What Happened Today - 23 Feb 2026
What Happened Today – 23 Feb 2026
TSA Pre-Check/Global Entry Drama
Kash Patel…one of the “boys”
We’re sending medical ships….but we aren’t
American’s Trapped in Mexico
Trump’s Tarriff’s…still unlawful
Iran Update
Shooter at Mar-a-Lago
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TSA Pre-Check/Global Entry Drama
Yeah, that little TSA stunt was peak petty shutdown chaos: Trump’s people clearly decided, “How do we make this hurt regular folks the most, the fastest?” so they floated shutting down TSA PreCheck and Global Entry like it was no big deal, right as people are already stressed about a government that can’t keep the lights on. They blasted out this dramatic announcement about turning off the fast lanes and trusted traveler perks, essentially threatening to shove everybody back into the cattle line to use travelers as leverage in their shutdown drama, even though those programs are funded by user fees, not the regular budget they’re fighting over.
But then reality hit them in the face in less than a day: airlines freaked out, travel groups called it what it was—holding passengers hostage for politics—and the backlash was instant and loud, from industry to Congress to people stuck in airports. Suddenly DHS is like, “Oh no, actually PreCheck is staying on, no change for the traveling public,” frantically walking it back while pretending it was all some operational nuance and not a straight-up tantrum.
The end result: Global Entry gets whacked and stays suspended, screwing over international travelers, while TSA PreCheck quietly gets turned back on after not even a full 24 hours of confusion, because they realized they went too far, too fast, and it made them look incompetent on top of cruel. So yeah, classic move: create maximum pain for regular people to score political points, then half-reverse it and act like nothing happened once the heat gets too intense.
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Kash Patel…one of the “boys”
Kash really managed to step right into the spotlight in the worst possible way on this one: he hops on the FBI jet to Italy under the banner of “official business,” then magically ends up rink‑side for the Olympic men’s hockey gold medal game, and next thing you know he’s in the locker room chugging beers, spraying them around, wearing medals, and bro-ing out with Team USA like he’s their unofficial 4th line winger. The blowback was instant because people aren’t stupid—this is the FBI director, on a taxpayer-funded plane that’s already under scrutiny, partying it up overseas while the bureau is supposedly juggling real crises at home, and he’s in there sing‑along mode with the boys instead of looking like the guy in charge of federal law enforcement. Lawmakers and a whole lot of folks online are calling it exactly what it looks like: an abuse of his position and perks, using “meetings with Italian partners” as cover to bolt straight to an Olympic game and then turning it into a frat‑house victory lap he’d never have access to if he weren’t sitting in that job.
Today, instead of showing an ounce of “yeah, that probably crossed a line,” Kash is in full defensive crouch, leaning all the way into patriot cosplay—posting that he was “humbled” to be invited by his “friends” on Team USA into the locker room, raving about the “greatest country on earth” and “greatest sport on earth,” and insisting he’ll personally reimburse any “personal expenses” like that magically fixes the optics of flying to Milan on the government dime to shotgun beers on camera. He’s framing the backlash as bitter media and haters attacking him for loving America and hockey, like the issue is that he had a beer instead of the fact that the head of the FBI keeps blurring the line between his job and his fanboy bucket list while everyone else is stuck dealing with the fallout of this administration’s mess.
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We’re sending medical ships….but we aren’t
The whole “we’re sending medical ships to Greenland” thing is pure clown show. Greenland didn’t ask for them, doesn’t need them, and the ships aren’t even remotely ready to go anywhere—they’re literally sitting in port in Alabama torn apart for major maintenance. Meanwhile, way up north where this little PR fantasy is supposedly playing out, what we actually have are nuclear subs quietly hanging around in the region, and nobody in this crew feels the need to be straight about why. Then a sailor on one of those subs has a serious medical emergency, the sub has to surface, and they rush him to a hospital in Greenland to save his life—real crisis, real stakes, handled by, you know, an actual functioning medical system on land, not some imaginary MAGA hospital armada. The gap between what they’re selling on TV and what’s actually happening is just lies on top of spin on top of vibes, and at this point the misinformation isn’t just exhausting, it’s embarrassing—they look like absolute dumbasses trying to cosplay competence while the facts keep blowing up their narrative in real time.
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American’s Trapped in Mexico
Mexico is a mess right now, and it all traces back to the Mexican military finally taking out “El Mencho,” the top dog of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, which immediately blew up into a full‑blown wave of revenge violence. Resorts and tourist zones that usually feel insulated from this kind of chaos—places like Puerto Vallarta and other beach spots—are now telling Americans to stay in their rooms, lights low, do not leave the property, because cartel guys are torching cars, blocking roads, and turning whole cities into ghost towns. Flights are getting canceled, diverted, or stuck in limbo, and the U.S. Embassy is basically saying: sit tight, shelter in place, avoid the streets and the blockades, and wait for things to calm down enough that commercial flights can safely move people out.
How we get our people back is going to be slow and annoying, not dramatic: first, Mexico has to regain control of key highways and airports; then State, DHS, and the airlines work together to restart routes, add extra flights, and quietly move stranded Americans out once the immediate violence cools off. Behind the scenes, you know there are constant calls between Washington and Mexico City—pressure to secure resort corridors, keep tourists safe, and make sure blocks around airports and hotels get cleared first. What’s next is ugly but predictable: more security operations, more cartel retaliation, probably a shifting power struggle inside the cartel now that their guy is dead, and for anyone down there on “all‑inclusive vacation,” it’s going to mean more hours stuck in their rooms, watching smoke out the window, just waiting for the green light to finally get the hell out.
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Trump’s Tarriff’s…still unlawful
Trump’s tariff obsession is circling the drain, and instead of learning anything from getting smacked down by the Supreme Court, he’s just doubling down and making it dumber. The last big batch of his tariffs was literally ruled illegal—SCOTUS said he flat‑out abused that 1977 “emergency” law and did not have the authority to build his little tariff empire the way he did, which opens the door for companies to go after refunds on tens of billions he yanked out of the economy. So what does he do? Slaps on a new round of “global” tariffs, jacks them from 10 to 15%, and tries to reroute the justification through some dusty trade law loophole that was never meant to be used like this, and trade lawyers are already lining up to say these new ones probably don’t meet the legal definition either and are headed right back to court.
And then you’ve got Scott Bessent out here acting like a smug accountant for a mob boss, basically saying, “Well, the court didn’t explicitly tell us we have to pay any of this back yet, so we’re just hanging onto the money until someone forces us,” like that’s some kind of responsible fiscal policy instead of admitting they did something illegal and the bill is very likely coming. The whole “we’ll wait until a judge spells it out in crayon” line is pure rubbish—it’s them hiding behind procedural technicalities while they keep sitting on what amounts to an illegal tax haul, and then turning around and slapping a fresh 15% on imports that families and businesses are going to feel in prices. It’s performative toughness that keeps getting exposed as legally shaky, economically harmful nonsense, and they’re just daring the courts and the rest of us to clean up the mess later—again.
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Iran Update
It feels like we’re inching toward a war with Iran in slow motion, with everyone saying “we don’t want a war” while doing literally everything you’d do right before starting one. Trump has put a hard clock on Tehran—48 hours here, 10–15 days there—for some “acceptable” nuclear proposal, all while parking aircraft carriers, warplanes, missile defenses, and submarines around Iran like he’s setting the stage for a streaming special called “Limited Strike (That Definitely Won’t Stay Limited).” Iran, for its part, is saying flat out: there is no such thing as a small, neat strike—if the U.S. hits them, they’re calling it war and responding with everything from missile attacks to using proxies to go after U.S. troops and interests across the region and beyond.
What to expect in the near term is a mix of brinkmanship and anxiety: more “deadline” talk, more saber-rattling on TV, more leaks about strike options and target lists, and more stories about U.S. forces spreading out across the Middle East so they’re in position if Trump decides to pull the trigger. Best case, the pressure and the buildup scare Iran into offering just enough on the nuclear file to give everyone an off-ramp and delay this disaster; worst case, one miscalculation, one rocket gone wrong, one “limited” hit turns into a days-or-weeks-long bombing campaign with Iranian retaliation, oil markets freaking out, and American troops and civilians in the region suddenly on the front line of a crisis nobody can neatly control once it starts.
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Shooter at Mar-a-Lago
The Mar-a-Lago shooter story is exactly what happens every time with these people: the second the news breaks that an armed guy with a shotgun and a gas can got into the secure perimeter, MAGA world sprints online and immediately blames “the left,” Democrats, anti-Trump rhetoric, anyone and everyone but themselves. Karoline is out there turning it into a talking point about Democrats “defunding” security, Scott Bessent is on TV ranting about left-wing “toxicity” and “normalized aggression,” and the whole right-wing media machine is screaming about a Democrat-fueled assassination attempt before investigators have even finished bagging evidence.
Then reality starts to dribble out: the shooter is a 21-year-old from North Carolina, reported missing by his family, with people back home saying he’d never really been political, and so far there’s zero evidence he was some leftist Antifa super soldier sent by the DNC. As usual, the narrative they blasted out in the first five minutes doesn’t match what we actually know once the dust settles—and instead of owning that, they just move on to the next outrage and pretend they didn’t spend all weekend pointing fingers at “the left” with nothing to back it up. The whole thing is a perfect snapshot of the moment: a very real, very scary security breach, wrapped in instant, weaponized spin, where facts are optional and the truth shows up late, trying to catch up to the lies they launched at full speed.
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I had a high school civics teacher who I now consider a good friend as an adult, and I still remember her telling us senior year, “It is your civic duty to watch the State of the Union.” I’ve carried that with me, and most years I’ve tried to live up to it—but this year? Good God, I do not want to. Trump’s 2026 State of the Union is tomorrow night, and instead of feeling like a serious national moment, it already feels like more performance, more division, and more gaslighting about tariffs, shutdowns, “bad hombres,” and all the imaginary fires he swears only he can put out.
Now we’ve got spinoffs of the State of the Union, too—the biggest one being an online “people’s” version from independent outlets like the Meidas brothers’ network, with a long lineup of speakers ready to talk about the actual state of the country as it feels on the ground, not in Trump’s fantasy script. And I’m torn, because on one hand I completely get not wanting to sit there and watch him ramble about made-up wars he’s supposedly prevented, his illegal tariffs he’s mad the courts smacked down, how the “radical left” is un-American and out to get him, how Olympians should shut up and drape themselves in the flag, and how he’s heroically shipping “bad hombres” out of the country like it’s a punchline instead of human lives.
Part of me just wants to opt out entirely this time—skip the spectacle, protect my peace, and not let his nonsense live rent-free in my head for another hour. But I’m also conflicted about creating a whole separate “counter–State of the Union” event, because we’re already living in two information universes that barely touch, and doubling down on parallel programming starts to feel like another crack in something that’s already breaking. The extra, MAGA-flavored Super Bowl halftime show was the perfect example of how ridiculous this has gotten—competing realities, competing stages, each side performing for its own crowd instead of even pretending we share a country. This separatism is exactly what’s grinding us down; we cannot keep living on two timelines, with two sets of facts and two separate “Americas”—so, dear elected officials, start doing your damn jobs, close the gap, and pull this country back toward something functional, because right now we are burning daylight and we barely even look like ourselves anymore.
Speak Truth! Keep speaking TRUTH!
Don’t Give up the Ship!
Go Cause Good Trouble, with Your Elbows Up!
These are facts that I researched and verified – AI helped put together some sentence structure, but the words and tone are mine. These are my views based upon facts, research and thoughtful consideration using logic. I own the copyright to any images used. I’m comfortable to stand alone to uphold truth. Feel free to check me, but do not attack me. I am only causing good trouble.