VIDEO OF THE DAY: Trump issues bombshell threat against Americans
Brian Tyler Cohen breaks down Trump’s terrifyingly stupid threat to send his unqualified, untrained, and sadistic ICE agents to work the line at TSA…and what that means for the rest of us.

Take Action: Demand Congress stop Trump’s attack on our elections!

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This is how forever wars begin
Alex Shepard, The New Republic: “In the final year of President George W. Bush’s second term, his administration asked Congress for $190 billion to continue funding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that had long since turned into quagmires. On Wednesday, the Pentagon asked the White House for $200 billion to fund the war on Iran, which is not even three weeks old. That amount doesn’t go as far as it did two decades ago, of course, but it nonetheless says a lot about what the Trump administration is planning in Iran. The Pentagon thinks it needs roughly as much money as it cost to fight a year of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars—indeed, adjusted for inflation, $200 billion is more or less what President Obama proposed for those wars in 2009.

Why does the Pentagon need that much money? Just last week, Trump said the war was ‘very complete’ and that we had ‘won,’ albeit with a sizable asterisk: We still had to ‘finish the job,’ he said. So what does finishing the job in Iran entail? It’s a rhetorical question—because it’s clear that the administration doesn’t know. The more interesting question at this moment is whether the Republican-controlled Congress, which is about to be put on the spot over the war, will force the administration to provide a concrete answer. Trump and his ‘secretary of war,’ Pete Hegseth, have said plenty about the war, but their statements have been vague, geopolitically illiterate, unhinged, sociopathic, and increasingly desperate—sometimes all at once.

But one can glean a handful of potential objectives: the demise of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard; the elevation of a political leader deemed “acceptable” by the U.S., Israel, and the Gulf States; the permanent end of an Iranian nuclear program that the administration claimed to have obliterated last June; and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, the vital shipping canal that transports roughly 20 percent of the world’s oil supply, which has been functionally closed this month. That’s a pretty big job—and it’s one that does not appear to be going very well right now. Trump insists that the war will end whenever he says it does—when he ‘feels it in his bones’—but that it will probably be quite soon. His administration talks of the fight in terms of weeks, not months—and certainly not years. But you can’t fund a war with late-night social media screeds or unhinged press conferences. Wars cost money, and the $200 billion figure tells us that the war is not going well. It also tells us that the administration is lying.

It’s possible that in this critical election year, many Republicans do not want to ‘approve’ the war because doing so would mean taking responsibility for it. For now, this is Trump’s war, not theirs. But approving $200 billion, or even a smaller figure, would be congressional authorization by another name, at least in the eyes of the public. An appropriations fight will be a test of the seriousness of Democratic opposition and Republican support; it will also be a test of congressional seriousness itself. This war is unpopular, aimless, and illegal—and the Trump administration is preparing to ask for enough money to fund it for many months to come. If Congress can’t hold the line here, with a new forever war in the offing, then when will it ever?”

Take Action: Tell Trump: No boots on the ground in Iran!

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Progressive champion Graham Platner picks up huge endorsements from Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren!
Graham Platner for Senate: The battle for Maine’s Senate seat held by the perpetually “concerned” Trump toady Susan Collins could mean the difference between Trump retaining control of the Senate or Democrats being able to put an end to his tyranny. But momentum is on our side! Former Marine, oysterman, and progressive champion Graham Platner just picked up key endorsements from Sen. Warren and Sen Sanders, adding even more progressive credibility to his popular campaign. While Collins digs herself deeper and deeper into the hole with her votes for Trump’s Big Bad Bill, Platner is surging on a message of economic populism, no more wars, and rightfully naming the Epstein class as the culprit for the woes of the American worker. Will you chip in to help us flip this critical Senate seat and make Trump a lame-duck president?

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This new wave of anti-trans legislation threatens us all
Connor Clary, Current Affairs: “Just last month, Kansas made national headlines with the passage of SB 244, a sweeping new law restricting the basic rights of transgender people in the state. The most striking measure in this law is that it immediately, without warning, invalidated the state-issued identification cards of anyone whose gender marker on their documents does not match the sex they were assigned at birth. Shortly after the passage of the law, hundreds of trans Kansans received a letter in the mail informing them of the change. ‘If you received this notice, our records indicate that, upon publication of this law […] your current Kansas credential will no longer be valid. Additionally, please note that the Legislature did not include a grace period for updating credentials,’ the letter reads. ‘We apologize for the inconvenience this causes you.’

The law is the first of its kind across the country to invalidate legally obtained identification documents, for any reason. The law also creates new restrictions on bathroom usage for trans Kansans, allowing private citizens to sue trans people for $1,000 in damages if they feel ‘aggrieved’ by their use of a bathroom in a public building. This essentially creates a bounty-style system in which private citizens are encouraged to “transvestigate” people next to them in the bathroom for the chance to win a cash reward.

This law effectively criminalizes the everyday lives of trans people, as they can now face large fines or imprisonment for doing basic things like driving a car or using a public toilet. If a trans person is caught driving without a valid license or using the “wrong” bathroom three times or more, they can be found guilty of a class-B misdemeanor, facing a fine of $1,000 and up to six months in jail. This most recent law represents a marked shift in Republican’s strategy to further their anti-trans agenda. While previous legislation may have been focused on trans youth and pedantic debates over definitions of sex and gender, this most recent attack pierces straight into the private lives of fully independent adults simply existing in the world, limiting their freedom of movement and right to exist in public as fully autonomous, self-determining legal persons.

More insidiously, Kansas could be acting as a testing ground for what Republicans are able to get away with in terms of arbitrarily invalidating identification documents for large swaths of the population right before the midterm elections. One horrifying realization you may have reached by now is that in order to send all those letters, they necessarily must have already made a list of every single trans Kansan they could find by tracking changes in gender markers on birth certificates and IDs. In doing so, the state has proven an extremely effective way to immediately disenfranchise a segment of the population based solely on demographic characteristics.

This fact cannot be taken lightly. Republicans have been increasingly flirting with other ways to suppress the votes of demographics that tend to vote Democratic, such as creating extra hurdles for married women who have taken on their spouse’s name. And in a midterm election expected to be decided on razor-thin margins, it is not difficult to imagine the suppression of a few thousand votes in a few key battleground states shifting the entire power balance of the nation.”

Take Action: Tell your Secretary of State: No ICE at the polls!

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Energy shock talk grabs headlines but the Iran war is also driving the world towards a food crisis

Heather Stewart, The Guardian: “It is peak harvesting season for avocados in the lush southern highlands of Tanzania but growers are racing against time to find buyers for the precious green fruits before they become overripe. Donald Trump’s disastrous Middle East war is being felt in the world’s energy markets but oil and gas are not the only products that transit through the maritime choke point of the strait of Hormuz. The conflict is also hitting supply chains elsewhere. Shipping routes for Tanzanian avocados towards lucrative markets in the Gulf and beyond are blocked, and air freight capacity is down significantly. In Mombasa, Kenya, meanwhile, warehouses are filling up with mountains of tea that in normal times would be on the way to the Gulf or key markets such as Pakistan for processing, blending and packing. Here, too, growers are being forced to accept rock-bottom prices or are failing to find markets at all.

Alice Oyaro, Transform Trade’s chief executive, said: ‘Alongside the devastating impact on civilians directly affected by the war, there are serious global consequences that risk being overlooked. The story we’re unlikely to hear, is about the small-scale producers responsible for most of the world’s jobs and almost all of its food.’ Getting food products to export markets is a pressing problem for some producers now, but millions of growers everywhere will be affected by soaring fertiliser costs. The world may be heading towards not only an energy shock, but a food crisis, too – with its worst ramifications in the global south. Natural gas is used in the Gulf region to create urea, used in the nitrogen fertiliser that is critical to boosting agricultural yields. Hormuz is a key choke point for exporting it.

Indeed, devastating analysis from the UN World Food Program (WFP), also published last week, suggested almost 45 million more people could fall into acute hunger, if the conflict proves prolonged and oil prices remain above $100 a barrel. The heaviest price for this thoughtless conflict is being paid by civilians in Iran and the wider Middle East, but the small-scale farmers of Tanzania and Kenya can already testify to its impact on livelihoods thousands of miles away. As fuel and fertiliser costs rise, Trump’s war appears increasingly likely to have the unconscionable side-effect of amplifying global hunger.”

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Take to the streets on March 28th and remind Trump that we have NO KINGS!
No Kings: It’s year #2 of Trump’s second term, and his authoritarian impulses are growing worse and worse by the day. It’s vital that we keep on the public pressure and remind him that America has NO KINGS, NO THRONES, AND NO CROWNS! Massive rallies are once again being planned for March 28th. Will you take to the streets and stand up against Trump’s tyranny? Click here to register for a No Kings event near you!

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Food for thought

The Sunday wrap-up

Hope…

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