been substantially degraded.
Syria land bridge severed (Assad fell December 8, 2024). Hezbollah “dramatically weakened” by 2024 Israeli offensive; Nasrallah killed September 2024; Iran-Hezbollah land corridor gone. Hamas catastrophically degraded after 18+ months of Israeli ground operations; IRGC’s Hamas portfolio manager Saeed Izadi killed June 2025. Houthis’ stockpiles reduced by Operation Rough Rider (2025); Houthis “staying out of the Iran-US fight for now” (Al Jazeera, March 7, 2026). Iraqi PMF taking active US strikes. Iran’s 40-year investment in regional proxy power has been substantially degraded — not dismantled. Hezbollah retains organizational structure, partial rocket inventory, and political control of southern Lebanon. Hamas retains organizational elements outside Gaza.
I feel that most of this is probably correct. And that’s just the topline analysis; there’s a lot more in-depth data and analysis at the link. (Hat tip: Borepatch.)
You know who likes the chances of America and Israel winning the war? Al Jazeera.
When you look at what has actually happened to Iran’s principal instruments of power – its ballistic missile arsenal, its nuclear infrastructure, its air defences, its navy and its proxy command architecture – the picture is not one of US failure. It is one of systematic, phased degradation of a threat that previous administrations allowed to grow for four decades….
The campaign has moved through two distinct phases. The first suppressed Iran’s air defences, decapitated its command and control, and degraded its missile and drone launch infrastructure. By March 2, US Central Command announced local air superiority over western Iran and Tehran, achieved without the confirmed loss of a single American or Israeli combat aircraft.
The second phase, now under way, targets Iran’s defence industrial base: missile production facilities, dual-use research centres and the underground complexes where remaining stockpiles are stored. This is not aimless bombing. It is a methodical campaign to ensure that what has been destroyed cannot be rebuilt.
Iran now faces a strategic dilemma that tightens every day. If it fires its remaining missiles, it exposes launchers that are promptly destroyed. If it conserves them, it forfeits the ability to impose costs of the war. Missile and drone launch data suggest Iran is rationing its remaining capacity for politically timed salvoes rather than sustaining operational tempo.
This is a force managing decline, not projecting strength.
The closure of the Strait of Hormuz is dominating the critical commentary. US Senator Chris Murphy has called it evidence that President Donald Trump misjudged Iran’s capacity to retaliate. CNN has described it as proof that the administration has lost control of the war’s escalation.
The economic pain is real: Oil prices have surged, a record 400 million barrels of oil will be released from global reserves, and Gulf states are facing drone and missile strikes on their energy infrastructure.
But this framing inverts the strategic logic. Closing the strait was always Iran’s most visible retaliatory card, and always a wasting asset. About 90 percent of Iran’s own oil exports pass through Kharg Island and then the strait.
China, Tehran’s largest remaining economic partner, cannot receive Iranian crude while the strait is shut. Every day the blockade continues, Iran severs its own economic lifeline and alienates the one major power that has consistently shielded it at the United Nations. The closure does not just hurt the global economy; it accelerates Iran’s isolation.
Meanwhile, the naval assets Iran needs to sustain the blockade – fast-attack boats, drones, mines, shore-based antiship missiles – are being degraded daily. Its naval bases at Bandar Abbas and Chahbahar have been severely damaged.
The question is not whether the strait reopens but when and whether Iran retains any naval capacity to contest it. Critics compare the challenge of escorting a hundred tankers daily to an impossible logistical burden. But you do not need to escort tankers through a strait if the adversary no longer has the means to threaten them. That is the operational trajectory.
Strait of Hormuz update: “War risk insurance peaks at 5% of hull value. Insurance costs reach highest level since Iran-Iraq Tanker War (1980s). Oil tanker valued at $100M now costs $5M to insure for single transit. Strait effectively closed despite technical navigation possibility.”
“Reports indicate clashes between security forces and citizens around Chaharbagh Square in Tehran. The sound of gunfire can be heard.” Not the only area where such clashes are reported.
Five KC-135 tankers damaged in an Iranian missile strike at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia:
Suchomimus notes that there’s simply not a lot of space to park at that base, so there’s going to be risk parking so many tankers (or other large aircraft) there. None of the planes were destroyed, and all are being repaired.
Iranian hovercraft base at Bandar Abbas hit:
I don’t get to use the “Hovercraft” tag nearly enough…
Famous Democrat lawyer David Boies thinks Trump is doing the right thing in Iran and “Democrats should get behind the President, and make sure that he finishes the job.”
Boies, a Democrat, argues passionately in favor of the war, and scolds people—mainly other Democrats—for, in his mind, letting their dislike of President Trump affect their opinion of attacking Iran. As he writes, “If we believe that Iran presents a serious threat, we need to support the president on this issue. There’s plenty to disagree with him about, and we don’t need to like or admire him. But on Iran we should be on common ground.”
Another successful Iranian strike (or possibly Iranian-linked militia) in Iraq:
BIG: A drone strike hit the U.S. Embassy compound in Baghdad’s Green Zone, damaging or disabling the embassy’s C-RAM air defense system (C-RAM's radar) and striking a helipad.
Day 10 of the Iran War: Oil spikes then falls, Iran gets a new theoretical Supreme Leader, China’s low cost GPS substitute is just as crappy as their other MilTech, the gulf states are investing in Ukrainian MilTech, and Habitual Linecrosser tries to cut through the fog of war.
He told CBS News “I think the war is very complete, pretty much”, and said the US was “very far ahead of schedule”
Speaking to NBC, he left open the prospect of acquiring Iranian oil, saying “certainly people have talked about it”
In an interview with the New York Post, he said the administration was “nowhere near” making a decision on whether to order US troops into Iran
Speaking to Republican lawmakers, Trump said the US was drawn into a “short-term” military operation in Iran to “get rid of some very evil people”
He went on to say: “We’ve already won in many ways, but we haven’t won enough”
Trump told the New York Post he is “not happy” with Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, but at his press briefing later did not make clear who he wants to take his place – or how that will be achieved
At his press briefing, Trump reiterated that the operation in Iran has been a “tremendous success”, but also added that he wants to ensure Iran cannot develop nuclear weaponry “for a very long time” – a much bigger task
The US still has targets in Iran, Trump tells reporters, but they could be taken out “in one day”
Theoretically, Mojtaba Khamenei survived the leadership airstrike and is now the Iran’s new supreme leader. Maybe, but I wouldn’t put it past the people currently not running the country to announce him as leader even though he’s room temperature so they can continue to keep not running the country without U.S. and Israeli planes sending them to Allah.
“Third Iranian Shahid Soleimani-class Corvette Hit By America: At Bandar Abbas Port.”
The war between the U.S., Israel and Iran has entered a decisive phase that may determine the political future of the Middle East for decades to come.
President Trump declared that there will be no deal with the Iranian regime — nothing short of unconditional surrender. Tehran responded with predictable defiance, announcing that it would never surrender. Yet behind the regime’s rhetoric, reality appears very different.
Much of the leadership now reportedly communicates from undisclosed locations, hiding from sustained strikes while the propaganda machine attempts to project strength and resilience.
The scale of the military campaign has been extraordinary. In the first week alone, the U.S. reportedly struck approximately 3,000 Iranian targets across the country and the region. Israel has launched repeated waves of air strikes — more than twenty separate operations — systematically dismantling the regime’s military infrastructure. Missile launchers, air defense systems, command centers and naval facilities have been destroyed. Advanced weapons systems and new technologies, including next-generation laser defense platforms, are shaping the battlefield.
Israel has reportedly targeted and dismantled hardened command structures associated with the regime’s leadership, including the underground bunker networks linked to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Several key figures may have been killed in these operations, though the regime has yet to publicly acknowledge casualties buried under the rubble of destroyed facilities.
Meanwhile, the Islamic Republic’s military capacity has been devastated. What once appeared to be a formidable regional force increasingly looks like what many analysts suspected all along: a paper tiger built on intimidation, propaganda and bluff.
For decades, the regime invested enormous resources in projecting power across the Middle East, building proxy networks and threatening neighboring states. Now it faces an unprecedented strategic crisis. Today, it is focused primarily on surviving.
The central question confronting policymakers in Washington and Jerusalem is not whether the regime’s military capabilities can be degraded — that process is already underway — but whether the campaign will stop short of dismantling the Islamic Republic itself. Anything short of regime-change risks allowing the system to recover, reorganize and once again threaten regional stability.
The military balance of power favors the U.S. and Israel. Iran’s conventional warfighting capabilities have been severely degraded. Air superiority allows continued targeting of strategic assets, meaning the regime’s ability to project military power beyond its borders will keep declining as long as the campaign persists. In the short run, this places the regime in a defensive posture.
But the weakening of Iran’s military does not automatically translate to the collapse of the regime. The Islamic Republic has historically relied less on conventional military strength and more on asymmetric tools — intelligence networks, ideological mobilization, proxy militias and global terrorism. Even if its missile forces, navy and air defenses are heavily damaged, the regime’s internal security structures — the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the domestic Basij security force, intelligence services and propaganda apparatus — can still function. Note that these institutions exist primarily to protect the regime rather than to defend the country.
LUCAS drones (“even cheaper than the Shahed, around $15,000”).
Ship-based anti-drone lasers (cost per kill: 50¢).
Tomahawk
Precision Strike Missile
Evidently American forces have found a way to jam China’s BeiDou system, their version of GPS:
Also, BeiDou seems to include its own text message system, which comes with a lot of drawbacks in an active combat environment…
A document circulating lays out the possibility of a limited campaign for U.S. ground forces to taking over Bandar Abbas and surrounding areas.
It is important to note that the United States does not currently maintain the ground force numbers in the region required for a full-scale invasion of Iran, nor has it established the logistical infrastructure that such a campaign would demand. Furthermore, there is no visible mobilization that would indicate preparation for a large occupation force. However, the US does have a large number of forward-deployed naval assets, rapid deployment units available back home, and special operations forces that could deploy within 18 to 48 hours to conduct a limited landing designed to seize specific objectives only.
The current goal of the ongoing air campaign appears to be to undermine the Iranian military and political leadership, to ignite internal dissent and local opposition movements, and whereafter, support these through air support and supply drops. Nevertheless, if current aerial efforts fail to create such a scenario, the US may consider scaling up its efforts.
One viable strategy could entail securing a foothold inside Iran to host a provisional government and facilitate overland supply routes instead. The most likely target for such a landing is Bandar Abbas, Iran’s primary southern port and a central node in its oil export system. In addition to establishing a bridgehead, capturing the city would allow US forces to obtain Iran’s main naval base. The accompanying port infrastructure, including cargo terminals and former fleet facilities, could then be repurposed to rapidly unload supplies and serve as a staging ground to support friendly forces inland.
Most importantly, Bandars Abbass’ is strategically located on the Strait of Hormuz. Following the attack, Iran is attempting to blockade the Strait, causing disruptions that are already affecting global shipping lanes. Securing Bandar Abbas would give the US a position from which to guarantee maritime passage to the major oil flows and deny Iran the ability to leverage the strait as a pressure tool.
In preparation for a landing, the US would shift focus to an air campaign aimed at degrading Iranian coastal defenses, displacing Iranian army units from the shoreline, and disrupting their ability to maneuver along the main logistics corridors leading into Bandar Abbas. With defenses disrupted, a numerically smaller landing force could then move into secure administrative buildings, port facilities, and the surrounding districts, in order to secure a perimeter and consolidate control. Infiltration routes through the mountains would be used to send small special forces groups to link up with local resistance networks as well as provide supplies and weaponry overland. Any landing would also force Iranian army units hiding in the surrounding mountains into the open terrain, if they want to contest the US bridgehead. However, any attempt to mass forces for a real counterattack would expose them to US and Israeli airstrikes almost immediately; with over 150 US combat aircraft, several cruisers, and guided-missile destroyers, ready to provide fire support to any landing party.
The alternative for the Iranian army would be a shift toward a guerrilla‑style resistance inside the city and surrounding area. But the operational impact of such a campaign would remain limited if the United States avoids expanding the offensive inland, and positions itself as a supporting force for a new government, instead of an occupying one. High local pro‑Western sentiment, visible in the large protests in the cities and towns here earlier this year, could additionally constrain the Iranian army’s ability to operate covertly.
Highly speculative, but it does contain a certain logic. Plus, with physical control of the oil export terminal, the U.S. could start selling oil in exchange for direct payment, promising to turn over any proceeds after a non-Jihadist government takes power…
Add the Royal Jordanian Air Force to the list of countries flying defensive missions over the Persian Gulf, specifically protecting Bahrain and UAE.
Azerbaijan has reportedly reopened the border with Iran, but the source is TASS, so several grains of salt are probably in order.
Jordan Peterson and Douglas Murray talk about what a scumbag death cult Hamas is.
UAE is investing in Ukrainian MilTech companies and buying Flamingo missiles to counter Iran.
“The United Arab Emirates-based Edge Group is set to purchase a 30 percent ownership stake in Fire Point, Ukraine’s combat-proven missile and drone manufacturer. The proposed deal of around 760 million US dollars will raise the total valuation of the Ukrainian defense firm to roughly 2.5 billion US dollars. Fire Point, which produces the FP-1 and FP-2 unmanned aerial systems as well as the Flamingo cruise missile, has risen to become Ukraine’s leading defense technology manufacturer within just two years, with production of drones currently reaching 6,000 per month.”
“The most interesting product in Fire Point’s arsenal is the Flamingo cruise missile, of which the company produces 1 to 2 units per day. With 30% share in the company and certain agreements, the UAE can receive around 10 to 20 such missiles and 1800 drones per month, significantly enhancing its ability not only to protect itself against enemies like Iran, but to carry out preventive strikes. Combat-proven with an estimated range of 3,000 kilometers and already successfully used to target critical Russian infrastructure within the 2,000 kilometer range, the missile is capable of reaching and destroying any target across Iran. Air bases, command centers, and missile storage facilities can be targeted with ease by its 1,150 kilogram warhead, forcing the Iranian command to change planning due to another deadly threat in the region.”
And what’s happening in the “southern front” of the war? In Lebanon, Israel seems to settling Hezbollah’s hash in both Beirut…
…and southern Lebanon.
Today’s Habitual Linecrosser:
As usual, if you think I missed any significant stories on the war, feel free to share them in the comments below.
In an interview with Fox News, Netanyahu said, “The reason that we had to act now is because after we hit their nuclear sites and their ballistic missile program [in June 2025]… they started building new sites… underground bunkers that would make their ballistic missile program and their atomic bomb program immune within months.”
“If no action was taken now, no action could be taken in the future,” he said.
Moreover, envoy Steve Witkoff said the Iranians “bragged” about enriching Uranium.
US special envoy Witkoff, who together with Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner led Washington’s negotiations with Tehran over the disputed nuclear program, said that Iran’s top negotiators boasted in the first round of talks this year of having enough highly enriched uranium to build 11 nuclear bombs.
“In that first meeting, both the Iranian negotiators said to us directly — with no shame — that they controlled 460 kilograms of 60% [enriched uranium] and that they’re aware that could make 11 nuclear bombs,” Witkoff told Fox.
Trump has asserted that the US “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear facilities during the 12-day war last June, which would ostensibly render Iran incapable of immediately turning that enriched uranium into a bomb.
Still, Witkoff said the Iranian negotiators “were proud that they had evaded all sorts of oversight protocols to get to a place where they could deliver 11 nuclear bombs.”
He said that during that first meeting, the Iranian negotiators insisted on “an inalienable right” to enrich their nuclear fuel.
They now have an inalienable right to a pine box.
Ben Shapiro weighs in on the current state of the conflict, and declares Iran toast:
“I hope all the folks watching understand what uncontested airspace and complete control means. It means we will fly all day, all night, day and night, finding, fixing, and finishing the missiles and defense industrial base of the Iranian military. Finding and fixing their leaders and their military leaders, flying over Tehran, flying over Iran, flying over their capital, flying over the IRGC, Iranian leaders looking up and seeing only US and Israeli air power.”
We got the guy in charge of trying to assassinate American leaders, “Rahman Moadam, who’s head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps special operations division.”
Admiral Brad Cooper explains the status of the operation:
More than 50,000 troops, 200 fighters, two aircraft carriers, and bombers from the United States are participating in this operation, and more capability is on the way. In the opening hours of Operation Epic Fury, US Central Command forces together with Israel delivered overwhelming and unprecedented strikes into Iran. Now, we’re less than 100 hours into this operation, and we’ve already struck nearly 2,000 targets with more than 2,000 munitions. We have severely degraded Iran’s air defenses and destroyed hundreds of Iran’s ballistic missiles, launchers, and drones. And in simple terms, we’re focused on shooting all the things that can shoot at us.
“We are also sinking the Iranian Navy. The entire Navy.”
“We will not stop.”
Back to Shapiro: U.S. consulate in Dubai was hit by drones. No casualties because it was evacuated.
“How do you know that Iran is really losing? Because Qatar has turned. So Qatar, which has always played this sort of middle ground between the United States and Iran. Well, now they’re turning on the IRGC and actually arresting members of the IRGC in Qatar.”
He debunks the myth that we’re using $2 million Patriot missiles to shoot down $35,000 drones, says most are being down down with $25,000 air-to-air missiles. “And you know who’s going to run out of $25,000 iterations more and faster? The US or the piss-poor Iranians?”
“If we get in a spending war with Iran, Iran don’t have no money. It is a problem for them.”
The Iranian regime splits its air power between two forces, the conventional Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force and the Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps Aerospace Force. Available public information about the size of Iran’s air fleet is somewhat contradictory in the details. The independent analysis site WarPowerIran states Iran has 778 aircraft, but “while impressive in terms of available quantity of aircraft, the IRIAF suffers from an aging fleet and limited military-industrial capabilities as they relate to modern combat platforms.”
Similarly, “FlightGlobal’s World Air Forces 2025 listed 65 F-4s, 35 F-5s, 41 F-14s, 18 MiG-29s, 21 Su-24s, and 12 Mirage F1s in the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force, plus a smaller number of tankers and special-mission aircraft. Iran has also received an unknown number of Yak-130 light attack aircraft in recent years.”
The Yak-130 is the most modern of those aircraft, but it’s really most suitable as a low-cost trainer. If you actually need to go up against F-22s and F-35s in that thing, you’re in deep, deep trouble. And indeed, an Israeli F-35 shot one down.
Beyond that, it’s not an air force, it’s an impressive aviation museum. The MiG-29 is the only plane in active service with any modern military. The F-14 is the next most modern, and the vast majority of U.S. planes were deactivated in the late 20th century. The F-5 has proven really durable for Third World air forces, but no one mistakes it for a modern fighter. The F-4 is a Vietnam War staple retired everywhere except Greece, Turkey and Iran.
The United Arab Emirates, a Defense Ministry spokesperson said air defenses detected 812 drones and intercepted 755, with 57 getting through and causing damage.
Kuwait said it intercepted 283 drones. A Bloomberg-compiled tally put the first two days of the war at 541 drones targeted at the UAE, 283 at Kuwait, 36 at Jordan, 12 at Qatar and nine at Bahrain. Combined with the UAE’s later figure, the publicly reported totals indicate at least about 1,150 drones launched at regional targets since February 28, with the overall number likely higher.
Naval sinkings stats snipped.
During yesterday’s briefing, Caine released some figures indicating the Iranians are losing their ability to fire ballistic missiles and drones: “As of this morning, U.S. Central Command is making steady progress. Iran’s theater ballistic missile shots fired are down 86 percent from the first day of fighting, with a 23 percent decrease just in the last 24 hours, and their one-way attack drone shots are down 73 percent from the opening days.”
“Mojtaba Khamenei, son of Iran’s late Supreme Leader, has survived the U.S. and Israeli airstrikes on Iran in which his father Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed, two Iranian sources told Reuters on Wednesday.” Maybe. But there’s a good chance that’s disinformation as well.
Iran’s democratic opposition groups — monarchists and republicans, secular and religious minorities, leftists, liberals, and every ethnicity — are united… on four foundational principles: Iran’s territorial integrity; individual liberties and equality of all citizens; separation of religion and state; and the Iranian people’s right to decide a democratic form of government. Many Iranians, often despite facing bullets, have called on me to lead this transition. I am in awe of their courage, and I have answered their call. Our path forward will be transparent: a new constitution drafted and ratified by referendum, followed by free elections under international oversight. When Iranians vote, the transitional government dissolves…. A free Iran would extend [the Abraham Accords] by immediately recognizing Israel and pursuing a broader regional peace framework linking Iran, Israel and our Arab neighbors in cooperation rather than conflict.
You can never depend on China as an ally:
This isn't just about Iran. Every country watching this is doing the math. Every country that has been quietly drifting toward Beijing's orbit, betting that China is the future, is watching Beijing issue press conferences while its strategic partner gets regime-changed.
More from Suchomimus on that Soleimani-class corvette sunk yesterday, which turns out to be the IRIS Shahid Sayyad Shirazi.
If Iran is currently the A-Plot in As the Middle East Burns, then the war against Hezbollah is the B-Plot. Israel has already started and air and ground campaign against the Iranian-backed group, and Simon Whistler explains the current state of that conflict:
“What’s happening in Lebanon right now might end up being one of the most consequential events of the entire war. Israel and Hezbollah are at war again.”
“What’s really significant here is what the Lebanese government just did in the middle of this. A total ban on Hezbollah’s military and security operations. If you would have told us that we’d be making an episode on that just two years ago, we would have thought you were dreaming. Or possibly really rather drunk.”
For years people assumed an attack on Iran would mean Hezbollah would unleash an unstoppable barrage of rockets on Israel.
Skipping over the glorious execution of Operation Grim Beeper.
“The Lebanese government chose, after decades of weakness, to go after Hezbollah. Prime Minister Nawaf Salam’s cabinet declared an immediate, total ban on all Hezbollah military and security activities and ordered the group to surrender its weapons to the state.”
“President Joseph Aoun, the former army commander who had been elected after Hezbollah could no longer block the vote, called the decision final.”
“In what has been the most notable development of all, Nabih Berri, the speaker of parliament and leader of the Amal movement, Hezbollah’s most reliable political partner for decades, refused to vote against the measure.” This is huge, since Amal is the only other Shia party in Lebanon’s parliament next to Hezbollah.
“There’s a pretty sizable camp in Washington that sees the current moment as the best chance anyone will ever have to finish Hezbollah off, and they’re not being quiet about it.”
Israel is haunted by it’s failure to destroy Hezbollah in its 2006 incursion, and by its inadvertent creation of Hezbollah following it’s 1982 incursion to go after the PLO.
“The situation today is genuinely different. First and foremost because the Lebanese state is the one driving the push to restore its sovereignty, backed by a president who seems absolutely determined to disarm the militants on his territory once and for all.” No, first and foremost, Iran is done. Without their funding, Hezbollah would be nothing.
“All of this is the complete opposite from 1982 and 2006, where it was variously an Israeli occupation force imposing order from the outside and an international community with very little legitimacy, respectively. This willingness was a long time in the making, but now that it’s surfaced, it doesn’t appear likely to be disappearing anytime soon.”
Related: “IDF Orders Mass Evacuation of Hezbollah Stronghold in Beirut Ahead of Strike.”
Add Azerbaijan to the list of countries droned by Iran:
❗️BREAKING: An Iranian Shahed-136 drone struck the city of Nakhchivan in Azerbaijan, Azerbaijani state media reported. The target was likely Nakhchivan Airport. #Iranpic.twitter.com/UeQsADtDSm
And Azerbaijan is getting ready to retaliate. And Azeris make up about 16% of the Iranian population, which is actually higher than the number of Kurds…
Heh: “To Save Time, Iran Appoints Supreme Leader Who Is Already Dead.”
Again, this is what significant news I thought was worth including. If you have additional information you thought I should have included, leave it in the comments below.
If it wasn’t clear from yesterday’s roundup, it appears that a whole lot of Islamic Republic of Iran leaders were physically meeting at Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s bunker in Tehran when the successful decapitation strike was carried out as part of Operation Epic Fury/Roaring Lion. The operations are still ongoing, and here are some news updates.
“‘All’ of [Ali Khamenei’s] likely successors are ‘probably dead’ following US-Israeli strikes.”
Mick Mulvaney, former Trump OMB head and Chief of Staff: “A high risk, high reward type of operation.”
A “once in a lifetime opportunity” to both end the nuclear program and effect regime change. “All the [Iranian] senior leadership gathered together at one place at one time.”
The daylight attack must have meant we had really solid intel on the regime meeting. Most of our Middle East strikes happen at night during a new moon. “An opportunity they simply couldn’t pass up.”
“All of [Ali Khamenei’s] likely successors are probably dead as well.”
“The chances of getting a pro-Western, pro-American regime in Iran were as high as it ever was going to be.”
John Bolton was lamenting that these actions weren’t taken six or seven years ago, but the situation on the ground now is very different. “Everything has to come together at the same time for this to work.”
“This can’t be a forever war.”
Taking out the mullahs is “a step toward peace.”
New Guy steps into the leadership crosshairs. “Iranian Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref informed officials of plans to have him take charge of the nation during wartime, according to a report from the Iranian Students’ News Agency (ISNA) published on social media late Saturday night. There was no explicit note of President Masoud Pezeshkian’s ability to carry out presidential duties.”
Simon Whistler covers the strikes:
Much of this covers information included here yesterday, but here are a few new tidbits.
Whistler states Iran is claiming they hit Riyadh in Saudi Arabia. LiveUAMap shows a strike against Prince Sultan Air Base, which is over a 100 miles from Riyadh. I mean, they’re both in central Saudi Arabia, but, eh.
In Yemen, Houthis threaten retaliation. Nothing yet.
The gulf states are plenty pissed at Iran tossing drones and missiles at them.
Russia issued a single proforma condemnation of U.S. attacks. China, on the other hand, hasn’t even done that.
A lot of Chinese MilTech deals were supposedly in the works when things kicked off, but it looks like very little (if any) actually made it to Iran.
Suchomimus video the first:
“It is quite telling that [Khamenei]’s death is being celebrated on the streets.”
Khamenei was likely killed in the opening strike. “A few sources are now saying it was Israel that hit this.”
“Iran isn’t showing any signs of giving up. Well, these could just be the last temper tantrum of the finished regime. The generals and remaining politicians lashing out knowing their time is over and that a surrender is inevitable and just trying to inflict damage.”
Suchomimus sees regime change as unlikely without “boots on the ground.”
Suchomimus video the second, which is all damage assessment:
One Iranian frigate hit, but two more showing no signs of damage.
Bandar Abbas radar site hit. Bandar Abbas is the port city directly north of the Strait of Hormuz.
Four MiG-29 fighters destroyed out of 30 in service.
Israel took out a Basij installation in northern Tehran, they being the hated Iranian religious police. The video shows four large buildings all exploding in a matter of seconds. “Iran’s air defense is completely ineffective here.”
Iran’s counterstrikes have had some limited success. In Kuwait “Ali al-Salim air base was hit.” The image shows smoke rising up from three different points, one evidently from a fuel storage strike. “One of Iran’s most successful strikes to date.” Plus a car park and a support facility.
Iran also hit Erbil air base in Iraq, where a large fire was seen burning. No information yet on what was hit.
Iran also hit Al-Udeid air base in Qatar. “This is the largest American base in the Middle East.” Videos show Patriot intercepting Iranian vehicles, but also one miss and one Patriot interceptor wandering off course and hitting the ground.
I see Tomahawks, F-18s and F-35s, and a lot of Iranian targets going boom. And other American assets are poised to join the action:
B-2s will likely show up tonight, making direct attacks on key targets in a way no other platform can. Yes this could include MOPs, but also lots of JDAMs against less fortified targets. They can achieve massive effects in a single sortie. One B-2 can carry 80 500lb JDAMs. Entire… pic.twitter.com/d0ztfmHYVN
TAMPA, Fla. – As of 9:30 am ET, March 1, three U.S. service members have been killed in action and five are seriously wounded as part of Operation Epic Fury.
Several others sustained minor shrapnel injuries and concussions — and are in the process of being…
🚫Iran’s IRGC claims to have struck USS Abraham Lincoln with ballistic missiles. LIE. ✅The Lincoln was not hit. The missiles launched didn’t even come close. The Lincoln continues to launch aircraft in support of CENTCOM’s relentless campaign to defend the American people by… pic.twitter.com/AjaeHMemtA
Plus President Trump was stating that Iranian retaliation was less than expected.
Also this: “Imagery circulating points to Iranian attacks in the vicinity of France’s naval base in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates.” In other news, there’s a French naval base in Abu Dhabi…
Beware of Astroturf protesters. “CCP-Linked NGO Network Prepares “Emergency Protests” In US After Trump’s Iran Strikes Jeopardize Oil Flows To China.”
Planned demonstrations branded “Hands Off Iran” or “Stop The War On Iran” are scheduled to take place this afternoon in major cities across the U.S. From New York to Los Angeles, left-wing organizers have circulated digital flyers, coordinated social media blasts, and activated email lists urging supporters to mobilize within hours of the announcement. This activation alert for the protest-industrial complex occurred shortly after the Department of War’s “Operation Epic Furry” began in Iran.
To the average person, this afternoon’s protests may look like a groundswell of outrage over the U.S. strikes on Iran, especially given that the Trump administration campaigned on no new foreign wars. But the speed, uniform messaging, and coordinated national footprint suggest something highly more organized – and familiar for readers, as we’ve diligently followed the activities of the protest-industrial complex.
This is the same mobilization network that has repeatedly demonstrated its ability to move tens of thousands of social justice warriors into the streets in under 12 hours.
Earlier this year, that same protest infrastructure powered nationwide pro-Maduro demonstrations almost immediately after developments in Venezuela made national headlines. In the months prior, overlapping coalitions were instrumental in organizing the anti-Israel encampments at Columbia University and other campuses, as well as anti-ICE demonstrations in Los Angeles and other sanctuary cities. The causes shift. The slogans change. The logistical infrastructure – or the machine that makes this spark – remains the same.
What we are witnessing is not a loose collection of anti-war activists or 1970s-style hippies responding independently to global events. It is a coordinated ecosystem of dark-money funded nonprofits, advocacy groups, campus organizations, and ideological networks that can rapidly repurpose whatever geopolitical flashpoint dominates the news cycle. From the George Floyd riots to pro-Palestine protests to anti-Tesla protests to anti-Trump protests and anti-Elon Musk protests to anti-DOGE protests to anti-ICE protests/riots, these movements are not dedicated to a single issue. They are part of omni-cause mobilizers, sowing chaos deep within the nation’s core.
Whether the banner reads “Free Palestine,” “Hands Off Venezuela,” “Abolish ICE,” or now “Hands Off Iran,” the same names frequently appear on sponsorship lists. The same fiscal sponsors provide infrastructure. The same activist pipelines appear.
This brings us to far-left billionaire Neville Roy Singham, whom The New York Times recently described as “known as a socialist benefactor of far-left causes” and as someone who “works closely with the Chinese government media machine and is financing its propaganda worldwide.”
Singham’s network, shortly after Operation Epic Furry began, announced on X “New York City Emergency Protest” to “Stop The war On Iran.”
“The U.S. and Israel are carrying out an unprovoked, illegal bombing campaign on Iran. This war serves no one but a tiny elite and oil executives and is a continuation of more than two years of genocide in Palestine and US-Israeli aggressions throught the region,” the People’s Forum, a Manhattan far-left non-profit also linked to Singham, wrote on X.
Other left-wing groups on the flyer tied to Singham’s network include the ANSWER Coalition and CODEPINK. Also on the list are the Democratic Socialists of America, American Muslims for Palestine, the National Iranian American Council, the Palestinian Youth Movement, Black Alliance for Peace, and 50501.
November 4, 1979 — almost 47 years ago — Iran seized the American embassy in Tehran and held its staff hostage. Ever since then, American presidents have struggled with what to do.
Jimmy Carter temporized for many months, even as ABC’s newly created Nightline — a nighttime news show created specially to cover the hostage crisis — opened every night with “America held hostage, day XXX.” His wife, First Lady Rosalynn Carter, finally prodded him to do something. The “something” turned out to be a shambolic rescue mission that ended in disaster.
President Reagan intimidated the mullahs a bit, but never seriously retaliated for the Beirut barracks bombing that killed over 200 Marines along with over a score of other service personnel. George H.W. Bush invaded Iraq but left the mullahs largely alone. Bill Clinton did nothing of substance. George W. Bush had a chance to bring the Iranians to heel after the conquest of Iraq, but inexplicably failed to press his advantage. Barack Obama was, basically, complicit in their nuclear program, to the point of famously sending them pallets of cash totaling over a billion dollars.
President Trump, on the other hand, killed General Soleimani and told other Iranian leaders that they could be next. And now they are next.
So what have we learned, and what’s likely to happen in the future?
Well, first, with the capture of Maduro and now this, we’ve learned that our military can do things no one else can. We seized a leader of a hostile nation from his largest military base and brought him to custody without losing a single American life. Now we’ve killed the single biggest threat to American interests in the Mideast, along with much of his senior leadership, again without losing a single American life.
Why didn’t we do this before? And why could we do it now? The reason we can do it now is mostly leadership. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth quickly prioritized precision and lethality in the military; President Trump was willing to use the military in ways prior presidents were not.
Why didn’t we do this before? Part of that is because the foreign policy establishment, like the domestic policy establishment, doesn’t exist to solve problems. It exists to manage those problems in ways that keep its members cushily employed. To, in Myres McDougal’s words, “maintain tensions at a level short of unacceptable violence.”
Trump, on the other hand, wants to solve things, even if it involves inflicting unacceptable violence on the enemy. Also, he regards our enemies as actual enemies, not as “foreign colleagues” or “partners in peace.” To quote author Keith Laumer, “there’s nothing as peaceful as a dead troublemaker.” Khamenei is now peaceful.
In fact, Trump’s approach across the board, which has brought him success after success in his first 13 months back in office, is to solve problems the way the guys in the bar say they would do it. Too much illegal immigration? Close the border and deport the illegals. Problems with Iran? Kill their leaders and encourage a revolution. Venezuela shipping drugs and gangs to the U.S.? Capture their leader and encourage his successor to cooperate or share his fate. You can just do things.
The thing is, though, that there’s a subtlety in this approach. Just doing things turns out to work. But if you take a step back from these actions of Trump’s, the big picture shows a pretty coherent strategy. Trump wants to weaken China without going to war with China. He has now cut off two major suppliers of oil to the PRC, which produces hardly any oil of its own. (It’s worse than that, because China wasn’t paying for that oil with dollars, and now it will need dollars to buy oil elsewhere.) That applies a squeeze to an already squeezed CCP, and will make Xi’s position, domestically and internationally, weaker. Also the military excellence recently displayed has to inspire second, third, and fourth thoughts about invading Taiwan.
Trump’s tactics typically have two characteristics: He goes after his opponents’ source of sustenance (usually that means money, but not always) and he accomplishes more than one thing at a time. In neutralizing Iran, Trump accomplishes a lot of things. First, of course, he neutralizes a major hostile regional threat.
But second, he cuts the ground out from under what’s left of Hamas and Hezbollah. He also shuts off the pipeline of cash that was being used to bribe politicians and journalists in Europe (the Iranians have basically admitted that they do that) and support various NGOs and the like that serve anti-American and anti-Israeli ends. Iran has been a major sponsor of terrorism around the world; that will end.
With Iran gone (and India, thanks to tariffs, eager to be on our team) the threat of the BRICS has been sharply reduced. Brazil under Lula isn’t friendly, but isn’t a power house. Russia and China don’t like us but China needs oil and Russia is broke and mired in an endless and ruinous war of its own devising.
With Iranians free to say what they think of the mullahs’ regime, he also delegitimizes the left’s narrative that fundamentalist Islam somehow has some sort of anti-colonial virtue. In fact, the mullahs ran Iran as a Persian colony of an Arab ideology. The Iranian public is well aware of this, and will be saying that a lot.
And if he’s able to see a new pro-American government in Iran (distinctly likely) we’ll have a regional ally that will encourage the Arab states, currently friendly to us and Israel out of fear of Iran, to remain friendly to us and Israel out of a different sort of fear of Iran.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian claims he’s alive and in charge:
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian is alive, stating this morning on state-run television that the Interim Leadership Council is now operational and has assumed constitutional control of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Pezeshkian adds that, “We will continue the path of the Leader… pic.twitter.com/QIhDTeRxub
Power struggle between him and Mohammad Reza Aref, or just confusion?
Iranian foreign minister is suggesting that no one is actually in charge, that the chain of command has broken down and the military is just sort of acting on general vibes:
Iranian Foreign Minister Araghchi:
What happened in Oman was not our choice.
We have already told our Armed Forces to be careful about the targets they choose.
Our military units are now, in fact, independent and somewhat isolated, and they are acting based on general… pic.twitter.com/g0l9Te2HNa
Which is not what you want to hear less than 48 hours into a shooting war…
Mojtaba Khamenei, Ayatollah heir apparent, is apparently dead as well.
Iranian media: Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei, who has long been discussed as one of the potential successors, has been eliminated. pic.twitter.com/6Fy8mkHe47
That four building complex previously described as Basij headquarters is here described as “Sarallah Headquarters” or “security crisis management command center of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in Tehran”:
Israeli Air Force strikes that hit Tehran this morning targeted a complex the IDF described as the “headquarters of the terror regime.”
Now technically, the Basij is a subset of the IRGC, so that may be where the confusion comes in. Or the complex could be both. Google Maps isn’t helping me out here…
More of Iran’s classic aircraft destroyed:
Video published this morning by the Israeli Air Force showing the targeting and destruction of a two awaiting to takeoff F-4 Phantom IIs and an F-5 Tiger II with the Iranian Air Force, during strikes on Tabriz Air Base in the East Azerbaijan Province on Northwestern Iran. pic.twitter.com/n8NkNhGjle
Despite claims of not being involved, UK fighters are reportedly flying CAP over the Persian Gulf:
British Royal Air Force Typhoons officially started flying combat air patrols over the Persian Gulf today, have already shot down multiple Iranian drones headed towards Qatar. pic.twitter.com/hQ7WOiZYjr
"Iran’s chief of army staff and defense minister were killed in an airstrike targeting a meeting of the country’s defense council, Iranian state television reported Sunday.
Gen. Abdol Rahim Mousavi and Defense Minister Gen. Aziz Nasirzadeh were…
“Gen. Abdol Rahim Mousavi and Defense Minister Gen. Aziz Nasirzadeh were killed at the meeting alongside the head of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard and security adviser Ali Shamkhani.”
❗️Iranian state media confirmed the killing of seven senior Armed Forces commanders in the US-Israeli strikes. Those killed include Supreme Leader's office chief Mohammad Shirazi, his deputy Akbar Ebrahimzadeh, Armed Forces intelligence deputy Saleh Asadi, logistics deputy Mohsen… pic.twitter.com/6ptzq6r06Q
“Iranian state media confirmed the killing of seven senior Armed Forces commanders in the US-Israeli strikes. Those killed include Supreme Leader’s office chief Mohammad Shirazi, his deputy Akbar Ebrahimzadeh, Armed Forces intelligence deputy Saleh Asadi, logistics deputy Mohsen Darreh Baghi, police intelligence chief Gholamreza Rezaeian, Armed Forces operations planning chief Bahram Hosseini Motlaq, and Armed Forces logistics chief Hasanali Tajik.”
More regime buildings go boom:
Iran's Ministry of Intelligence (VAJA/Vezarat-e Ettela'at Jomhuri-ye Eslami-ye Iran) has been struck in central Tehran. #Iranpic.twitter.com/aQjeTwoed4
U.S. President Donald Trump announced Sunday that nine Iranian naval ships have been sunk as part of combat operations against Iran.
“I have just been informed that we have destroyed and sunk 9 Iranian Naval Ships, some of them relatively large and important,” Trump wrote in a post on X, adding that Iran’s naval headquarters has been “largely destroyed” in a different attack.
“We are going after the rest — They will soon be floating at the bottom of the sea, also!” Trump wrote.
U.S. Central Command officials said earlier Sunday that an Iranian Jamaran-class corvette was struck by U.S. forces at the beginning of Operation Epic Fury.
“The ship is currently sinking to the bottom of the Gulf of Oman at a Chah Bahar pier,” the statement reads. “As the president said, members of Iran’s armed forces, IRGC and police ‘must lay down your weapons.’ Abandon ship.”
❗️A suspected strike has hit the British RAF Akrotiri base in Limassol, Cyprus, with a loud explosion heard in the area, alarms sounding at the base, and aircraft scrambled, Israeli Channel 14 journalist Hallel Bitton Rosen reported. #Iranpic.twitter.com/xB6mvhrbFt
Result: Craven jihad apologist Keir Starmer grows something vaguely resembling a spine and gives the U.S. permission to use Cyprus base for “defensive purposes.” With so many Middle East bases to chose from, I’m not sure the US actually has any assets they can usefully deploy there, but still.
Clarification: Here Starmer makes clear that “defensive purposes” includes letting American assets use British bases, including those in the Persian Gulf, to hunt Iranian missile launch sites and storage facilities:
Trump tackles mail-in ballot fraud, the Democrat Party sinks (and sinks, and sinks), millionaires and billionaires pump money to the same lefties who decry them, a kangaroo verdict gets slapped down, a platoon of swamp creatures get smacked down, Ukrainian drones are producing gas shortages in Russia, Lebanon declares itself Iranian influence-free, a heavyweight joins the Texas AG race, Dade bows out, a neo-Nazi expertly trolls the German justice system, and Facebook’s AI wants to have sexytime with your children.
It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
The next voting fraud vector President Trump is ready to tackle: mail-in voting fraud.
President Donald Trump has been warning for years that mail-in ballots and voting machines are riddled with vulnerabilities that invite fraud and undermine trust in elections. We’ve discussed these vulnerabilities here at PJ Media extensively, and now Trump is taking action on them. On Monday morning, President Trump announced on Truth Social that he will issue an executive order to put an end to mail-in ballots before the 2026 midterms and restore “honesty and integrity” to America’s elections.
In a lengthy post on Truth Social, Trump announced, “I am going to lead a movement to get rid of MAIL-IN BALLOTS, and also, while we’re at it, Highly ‘Inaccurate,’ Very Expensive, and Seriously Controversial VOTING MACHINES.” He argued that such machines cost “Ten Times more than accurate and sophisticated Watermark Paper, which is faster, and leaves NO DOUBT, at the end of the evening, as to who WON, and who LOST, the Election.”
Trump said the United States stands alone in continuing to use widespread mail-in voting. “We are now the only Country in the World that uses Mail-In Voting. All others gave it up because of the MASSIVE VOTER FRAUD ENCOUNTERED,” he wrote.
The president made clear that he intends to act quickly, pledging to use executive authority to move the plan forward. “WE WILL BEGIN THIS EFFORT, WHICH WILL BE STRONGLY OPPOSED BY THE DEMOCRATS BECAUSE THEY CHEAT AT LEVELS NEVER SEEN BEFORE, by signing an EXECUTIVE ORDER to help bring HONESTY to the 2026 Midterm Elections,” Trump said.
Snip.
In 2021, Democrats in Congress tried to ram through a series of radical bills — the Freedom to Vote Act, the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, and the For the People Act — that would have federalized state elections and permanently undermined election integrity. These schemes included universal mail-in ballots, counting votes up to ten days after Election Day, automatic voter registration, granting felons the right to vote, and even laying the groundwork to abolish the Electoral College altogether. It was a brazen attempt to lock in Democrat power forever by destroying the safeguards that protect free and fair elections.
Trump’s announcement proves that election integrity will be a central priority of his presidency as the 2026 midterms approach.
Some think Trump will run into states rights issues. We’ll see…
A federal appeals court handed the Trump administration a decisive 2-1 victory Wednesday, ruling that the president can proceed with cutting nearly $2 billion in previously approved foreign aid payments. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia overturned a lower court’s order that had required the administration to continue sending taxpayer funds abroad.
How the Working Families Party sells itself as “grassroots” — with IRS-documented, publicly admitted “common control” revealing it’s really a Soros-financed political money washer.
In New York politics, there’s one machine that towers above the rest. No, not the Democratic Party—it’s the Working Families Party, the most powerful minor party in America. Its name sounds wholesome enough—who doesn’t support “working families”? But behind that branding lies a $2 billion tax-exempt laundromat that’s anything but local, grassroots, or honest.
Take Zohran Mamdani, their current belle of the ball.
Easy answer: Zohran Mandani is the product of a grassroots washing syndicate of 501c3 and 501c4 entities funded by George Soros and Silicon Valley billionaires. He is their manufactured product.
Easy answer: Zohran Mandani is the product of a grassroots washing syndicate of 501c3 and 501c4 entities funded by George Soros and Silicon Valley billionaires. He is their manufactured product.
After winning his race, he announced on NBC: “I don’t think we should have billionaires.” Hilarious considering Mamdani’s “grassroots” revolution was fueled by over $2 million in PAC and organizational spending, much of it courtesy of the very billionaire class he allegedly opposes.
This is the theater of modern politics: denounce wealth while being powered by it. And the actors know their audience. They’ve learned that if you slap “grassroots” on the packaging, voters won’t check the label.
But let’s check it anyway.
The money trail revealed in Sam Antar’s breaking report is straightforward enough. Soros donates to the Open Society Institute, a $4.5 billion “charity” that enjoys generous tax deductions. OSI then transfers millions to other “charities” like Tides Foundation, which mysteriously claims to run a $350 million operation with zero employees. From there, the money “converts” into political cash: Tides passes funds to the Working Families Organization, a 501(c)(4), which then wires millions to PACs that bankroll candidates like Mamdani.
What you have is billionaire money dressed up in “working families” clothing, masquerading as the will of the people while being anything but.
Drawing on data from the nonpartisan data firm L2, the New York Times’s Shane Goldmacher conducted an in-depth analysis of the changes in these numbers over the past few election cycles. His findings paint a stark picture for the Democratic Party. It is in the midst of what he calls a “voter registration crisis,” with the party “hemorrhaging voters long before they even reach the polls.”
Goldmacher first looked at how these figures shifted between 2020 and 2024. In the span of four years, Democrats lost roughly 2.1 million registered voters across the 30 states and the district that track party affiliation, while the GOP gained approximately 2.4 million.
As the map below shows, Democrats fell behind in each one of these states. This includes blue states such as California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, and Rhode Island, as well as the swing states of Arizona, New Hampshire, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania.
NEW at NYT: The Democratic Party is facing a voter registration crisis in red, blue and battleground states alike — losing ground to the GOP everywhere.
My deep dive into the numbers and what it reveals about the party's brand.
The shift in Pennsylvania has been dramatic. In November 2020, Democrats held a registration advantage of 517,310 active voters. Today, that margin has shrunk to just 53,303.
A similar scenario has played out in North Carolina, where Democrats once enjoyed a 400,000-voter edge. Their lead now stands at less than 17,000.
Goldmacher noted that, in percentage terms, Democrats’ advantage over Republicans narrowed from nearly 11 points in 2020 to just over 6 points in 2024.
President Donald Trump was still able to win because so many Democratic votes are concentrated in deep-blue strongholds such as California and New York. By contrast, large red states such as Texas don’t allow voters to register by party affiliation — and thus aren’t reflected in the data.
In some cases, Democrats still retained an edge over Republicans (such as in Pennsylvania). But the majority of new registrations in other states, such as Florida, shifted from Democrats to the GOP. Goldmacher expects more states to follow.
Moreover, between 2018 and 2024, new young voters have shifted noticeably toward the Republican Party. In 2018, 66% of voters under 45 registered as Democrats, but by 2024 that share had fallen to just 48%.
Goldmacher reported that, last year, for the first time since 2018, new voter registrations nationwide favored Republicans over Democrats.
That was a long time ago and today Democrats’ image is significantly worse and over a wider range of cultural issues than it was back then. The animus toward the party among working-class voters has reached epic proportions and Democrats appear clueless on how to overcome that. The reigning theories seem to be talking more about economics (“kitchen table issues” or, more daringly, “abundance”), insisting they’re “fighters” and cussing a lot. Damon Linker gets to the heart of how absolutely hopeless this approach is.
[W]hat liberals need to do to defeat right-wing populism…[is] to moderate on culture. That means on policies and moral stances wrapped up with the old culture war (like trans and other gender-related issues) as well as in other areas of policy that have a strong cultural valance—like crime, immigration, and DEI. This isn’t just necessary because Democratic positions on these issues are unpopular at the moment. It’s also crucial because culture is more fundamental than politics: It sends a signal to voters about where a politician or party stands on base-level moral questions. When voters become convinced that a specific politician or party has bad (or just sufficiently different) moral judgment, they lose trust in that politician or party. And then other, more superficial policy commitments don’t matter…
The area surrounding the Texas-Arkansas border has been solidly Republican for a while, but the Biden people wanted to demonstrate that federal dollars are available to all, regardless of political leanings, and they hoped they might be able to tilt the area’s partisan alignment a bit back toward the Dems if those dollars were used to jump-start a solar-panel-construction industry in the region, creating jobs and boosting the local economy in other ways…The money arrived, but in the 2024 election, the region voted even more overwhelmingly for Donald Trump than it had in the previous two election cycles…The effort failed because the voters in Texarkana, like voters in rural and exurban communities around the country, have learned to distrust the Democrats on fundamental issues of morality and culture, making them disinclined to trust them on anything else…
The way to [reach these skeptical voters] is for the party to make an effort to distance itself from the leftward cultural stances associated with its most animated progressive activists, but also often affirmed by many millions of well-educated upper-middle-class white and often female professionals. Since people fitting this description frequently hold top jobs in the Democratic Party itself, this is a hard ask…
This, I’m convinced, is the top challenge facing liberalism and the Democratic Party today.
Exactly. This is the top challenge facing the Democrats today. Yet they are shockingly M.I.A. in dealing with it. Democrats overwhelmingly would rather do anything than do what is needed: two, three many Sister Souljah moments. Consider how Democrats have handled culturally-inflected issues since their 2024 election defeat.
Trans? A few peeps, quickly slapped down by the Groups and party activists.
Immigration? Everything Trump’s doing is wrong. We’ll only cooperate with federal law enforcement when we feel like it.
Crime? Not a problem. Everything’s going great—especially in D.C.! Democratic House leader Hakeem Jeffries: “The crime scene in D.C. most damaging to everyday Americans is at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.” Trump’s turning D.C. into a police state!
Race? DEI is wonderful and we’ll defend it to our dying breath. Same thing with racial preferences. Those who oppose these policies are racists and white supremacists.
The list could go on. Using the traditional 0-10 Sister Souljah scale, where zero is doing nothing at all, 5 is barely adequate, and 10 is what Bill Clinton did, I’d give today’s Democrats a 1 for the occasional grudging admission in interviews and the like that maybe the Democrats have overdone their noble commitments a little bit (though of course their heinous opponents are 100 percent wrong). And the 1 might be generous.
Teixeira is 100% right on the problem, and on Democrats complete inability to address the problem. Sister Souljah is the Democratic Party. The insane wing is in the process of driving out the last remnants of the Corrupt Wing, the latter of which foolishly believes that actually winning elections is somehow more important than the perpetual virtue signaling festival to remind those inbred redneck freaks of JesusLand that Democrats are the Good People, and anyone who disagrees is a hetronormative racist transphobic white supremacist who must be cancelled at all costs.
Social Justice controls the ideological core of the Party hook, line and sinker. Opposing social justice is heretical #WrongThink that must be punished. Social justice warriors cannot be argued out of their convictions by logic, as logic had nothing to do with forming them. Social justice is a religious imperative, and the only way to free the party from the grip of social justice is to burn it to the ground. The Democrat Party needs to go the way of the Whigs. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard announced Tuesday that she will be revoking security clearances for 37 current and former intel officials for allegedly abusing the public’s trust by manipulating information and conducting political activities.
The officials on Gabbard’s list includes former top aides to Obama Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who was involved with a discredited intelligence assessment that claimed Russia favored once-and-current President Donald Trump to win the 2016 election over Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.
Gabbard has accused the 37 officials accused of politicizing and weaponizing intelligence, failing to safeguard classified information, or other instances of failing to follow standards.
Andrew Cedar: Former Senior Director for Global Engagement at the National Security Council
Andrew P. Miller: Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Israeli-Palestinian Affairs
Benjamin A. Cooper: Associate Scholar in the Eurasia Program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute
Beth E. Sanner: Former Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Mission Integration
Brett M. Holmgren: Former Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research
Charles A. Kupchan: Professor of International Affairs at Georgetown University and former Senior Director for European Affairs at the National Security Council
Christopher Center: Former intelligence analyst and official
Corinne A. Graff: Former Senior Advisor at the United States Institute of Peace
Dipreet K. Sidhu: Former intelligence and policy official
Edward Gistaro: Former National Intelligence Officer for Europe
Emily J. Horne: Former Spokesperson and Senior Director for Press at the National Security Council
Harry Hannah: Former intelligence official
Heather R. Gutierrez: Former intelligence analyst
Jamie S. Jowers: Former intelligence and policy advisor
Jeffrey M. Prescott: Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Agencies for Food and Agriculture
Joel T. Meyer: Former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Strategic Initiatives at the Department of Homeland Security
Joel Willett: Former CEO of Cybermedia Technologies
John W. Ficklin: Former Senior Director for Records and Access Management at the National Security Council
Julia S. Gurganus: Former National Intelligence Officer for Russia and Eurasia
Julia Santucci: Former Director for Egypt at the National Security Council
Loren DeJonge Schulman: Former Deputy Director of Studies at the Center for a New American Security
Luke R. Hartig: Former Senior Director for Counterterrorism at the National Security Council
Maher B. Bitar: Former Coordinator for Intelligence and Defense Policy at the National Security Council
Mark B. Feierstein: Former Assistant Administrator for Latin America and the Caribbean at USAID
Mary Beth Goodman: Deputy Secretary-General of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
Megan F. Doherty: Former Deputy Assistant Administrator for the Middle East at USAID
Michael P. Dempsey: Former Acting Director of National Intelligence
Perry Blatstein: Former intelligence analyst
Richard H. Ledgett: Former Deputy Director of the National Security Agency
Samantha E. Vinograd: Former Assistant Secretary for Counterterrorism and Threat Prevention at the Department of Homeland Security
Sarah S. Farnsworth: Former intelligence official
Shelby L. Pierson: Former Intelligence Community Election Threats Executive
Stephanie O’Sullivan: Former Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence
Thomas W. West: Former Special Representative for Afghanistan
Thom X. Nguyen: Former intelligence analyst
William J. Tuttle: Former intelligence official
Yael Eisenstate: Former Vice President of Global Affairs at the Anti-Defamation League
I’m including the entire list here because I think it’s important to name and shame. Also, having this posted and tagged lets me keep track when one of those swamp creatures pops up in a new role, and helps track the corruption of previously important institutions (I’m looking at you, ADL).
Speaking of swamp creatures: “Kash Patel’s FBI raids John Bolton’s home, office in probe over sending classified documents to family.” Bolton reminds me of Mark Felt, Watergate’s “Deep Throat,” in that both stabbed metaphorical knives in the President they served over being denied the influence and deference they felt they deserved. Bolton was actually a pretty good UN ambassador, where he served the useful function of scaring the shit out of America’s foreign enemies. Alas, he Peter Principled himself to National Security Advisor, where he never got on the same page with Trump’s unorthodox (but effective) diplomacy.
“LaToya Cantrell, the mayor of New Orleans, has been indicted on Federal charges….The indictment alleges that [Cantrell] and Jeffrey Paul Vappie, a member of her Executive Protection Unit (EPU), developed a personal relationship in October 2021. To conceal their relationship and maximize their time together, they allegedly created a scheme to defraud the City of New Orleans by engaging in personal activities while Vappie was on duty and being paid for providing protection.” They were canoodling on the taxpayer’s dime. (Previously: “It’s the mayor’s exorbitant travel spending that has people up in arms. She traveled to sister cities Ascona, Switzerland, and Juan Antibes-les-Pins on the French Riviera this summer, costing the City of New Orleans close to $45,000, including first-class international airfare with lie-flat seating.”)
“The Unecha pumping station which is part of the Druzhba pipeline has been hit for the second time this week by drones.” This is near to the border with Belarus.
“Unprecedented Shift In Lebanon’s Attitude Towards Iran: Our Government’s Decision To Disarm Hizbullah Stands; We Will Not Tolerate Your Intervention In Our Internal Affairs; Relations With Lebanon Must Be Conducted Via State Institutions, Not Via Hizbullah,” MEMRI, August 14, 2025:
On August 13, 2025, during his visit to Lebanon, the head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Ali Larijani, heard unequivocally from Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam that Lebanon is no longer under Iranian patronage and will not tolerate Iranian dictates or interference in its internal affairs.
Larijani’s visit came amid tension between the two countries that followed the historic August 5 decision by the Lebanese government to disarm Hizbullah by the end of the year – a decision that sparked rage in Hizbullah’s patron Iran. Iranian officials, among them Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, as well as Ali Akbar Velayati, top advisor to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, and Iraj Masjedi, deputy commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Qods Force, expressed their vehement opposition to the Lebanon’s sovereign decision, claiming that it reflected not the will of the Lebanese people but only Israeli and American aspirations. These senior Iranian officials voiced support for Hizbullah’s refusal to comply with the demand to disarm, and warned that Hizbullah could thwart this plan because it had already rebuilt itself following the war with Israel and is now “at the height of its powers.” They added that Iran would support the organization in this matter.
Lebanon was quick to respond to these statements, perceiving them as direct and blatant interference in its domestic affairs. In a notable response, the Lebanese Foreign Ministry issued, unprecedentedly, not one but two harsh condemnations of “the violation of Lebanon’s sovereignty, unity, and stability.”
More condemnation and criticism came from the anti-Hizbullah and anti-Iran camp in Lebanon, which called on the Lebanese government to take diplomatic measures against Iran, such as expelling the Iranian ambassador and even severing relations with Iran, in addition to filing a complaint with the UN Security Council.
Israel’s decision to crush Iran’s terrorist catspaws continues to reap benefits across the region.
The Texas Attorney General’s race just got a major shake up.
Conservative firebrand and U.S. House Freedom Caucus member Congressman Chip Roy (R-TX-21) will run for Texas attorney general, the four-term legislator told The Texan.
“It has been my honor to represent the 21st Congressional District of Texas — the best part of the best state in the greatest country in the history of the world. I am particularly proud of our work to deliver on President Trump’s agenda and fight to drain the swamp. I could do it forever and be fulfilled professionally. But representatives should not be permanent,” Roy said in a release.
“And my experience watching Texans unite in response to the devastating Hill Country floods made clear that I want to come home. I want to take my experience in Congress, as a federal prosecutor, and as First Assistant Attorney General to fight for Texas from Texas.”
Roy’s 21st Congressional District stretches from Austin to San Antonio and west of Kerrville. During the devastating Hill Country flooding last month that killed over 130 people, Roy, who represents the area, was on the ground in the community more than most other state officials responding to the disaster.
He joins a field that includes state Sens. Mayes Middleton (R-Galveston) and Joan Huffman (R-Houston), as well as former Department of Justice appointee Aaron Reitz. Polling released by Texas Southern University on Thursday morning, which did not include Roy, put Huffman at 12 points, Middleton at eight, and Reitz at seven with nearly three-quarters of respondents undecided.
Previously Ted Cruz’s chief of staff before getting elected to congress, Roy has to be considered the immediate favorite to win the Republican nomination.
Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party stripped the party’s endorsement of radical leftist Minnesota state Sen. Omar Fateh in the Minneapolis mayoral race over “brazen cheating.” The emerging election cheating scandal hilariously occurred amongst Democrats. Awkwardly, this comes from the same party of woke leftists that insists U.S. elections are the “safest in the world” and free from manipulation. Clearly, this corrupt party that serves progressive elites – not the working class – wants a do-over in this local election.
On Thursday, Minnesota DFL chair Richard Carlbom wrote in a statement, “After a thoughtful and transparent review of the challenges, the Constitution, Bylaws & Rules Committee found substantial failures in the Minneapolis Convention’s voting process on July 19, including an acknowledgement that a mayoral candidate was errantly eliminated from contention.”
Carlbom added, “Now it’s time to turn our focus to unity and our common goal: electing DFL leaders focused on making life more affordable for Minnesotans and holding Republicans accountable for the chaos and confusion they’ve unleashed on Minnesotans.”
A series of challenges were submitted to the Minnesota DFL after last month’s convention, citing serious issues with the electronic voting system and raising questions about election integrity in Fateh’s endorsement over incumbent Jacob Frey. The Minneapolis DFL also recognized it had erroneously eliminated DeWayne Davis after the first round of voting due to 176 undercounted votes.
Funny how Democrats swear up and down that there’s absolutely no voting fraud…until they accuse a fellow Democrat.
Trump is calling on Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook to resign over mortgage fraud allegations, namely claiming two separate homes as her primary residence.
Moribund lefty legacy outlet MSNBC is rebranding as MS NOW. Until that woke hive of scum and villainy is entirely purged, no sane American will ever trust it.
“Texas Is Preparing To Cut Off Power To Data Centers During Grid Emergencies.” Well, yeah. If it’s data centers or people’s homes and apartments, people should generally win. Data centers should have backup power and orderly shutdown procedures, not to mention redundant arrays of backups and rotating off-site backups…
Texas Democratic State Rep. James Talarico (TX-50) decries the effects of money on politics while taking “a whopping $59,000 in donations from a billionaire’s PAC last year. The Texas Sands PAC, which is pushing for the Lone Star State to legalize casino gambling, gave Talarico the donations to encourage him to lead that initiative.”
“Senator launches investigation into Meta over allowing ‘sensual’ AI chats with kids.” It seems that all the billions Facebook has been sinking into AI has only made the world worse. Much like Facebook itself…
Flesh-eating bacteria is on the rise again. Avoiding swimming in the ocean or eating raw oysters seems to be the key to avoiding it.
Dwight has a swell obit up for RAF Flight Lt. John Cruickshank, a Catalina pilot who was so shot up by a U-boat, with blood soaking through his flight suit, that his crewmembers thought he wouldn’t make it on the five hour flight home. Not only did he make it back to help land the plane, he lived to be 105.
“U.S. Agriculture Secretary Rollins, Gov. Abbott Announce $850 Million to Combat New World Screwworm Threat. Hundreds of millions will be appropriated by the federal government to build a sterile fly facility.”
German neo-Nazi claims to be a woman so he can serve his time in a women’s prison. ‘Sven Liebich, who now goes by ‘Marla-Svenja,’ was convicted of “slander and incitement to hatred’ and lost his bid to appeal. Now that he’s headed to jail, he has suddenly identified as a woman, despite previously calling transgender people ‘parasites.'” Liebich appears to be an actual neo-Nazi rather than just an AfD member, and neo-Nazis are scum, but you have to admire the brazenness of the hustle, especially not even bother to shave off his mustache, and actually demanding kosher meals.
More DOGE uncovered fraud, Trump yanks security clearances for a lot of swamp creatures, the Democratic Party goes all in on antisemitism, good luck getting an MRI in Canada, Warner Bros Discovery is considering a sale that’s absolutely loony, and a member of the Very, Very, Very Heavy Brigade takes on a Tesla.
It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
For all the talk of trump not allowing a peaceful transfer of power, it’s lefty Biden appointees who are thwarting democracy.
On Friday, the Board of Directors of the U.S. Institute of Peace informed the group’s president, George Moose, that he was relieved of his duties. The same day, Moose’s replacement, Kenneth Jackson, arrived at the office for the congressionally funded nonprofit to assume his new role.
There was one problem: Moose refused to go.
A source intimately involved in the situation told The Daily Wire that Moose put the building on lockdown when Jackson and his team were en route. When they arrived, they were astonished to find that the doors were locked and they were unable to gain entry.
“They treated us, quite frankly, like criminals,” a person who was with the group shared with The Daily Wire.
Jackson encountered similar behavior on Monday. He was ultimately able to enter USIP with the help of the Metropolitan Police Department, and ordered all unauthorized personnel to leave — including Moose, who confirmed to The Daily Wire that he was escorted out by police.
When Jackson and the rest of his group were finally able to get into the building, they found things in turmoil. The shades were drawn, with white noise playing when they arrived. USIP employees were using walkie talkies to communicate within the building, according to the person who was with Jackson. As of Tuesday, none of the phone systems in the building were working, nor were the elevators, and the internet was down, The Daily Wire has learned.
“I’ve never seen something so broken,” the source familiar with the situation told The Daily Wire. Moose did not respond to inquiries into whether he and his colleagues tampered with these systems.
Colin O’Brien, the chief security officer at USIP under Moose, told The Daily Wire on Tuesday evening that the systems likely were not working because the building had been placed on lockdown at Moose’s orders, meaning that all the systems would shut down. O’Brien and other employees were told to exit the building, and he said he hadn’t been in contact with anyone on Tuesday, though he believes he is still employed by USIP.
O’Brien said that Moose ordered that members of DOGE were not to be admitted into the building, and that members of USIP were under the impression that there was an ongoing dispute with DOGE about who the leadership of the USIP was — “something that, in my understanding, was going to be litigated,” he said. He disputed the notion that DOGE had the authority to enter the building.
This story, based on accounts from individuals who were on the scene as Jackson attempted to gain access to the organization he’d been put in charge of, shows how federally-funded bureaucrats worked to sabotage operations to stop the Trump administration from taking control.
Moose, who allegedly “barricaded” himself in his office until police arrived, has told the media that members of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) broke into the office without warning. But a review of events and internal emails show not only that USIP leadership blocked Moose’s replacement from entering the building, but that it was preparing to resist changes for weeks ahead of their arrival.
Elon Musk, the world’s most successful businessman and President Donald Trump’s top White House adviser, said this week that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has uncovered shocking cases of fraud within the federal government.
Musk made the remarks during a Monday meeting with the president and his cabinet secretaries.
“One case of fraud was with the Small Business Administration, where they were handing out loans—$330 million worth of loans—to people under the age of 11,” Musk said. “I think the youngest, Kelly, was a 9-month-old who got a $100,000 loan.”
“That’s a very precocious baby we’re talking about here,” Musk quipped.
SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler followed up Musk’s remarks by saying, “We’re tackling the fraud, waste, and abuse at the agency.”
“We’ve seen, you know, hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud go unprosecuted, so we’re taking that on,” she said. “We have a zero-tolerance policy for fraud, and we continue to crack down on it and make sure people are held accountable.”
Trump said that they have found “far too much” fraud, waste, and abuse in the government over the last couple of months.
“It’s pure fraud,” he said. “We like to use the words ‘waste’ and ‘abuse’ because they sort of sound good, but many of these things are pure fraud.”
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) said this week that the state was returning nearly $900 million to the federal government, something it tried to do repeatedly during the Biden administration.
“For years, Florida has been trying to return federal funds to the federal government due to the ideological strings attached by the Biden Administration—but they couldn’t even figure out how to accept it,” DeSantis said in a post on X.
The governor said that he met with Elon Musk on Friday and the rest of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) team and was able to return the money.
“We got this done in the same day,” DeSantis said. “Other states should follow Florida in supporting DOGE’s efforts!”
The governor posted the letter that he sent to the U.S. Treasury Department alerting them that the state was formally returning $878,112,000.00 in taxpayer dollars to the federal government “as part of DOGE’s efforts.”
The Department of Housing and Urban Development announced on Wednesday that non-permanent residents will no longer be eligible for Federal Housing Administration (FHA) mortgages, National Review has learned, part of a broader effort by the administration to ensure that American citizens are prioritized under taxpayer-funded housing programs following massive flow of illegal immigration under former President Joe Biden.
FHA loans offer government-insured mortgages to ensure that lower-income individuals have access to home ownership. While illegal immigrants are technically ineligible to obtain FHA-backed home loans under U.S. law, HUD’s announcement will strengthen enforcement mechanisms to ensure that illegal immigrants are not abusing the program in the future. It is unclear how many illegal immigrants have obtained FHA-backed loans.
“FHA does not retain citizenship or residency data from the loan application and therefore does not maintain information on the number of non-permanent residents who have received FHA-insured loans under past policies,” General Deputy Assistant Secretary for Housing Jeffrey D. Little wrote in a March 26 mortgagee letter shared exclusively with National Review. “This update ensures that FHA’s mortgage insurance programs are administered in accordance with Administration priorities while fulfilling its mission of providing access to homeownership.”
The new policy will also prohibit government-backed mortgages for non-permanent residents moving forward. “Currently, non-permanent residents are subject to immigration laws that can affect their ability to remain legally in the country,” Little wrote in the March 26 memo. “This uncertainty poses a challenge for FHA as the ability to fulfill long-term financial obligations depends on stable residency and employment.”
HUD’s revised residency requirements for FHA-backed loans, which take effect on May 25, will apply to Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients as well as individuals who are pending asylum or pending refugee status, according to HUD, since there is no guarantee that their residency status will be renewed under the current administration.
The new policy eliminates the “non-permanent resident” category entirely from the FHA’s Single Family Title I and Title II programs, and reverses a Biden-era policy which allows FHA loans for DACA recipients who provide a valid Social Security Number and work eligibility status.
I wonder if these programs were abused for helping illegal aliens buy homes in Colony Ridge.
Others named in the list are retired Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, former White House Russia expert Fiona Hill, former U.S. ambassador to the Czech Republic Norman Eisen, former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann, and lawyer Mark Zaid.”
Can anyone really say America is less safe because the people on that list no longer have access to classified information?
What the support for Mahmoud Khalil, Hasan Piker and Rasha Alawieh really shows.
A few days after the anniversary of Oct 7, the New York Times reported that Columbia University Apartheid Divest officially endorsed terrorism against Jews and withdrew an apology by one of its members for threatening to kill Jews.
Over the past weeks, the paper and the entire Democratic Party, including 103 members of Congress, the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, the Jewish Democratic Council of America led by Kamala’s former foreign policy advisor, went all in on fighting for Mahmoud Khalil, a leader in CUAD who had defended terrorism, from being deported.
The signatories to a letter standing up for a Syrian national who had taken part in a pro-terrorist group’s harassment of Jewish students and faculty included half of House Democrats, not only extremists like AOC and Rep. Ilhan Omar, but Rep. Jamie Raskin, the ranking House Judiciary Democrat, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, along with multiple House Democrats of Jewish ancestry and those who represent large Jewish districts including Rep. Jerrold Nadler in New York, as well as Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove and Rep. Laura Friedman who holds down Sen. Adam Schiff’s old seat, in the LA area. The same Democrat politicians who had remained silent when Jewish students and faculty were being terrorized on campuses in their areas now rushed to the barricades for a member of a group that had openly celebrated the murder of Jews.
Columbia University Apartheid Divest is a front group for the college’s suspended Students for Justice in Palestine chapter which reacted to the first anniversary of Oct 7 by promoting a statement from a Maoist publication, “October 7th was Not ‘Barbaric’ or ‘Unfortunate’—It was Strategic and Anti-imperialist” and hailed the “moral, military, and political victory of the Operation”. This is what the Democrats who condemn Trump’s proposed deportation of a CUAD leader as “authoritarian” now support. Not just terrorism: but the mass murder of Jews.
Now, Democrats rallied once more in support of Rasha Alawieh, a Lebanese Hezbollah supporter, traveling to America on a visa who was refused entry into the United States.
According to Customs and Border Protection, Alawieh (pictured above) had deleted Hezbollah materials on her phone, attended the funeral of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, and claimed that she followed Nasrallah’s teachings “from a religious perspective.”
Hezbollah is not only responsible for the murder of Jews, but the barracks bombing in Beirut which killed 220 Marines, the kidnapping and brutal torture of Colonel William R. Higgins, who was castrated and skinned before his body was dumped near a mosque, and the vicious killing of Robert Stethem, a Navy diver, during an airline hijacking when, as a stewardess described, “They were jumping in the air and landing full force on his body. He must have had all his ribs broken… they put the mike up to his face so his screams could be heard by the outside world.”
“A visa is a privilege not a right—glorifying and supporting terrorists who kill Americans is grounds for visa issuance to be denied. This is commonsense security,” the Department of Homeland Security warned. Democrats fundamentally disagree with that position.
Judge Leo Sorokin, a Clinton appointee, barred the Hezbollah supporter from being deported, and then demanded to know why she had not been allowed into the country. Instead of reporting that Rasha Alawieh had visited a terrorist group’s event responsible for the murder of hundreds of Americans, the media claimed she had been visiting her family in her country.
Rep. Gabe Amo, along with other Dems, have stated that they intend to continue fighting for her
Brown University, which employed Alawieh and is under investigation for antisemitism, responded by urging foreign employees like her not to travel abroad because of “travel bans, visa procedures and processing, re-entry requirements” they might conceivably run afoul of if they support terrorists and the mass murder of Americans and Jews.
In the New Yorker, Andrew Marantz hyped Hasan Piker, a Muslim influencer on the video game streaming platform Twitch, as the best hope for the Democrats winning over “bros” and “young men” .Somewhere in the middle of the article, after mentioning his dog’s name and his support for ‘non-binary’ people, gets around to briefly mentioning his “soft-pedalling the brutality of Hamas, or the Houthis, or the Chinese Communist Party” and being named “Antisemite of the Year” as a minor detail before pivoting to a discussion about a possible Hasan reality show.
And to Democrats today, such things are minor details, less important than anything else.
Piker, has said, “it doesn’t matter if rapes f***ing happened on Oct. 7, like that doesn’t change the dynamic for me even this much” while holding up his fingers slightly apart. “The Palestinian resistance is not perfect.” And he’s been featured on CNN, invited to the DNC, and Democrats, from Rep. Ro Khanna to AOC to Sen. Ed Markey appeared on his podcast. Buttigieg has been trying to get on. Expect most other Democrats aspiring to run in 2028 to do likewise.
This week, the Texas Legislature took steps to strip power from the Texas Lottery Commission, possibly setting the agency up for abolition, and Las Vegas Sands’ casino plans suffered a setback in Irving at the hands of outraged citizens.
On Monday, State Sen. Mayes Middleton (R-Galveston) laid out Senate Bill 1721 in the State Affairs Committee. It would transfer the administration of bingo games in Texas from the Lottery Commission to the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation.
Snip.
When introducing his measure to ban lottery couriers operating in Texas, State Sen. Bob Hall (R-Edgewood) noted that on a hierarchy of administration complexity, bingo and lottery are at the bottom of the totem pole.
During a September 2024 Sunset Commission hearing, State Sen. Judith Zaffirini (D-Laredo) noted that revenues to the state before and after the lottery was created remained flat. The state is not likely to lose money if the lottery goes away.
At two separate hearings this week in Irving, citizens showed up in force to oppose a planning variance to build a casino. Ultimately, Sands asked the city council to pull the language allowing the construction of a casino from the development request.
Sands currently operates no casinos in America and derives most of its revenue from China.
The mess at the Lottery Commission probably deserves a separate post…
In his lengthy announcement post on social media, McGregor voiced his opposition to the European Union (EU) Migration Pact, which the bloc has mandated that Ireland must ratify by June 12th, 2026. The pact would relax Ireland’s border security and make it easier for illegal aliens to claim asylum.
“Between now and 12 June 2026, several pieces of legislation have to be passed by both Houses of the Oireachtas and then signed by the President,” McGregor explained. “The next presidential election must take place by 11 [November] 2025.”
“Who else will stand up to Government and oppose this bill? Any other Presidential candidate they attempt to put forward will be of no resistance to them. I will!” McGregor declared.
He also said that, as president, he would pursue a nationwide referendum on the Migration Pact, allowing the people of Ireland to decide for themselves whether or not the country should be forced to abide by the deal.
In celebrating the life of Tony Dolan, President Reagan’s chief speechwriter, the most remarkable fact is that he was executing a strategy he conceived to defeat the Soviet Union.
In numerous conversations in the speechwriting office—long before any foreign policy experts dared to predict the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Warsaw Pact, and the Soviet Union itself, Tony said that he knew how to defeat the Soviets.
As a young journalist in his hometown of Stamford, Connecticut, he had exposed organized crime that, he said, had entirely corrupted the city. Tony was relentless, ultimately breaking the mob’s power and becoming one of the youngest journalists to win the Pulitzer Prize. He said that the same method would bring down the Soviets, an entirely corrupt system, another form of organized crime. Tell the truth about them; expose them as evil; let everyone—especially those in power—hear them described as what they are. It was his conviction that President Reagan, by speaking with moral clarity about the Soviets, could hasten their collapse.
In his essay How the United States Won the Cold War, Warren Norquist identifies the rhetorical moral battle, “demoralizing the Soviets and generating pressure for change,” as one of seven crucial components in the US victory over the USSR.
Tony later wrote in the Wall Street Journal that for criminal regimes, there is “one weapon they fear more than military or economic sanction: the publicly-spoken truth about their moral absurdity, their ontological weakness.”
Snip.
The Reagan administration, internally, was a battlefield of competing visions that came to a head over presidential speeches. Once the president said something, it became the official policy—which made speechwriting a critical front in these internal struggles. The battle cry of conservatives in the administration was, “Let Reagan be Reagan.” In that struggle, Tony was unwavering. He would not wobble when West Wing power players tried to intimidate him. He was himself an exceptionally skilled political infighter—usually scheming, always charming, and with a spine of coiled steel.
From the outset of Ronald Reagan’s presidency, Tony helped to chisel out the rhetorical space in which the speechwriters could give voice to President Reagan’s resolve that the outcome of the Cold War would be, “We win, they lose.”
And it was not only combative phrases. At times it was subversive speech, as in Reagan’s 1981 Univ. of Notre Dame speech drafted by Tony: “The West won’t contain communism; it will transcend communism. … it will dismiss it as some bizarre chapter in human history whose last pages are even now being written.”
Or his 1982 speech in London, the Westminster address, “… one of the simple but overwhelming facts of our time is this: of all the millions of refugees we’ve seen in the modern world, their flight is always away from, not toward, the Communist world. Today, on the NATO line, our military forces face east to prevent a possible invasion. On the other side of the line, the Soviet forces also face east—to prevent their people from leaving. … What I am describing now is a plan and a hope for the long term—the march of freedom and democracy, which will leave Marxism-Leninism on the ash heap of history as it has left other tyrannies which stifle the freedom and muzzle the self-expression of the people.”
California announces it will need another seven billion dollars in taxpayer money not to build a high speed rail. But I’m sure all the consultant graft will be channeled into the proper left-wing pockets… (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Canadian woman gets a referral from her doctor to get an MRI to see if she has a brain tumor. So now she has an appointment for one. In 2026.
Carole Stewart Keeton McClellan Rylander Strayhorn (to use all the names she was known under), former Democratic mayor of Austin, Republican Railroad Commissioner and Comptroller of Texas, has died. In a way her career was emblematic of a certain kind of moderate politician in Texas at the time, with a huge realignment from the Democratic to the Republican Party, a change that started with John Connally, picked up speed with Phil Gramm and Rick Perry, and continues into this day with Hispanic office holders still switching over. Speaking of Perry, she was one of two prominent female Republican moderate officeholders (Kay Baily Hutchinson being the other) who destroyed their careers trying to unseat Perry from the Governor’s Mansion.
Is Warner BrothersTime WarnerAOL-Time WarnerWarnerMedia Warner Bros. Discovery putting Loony Tunes for sale? What shall it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul?
Guy who did the Vegas Tesla bomby/turns out to be a dirty Commie.
Annals of criminal genius: 5-foot-2, 449-pound dumbass drives his 4-wheeler into an Tesla. “Demarqeyun Marquize Cox was arrested after one of his alleged attacks was recorded by the Tesla he purposely ran into, police in Texarkana, Texas announced.” And yes, there’s video:
While we were looking at the rebel advance on Homs, another rebel force seems to have boiled up to successfully invest Damascus from the south.
Syrian rebel groups reported gains in the country’s south on Saturday, capturing swaths of territory including Daraa, the city known as the birthplace of the country’s 2011 uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, and closing in on the capital, Damascus.
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the armed Islamist faction that made stunning gains in the north over the past week, said its forces had begun encircling Damascus after sweeping advances by other rebel groups to the south. The group said that its forces had also carried out an operation Saturday within Homs, a strategic choke point between rebel-controlled areas in the north and the capital.
As its grip on the south crumbled, the Syrian cabinet held an emergency meeting to address the attacks by “armed terrorist gangs” on “a number of cities and regions.” The Syrian military denied that it had withdrawn from areas of the Damascus countryside but said that its forces in the southwestern cities of Daraa and Sweida had “redeployed” to new positions after rebel fighters had “attacked the army’s checkpoints and military points.”
The Southern Operations Room, a newly announced rebel faction in the south, announced its control of the province of Daraa and vowed to “continue until the liberation of Damascus.” Videos posted online and verified by the Agence France-Presse news agency showed a statue of former president Hafez al-Assad being toppled in the city. The Syrian state news agency SANA said that “the sounds heard in some areas of the southern Damascus countryside are of long-range targeting and shooting at terrorist gatherings in Daraa.”
The faction also said Saturday it had taken control of Quneitra, near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights in southwestern Syria. The claim could not immediately be independently confirmed. The Southern Operations Room added that its forces were working to “complete the siege of the capital.”
Sweida, a city in southwestern Syria inhabited by members of the Druze religious minority, was under the control of Druze factions on Saturday morning after the army withdrew, said a 29-year-old local activist who spoke on the condition of anonymity for security reasons. The relationship of the southern rebels with HTS remains unclear, but their advance has activated and invigorated local opposition groups.
HTS said Saturday that its forces had captured the city of al-Sanamayn, north of Daraa, and were about 12 miles away from the “southern gate” of the Damascus. The group’s forces have also been closing in on Homs. The Syrian military said forces around Homs and rebel-held Hama have been “carrying out intensive artillery and missile fire on terrorist locations and supply lines, achieving direct hits.”
Here’s a snapshot of the overall military situation, with red for Assad-controlled territory and green for that of the rebels:
With rebels already in the south of the Damascus and another rebel group coming in from the west, the situation looks pretty dire for Assad.
Here’s a SkyNews video of rebels in the Damascus suburbs toppling a state of Bashar Assad’s father, Hafez Assad:
Notice that many participating in the toppling just seem to be ordinary Syrians, and not members of rebel groups.
It looks like Israel’s decapitation of Hezbollah weakened Bashar Assad even more than previously suspected, and Iran’s overreach in supporting so many regional jihadest groups at the same time has left them so dangerously overextended that they will not be able to save their most important regional ally from falling.
This is a fast-moving breaking story, but I’d say there’s a 90+% chance that Assad’s goose is cooked.
What a freaking epic (and tiring) week! I waited until Fox and Decision Desk had declared Trump the winner past 1 AM Wednesday morning, and then had to get up a few hours later to get ready to work. So we’ve got more election fallout, Israel bags more terrorist scumbags, Elon Musk and Ron Paul may team up to fight government waste, Texas continues to purge wokeness from public institutions, and a song mystery is solved.
Last time around, Trump squandered his momentum. He passed the tax bill that the establishment GOP wanted, after which they didn’t need anything from him and turned to obstructing him….
Like airplanes on a runway. Trump’s approach this time around should be what he should have done last time: Shock and awe. Shut down departments, fire bureaucrats, exercise emergency powers, all so fast that the establishment’s responses are saturated. Javier Millei’s whirlwind assault in Argentina should be the model, sometimes in specifics but also in general approach. Bureaucrats move slowly; Trump should move fast.
Elon Musk says he can cut $2 trillion easily; do it. Also, set bureaucrats competing with each other for what funds remain. Divide and conquer.
The FBI’s files on its policing of domestic dissent should be opened up, as should the details of the NSA’s illegal domestic spying. Trump should have outsiders investigate possible (likely) prosecutorial misconduct in the January 6 prosecutions – something judges have already raised – and fire those responsible, as well as subjecting them to what other legal consequences may apply. The lesson that the deep state can’t intervene in domestic politics needs to be driven home, and the only way to do that is to ruin a lot of lives on the part of people who deserve to have their lives ruined, from the top of the Justice Department and the intelligence agencies to the bottom. Likewise those involved in social media censorship programs, “Operation Chokepoint” style economic warfare, and the like. Abuse of government power against the citizenry should be treated as a criminal matter, because it is.
Trump should also announce that the federal government is waiving qualified immunity on the part of such officials.
There are lots more ideas – you can submit your own in the comments below, and the much-maligned Project 2025, though not actually a Trump initiative, contains some – and Bloomberg is already warning that if elected Trump will dismantle the White House’s gun control ministry. Oh no!
The specifics aren’t really the point here, though I should probably post another essay just about those. But the point here is rapid action across a wide variety of fronts. Trump should take advantage of the precedents that Biden has set for far-reaching executive action, though you can bet that when he does the press will pretend this is the first time anything like that has ever been done.
The story of how Harris pocketed record sums while failing to gain support from voters will be studied by campaigns for decades to come. Democrats who successfully pressured octogenarian President Joe Biden to pass the torch to the former California senator are now conducting an internal autopsy of the 2024 race, in which Trump raised and spent hundreds of millions of dollars less than Harris.
“A billion dollars paled in comparison to the increased prices Americans were seeing across the country,” Tom Fitton, president of the conservative group Judicial Watch and a longtime Trump ally, told the Washington Examiner. “Voters weren’t fooled.”
The Harris campaign and its affiliated committees dropped more than $654 million on advertising from July 22 to Election Day, whereas Trump spent $378 million, or 57% less, in the same category, according to data from AdImpact.
Future Forward, the $500 million “ad-testing factory” and super PAC that supported Harris, was a reliable clearinghouse for checks from wealthy Democrats such as Reid Hoffman, George Soros, Michael Bloomberg, and Dustin Moskovitz. And anonymous donations, or so-called “dark money,” also benefited Harris at a faster and more substantial clip than Trump thanks to lax federal laws that progressives often criticize but, nonetheless, exploited in 2024.
The Harris campaign declined to comment on its finances. A fuller portrait will be public after the election, as the Federal Election Commission mandates post-general election reports for candidates within 30 days.
In mid-October, the Harris campaign disclosed that it had spent over $880 million this election, almost $526 million greater than the roughly $354 million that the Trump campaign had disclosed spending, according to a Washington Examiner analysis of federal filings. Much of the Harris campaign’s spending was allocated for digital media advertising, polling, and travel from state to state, including to a private jet company called Advanced Aviation.
Payroll and the taxes that accompanied it accounted for $56.6 million of the Harris campaign’s spending. In comparison, the Trump campaign reported spending $9 million on payroll — employing hundreds fewer staff members.
There was also the army of political, digital, and media consultants who were paid over $12.8 million by the Harris campaign, filings show.
One vendor, Village Marketing Agency, received over $3.9 million and reportedly worked to recruit thousands of social media influencers to boost Harris online. Others that scored lucrative consulting gigs from the campaign included the likes of Precision Strategies, a Democratic-aligned marketing agency; Ethos Organizing, founded by former Ohio Democratic Party director Malik Hubbard; and the Biden-allied SKDK communications firm.
Snip.
“Event production” was also a staple spending area of the Harris campaign, which notably hosted a star-studded lineup of musicians from Lady Gaga to Katy Perry for an election eve rally.
The campaign paid more than $15 million, according to federal filings, to companies for such services.
There was $1 million for Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Productions on Oct. 15 in West Hollywood, California.
Winfrey, a top Harris ally, appeared at a town hall with the vice president in September and was at her final rally in Philadelphia before Election Day.
Viva Creative, a marketing agency that has touted its work with Oprah, comedian Trevor Noah, the Washington Nationals baseball team, and American Express, scooped up $1.8 million from the Harris campaign for event production from September to October. A company called Production Management One in Maryland received $1.7 million, with large payments also going to Vox Productions, Temple University, Wizard Studios North, the Park Hyatt Chicago, and other entities for event production, filings show.
Then there was Majic Productions, a Wisconsin-based company, which has worked the NBA playoffs, the Super Bowl, and at the Bellagio Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas. The Harris campaign paid that company $2.3 million.
A source familiar with the matter told the Washington Examiner that the Harris campaign spent six figures on building a set for Harris’s appearance on the popular Call Her Daddy podcast with host Alex Cooper. The interview came out in October and was reportedly filmed in a hotel room in Washington, D.C.
In the end, San Francisco mayor London Breed’s recent efforts to crack down on homelessness and crime weren’t enough to save her from the wrath of voters frustrated by years of disorder and talk of a “doom loop” in the famously progressive city.
After 14 rounds through the city’s ranked-choice voting process, Breed lost decisively to Daniel Lurie, a more moderate Democrat and a wealthy heir to the Levi Strauss fortune.
Lurie was ahead from the first round, and after 14 rounds led with 56.2 percent of the vote to Breed’s 43.8 percent, according to the San Francisco Department of Elections.
With San Francisco actually restoring sanity, pretty soon Austin will be the only crazy leftwing city left in America…
“UK Conservative Party elects ‘anti-woke’ Kemi Badenoch as new leader. The UK’s Conservatives on Saturday elected Kemi Badenoch as their new leader, replacing Rishi Sunak after the party’s poor performance in July’s general election. Badenoch, a staunch “anti-woke” advocate, faces the challenge of uniting a divided party while redefining its future.”
Israel seems to be on another winning streak. Israeli Commando Raid Captures Hezbollah Naval Commander….The terrorist, identified by Lebanese media as Imad Amhaz, chief of Hezbollah’s naval operations, was picked by Israeli commandos from the town of Batroun, some 100 miles into the terrorist-held hostile territory.”
Today, the Board of Regents of Texas A&M University System pushed back against “shared governance” with woke faculty members. They voted to end 52 low-performing programs, including an LGBTQ minor.
Over the course of many months, State Rep. Brian Harrison (R-Midlothian) repeatedly criticized DEI courses and the LGBTQ studies minor at Texas A&M. In September 2024, a university spokesperson confirmed that they would deactivate 38 certificates and 14 minors, including the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Studies minor.
On November 7, the Board of Regents unanimously approved the deactivation of these programs by voice vote.
The only question is why it took so long to fight back against the woke mind virus…
Want to be infuriated? “A federal disaster relief official ordered workers to bypass the homes of Donald Trump’s supporters as they surveyed damage caused by Hurricane Milton in Florida, according to internal correspondence obtained by The Daily Wire and confirmed by multiple federal employees.”
“The Grift Is Ending: ESG Fund Managers Being Told To “Keep Their Lawyers Very Close.”
Green New Boom: “Lithium-Ion Battery Recycle Plant Explodes in Missouri.”
RIPeanut. “Outrage Ensues After Beloved Rescue Squirrel Seized By NY, Euthanized.”
Speaking of sickening, you might want to skip to the next LinkSwarm entry if you don’t want to hear about horrific child abuse: “Animator Bolhem Bouchiba was sentenced to 25 years in prison for ordering the torture of children on live streams, paying parents to abuse their own kids.” Now he works for Disney.
Remember all that money to was supposed to flow to semiconductor companies that fabbed chips in America thanks to the CHIPS Act? Well Intel has seen exactly jack and squat from it. Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger: “As we said on our [earnings] call, we are disappointed by the time it is taking to get it done: it is well over two years since the CHIPS Act passed and over that period I have invested $30 billion in U.S. manufacturing and we have seen $0 from the CHIPS grants.” What are the odds that the money has actually been raked off into the usual Democratic pockets? (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
Followup: “For five years, Mickey Barreto lived in Room 2565 at the storied New Yorker Hotel without paying a dime. But the free ride ended when he was not only evicted, but also charged earlier this year with a criminal scheme to claim ownership of the Midtown Manhattan hotel. Now, two doctors and prosecutors have said that he is not mentally competent to stand trial, and a judge has given him seven days to find inpatient psychiatric care.” (Hat tip: Dwight.) (Previously.)
Kotaku lays off more writers, though ultra-woke leftist Alyssa Mercante evidently left on her own. Evidently they’re down to six fulltime staffers.
Everything you know is wrong. “A new peer-reviewed study led by Sydney-based researchers Stephen Woodcock and Jay Falleti has found that the time it would take for a typing monkey to replicate Shakespeare’s plays, sonnets, and poems would be longer than the lifespan of our universe.”
“Democrats Admit Trump Actually Won In 2020 And Is Now Unable To Serve Third Term.” “We probably should have been more up-front about the fact that we stole the election and Biden was never president, but oh well. Hindsight is 20-20. I guess Kamala wins by default now, right?”
Whatever the true reason behind the Biden Administration’s decision to import millions of illegal aliens into America, they seem deeply intent on carrying it out despite widespread opposition from American citizens, even working overtime on it, right to the bitter end.
The Biden-Harris administration has authorized massive overtime so Department of Homeland Security agents can grant temporary status to as many illegal immigrants as possible before a new president is inaugurated, a Homeland Security agent told The Daily Wire.
“Jason” — an alias given to the agent, who spoke to The Daily Wire on the condition of anonymity, said supervisors have told workers in recent weeks that they should aim to clear the backlog of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) applications within 120 days. Doing so would allow these illegal immigrants to live and work in the country, and shield them from deportation for two years. The department is offering 30 hours of overtime per pay period to expedite processing of the immigrants, who come from countries including Haiti, Venezuela, and Lebanon.
The Department of Homeland Security would not confirm or deny the allegation, or explain its motives. But the unprecedented number of TPS applicants — and the mandate to process them quickly — has put pressure on agents to approve applicants rather than investigate them further or deny them, Jason said.
“It’s much easier to approve a case than to deny a case,” he told The Daily Wire. “Denying it comes with a lot of writing and approvals from supervisors.”
The Biden administration insists that those approved for TPS status have been vetted. But Jason said vetting is really just box checking — literally. Jason said he wakes up in the morning, shuffles into his living room, and begins clicking buttons to approve the migrants each day, sometimes working late into the night to accrue overtime hours.
“I just think the general public should know: I couldn’t tell you if the people we are approving are criminals or not, theres no way to know unless they admit to it,” he said. “The U.S. government isn’t calling up Haiti and saying is this person a criminal?”
Illegal immigrants who have been granted TPS are largely vetted by government agents who work from home, never talk to the applicants, and often simply check to see whether the applicant admitted to committing crimes. There is no opportunity to ask applicants follow-up questions, evaluate their mannerisms for suspicious activity, or hear a story first-hand to assess for credibility.
Snip.
According to DHS data covering the nine months between October 2023 and June 2024, 98% of processed applicants were approved, while only 2% were denied. Remaining pending were 344,000 cases, mostly from Venezuela.
TPS applicants must fill out Form I-821, which asks them if they have ever been arrested, and to provide their own court records showing the offense if so. It also has them check “yes” or “no” to 41 questions such as if they have ever committed “Any particularly serious crime committed either in our outside the United States”’; if they have ever “participated in the persecution of any person on account of race”; and if they are “now engaged in activities that could be reasonable grounds for concluding that you are a danger to the security of the United States.”
The form also asks if applicants are “now trafficking in any controlled substance,” whether they plan to “violate any law of the United States relating to espionage,” and if they have ever been involved in “killing any person.”
“I’ve never denied someone because they put yes on a criminal question,” Jason said. “They don’t do that.”
Bonus: “Last month, DHS said it plans to add some 11,000 illegal immigrants from Lebanon — the country from which Hezbollah has launched attacks on Israel — to the list.”
Did anyone ask the American people whether they wanted to import illegal aliens from Lebanon into their communities? (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
But it’s not just DHS that’s involved in importing illegal aliens into America, it’s also the State Department.
The Center for Immigration Studies recently hosted a panel discussion on components of border security that are often overlooked: those carried out by the State Department.
Philip Linderman, a retired State Department senior foreign service officer, explained that most people focus on the role of the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement when discussing border security yet overlook other border security components that require action from the State Department.
Linderman also explained that several offices under the State Department’s control are involved in developing and implementing immigration policy, including the Bureau of Consular Affairs and the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration.
He said that a new president must install a new secretary of the State Department that aligns with his goals.
Snip.
“It’s just astounding that the State Department administers these visa programs really without much accountability whatsoever for our quality control or analysis to see whether they’re doing a good job,” explained Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at CIS and a panelist in the discussion.
President Trump will have to make a lot of key personnel decisions correctly to restore border enforcement in his second term…
