HMM:

Reports : Esmail Qaani, head of Iran’s Quds Force has been executed by IRGC. He has survived all assassination attempts so far & was even with Khamenei during US-ISRAEL bombing but escaped. Earlier he was taken into custody by the IRGC on suspicion of being a Mossad agent. pic.twitter.com/dwT6R3p3CD

— Baba Banaras™ (@RealBababanaras) March 5, 2026

ICYMI: The Weirdest Thing Just Happened in Ukraine… Again.

REAL ESTATE: Home sellers are relisting properties at fastest pace in a decade, but spring supply is still low. “The January figures come as Redfin reported a record number of sellers pulling their homes off the market last September. Close to 85,000 sellers delisted, up 28% from September 2024. Higher mortgage rates last year, still-high home prices and growing uncertainty in the economy sidelined buyers last fall, taking sellers out of the driver’s seat, where they had been in the years during and just after the pandemic.”

EPIC FURY: Trump’s Play to Starve the Dragon?

THEY SHOULD HAVE MADE PEACE: Iran’s Underground ‘Missile Cities’ Have Become One of Its Biggest Vulnerabilities. “U.S. and Israeli war planes and armed drones are circling over the dozens of cavernous bases, striking missile-carrying launchers when they emerge to fire. Meanwhile, waves of heavy bombers have dropped munitions on the sites, apparently entombing the Iranian weapons below ground in some locations.”

DISPATCHES FROM THE RED ZONES: Missouri Amendment Proposal Seeks to Recognize Personhood for the Unborn.

HMM: Georgia Man Found Guilty of 2nd Degree Murder After Giving his School Shooter Son a Gun. “Jurors took less than two hours to find Colin Gray guilty of all charges in the September 2024 shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, northeast of Atlanta. Gray now joins a growing number of parents being held responsible in court after their children were accused in shootings.”

MIDWIFE, AT ANY RATE: Jimmy Carter: The Father of the Islamic Revolution.

YES: ‘MAGA civil war’ over Iran is another figment of media’s imagination.

ABC chief Washington correspondent Jonathan Karl had what he felt was a big scoop at the onset of American and Israeli strikes against Iran.

“I just heard back from Tucker Carlson,” Karl reported. “He’s just one person, [but] a prominent one in Trump’s movement. But this is a momentous and potentially defining or maybe redefining move for President Trump.

“He got into politics, in part, promising to end what he called forever wars. He was harshly critical of the war with Iraq. He claimed that he had always been against it. And now he finds himself starting what could be a major conflict with Iran.”

Was there a MAGA divide over President Donald Trump‘s decision to strike Iran? Were GOP legislators revolting against the commander in chief? If Congress were to vote on a War Powers Resolution, would it not pass, given this alleged divide?

Of course, Karl, who recently served as a White House Correspondents Association president, didn’t reach out to Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) or House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), instead opting for Tucker Carlson.

Did you expect better from Jon Karl?

Or from Carlson, for that matter.

THAT’S BECAUSE WE DRILLED, BABY, DRILLED: Climate Expert Says U.S. Can Handle Energy Needs Amid Iran Conflict.

Remember, the folks opposed to fracking would have left us vulnerable — a feature to them, not a bug.

NOVEMBER PREVIEW: Several key congressional races impacted by Texas’ new redistricting law.

HMM:

🚨BREAKING: Bloomberg reporting that China has just halted all exports of diesel and gasoline.

Things are getting interesting.

The Strait of Hormuz shows no full closure on shipping trackers right now, at least not publicly.

But what if it’s just not closed for everyone?… pic.twitter.com/OiRlzuAXIT

— Walter Curt (@wcdispatch) March 5, 2026

More:

I started running the numbers on this and it’s lining up too cleanly.

China imports about 11 million barrels of crude per day, with roughly 40-45% of that flowing through the Strait of Hormuz (mainly from Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Iran).

Their strategic petroleum reserves are estimated by analysts at around 90-100 days of total consumption at current burn rates of ~14-15 million barrels/day including refined products.

Cut off from Hormuz and they’re staring down the barrel of empty tanks in roughly three months.

That’s not a sustainable position. Their only realistic play would be immediate, heavy domestic rationing, factories slowed, trucking curtailed, civilian fuel limits, the works. That would slam their economy and ripple hard through global supply chains.

Remind me again…

How long does a president have under the War Powers Resolution before he has to go to Congress for an extension on military actions?

Oh, right—90 days.

Nobody seems to think Epic Fury will last as long as 90 days, but nobody really knows, either.

MORE LIKE THIS, PLEASE: Trump HHS Issues Warning to States: Hands Off Kids of Parents Who Reject Gender Ideology.

ACTUALLY, PRETTY MUCH EVERYONE KNOWS EXACTLY WHO NEEDS TO HEAR THIS…:

Idk who needs to hear this but the U.S. is attacking legitimate military targets.

Iran is attacking whatever it can hit. Civilians or otherwise.

We are not the same.

Spare us your outrage. Direct it to the terrorists flying suicide drones into residential areas.

— InfantryDort (@infantrydort) March 5, 2026

…but the people who do need to hear it seem to be paid to not listen.

BLUE CITY BLUES: Starbucks leaving Seattle? Coffee giant to move corporate jobs to Nashville. “Starbucks will relocate a portion of its Seattle-based corporate workforce as it expands operations to Tennessee. According to the coffee giant, the move will affect roles tied to direct and indirect sourcing operations teams within Starbucks’ supply chain organization. Starbucks claimed that Seattle will remain its North America and Global Support headquarters, but said it will continue evaluating whether additional teams and roles should transition to Nashville over time.”

A REMINDER THAT EZRA KLEIN’S “JOURNOLIST” NEVER DIED; IT JUST MOVED TO SLACK:

“International waters” is the new “he crossed state lines.” An utterly irrelevant qualifier meant to make you assume something nefarious.

BTW, the Geneva Convention specifically mentions submarines as an exception to assistance expectations because of practical limitations. pic.twitter.com/IY4pMUwMCU

— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) March 5, 2026

Narratives don’t establish themselves, bub.

THIS IS PROBABLY THE WEIRDEST NEWS YOU’LL READ ALL DAY. TWICE: The Weirdest Thing Just Happened in Ukraine… Again.

COME SEE THE VIOLENCE INHERENT IN THE LEFTISM: UCSF staffer allegedly threatens to ‘hunt’ down and ‘kill’ conservative activist.

A woman who appears to be a University of California at San Francisco employee was caught on video allegedly threatening to “hunt” down and “kill” a conservative activist who was protesting against cutting off the healthy body parts of gender-confused children.

Parents’ rights activist Beth Bourne told The College Fix she filed a police report after the Feb. 21 incident outside the California Democratic Party convention in San Francisco.

Bourne also posted a video of the confrontation Monday on X. Several commenters identified the woman as Madeline Mann, an associate director at the UCSF Clinical and Translational Science Institute.

The Post Millennial also identified the individual as Mann; it described her as a “transgender activist” who has a daughter who identifies as male.

Exit quote: “The email directed inquiries to institute Director of Program Administration Molly Belinski. She did not respond to an email from The Fix asking if Mann was the individual in the video and why her bio page is no longer on the website.”

THESE CCP SHILLS ARE NOT DIFFICULT TO SPOT AND DISMISS…:

I had never heard of this “Professor” Jiang until a few days ago, and now he’s suddenly everywhere, which is an obvious sign that he’s astroturfed agitprop. Meanwhile, the people giving him a platform are just retards. https://t.co/FPPobLuW5D

— Hans Mahncke (@HansMahncke) March 5, 2026

…so it’s a safe bet the people parroting them are CCP shills, too.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: The Ultimate Theatre Kid Gets the Hook in Congress. “Nearly every image of Walz in our library looks like he’s performing in a Broadway musical. This man is the ultimate theatre kid — playacting as a serious, credible politician.”

SPEAK SOFTLY AND CARRY A BIG, SWINGING… STICK:

😲… Interior Secretary Doug Bergum standing next to Venezuela interim President Delcy Rodriquez, as the govt thanks President Donald Trump…. who just forcibly snatched Nicholas Maduro.

Um, that's a level of ultimate boss beyond what I ever thought possible. 😀 Wow. Just… https://t.co/4A2uy0tA0R

— TheLastRefuge (@TheLastRefuge2) March 5, 2026

BEN THOMPSON ON THE RIFT BETWEEN THE PENTAGON AND ANTHROPIC ON ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: Anthropic and Alignment.

Why would the U.S. government want to kneecap one of its AI champions?

In fact, [Anthropic CEO Dario] Amodei already answered the question: if nuclear weapons were developed by a private company, and that private company sought to dictate terms to the U.S. military, the U.S. would absolutely be incentivized to destroy that company. The reason goes back to the question of international law, North Korea, and the rest:

International law is ultimately a function of power; might makes right.
There are some categories of capabilities — like nuclear weapons — that are sufficiently powerful to fundamentally affect the U.S.’s freedom of action; we can bomb Iran, but we can’t North Korea.

To the extent that AI is on the level of nuclear weapons — or beyond — is the extent that Amodei and Anthropic are building a power base that potentially rivals the U.S. military.

Anthropic talks a lot about alignment; this insistence on controlling the U.S. military, however, is fundamentally misaligned with reality.

Current AI models are obviously not yet so powerful that they rival the U.S. military; if that is the trajectory, however — and no one has been more vocal in arguing for that trajectory than Amodei — then it seems to me the choice facing the U.S. is actually quite binary:

Option 1 is that Anthropic accepts a subservient position relative to the U.S. government, and does not seek to retain ultimate decision-making power about how its models are used, instead leaving that to Congress and the President.

Option 2 is that the U.S. government either destroys Anthropic or removes Amodei.

Much more to chew on at the link. Fascinating piece.

BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS (EVEN IF THEY HAVE TO FIRST WAGE A LITTLE WAR):

I'm getting tired of explaining this, but I'll do it again because there is so much stupidity out there.

Here is the Seven Step Plan:

1. Decapitate Iran's leadership and destroy its military.

2. A new regime comes to power that will no longer fund Hamas/Hezbollah.

3. Without…

— Cynical Publius (@CynicalPublius) March 5, 2026

IT’S MY THURSDAY ESSAY FOR VIP SUBSCRIBERS: One Intel Coup After Another.

ZINEB RIBOUA: China is Scrambling.

First, the Iranian counterweight is gone. In 2021, Xi told senior Party officials that “the East is rising and the West is declining,” that America was “the biggest source of chaos in the present-day world,” and that China was entering a period of strategic opportunity. Iran was central to that thesis. Beijing needed a defiant Tehran to keep Washington pinned down in the Gulf, to sustain a sanctions-proof energy corridor, and above all, to stand as living evidence that American power had hard limits. The entire architecture of CCP’s dogma of inevitability, which rested on Iran’s ability to endure, and Epic Fury removed the foundation in a single afternoon.

Khamenei was the man who made the thesis feel real. Beijing’s relationship with the Islamic Republic was never really ideological, but Khamenei’s survival was the single most useful fact in Chinese foreign policy. Here was a man Washington had threatened, sanctioned, plotted against, and encircled for over four decades, and he was still giving Friday sermons. Xi personally signed the comprehensive strategic partnership with Khamenei’s government. He personally authorized the weapons transfers. And he personally wielded the Security Council veto. None of it kept Khamenei alive for one additional hour once Washington decided he was finished.

Second, Xi’s own story is collapsing from the inside. The story he told 1.4 billion people, that America is a declining power incapable of decisive force projection, does not match what happened in seventy-two hours over Tehran. State media can suppress the footage and the censors can scrub Weibo, but the ones who matter most, the military planners, the foreign policy professionals, the provincial officials who read between the lines for a living, know what they saw. And if the story is wrong about Iran, the unavoidable next question is whether it was ever right about anything else.

Read the whole thing.