Despite being inundated with criticism, far-right podcaster Candace Owens is doubling down on her attacks on Turning Point USA's (TPUSA) Erika Kirk. Owens is suggesting, without evidence, that Erika Kirk was somehow involved in the fatal shooting of her late husband Charlie Kirk, who founded the MAGA youth organization.

The criticism is coming from both the left and the right. Conservative media figures like The Daily Wire's Ben Shapiro (who Owens used to work for) and The National Review's Rich Lowry are calling her out, and liberals and progressives are saying that while they vehemently disagree with Erika Kirk's politics, Owens' YouTube video series "Bride of Charlie" (a play on "Bride of Frankenstein") is a mean-spirited smearing of a widow who lost her husband to gun violence.

Salon's Sophia Tesfaye, in an article published on March 4, argues that "Bride of Charlie" not only underscores Owens' willingness to promote unhinged conspiracy theories — it is also an indictment of right-wing media's business model.

"With Kirk's assassination at a Turning Point USA event in Utah last September, the MAGA movement faced a genuine tragedy," Tesfaye explains. "His widow, Erika Kirk, stepped in to lead the organization. But within weeks, before the grief had even begun to settle, Owens began publicly questioning the circumstances of Kirk's killing and spinning conspiracy theories on her podcast…. What started as insinuation soon metastasized into a serialized spectacle: 'Bride of Charlie,' a multi-episode YouTube series targeting Erika Kirk personally…. In the series, which is still ongoing, Owens hints that Kirk's murder was an inside job, suggests foreign agents may have been involved and implies that Erika Kirk has 'ulterior motives' in leading TPUSA."

Tesfaye notes that although "the conservative establishment has, belatedly, tried to fight back against Owens' accusations" against Erika Kirk, they "have largely failed to land a blow" — as the first episode of "Bride of Charlie" received "nearly 5 million views."

"The real reason right-wing media cannot stop Candace Owens is that they built her," Tesfaye emphasizes. "And, more importantly, they built the engine that fuels her: the machinery of conspiratorial media, which is immune to the tools that might once have contained it. For decades, conservative media has thrived on a business model that monetizes outrage and distrust. The more outrageous the claim, the greater the engagement. The more distrust sowed toward institutions — universities, media, elections, public health, the FBI — the more loyal the audience becomes."

Tesfaye continues, "In December, even as Owens was deep into Charlie Kirk assassination trutherism, Erika Kirk was urging TPUSA audiences to be tolerant of disagreeable views. By the time the right decided Owens had gone too far, she had already built a fully independent operation. The movement that once shielded Owens is now discovering that monsters raised on grievance do not recognize fences. The conservative movement no longer has credible gatekeepers."

Many critics of U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to go to war with Iran are saying that he failed to adequately explain his motivations. Secretary of State Marco Rubio attempted an explanation on Monday, March 2, telling reporters that tensions between Iran and Israel played a key role in the decision — and suggesting that Trump acted because of Israel.

But now, according to The New Republic's Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling, Rubio "ate his own words" and is backtracking and trying to distance himself from his own statement.

"During a visit on Capitol Hill Monday," Houghtaling explains in an article published on March 4, "Rubio suggested that the U.S. jumped to action due to intelligence that indicated Israel was going to strike Iran. U.S. involvement was, according to Rubio, necessary to thwart retaliation against U.S. interests. ... But that was apparently not the pitch that Trump approved. Responding to questions from reporters at the White House the following day, the president rejected any indication that Israel had pushed the White House to act."

On March 3, when a reporter asked Trump, "Did Israel force your hand?," he responded, "No. I might have forced their hand. We were having negotiations with these lunatics, and it was my opinion that they were going to attack first. They were going to attack. If we didn't do it, they were going to attack first. I felt strongly about that."

Later that day, Houghtaling notes, Rubio "changed his tune" and sounded "noticeably more stressed" than on the previous day.

A reporter told Rubio, "Yesterday, you told us that Israel was going to strike Iran and that's why we needed to get involved" — to which he defensively responded, "Your statement is false…. This had to happen anyway. The president made a decision, and the decision he made was that Iran was not going to be allowed to hide behind its ballistic missile program…. That decision had been made…. That's what I said yesterday."

Jeffrey Epstein survivor Danielle Bensky has been an outspoken critic of the U.S. Department of Justice's (DOJ) handling of its files on the late billionaire financier and convicted sex offender. Bensky, who met Epstein when she was a young ballerina and says she was abused by him, has been reaching out to a variety of media outlets —including those on the right.

But according to Bensky, Fox News and other right-wing media outlets are ignoring her.

In a Wednesday, March 4 post on X, former CNN host Jim Acosta — who interviewed Bensky for his internet show — tweeted, "A dancer abused by Epstein, Dani Bensky tells me she and other survivors are being ignored by 'Republican media' outlets like Fox. If you want to understand why so many people are giving Trump a pass on Epstein, it's partly because they’re watching Fox."

During the interview, Bensky told Acosta, "We're not able to get on Republican media a lot of the time. We've been hoping to get on Fox News. We've been trying to get on Newsmax. I think maybe two people had done a quick Newsmax. Stories are not even getting across the aisle."

Acosta responded, "Wow. Fox is not interviewing any of the survivors? You can't get on Fox?"

Bensky lamented, "Nope…. A lot of the time, Republican media will not take our stories at all. When I saw the State of the Union, I felt very clear that the chasm between Republicans and Democrats is so great…. There are some baseline things should just be, like, human."

After U.S. President Donald Trump ordered missile strikes against Iran and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — the country's far-right Shiite fundamentalist leader since 1989 — was killed, a long list of other countries were drawn into the conflict. Iran launched retaliatory strikes against U.S. installations in Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia was attacked by Iranian drones.

Meanwhile, Israel and Hezbollah (a pro-Iran Shiite militia in Lebanon) fired missiles at once another. From Riyadh to Beirut to Dubai, the Middle East is on pins and needles.

Trump is claiming that going to war with Iran is necessary from a national security standpoint. But MS NOW's Zeeshan Aleem, in an opinion column published on March 4, argues that Trump's Christian nationalist allies view the conflict as a holy war for evangelical fundamentalist Christianity.

"President Donald Trump can't get his story straight on why he launched a war against Iran," Aleem argues. "But some commanders in the U.S. military are apparently telling service members that they're on a mission to fulfill biblical prophecy. The independent journalist Jonathan Larsen reported that the Military Religious Freedom Foundation has received more than 110 complaints from service members about their commanders' religious gloss on the war on Iran."

Aleem continues, "These complaints, according to Larsen's report, came from every branch of the military, across more than 40 different units, situated in at least 30 military installations…. MRFF President Michael Weinstein told Larsen that the complaints from service members shared a common feature: Commanders are describing the war as 'biblically sanctioned' and 'clearly the undeniable sign of the expeditious approach of the fundamentalist Christian End Times as vividly described in the New Testament Book of Revelation."

Weinstein told Larsen, "Many of their commanders are especially delighted with how graphic this battle will be, zeroing in on how bloody all of this must become in order to fulfill and be in 100 percent accordance with fundamentalist Christian end-of-the-world eschatology."

When military commanders "are reportedly selling American aggression on Iran as a holy war," Aleem warns, it is "deeply alarming."

"Weinstein told Larsen that the complaints violate the Constitution's separation of church and state," Aleem explains. "But regardless of its legality, telling American troops that they're fighting for a Christian god against a Muslim country is medieval madness. It isn't the role of the U.S., per the Constitution, to promote any religion over another. Furthermore, the reported remarks from these commanders is likely to prompt U.S. service members to dehumanize Iran's population, and help set the stage for viciousness in combat and human rights violations. The military is not supposed to be a crusading political-theological movement, but a professional defense force."

For many years, the U.S. Supreme Court leaned conservative but handed down many decisions that were applauded by liberals and progressives — from Lawrence v. Texas to Obergefell v. Hodges to Texas v. Johnson. Retired Justice Anthony Kennedy was a right-wing libertarian appointed by President Ronald Reagan, yet he often sided with liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg over Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia when it came to abortion and gay rights. And Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, Reagan's first appointee, was another Supreme Court wild card who sometimes found common ground with the liberal justices.

But in recent years, the High Court — where Republicans now have a 6-3 supermajority — has been a frequent source of frustration to liberals and progressives as well as the libertarian right. And The New Republic's Matt Ford, in a biting article published on March 4, argues that the Court's GOP appointees aren't shy about putting partisan politics over the law.

"In the old days," Ford writes, "it used to require actual work to show that the Supreme Court justices were driven by their personal beliefs instead of straightforwardly applying law, precedent, and procedure. You'd have to connect dots across multiple rulings and explain intricate legal doctrines. Even then, it might be too speculative to be truly persuasive. These days, I could probably convince my two-year-old son of the High Court's shenanigans just based on a single day's rulings."

Ford makes his point by discussing the cases Malliotakis v. Williams and Mirabelli v. Bonta — which, he notes, are unrelated yet underscore the Court's partisan nature.

In Malliotakis, the six GOP appointees voted to save a congressional map favorable to Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-New York) — whose district includes areas of Staten Island and Brooklyn.

"The first case, Malliotakis v. Williams, is a challenge to the recently redrawn borders of New York's 11th Congressional District," Ford explains. "The state redrew its boundaries to, among other reasons, make it harder for New York Representative Nicole Malliotakis, a Republican, to win reelection this fall. She is one of many incumbents who will likely lose their seats amid the nation's gerrymandering wars over the last eight months. Malliotakis and a coalition of other litigants filed a lawsuit after the redrawn maps were issued, arguing that the Independent Redistricting Commission had impermissibly relied on race when it redrew her district's boundaries…. The other case, Mirabelli v. Bonta, involves a challenge by the parents of children who identify as transgender to a California law that forbids school officials from discussing a student's gender transition with their parents unless that student consents to it."

Ford continues, "Some of the plaintiffs with religious objections argued that the law infringed upon their First Amendment rights to instill their own religious faith in their child, pointing to last year's ruling in Mahmoud v. Taylor. In that decision, the Court's conservatives expanded the First Amendment to allow parents to opt out of LGBTQ-friendly teaching materials. Unsurprisingly, the conservative justices apparently agreed with that view. The other parental plaintiffs, however, argued that the California law intruded upon their rights as parents, which they said were guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause."

Ford emphasizes that the High Court needs "a majority of justices" who are "willing to consistently apply legal principles instead of zig-zagging to reach preferred policy outcomes."

"That majority does not currently exist," Ford laments.

Former CNN host Don Lemon is among the 39 people facing federal charges in connection with a January 18 protest inside an evangelical Christian fundamentalist church in Minneapolis, where demonstrators interrupted a service to speak out against aggressive U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids. Federal prosecutors are arguing that interrupting the service was an attack on churchgoers' First Amendment rights.

Lemon, however, is emphasizing that he wasn't part of the protest — he was strictly there as a journalist covering it.

Reporter Claire Wang examines the legal issues the case raises in an article published by The Guardian on March 4. And according to some legal scholars, prosecutors in the Donald Trump-era U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) are perverting a 1994 law — the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act or FACE Act — in order to attack political opponents.

Mary Ziegler, a law professor at the University of California, Davis, told The Guardian, "What we're seeing with Trump is the favoring of some places and viewpoints over others, and an increase in prosecutions to blur the line between speech and intimidation and protests…. The FACE Act is the nuclear option. The penalties are extreme. It's one thing to say people shouldn't disrupt religious services and another to charge them with a felony."

The 39 defendants, according to Ziegler, are being accused of violating First Amendment rights when it is the Trump DOJ that is attacking the First Amendment.

Wang notes that the FACE Act, signed into law by President Bill Clinton 32 years ago, "was initially established to protect abortion clinics from an eruption of violence" and that "a clause extending the protections to houses of worship was added later."

"For most of its history," Wang notes, "the FACE Act has been used exclusively to prosecute anti-abortion groups and agitators. The Trump Administration, Ziegler said, has rolled back the use of the law to prohibit blockades of abortion clinics while expanding its powers against pro-Palestine and anti-ICE protests near religious sites…. In September, the Justice Department used the law to sue the pro-Palestinian activists involved in the 2024 New Jersey synagogue protest. It marked the first time the Face Act was used to target a demonstration at a place of worship."

Sophie Ellman-Golan, director of strategic communications for Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, believes that a "political event" taking place inside a place of worship is fair game for nonviolent protests.

Ellman-Golan told The Guardian, "We really believe that First Amendment protest rights are an essential part of building an open society and democracy that have allowed Jews to thrive in New York City…. Something should not be given the shield of religion just because they're taking place inside a church."

In a 6-3 ruling handed down on Monday, March 2, the U.S. Supreme Court's GOP-appointed supermajority ruled to uphold a congressional map favoring Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-New York) — who serves in the U.S. House of Representatives via parts of Staten Island and Brooklyn. The ruling in Malliotakis v. Williams overturned a previous decision by a judge who decided that the map discriminated against Black and Latino voters in New York City.

The ruling came down along partisan lines, with Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson joining fellow Democratic appointee, Sonia Sotomayor, in her dissenting opinion. All six of the High Court's GOP appointees sided with Malliotakis.

Mother Jones' Ari Berman offers a biting critique of the ruling in an article published on March 3, arguing that Justice Samuel Alito's opinion is an ominous sign for voting rights.

Sotomayor, Berman notes, "blasted the Court's conservative majority for using one set of rules to uphold redistricting maps that benefit white voters and Republicans in states like Texas while using a completely different set of rules to strike down maps that benefit racial minorities and Democrats in places like New York."

"The majority did not explain its reasoning," according to Berman, "but most concerning was the concurring opinion by Justice Samuel Alito, in which he wrote that districts drawn 'for the express purpose of ensuring that minority voter are able to elect the candidate of their choice' represented 'unadorned racial discrimination, an inherently odious activity that violates the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause except in the most extraordinary case.' Alito is essentially saying that districts drawn under the Voting Rights Act or other federal and state laws to remedy centuries of racial discrimination are as racist as the racism, including the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow, they were meant to rectify."

Berman continues, "Court watchers speculate that Alito, because he has not authored an opinion from the Court's term last October, is writing the majority opinion in a hugely important case the Court has yet to rule on concerning the constitutionality of the last remaining section of the Voting Rights Act. If that's the case, the VRA — and by extension, the fate of American democracy — will be in very, very bad shape."

The Voting Rights Act of 1965, signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson, forbids racial discrimination in voting and was a landmark part of the Great Society — LBJ's expansion of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal.

Alito, Berman warns, "seems certain to kill the VRA outright or narrow it to the point of irrelevancy."

"If the Court were to rule against the VRA this spring," the Mother Jones journalist writes, "that could shift roughly a dozen seats in the GOP's favor this year, turbocharging Trump's efforts to manipulate the midterms. Alito is now telegraphing just how far he's prepared to go."

Late Tuesday morning, March 3, the news broke that Georgia resident Colin Gray — the father of school shooter Colt Gray — had been convicted on murder and manslaughter churches.

According to CNN reporters Eric Levenson and Maxime Tamsett, the case is "testing the limits of who is responsible for a mass shooting."

"The jury deliberated for less than two hours before convicting him on all 27 charges: two counts of second-degree murder, two counts of involuntary manslaughter, 18 counts of cruelty to children and five counts of reckless conduct," the CNN reporters explain. "At the defense table, Colin Gray did not visibly react to the verdict. He was taken from the courtroom in handcuffs. He faces 10 to 30 years in prison on each murder charge and 1 to 10 years on each manslaughter charge."

Levenson and Tamsett add, "Prosecutors accused Gray of buying his son an AR-15-style rifle as a Christmas present and allowing him access to that weapon and ammunition despite warnings that his son was a danger to others. Colt Gray, then 14, used that rifle to carry out a mass shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, on September 4, 2024, killing two teachers and two students and wounding nine others."

The verdict is generating a lot of comments on X, formerly Twitter — including some angry comments from MAGA Republicans and others on the right.

The Pod Millennial's Libby Emmons, described as a "feminist who was purged by the trans left" by The American Conservative (which she has written for), tweeted, "What I don't get is why this happens with school shooters' parents but not the parents of gang banger teens. BREAKING: Father of Apalachee school shooter found guilty second-degree murder after son killed 2 students, 2 teachers."

In response to Emmons' tweet, fundamentalist Christian Connie McKay posted, "Just my opinion but the same question should be asked about lenient judges. Why aren't they being charged for atrocities occurring after their soft sentences?"

X user Rebecca Wallace wrote, "What? Why? What did he do? You keep saying what the son did. Did he help? Poorest report ever."

Another X user, Julie Boudicca posted, "Those are insane convictions for someone who neither plotted to nor killed anyone."

On Tuesday morning, March 3, MS NOW's Ana Cabrera reported that President Donald Trump's military strikes against Iran had "engulfed" 12 different countries as the conflict escalated and a list of Middle Eastern nations became involved "in some capacity."

The conflict has been dominating the headlines in the U.S., and in a listicle published on March 3, Newsweek's editors lay out five "domestic controversies" that are now taking a back seat to Iran in the media.

"As the war with Iran escalates," the Newsweek editors observe, "Washington's focus has shifted almost entirely overseas. Nonstop coverage of airstrikes, retaliation threats and urgent diplomacy has taken over the news cycle, leaving far less attention for the domestic controversies that had been surrounding President Donald Trump. In just days, the political conversation moved from partisan debates at home to questions about military strategy and the risk of a huge regional war."

The five controversies, according to Newsweek, are: (1) "renewed questions around Epstein connections," (2) "tariffs ruling and trade payments disputes," (3) "MAHA and the Glyphosate rift," (4) "artificial intelligence and deregulation," and (5) "inflation messaging and economic doubts."

But Newsweek points out that although the economy has been taking a back seat to the Iran conflict in media coverage, that could easily change if the war creates "new economic pressure."

"Oil prices have surged, which will lead to higher gas prices and increased shipping costs," Newsweek's editors explain. "Those increases can flow through to everyday goods. Market uncertainty and potential spikes in defense spending could also affect borrowing costs. For many households, the financial effects of war may soon be felt alongside existing cost-of-living concerns."

During his 2024 campaign, Donald Trump vowed to protect Social Security, Medicare and other safety-net programs. But since returning to the White House, his policies have defunded the U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) as well as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Obamacare subsidies.

In a column posted on his Substack page on March 3, liberal economist Paul Krugman warns that Trump's decision to go to war with Iran will make life worse for the poor in the United States.

"Linda Bilmes of Harvard's Kennedy School estimates that Trump's largely unsuccessful bombing campaign last year against the Iran-backed Islamist Houthis in Yemen — a far softer target than Iran itself — cost between $2.76 billion and $4.95 billion," Krugman explains. "Operation Midnight Hammer, Trump's one-day strike against suspected Iranian nuclear facilities, cost between $2.04 billion and $2.26 billion. The current war is being waged not only with massive bombing, but also, with the use of large numbers of expensive interceptors to defend U.S. bases and U.S. allies against Iranian drones and missiles."

Krugman continues, "So in just a few days, we have surely incurred billions of dollars in cost. And if this war continues for an extended period, the costs could easily rise to the 20-to-30-billion-dollar range."

The former New York Times columnist notes that "U.S.-style war" is "incredibly expensive."

"Conservatives complain constantly about the level of federal spending, claiming that we are spending more than we can afford on social programs," Krugman observes. "Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act imposes harsh cuts in nutritional and healthcare assistance, supposedly because the cost of food stamps and Medicaid is excessive. This, despite the fact that study after study has shown that the long run costs of not providing food stamps and Medicaid are far higher than the cost of providing them. And if we compare the cost of this war to what we spend to help needy Americans, then it's clear that this war is extremely expensive compared with other ways we could have spent the funds."

Krugman continues, "Put it this way: SNAP — the Supplemental Nutritional Food Assistance Program, formerly food stamps — spends an average of about $2400 a year per recipient. CHIP, the Children's Health Insurance Program administered under Medicaid, provides comprehensive health care for about $3000 per child. So just replacing those three jets shot down over Kuwait — each of them, remember, with a price tag of $97 million — will cost about as much as providing 125,000 Americans with crucial food aid or providing healthcare to 100,000 American children. And the war might very well end up costing 100 times as much as the price of those jets."

Early Saturday morning, February 28, Americans woke up to the news that U.S. forces, on orders from President Donald Trump, were carrying out military strikes against Iran. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's Shiite fundamentalist dictator since 1989, was killed. And since then, the conflict has escalated — with Iran launching retaliatory strikes against U.S. military installations in Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and other countries in the Middle East. The U.S. Embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, according to Saudi officials, was attacked by Iranian drones. And Israel is facing missile strikes from both Iran and Lebanon's pro-Iran Shiite militia Hezbollah.

During an appearance on The New Republic's podcast, "The Daily Blast," posted on March 3, journalist Mark Jacob cited the strikes against Iran as an example of how "erratic" Trump is at this point. And he warned that Trump will grow even more "erratic" as his desperation grows.

When host Greg Sargent noted that only 27 percent of Americans, according to a Reuters poll, approve of Trump's attack on Iran, Jacob responded, "I mean, he was already way down in the polls. There's actually not that much farther he can go, considering that some people will support absolutely anything he does because of the whole cult mentality, which we've been talking about for a long time. He really has lost the country, opinion-wise. And one thing that scares me is that as that happens, he becomes more desperate and does more erratic and autocratic things."

Jacob noted that Trump has set off a broad conflict in the Middle East, "What he's done is unleash a Middle East war — it's not just an attack between Israel, the U.S., and Iran; all these other countries are involved now, and Lebanon is in it. So he has sparked a wide war in the Middle East, and you don't put the genie back in the bottle that fast. So, I think it's going to be very damaging…. And I think you may find some Republicans start saying, 'Well, this is not a good idea.'"

Jacob stressed, however, that the Iran conflict is only one example of how "erratic" Trump is.

The journalist told Sargent, "Here's the scary thing: the worse Trump does in public opinion, the more dangerous he is at this point. And you’ve already started seeing these moves toward fiddling with the elections. One thing about having a big war in the Middle East is you can get a situation where the federal government — Trump's government —declares that there's a bunch of terrorist threats, so we have to really clamp down on security, and therefore we'll declare an emergency, therefore invoke the Insurrection Act, and we will federalize our elections. He's talking about that. And I'm just worried that the more unpopular he gets, the more likely that is to happen."

During his second presidency, Donald Trump has taken a much more hawkish and interventionist turn than he favored in the past — from the capture of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to military strikes against Iran first reported early Saturday morning, February 28. The Middle Eastern conflict has escalated well beyond Iran and the United States, with the Iranian military launching strikes against U.S. installations in Qatar, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and other Middle Eastern countries.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a traditional conservative in an administration dominated by MAGA Republicans, has become of the face of Trump's aggressive foreign policy. And according to Axios reporters Marc Caputo, Barak Ravid and Alex Isenstadt, Rubio's comments on the conflict underscore the divisions among Trump supporters where Israel is concerned.

On Monday, March 2, Rubio told reporters, "We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action (against Iran)…. We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces (by the Iranian regime). And we knew that if we didn't preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties.... And then, we would all be here answering questions about why we knew that and didn't act…. Obviously, we were aware of Israeli intentions and understood what that would mean for us, and we had to be prepared to act as a result of it. But this had to happen no matter what."

Those comments, the Axios reporters note, "were the first time a Trump official had so explicitly acknowledged Israel as a driving force behind the war — landing at a moment when Americans' public support for Israel has hit historic lows."

According to Caputo, Ravid and Isenstadt, "Rubio's remarks were widely interpreted as making the U.S. look subordinate to Israel's interests. And they inflamed already-angry MAGA elites who had spent the day railing against President Trump's decision to go to war. On their podcasts and social media, frustrated pro-Trump influencers argued the president had become beholden to the military hawks and neocons he explicitly ran against. Anti-Israel voices on the right — as well as openly antisemitic influencers who've clawed toward the mainstream in recent years — claimed vindication."

On his "War Room" vodcast, MAGA Republican Steve Bannon commented, "If we knew Israel would strike and Iran would retaliate against us, where was the coordination? We need a strategic explanation."

On her SiriusXM show, former Fox News host Megyn Kelly said of the Iran conflict, "I've got serious doubts about what we are doing."

But far-right MAGA conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer — a self-described "proud Islamophobe" — is praising Trump's Iran policy.

On X, Loomer tweeted, "Just spoke to President Trump and congratulated him on another successful combat mission eradicating one of the world’s most evil Islamic terrorists! I told President Trump he has made the United States proud as the 47th President ending 47 years of Iranian terror and freeing the Iranian people from 47 years of Islamic oppression. I also told him everyone who loves America and hates terrorism is cheering for him and celebrating today, with the exception of the Woke Reich, Tucker Qatarlson, Thomas Massie, Marjorie Traitor Greene and the communist Democrats. We should all be cheering for America and President Trump today and everyday! He's a hero, and he makes our country proud."

On December 11, 2025, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was aggressively grilled by Democrats during a House Homeland Security Committee hearing. And this Tuesday, March 3, Noem will testify before Congress once again — this time, in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.

The New York Times' Madeleine Ngo notes that the March 3 hearing comes "during a more turbulent time" at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

"The last time Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, testified before Congress in December," Ngo explains, "her department had just begun an aggressive immigration enforcement operation in Minnesota…. When she testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, she is likely to face questions about how the department's shutdown is affecting its work to detect and thwart terrorist threats after the U.S. assault on Iran. She is also expected to face sharp scrutiny over her department's handling of high-profile immigration operations in Minnesota, where outrage flowed after federal agents fatally shot two U.S. citizens, and some immigrants in the country lawfully were swept up."

The Senate Judiciary hearing is generating a lot of discussion on X, formerly Twitter.

Sen. Adam Schiff (D-California) tweeted, "Under Kristi Noem's leadership, DHS has been out of control. With ICE terrorizing our communities. Masked agents seizing and killing American citizens…. Sec. Noem appears before the Senate. I have questions. Lots of them."

Journalist Paolo Jorge noted that the March 3 hearing follows the fatal shootings of Minneapolis residents Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti during immigration raids in their city.

Jorge posted, "DHS SEC KRISTI NOEM TODAY BEFORE SENATE JUDICIARY Committee for an oversight hearing after 9:00am FACING TOUGH QUESTIONS MAINLY REGARDING MINNESOTA First time since the two deaths in Minneapolis Ultimately impeachment idea could return from Dems but also from some GOP. PJ."

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland) commented, "Unless Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is fired, Chairman Jim Jordan should immediately begin Judiciary Committee impeachment proceedings against her. And if he doesn't, Democrats will launch our own impeachment inquiry into the shocking constitutional crimes and corruption defining her tenure."

Texas-based author Brittany Belle wrote, "A federal judge has BLOCKED Kristi Noem’s attempt to stop Members of Congress from accessing ICE detention facilities. You don't get to run secret detention centers in America, Kristi."

For many years, Canada and the United States — both members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) since 1949 — were close allies and trading partners. But U.S./Canada relations took a turn for the worse when U.S. President Donald Trump threatened its northern neighbor with steep tariffs and called for Canada to become "the 51st state" — an idea that Prime Minister Mark Carney and millions of other Canadians are adamantly against.

But in an article published by The New Republic on March 2, Ottawa, Ontario-based journalist John Last details MAGA efforts to exploit separatists in Canada's Alberta province.

Last explains, "Recent months have seen the escalation of a brazen campaign by separatists in the oil-rich province of Alberta to dismember the country and lease its resources to an expansionist American regime, with direct support from officials in the U.S. government…. A recent push for a referendum on independence has achieved unprecedented success, in no small part due to tacit support from the Trump-aligned provincial government."

Last notes that Alberta Premier Danielle Smith "was one of the first Canadian officials to kiss the ring of Trump at Mar-a-Lago, and has long tested the limits of her powers to pursue his crusades and causes at home."

Duane Bratt, who teaches at Mount Royal University in Alberta, told The New Republic, "Since the moment Alberta became a province (in 1905), there's been a movement to separate…. There is an ideological alignment with Trump. On gun rights, climate change, trans rights, renewable energy, wokeness.… it's all consistent with American right-wing movements."

Patrick Lennox, a former intelligence officer for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, told The New Republic, "There's a real national security threat there. This is the perfect scenario for foreign interference."

Lennox views as the capture of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro as a "warning shot" for Canada and other countries rich in resources.

"The Trump Administration's crusade against Canada may have deeper causes," Last explains. "Figures like Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon, who has explicitly compared Canada to Ukraine, see Canada as a bastion of decadent liberalism in the West that must be broken and subdued, one way or another."

When Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential race, many Republicans hoped he would evolve into more of a traditional conservative. But Trump only doubled down on his MAGA agenda during his first presidency, often clashing with non-MAGA conservatives in his administration. And after returning to the White House following the 2024 election, Trump made a point of surrounding himself with ultra-MAGA loyalists.

In an article published on March 2, Politico's Alexander Burns emphasizes that Trump is "burying" 20th Century norms during his second presidency — from foreign policy to legal precedents.

"With a roar of rockets and bombs, a gasp of international outcry and the death of Iran's supreme leader, President Donald Trump's legacy became clearer than ever," Burns observes. "He is burying the 20th Century: Its villains, its alliances, its political norms and ceasefires. And he is unleashing a future of uncertainty and disruption with no new equilibrium in sight. Across both his terms as president, and in so many different areas of policy and governance and culture, his signal achievements have been acts of demolition."

Burns continues, "His Supreme Court appointees struck down Roe v. Wade, ending the seething political and legal stalemate on abortion rights that governed America since the 1970s. His military interventions in Latin America have brought the Cuban government, one of the last surviving Cold War regimes, to the brink of collapse. His tariffs and trade threats have blown apart the Reagan-Clinton policy consensus on free trade, upending half a century of global commercial arrangements and diplomatic relations. His America First worldview and contempt for Europe's political establishment have increasingly relegated NATO's charter — the 1949 accord forging the globe's most powerful military alliance — to antique status. His acts of corporate favoritism and personal enrichment, and his use of the justice system as a weapon of vengeance, have erased the post-Watergate regime of legal and ethical norms for the presidency."

Former President Joe Biden, according to Burns, tried to "build a bridge to the 20th Century" but was unsuccessful. And in 2026, he writes, Trump is "tearing down old structures and systems without a vision for replacing them." A

"At age 79," Burns writes, "Trump is himself a creation of the age he is now unwinding… The next time the country chooses a replacement for Trump, resurrecting the past won’t even be an option…. For American policymakers and voters, there’s no longer any prospect of mimicking détente with regimes in Iran and Cuba that are unraveling at this very hour…. America's credibility as a trade negotiator and commercial partner is already changed forever; the next president will be unable to restore Bush-era trade relations even if he or she wants to. NATO’s place in the world won’t return to where it was in 1998 just because the next president says the right words about Washington's commitment to its allies."

Early Saturday morning, February 28, Europeans woke up to the news that U.S. President Donald Trump had launched missile strikes against Iran. Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei, the Shiite fundamentalist who had been leading Iran since 1989, was killed — and the Middle Eastern conflict escalated when Iranian missiles aimed at U.S. military installations in Qatar, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and other Middle Eastern countries were intercepted.

The following day, European Union (EU) nations called for "maximum restraint" in the conflict, and Pope Leo XIV spoke out as well during a March 1 speech in Rome.

Speaking in Italian in the city's Quarticciolo neighborhood, the Catholic Church's first American pope addressed a variety of crises — from drugs to the Iran conflict — and told the crowd, "I'm deeply concerned, and we don't know how many days it will last, about the situation in the Middle East. War again! And we must be heralds of Jesus' peace, which God desires for everyone. We must pray much for peace, live in unity, and reject the temptation to harm others. Violence is never the right choice.”

Chicago native Leo, who speaks Italian, Spanish, French and Portuguese proficiently, also said of Iran, "I'm deeply concerned, and we don't know how many days it will last, about the situation in the Middle East."

Leo warned that the conflict could become "a tragedy of epic proportions" and warned, "I address to the parties involved a heartfelt appeal to assume the moral responsibility to stop the spiral of violence before it becomes an irreparable abyss."

The pope addressed Italy's drug problems, urging the crowd in Rome, "Always reject what harms your health. Say yes to what is good. Always no to drugs, yes to wellbeing."

Retired Lt. Diane Goldstein spent 21 years with the Redondo Beach, California Police Department, which she joined in 1983. But these days, Goldstein is executive director of the Law Enforcement Action Partnership (LEAP) — a nonprofit that focuses on criminal justice policies and includes police, judges and prosecutors in its membership.

In an op-ed published by MS NOW on March 2, Goldstein examines the U.S. Department of Justice's (DOJ) handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files — which, she argues, could damage DOJ's credibility for some time to come.

"Cynicism about the Justice System's treatment of sex crimes is not new," laments Goldstein, who is originally from Mexico City. "But the government's handling of the Epstein case — including the way it has exposed the identities of some victims and redacted the names of some of Epstein's alleged co-conspirators — threatens to push this critique into something far more corrosive and to reinforce the already prevalent belief that the system is fundamentally aligned to shield the powerful while further harming victims."

The retired police lieutenant adds, "This conspicuous inversion of the justice system's stated mission helps explain why many victims of sex crimes hesitate to come forward at all…. The mishandling of the files and the survivors creates a trust gap that makes the task of investigating other sex crimes more difficult."

Sex crimes, Goldstein emphasizes, are "difficult to prosecute" — and she warns that DOJ's handling of the Epstein files won't help.

"In my experience," the LEAP executive director explains, "confidence in the justice system depends as much on process as it does on outcome. If we want people to have faith in our work, then at a minimum they must trust that we will examine evidence vigorously and pursue leads wherever they go. That is especially true in a case of this magnitude, involving allegations of profound harm and potential perpetrators at the highest levels of power."

Goldstein continues, "The public outrage and apprehensiveness about this release should not surprise anyone in law enforcement…. It's not difficult to see why some might conclude that the system is unwilling or unable to confront wrongdoing when powerful interests are involved…. For those working in the justice system, and especially on sex crimes, the Epstein files are a stark reminder that the institutional legitimacy we rely on to do our jobs is fragile and easily eroded."

The United States enjoyed a major victory when Philadelphia was chosen as a 2026 FIFA World Cup City. Soccer fans from all over the world will be visiting Philly for a series of matches in June and July, which coincide with the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Declaration of Independence — the document that, in Philly on July 4, 1776, officially marked the United States' separation from Great Britain.

But British journalist Simon Kuper, author of the book "World Cup Fever," fears that U.S. President Donald Trump's policies will ruin 2026's World Cup. And he lays out his concerns in a biting op-ed published by the New York Times on March 2.

"I've been to the last nine men's soccer World Cups," Kuper writes, "and the dominant mood is almost always international friendship…. That is not the spirit of the United States under the Trump Administration, primary host of this summer's tournament in North America. Its basic message to foreigners seems to be: 'We hate you.' The feeling is mutual. Many of the world's soccer fans are dreading a tournament in a country that a growing number of foreigners are afraid even to visit. Happily, the Democratic cities that are hosting almost all games in the United States can seize the opportunity to show the world an alternative, a better, America."

Kuper laments that he has "never known Europeans — or a world" to be "as anti-American as they are today."

"International opinions of the country have cratered since President Trump returned to office, and in Europe have hit record lows, according to the pollster YouGov," Kuper observes. "Mr. Trump is, after all, not only an American problem, but a global one: just look at his bombings, tariff bluster, threats to annex Greenland and Canada and his deadly slashing of global humanitarian aid. From the outside, it can feel like once-friendly America is nothing but MAGA…. The World Cup is the only time I personally plan to set foot in the country during the Trump administration."

Kuper continues, "Many visitors worry about being deported, or even locked up, based on the whims of a border official. Accounts of weekslong detentions of apparently blameless visitors have circulated widely, worsening the 'Trump slump' in tourism…. But boycotts of World Cups almost never happen, and probably shouldn't. Rather than scrapping the World Cup, we should scrap Mr. Trump from it."

When former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) announced that she was resigning from Congress, she wasn't shy about expressing her disappointment with President Donald Trump — who, in her view, has betrayed his America First agenda with an aggressively interventionist foreign policy. Now, the MAGA Republican and former Trump ally is vehemently criticizing Trump's military strikes against Iran. And she isn't the only person in the MAGA movement who wants Trump to stay out of that country.

Washington Post reporters Emily Davies and Hannah Knowles, in an article published on March 1, explain, "President Donald Trump's major attack on Iran has rattled parts of the coalition that twice delivered him the White House, a fracture that could spell trouble for a divided GOP as the midterm elections approach. The strikes, which killed Iran's supreme leader, followed a visible buildup of U.S. forces in the Middle East. But Trump's decision to carry them out nonetheless surprised some of his supporters, who had expected the self-described anti-interventionist president to stop short of a direct attack."

Greene attacked Trump's Iran policy in a lengthy March 1 rant on X, formerly Twitter.

The far-right congresswomen tweeted, "We said 'No More Foreign Wars, No More Regime Change!' We said it on rally stage after rally stage, speech after speech. Trump, Vance, basically the entire admin campaigned on it and promised to put America FIRST and Make America Great Again. My generation has been let down, abused, and used by our government our entire adult lives and our children's generation is literally being abandoned. Thousands and thousands of Americans from my generation have been killed and injured in never ending pointless foreign wars and we said no more. But we are freeing the Iranian people. Please."

Greene continued, "There are 93 million people in Iran, let them liberate themselves. But Iran is on the verge of having nuclear weapons. Yeah sure. We have been spoon fed that line for decades and Trump told us all that his bombing this past summer completely wiped it all out. It’s always a lie and it’s always America Last. But it feels like the worst betrayal this time because it comes from the very man and the admin who we all believed was different and said no more."

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) is praising Trump's Iran operation. But MAGA Republican Blake Neff, known for producing "The Charlie Kirk Show," expressed strong reservations about the Iran strikes.

In a February 28 post on X, Neff wrote, "Charlie was opposed to a regime-change war with Iran, as was I. Wars by their nature are expensive and unpredictable. They endanger American lives and can last far, far longer than anyone anticipates. Nevertheless, President Trump has elected for regime change in Iran. As an American patriot I must hope for the best. Trump's instinct is to avoid prolonged fighting and boots on the ground. We must simply trust that he has a strategy that will prevent both."

Neff continued, "Right now some of my right-leaning friends are messaging me: 'F*** this.' 'This is extremely depressing.' 'Never voting in a national election again'…. If this war is a swift, easy, and decisive victory, most of them will get over it. But if the war is anything else, there will be a lot of anger."

Davies and Knowles note, however, that so far, "MAGA allies long skeptical of foreign intervention" have "largely stuck by the president."

"Trump officials cast the strikes on Iran last summer as a limited intervention meant to take out a nuclear threat — and pushback within his coalition faded as the conflict ended without morphing into a broader war," the Post reporters observe. "But each conflict has threatened more entanglement abroad than the last, testing the movement's tolerance.

Natalie Winters, a co-host for Steve Bannon's "War Room" podcast, believes that Trump needs to do a better job explaining the Iran strikes to his MAGA base.

Winters told the Post, "The messaging, much like the Epstein files, is all over the place. I would think they would know their base better. Some of his donors are probably happy so congratulations to them."

In 2024, Donald Trump became the first GOP presidential candidate in U.S. history to win his party's nomination despite the fact that he was facing four criminal indictments: two at the federal level, one in Georgia, and one in New York State (which found a Manhattan jury convicting him on 34 felony counts). Moreover, Trump was an unindicted co-conspirator in an election interference case from Arizona Attorney General Kris Mays.

But the four Trump indictments were doomed when he narrowly defeated then-Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024's general election. And then-special counsel Jack Smith, citing the U.S. Department of Justice's (DOJ) policy against prosecuting a sitting president, said that his two federal cases against Trump should not proceed.

Before then-President Joe Biden and then-U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland left their positions, however, Smith prepared a two-part final report on his cases. The first part, focusing on his election interference case, was released — whereas the Mar-a-Lago/classified documents part of the report was not. And Judge Aileen Cannon, the Trump appointee assigned to the documents case, recently ruled that it should remain unreleased.

But according to conservative National Review reporter Andrew McCarthy, Cannon's ruling may not be the last word on the classified documents section of Smith's report.

"Even if Garland was politically motivated," McCarthy argues in an article published on March 1, "he had authority as AG, under the governing regulation, to publicize Smith's final reports. And he had history on his side. Over the years, it has become standard practice for such reports to be released to Congress and the public. That is because special counsels tend to be appointed in cases involving allegations of political corruption and abuse of power. Even if the misconduct is not prosecutable — and much abuse of power is not — there is a high public interest in holding accountable those who abuse offices of public trust…. As we've noted, because of long-standing DOJ guidance against prosecuting a sitting president, the Biden DOJ knew it had to dismiss, as to Trump, its Eleventh Circuit appeal of Cannon's disqualification of Smith."

McCarthy laments that U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi is "prioritizing" Trump's "personal desires over her department's legitimacy."

"She rationalizes that Smith's appointment was invalid and, therefore, that everything he did was corrupt and lawless," McCarthy writes. "Bondi is committed to promoting the president's false narrative that he did nothing wrong and the cases against him collapsed because they were baseless. It's laughable. Neither indictment was dismissed on the merits…. I don't believe that Cannon's ruling could withstand challenge if there were a litigant who had standing to complain."

McCarthy adds, "Again, Smith could have conducted his investigation, never brought any charges regarding the Mar-a-Lago documents, and provided a final report that Garland could have made public. No court would have had any basis to forbid publication."

During his first presidency, Donald Trump famously clashed with a long list of traditional conservatives he appointed — including a secretary of state (Rex Tillerson), two U.S. attorneys general (Jeff Sessions, Bill Barr), a national security director (John Bolton), a White House chief of staff (Gen. John F. Kelly), a defense secretary (Jim Mattis), and, in the end, a vice president (Mike Pence). Some of the conservatives who served in the first Trump Administration, including former U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official Miles Taylor, Pence staffer Olivia Troye, and ex-White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham), endorsed Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris in 2024.

But the second Trump Administration is considerably different. Although Secretary of State Marco Rubio is a traditional conservative, far-right MAGA Republicans dominate Trump's administration this time. And Trump made a point of picking mostly staunch loyalists this time.

In an article published by The Guardian on March 1, journalist David Smith stresses that although Trump's second administration is a "clown car," there are no signs that a shakeup is coming anytime soon.

"In the past two weeks alone," Smith explains, "(Democrats) saw a health secretary who boasted about snorting cocaine off toilet seats; a homeland security secretary who allegedly fired a pilot for leaving her blanket on a plane; and an FBI director who chugged beer with Olympic hockey players in Italy at taxpayers' expense. In all of U.S. history, there has never been government leadership quite like it."

Smith continues, "Although these individuals swear undying fealty to the president, their colorful and erratic antics may prove his political undoing. Yet there is no hint that the man who became famous for saying 'You're fired!' on reality TV has any intention of casting them aside."

Seneca Project founder Tara Setmayer, a Never Trump conservative, believes that Trump is now leading the worst administration in U.S. history.

Setmayer told The Guardian, "If you elect a clown, he brings the circus. This is the Cabinet that we currently have. It is the most corrupt, incompetent, and embarrassing Cabinet in the history of the United States, and unfortunately, it's the American people who are paying for it, literally and figuratively. When you look at Donald Trump's Cabinet, and how they have performed, you have to ask yourself: How are any of these people making America great again?"

Elections expert Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics, draws a major distinction between the first Trump Administration and the second.

Sabato told The Guardian, "There were actually some good people in Trump's first Cabinet, which probably saved us, saved the country. But this time, I don't recall a Cabinet in my lifetime with this many problematic characters who are just awful and who normally would never have been selected and if somehow they'd slipped through would have been fired by now. Trump keeps them around because, in a way, they may look him better. They're so awful…. You have to use this kind of twisted psychology in analyzing Trump."

Although President Donald Trump often attacks CNN as "fake news," one CNN contributor he holds in high regard is GOP strategist Scott Jennings — a strident defender of Trump and the MAGA movement. Jennings worked with his share of traditional conservatives in the past, including former President George W. Bush and ex-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky). And if a change in ownership goes through, CNN could end up with a lot more MAGA commentary.

In an article published on February 28, Radar Online's Beth Shilliday reports that many CNN staffers are filled with "dread" over the prosect of the cable news outlet being sold to Paramount-Skydance and "Republican billionaire David Ellison" becoming CNN's "new boss." CNN is presently owned by Warner Bros. Discovery.

"Paramount and Netflix had been in a bidding war for Warner Bros. Discovery," Shilliday explains, "but the streamer said it would leave the negotiations after Paramount put in what it called a 'superior' revised bid that the company was unwilling to match on February 26…. Employees are 'devastated' by the prospect of the sale, one insider told Variety."

The possibility of CNN being sold to Paramount-Skydance follows shakeups at CBS News under Bari Weiss (who Ellison brought in) and the Washington Post under Amazon's Jeff Bezos. Under Bezos, a who's-who of the Post's opinion section have left — including Greg Sargent (now with The New Republic), Catherine Rampell (now an MS NOW host), Paul Waldman, and Never Trumper Jennifer Rubin (now with The Contrarian).

"Trump has gone so far as to not take questions from CNN's White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins due to the network's nonstop bashing of the president and his policies," Shilliday observes. "He openly calls CNN 'fake news' when speaking to reporters, and repeats the claim frequently on his social media. If Ellison ends up with the cable news network among his assets, CNN's openly anti-Trump proselytizing could soon change."

Many of the double-digit victories that Democrats enjoyed in November were in swing states or blue states, from three Pennsylvania Supreme Court retention elections to Democratic now-Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger flipping a GOP-held seat by 15 percent. A gubernatorial election in blue-leaning New Jersey — which has had two Republican governors since the 1990s (Christie Todd Whitman and Chris Christie) — was expected to be close. Instead, Democratic now-Gov. Mikie Sherrill defeated Republican Jack Ciattarelli by 14 percent.

But in some special elections in 2026, Democrats performed shockingly well in a few deep red districts.

In an article originally published by The Conversation and republished by Salon on March 1, Charlie Hunt — a political science professor at Boise State University in Idaho — poses the question: does this series of Democratic wins spell disaster for Republicans in the 2026 midterms?

"On February 7, 2026, Chasity Verret Martinez won a special election to fill a vacant seat in the Louisiana House," Hunt explains. "That's an outcome that might not mean very much to people outside of the state or even outside her Baton Rouge-area district. But Martinez is a Democrat who took 62 percent of the vote in a district that had given Donald Trump a 13-percentage-point victory in the 2024 presidential race. And her win came a week after Democrats seized a Texas Senate district that had supported Trump even more strongly — a result that immediately triggered concern in Republican circles."

Hunt continues, "Because fewer people turn out for special elections, they're considered an early predictor of partisan enthusiasm heading into regularly scheduled elections. And with the 2026 midterm elections less than nine months away, analysts are already scrambling for indications of the likely outcome."

With Democratic victories in special elections, Hunt emphasizes, it's important to note the margins of victory and where the elections took place.

"After all, a Democrat just barely squeaking by in a state legislative race may not look very impressive on its face," Hunt argues. "But if that race took place in the rural heart of a red state, it could raise hackles among Republicans…. On average, (Democrats are) running ahead of (former Vice President Kamala) Harris' 2024 margins by a whopping 13 percentage points. That's better than they did in 2018, when they ultimately picked up 40 seats in the House and seven governorships across the country."

So far in 2026, according to Hunt, the results of special elections are a bad sign for Republicans.

"In the 2026 election cycle, as in previous ones, prognosticators and political professionals are looking to the outcomes of these intermittent races at various levels of government as a gauge of how voters are feeling about the two parties," Hunt observes. "And the results from the first 15 months of the second Trump Administration appear to spell very bad news for the Republicans…. There's no telling for sure whether these indicators will turn out to be truly predictive until November. But all of them should be sounding alarm bells for Republicans."

During the February 28/March 1 weekend, at least seven countries were involved in an escalating conflict in the Middle East: the United States, Iran, Israel, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). U.S. and Israeli forces attacked Tehran, and Iran responded by attacking U.S. military bases in Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and the UAE. Explosions were also reported in Jordan and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

U.S. President Donald Trump ordered military strikes on Tehran, killing Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei. And several other countries, over the weekend, were drawn into the conflict.

Conservative New York Times columnist David French, in his March 1 column, argues that Trump is courting a global disaster by starting a war unilaterally and failing to get Congress' input.

"Eight minutes. That's the length of President Trump's social media video announcing his war with Iran," French explains. "He didn't go to Congress. He didn't obtain a UN Security Council resolution. Instead, he did perhaps the most monarchical thing he's done in a monarchical second term: He simply ordered America into war."

The Never Trump conservative continues, "I take a back seat to no one in my loathing of the Iranian regime. I am not mourning the death of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in an airstrike on Saturday, (February 28)…. But my personal feelings don't override the Constitution, and neither do anyone else's…. Here's the bottom line: Trump should have gotten congressional approval for striking Iran, or he should not have struck at all. And because he did not obtain congressional approval, he's diminishing America's chances for ultimate success and increasing the chances that we make the same mistakes we — and other powerful nations — have made before."

French emphasizes that there are "very good reasons" why the U.S. has a "constitutional structure on matters of war and peace."

"When it came to military affairs," French writes, "the Constitution separated the power to declare war from the power to command the military. The short way of describing the structure is that America should go to war only at Congress' direction, but when it does, its armies are commanded by the president. Perhaps the most important aspect of this constitutional structure is that it creates a presumption of peace."

French continues, "Our nation cannot go to war until its leaders persuade a majority of Congress that war is in our national interest…. The Iranian regime deserves to fall, but I’m concerned that we’re creating the conditions for more massacres of more civilians, without offering the protesters any reasonable prospect of success…. No matter what he thinks, Trump is not a king. But by taking America to war all on his own, he is acting like one."

Although the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) spent many years investigating Jeffrey Epstein, only one of the billionaire financier's associates went to prison in the United States: Ghislaine Maxwell, now serving a 20-year federal sentence. DOJ has released, in redacted form, thousands of files related to its Epstein investigations, yet many questions remain unanswered.

In an article published on March 1, three New York Times reporters — Benjamin Weiser, Matthew Goldstein and Mike Baker — offer some reasons why DOJ's Epstein probe has so far yielded few results from a prosecutorial standpoint.

"In the six-plus years since his death," the Times journalists explain, "the lack of prosecutions has given rise to outrage and conspiracy theories about why powerful people have gone unpunished. The millions of pages of recently released Justice Department e-mails, prosecutorial memos, interview transcripts and other records help explain why more people weren't charged and why Mr. Epstein was able to act with impunity for so long."

Weiser, Goldstein and Baker, "Part of the reason was a series of missed opportunities, in both Democratic and Republican administrations, to bring him and others to justice: A tip that went unaddressed in the 1990s. A controversial plea deal in Florida that left FBI agents and prosecutors unsatisfied. A yearslong investigation by federal drug agents that went nowhere. And a miscommunication among federal officials in 2016 that scuttled a potential investigation in New York."

DOJ's Epstein probe spanned several presidencies — from George W. Bush to Barack Obama to Donald Trump to Joe Biden — and Maxwell was arrested in 2020.

"The records also show that in their initial zeal to quickly build a case against Mr. Epstein, federal prosecutors focused primarily on sex crimes against teenage girls in the early 2000s," according to the Times reporters. "Within months of Mr. Epstein's death, prosecutors believed that they did not have enough evidence to charge anyone besides him and Ms. Maxwell with the trafficking of minors or other federal crimes."

Weiser, Goldstein and Baker continue, "They did have evidence of possible crimes against women, but they believed those were state offenses, not federal ones. Yet the records also show that prosecutors did not aggressively pursue other potential avenues, such as how Mr. Epstein moved his money through banks around the world. They did not interview any of the men who were Mr. Epstein's main financial sponsors."

One of the Democratic lawmakers who is expressing his frustration about Epstein is Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon).

Wyden told the Times, "To this day, there has not been a comprehensive, follow-the-money investigation of Epstein's network performed by any federal law enforcement agency. I find that totally inexcusable."

Since his 2016 campaign, Donald Trump has been promising a wall on the U.S./Mexico border that would run through four different states.

"Two hours from the closest stoplight," Chandler explains in an article published on February 27, "the Rio Grande runs through rugged canyons under the darkest skies in the Lower 48 states, carving cliffs that drop 1500 feet below the desert floor of the beautifully desolate Big Bend National Park. The few who call the region home feel a unique bond to the land. In their eyes, it's the kind of natural barrier that steel cannot supplement. It's one reason why the Big Bend has so far been spared from the bulldozer crews that come with new stretches of border wall."

Both Democrats and Republicans in Texas, according to Chandler, "are condemning" the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) "newly revealed plans to build a border wall through Big Bend National Park and its neighboring state park."

"They are warning it will cut off access to popular destinations, choke off tourist dollars and disrupt one of the nation's most pristine regions, while doing little to stop illegal immigration," Chandler reports.

Terrell County Sheriff Thaddeus Cleveland, a Republican who lives in that area of Southern Texas, told NBC News, "We've got a God-made barrier."

Meanwhile, Brewster County Sheriff Ronny Dodson, a Democrat, fears that a wall could hurt tourism

Dodson told NBC News, "It'll ruin this county. If it's a real wall, it will devastate us. We don't have oil and gas, we have tourism."

During the 1990s and 2000s, Florida was considered a major swing state — while its neighbor to the north, Georgia, was regarded as a Republican stronghold. But in 2026, Georgia is a swing state, and Florida is dominated by MAGA Republicans.

Georgia has two Democratic U.S. senators (Jon Ossoff and the Rev. Raphael Warnock) and a conservative two-term Republican governor: Brian Kemp. President Donald Trump lost the Peach State in 2020 but won it in 2016 and 2024.

The political battle in the Peach State, however, goes beyond Republicans against Democrats, and finds traditional conservatives clashing with MAGA Republicans.

The Wall Street Journal's Lindsay Wise, in an Friday, February 27 post on X, formerly Twitter, observes, "Republicans fret over GOP infighting in Georgia. Rusty Paul, a former state GOP chair, warns, 'The dysfunction has damaged the ability of Republicans to elect candidates.' 'These idiots are making our jobs a lot easier' says Charlie Bailey, Dem state chair."

In a WSJ article published Thursday night, Wise and colleague Cameron McWhirter report that Republican infighting is affecting three key Georgia races in the 2026 midterms.

"Heading into midterms that will determine control of Congress," the Journal reporters explain, "party leaders in Atlanta and Washington had hoped to build party loyalty and unity in Georgia, a red-leaning state that has seen more blue upsets of late. Instead, they have scenes….. (that are) creating heartburn for Republicans who fear a family feud will help Democrats in a crucial election year…. MAGA activists, long accustomed to branding many elected Republicans as RINOs (Republicans in Name Only), are now turning on each other."

Wise and McWhirter continue, "Infighting has consumed three key races — governor, Senate and the House seat — spawning lawsuits, ethics complaints and vicious ads. The Federal Bureau of Investigation recently seized 2020 ballots from Fulton County, a move some Republicans fear will drag the party back into re-litigating an election voters are tired of hearing about."

Democrat Ossoff is seeking reelection, while Kemp is term-limited. And a U.S. House of Representatives seat in Georgia became vacant after former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene — a MAGA Republican — resigned from Congress to express her disappointment with Trump's second presidency. In MTG's view, Trump has betrayed the America First agenda he campaigned on in 2016, 2020 and 2024.

One Peach State Republican who is sounding the alarm is Rusty Paul, mayor of Rusty Paul (an Atlantic suburb) and former chairman of the Georgia Republican Party.

Paul told WSJ, "The dysfunction has damaged the ability of Republicans to elect candidates."

With the United States' 2026 midterms drawing closer, Democrats are feeling cautiously optimistic — especially where the U.S. House of Representatives is concerned. President Donald Trump continues to have weak approval ratings in many polls, and Democrats have enjoyed a series of double-digit election victories in late 2025 and early 2026.

The Democratic National Committee (DLC), the Democratic Leadership Campaign Committee (DLCC) and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) are keeping a close eye on the U.S. Senate. Although Democrats realize that flipping the Senate is a heavy lift, DSCC Chair Kirsten Gillibrand (D-New York) believes that Congress' upper chamber is in play for her party.

In an article published by The Bulwark on February 27, Never Trump conservative Bill Kristol argues that the 2026 midterms will be largely a referendum on Donald Trump's second presidency even though Trump himself isn't literally on the ballot. And he stresses that although midterms are often treated like "the neglected stepchildren of American politics," this year's midterms are a golden opportunity to push back against Trump.

"The 2026 midterm election season kicks off this coming Tuesday, March 3, with primaries in Arkansas, North Carolina, and Texas," Kristol observes. "Nine months of political labor — sometimes painful, more often, one trusts, promising — will follow. And on November 3, 2026, we the people will choose a new House of Representatives, 35 newly elected senators, and a fresh slate of governors and state legislators."

The conservative journalist notes that in 2024, "the American people decided to take a gamble on a second term for a man who had left office four years before after trying to overturn the results of the free and fair election he'd lost."

"They decided to overlook — or to embrace? — the demagoguery and the dishonesty, and the bigotry and the cruelty that were already so evident in his campaign," Kristol laments. "And they decided to give majorities in Congress to a political party that would submit to his authority, go along with his policies, and enable his accumulation of power. And so, here we are, with federal agents assaulting our citizens, with the federal government threatening our elections, and with our highest officials lying, bullying, and grifting without shame or remorse."

Kristol continues, "The midterm elections can't change the character of the executive branch the American people chose in 2024. But the midterms can mitigate and in some cases stop the damage. They can point to a different path ahead. They could be a repudiation of the Trumpist project. Or they could signify acquiescence to it…. I don’t think it's an exaggeration to say that a triumphant Trumpism would go a long way to blowing out the moral lights around us. The 2026 midterms will be a key moment in our accepting, or rejecting, such an outcome."