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It’s blindingly obvious that Senate Majority Leader John Thune would much rather have Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) back in Congress for six more years than see him replaced by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. But Cornyn’s failure to capture anywhere near 50 percent of last week’s primary vote, plus the prospect of an ugly and expensive runoff, doesn’t bode well for his future. Despite the far left and genuinely weird Democrat nominee, James Talarico, Cornyn’s unpopularity may reduce GOP turnout in the general election enough to cause his Senate seat to flip blue. This is why Thune should pounce on Paxton’s tentative offer to drop out of the race if the Senate passes the SAVE America Act. Sunday morning, President Trump put even more pressure on Thune to get moving on the legislation by taking to Truth Social and issuing the following ultimatum: “I, as President, will not sign other Bills until this is passed.” The SAVE America Act would, of course, require everyone to provide documentary proof of citizenship before registering to vote and to show a photo ID to cast a ballot. Senate Democrats, who fear few things more than election integrity, would certainly filibuster the bill. Yet the Republican leadership is under increasing pressure to either kill the filibuster or force Senate Democrats to endure a “talking filibuster,” which would require them to stand on their feet and talk hour after hour in order to block the bill. It’s the perfect issue with which to flip the script on the Democrats. This is what most Americans imagine when they hear the term, “filibuster.” Until Senate rules were changed in the 20th century that was the only way a Senate vote could be blocked by the minority party. But the days of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington are long gone. In 1975, the Senate adopted a rule to allow a three-fifths majority of all senators to end a filibuster. Consequently, a vote of 60 senators is required for cloture (ending debate). The current 53-47 GOP majority obviously doesn’t control 60 votes, so a single Democrat can initiate a “silent filibuster” by objecting to a unanimous consent request to move forward with a bill. But a talking filibuster can be forced by a simple majority without a rules change according to Heritage Action: Once a quorum [51 Senators] has been established, senators opposed to the bill have two options: give speeches or offer motions or amendments. To do this, there would need to be at least 20 opposition allies on the floor to provide a sufficient second on the motion required to initiate a roll call vote. If there were fewer than 20, the bill supporters could table amendments by voice votes. Further, supporters of the bill could prevent any amendments from receiving a vote by offering a motion to table and voting to set aside the amendment under consideration. The final option is endless debate: the talking filibuster. This process becomes grueling very quickly. This does not, by the way, require 51 supporters of the bill to remain on the Senate floor at all times. Republicans would need to remain close by, and in communication with Majority Leader Thune in case Democrats suddenly demand a quorum call. At length, the Democrats would run out of allowed speeches and motions, the bill would go straight to a vote and would only require a simple majority of 51 votes to pass. More likely, the process would end in a negotiated settlement whereby the Republicans agree to change some provision of the bill in exchange for enough Democrat votes to invoke cloture. The talking filibuster is a good compromise for the Republican senators who foolishly refuse to “nuke” the moribund “silent filibuster.” It’s the perfect issue with which to flip the script on the Democrats. It would force them to explain on the floor of the Senate — beneath the unforgiving eye of C-SPAN — why they object to a bill that requires only a few easy-to-understand elements of election integrity. Moreover, poll after poll indicates that the primary features of the SAVE America Act are wildly popular with the public — including a majority of Democrats. Last August, for example, Pew Research found that 83 percent of respondents strongly or somewhat favored “requiring all voters to show government-issued photo identification to vote.” Why, then, do the Democrats oppose it? The only plausible explanation was provided by President Trump in his recent SOTU: I’m asking you to approve the Save America Act. To stop illegal aliens and others, who are unpermitted persons, from voting in our sacred American elections. The cheating is rampant in our elections. It’s rampant. It’s very simple. All voters must show voter ID.… Why would anybody not want voter ID? One reason: because they want to cheat. There’s only one reason. They make up all excuses. They say it’s racist, they come up with things — you almost say, “What imagination they have.” They want to cheat. They have cheated. And their policy is so bad that the only way they can get elected is to cheat and we’re going to stop it. We have to stop it, John. We have to stop it. Which brings us back to Paxton and the President’s red line on the SAVE America Act. Paxton does not want to drop out of the Texas Senate race, and he would be a better Senator than John Cornyn. Nonetheless, he seems willing to do so in order to give Senate Majority Leader John Thune an incentive to stop dithering on the legislation. Trump, like many of his supporters, is frustrated that the House of Representatives has passed two versions of this bill — despite its microscopic majority. Yet, somehow, the Republican leadership in the Senate can’t bestir themselves to bring it to the floor for a vote. The public wants it passed and the President wants to sign it into law. Only the Democrats and a few GOP senators disagree. Hmm … READ MORE from David Catron: The Democrats’ Epic Fury Over Iran Strikes Who Cares If Democrats Boycott Trump’s SOTU? Redistricting Betrayal in Virginia

Thirty years ago, Harvard Professor Samuel Huntington (who died in 2008) wrote The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, which accurately predicted the trajectory of the post-Cold War world order. It would be dominated, he wrote, by a clash of civilizations, a clash of cultures. Huntington’s book echoed Arnold Toynbee’s A Study of History and James Burnham’s Suicide of the West. Huntington foresaw an Islamic resurgence, the rise of China, and the relative decline of the West. He even envisioned trouble between Russia and Ukraine. Huntington’s book was a welcome rejoinder to Francis Fukuyama’s influential 1992 book The End of History and the Last Man. Fukuyama wrote that the end of the Cold War was ushering in the world-wide triumph of Western-style liberal democracy. Western leaders and observers, especially in the United States, spoke of a “peace dividend,” a “new world order,” and America’s “unipolar moment.” Our victory in the Cold War resulted for some in the U.S. and the West an unbounded hubris, which led, as it usually does, to nemesis. We expanded NATO right up to the borders of Russia. We treated Communist China as a member in good standing of the “rules-based international order.” And we met the challenge of the Islamic resurgence that Huntington predicted with a Wilsonian program to transform Islamic regimes into democracies. Had more of our leaders read Huntington, we might have prudently limited NATO expansion, cast a more wary eye on a rising China, avoided the “endless wars” in Iraq and Afghanistan, and established better relations with post-Cold War Russia. He foresaw the trouble Muslim migration would cause Europe and predicted that immigration would become a major political issue in the United States, especially at our southern border with Mexico. He noted that the Islamic resurgence was moving in an “anti-Western direction.” He wrote that what he called “Greater China” was a “rapidly growing cultural and economic reality” that would likely become a political reality, too. He explained that Russia would never accept a Ukraine tied to the West and even suggested that Ukraine might be split with Crimea and a portion of eastern Ukraine gravitating toward Russia while western Ukraine increased its ties to western and central Europe. The challenges of Islam, China, and … Russia, Huntington wrote, might emerge at a time when “multiculturalists” … were undermining the very concept of Western civilization. For Huntington, the U.S.-China rivalry was more cultural, more civilizational than ideological. “China’s history, culture, traditions, size, economic dynamism, and self-image,” he wrote, “all impel it to assume a hegemonic position in East Asia.” Its leadership, he continued, was converting economic growth into “military power and political influence.” Huntington worried about the potential for a “Confucian-Islamic” alliance against the United States and other Western powers, suggesting the possibility of a “Tehran-Islamabad-Beijing axis.” He hoped that the United States would play the “Russia card” against China, just as it had played the “China card” against the Soviet Union during the last two decades of the Cold War. A key ingredient in establishing good relations with Russia to counter China, he wrote, would be a commitment by the U.S. and the West to limit NATO expansion to only the “Western Christian states of Central and Eastern Europe,” but no further. The challenges of Islam, China, and a potentially hostile Russia, Huntington wrote, might emerge at a time when “multiculturalists” in the United States and the West were undermining the very concept of Western civilization. Within the U.S. and nations of Western Europe, he explained, there is an ongoing cultural clash between multiculturalists and the defenders of Western civilization. “The futures of the United States and of the West,” he wrote, “depend upon Americans reaffirming their commitment to Western civilization.” Huntington wrote all of this in 1996. Thirty years later, the United States is waging war against the Islamic regime in Iran. We are helping Ukraine fight against Russia. And we are in the midst of a cold war with China. The “clash of civilizations” is here. READ MORE from Francis P. Sempa: Violence in Mexico: When Cartels and Terrorists Converge Lepanto’s Legacy: The Fight for Western Survival American Lives: Frozen Moments, Lasting Sorrow    

If a dove arrives/ At your window, /Treat her with affection/ For she is my own self./ Tell her your loves,/My darling life,/Crown her with flowers,/ For she belongs to me. —Sebastián Iradier, La Paloma I grew up listening to a beautiful classic folk song about Cuba, La Paloma (The Dove), beloved of my parents and their circle. It’s about a sailor who falls in love with the island and a beautiful woman on it. I didn’t hear it much over the past 40 years while becoming totally Americanized. But Cuba never left me like I did her at age six. For one thing, my father was making a prestigious mark at Georgetown University teaching and writing about Cuba’s descent into Marxist hell—much to the irritation of his old school chum, Fidel Castro. And dad started at a time—the late Sixties—when many college students deemed Castro a Byronic hero, and anti-capitalist fervor was at its peak. Dad outlasted them, even though he couldn’t outlive Castro. But at least the dictator lived long enough to see his communist dreams dissolve into dust, and his Soviet masters fade to nothing. While his brother Raúl can watch the communist regime he co-ruled succumb to American capitalist might. For now, I’m getting reacquainted with the Cuban heritage I ignored for most of my adult life. Then there was my mother. As I began gaining recognition as a writer, she kept urging me to write stories about Cuba’s heroic past, in which her side of the family played a prominent role. My great-grandfather, Colonel Guillermo Mascaró, was a famous Cuban army doctor who fought against the Spaniards in the War for Independence. “But, mom,” I’d respond. “All those glories run into a historical black hole in which Cuba is still trapped. Any epic tale has the same lousy ending. So what’s the point?” My mother would sadly shake her head at my intransigence. Mom died last year, shortly after Trump’s return to the White House. We both sensed something had changed in regard to Cuba. I wish she’d lived a little longer to appreciate how much. After 67 years, the liberation of Cuba appears at hand. And that hand is Donald Trump’s. In that vein, there’s already a joke going round the Cuban exile community, of which I’m by birth a member. A bunch of Iranian expats are in a bar celebrating Operation Epic Fury, when a group of Cuban expats walk in and notice the Iranians. “Hey, you guys,” one Cuban says. “You jumped the line.” The joke is made timelier by the signals increasingly coming out of the White House last week. March 5, Trump to Politico: “They want to make a deal so badly, you have no idea…. Major changes will be happening in a few weeks.” March 6, Trump to CNN: “Cuba is gonna fall pretty soon…. They want to make a deal so badly…. We’re really focused on this one right now. We’ve got plenty of time, but Cuba’s ready — after fifty years.” March 7, Trump at the Shield of the Americas Summit: “Cuba’s at the end of the line. They’re very much at the end of the line. They have no money. They have no oil. They have a bad philosophy…. It’s in its last moments of life the way it was.” And if recent history has taught us anything, Trump’s predictions tend to happen. As for my having disappointed mom re writing about Cuba, I’m sorry she won’t have the chance to read my new novel, The Camelot Trail, a sequel to The Washington Trail. In her honor — and to stay ahead of current events in the political thriller game — I added a little exchange between the two series detectives, Mark Slade and Neil Cork. Cork entered Slade’s apartment bearing two bags marked Oasis Café. He made a right to Slade’s makeshift corner dining room, and put the bags on the square wood table. He took out two Styrofoam coffee cups from one bag, two wrapped long sandwiches from the second, and sat down in the left chair. Slade emerged from the bedroom and took the seat at the far end, his back to the wall. Cork pushed a sandwich and coffee toward him. Slade unwrapped a Cuban Sandwich. “Cuban sandwiches taste better these days,” he said. “And the coffee,” said Cork, taking an appreciative sip of his. “After 65 years—a free Cuba. We did our bit for that outcome.” “Not exactly Rough Riders, but yeah, we did.” I’m also planning to return to Cuba in person. To walk the gorgeous island I toddled as a little boy. And to drink Cuba Libres on Varadero Beach, where my family vacationed. Once the satanic regime that cursed it is in ashes. For now, I’m getting reacquainted with the Cuban heritage I ignored for most of my adult life — the heroes mom revered, and the music I once enjoyed, in particular La Paloma. In the week that’s coming/ It makes me laugh./ From the church, side by side,/Yes indeed, sir!/ We’ll go off to sleep,/ There I go! And there, I too shall go. READ MORE from Lou Aguilar: Reagan’s Shadow, Trump’s Moment When Hollywood Made Great Epic Films When the Legends Die: Robert Duvall

The war with Iran is now in its second week. We — in the company of our Israeli allies — have made enormous progress toward the goal of regime change in Iran but we’re not there yet. President Trump hasn’t made clear our objective other than to say we want freedom for all the people. How that differs from regime change only he knows. So far, we and the Israelis have combined to kill Ayatollah Khamenei and 30 or more of his closest advisers in an initial raid. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian survives as well as too many of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), though the IRGC’s commander is reportedly dead. The IRGC and what is left of Iran’s other military force have managed to launch drone strikes at about a dozen Middle East nations. Tehran has said that they won’t continue to strike neighboring nations as long as they don’t hit at Iran. If the Iranians run low on drones and missiles they’ll stop attacking their neighbors, but not until then. Our attacks on Iran continue as they must. We have deployed B-1 and B-2 bombers as well as hundreds of aircraft from our carriers in the vicinity. When the carriers go into “surge mode,” they can launch one aircraft and recover another in the space of about one minute. I have seen it from the deck of the USS Harry Truman. It’s an awesome sight to see. How long will that take? At this point nobody knows. But it must go on until the goal of regime change is accomplished. The Kuwaitis mistakenly shot down three of our F-15s which doesn’t say much for the F-15’s defensive systems. Or for the pilots’ situational awareness. There was a photo of one of the F-15 pilots, a woman, smiling broadly at the Kuwaitis who rescued her. What she had to smile about is not obvious. Israel has, as we should expect, suffered hundreds of missile and drone attacks but they have been pounding the Iranians relentlessly. We have to understand that this is our fight as much as it is Israel’s. Iran has been our enemy since its 1979 revolution put the ayatollahs in power, when they took American diplomats hostage and held then until President Reagan was inaugurated. Iran was responsible for the 1982 bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut which took hundreds of American lives. The were also responsible for the Khobar Towers attack, the 1998 African embassy bombings and many other terrorist acts that took American lives. We also have to remember that Iran — despite its lies to the UN’s agency responsible for monitoring its progress to nuclear weapons and despite the Obama 2015 agreement with the U.S. — was on the verge of developing nuclear weapons. If they did, they would certainly use them on Israel, Europe, and the United States. By attacking Iran and setting a goal of regime change, the president did the only thing he could to prevent that from happening. Iran still has the ability to attack nearby countries with drones and has effectively closed the Straits of Hormuz through which about twenty percent of the world’s oil used to flow, as well as about 30 percent of the world’s liquid natural gas. When the Straits will reopen is anyone’s guess, but it shouldn’t be long. The Navy has premiered the use of a brand new weapon system, “Project METEOR,” which sends out a directed energy beam that burns out the guidance and weapon systems of drones. It’s a very good solution to the drone swarm problem. Israel has also used its new laser system to shoot down drones and missiles. Nevertheless, some drone and missile attacks are getting through and killing Israeli civilians. We have pretty much destroyed the entire Iranian navy which consisted of about 35 ships. One was taken out by a submarine’s torpedo while cruising off Sri Lanka, which is about 2,600 miles from Tehran. Sorry, submariners. You can’t claim the first torpedo kill since World War Two. The Brits sank the Argentine cruiser the General Belgrano with a torpedo in the 1982 Falklands War. The butcher’s bill — our casualty list — has, so far, included only six names, which is no consolation to the families of those who died. Maj. Jeffrey R. O’Brien, 45, of Indianola, Iowa, Chief Warrant Officer 3 Robert M. Marzan, 54, of Sacramento, California, Capt. Cody A. Khork, 35, of Winter Haven, Fla.; Sgt. 1st Class Noah L. Tietjens, 42, of Bellevue, Neb.; Sgt. 1st Class Nicole M. Amor, 39, of White Bear Lake, Minn.; and Sgt. Declan J. Coady, 20, of West Des Moines, Iowa are the casualties listed by the Department of Defense. We should praise them and remember them. There will be more names to add to the list. The Democrats are effectively supporting the Iranians, as are a few — thankfully very few — of our Republican squishes. Their effort to limit the president’s war powers failed to get the votes they needed. The most visible of Iran’s pals — Tucker Carlson among them — are shouting into the wind. As I’ve written before, they should all be cast out of the conservative movement. President Trump has said that he would only accept Iran’s unconditional surrender, which the semi-functional government left in Tehran immediately rejected. As this column has said, repeatedly, the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran will go on for weeks or months. Once started, it must continue until the ayatollahs are dead and the IRGC and the rest of Iran’s military has been rendered powerless. How long will that take? At this point nobody knows. But it must go on until the goal of regime change is accomplished. If the president calls it off before that objective is reached, he will have failed in his principal duty to keep American safe. He knows that and it’s a certainty that he won’t quit. So far, our war on Iran gets an “A,” but it’s not over by a long-shot. READ MORE from Jed Babbin: War With Iran: Justified Strike, Uncertain Horizon The Board of Peace and the Illusion of Gaza   The Decline of Trust in the News

Something larger than a war may already be beginning along Iran’s borders. At the Kapıköy crossing in eastern Turkey, hundreds of Iranian civilians have been seen arriving on foot and by car as the conflict between Israel, the United States, and Iran intensifies. Turkish authorities are not waiting to see how the situation develops. Ankara has already tightened procedures along the frontier and prepared contingency plans capable of housing as many as 90,000 arrivals should migration pressure accelerate. Further north, another corridor has begun to open. Azerbaijan has allowed evacuations through the Astara border crossing, where hundreds of people have already been processed and moved onward from Iran as flights out of the country grow uncertain. Across the Caucasus, the spillover has widened; Armenia and Azerbaijan together have received roughly 1,500 evacuees from Iran since the escalation began. Inside Iran, the first signs of displacement are also visible. Around 100,000 residents left Tehran during the first two days of strikes, with traffic pouring north out of the capital. What we are seeing now may only be the first outward release of pressure from a country of 90 million people. Because once the pressure inside a society that large begins to release, the numbers that follow rarely remain small. Migration crises rarely begin with a sudden exodus. They begin when the first families leave cities, when border crossings tighten, and when neighboring states quietly begin preparing for what may follow. Those signals are now visible across Iran’s frontiers. Behind those first crossings stands a country under enormous strain. Iran is home to roughly 90 million people. For decades, that population has lived under the combined weight of economic sanctions, political repression, and prolonged economic stagnation. War changes that equation. Another factor complicates the picture: the country’s internal diversity. Iran is a vast mosaic of ethnic communities — Azeris, Kurds, Arabs, Lurs, and Baluch — many concentrated near international borders. In periods of national instability, these regions often become early fault lines. If instability deepens, the migration corridors lead directly West toward Turkey — the same corridor that carried millions of refugees toward Europe during the Syrian crisis. Europe remembers that experience. A decade ago, the wars surrounding the rise and collapse of ISIS produced a massive migration shock. First-time asylum applications across the EU surged from about 562,000 in 2014 to roughly 1.26 million in 2015. Nearly one million refugees reached European shores in that single year, while it is estimated that more than 3,700 migrants died attempting the Mediterranean crossing. The crisis only stabilized after the EU–Turkey migration agreement of 2016, designed to close the very corridor now being eyed by those fleeing Iran. Yet the demographic arithmetic surrounding Iran is far larger. Syria’s population when its civil war erupted stood at roughly 22 million people. Iran’s population today is about four times larger. Even a modest rupture inside Iran could displace millions. A movement of only three to five percent of the population would mean between 2.7 and 4.5 million people seeking refuge beyond the country’s borders. For now, the movements along Iran’s borders remain limited. But the pressure behind them is not. Migration crises begin with warning signs: the first crossings, the first evacuations, and the quiet preparation of camps along distant frontiers. Those signs are now visible along Iran’s borders. In a country of 90 million people, they should not be ignored. Because once the pressure inside a society that large begins to release, the numbers that follow rarely remain small. The first crossings are rarely the crisis. They are the signal that the crisis has already begun. READ MORE from Kevin Cohen: Cartel War, American Consequences Spain’s Demographic Suicide: A Generational Error Europe Will Not Undo Why ICE Exists