YOU WON’T BELIEVE IT’S REAL UNTIL YOU SEE IT IN ACTION: War Is Crazy: The Return of the Giga Turtle Tank.
March 31, 2026
A BRIGHT NEW DAY IS COMING:
‼️PRIME MINISTER NETANYAHU SIGNALS DIRECT COOPERATION WITH SAUDI ARABIA AND OTHER GULF STATES
Netanyahu: Post-war plans include energy and economic cooperation with Saudi Arabia, including pipelines to bypass the Strait of Hormuz.
“Iran must be stripped of this leverage.”
He… pic.twitter.com/pU7gGPt8GA
— Mossad Commentary (@MOSSADil) March 31, 2026
ED MORRISSEY: Hegseth: ‘Decisive’ Days Ahead for Iran; Regime ‘Fractured?’
Trump sounds like he wants to abruptly leave; Hegseth wants to go the full Curtis LeMay; Rubio wants to talk with rational alternatives. Either this is the most incoherent winning side of a war in human history, or there’s a strategy in place.
Eli Lake argues vociferously for the latter. Trump and his team are waging “psychological warfare” against the Iranian regime, Lake declares, and it’s working:
Trump is waging psychological warfare with the remnants of a battered regime. Israel has killed 16 top regime leaders since the fighting began on February 28. These include Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, national security adviser Ali Larijani, and minister of intelligence Esmaeil Khatib. Then there are the lower-level commanders in the Revolutionary Guard Corps and Basij state militia who have perished in drone and missile strikes. The current supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, has not been seen in public since he ascended to the post held by his father.
“If you are sitting in Tehran, you are underground if you are in the leadership tier,” Joel Rayburn, former U.S. Army colonel and senior diplomat in Trump’s first term, told me. “You know if you can be located you will be killed. Your command and control is severely disrupted, and now you see the United States is a few days away from having a half a division worth of ground forces in the Gulf region and you can offer no resistance. Your leverage is waning.”
In such an environment, who wants to be the leader of a “new and more reasonable regime”? For the true believers left, like the recently promoted Ahmad Vahidi, who now heads Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps after the former chief was killed, negotiations with Trump are tantamount to capitulation. For the unlucky Iranian president, Masoud Pezeshkian, who is stuck with managing an economy that’s ground to a halt, Vahidi’s escalations are national suicide.
As Ed concludes, “Stay tuned.”
NOT FOR THE FIRST TIME: John Lucas: Obama Lies to Sway an Election: More proof that there is no reason to believe anything that Obama says.
UPDATE: Link was bad before. Fixed now. Sorry!
THE ENEMY WITHIN: She uncovered a terrifying lab hidden in California, with alleged ties to China.
Inside the sprawling building on I Street in Reedley, code enforcement officer Jesalyn Harper found vials filled with liquid — some marked in English or Chinese, others with just a code — that bore frightening labels such as “Malaria,” “COVID-19” and “HIV.” Refrigerators, lined up in columns along a wall, had labels that read “blood” and “Ebola.”
As she walked deeper into the warehouse, passing lab workers filling pregnancy test kits, she located the source of the smell that had brought her there — droppings from 1,000 lab-tested mice, she told The Times during a recent interview. The workers were nice enough, she said, but when she started asking questions she could feel the mood change.
“I realized I’m in trouble, and I need to get out of this building without tipping them off that I’m scared,” Harper said.
Her discovery blew open an elaborate criminal case with ties to California, Las Vegas and China. The investigation in Reedley found that the lab was part of an elaborate scheme to import COVID tests from China and pass them off as American-made.
But there are some who fear the operation was much more complex than that. A congressional committee uncovered payments topping $1 million made to the operator of the Reedley business from banks in the People’s Republic of China.
The defendant in the case, Jia Bei Zhu, a Chinese national, has not been charged with running an illicit biolab and his attorney has denied it. The vials discovered in Reedley were never tested.
Well, why weren’t they tested?
One clue might be that this story broke last week, but has gone largely ignored.
TO BE FAIR, SHE ISN’T A BIOLOGIST:
The court's first and only opinion for the day is in Chiles v. Salazar, on whether a Colorado law barring conversion therapy violates free speech. The opinion is from Justice Gorsuch and the vote is 8-1, with Justice Jackson dissenting.
— SCOTUSblog (@SCOTUSblog) March 31, 2026
Brutal:
Wow.
Justice Kagan's concurring opinion attacks the dissent of her fellow liberal Justice Jackson. pic.twitter.com/FhSy6Pk2lz
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) March 31, 2026
More to come, I’m sure.
TERM LIMITS NOW: Fifty-seven Members of the House of Representatives are either not seeking re-election in November or leaving Congress to pursue another elective office. That’s the highest total for departing representatives in recent memory (as I report in The Washington Stand).
The average tenure of the 36 Republicans is 9 nine years (four terms plus a year), while the average tenure of the 21 Democrats is 14 years (seven terms). The re-election rate for the current Congress is 95 percent. The average tenure of a representative prior to the Civil War was less than two terms.
Ergonomic Long Handle Toenail Clippers with Catcher. #CommissionEarned
BY TODAY’S STANDARDS, IT WOULD MEAN THE WAR WAS ALREADY LOST — FOR THE ALLIES:
I'm trying to imagine the alternative history of WW2 if it looked like this war, and what the coverage might look like
"It's January 11th, 1942, one month after Hitler declared war on the United States. Hitler, Goering, Bohrmann, and Himmler were all killed in an allied bombing…
— Will Chamberlain (@willchamberlain) March 31, 2026
WELL, YES: Iran’s internet blackout hiding strike damage and suppressing dissent, Israeli officials say. “Multiple Israeli sources told Fox News that the blackout is not only restricting information from leaving Iran but also preventing citizens from organizing internally, at a time when pressure on the regime is mounting. Attempts by civilians to access the internet through satellite services such as Starlink have been disrupted through jamming, according to Israeli officials, while hundreds of individuals suspected of using such terminals have been detained.”
Iranians need internet. But they also need rifles.
ASTROTURF:
'Virginians For Fair Elections' is the entity leading the effort to turn Virginia's congressional delegation from 6D-5R to 10D-1R.
They have raised $38 million– over 90% of which have come from five sources:
– $20M from Hakeem Jeffries' 501(c)4
– $10M from the left-wing dark…— Greg Price (@greg_price11) March 30, 2026
IT’S EASY IF YOU TRY: How to Disagree With the Iran War Without Being a Duplicitous Dirtbag.
MY INSTITUTION HAS A DIVERSITY PROBLEM: University of Tennessee staff gave 97% of donations to left-leaning groups.
CHANGE:
The TLM order that has been entrusted with my parish cannot ordain new priests fast enough to keep up with the requests from bishops to take over closed churches for parishoners who have asked for a Latin Mass. Wherever they are sent, the once-closed churches have filled pews…
— Haz (@Michael_Haz) March 31, 2026
THE ENEMY WITHIN: Michigan synagogue attack was Hezbollah-inspired act of terrorism, FBI says.
Had he lived, he would have been charged with providing material support to Hezbollah, said Jerome Gorgon, US attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan.
Gorgon added Ghazali was inspired by Hezbollah propaganda to carry out the attack.
“This man acted under Hezbollah’s direction and control,” Gorgon said. “He intended to kill others, not just himself.”
Well, I’m glad he didn’t live.
I DUNNO, THE “JUST STOP OIL” PEOPLE SEEM IMMUNE TO LEARNING:
Is there a small silver lining watching the just stop oil people understanding what happens if you do indeed just stop oil.
— Merryn Somerset Webb (@MerrynSW) March 31, 2026
I CAN’T BELIEVE PEOPLE ARE ACTING LIKE THIS IS AN OPERATION SPRUNG ON A WHIM: CDR Salamander: You Don’t Think There’s a Plan? Really?
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Fun Thought Experiment — Vance and Rubio as ‘Co-Presidents.’ “When Rubio and Vance are out there leading the charge for the president, they’re in complete command of all the facts, which none of their foes on the left ever are. Stephanopoulos and his ilk aren’t just liars, they’re ignorant liars too. Pre-Trump, most Republican politicians would just roll over and play dead for any combination of lies and ignorance thrown at them. This crew isn’t playing that game.”
BURN, HOLLYWOOD, BURN — NOT EVEN AN ALAN SMITHEE FILM: See How Hollywood’s Job Market Is Collapsing.
Most big-budget movies and a growing number of TV series now shoot overseas to take advantage of those tax credits. Some are shooting in non-English-speaking countries like Hungary, where labor and construction costs are particularly cheap.
California last year more than doubled the size of its state tax incentive, though experts say it still isn’t as attractive as those in New Jersey, New York or Georgia. Studios, labor unions and soundstage owners have all been lobbying the Trump administration and Congress to support a federal incentive of around 15%. When combined with state incentives that typically range from 20% to 40%, backers believe it would be enough to bring most Hollywood productions back to the U.S.
Repatriating production would be only a partial solution. The other reason entertainment workers are struggling is economic incentives have driven their employers to produce less.
The early 2020s marked the apex of a production boom known as “peak TV,” during which streaming services like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+ and HBO Max tried to add subscribers as fast as possible.
By the time strikes by actors and writers ended in 2023, Wall Street was demanding that streaming services give priority to profits over growth. The easiest way to get into the black was to cut production spending.
Meanwhile, Netflix — which probably contributed to this trend more than any other single production house — keeps raising prices for algorithm-chasing “second screen” slop meant for people to kinda-sorta watch on the living room TV while they scroll X or Instagram on their phones.
Previously: Who Killed Hollywood? Or Did it Kill Itself?
#JOURNALISM:
imagine not knowing what "heavy water is" and reading the term "heavy water production plant" then being stupid enough to deduce that it's drinking water
— n (@Panegyrick) March 30, 2026
TRUE AND REVEALING:
The terrible thought is starting to cross the mind of people who celebrated the ayatollahs controlling the Strait of Hormuz that control of that chokepoint could pass to a regime friendly to Washington.
— wretchardthecat (@wretchardthecat) March 27, 2026
RELIGION OF PEACE UPDATE: Six Pittsburgh-area men charged with antisemitic hate crime, conspiracy to obstruct justice.
A Jewish university student in Pittsburgh was violently attacked because he was wearing a Star of David necklace.
His attackers were
Muhammed Koc
Omar Alshmari
Abraham Choudhry
Emirhan Arslan
Ali Alkhaleel
Adeel PirachaHow many more must be sacrificed on the altar of… https://t.co/uM2gjf3z0n
— Congressman Randy Fine (@RepFine) March 31, 2026
THE ENEMY WITHIN:
Western civilization may never win another war if this keeps up
This is maddening. The radical left, mainstream media, and the woke right are running the exact same playbook with the US/Israel campaign against Iran as they did with Israel in Gaza
They create impossible…
— Gummi (@gummibear737) March 30, 2026
“Western civilization may never win another war” is the entire point, because we’re so damn good at it — or at least used to be.
