☕️ MUDDLEMENT ☙ Saturday, March 14, 2026 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠

Trump predicted Kharg Island in 1988; Times muddled; UN condemns Iran, but not the US. Cuba burns; ISIS shooter meets ROTC justice; SAVE Act progress; Schumer can't count to a billion; and more.

Good morning, C&C, it’s Saturday! Your Weekend Edition roundup includes: Trump told a Guardian reporter in 1988 he’d ‘do a number on Kharg Island’ — thirty-eight years later, the Marines showed up (and the NYT is baffled). The UN Security Council condemned Iran in the largest coalition vote in UN history, but Democrats somehow missed the memo. Cuba’s Communist Party HQ got the bonfire treatment after eight nights without power. An ISIS-linked shooter targeted an ROTC class and the students killed him with a knife. Plus, Chuck Schumer thinks tens of billions of people vote in US elections.

🚀 C&C ARMY BRIEFING — IRAN WAR UPDATE 🚀

Prepare for another massive eyeroll; you’ll be able to see Jupiter from a seated position. Late yesterday, the New York Times ran an awful story headlined, “U.S. Military Attacks Iran’s Oil Export Hub, Trump Says.” The sub-headline added, “The strikes on Kharg Island hit military sites, including those storing missiles and mines; economic infrastructure was not targeted.” Sounds a lot like they are preparing to capture the key oil facility, as I suggested on March 8th.

Let’s time travel. Thirty-eight years ago in 1988, a Guardian reporter interviewed New York real-estate investor Donald Trump and asked him to describe his platform if he ever ran for president. “Respect,” Trump said in a word. “We’re getting kicked around,” he explained. When asked for an example, Trump mentioned Iran. Not only that. He also mentioned a minuscule spit of sand in the Persian Gulf called Kharg Island. Thirty-eight years ago.

In 1988, Trump told the Guardian:

“I’d be harsh on Iran. They’ve been beating us psychologically, making us look like a bunch of fools. One bullet shot at one of our men or ships, and I’d do a number on Kharg Island. I’d go in and take it. Iran can’t even beat Iraq, yet they push the United States around. It’d be good for the world to take them on.”

Of course, the Times’s reporters, whose average age is below that required to legally buy pot gummies, had no idea. Certainly, their story did not mention this well-known quote, even though it illuminates Trump’s Iran War aims and perfectly frames last night’s action. Instead, the Times’s juvenile journalists pretended to be baffled. Even more mind-numbingly, the Times piled lasagna-like layers of perplexity. “The Trump administration appears to have been unprepared for Iran to use the choke point of the strait as leverage,” the article reported in faux bewilderment.

Caught unprepared! Trump never saw the Strait of Hormuz problem coming! Haha!

The Times wants its readers to believe that Trump has understood Kharg Island’s significance as far back as 1990, but never once considered the Strait. Please. But it’s even stupider than that.

As recently as July, 2018, during Trump 1.0, the President mean-tweeted after Iranian President Hassan Rouhani threatened to close the Strait and disrupt oil prices. Trump said, “NEVER, EVER THREATEN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN OR YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE.” (His all-caps.)

(Spoiler: they did threaten the United States again. Well, it’s consequences time.)

For the love of everything holy, the Times even printed the exact same Strait-closure playbook in its own newspaper on July 22, 2018:

A year later, Iran actually tried to do it. In 2019, Iran’s IRGC Navy commander threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz in retaliation for Trump’s oil sanctions. Iran sabotaged four tankers in the UAE, mined two freight ships in the Gulf of Oman, and drone-struck Saudi Aramco. Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign forced the whole thing.

In other words, during Trump 1.0, he already lived through Iran’s exact Hormuz strategy. But the Times somehow still concluded that Trump was unprepared for Iran to use the choke point of the strait as leverage. The Times’s historical memory doesn’t even extend back to 2019.

Only New York Times readers could fall for something like this. Sometimes I wonder whether this newsroom myopia is actually a symptom of a bona fide medical problem. Chronic hemp overuse? Late-stage syphilis? Fulminant TDS? All of the above?

As a reminder for readers who missed the March 8th C&C post, Kharg Island is a tiny patch of land off Iran’s coast (only 5x2 miles), has 7 loading jetties, and handles 90% of Iran’s crude exports— around 1.5M barrels/day. Iran never bothered to diversify its export infrastructure because of an unspoken gentleman’s agreement for everyone to leave Kharg alone. Since the IRGC controls over 50% of Iran’s GDP and half of Iran’s oil revenue goes directly to that mafia-like organization, capturing Iran’s oil infrastructure isn’t just strategic—it’s socking the IRGC right in its wallet.

Sadly, the Times’s “unprepared” narrative is spreading. Yesterday, a syphilitic CNN reporter asked War Secretary Pete Hegseth about it. He called the idea that Pentagon officials had somehow underestimated the war’s impact on the Strait of Hormuz “patently ridiculous.” The Secretary explained, “Of course, for decades, Iran has threatened shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.” He continued, “This is always what they do: hold the Strait hostage. CNN doesn’t think we thought of that. It’s a fundamentally unserious report.”

I have already written at length about the Administration’s careful planning for this very contingency— easy dots that the corporate media seems unable to connect. For just one example: are we expected to believe that when the military tackled Venezuela first, securing its oil, that sequence was merely a happy coincidence?

One imagines the Times’s headline from June 6, 1944: “Normandy Landing Costs Allied Forces Considerable Ammunition.” The Times is suddenly very concerned about oil expenses while Iran’s economic and military crown jewel, Kharg Island, now sits defenseless, ready to welcome the US Marines. Wall Street Journal, yesterday:

“One bullet shot at one of our men or ships, and I’d do a number on Kharg Island,” Trump said in 1990. “I’d go in and take it.” I guess they didn’t believe he would actually do it. Now all they can do is pretend like he never said it.

🚀 Another fake narrative is rapidly failing— the widely shared argument that Trump’s war on Iran is illegal and breaks international laws or something. On Wednesday, the New York Times quietly reported, “U.N. Security Council Condemns Iran’s Retaliatory Strikes in the Middle East.” The sub-headline added, “In an overwhelming vote, the council backed a resolution condemning Iran. A Russian proposal calling for an end to the war that didn’t assign blame or even name the parties was rejected.”

It wasn’t even close. In fact, the vote established the single largest coalition around a UN Security Council resolution in history. Thirteen of fifteen Security Council members agreed —Russia and China abstained but did not oppose it— and a historically ‘overwhelming’ 135 other member nations joined in condemning Iran. Not condemning Trump. Not condemning the United States. Iran.

The Security Council —the body that defines international law— called Iran’s attacks against its neighbors “a breach of international law and a serious threat to international peace and security.” Iran is the threat. Iran is breaking international law.

Russia attempted to pass a bland, competing resolution addressing the broader war and generally calling on “all parties” to stop fighting (without blaming anyone). Even that weak gesture still failed: only 4 votes in favor, 2 against, 9 abstentions. It probably didn’t help much that Russia is currently attacking Ukraine. Being engaged in active hostilities against your neighbor is not a particularly compelling look when calling for somebody else to quit fighting. The jokes write themselves.

In any event, neither Russia nor China formally criticized the US.

Meanwhile, Democrats and legacy media pundits continue to insist Trump’s Iran campaign is “illegal” and violates international law. Just this week, Senate Democrats pushed a War Powers resolution to halt the operation, questioned whether Trump had already committed “war crimes,” and the New York Times’ live blog has helpfully reminded readers approximately forty-seven times that Trump never got congressional authorization.

What about international law! The rules-based order! Won’t somebody think of the norms!

But, now that the world’s premier international law body looked at the situation and decided to condemn Iran, will Democrats modify their stance? (The UN didn’t even condemn Israel, which is probably another record.) Somehow, I imagine that Democrats will keep on forgetting to mention this vote, as they and their media allies have done ever since the vote was taken.

But my goodness. With a historic vote showing UN unanimity like never before in human history, you’d almost think the rules-based international order they keep invoking actually agrees with Trump on Iran. That’s a very inconvenient fact when their entire argument depends on him being the rogue actor. Just. Saying.

🌍🇺🇸 ESSENTIAL NEWS AND COMMENTARY 🇺🇸🌍

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Yesterday, the UK Guardian reported, “Cuban president confirms talks with Trump officials amid US blockade.” Cuban citizens burned down the local Communist Party of Cuba headquarters last night —in a city bearing the unfortunate name Morón— as the island endured its eighth consecutive night without power.

Cuba has long been a thorn in the U.S.’s southern paw. For sixty-seven years, the Cuban Communist Party survived the Bay of Pigs, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Soviet collapse, the death of Fidel Castro, and approximately forty rounds of American sanctions. Nothing worked, and nothing changed, except U.S. Democrats kept bragging about the impoverished nation’s ‘free health care.’

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel confirmed Thursday, in what must have been one of the most uncomfortable press conferences in the history of communist governance since Stalin choked on a hazelnut,* that no fuel has entered Cuba in three months. Not from Venezuela, which used to supply it generously, and not from anywhere else, either. (* or maybe some other kind of nut; we don’t know yet.)

Cuban fuel stopped flowing in January, when Trump’s Executive Order 14380 cut off the Venezuelan oil pipeline— following the Trump administration’s involuntary relocation of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, which the Guardian finds sinister and which sane people find extremely satisfying. The regime’s official response to eight nights of national blackouts and a fuel-starved island was to dispatch dry rice and extra milk rations to the protest areas as a containment measure.

The Cubans’ response was to torch the Morónic Communist Party building.

President Díaz-Canel confirmed Thursday that Cuba’s communist government has officially begun talks with the United States, which was widely seen as the beginning of the end of its stubborn resistance. President Trump’s stated goal, which was actually written into an executive order, is regime change in Cuba by the end of the year.

His previous message to the island’s communist government was to “make a deal before it’s too late.” It looks like they might want to make a deal.

Finally! People are starting to notice President Trump’s third-way superpower:

There was always a third way. But for some reason, the muddled Beltway class can never see it.

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How many times must we hear the same tragic story with the same ridiculous ‘errors’? Yesterday, CBS reported, “Old Dominion gunman previously convicted for ISIS support, was released early from federal prison.” Was released. We just love the passive voice (thanks, CBS.). Who released the ISIS-linked killer? Biden’s DOJ, of course.

On Thursday morning, a man marched into a business school classroom at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. He asked: “Is this the ROTC class?” He was told yes. He pulled out a gun and started shooting.

In seconds, Mohamed Bailor Jalloh, 36, shot two students and killed Lt. Col. Brandon Shah —a decorated Army aviator, professor of military science, close to retirement, and a man who had devoted the second half of his career to training the next generation of American military officers.

The ROTC students in the room then neutralized the shooter with their bare hands and a knife.

FBI Special Agent in Charge Dominique Evans, asked to describe how students subdued the shooter, chose her words carefully: “They rendered him no longer alive. I don’t know how else to say it— they basically were able to terminate the threat.” CBS News confirmed that one ROTC student killed Mohamed with a knife while the others beat him and held him down.

FBI Director Kash Patel later posted, “The shooter is now deceased, thanks to a group of brave students who stepped in and subdued him— actions that undoubtedly saved lives.” These were college students in an ROTC class, not Navy SEALs. They hadn’t graduated or been commissioned. But when someone killed their instructor and turned a weapon on them, they instinctively did what experienced military officers are trained to do: they fought back with whatever was handy.

The shooter was an immigrant from Sierra Leone, naturalized in the US as a child. He became a Virginia National Guardsman at age 19. In 2016, he pleaded guilty to attempting to provide material support to ISIS after ‘being radicalized.’ He got only eleven years in federal prison. But he was released early in December 2024, fourteen months before his original sentence was up, by Biden’s Department of Justice— after Trump had won re-election.

As a convicted felon, Mohamed could not legally possess a firearm. He had one anyway, having purchased the gun illegally (the FBI has already charged the seller). Somewhere in the Biden DOJ’s lower bowels, someone reviewed a file that said “Mohamed Bailor Jalloh, guilty plea, attempted material support to ISIS,” and decided to spring him. Then the cowardly, wannabe terrorist walked into a ROTC classroom asking where the future soldiers were and expecting them to be helpless and unarmed. He miscalculated.

The story is of total failure, all the way down the progressive justice system. Obama’s DOJ gave the naturalized terrorist a light sentence. Biden’s DOJ sprang him early, probably because of DEI targets, and perhaps to create chaos for the incoming Trump Administration. Despite gun laws, he got one anyway. Now a career officer is dead. And the New York Times, which is currently running a ‘sympathetic’ daily death counter for soldiers slain in Iran, has zero curiosity about the naturalized muslim who killed soldiers here at home.

Make it make sense. I dare you.

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SAVE Act Progress! Yesterday, the Daily Caller reported, “GOP Floats Hybrid Debate Gambit To Appease Senate Detractors On SAVE America Act.” Yesterday, SAVE Act architect Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) tweeted a very welcome update announcing that Majority Leader John Thune was finally coming around and has now agreed to hold a ‘hybrid’ talking filibuster.

CLIP: Senator Mike Lee announces serious progress on SAVE Act debate (1:11).

In an encouraging development on the election integrity front, Utah Senator Mike Lee posted a video update Friday announcing that he and Majority Leader Thune have “turned a corner” on the SAVE America Act. Lee said Thune has now agreed to bring the voter ID bill to the Senate floor next week, and Lee believes the debate format will be some kind of ‘hybrid’ talking filibuster, meaning Democrats will at least have to stand up and explain to America why requiring proof of citizenship to vote is such a terrifying concept.

It’s not good enough yet, but this is visible progress. For weeks, Leader Thune had more or less thrown cold water on the talking filibuster idea, warning it could tie up the Senate for months. (Oh, no, not that!) But apparently, the combination of Trump calling it his “number one priority,” Lee and Senator Rick Scott (R-FL) keeping the pressure white-hot, and even embattled Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) writing an op-ed flip-flopping and backing “whatever changes to Senate rules may prove necessary” finally moved the needle.

The idea of making Democrats debate the merits is so tantalizing. It’s going to be great. An example was provided this week when Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) gave a little press presentation. With his characteristic poise and composure, Chuck moderately explained that the SAVE Act was an “outrage!” that would “allow ICE to kick tens of billions of people off the rolls.” That’s not a typo. Chuck said tens of billions.

I realize it’s hard to believe. But here’s the clip:

CLIP: Schumer calls the SAVE America Act ‘an outrage’ because it will kick ‘tens of billions’ off US voter rolls (0:47).

Um. There are only 160 million registered voters in America, which, the last time I checked the calculator, wasn’t even 16% of one billion, never mind tens of billions. There aren’t even eight billion people on the entire planet, which —checks notes— isn’t even ten billion. Maybe Chuck’s ‘tens of billions’ counts space aliens? Or includes all the dead folks throughout history? Or possibly his meds were wearing off?

Whichever, we can safely assume math isn’t Chuck’s strong suit. He’s also a little loose with the finer details. But never mind. It was a preview of coming attractions. And even that short preview delivered a feature-length comedy.

Schumer, already on a hilarious roll, elaborated. He tried to explain that the real problem with requiring citizenship verification is that it would lead to “purging” the voter rolls using “an algorithm put together by ICE, put together by DOGE and Musk.” Where he got that sinister ICE-DOGE-Musk axis is anybody’s guess. Maybe peyote?

I just want to get this all straight, so I’m not being unfair: Democrats insist non-citizen voting is a myth, a feverish, made-up right-wing conspiracy theory, practically nonexistent. But also, if you clean the rolls, ICE would remove so many ineligible voters that it would “literally destroy the country.” Both of those things can’t be true at the same time, Chuck. Pick a lane.

Anyway, next week, Democrats will deliver an epic show in the Senate for the ages. There is even a risk that I might die laughing. How will Chuckie Schumer top his routine about tens of billions of voters and the dreaded ICE-Musk-DOGE dot-connection? I have a feeling that a lot of great mocking material is headed our way. Stay tuned. It’s gonna be lit.

🔥 The muddled Times thinks Trump was unprepared. Cuba thought it could outlast him. An ISIS sympathizer thought ROTC students would be helpless. And Chuck Schumer thinks there are tens of billions of American voters. Everybody miscalculated this week— except the third-way president they keep underestimating.

Have a wonderful weekend! Assemble back here on Monday morning, as we launch a brand-new week of amusement, essential news, and optimistic commentary that you definitely won’t hear about anywhere else.

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