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12:40 PM ET, March 3, 2026

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 Top Items: 
Greg Sargent / New Republic:
Pete Hegseth's Crazed, Angry Tirades on Iran Give Dems a Big Opening  —  Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth knows that playing a decisive tough guy on television is the way to keep Donald Trump happy, so he did just that while addressing reporters Monday about the U.S. bombing of Iran.
RELATED:
Edward Luce / Financial Times:
Donald Trump's dangerous ‘war of whim’  —  Anyone who claims to know where this conflict will go is bluffing  —  The trouble with strongmen is that they can easily change their minds.  —  In his inaugural address last year, President Donald Trump promised to be a “peacemaker” who ended wars of choice.
Paul Krugman:
War Is Expensive for the Little People  —  Operation Epic Fury will cost billions that could have been put to much better use  —  On Sunday, according to the U.S. military, Kuwaiti forces shot down three U.S. F-15s in a “friendly fire” incident.  Fortunately, the crews were able to safely eject and survived.
Axios:
Rubio's war remarks blow open MAGA's Israel divide  —  MAGA's ascendant “America First” wing erupted after Secretary of State Marco Rubio effectively blamed Israel for drawing the U.S. into war with Iran. … “We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action” against Iran, Rubio told reporters on Capitol Hill on Monday.
Lisa Needham / Public Notice:
Trump's Iran War and the Article One crisis
Discussion: NPR and DNYUZ
Wall Street Journal:
Trump's Case for War With Iran Faces Growing Scrutiny
Marc A. Thiessen / Washington Post:
The Trump Doctrine is here. It ends forever wars.
Discussion: The White House
Daniel W. Drezner / Drezner's World:
There Is No U.S. Plan on Iran
James LaPorta / CBS News:
Military questioned use of makeshift office space in Kuwait where U.S. troops were killed  —  Add CBS News on Google  —  The first American service members to die in the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran were killed in an apparent Iranian drone attack on a makeshift office space in Kuwait …
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Barak Ravid / Axios:
Israel bombs council choosing Iran's next supreme leader, official says  —  The Israeli Air Force on Tuesday struck the building housing Iran's Council of Experts in the holy city of Qom in an attempt to disrupt the process of appointing a new supreme leader, an Israeli defense official said.
NBC News:
Live updates: U.S. shuts embassies in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait after drone attacks; Israeli troops stage incursion into Lebanon  —  President Donald Trump indicated the conflict could last weeks and said wars can be fought “forever” with America's stock of munitions.
Associated Press:
Live updates: Strikes escalate across the Middle East as Iran attacks US embassy in Saudi Arabia  —  Watch a live view of the Beirut skyline.  —  EDITED BY BRIDGET BROWN, LORIAN BELANGER AND BRIAN P. D. HANNON  —  Iran struck the U.S. Embassy in Saudi Arabia's capital with a drone early Tuesday …
emptywheel:
“Squirter:” The Catastrophic Stupidity that May [Have] Set Off a Larger Religious Conflict  —  Marco Rubio confessed yesterday that the reason Trump started a war with Iran is because Israel was determined to strike Iran (using intelligence obtained from the CIA), the US assumed Iran …
Associated Press:
Live Updates: Global Markets Tumble After U.S. Warns War Could Last Weeks
New York Times:
Trump Administration, in Apparent Reversal, Tries to Continue Fight Against Law Firms  —  The administration told a court on Monday that it was abandoning its defense of executive orders targeting the firms.  But on Tuesday, the Justice Department appeared to abruptly change its position.
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Jonathan Larsen / Jonathan Larsen's Substack:
U.S. Troops Were Told Iran War Is for “Armageddon,” Return of Jesus  —  To support my reporting and keep it free for everyone, you can become a paid subscriber.  Thank you.  —  A combat-unit commander told non-commissioned officers at a briefing Monday that the Iran war is part of God's plan …
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Steve Vladeck / One First:
214. The Court's (Selective) Impatience is a Vice
Discussion: Reason and New York Daily News
Andrew Solender / Axios:
Dem leaders fume as insurgents wage costly civil war  —  An expensive Democratic civil war is brewing this election cycle, with a staggering 30 House Democrats facing at least one primary challenger who has raised $100,000 or more, an Axios analysis found.
Discussion: New York Times
RELATED:
Andrew Howard / Politico:
The bruising, messy House primary battles to watch today
Christian Paz / Vox:
The Texas Democrat trying to reclaim Christianity from the right
Joe Patrice / Above the Law:
Law School Tells Students, ‘You MUST Be Aligned Politically With President Trump,’ For Summer Job  —  In The Hunt for Red October, we learn that Soviet submarine carried a “political officer,” a Communist Party appointee whose job wasn't navigating or torpedoing things, but making sure everyone …
Calen Razor / Politico:
Capitol agenda: Marco Rubio works to stave off a revolt on Iran  —  The White House is trying to stave off a revolt on Capitol Hill against its military actions in Iran, as both chambers are set to vote on resolutions this week that would put guardrails on President Donald Trump's unilateral use of military force.
RELATED:
Punchbowl News:   3/3/26☀️ AM: … Republicans on Capitol Hill are about to give President Donald Trump …
G. Elliott Morris / Strength In Numbers:
How you word a poll question can have a large impact on results  —  Our new poll finds question wording can swing opinion by 20-60 points on immigration, the budget, and transgender rights.  That's a problem for people who use polls to tell politicians what voters want  —  ∙ Paid
Stan Choe / Associated Press:
Dow drops 800 as stocks sell off around the world and oil prices leap even higher on war worries  —  A sell-off for stocks is slamming into Wall Street Tuesday after wrapping around the world, as oil prices leap even higher with worries that the widening war with Iran may do more sustained damage to the economy than feared.
Judd Legum / Popular Information:
The casino-fication of war  —  On February 28, the United States and Israel began major combat operations in Iran.  For some, the consequences of this action were fatal.  By Monday, the war had claimed the lives of at least six U.S. soldiers, hundreds of people in Iran, and dozens more in neighboring Gulf states.
Andres Picon / Politico:
Republicans dismiss energy cost concerns after Iran strikes  —  When the U.S. and Israel launched a wave of strikes on Iran over the weekend, some Democrats warned about the impact on energy costs.  Now that those predictions have come to pass with an uptick in global prices for natural gas and crude oil …
Discussion: The Hill
Joseph Cox / 404 Media:
CBP Tapped Into the Online Advertising Ecosystem To Track Peoples' Movements  —  Customs and Border Protection (CBP) bought data from the online advertising ecosystem to track peoples' precise movements over time, in a process that often involves siphoning data from ordinary apps like video games …
Discussion: The Contrarian and Wired
Reuters:
Exclusive: U.S. Marines fired on protesters storming consulate in Karachi, officials say  —  U.S. Marines opened fire on demonstrators during the storming of the Karachi consulate over the weekend, two U.S. officials said on Monday—a rare use of force at a diplomatic post …
Discussion: Bloomberg
Tim Naftali / The Atlantic:
Trump Opens the Pandora's Box of Assassination  —  Killing anyone without a trial, let alone a foreign leader, involves a moral choice.  —  On Saturday, the United States, in a joint operation with Israel, killed Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
 
 
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 More Items: 
Scott A. Rivkees / The Hill:
The US doesn't need a surgeon general who is sideways on science
Jacob Knutson / Democracy Docket:
Trump calls for ‘Deranged Jack Smith’ to be ‘brought to Justice, NOW!!!’
Caitlin Dickerson / The Atlantic:
'Suddenly America Doesn't Want My Children or Grandchildren Anymore.'
The Guardian:
Stock markets slump amid Iran war as gas prices jump 30% to three-year high
Discussion: Associated Press and Semafor
Liz Crampton / Politico:
MAGA loves scandal-ridden Ken Paxton. Can they get him to the Senate?
Discussion: The Hill and Fox News
 Earlier Items: 
Daniel Lippman / Politico:
Ties to Israel plague Democrats in top primaries post-Gaza
Ben Geman / Axios:
Oil prices surge as Trump team readies to “mitigate” costs
Kanishka Singh / Reuters:
Leaked Interior Department database reveals US plans to revise historical information
Discussion: Washington Post and Raw Story
Andy Sullivan / Reuters:
Clinton says Trump told him of ‘some great times’ with Jeffrey Epstein
Discussion: Politico and TMZ.com
Mark Landler / New York Times:
Macron Expands French Nuclear Arsenal and Vows Protection for Neighbors
Laura Esposito / The Daily Beast:
Doctors Sound Alarm on White House ‘Secrecy’ Over Trump's Neck Rash
Lindsay Whitehurst / Associated Press:
Supreme Court blocks law against schools outing transgender students to their parents in California