☕️ SHADOW MEN ☙ Monday, March 9, 2026 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠

Iran's new 'Supreme Leader' is the old one's son; IRGC makes political blunder; Lloyd's of London just blinked; and Trump is now holding all legislation hostage for voter ID; plus much more.

Good morning, C&C, it’s Monday! Your DST-brain-fogged roundup includes: It’s the breaking news syndrome again— overnight, Iran “approved a new Supreme Leader;” as usual, corporate media is lying about what happened, so I had to do the journalistic spadework the real reporters wouldn’t; Trump checkmated Lloyd’s of London in a 338-year-old maritime insurance standoff that’s about to uncork the Strait of Hormuz, and the SAVE America Act showdown just went nuclear— Trump says nothing gets signed until voter ID passes, and Schumer took the bait.

⛑️ C&C ARMY BRIEFING — IRAN WAR UPDATE ⛑️

🚀 The New York Times covered yesterday’s biggest breaking news in the war in the most nauseatingly fawning way yet, managing both to ooze anti-Americanism and also dodge the most newsworthy parts of the story, to manufacture a halcyon narrative supporting an actual fascist regime. The headline: “Iran Names Khamenei’s Son New Supreme Leader.”

“Iran has named Mojtaba Khamenei, a son of the country’s slain supreme leader, as his father’s successor,” the Times coolly reported, “according to a statement from top clerics published in state media.” The article continued in a similar vein, as though it were the most normal thing in the world, just keeping the country running smoothly. “His ascension, announced early Monday morning, signals the government’s desire for continuity as Iran faces expanding attacks from the United States and Israel nine days into the war.”

That was the whole take: they’re just maintaining continuity. But … the continuity of what? After all, we keep hearing about the elected president of Iran, Pezeshkian, who remains in place, and is still issuing orders that the IRGC is ignoring.

Just never mind. The sum of the Times’ commentary on this remarkable development, including in its several related articles on Mojtaba’s succession, was “continuity.” That’s it. No complexity. No context. The Grey Lady is now free-diving into the sewers of journalistic malpractice.

It’s a joke to call Mojtaba’s selection as anything other than what it is: a raw power grab by fascist, authoritarian elements of the Iranian government, which the Times appears deeply sympathetic with, and the last thing it provides is continuity. It was probably the worst thing the IRGC could have done.

Let’s unpack it.

🚀 Iran runs a split-screen government— half theocracy, half democracy. And the theocracy half holds the remote control.

On Screen One sits the turbaned Ayatollah. Supreme Leader Khamenei is the big cheese, an Islamic reimagining of a Pope— appointed for life, answerable to nobody, but definitely not celibate. The Ayatollah directs Iran’s military, judiciary, state media, and its foreign policy. His decrees are enforced by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC, which, as I described yesterday, started as revolutionary muscle in 1979 and metastasized into a sprawling military-industrial empire controlling up to 40% of Iran’s economy.

The Ayatollah also appoints half of the ‘Guardian Council,’ a twelve-member political body that approves or rejects every candidate seeking office and can veto any law Parliament passes. Think of it as a permanent, unelected Supreme Court loyal to the Ayatollah that decides who’s even allowed on the ballot.

On Screen Two is the jumbled montage of Iran’s “Democratic Fig Leaf.” Iran does hold real elections— for president, for its 290-member Parliament, and for the Assembly of Experts, the 88 clerics who technically choose the Supreme Leader. Iranians do vote. Candidates do campaign. Presidents serve four-year terms and run domestic and economic policy.

But here’s the catch: every candidate must first be approved by the Ayatollah’s Guardian Council. They are pretty picky. In the 1997 presidential election, for example, only 4 of 230 candidates made the cut. Nor can the president override the Supreme Leader on security or foreign policy. Parliament can pass laws, but the Guardian Council can —and regularly does, often enthusiastically— strike them down.

The result is an ingenious psychological pressure valve. Iranians get the sensation of democratic participation, while the Ayatollah’s IRGC-enforced network retains a permanent veto over every lever that matters. ‘Reformist’ presidents come and go, giving Iranians hope for change that never comes. Meanwhile, the Supreme Leader and the IRGC never change. It’s just business, or maybe like if the Godfather was directed by the guys who made Dumb and Dumber.

So now we understand why critics call it a fascist regime. (Not the Times, of course, who sees fascists everywhere in America but couldn’t find a real fascist if it wore a red teddy and was in the Times’ bed every night, which, come to think of it… oh, never mind.) The Ayatollah and the IRGC hold both the monopoly on state violence and also control about half of Iran’s commercial infrastructure. That is textbook fascism.

🚀 In 1979, the first Ayatollah Khomeini didn’t just overthrow a king— he overthrew the very idea of kings. His foundational text, Islamic Government, couldn’t have been clearer: “Islam does not recognize monarchy and hereditary succession; they have no place in Islam.” Khomeini sneered at the previous Pahlavi dynasty as a “sinister, evil system of government” and then built an entire republic on the promise that no man would ever again inherit power by blood.

Two years ago, now-deceased Ayatollah Khamenei —Mojtaba’s father— flat ruled out his son ever becoming Ayatollah. Iran International, February, 2024:

At a successor-planning committee meeting in 2024, when someone mooted Mojtaba’s name as a potential candidate, Ayatollah Khamenei shut it down. He said it would look like “hereditary leadership,” and forbade any further examination of his son’s suitability.

But, despite the Supreme Leader’s crystal clear position, some regime creatures saw monarchical trouble brewing. In 2022, former Prime Minister Mir Hossein Mousavi —under house arrest since 2011 for the crime of disagreeing with the regime— warned from captivity that Mojtaba was being groomed for exactly this moment. “Have the 2,500-year-old monarchies returned to power,” Mousavi wondered, “that we are talking about Khamenei’s son’s succession?”

This morning, forty-seven years after the ‘revolution’ to overthrow hereditary succession, the Islamic Republic’s military junta held a rushed election by Zoom under active bombardment and installed the dead Supreme Leader’s son. So.

It turns out the Islamic Republic didn’t end dynastic rule. It just swapped the Peacock Throne for a prayer rug and kept the oil business running. This morning’s Times of Israel was much more honest than the New York Times. Headline:

The New York Times’ intellectually bereft article stingily gave Mojtaba’s majestic contradiction a single sentence late in the story. “In Tehran,” the Times minimized, “opponents of the government could be heard reacting to the news by chanting ‘Death to Mojtaba’ from their windows.”

It’s an 80/20 issue there. Reports say 79% of Iranians in Iran opposed Mojtaba’s selection. But the IRGC nominated him anyway. It was an unforced error.

🚀 Next, what the Times euphemistically called Mojtaba’s “online election” was a darkly comedic farce. Wikipedia reported (citing Iran International and others) that the Assembly of Experts first held an online “electoral session,” but only after IRGC commanders applied “repeated contacts and psychological and political pressure” on members to back Mojtaba. So much for ‘free and fair’ elections.

Assembly members described the online meeting as “unnatural.” Debate was cut short, critics had “limited time,” and a vote was forced through by IRGC enforcers even before the Qom elections office was redecorated by airstrikes, leaving the final vote count still incomplete. A second session was then organized somewhere “near the shrine” in Qom. Some Assembly members boycotted, and others said they weren’t even told about the final in‑person meeting where Mojtaba was “named.”

So the Times’s term, “online election,” was doing a lot of work. It was not any kind of neutral work-from-home modernization detail; it was a euphemistic smokescreen helping disguise the fact that the decisive choice was made in a closed, remote, heavily coerced setting that made a mockery of the Assembly’s already thin constitutional legitimacy.

That’s not even close to all.

🚀 The Times euphemism machine was running at full blast. The Grey Lady succinctly described Mojtaba as a “cleric,” implying that he’s some kind of revered holy man, an ascended master with profound theological chops. The truth couldn’t be more different.

Even the Atlantic spotted the scam. “One thing Mojtaba is not,” the Atlantic explained, “is a religious scholar, fit to lead a country whose founding revolutionary purpose was to place the state under the total authority of the most distinguished Shiite jurist.” Mojtaba holds but a basic theological degree, levels below the vaunted Ayatollah class.

He has no other religious bona fides either. The Atlantic reasoned, “The typical currency of clerical power is the number of people who freely choose to follow your guidance when you deliver rulings on what Islam commands, whether in personal matters or political ones.” But, “no one at all cares what Mojtaba has to say on these issues.” So.

🚀 Mojtaba’s selection was based on one thing: his Swamp credentials. Mojtaba Khamenei didn’t rise through Iran’s system— he grew through it, like black mold in a sunless basement. He has never held any elected office and has never been formally appointed to any government position. Kind of like Zohran Mamdani, except better armed.

He was always the man behind the man. In 2019, the Treasury Department said Mojtaba “represented the Supreme Leader in an official capacity despite never being elected or appointed to a government position” and had “worked closely with the commander of the IRGC Force and the Basij Resistance to advance his father’s destabilizing regional ambitions and oppressive domestic objectives.”

The United Against Nuclear Iran project called him “the Supreme Leader’s gatekeeper and guardian.” PBS Frontline’s Tehran Bureau called him “the man in the shadow.”

Like all Swamp Creatures, Mojtaba has a well-honed sense of self-entitlement. Euronews recently revealed his shadow extends across a European luxury property empire —over $138 million in London real estate alone, including a $46 million mansion, plus hotels in Frankfurt and Mallorca and a villa in Dubai, all buried in shady offshore firms in Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and the UAE.

The man who just inherited the Islamic Revolution’s throne against his own father’s wishes has been quietly stashing the revolution’s money in Western super-luxxe real estate. You can’t make it up, but you’d believe it, since it always seems to be this way.

The bottom line, which the Times was apparently unable to conceive, is that the IRGC Corporation just selected its new CEO, defying both popular opinion and the whole reason for the Iranian Revolution’s existence in the first place. It was a political blunder of the first order. We’ll see how long he lasts. It might not be very long at all, even if he is stashed in a mountain bunker somewhere.

The guy who spent his career as a shadow is now the most shadowy Supreme Leader in history: no public appearance, no inauguration ceremony, elected via online vote during a bombing campaign, probably governing from inside a granite hillside. “The appointment of someone who has no religious credentials at all,” the Atlantic noted, “would be a final act of self-delegitimation for a regime that already lacks legitimacy in the eyes of most Iranians.”

The very first Ayatollah, Khomeini, had a million people in the streets for his funeral. His successor’s shadowy son is now running the country’s military forces from a hole in the ground. It’s not really government; it’s a corporate witness protection program with nuclear ambitions.

🚀 Beyond the IRGC’s frantic death throes, there were a couple other interesting developments in the war yesterday. Oil spiked at $120 a barrel before settling back down to just under $100. That should be good news, but unflappable corporate media was still deploying the we’ve got Trump! playbook. Washington Post, yesterday:

Nevertheless, there were two positive developments buried deep in the coverage, from which we can detect signs that Treasury is not sleeping through the war but is actively mitigating the fallout. First, SCMP reported, “India’s 30-day Russian oil waiver comes with a steep US price tag.”

The first pullback on Russian sanctions, which I described yesterday, is underway. The Indians are resuming Russian oil purchases without threat of sanctions from the US. What the SCMP article added is that India also agreed to buy more oil from the US— the “steep price tag” from the headline. The Art of the Deal.

Second, and more importantly, Lloyd’s of London backed down. The Maritime Executive reported, “Lloyd’s Stands Ready to Work With U.S. on Insurance for Hormuz Transits.” The real blockade at the Strait of Hormuz is ending.

Beyond the threat posed by the rapidly disappearing Iranian navy, the world’s maritime insurance provider —Lloyd’s of London (since 1688!)— announced at the start of the war it would refuse to re-insure any vessel traveling through the Strait of Hormuz.

On February 28th, coalition strikes hit Iran, and the IRGC ‘announced’ the Strait of Hormuz was closed. Within seventy-two hours, seven of the twelve International maritime insurers —Gard, NorthStandard, Skuld, Steamship Mutual, the American Club, the Swedish Club, and the London P&I Club— collectively insuring roughly ninety percent of the world’s ocean-going tonnage, executed identical cancellation notices for war-risk coverage in the Persian Gulf.

The reason for the collective action was that their second-tier insurer, Lloyd’s of London, had notified them that it was refusing to reinsure Hormuz traffic.

The cancellations took effect at midnight on March 5th. Tanker traffic through the Strait collapsed from around 138 transits per day to zero. It wasn’t the IRGC’s mines or missiles that shut down the world’s most critical oil chokepoint— it was the actuaries. No insurance means no voyage— it’s that simple. No bank will finance a cargo, no port will accept a tanker, and no charterer will book a vessel that isn’t covered.

The same day the insurers issued their cancellations, Trump posted on Truth Social: “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.”

In other words: if Lloyd’s won’t insure the ships, the United States Treasury will. One day later, on March 6th, the DFC had formalized a $20 billion reinsurance facility covering hull, machinery, and cargo for vessels transiting the Strait— rolling coverage, backed by the full faith and credit of the United States government.

Lloyd’s blinked.

Within days, Lloyd’s Market Association CEO Sheila Cameron assured the Wall Street Journal that the market was “willing to work with the White House on a joint public-private venture to provide cover for shipping in the region.” Cameron released a formal statement: “The Lloyd’s Market Association welcomes the engagement of President Trump and the U.S. Development Finance Corporation to support the movement of non-sanctioned vessels and their commodities through the Strait of Hormuz in order to facilitate global trade and economic stability.”

They welcomed the engagement of President Trump the same way a playground bully welcomes the arrival of adult chaperones. Lloyd’s confirmed it was “engaging constructively with the U.S. Development Finance Corporation and relevant stakeholders.”

Nobody saw that coming. Lloyd’s is a 338-year-old extranational institution that has successfully defied involvement with any particular government, though it is deeply involved with Britain, for obvious reasons. Its headquarters occupy the former site of the storied East India Company. The U.S. Naval Institute once called Lloyd’s relationship with maritime trade a matter of “tradition that transcended national politics.”

Trump essentially threatened to put Lloyd’s out of business, or at least, to start competing with it. The last thing Lloyd’s needs is for the U.S. government to get into the maritime insurance business. So Lloyd’s bent the knee, and will now “work with” the Trump Administration to remove a naval hazard far more terrifying than underwater mines or drone boats— uninsurability. Win-win.

This means tankers will start to move, oil will flow, and the pressure valve on the $120 barrel will start to open. It won’t happen overnight— the first ships will need to test the corridor under US Navy escort, and war-risk premiums will still be eye-watering— but the signal matters more than the timeline. When Lloyd’s says the risk is insurable, the market’s calculation shifts from if the Strait reopens to when.

Yesterday, President Trump made the obvious point. If our soldiers are risking their lives in the Gulf, then the least Americans can do is tolerate a buck more on the price of gas for a few weeks.

The Administration has a plan. The plan was prepared for contingencies like Lloyd’s of London trying to sabotage Trump through insurance. And the plan is working— they got Lloyd’s back in line in one day. TAW.

🌍🇺🇸 ESSENTIAL NEWS AND COMMENTARY 🇺🇸🌍

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The SAVE America Act pressure just ratcheted up another notch. It looks like things are finally about to get moving. Yesterday, Axios reported, “Trump says nothing else gets signed until Congress passes his voting bill.”

Trump is waging a war in the Middle East, managing a global oil crisis, restructuring NATO, squeezing China’s energy supply, and yet he just told Congress that fixing voting supersedes everything else. “I, as President, will not sign other Bills until this is passed.” For good measure, while they are at it, the President tacked on prohibitions on transgender sports and genital mutilation of children.

There you have it. The nation’s highest priority is not Iran, Ukraine, Lloyd’s of London, Cuba, or Venezuela. It’s fixing voting, plus stopping men from playing sports against women as women, and ending Mengelian surgeries on American kids.

Geriatric Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who looks like a dead forest rodent stuffed by a bad taxidermist, immediately shot back on X: “If Trump is saying he won’t sign any bills until the SAVE Act is passed, then so be it: there will be total gridlock in the Senate. Senate Democrats will not help pass the SAVE Act under any circumstances.” He called it Jim Crow 2.0.

The gauntlet has been thrown down and picked up.

Schumer’s argument that requiring someone to show a driver’s license to vote in a federal election is Jim Crow 2.0 is rooted in the racist idea propagated by progressive pollsters and institutions that up to 20% of black people lack photo identification.

That is the dumbest and most preposterous argument conceivable.

They expect us to believe that 1/5th of black Americans live off the grid in this country— in 2026! I don’t know which is stupider, the argument itself or that they expect us to believe that it is somehow easier to live off-grid than do whatever administrative things you need to do to get an ID.

I don’t care if you do have to go down and spend a day at the DMV, or even go to the county health department and get a replacement birth certificate, or whatever annoying and time-consuming tasks the state puts us through. That’s nothing compared to the difficulty of living without bank accounts, never traveling by air, never staying in a hotel, never renting an apartment or a car, never buying cold medicine that is kept behind the pharmacy counter, never cashing a check, and so on, and so on, and so on.

And the idea that 20% of any group of Americans could voluntarily choose not to take advantage of local, state, and federal welfare programs, especially if they are poor, because “getting a driver’s license is too hard,” is even more mind-numbingly idiotic.

Nobody believes that ridiculous lie anyway. That’s why it’s an 80%+ issue across the board in the U.S.— as President Trump said in his Truth Social post. That single statistic —widespread support of an ID requirement for voting— might be the best evidence of all that Schumer’s mendacious claim that 20% of blacks lack ID is fake and gay.

If Democrats do have to take to the podium —which seems increasingly likely— how will Schumer defend this indefensible claim, except by citing obscure progressive studies that nobody believes? That’ll take the first ten minutes, and then what? Personally, I can’t wait to see Democrats filibuster the Save America Act and make their best arguments. That will be some must-see TV.

🧮 Three shadow men exposed themselves. Mojtaba Khamenei —the man who spent 30 years as ‘the shadow behind the Supreme Leader’— is now the most shadowy Supreme Leader in history, governing from inside a mountain. Lloyd’s of London —the 338-year-old shadow power behind global maritime commerce— just got dragged into a partnership with the White House it never wanted. And Chuck Schumer —the shadow blocker using a procedural rule to prevent 330 million Americans from being asked to prove they’re citizens before voting— just declared ‘total gridlock’ on live television.

Shadow men don’t do well in sunlight. This week’s forecast: bright and clear.

Have a magnificent Monday! Coffee & Covid will be back tomorrow for a special Birthday Edition, so don’t miss all the essential news and commentary you need to stay sane in a social media hot-takes world.

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