Yeah that’s our Senate Majority Leader, always thinking ahead to the possibilities of rescue for Americans stranded in the Middle East. Stitched in after that is Secretary of State Marco Rubio fumbling questions about the same topic and also getting pretty snappy with reporters asking him to remember what he said less than 24 hours ago about why convicted felon President Trump decided to attack and that the Israelis are really taking the lead. Rubio nows says he didn’t say that.

All this while the US consulate in Dubai is on fire from a drone strike and Punchbowl News’s Andrew Desiderio reports Indiana Senator Todd Young “went off about the WH’s and GOP leadership’s handling of the Iran situation during the closed-door Republican lunch,” earlier this afternoon.

Oily Commerce Secretary Howard Nutlick tells Axios he’s volunteered to sit for an interview with the House Oversight Committee to reconcile his inconsistent stories about his bud Jeffrey Epstein.

“I look forward to appearing before the committee. I have done nothing wrong and I want to set the record straight,” Nutlick told the bullet point factory news site of his previously unstraight record.

The closed-door interview has yet to be scheduled but will happenwithin the next few weeks.

“Effective IMMEDIATELY, I have ordered the United States Development Finance Corporation (DFC) to provide, at a very reasonable price, political risk insurance and guarantees for the Financial Security of ALL Maritime Trade, especially Energy, traveling through the Gulf. This will be available to all Shipping Lines. If necessary, the United States Navy will begin escorting tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, as soon as possible. No matter what, the United States will ensure the FREE FLOW of ENERGY to the WORLD. The United States’ ECONOMIC and MILITARY MIGHT is the GREATEST ON EARTH — More actions to come,” posted convicted felon President Trump on Tuesday.

Yes, the crews of those oil tankers will feel so much better about sailing past Iranian shores now that the owners of their concerns can “at a very reasonable price” insure the vessels should they be hit by a missile or drone, igniting the payload. The owners should just as assuredly feel confident that their claims for such losses will be honored by the famously honest operator who sold them.

Confirmed: Todd Blanche for CPAC USA 2026, March 25-28, in Grapevine, Texas. pic.twitter.com/4YLY2qAc3r

— CPAC (@CPAC) March 3, 2026

“The oil market pared some of its initial gains yesterday, with Brent settling 7.26 percent higher on the day after initially trading as much as 13.6 percent higher. The market continues to digest the risk of escalation in the Middle East. While there are concerns about oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz, a greater risk to the market would be Iran targeting additional energy infrastructure in the region. This could lead to more prolonged outages. Oil price movements have been fairly modest, given the amount of supply at risk and uncertainty about how long disruptions could persist. Part of the explanation: the market had already been pricing in a fairly large risk premium in the lead-up to.”

“Also, the market appears to be pricing in a relatively short-lived disruption to oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz, which the large surplus markets expect this year should be able to absorb. Clearly, supply disruptions leave significant tightness in the prompt market, as reflected in timespreads. The 12-month ICE Brent is surging from less than US$5/bbl to a little over US$9.50/bbl backwardation.”

“The May/Jun spread surged towards a US$1.60/bbl backwardation. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the US will announce plans on Tuesday to mitigate higher energy costs. At the same time, though, there have been reports that the US has no immediate plan to release oil from its strategic petroleum reserve. The longer the disruptions last, the more likely we are to see coordinated emergency releases from several countries,” says a Tuesday note from Dutch finance house ING.

A Boardman, Ohio woman who got a call last week from “Microsoft tech support” is out $6,000 because now the scam is to tell marks there’s child porn on their smartphone – so the idiot bought that amount in Home Depot cards and gave them the codes to “remove” the porn, WKBN reports.

Lucky for her she was not named in the report because god-freaking-dammit she should never be able to live that one down. Even if they’re that convincing about the “tech support” aspect of the scam (they aren’t, ever) then shouldn’t the Home Depot gift card ransom have been a red flag? Shit.

A Manhattan federal judge on Tuesday tossed convicted felon President Trump’s already pretty low-energy bid to kill off New York City’s congestion pricing toll system, Reuters reports.

The 12 cent national average gas price spike on Monday was the highest since February 2022 when Russian dictator Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, according to GasBuddy.com’s Patrick De Haan. It’s the fourth highest of the 21st century, with the top spot belonging to August 31, 2005 when Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast and disrupted domestic refinery infrastructure.

https://t.co/O5wkffOr9F

— Karoline Leavitt (@PressSec) March 3, 2026

For a very sternly-worded warning issued Tuesday by California Dem Party chairman Rusty Hicks to gubernatorial candidates: “If you do not have a viable path to make it to the General Election, do not file to place your name on the ballot for the Primary Election. If you decide to file, be prepared to suspend your campaign and endorse another candidate on or before April 15th if your campaign cannot show meaningful progress towards winning the Primary Election in the coming weeks.”

Hicks then writes that the possibility the jungle primary system could end up fucking them with a Republican vs Republican general election race is “unlikely, but they are, in fact, possible. Therefore, we all have a duty to act in a responsible manner with the opportunities and support we have earned. I believe it starts with a candid assessment of the political landscape around you, an honest reflection on your viability to win the race, and the courage to make a tough choice.”

Three US Army officials tell CBS News that the command post in Kuwait’s Shuaiba Port stuck by an Iranian Shahed-136 “kamikaze” drone on Sunday leaving six soldiers dead and 18 others seriously wounded was defended only by concrete barriers – useless for aerial kinetic attacks – and that officers knew it was vulnerable, but requests up the chain for active interceptors weren’t answered.

“We basically had no drone defeat capability,” one of the officials said. “I’m sorry for their families’ losses. They were nice people doing what their nation asked of them,” said either that same source or another, CBS doesn’t make it clear. That last sentence was also just weird and robotic.

Anyway the strike came without warning from the post’s sirens, something that officers also flagged as previous close calls had seen the alarms go off after the drones had crossed the perimeter.

Votes were being counted among the Iranian “Council of Experts” to elect a new Supreme Leader on Monday when an IDF projectile struck the building and kinda ruined the election, N12 Israel reports.

Not all of the 88 members of the council were still in the building, the network added.

At least 7.2 percent of Texas Dem voters turned out either in person or via mail in the contested Senate primary between state Senator James Talarico and Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, eclipsing the 6.2 percent of GOP voters that turned out for a much more expensive and heated three-way primary between “RINO” Senator John Cornhole Cornyn, corrupt Picasso-faced Attorney General Ken Paxton, and Johnny-come-lately Congressman Wesley Hunt, Axios reports.

According to a bar chart going back to 2018, only in 2020 did Dem primary early turnout exceed Republicans and, at 12.9 to 12.4 percent, the delta was half as wide. Other than that, even 2018 – the year Beto O’Rourke ended up coming within 2.3 percent of felling insufferable schmuck Ted Cruz in the general election – more Republicans at 10.2 percent showed up to vote early than Dems did at 7 percent. That was also the next-weakest year for GOP turnout and was a full 4 percent higher.

So yes, if it wasn’t so tight between Talarico and Crockett there probably wouldn’t be as much interest in the race and maybe the GOP would be ahead in turnout. They’re still losing to themselves versus 2018 by a significant margin, which is fucking nuts when already something like $100 million has been spent on their side – $70 million of that by Cornyn’s backers alone in a desperate attempt to save him from Pax – while Talarico and Crockett have spent around $30 million on ads combined.

Cruz never faced any real intraparty challenge and still that year 40 percent more of the Lone Star State’s Republican electorate showed up to vote early in the primary than did in 2026. One might actually be tempted to dare to hope that the white whale is within sight of the Dems this time.

First off, if Tehran really had “sleeper cells” in the US one would think that they would’ve already tried to avenge the Ayatollah’s death and every day that goes by since then seems to foreclose the possibility that they’re going to sacrifice themselves in a suicide bombing in a crowded mall or whatever. Setting aside that obviously deranged Senegalese asshole shooting up the bar in Austin killing three people – a horrible crime that hasn’t even definitely connected to the war – there hasn’t even been any “lone wolf” attacks by say some hard-line American Shi’ites loyal to the regime.

Then, as already noted here, unlike last year ICE hasn’t been parading a wave of arrests of Iranian immigrants whose petty bullshit crimes – if they even committed any – had nothing to do with terrorism or Tehran’s regime. Put it all together and it would seem that, per usual, the Fox chyron screaming “THREAT OF IRANIAN SLEEPER CELLS IN US HOMELAND” is just the usual fear porn.

But hey why not set the narrative of pre-blaming Dems for refusing to fund DHS just in case something happens? The fact that K$H Patel fired the FBI agents in charge of monitoring Iranian threats leaves a weak spot, as does that the shutdown doesn’t affect ICE, who are supposed to be tracking them down as well, is potential weak spot so the GOP might as well go on offense. It’s not like there’s any political cost to telling their voters to be afraid of foreign Muslims with funny names.

Without even naming the guy, Al-Jazeera reports that the Israeli Defense Forces have claimed to have targeted “a senior Iranian commander” of the fascist Islamic state’s military.

Even within that the “seniority” is also kind of vague. Like was this a very recent promotion?

Dow Jones Industrial Average futures sank by more than 800 points on Tuesday – down 833 to 48,112 as of this writing – on fears that convicted felon President Trump’s directionless war in Iran could stretch on for weeks, if not months, CNBC reports on more MAGAnomics fun.

The U.S. Embassy is not in a position at this time to evacuate or directly assist Americans in departing Israel.

The following is provided for your information as you make your own security plans.

The Israeli Ministry of Tourism has begun operating shuttles to the Taba… pic.twitter.com/E6a5z0mE58

— U.S. Embassy Jerusalem (@usembassyjlm) March 3, 2026

After two days of scant details on how, where, and who were the six US service members confirmed killed in action so far during convicted felon President Trump’s directionless war on Iran happened, CNN finally have ascertained some specifics from sources inside the Department of Defense: The lethal strike was from a low-flying Iranian drone that penetrated both defenses and early warning systems and hit a triple-wide trailer in Shuaiba Port, Kuwait being used as an operations center for a Fort Knox, Kentucky-based US Army unit called the 1st Theater Sustainment Command.

The strike had occurred at 9 AM local time on Sunday, less than 24 hours after the first payloads were dropped on Iran. The names of the soldiers killed in the attack have yet to be made public as their next of kin are still being notified. It’s not clear if their remains have been repatriated yet.