☕️ IT’S ME ☙ Thursday, March 5, 2026 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠

Starbucks flees to a red state; US sub torpedoes an Iranian warship—first since WWII; Boots on ground in Ecuador (sort of); Doral Summit; Trump's secret Senate succession plan decoded; more.

Good morning, C&C, it’s Thursday! Your roundup includes: Starbucks dumps Seattle for a red state in the most passive-aggressive corporate breakup since Elon bought Twitter. The Iran War enters Day Six with a WWII-first torpedo strike, the most isolated regime since Saddam, and a German chancellor who just endorsed regime change (yes, THAT Germany). US Special Forces hit the ground in Ecuador, Trump prepares to host a dozen Latin American leaders at Doral, and I decode the six Republican Senate “retirements” that are actually a generational chess move you were never supposed to notice.

🌍🇺🇸 ESSENTIAL NEWS AND COMMENTARY 🇺🇸🌍

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The woke company that put pronouns on name tags is fleeing to a state that put the Ten Commandments in classrooms. The Seattle Times ran the story, headlined, “Starbucks picks this Southern state for its new corporate office.” While the coffee MegaCorp insisted that its headquarters will remain in iconic Seattle, it is moving most of its operations staff to Nashville. I still love you, I just want to see other people.

First, the legal background. Seattle companies pay a municipal payroll tax. The Space Needle shakes down employers for between 0.7% and 2.5% of all compensation paid to employees. You can imagine how pricey that gets for Starbucks’ C-suite. As if that weren’t disheartening enough for Seattle companies, Washington State is this close to passing its “millionaire tax” (SB 5796), which levies a 5% tax on all compensation above the Social Security cap ($176K)— far short of a million, haha.

Starbucks’ announcement was a shock. Seattle thought Starbucks was, if not exactly happy in the relationship, at least satisfied. Seattle had no warning at all. Starbucks didn’t even say, “we need to talk,” or “it’s not you, it’s me.” If you can believe this, Seattle even had to find out about it on Facebook.

Seattle is screwed. On Tuesday, Starbucks and the State of Tennessee issued a joint press release announcing the coffee company is now dating Tennessee. Stimulated by Tennessee’s low-tax culture, Starbucks is “repositioning” after “pulling out” of several locations. The COO spoke about a more strategic presence and “penetrating the Southeast market.” (Don’t blame me, those are actual quotes. Mostly.)

Tennessee Governor Bill Lee boasted about how the state’s “strong values and fiscally-conservative approach” attracted Starbucks— the biggest and most progressive coffee chain in America. Did you think you’d ever see the day when Seattle was the throwaway crazy girlfriend, and conservative Nashville was younger, hotter, and had its life together? (Most of all, Nashville will keep to its own checking account.)

There is more context. Starbucks is currently undergoing a massive reorganization under new CEO Brian Niccol. He has a mandate for change. Long before his hiring, in 2020, following the George Floyd Summer of Disgrace, Starbucks linked executive compensation to DEI objectives. Five years later, last March, investors voted 90% to strip DEI goals and related incentives from executive pay packages. (They retained the language of diversity on the website, but removed the financial incentives.)

Imagine that— by March, 2025, 90% of Starbucks investors agreed DEI was a disaster. You can’t get 90% of Americans to agree on anything. I bet you couldn’t get 75% to concede the Moon Landing, for the Firmament’s sake. Next, as 2025 marched on, Starbucks laid off nearly 2,000 corporate staff, including some in Seattle, closed 600+ stores nationwide, and undertook a $1 billion restructuring.

So, despite Starbucks’ reassuring denials that its “headquarters” will remain in the city where it was originally founded in 1971, its operations team is —like everyone else these days— moving to a red state. In a story intended to comfort locals, KOMO News quoted workforce commenter Thomas Fellows, who explained, “it makes sense for the company to expand in Tennessee, where there is no state income tax.” Don’t worry. We’ll still leave our stuff here. We just want to live with Brandi right now. It’s complicated.

Behold, Exhibit 637 of the Great Conservative Migration. Even the progressive companies are moving now.

The moral of this story is: fiscal gravity beats cultural gravity. When Governor Lee says “values,” he means no income tax. When Starbucks hears “values,” it hears no income tax. Finally, everyone agrees on values. In fairness, Starbucks is a business. It just forgot that for five years. Now they remember. It was kind of like a midlife crisis, where Starbucks moved in with the tattooed wonder for a half-decade, then one day woke up in a pool of vomit, stared at the ceiling, and asked itself, “What am I doing here?”

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The Iran War, now entering its sixth day, continues following the Venezuela track. You just have to look behind the narratives. Yesterday, the New York Times reported, “Iran Calls Torpedoing of Ship by U.S. an ‘Atrocity.’” The sub-headline explained, “Iran’s foreign minister accused the United States of committing an ‘atrocity at sea,’ after a U.S. Navy submarine attacked an Iranian frigate in the Indian Ocean.” Attacked is one way of putting it. We sank it. It’s sunk.

“An Iranian warship thought it was safe in international waters,” Secretary of War Pete Hegseth explained at a press conference. “It was sunk by a torpedo.” That’s why people love Hegseth. Biden’s Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin would have said, “the target was neutralized.” Hegseth simply said, “it was sunk by a torpedo.” He’s no diplomat. But he’s the nation’s best recruiting officer.

The Iranian Navy’s Dena (hull number 75) was a Moudge-class frigate, part of the Iranian Southern Fleet, armed with Qader anti-ship missiles, Sayyad air-defense missiles, a 76mm main gun, lightweight torpedoes, 3D phased array radar, and 180 hapless crew. The Dena was one of Iran’s newest, commissioned in 2021— barely five years old. Its phased radar array could track aircraft in three dimensions, but couldn’t see a torpedo coming.

The Dena was sunk yesterday by a US Los Angeles-class attack submarine, about 40 nautical miles off Galle, Sri Lanka. The Sri Lankans rescued some of the Iranian sailors, but at least 87 were confirmed killed, and scores remain missing.

It was the first combat use of a torpedo by an American submarine in international waters since World War II. Every submarine commander in the US Navy has trained for this their entire career, and none of them had ever actually done it— until yesterday. That’s why corporate media is calling it “unprecedented,” and the Iranians are calling it “an atrocity.”

How quickly they forget.

Remember the cartel boats? Before Operation Absolute Resolve toppled Maduro in January, there was Operation Southern Spear— months of US military strikes on narco-trafficking vessels in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific. Democrats screamed about that, too. Disproportionate! Illegal! It might have been fishermen in speedboats!

But the message to Caracas was clear: There is nowhere on the water you can hide from us. Your boats are not safe in international waters. Your navy is not safe in your own ports. Your submarines are not safe under the ocean. We see you, and we can reach you, everywhere, anytime.

Two months later, Maduro was in custody and Venezuelan oil is flowing through US-managed channels at market rates instead of being fire-sold to China. Now it’s Iran’s turn. Lather, rinse, repeat.

The message to Tehran is identical to the message to Caracas: Your navy does not exist anymore. Not in the Gulf, not in the Indian Ocean, not anywhere. Iran has made its own trade waterway —the economically critical Strait of Hormuz— a no-go zone for five days. Now their ships aren’t even safe off the coast of Sri Lanka.

This is the Venezuela Model: destroy the regime’s ability to project force. Not with a ground invasion or an occupation plan. With quiet, firm, inescapable power.

🚀 Yesterday, the BBC reported, “US Senate vote fails to rein in Trump war powers on Iran.” The Senate voted down a measure that would have stopped military action in Iran 53-47. Senator Rand Paul (R) voted with Democrats, and Senator John Fetterman (D) voted with Republicans— so it was even Steven. To tell you the truth, I like Fetterman’s conservative costume much better than the hoodie.

It may be that the Senate feels it too. Not one country in the world is meaningfully supporting Iran, and not one country in the world is meaningfully opposing the US. On Tuesday, German Chancellor Merz went to the White House, sat with President Trump, and said Germany and the US share “a desire to get rid of Iran’s current regime.” Trump publicly thanked him and said Germany has been “helping out” by granting US forces access to bases on German soil. The Guardian: “Will Trump’s Middle East war also engulf Friedrich Merz?”

Germany coming onside is historic. Germany hasn’t ever done this. Post-WWII Germany has defined itself by military restraint. Merz openly aligning with a US offensive —and saying he wants regime change— was a paradigm shift for German foreign policy and an unparalleled political risk for the Chancellor. The Irish Times’s headline complained, “Merz abandons Germany’s moral certainties as he aligns with Trump.”

Listen— the historicity is off the charts. This kind of global unanimity has never happened before, at least not in the modern era. The United States is waging an offensive war against a sovereign nation, and:

• No country is supplying Iran with weapons.

• No country is providing military advisors.

• No country is threatening intervention.

• No country has imposed sanctions on the US.

• No country has recalled its ambassador from Washington.

• Iran’s biggest ally, Russia, evacuated its own personnel before the strikes.

• China is still buying Iranian oil, but won’t lift a finger to defend the seller.

• The UN Security Council hasn’t even held a binding vote.

The “Axis of Resistance” is nowhere to be seen. Meanwhile, Germany’s chancellor flew to Washington to endorse regime change. Five Arab nations are running air defense for American bases. That’s a coalition of the eager.

But wait, there’s more.

🚀 On Tuesday, the New York Times reported, “U.S. Takes Military Action in Ecuador Against ‘Terrorist Organizations.’” Boots on the ground. Sort of, anyway.

Ecuador sits on the Pacific Coast of South America, sandwiched between Colombia and Peru— the world’s two biggest cocaine producers. Geography, as they say, is destiny.

Tuesday’s announcement took everyone by surprise. Again. But it shouldn’t have. In October, President Trump notified Congress that the US was in a “non-international armed conflict” with “unlawful combatants.” Just before that, in September, the State Department designated two cartels, Los Lobos and Los Choneros, as terrorist organizations. Those two steps —armed conflict status plus terrorist designation— are the legal scaffolding for everything else.

Once a group is a “Designated Terrorist Organization” and you’re in an “armed conflict,” the rules of engagement shift from law enforcement to military operations. That’s how it goes from boat strikes on the open ocean to special forces in jungle camps.

It’s important to note that Ecuador is fully cooperating with these new operations. Perhaps even eagerly. Yesterday Bloomberg reported, “Ecuador Expels Entire Cuban Embassy Staff Ahead of Trump Summit.” What gives?

Ecuador’s President Daniel Noboa has been courting Trump for over a year. He attended Trump’s inauguration. Marco Rubio visited Ecuador in September. SOUTHCOM commander General Francis Donovan flew to Quito on Monday —the day before the raids launched— to meet personally with Noboa.

Why is Ecuador’s president begging for American help? Because 70% of the cocaine produced in Colombia and Peru —the world’s two largest producers— now flows through Ecuador’s ports. Drug gangs turned one of Latin America’s safest countries into one of its deadliest in just a few years. Noboa tried a referendum last November to reopen a US military base at Manta. The vote failed narrowly. So he found another way. Shortly, he leaves for Miami, to meet with the US President.

🔥 In two days, at Trump’s National Doral Miami golf resort, President Trump will meet with 12+ Latin American leaders to sign the “Doral Charter.” NBC, yesterday: “Trump will host Latin American leaders and the White House says this is the priority.”

From what little we know so far, the Doral Charter will formalize a hemispheric security bloc, expressly aimed at fighting narco-terrorist cartels and countering illegal migration. But the architectural sub-text is Trump’s 21st-century Monroe Doctrine* aimed at shoving China out of the Western Hemisphere. (* Also known as the “Donroe Doctrine,” which is not my favorite. But whatever.)

Expected are Milei (Argentina), Bukele (El Salvador), Noboa (Ecuador), Peña (Paraguay), Paz (Bolivia), Asfura (Honduras), plus Costa Rica, Chile, Dominican Republic, Panama, and Trinidad and Tobago — roughly a dozen pro-Trump, conservative-leaning leaders. Four of the region’s five biggest countries —Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, and Venezuela — were conspicuously not invited. Neither was Cuba.

We don’t yet know what the President has in mind. If it includes mutual defense language or formalized intelligence-sharing, it could be a NATO-lite for the Western Hemisphere. Who knows? And that’s the point, our adversaries also don’t know.

🚀 I hope this isn’t too wonky. I know all this world conflict seems like a lot, but stay with me. As I announced right after the New Year, this is the year of action. Last year was the year of preparation. This is Annus Operum. I’m sure you feel it, but when you zoom out from the daily news cycle, the scope of what’s happened in the last six months is staggering and historically unprecedented. It probably deserves a special edition of its own, but the danged thing is a moving target.

How about some domestic politics? There’s another plan unfolding behind the scenes.

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At first, I thought it was just a minor “political shenanigans” story. But then a much bigger picture emerged. The trigger story appeared in the Montana Free Press, below the headline, “As filings close, Republican Steve Daines withdraws from U.S. Senate race.” The sub-headline added, “Last-minute move appears to have been intended to discourage anyone other than preferred successor, Kurt Alme, from filing.” Last-minute wasn’t just an expression.

Some would call it skullduggery. Some would call it smart. Steve Daines was a safe incumbent on the greased skids for re-election. Eight minutes before the filing deadline, Republican Kurt Alme filed a competing application in the primary. Four minutes after that, Daines withdrew. The move was political chess that ensured nobody else ran opposing Alme.

Two hours later, President Trump endorsed Kurt Alme.

Steve Daines said he’d been “struggling with the decision for months.” But only four weeks ago, he filed for re-election. The stories covering it always mention Daines is the sixth Republican Senator to drop out of their re-election bid. That fact seems alarming. Why are so many Republican Senators leaving? Every story dutifully noted he’s the sixth Republican Senator to drop out, darkly suggesting they’re all sick of Trump.

So I dug into the six senators. Buckle up. What looks like a retirement wave is in fact a personnel rotation. Every departing senator is being replaced by a Trump-endorsed loyalist. In three cases —Michael Whatley, Harriet Hageman, Kurt Alme— the replacement is someone Trump personally installed in a prior role— his RNC chairman, the woman he recruited to take out Liz Cheney, and his own US Attorney under Trump 1.0 and 2.0.

President Trump isn’t “reacting” to the retirements. He’s orchestrating a succession plan. The retirements are the cover story; the bench rotation is the play. Here’s a chart showing all six. It’s absolutely fascinating:

The generational math tells the whole story: the average departing age is 68, the average replacement age is 53. That’s a 15-year downshift. McConnell-to-Cameron alone is a 44-year gap — the biggest generational leap in a single Senate seat in modern memory. Two are in their early 40s. It’s not that Trump is restocking the Senate with loyalists. He’s restocking the Senate with younger loyalists who’ll be there for decades.

In other words, Trump is actually fixing the GOP’s geriatric problem while the Democrats are spinning the wheels on their walkers. The Donkey Party has nothing like this kind of organized rotation. Bernie Sanders, 84, is going nowhere. The four retirements on the blue side of the Senatorial aisle leave highly contested gaps that offer even more potential GOP pickups, like in New Hampshire.

Corporate media has been trying to dispirit everybody with stories about Democrats winning special elections in red districts. I’m as concerned as anyone. But I am also greatly encouraged that Trump’s team has a plan. We don’t know the plan (nor should we). But it is obviously there. We can also be encouraged that, since there’s a plan, we only have one job: turnout.

We must vote. Both in the primaries and in the general in November. And we should try to get other sane people to vote, too.

There are more psyops flooding social media than you could shake two sticks at. Corporate media is running a stealthy “chaos” narrative. It is a trick and an illusion. There’s no chaos. There is a plan, and the plan is working. I’ll keep sussing it out for you.

Have a terrific Thursday! C&C will return tomorrow as I visit my fourth city in six days. But I’ll still have all the essential news and commentary for you. Don’t miss it.

Don’t race off! We cannot do it alone. Consider joining up with C&C to help move the nation’s needle and change minds. I could sure use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope, if you can: ☕ Learn How to Get Involved 🦠

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