Democratic former Newport, Rhode Island mayor and current city Councilman Xaykham Rexford Khamsyvoravong on Monday announced he’s launching a primary challenge to incumbent Lt Governor Sabina Matos, the Providence Journal reports while pretty plainly expressing puzzlement over a campaign focused on tackling the “challenges facing the healthcare system” from the Ocean State’s second highest office which – like most other lieutenant governorships in the northeast and many elsewhere – has virtually no significant statutory powers or responsibilities at all.

Plus there’s the name which, God bless him for sticking with traditional Asian filial piety but it doesn’t always mesh well with politics, could’ve been shortened along the way. Or maybe he could’ve just stuck with Rexford, his white Rhode Islander mom’s maiden name. WASPy? Yes. Easily spelled? YES.

Thus concludes this important update on the 2026 Rhode Island Democratic lieutenant gubernatorial primary and yes it’s obvious this guy’s simply trying to build his career and position himself for higher office without challenging Governor Dan McKee now directly this year.

“At 11:03 pm ET, March 1, three US F-15E Strike Eagles flying in support of Operation Epic Fury went down over Kuwait due to an apparent friendly fire incident. During active combat – that included attacks from Iranian aircraft, ballistic missiles, and drones – the US Air Force fighter jets were mistakenly shot down by Kuwaiti air defenses. All six aircrew ejected safely, have been safely recovered, and are in stable condition. Kuwait has acknowledged this incident, and we are grateful for the efforts of the Kuwaiti defense forces and their support in this ongoing operation.”

“The cause of the incident is under investigation. Additional information will be released as it becomes available,” says US Central Command in a statement posted early Monday.

Jesus Dork Speaker of the House Mike Johnson’s minions are hoping everything goes smoothly with Tony Gonzales in Tuesday’s primary – smooth as in they hope that far right gun freak Brandon Herrera defeats him and then he doesn’t resign his seat before next January because they’re seriously close to losing the majority with just a little more attrition, Politico reports.

“Should he lose the primary, which a lot of us expect, he’ll probably just serve out his term. People still deserve to have a congressman doing the constituent work, etc,” said Florida Congressman Mike Haridopolos, as though there’d be any incentive for Gonzales to remain as a lame duck. “I think the voters in Texas are going to speak pretty loudly. And I would guess that his days are numbered in Congress,” Haridopolos added, evidently hell-bent on alienating and pissing off his colleague.

These updates are just going to keep being all over the place and hardly keeping up with all the bullshit the Orange God Emperor hath wrought, but yeah the American embassy in Kuwait has been hit with at least one Iranian projectile, the AP reports without any further detail.

“DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH TO SUPPORT MY ARGUMENT, LIB” is so friggin stale. Really thought MAGAmerica had gotten more “sophisticated” then this with their bullshit after 10 years.

There are a number of darkly absurd laughs to be found in both the details and the composition of a Sunday WBRE article about a 74 year-old Dalmatia, Pennsylvania man’s death this afternoon in “a crash that involved one car and one train,” phrased as though typically it requires more than the one Norfolk Southern hauler. There’s that and the mention that the unfortunate decedent wasn’t wearing a seatbelt when his Subaru Forester was t-boned by the likely fast moving locomotive which, by the way, it’s “unknown whether there [was] any damage” inflicted upon it, per the NBC affiliate station.

However those respective elements of the source report – the very genre of which is already often strong enough to stand up a National Zero article on its own, even down to the gratuitous factual gap on how much damage the train sustained during the grade crossing collision in the Keystone State’s central Northumberland County – simply cannot outshine the basis of the cheeky headline.

The man’s first name was Darwin. Friggin Darwin Whitmer is the guy who thought driving around the crossing gates was a good idea and there’d be no consequences for it. Holy freaking shit that is so goddamned on the nose it’s actually anti-humorous, like something Babylon Bee fans would heartily chuckle at even while the writers struggled to fit creationism into the “joke.” Really the only issue is the man’s age at 74, a deep dent in the whole “Darwin Awards” premise given that he’s either long ago passed on his genes or didn’t and was statistically unlikely to do so. That name though, lol.

Sunday’s a good day for oil and a bad day for stocks after convicted felon President Trump’s attack on Iran spiked the price of a barrel of black fossil goo up 8.65 percent to $72.77 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average futures down 534 to 48,462, CNBC reports on the MAGAnomic miracle.

After about five hours of complete silence on the matter – but not complete silence overall since his Truth Social feed has been peppered with screenshots of tweets of right wingers praising his State of the Union speech from five days ago – convicted felon President Trump on Sunday told the Daily Mail that up until now he and his minions have “done pretty well” avoiding getting American service members killed in action since his lie-fueled return to power over the United States.

“They’re great people. And, you know, we expect that to happen, unfortunately. Could happen continuous – it could happen again,” Trump said to a reporter, adding he expects the campaign to last four weeks. “It’s always been a four week process. We figured it will be four weeks or so. It’s always been about a four week process so – as strong as it is, it’s a big country, it’ll take four weeks.”

“Or less,” the 79 year-old commander-in-chief added at the end of his rambling to the reporter.

CENTCOM Update

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…

— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) March 1, 2026

CENTCOM just now announced that three American service members were killed and another five wounded so far under unclear circumstances and locations in the Middle East. Live updates below:

Former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a complete asshole widely disliked for his constant tirades on the international stage during his 2005 to 2013 term in office, was killed in a US or Israeli strike on Sunday, Fox News reports citing Iranian state media. It’s not clear yet if he was actually targeted or if he just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, which would be funnier.

The Washington state Department of Licensing on Friday announced that their AI-automated phone system’s “Para Español, oprima numero dos” is now finally actual Español rather not English with a Castilian Spanish-sounding accent that would say “Your estimated wait time is less than ‘tres’ minutes” and similar absurdist nonsense to callers needing DMV services, the AP reports.

“DOL apologizes for the error and to its customers for any inconvenience,” the agency said in a statement just before the fix was confirmed. “An unfortunate byproduct of expanding services is that DOL found problems with the self-service option.” Officials admitted to the AP that home-state megacorporation Amazon was the culprit behind the ridiculousness. Reporters later replicated the voice testing out AWS’s AI product called Polly and selecting an option named “Lucia.”

🔴ELIMINATED: Abdolrahim Mousavi, the Iranian Chief of Staff of the armed forces.

Additionally, the IDF struck & eliminated 7 members of the top Iranian security leadership in Tehran and 40 senior commanders. pic.twitter.com/0a4wf3dk9N

— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) March 1, 2026

“Khamenei, one of the most evil people in History, is dead. This is not only Justice for the people of Iran, but for all Great Americans, and those people from many Countries throughout the World, that have been killed or mutilated by Khamenei and his gang of bloodthirsty THUGS. He was unable to avoid our Intelligence and Highly Sophisticated Tracking Systems and, working closely with Israel, there was not a thing he, or the other leaders that have been killed along with him, could do. This is the single greatest chance for the Iranian people to take back their Country. We are hearing that many of their IRGC, Military, and other Security and Police Forces, no longer want to fight, and are looking for Immunity from us. As I said last night, ‘Now they can have Immunity, later they only get Death!’ Hopefully, the IRGC and Police will peacefully merge with the Iranian Patriots, and work together as a unit to bring back the Country to the Greatness it deserves. That process should soon be starting in that, not only the death of Khamenei but the Country has been, in only one day, very much destroyed and, even, obliterated. The heavy and pinpoint bombing, however, will continue, uninterrupted throughout the week or, as long as necessary to achieve our objective of PEACE THROUGHOUT THE MIDDLE EAST AND, INDEED, THE WORLD!” posted convicted felon President Trump on Saturday

Israeli intel sources have confirmed that Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei is in a very warm place, CNN reports without any corroboration from Tehran’s side on the mean old bastard’s demise.

Now that Obama’s poll numbers are in tailspin – watch for him to launch a strike in Libya or Iran. He is desperate.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 9, 2012

There’s a “growing assessment” among the Israeli intel community that Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei was killed in an IDF airstrike on Saturday, according to Times of Israel military correspondent Emmanuel Fabian, though Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told NBC News a short while ago that the 86 year-old tyrant is still alive – as far as Aragchi knew.

Numerous sources are reporting that convicted felon President Trump has canceled plans to address the nation live after his early Saturday attack on Iran after having told media he would do so. No reason was given for the cancelation, though it may’ve interfered with golf plans.

No War With Iran. Get our troops out of Iraq and Syria now. https://t.co/QYKPi38UXU #IranAttack #NoWarWithIran pic.twitter.com/PmE5EEJQCJ

— Tulsi Gabbard 🌺 (@TulsiGabbard) January 5, 2020

Convicted felon President Trump early Saturday told the Washington Post in a brief phone call that lasted mere seconds that “All I want is freedom for the people” as his justification for launching yet another massive not-so-surprise attack against Iran while most Americans were sleeping.