What Happened Today - 23 March 2026
What Happened Today – 23 Mar 2026
Iran Update
ICE “helping” TSA
Trump on Mueller’s Death
MAGA Mike shutting down the House…bravo idiot
Supreme Court and Mail in Ballots
SAVE Act and passing it ‘for Jesus’
25th Amendment Time…yeah, like a year ago…but now is fine too
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Iran Update
This morning was peak Trump pump-and-dump energy, and the weekend leading into it was just as chaotic and gross as you’d expect.
Over the weekend, Trump ratcheted up the Iran war panic with that 48‑hour “open the Strait of Hormuz or we blow up your grid” ultimatum, which had oil spiking and markets freaking out because everyone thought we were about to escalate even harder in the Middle East. Then sunrise hits on Monday and suddenly he’s on Truth screaming about “very good and productive conversations” with Iran, claiming they’re racing toward a “complete and total resolution” and bragging that he’s pausing strikes on Iranian power and energy infrastructure for five days “because of the talks.” The market heard the magic word “talks,” oil tanked, stock futures ripped higher, Dow and S&P bounced like crazy, and hundreds of billions in paper wealth just magically reappeared for the people positioned to profit off his mouth.
Meanwhile, Iran is basically standing there like, “What the hell is this guy talking about?” and openly saying there are no talks, no channels, no direct or indirect communication with Washington, and that Trump’s whole “we’re negotiating” story is a stunt to jerk energy prices around and buy time for whatever military move he’s cooking up next. Their state media and foreign ministry sources are flat-out calling it a ploy, saying they’re not the ones who started this war and any ‘requests’ should be pointed at DC. On top of that, reporting out of the region says Iran is still vowing to respond to attacks and isn’t going back to pre‑war status in the Strait, so the underlying risk hasn’t actually gone anywhere – it’s just being papered over with Trump’s all‑caps fantasy version of diplomacy.
To make it even weirder, Trump is telling Fox Business that Jared “Middle East Peace Failson” Kushner and real estate buddy Steve Witkoff are somehow his special envoys in this supposed backchannel to Tehran, with Egypt, Pakistan, and Turkey playing messenger, and that Iran “wants a deal badly.” He’s out there saying they basically agree on “almost all points,” talking about some 15‑point plan with “no nukes” as points 1, 2, and 3 like that means anything, while intelligence and regional reporting are still trying to figure out who he’s even talking to on the Iranian side, if anyone. There’s chatter that the real interlocutor might be Iran’s parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, while at the same time this administration is bragging that they’ve killed off most of Iran’s prior top leadership and Trump’s out here joking Iran needs “better public relations people,” which is just deranged given the stakes.
And underneath all the smoke, the actual power reality hasn’t changed: he’s just paused some strikes for five days, “subject” to how these so‑called talks go, which is basically him keeping a loaded gun on the table and letting the markets guess which way he’s going to twitch. Israel, which had been hitting Iranian infrastructure, is reportedly expected to track with Washington’s pause on power‑related targets, but they’re still very much in war mode and continuing other operations, so nothing about this is “peace is at hand” no matter how much he tries to sell it like a reality show season finale. Bottom line: the market pump is real, the “talks” are vibes at best, and the risk of miscalculation or a hard snap‑back into escalation is absolutely still there.
On the “what to worry about and prepare for” front: you’ve got markets now completely conditioned to trade off his random Truth posts, which means insane volatility every time he wants to move prices or change the subject. Oil is whipsawing – it fell hard on the pause announcement after spiking on the ultimatum – and that’s going to bleed into gas prices, shipping costs, and all the usual downstream inflation nonsense if this war drags or flares back up. Geopolitically, a five‑day pause with no real, confirmed diplomatic framework and one side flatly denying talks means we’re basically living in a “Twitter‑based nuclear brinkmanship” environment where the risk is less some neat linear escalation and more Trump saying something unhinged that forces the Pentagon and allies to scramble after the fact. And because he keeps overselling “we’re close to a deal” publicly, there’s a real danger that when it inevitably doesn’t materialize, he’ll feel boxed in and reach for something dramatic and destructive to prove he’s still “strong.”
As for Scott Bessent, this guy keeps proving he’s an absolute black hole of accountability and a perfect little yes‑man for Trump’s economic vandalism. On Sunday shows he was asked the most basic question in the world after the Supreme Court nuked most of Trump’s emergency tariffs: are you going to refund the roughly $134 billion the government hoovered up from businesses and consumers under an authority the Court just gutted? Instead of giving a straight answer, he dodged like his life depended on it, waving his hands about how the ruling was a “very limited interpretation” and bragging they still have other tariff tools (Section 232, Section 301) alive and kicking, like that’s supposed to make people feel better about the money that was basically taken under bogus legal cover. When pressed that the administration had previously promised refunds if the tariffs were found unlawful, he cut in with a “no, no, no, no” routine and tried to pin it on the lower courts while pivoting back to the “we’re bringing manufacturing home” fairy tale, acting like the actual $134 billion bill doesn’t exist.
That’s the pattern: Trump lies or wildly exaggerates to move markets and claim fake wins, his Cabinet and economic people run cover and refuse to admit any harm or responsibility, and regular people are left holding the bag while his donors and traders surf the chaos. Policy‑wise, the big weekend shift is this temporary pause on strikes against Iranian energy infrastructure, which calms oil and equities for a minute but doesn’t resolve anything and can be yanked back the second he decides “talks” aren’t giving him enough TV drama. From a “what to prep for” angle: expect more whiplash in markets tied directly to his social posts, expect no serious transparency on tariffs, war costs, or refunds from Bessent, and expect the administration to keep using half‑baked “we’re close to a deal” narratives to justify both escalation and de‑escalation on a dime.
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ICE “helping” TSA
This ICE–TSA stunt is exactly what it looks like: Trump turning airports into a cop show backdrop while using travelers as leverage in his little SAVE Act hostage game.
Right now ICE agents are being dumped into 13 major airports under the bullshit cover of “helping” TSA with long lines, but in practice they’re either standing around looking intimidating or inserting themselves into spots where they have no business being anywhere near regular travelers. The list of airports where they’ve been confirmed at TSA checkpoints today: Chicago O’Hare, Cleveland Hopkins, Hartsfield‑Jackson Atlanta, Houston Hobby, JFK, LaGuardia, Newark, Philly, Phoenix Sky Harbor, Pittsburgh, Louis Armstrong New Orleans, Southwest Florida (Fort Myers), and Luis Muñoz Marín in San Juan, Puerto Rico. So basically some of the biggest funnels of people in and out of the country now have ICE lurking right at the chokepoints, while TSA is still short‑staffed, unpaid, and melting down from the shutdown.
The official line from Tom Homan and DHS is that these ICE officers are just there to “guard exits” and free up TSA to focus on screening, but everybody with a brain knows what happens when you drop armed immigration cops into chaotic spaces full of stressed travelers and people with mixed‑status families. DHS is already bragging they’re using “every available resource” to “assist American travelers” while somehow the only people not getting paychecks are the TSA workers doing the actual damn job, not the ICE agents suddenly playing airport security theater. Layer onto that passengers filming these guys hovering around checkpoints and gate areas, and you know it’s only a matter of time before we see more videos of “secondary screenings” that look a whole lot like on‑the‑spot immigration checks and de facto kidnappings of whoever they decide is suspicious.
And the shutdown politics are somehow even grosser: Democrats and Republicans were actually inching close to a DHS funding deal that would pay TSA, FEMA, Coast Guard, etc., while setting ICE and Border Patrol aside to keep negotiating reforms. Schumer and others have been saying it out loud – fund TSA now, keep arguing over ICE later – and even some Senate Republicans were starting to crack and admit maybe we shouldn’t be holding aviation security hostage over Trump’s obsession with having an unaccountable immigration shock troop force. Instead, Trump slaps the SAVE Act on the table and basically says no deal unless he gets his full hardline immigration package, then blasts out this “I’m sending ICE to airports Monday” threat to crank the pressure and blame Democrats for the chaos he’s literally manufacturing.
So when people are stuck in three‑hour lines, missing flights, and watching unpaid TSA officers try not to quit while ICE agents stroll around fully funded and fully armed, it’s not some mystery who broke it. TSA’s not getting paid, airports are a mess, and travel is a nightmare because Trump would rather weaponize the SAVE Act and DHS funding than just sign a clean bill that pays the workers keeping planes from falling out of the sky. He’s holding the whole system hostage to protect ICE and push his immigration crackdown, and then pretending the solution is… more ICE at the airport.
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Trump on Mueller’s Death
Mueller dies, and Trump’s first instinct is to jump on Truth Social to say “Good, I’m glad he’s dead. He can no longer hurt innocent people,” which is exactly the kind of rotted, self‑owning garbage you’d expect from him at this point. The man who spent years calling Mueller a witch‑hunter still can’t admit that the people who “got hurt” in that probe were the ones in his orbit who actually committed crimes, took pleas, and stood in court and said “guilty” with their own mouths – nobody made them do that. If they were so damn “innocent,” they could’ve gone to trial, rolled the dice, and tried to clear their names instead of cutting deals; instead you had a parade of crooks, liars, and foreign‑agent wannabes admitting under oath that they broke the law, and Trump now wants to rewrite that as poor little victims abused by the big bad special counsel.
The reaction to his post has basically split exactly where you’d expect, just turned up to 11 because we’re talking about him gloating over a man’s death instead of just trashing him on Fox. MAGA world is out here high‑fiving, calling Mueller “evil,” “corrupt,” and “deep state scum,” and treating Trump’s “glad he’s dead” line like some big moment of truth‑telling instead of a 79‑year‑old man cheering on a funeral. On the other side, a whole lot of Americans – including people who weren’t exactly Mueller superfans – are just sickened, pointing out that this is a decorated Marine and former FBI director who served under both parties, and that you can criticize his investigation all day without dancing on his grave like a sociopath. You’re seeing the same sentiment over and over: if you’re calling the people who flipped and pled guilty “innocent,” what you’re really mad about isn’t injustice, it’s that your crew got caught.
Compared to how the country reacted when other big‑name investigators or legal figures died – think Ken Starr, for example – Trump’s response is in its own sewer. When Starr died, conservatives praised him, liberals dragged his record, but most mainstream responses were at least vaguely “condolences to the family, here’s the complicated legacy” energy; there wasn’t a president of the United States hopping online to say “good, glad he’s dead.” With Mueller, you’ve got Trump weaponizing the moment to relitigate his own grievances in the most spiteful way possible, and even some Republicans who hated the Russia probe are quietly distancing themselves, because they know normal people see a commander in chief celebrating a death and think: that’s not strength, that’s rot.
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MAGA Mike shutting down the House…bravo idiot
MAGA Mike didn’t just “step back,” he straight‑up shut down the House so they can keep this DHS mess boiling without actually doing their jobs. Right now, it looks like a vacation for them THRU EASTER! WTF! He’s sending members home instead of forcing a real vote on a clean funding bill because the hard‑right crowd and Trump want maximum chaos, not solutions. By closing the House, they dodge tough bipartisan votes that would reopen DHS, pay TSA, and sideline the SAVE Act junk, and instead get to blame Democrats and the Senate while airports melt down and people suffer. The play here is leverage: drag out the pain long enough that Democrats cave and swallow Trump’s immigration wish list, keep the base frothing that “the border” is under siege, and protect Johnson from a revolt inside his own caucus for daring to work with Dems. It’s not governance, it’s hostage‑taking with the lights off and the doors locked.
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Supreme Court and Mail in Ballots
The Supreme Court mail‑ballot case is a huge, quiet landmine, especially for military and overseas voters, and it’s happening right now while most people are just trying to live their lives.
The case is Watson v. RNC, out of Mississippi, and it’s basically asking the Court whether states are allowed to count mail‑in ballots that are postmarked by Election Day but arrive a few days later, or whether federal law means those ballots have to be in the hands of election officials by the time the polls close or they’re dead on arrival. Mississippi’s current rule is pretty normal: if your ballot is postmarked on or before Election Day and received within five business days after, it counts, and around 29 states plus D.C. have some kind of similar “grace period” that lets timely‑mailed ballots trickle in and still get counted. The RNC and Trump world are arguing that these grace periods are illegal because Congress set a single “Election Day,” and in their reading that means ballots must be both cast and received on that day, period, no exceptions.
From the early coverage and oral‑argument tea leaves, the conservative majority sounds pretty skeptical of these grace‑period laws, leaning on old precedents and Kavanaugh’s earlier ranting about post‑Election Day ballots creating “chaos” and “suspicion” if they come in later and flip results. If they go all‑in with that logic, they could say federal law preempts state grace periods for federal races, which would blow up rules in a big chunk of the country and force states to change deadlines and voter instructions right before the 2026 elections. There’s also a narrower path where they carve out some kind of exception for uniformed and overseas voters under UOCAVA, but slam the door shut on everyone else’s late‑arriving mail ballots and pretend that’s a “compromise.”
And yeah, the military angle is not some side detail; it’s the bullseye. There are roughly 4 million service members and other Americans overseas who depend on mail ballots and grace periods because it just takes longer to get a piece of paper from, say, a base in the Pacific or a ship to a county clerk’s office in Iowa or Colorado. A brief from military and overseas groups is basically begging the Court not to screw them, warning that without a post‑Election Day receipt window, a predictable chunk of those ballots will never make it in time, especially given USPS slowdowns and the reality that not every foreign post office or APO channel moves at Amazon Prime speed. So yes, if the Court takes the hard line the RNC is pushing, a very real outcome is troops who did everything right – requested on time, mailed on time, postmarked on time – watching their ballots get trashed because the mail took a day or two longer than the justices or Trump would like.
For regular Americans back home, this would mean:
– You can’t trust “postmarked by Election Day” anymore; your ballot has to arrive by Election Day in federal races or it’s gone, no matter what the envelope says.
– States in both parties that currently give voters a cushion of a few days would have to compress everything, rush count, and re‑educate millions of people that the rules changed right before a high‑stakes midterm.
– Any mail delays
– USPS cuts, weather, local screwups – stop being annoyances and start being disenfranchisement. Your ballot becomes a lottery ticket tied to the performance of the postal system.
Bottom line: this isn’t about “stopping fraud,” because there’s no evidence that timely‑postmarked ballots arriving a couple days late are some giant fraud vector; this is about tightening the window so hard that fewer votes count, especially from people far from home – soldiers, their families, students, expats, people who can’t stand in line for hours. If the Court sides with the RNC, the message to those folks is pretty much: you can wear the uniform, you can pay taxes, you can serve overseas, but if the mail is slow, too bad – your voice in a federal election is optional.
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SAVE Act and passing it ‘for Jesus’
The whole “pass the SAVE Act for Jesus” thing is exactly as unhinged and gross as it sounds. Trump is literally out here tying a hard‑core voter suppression bill to religion like it’s some holy assignment instead of what it really is: a giant “show your papers” law meant to make it harder for regular people to vote. He’s been telling Republicans they must pass the SAVE America Act “at the expense of everything else,” threatening to withhold endorsements from anyone who doesn’t back it, and basically treating this one bill as the price of admission into his cult. Slapping “for Jesus” on top is just him trying to guilt and hype the evangelical base into swallowing something that will absolutely screw over millions of actual citizens who don’t have a passport, can’t easily grab a birth certificate, changed their name, or rely on mail/online registration.
What the SAVE Act does in practice is brutal: it forces people to produce documentary proof of citizenship when they register – usually a passport or birth certificate – and then slaps strict photo ID rules on voting itself, including for mail voting, where you’d have to include ID copies multiple times just to get and return a ballot. It effectively nukes normal mail and online registration systems in most states, demands in‑person paperwork that millions of people don’t have handy, and threatens election workers with penalties if they make a mistake, which means they’ll err on the side of turning people away. Noncitizen voting is already illegal and vanishingly rare, something even Trump’s own past “election integrity” commission couldn’t prove in any meaningful way, but this thing would block huge numbers of actual citizens – including older folks, married women who changed names, low‑income voters, students, and yes, some Republicans too – from registering or casting a valid ballot.
Where this sits now: the House has already passed versions of this twice, and Trump is now pounding the table for the full‑strength SAVE America Act in the Senate, telling Republicans to push it “with passion” and demanding they blow up Senate norms – talking filibuster, nuking rules, whatever – to jam it through. He’s openly saying this bill will “guarantee the midterms” for Republicans and leaning on GOP senators by threatening not to back anyone who doesn’t vote for it or support breaking the filibuster to get it done. On top of that, he’s basically holding it over everyone’s head by tying it to everything else in Washington – signaling he doesn’t want other big bills moving until this passes, and cheering on GOP‑led states that are racing to pass copycat “SAVE” laws at the state level in case the Senate stalls.
So when he says pass it “for Jesus,” what he really means is: pass it for me. For my power, for my elections, for my ability to rig the rules so fewer of the “wrong” people can vote and I can scream “fraud” less when I lose. Jesus Christ – the actual one – had nothing to do with forcing people to dig up government paperwork to prove they’re worthy of a ballot; that’s Trump using religion as a prop to bless a giant nationwide voter roll purge.
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25th Amendment Time…yeah, like a year ago…but now is fine too
We are absolutely in 25th Amendment territory emotionally, but structurally, the odds are still stacked against it actually happening – and that’s the mind‑melting part. You’ve got Democrats openly saying he’s mentally unfit and dangerous, calling him “mentally ill” and demanding the Cabinet and Pence pull the ripcord, and now even some Republicans are edging toward the same conclusion in public after years of only whispering it in private. They’re watching him threaten to blow up Iran’s power grid on social media, gloat over Mueller’s death, jerk oil markets around with fantasy “talks,” and turn ICE loose in airports while DHS is partially shut down – and they know this is not normal, not safe, and not sustainable.
But here’s the problem: the 25th Amendment is designed to be almost impossible to use on a president whose own party still fears his base. You need the vice president plus a majority of the Cabinet to officially declare he’s unable to do the job, and then, if he contests it (which Trump 1000% would), you need two‑thirds of both the House and the Senate to keep him out. That means a huge chunk of Republicans would have to go on record saying “this guy is unfit to serve” and be willing to eat the rage of his voters, donors, and right‑wing media machine – and up to now, even when they privately admit he’s dangerous, they choke the second it requires spine in public.
So yeah, we’re “way past time” in terms of his behavior: he’s erratic, vindictive, obsessed with his own grievances, and casually playing with war, markets, and institutions like they’re props in his show. You’ve got lawmakers and commentators again floating a 25th‑Amendment‑style commission to assess presidential fitness, pointing out that we still haven’t built the independent body the amendment envisions to deal with exactly this kind of situation. But until the people around him – Pence, the Cabinet, Republican leaders – decide they care more about the country than their own careers, the 25th stays what it’s mostly always been with Trump: the emergency exit everybody talks about while they keep riding the burning plane.
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Here we go, another week – another shit show.
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.