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Today: 57 articles and 176 comments as of 16:40.
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Area: WoT Operations    WoT Background    Non-WoT    Local News    Politix   
Three strikes target Iraqi fighters south of Baghdad, 8 overnight attacks target US base near Baghdad Airport
Today's Headlines
Headline Comments [Views]
Page 4: Opinion
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Page 1: WoT Operations
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Page 3: Non-WoT
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Page 6: Politix
10 17:46 ed in texas [1799]
4 09:47 Skidmark [1772]
-Great Cultural Revolution
Ayaan Hirsi Ali in the WaPo- well known ex-Muslim: A religious asymmetry is unfolding in New York
New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani takes his Muslim identity seriously — so should we.

Zohran Mamdani swept into office on a democratic socialist platform and a proud embrace of his Muslim identity. "I am Muslim. I am a democratic socialist. And most damning of all, I refuse to apologize for any of this," he said in his victory speech. But while the New York mayor’s economic proposals have been widely debated, there has been less examination of how his understanding of Islam shapes his statements and policies.
------------------
well reasoned, factual and nuanced piece; many WaPo readers were horrified
Paywalled.


Posted by: Lord Garth || 03/23/2026 00:00 || Comments || Link || [1766 views] Top|| File under: Antifa/BLM

#1  I do appreciate his Lordship's post, but I really don't need to pay the WAPO to tell me what is taking place in London, Minneapolis, or NYC. All one has to do is watch a bit of television and discern what is NOT being aired or discussed.

A Larry Elder photo is not actually required here. Nearly everyone knows DEI is surviving the current assaults.
Posted by: Besoeker || 03/23/2026 5:23 Comments || Top||

#2  And in other nicht so gut Euro political news:

ZERO - French Election: Socialists Secure Paris, LePen's Populists Make Historic Local Gains
Posted by: Besoeker || 03/23/2026 5:32 Comments || Top||

#3  It came down to three horrible candidates and the people selected the worst outcome.
Posted by: Super Hose || 03/23/2026 7:51 Comments || Top||

#4  Actually, whatever road they choose to take is fine with me. We've got enough problems right here without the Euro worry.
Posted by: Besoeker || 03/23/2026 7:58 Comments || Top||


-Short Attention Span Theater-
Laura Loomer the Loon
Posted by: DooDahMan || 03/23/2026 14:22 || Comments || Link || [1814 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Larry Loomer is such a complete asshole.
Posted by: DooDahMan || 03/23/2026 14:23 Comments || Top||

#2  Nihilism is bad.

Nihilism directed towards infants is the worst.
Posted by: no mo uro || 03/23/2026 15:27 Comments || Top||

#3  Larry followed up with another zinger. What a friggen piece of dreck.

"Why should people be forced to listen to that for 10 hours?

It doesn’t make you a bad person to not want to listen to another person’s screaming kids.

The entitlement is off the charts. Control your kids."
Posted by: DooDahMan || 03/23/2026 17:07 Comments || Top||

#4  The 7 Best Noise Cancelling Earbuds of 2026

Does that mark me passive/aggressive?
Posted by: Skidmark || 03/23/2026 17:10 Comments || Top||

#5  Someone wrote that she went to India with her fiancé. Poor guy. Heaven help him.
Posted by: DooDahMan || 03/23/2026 17:18 Comments || Top||

#6  We had a seven-hour flight in the tail end of some wide body, due to an airport fire. Two rows in front was two-year old baby. Mom and Grandma spent most of the seven hours walking that child up and down the aisles. It was remarkably well controlled, if a bit fussy.

Blame the parents. And the Loomer creeps.
Posted by: Bobby || 03/23/2026 17:35 Comments || Top||

#7  Crying babies are hard on everyone. Often, if crying on airplanes, it’s because they can’t equalize the pressure in their ears.

People who've not had children don’t understand, and those who don’t want children don’t see why they should understand.

I spent many a trip (3-4 cross-ocean trips for four years) walking up and down the aisles with the toddling trailing daughters for most of the entire eight hours from Frankfurt or Brussels to Cincinnati, but the first time we flew with td #1 I was as much in tears as my little one. Poor Mr. Wife did his best, but all three of us were ignorant of the possibilities.
Posted by: trailing wife || 03/23/2026 21:20 Comments || Top||

#8  I deal with my baby sons when flying by one of three things.

When accenting to the sky, old baby nose shut and mildly suck on baby mouth to reduce ear pressure, when descending toward ground, hold baby nose shut and mildly blow into baby mouth.

Rest of the time, I lay baby on belly on one leg and gently bounce baby for a minute or so to relief gas pressure in stomach.

Both boys tend to be quiet and spend most of their time either drinking from bottle or sleeping.

Minimal crying on plane!

Yes, wife was part of the baby care process
Posted by: Seeking Cure For Ignorance || 03/23/2026 23:21 Comments || Top||


-Land of the Free
CHAD WOLF: Trump is serious about the China threat and is rebuilding our arsenal
[FoxNews]
Posted by: Skidmark || 03/23/2026 09:12 || Comments || Link || [1772 views] Top|| File under: Commies


Home Front: Politix
Memo To Senate: Saving America's Elections Is Your No. 1 Job Right Now
[The Federalist] Sen. Lisa Murkowski, maybe the best Republican the Democrats have ever had, doesn’t want to waste her time with such inconsequential things as election integrity, particularly making sure noncitizens don’t vote in U.S. elections. So what’s important to the Alaska RINO? Why, "Native Hawaiian women," of course.

That’s the resolution Murkowski proudly lobbied for in the Senate this week as she works with Democrats to kill the SAVE America Act. Senate Resolution 650, which recognizes "the heritage, culture, and contributions of American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian women in the United States."

You’ll be glad to know that Murkowski’s priority was considered Wednesday and agreed to without amendment and with a preamble by unanimous consent. Just like that.

The republic is saved!

Murkowski has said she won’t support the voter verification bill, anyway. The Republican has been a perfect Democrat on the subject, using the same inane and false fearmongering arguments as the left has in her opposition to legislation whose key component is supported by north of 80 percent of Americans.

She’s not alone though. As the Republicans in the Senate continue to hold the floor for what could be a lengthy debate on the SAVE America Act, the banal business of the august upper house goes on.
Posted by: Besoeker || 03/23/2026 05:59 || Comments || Link || [1763 views] Top|| File under:

#1  They're not interested in saving America, just staying in the cozy club they have.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 03/23/2026 7:46 Comments || Top||

#2  Thune doesn’t get it. Not sure what to do about him in the structure we inherited. The Convention of States folks will end up making it worse. I can see them enacting a pathway to a Mamdani presidency. Why would we let this political class rewrite the rules to suit themselves?
Posted by: Super Hose || 03/23/2026 8:22 Comments || Top||


Iraq
The Logic Behind Iraq’s Militia Strike Campaign
[NationalContext] Since 28 February 2026, US and Israeli airstrikes have hit positions belonging to at least fifteen PMF-affiliated militias across seven Iraqi governorates, from the Syrian border to the Nineveh Plain. The strikes have killed dozens, destroyed ammunition warehouses and communications facilities, and hit groups as different as Kataib Hezbollah, the IRGC’s closest Iraqi instrument, and Hashd al-Shabak, a Shabak village militia rooted in the Nineveh Plain.

At first glance, the breadth of the campaign can make the target set look uneven or hard to read. But the pattern is more coherent than it first appears. The strikes become much easier to understand once they are read through three overlapping lenses: proximity to the IRGC, operational hostility toward US and KRG interests, and the geography in which these militias operate.

The first lens is proximity to Iran’s command structure. The southern Shia factions taking the heaviest and most geographically dispersed strikes are not necessarily the largest or most politically powerful PMF groups. They are the ones most operationally tied to Iranian command structures in the current war. Kataib Hezbollah has been struck in ten locations across five governorates. Badr, the most powerful armed-political movement in the Hashd, has barely been touched.

The second lens is operational hostility. The local minority militias in the disputed territories, especially Shabak and Turkmen formations, are real components of the Iranian-aligned PMF network. But that alone does not explain how heavily they have been hit. These groups have also been among the most active in launching drone and rocket attacks against the Kurdistan Region, including attacks on US military facilities and on Iranian Kurdish opposition groups based in the Kurdistan Region.

The third lens is geography. Almost every strike has fallen in Iraq’s northern half, above the Baghdad line, but the social and political character of the strike zones varies sharply. In Anbar, southern Shia formations are being hit at exposed border positions in entirely Sunni territory and are suffering the campaign’s heaviest losses. In Nineveh, local Shabak formations are being struck in their own villages, but with far lighter casualties, in part because they can disperse into the communities they come from. In Kirkuk and Tuz Khurmatu, local Turkmen formations are being hit alongside southern militias in the same coordinated waves. By contrast, the seven Shia-majority governorates south of Baghdad, where the main militias recruit and where their families live, have not been struck at all.
A useful analysis.
More at the link
Posted by: badanov || 03/23/2026 00:00 || Comments || Link || [1796 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Iran Proxies

#1  Iraq failed, in part, because Iran was never dealt with.
Posted by: Super Hose || 03/23/2026 7:59 Comments || Top||

#2  /\ More than a wild assumption, it's a fact.
Posted by: Besoeker || 03/23/2026 8:04 Comments || Top||

#3  Turkmen Shia Axis
Posted by: mossomo || 03/23/2026 12:56 Comments || Top||



Who's in the News
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3Hezbollah
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1ISWAP
1Banditti
1Migrants/Illegal Immigrants
1Nut Jobs

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Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.

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Meet the Mods
In no particular order...
Steve White
Seafarious
tu3031
badanov
sherry
ryuge
GolfBravoUSMC
Bright Pebbles
trailing wife
Gloria
Fred
Besoeker
Glenmore
Frank G
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Two weeks of WOT
Mon 2026-03-23
  Three strikes target Iraqi fighters south of Baghdad, 8 overnight attacks target US base near Baghdad Airport
Sun 2026-03-22
  IDF hit Tehran university site used to develop components for nuclear weapons and missile production sites while Americans hit Nantanz enrichment facility after 8000 mil targets airstruck
Sat 2026-03-21
  IRGC ‘Main Propagandist' Spokesman Ali Mohammad Naini Killed in Overnight Airstrike, and 3 more IRGC big shots eliminated
Fri 2026-03-20
  Gulf states say responding to missile, drone attacks as Eid holiday begins
Wed 2026-03-18
  Hezbollah fires dozens of rockets at north, hitting home but no injuries; IDF pounds Lebanon
Tue 2026-03-17
  Iran's Revolutionary Guards warn US companies will be attacked as they issue list of 15 targets with employees urged to evacuate across Middle East
Mon 2026-03-16
  Sa’ar denies reports of talks with Lebanon as Hezbollah keeps up fire on Israel
Sun 2026-03-15
  
Sun 2026-03-15
  An explosion rocked a Jewish school in Amsterdam, IRGC claims it
Sat 2026-03-14
  Trump says US ‘obliterated' military targets in strike on key Iranian oil hub: 'Powerful bombing raids'; IDF reports 7,600 strikes, 10,000+ Iranian security casualties
Fri 2026-03-13
  At least 17 LNG Carriers (almost half the world's fleet) Currently Stuck In the Persian Gulf
Thu 2026-03-12
  IDF hitting IRGC troop concentrations in Tehran
Wed 2026-03-11
  Iran issues assassination threat to Trump
Tue 2026-03-10
  Israeli army announced strikes on the headquarters of the IRGC's unmanned aerial systems in Iran
Mon 2026-03-09
  Mojtaba Khamenei named Iran''s next supreme leader


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