OH NO, SOMETHING NEW TO “INFURIATE LIBERALS!” Gwen Stefani’s ‘Maga Barbie’ transformation has infuriated liberals.

Thirty years ago, an edgy new pop star looked set to take over the world. With her peroxide blonde hair, camo trousers and rebellious spirit, No Doubt frontwoman Gwen Stefani seemed like a breath of cigarette-smoke-tinged air: cooler and sexier than Britney Spears, but not quite as chaotic as Courtney Love; an artist who appealed to both rock and pop fans.

No Doubt’s third album, Tragic Kingdom (1995), sold more than 16 million copies, earned the band two Grammy nominations (for best new artist and best rock album) and spawned the colossal hit single Don’t Speak. Stefani’s decision to go solo in 2004 catapulted her to the A-list, with number one singles, sold-out tours and countless magazine front covers. She was the US’s favourite cool girl, whose empowering songs formed the soundtrack of millennial adolescence. Until she wasn’t. Two decades later, Stefani has found herself with a very different identifier: enemy of liberals everywhere.

Leftists with far too much time on their hands spent Trump’s first term trying to decode hidden Nazi symbolism out of everything Taylor Swift did, until moving on to Sydney Sweeney last year, and now I guess it’s Stefani’s time in the barrel. But as the London Telegraph concludes, “One imagines Stefani isn’t too bothered by the drama. She has a net worth of $160m (£120m), a secure marriage and three healthy children. In May, No Doubt will begin their summer-long residency at the Sphere in Las Vegas, following in the footsteps of U2, the Eagles and the Backstreet Boys, after netting $10m to reunite at Coachella in 2024.”

WELCOME TO THE PARTY, PAL! NY Times Discovers Woodrow Wilson’s Racism to Smear Trump; Defended Him in 2010.

New talking points ahoy! The liberal New York Times now condemns former Democratic and “progressive” President Woodrow Wilson, founding father of the modern-day liberal state, for his deep racism and segregationist policies he pushed as president of Princeton University and president of the United States from 1913-1921.

But that permission applies only to woke Democrats and reporters using Wilson to smear President Trump — no credit is given to conservatives for initially pushing the anti-Wilson argument into the mainstream. In fact, the paper mocked conservatives for speaking that truth, including in an infamous New York Times symposium reacting to Jonah Goldberg’s 2008 book Liberal Fascism and his thoroughly researched condemnation of the racist Wilson.

White House correspondent Erica Green unloaded her hysterical 1,800-word hit job in Thursday’s paper under the headline “Trump Says He Is the ‘Least Racist’ President. But His Term Echoes a Grim Past.”

As Byron York wrote on September 24th of 2008, “Today is a red-letter day for the New York Times. For the first time, the paper has reported in its news section that the Rev. Jeremiah Wright once uttered the phrase ‘God damn America.’”

It took the Times a year to “break” the story of Andrew Cuomo hiding the Covid death toll in nursing homes after the Daily Caller initially reported it in May of 2020, and Scott Bessent rhetorically asked Timesman Andrew Sorkin in December, “You had what was one of the greatest scandals of all time… Joe Biden’s diminished capacity and the cover-up. Where was the New York Times?” 

But of course, we know the answer to that:

No word yet if David Frum will re-reversing his opinion on Wilson now that the 28th president been finally rendered doubleplus ungood by the Gray Lady: “Frum’s article, ‘Uncancel Woodrow Wilson,’ appears in the March 2024 issue of the Atlantic. How perverse a choice is it to write on this now?” Particularly so when Frum himself correctly noted in 2013 that “Wilson was also the most disdainful racist to hold the presidency since Andrew Johnson in the 1860s.”

Flashback: The Hater’s Guide to Woodrow Wilson. “I come now not to explain Wilson, but to hate him. A national consensus on hating Wilson is long overdue. It is the patriotic duty of every decent American. While conservatives have particular reasons to detest Wilson, and all his works, and all his empty promises, there is more than enough in his record for moderates, liberals, progressives, libertarians, and socialists to join us in this great and unifying cause.”

TWENTY MINUTES INTO THE FUTURE: Politico founder plots new Washington newspaper war.

One of Washington, DC’s biggest media investors plans to revive one of the US capital’s great historic rivalries with a direct attack on the limping Washington Post.

Robert Allbritton, who founded Politico and NOTUS and whose father owned the Post rival Washington Star, has discussed taking advantage of the Post’s large-scale layoffs and damaged brand by significantly expanding NOTUS, a public-spirited and education-oriented source of government coverage, into a full-scale news operation, potentially even under a different name, three people with direct knowledge of the conversations said.

NOTUS Media in February filed an application to trademark a new name — The Washington Sun — according to filings.

The Politico founder and NOTUS editor-in-chief Tim Grieve have aggressively privately pursued many of the top remaining names at the Post, hoping to peel off a significant number of top journalists to help the publication become an immediate player in DC.

Allbritton and Grieve have approached senior congressional correspondent Paul Kane, White House bureau chief Matt Viser, chief economics correspondent Jeff Stein, tech reporter Drew Harwell, White House reporter Dan Diamond, and columnist Carolyn Hax, among others.

The publication could replicate some of the success of Politico by launching an events and pricey subscription business. The DC billionaire — his family owned and sold Riggs Bank and WJLA, as well as selling Politico for about $1 billion to Axel Springer in 2021 — has told people that he is willing to invest a significant amount of money on the venture for years in order to stand up the publication.

As for Germany’s Axel Springer, besides owning America’s left-leaning Politico and Business Insider, they’ve just acquired the nominally center-right London Telegraph: Axel Springer Will Buy The Publisher Of UK’s Daily Telegraph For $766 Million.

ROGER KIMBALL: Unconditional Surrender: When Wars Are Fought to Win.

“There are decades where nothing happens,” Vladimir Lenin is supposed to have said (but didn’t), “and there are weeks where decades happen.” Welcome to the beginning of March, Anno Domini 2026.

One week ago, on February 28, the United States and Israel commenced an attack on Iran. At first, it seemed to be merely a ramped-up continuation of Operation Midnight Hammer, the raid conducted last June when the United States, following up on Israel’s preliminary attacks, destroyed (“completely and totally obliterated”) three key nuclear sites at Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan. It was an extraordinary operation, in which four B-2 bombers, having flown for 30 hours from the United States, mounted an astonishing precision strike with fourteen 30,000-pound bunker-buster bombs, together with submarine-fired Tomahawk cruise missiles.

But Midnight Hammer was merely a preliminary salvo compared to Epic Fury, the pulverizing assault that the United States and Israel (under the name “Roaring Lion”) launched last Saturday. The world has not seen anything like this since 1945, when the United States and its allies crushed Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. Having learned from the aftermath of the Great War that armistice is often but another name for false victory, President Trump adopted as his motto the phrase that definitively ended World War II: “unconditional surrender.”

In the meantime though: Iran Has a New Supreme Leader, but They Won’t Tell Us Who It Is.

Unexpectedly:

BREAKING: Iran Announces Their New Supreme Leader pic.twitter.com/2d4vrCjsMc

— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) March 5, 2026

R.I.P. THE MODERATE DEMOCRAT:

Here we go again. Minnesota’s elected officials have proven that the extreme progressives are in charge in the North Star State, beholden to the radical progressive activists who crawl out of every nook and cranny of the Twin Cities’s prestigious, white, liberal suburbs and exurbs.

If you thought this was still the land of the milquetoast, “Minnesota Nice,” I have a bridge in Brooklyn I’d like to sell you.

In the aftermath of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operation that began last summer and ramped up as the White House began cracking down on widespread fraud, Minnesota has been ground zero for purity tests of the far-Left regime. Now, there’s a horse race for the Democrat Farmer Labor candidate for Minnesota’s Senate seat, after current Senator Tina Smith announced her retirement at the end of this term.

The race to the Left — or the bottom, depending on which way the political winds are blowing — is between current Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan and Rep. Angie Craig. Both women flash their “girl power” bone fides at every chance, except when they’re appealing to the trans-affirmative activists who claim sex is a social construct, or to the abortion rights radicals who endanger women’s health and applaud the death of baby girls up to the moment of birth.

The latest show of extreme views comes from Craig, who, in a commentary in The Minnesota Star Tribune, writes of her “regret” in voting for the Laken Riley Act, the first bill that President Donald Trump signed into law in his second term.

Related:

JULIE BURCHILL: Mary Beard: a feminist for Islam?

Two-thousand, nine-hundred and seventy-seven people were murdered on 9/11, including more than 400 first responders (among them 343 firefighters and paramedics) and hundreds of plane passengers. Many more have since died due to illnesses linked to toxic exposure at the site of the Twin Towers. They came from 77 different countries – truly ‘diverse’, as opposed to their 19 killers. Colm Tóibín wrote an excellent letter to the LRB about Beard’s essay:

‘Over the past 25 years in Ireland I have made a point of asking anyone who was at school with members of the IRA, the INLA, the UDA and the UVF what these people were like at the age of 10. All have agreed that each child displayed a nasty early sign of terrorism long before he had a “cause”. Had a cause not come their way, these people would have beaten their dogs or their wives and children, attacked one another at hurling matches or taken out their resentment on a long back garden. Would Mary Beard refer to these actions as “extraordinary acts of bravery”?’

As if it couldn’t get worse, AI tells me that Beard is ‘celebrated for her sharp insights, especially on Roman life, women in history and bringing classical studies into mainstream culture, making her a “national treasure”’. Of course she is. The watchwords of NT-ism are ‘diversity’ and ‘inclusivity’ – but the approved views on everything from breakfast to Brexit, penises on women to Palestine, must be held. NTs are the cuddly face of the enemy within, part of the never-ending war against anyone who dares think differently from their betters and wetters. Many are little more than peppy propagandists, there to make us swallow through the medium of sport and entertainment what we have already choked on and vomited up when it was fed to us straight. The UK National Treasure gang can easily embrace a woman who, if she saw her best female friend being ‘done’ by a member of Hamas at one end and a member of Hezbollah at the other, would probably ask the poor woman what she said to provoke them.

As Mark Steyn wrote 20 years ago, “our tolerance of our own tolerance is making us intolerant of other people’s intolerance, which is intolerable. And, unlikely as it sounds, this has now become the highest, most rarefied form of multiculturalism. So you’re nice to gays and the Inuit? Big deal. Anyone can be tolerant of fellows like that, but tolerance of intolerance gives an even more intense frisson of pleasure to the multiculti masochists.”

ILYA SHAPIRO: Two Decades in the Swamp.

On Election Night, you could barely think over the sound of people rushing to update their résumés. Uber drivers found themselves doing more therapy than driving. George Washington University administrators scrambled to set up “support rooms” with puppies and crayons. Democrats resumed questioning the legitimacy of presidential elections.

Trump entered office promising to “drain the swamp,” which, in practice, meant hiring half of it, firing a quarter, and leaving the rest to leak confidential information to cable news. He governed like someone live-tweeting a traffic accident he was also causing. Every 3 am post was an experiment to see how much chaos the bond market could absorb before breakfast.

Then came the Russia investigation—America’s performance-art piece about alleged collusion with ex-Commies. Half the city believed that the Kremlin had written Trump’s speeches; the other half believed that the deep state had orchestrated the whole thing to relive Watergate and get book deals. The only clear winners were white-shoe law firms that now had “Special Counsel” on speed dial.

The opposition rebranded itself as the “Resistance,” though having the media, universities, Hollywood, Silicon Valley, and the federal bureaucracy on its side didn’t make much of a case for heroism. Women’s marches filled the city with pink hats, while cable news operated on the premise that every Trump tweet was a constitutional crisis—even as the Mueller Report landed like overcooked lasagna at Cafe Milano.

The Right discovered it liked having a brawler in the White House. Years of media bias, bureaucratic overreach, and cultural condescension had primed GOP voters for someone who would punch back. Trump supporters flocked to the Trump International Hotel, which served as a kind of embassy for Red America.

In 2018, Trump seated a Supreme Court justice, Brett Kavanaugh, after confirmation hearings that began like a poorly conceived political drama and ended with protesters in Handmaid’s Tale costumes. He would appoint two more justices who’d also read The Federalist Papers. Combined with tax reform, deregulation, and a deep bench of originalist judges, the Court picks were his most durable achievements. My book on the politics of judicial nominations, Supreme Disorder, came out four days after Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died. The timing was morbidly auspicious, but my publisher claims he has an alibi.

At home, our first child arrived just in time for that crazy 2016 election. Our second commemorated the 2018 midterms. Nothing sharpens your view of public policy like strapping toddlers into car seats as you listen to a podcast about the Administrative Procedure Act. And the boys’ earliest memories of civic life involve adults shouting about collusion, impeachment—something about a phone call to the Ukrainian president and a possible Netflix pitch—and whether the president had been too harsh to a CNN correspondent.

Then came 2020.

Read the whole thing.

EXPLOSIONS, SMOKE SEEN OVER TEHRAN HOURS AFTER TRUMP WARNS IRAN WILL BE HIT ‘VERY HARD.’

AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD:

Megyn Kelly Goes Back To Normal After Eating A Snickers https://t.co/3Je4ij9sSJ pic.twitter.com/ivNYSMTA64

— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) March 6, 2026

I wish it were that easy:

Ben Shapiro is absolutely SAVAGING Grandma Groyper Megyn Kelly, a shape shifting chameleon whose political views align with whatever brings her the most views.

She is a fraud with no real views or convictions apart from what she think gives her engagement.

“She was pro-trans… pic.twitter.com/h8Uyq1e6mc

— Ian Miles Cheong (@ianmiles) March 6, 2026

Further thoughts from Ace: Megyn Kelly, The Chameleon Princess of Pop Politics.

TRUMP TO RUPTURING IRAN: Here It Comes!

Pezeshkian claimed that the “Guardian Council,” a triumvirate which includes the president and ostensibly holds power until a new Supreme Leader is chosen, had told the IRGC to stop firing at other countries unless they attacked first. The IRGC then completely ignored Pezeshkian’s orders:

Huge explosions were heard across Iran as Israel carried out a “broad-scale wave of strikes” using 80 fighter jets targeting Tehran and Isfahan, where key nuclear facilities are located, as the war entered its eighth day. On the other hand, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain and the UAE saw fresh drone and missile attacks on Saturday, even as Iran’s president apologised to the Gulf nations for the strikes.

Translation: The Islamic Republic has ceased to be. Iran is now a flat-out military dictatorship. The IRGC no longer takes orders from the theocratic government that it supposedly serves. They have used this crisis to seize power, and they will not hand it back. Pezeshkian is now an irrelevant figure, as is Larijani and anyone else outside the armed services of Iran.

The death of the Ayatollah(s) is making the Economist, and other publications on the left quite sad:

Notice the lack of quotes around “the Great Satan,” in case you were wondering whose side The Economist is on here. https://t.co/ko2LN8U6pl

— Amy Curtis (@RantyAmyCurtis) March 7, 2026

BRYAN CALLEN: Hollywood Did Stunning 180 on Pronouns. Veteran comic, Hangover alum shares fallout from Trump support, Biden critique.

Later, Callen shared why the cultural winds are shifting in Tinsel Town. Turns out a movie or TV show set is no place for a prima donna or someone who demands special treatment – think unconventional pronouns.

“Anybody who creates any of that kind of energy, it becomes problematic,” Callen explained. “When Hollywood hired all those DEI officers, movies started losing money.”

And, as a result, many were “quietly fired,” he said. That was then, albeit a few short years ago. The professional climate today is different, he explained.

“Now, the minute you apply for a job in Hollywood … if you wanna work on the set, if you put your pronouns down [on your resume], you ain’t getting the job. Nobody wants to deal with that maintenance,” he said. “I’ve been in those rooms [where decisions are made]. ‘Nope, I don’t wanna do any of that pronoun stuff.’”

“You can’t afford to have somebody sue or make a scene,” he added. “You’re dealing with too much money. You got 23 days to shoot this thing … nobody wants that [drama].”

But it sounds like plenty of pronoun people are still writing the material that’s filmed on those sets, according to veteran producer Jim Agnew, who may have just, as Roger Simon would say, blacklisted himself: “I’ve been in the WJ like 15 years. And let’s just say, because I have nothing in common with 99% of the people in the Writers Guild, let’s just say that in the last five or six years it looks like Starfleet Academy in real life. No, I’m not kidding. I’m not kidding. I mean, listen, I don’t think they can throw me out for making fun of other members and I’m too old to be hired on a TV show from some young show-writer. So, yeah, it looks like, you know, blue hair, lots of covid masks, beta males. Yeah. Pronouns everywhere. It’s literally is reflective of like 2,000 people who look like they’re in Starfleet Academy.”

TUCKER CARLSON’S ABSURD CHABAD CONSPIRACY:

When you tell your millions of followers that a shadowy Jewish organization is secretly orchestrating a villainous plot to drag the United States into war and overthrow a historic Muslim religious site, you are not merely speculating. You are not merely “asking questions.” You are placing a target on the backs of ordinary people whose only crime is hosting Shabbat dinners, visiting the sick, or making sure a stranded traveler can find a place to pray.

Chabad isn’t only on college campuses or in Jewish population centers like New York or California. It also operates in some of the most remote places on earth: Tanzania, Ghana, Cambodia, Thailand, Brazil, China. Anywhere they could possibly support Jewish life, they have a presence.

In many cases, a Chabad House is the only Jewish institution in an entire region, serving tourists, students, or travelers. In other words: It is a safe haven.

“Can you imagine being a tiny minority and being able to travel anywhere in the world knowing you can find a Shabbat meal or a place to pray? ” wrote Daniella Greenbaum Davis on X. “That’s Chabad.”

And indeed, that’s exactly how most Jews experience it. But for the Chabad families themselves, the flip side is stark. Their mandate, after all, is to design their homes to be accessible and welcoming in some of the most isolated—and dangerous—places on Earth.

Why, it’s as if: Tucker Has Become Tehran’s Most Effective English-Language Propagandist.

THIS IS CNN:

Amazing. They can’t get the story they wanted, but this is close enough for CNN. pic.twitter.com/xBo8yFKyB4

— David Reaboi, Late Republic Nonsense (@davereaboi) March 7, 2026

Earlier: “CNN is operating in Iran only with government permission.”

THE CORBYNIZATION OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY CONTINUES APACE: Zohran Mamdani’s wife liked social media posts celebrating Oct. 7 attacks.

UPDATE: “The ethno narcissistic tableau she presents and her centering of herself in her art are markers of the terminal cultural exhaustion that afflicts these people rather than any authentic ideological zeal (which would be much more interesting). Invoking the latter is actually a form of undue flattery and implies there’s more there than there actually is.”

Mamdani’s wife is Texas born, had two professional parents, and got an MFA from SVA.

No need to exoticize her.

She’s just another placeless downwardly mobile creative whose life in NYC was subsidized by her parents well into adulthood.

The ethno narcissistic tableau she… https://t.co/r4sJNN6aI0

— Coddled Affluent Professional (@feelsdesperate) March 7, 2026

Meanwhile, Ben “Hamas” Rhodes, who famously said, “The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old, and…They literally know nothing,” is angry that CBS is doing journalism:

Little known fact: No news network has ever covered more than one story at a time https://t.co/HZc4zG6Wob

— George MF Washington (@GMFWashington) March 7, 2026

No wonder Rhodes is so furious about this story being covered:

Guys that post was just the tip of the iceberg,

I found 70+ radical anti-Israel posts liked by Rama Duwaji, wife of Zohran Mamdani. One calls October 7 a "mass rape hoax." https://t.co/ogwZfweh4v

— Olivia Reingold (@Olivia_Reingold) March 7, 2026

THE POWER LINE WEEK IN PICTURES: Ayatollahed You So Edition.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Will the 2026 midterms be a ‘blue wave?’ Here’s what to watch as polling ramps up.

One of the safe wagers about this year’s midterm elections is that polling of competitive congressional races will be frequent and abundant — and maybe even misleading. After all, the “red wave” of sweeping Republican victories anticipated four years ago turned out to be a very modest “red trickle.”

While Democrats are favored to win control of the House of Representatives this year, it may be months before clarity emerges about how November’s congressional elections will turn out. Even so, it is none too early to be aware of some realities about election surveys this year, especially as polling already has been conspicuous in unfolding U.S. Senate races in Maine, Michigan, New Hampshire and Georgia.

Pollsters in 2026 are coming off back-to-back disappointments. In 2024, polls overall understated Republican Donald Trump’s support for the third time in as many presidential elections, despite modifications to survey techniques that sought to avoid such an outcome. In 2025, polls collectively underestimated support for victorious Democrats in gubernatorial campaigns in New Jersey and Virginia — the year’s two most prominent statewide races.

Of course, past results are no sure indicator of future polling performance, as the recent experience of AtlasIntel makes clear.

Read the whole thing.

THE CORBYNIZATION OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY CONTINUES APACE: JFK’s Grandson Jack Schlossberg’s Shocking ‘Jew Blood’ MAHA Recipe Post Exposes a Very Dark Side (Watch).

Jack Schlossberg is a candidate for New York’s 12th Congressional district. More importantly, he is JFK’s grandson and the son of Caroline Kennedy. He is clearly political royalty. He also has some very severe problems. A recent social media post exhibits that all too well. He calls this concoction the ‘MAHA energy ball’.

This is not safe for work or little ears.

* * * * * * * * *

Disgusting 👇 What a sic person..
JFK must be rolling in his grave.. https://t.co/HehATLBEUe

— Marianne Fioravanti (@MarianneFiorav1) March 6, 2026

JFK might be rolling in his grave, but probably not his dad: Joseph Kennedy and the Jews.

GEORGE GALLOWAY — THAT’S A NAME I’VE NOT HEARD FOR A LONG TIME. A LONG TIME:

"What is up" is that you guys publicize every Western mistake, while simply ignoring things like on-video Hamas rapes and/or murders of 1200 people (look up "Thai gardener beheaded alive") and Iran illegally sending suicide drones to attack 19 countries.

That's what's up. You… https://t.co/CqwI4minjP

— Wilfred Reilly (@wil_da_beast630) March 7, 2026

BIDEN BOOKENDS: Biden Tells Majority Black Crowd At Rev. Jesse Jackson’s Funeral ‘I’m Smarter Than You.’

Reverend Jesse Jackson’s funeral was held on Friday afternoon in Chicago.

Several well-known figures attended, including Barack Obama, Joe and Jill Biden, and the Clintons.

Joe Biden not only attended but also gave a speech at the funeral.

However, as usual, Biden had a rough time behind the podium.

During one part of his speech, as he attempted to tell a joke, he claimed he was smarter than most of the people in attendance:

Watch Biden here:

🚨 JUST IN: Joe Biden tells predominantly black crowd at Jesse Jackson's funeral, "I'm a HELL of a lot smarter than most of you!"

🤯🤡🤡pic.twitter.com/semAhmMmsn

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) March 6, 2026

And thus Biden in his twilight years echoes the moment that helped derail his first presidential bid, in April of 1987: Joe Biden’s worst-ever campaign moment, revisited.

ED MORRISSEY: Dire Strait: Sure Looks Like China Is Writing Off the Ayatollahs.

[Foreign Affairs’ Yun] Sun writes, Beijing has belatedly realized how poorly Iran performs, both economically and in terms of real power projection. Only when the West appeases Iran does the regime appear strong. When the West confronts Iran, everything withers, including their will to fight. Sun writes that Trump isn’t the only one looking forward to a potential regime change:

Although Chinese state media have refrained from openly criticizing the regime, the Chinese policy community focused on the Middle East is clear-eyed about the bad decision-making, rampant corruption and poor governance in Tehran. Israel’s ability to infiltrate the Iranian security apparatus, which is what allowed it to effectively target Iranian military leaders and nuclear scientists during the 12-day war, suggests that many Iranian officials don’t trust their system and are willing to sell out their country. Chinese leaders are skeptical of the viability of an Iranian state that its own officials don’t have faith in.

China’s disillusionment with Iran’s leaders means that Beijing is not inherently opposed to regime change. Because its priority is to ensure that Iran remains a viable economic partner, it is regime agnostic. In fact, if the U.S. and Israeli attacks curtail Iran’s rogue military ambitions and the country repositions itself as an economic power in the Middle East, it could represent a future that China embraces.

China also has a meeting with Trump at the end of March. Xi wants to find a rapprochement with Trump on trade as well as global security concerns. Iran could have been leverage in those talks before the war broke out, but now it will be either a liability or potentially a deal-breaker.

Why, it’s as if: Trump’s ultimate target in this war is China. Geoffrey Cain of the Spectator notes that, “at the end of this month, Xi must sit across from Donald Trump, the man who greenlit the strike on the Ayatollah in Tehran and the seizure of Maduro in Caracas:”

Xi arrives boxed in on every front. He cannot defend Iran without alienating the Gulf states. He cannot abandon Iran without appearing weak to the remaining members of the coalition he spent a decade assembling. He needs a trade deal to stabilize China’s economy, which is slowing far faster than Beijing admits. Official figures claim 5 percent growth, but Rhodium Group, a widely cited independent research firm, puts the real number at closer to 2.5 to 3 percent. He needs Trump in a generous mood.

The deepest damage, though, is something Xi cannot afford to acknowledge: what losing Iran means for Taiwan.

Most analysts think about a Chinese invasion of Taiwan in military terms. Can Beijing’s forces actually land there and take the island? But invading Taiwan would also trigger western sanctions far worse than any-thing imposed on Russia. And after what happened to Khamenei, Beijing knows that escalation does not end with sanctions. To survive all that, China needs countries willing to sell it oil off the books, help it move money past western banks and provide political cover. Iran and Russia were supposed to be those countries.

China could still invade Taiwan, but not with any confidence that the CCP would survive the consequences. Some will argue that makes Xi more dangerous, that a leader who sees his options shrinking might act before they disappear. But everything he is doing points the other way. He is shoring up his economy, not preparing for war.

The summit will be conducted in the language of trade. Iran will hang over every session, but don’t expect that in the communiqué. Every government from Tokyo to Riyadh will read the subtext.

Xi will sit across from Trump and speak the language of a strong and ascendant China. The image is no longer the reality.

It doesn’t help Xi that the war in Iran isn’t serving as a convincing infomercial for the CCP’s weapons systems: China Sold Iran Fancy CM-302 Missiles—Turns Out They’re Temu Trash: 100% Failure Rate in Real War

What happens when you order your missiles off of Temu. https://t.co/loHw7wLSz2

— Marc J. Randazza 🇺🇸 🇮🇹 🇧🇷 (@marcorandazza) March 6, 2026

FASTER, PLEASE: The fall of the Islamic Republic is nigh.

In the eyes of Iranians, the Islamic Republic has long-since lost whatever virtue it might once have claimed to have. They have had to suffer basic shortages of electricity and water, while the regime pumps billions into promoting a genocidal war with Israel. And when they have tried to take back some measure of freedom – to dress how they please, to express a democratic view – they have been violently and lethally suppressed. All in the name of Islamic values.

This explains a telling paradox. The most ambitious theological experiment of the 20th century, this testament to Islamism, is now home to the most secular populace in the Middle East. In the heart of the Islamic Republic, un-belief is flourishing like nowhere else. So much so that in 2023, high-ranking Iranian cleric Mohammad Abolghassem Doulabi revealed that two-thirds of Iran’s mosques – 50,000 out of 75,000 – have been closed due to declining attendance.

Whatever happens after this awful war concludes, the Islamic Republic will fall. Not, as Islamists around the world will insist, because of Western force, be it economic or military. But because of this reactionary project’s own internal contradictions and pathologies. It talks of liberation, while demanding submission to ‘no other deity but Allah’. It commits a nation’s resources to fighting the evil of Westernisation and Zionism, while being unable to provide Iranians with even the most basic necessities of life. And in the name of revolutionary Islam, it murders its own people.

Like fascist Italy or Nazi Germany, the Islamic Republic was born of a very modern, counter-Enlightenment ideology. Let’s hope it too is soon consigned to the dustbin of history.

Read the whole thing.

ANNALS OF LEFTIST AUTOPHAGY: Pedro Pascal Fan Club Revokes Actor’s Woke Status Over Rumors He Might Be Dating Zionist Man, Dined at Pro-Israel Restaurant.

HBO’s The Last of Us and Marvel’s Fantastic Four star Pedro Pascal — who has been open about his left-wing, pro-transgenderism of children views — nonetheless appears to have had his woke status revoked by a fan club outraged over rumors that he may be dating a man who might be pro-Israel.

“Well, as you probably already know, Pedro is supposedly dating a Zionist and, to top it all off, he went to dinner with Lux at a restaurant that donates money to Israel,” a Pascal fan account on X began in a recent statement.

“Yes, a man who has always shown support for Palestine and hosted a benefit concert, someone we have always loved and admired for his character and activism, is now on a wave of hypocrisy,” the X account, @acervopedrito, continued.

Why is the left such a cesspit of homophobic antisemitism?

UNEXPECTEDLY: BBC altered Hegseth speech on Iran war.

The BBC mistakenly altered a speech by Pete Hegseth on the war in Iran, making him appear to say the United States was targeting the Iranian “people”.

BBC Persian, which broadcasts to audiences inside Iran, mistranslated remarks by the US secretary of defence, telling viewers Washington was bringing death to the Iranian “people”.

In fact, Mr Hegseth had said the Iranian “regime” was being targeted.

The mistake was seized upon by pro-Israel media campaigners, who claimed that it cast doubt on the BBC’s impartiality. It also triggered a backlash on social media.

The row risks putting the BBC on another collision course with Donald Trump, who launched a $10bn (£7.5bn) lawsuit against the corporation last year after The Telegraph revealed it had altered a speech in a way that made him appear to encourage the Capitol Hill riot.

Mr Trump has justified the ongoing war in the Middle East by arguing that Tehran’s leadership, not its population, poses a direct threat to American national security after repeatedly calling for “death to America”.

The BBC, which carried Mr Hegseth’s Pentagon address live on Monday, translated the word “regime” as “mardom”, the Persian word for “people”. It later issued a correction.

Flashback: Roger Kimball: Doctored Footage Fallout: Trump vs. the BBC: Trump’s lawsuit over the BBC’s doctored Jan. 6 clip now threatens to turn the broadcaster’s license-fee crisis into a full-blown reckoning over trust, bias, and billions.

BBC Defenders:

'Mr Trump is a Bad Man. So its perfectly OK to lie about his specches'

'But how do you know he's a bad man?'

'Just listen to his speeches!'

A self-serving, circular, worthless argument.

— Latimer Alder (@latimeralder) November 15, 2025

QUESTION ASKED AND ANSWERED: How did San Francisco become such an abomination of a city? As Adam Carolla notes, “San Francisco represents the progressive movement at its purest form. This is when they get to do everything they want. That’s San Francisco. And so I’m not even going to make a judgment call. I’m just going to say take a bunch of Americans, show them San Francisco then, show them San Francisco now, and go this is the result of them doing everything they want.”

And unlike New York, which had a major reset by Rudy Giuliani starting in 1994, and continued for another decade years by Mike Bloomberg (albeit with hundreds of miles of new bike lanes), San Francisco’s last Republican mayor left office at the beginning of 1964.

UPDATE: SF Mayor Daniel Lurie’s Security Team Attacked in Wild Scene — He Leaves Officers to Fend for Themselves.

Daniel Lurie, the Democrat Mayor of San Francisco, is under fire after a video shows him casually ABANDONING his security guard, who gets slammed onto the pavement during a fight and begins bleeding. pic.twitter.com/n6jZR7GR3o

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) March 6, 2026

REVEALED: The Story of the United Kingdom’s Betrayal in Operation Epic Fury Is Absolutely Wild.

Given Spain’s history over the last century or so, it wasn’t exactly surprising that they’d take the side of Islamic fascists over the country that pays for their defense. The Western European country once again fell woefully short of its NATO spending requirements in 2025 while continuing to expand its welfare state, a dynamic that has been allowed to exist for far too long.

You’d expect better from the United Kingdom, though. Well, at least up until fairly recently. After all, the Brits are supposedly America’s closest, most reliable ally. Yet, in a stunning move, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer denied the use of his country’s military bases for logistical support. Further, he refused to mobilize any forces for defensive operations in the weeks before Iran’s missile and drone barrages began.

That proved disastrous, with several Gulf allies lambasting Starmer for hanging them out to dry, even as hundreds of thousands of British nationals were coming under attack.

This time the NSC agreed that the basing request be granted. Downing Street’s official line is that the situation changed when Iran began firing missiles at hotels and other civilian sites in Dubai and Bahrain. An attack on the Bahraini capital Manama narrowly missed killing British military personnel stationed there. But it is also the case that Starmer and his ministers were shocked by the undiluted fury of their Middle East allies that more had not been done to protect them. Jordan was “fucking furious,” a former minister with friends in Amman says. “The Emiratis, Kuwaitis, and even the Canadians are all asking, ‘What the fuck are you doing? Whose side are you on?’” The Emiratis pointed out that Britain was failing to help protect the 240,000 British citizens living in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

As the above excerpt notes, the British NSC did eventually reverse its decision, though it all appears to be too little, too late. Iran’s missile and drone launches have already been reduced to a trickle by American and Israeli airpower. It’s what happened before that, though, that is truly disturbing.

According to newly revealed details about the British NSC’s deliberations, the initial requests for base usage and the deployment of defensive assets (two destroyers, in this case) were denied for political reasons. 

 I’d say there were a few clues leading up to that initial denial: Revealed: Britain to get Islamophobia tsar.