Polls

YouGov/Economist - Trump Approval 

Approve: 38% Disapprove: 59% Trump's lowest second term net approval —— GOP: 85-14 (+71) Dem: 5-94 (-89) Indie: 26-69 (-43) Age 18-29: 24-70 (-46) Age 30-44: (-35) Age 45-64: 48-50 (-2) Age 65+: 45-54 (-9) White: 45-53 (-8) Black: 7-89 (-82) Hispanic: 40-57 (-17)

USA Today -    More than half, or 55%, of Americans surveyed do not approve of the job the president is doing, a four percentage point increase from January, according to the Emerson poll of 1,000 likely voters. The poll was conducted Feb. 21 through Feb. 22, just days before Trump's record-length State of the Union address on Feb. 24. 

Meanwhile, 43% of Americans support Trump, the Emerson poll found, the same percentage recorded in the college's January poll.....

The Emerson poll comes less than a week before voters cast ballots in primaries in Texas, Arkansas and North Carolina on March 3. In a generic congressional ballot, the Emerson poll showed that a Democratic Party candidate would beat a Republican candidate by eight percentage points, 50% to 42%. That figure is two percentage points higher than in Emerson's January poll.

Fair Vote  - In a new poll from @surveyusa, 66% of Arlington, VA voters say they support ranked choice voting.  Arlington has successfully used  RankedChoiceVoting 4 times in primaries & general elections for seats on its County Board.

Word

Bernie Sanders -  President Trump was right in 2020:

 "We've spent $8 trillion in the Middle East and we're not fixing our roads in this country? How stupid. How stupid is it? And we're not fixing our tunnels, our bridges, our hospitals, our schools? It's crazy./

Money

htThe Hill  - U.S. gasoline prices were also up Monday following the weekend’s strikes, averaging about $3 per gallon nationwide, up 6 cents from a week ago and 12 cents from a month ago.  Analysts say the war could push prices further up in the weeks and months ahead.

Progressive presidential candidates

Pete Buttigieg - We all know that the most serious, sober, and important job of a President is to decide whether and when to order troops into combat. Because American lives are on the line, and because of the dreadful cost of war, it is to be done only when there is no real alternative. A last resort.  But no one seriously believes that is what happened here. America is at war, and the President shows little interest in justifying it to the American people, let alone seeking a declaration from Congress as required by American law.

Donald Trump

Via Micah

Patriotwise  - The Supreme Court just handed President Trump what looks like a defeat on tariffs—but patriots watching closely can see this might be the strategic win that saves America from judicial activists while keeping our economic leverage intact.

Supreme Court struck down Trump’s IEEPA-based tariffs in February 2026, forcing rates down from 27% to 13.7%

Trump immediately pivoted to alternative legal authority, announcing a 10% global tariff within 24 hours of the ruling

The ruling gives Trump political cover to reduce economically damaging rates while blaming activist judges for interference

American households paid $1,000-$1,300 more due to tariffs, but trade deficits failed to shrink as promised

New Republic -   Donald Trump really doesn’t have an Iran war plan, he told Congress on Monday.  In a letter to Congress regarding the War Powers Resolution for Iran, Trump wrote, “Although the United States desires a quick and enduring peace, it is not possible at this time to know the full scope and duration of military operations that may be necessary.” This means that he has no idea how long the war will last and whether ground troops will be necessary. 

Did Israel cause Trump's attack on Iran?

Axios -   MAGA's ascendant "America First" wing erupted after Secretary of State Marco Rubio effectively blamed Israel for drawing the U.S. into war with Iran...

Rubio's remarks 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.

"We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action" against Iran, Rubio told reporters on Capitol Hill yesterday. "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," Rubio continued.

Rubio added later: "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."

The widely repeated translation: The U.S. couldn't stop its ally — a far smaller nation that America arms, funds and protects — from attacking Iran on Saturday. So the U.S. had to strike Iran, too.

Not quite, U.S. officials said later. Regardless of Israel, they said, Trump ordered the strikes because he felt Iran was negotiating a nuclear deal in bad faith, and the U.S. needed to destroy the country's offensive military infrastructure.

"This operation needed to happen," Rubio told reporters, because Iran was developing too many missiles too quickly and was rebuilding its nuclear capabilities.

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.

Anti-Israel voices on the right — as well as openly antisemitic influencers who've clawed toward the mainstream in recent years — claimed vindication.

Even some traditional Trump allies think the White House's messaging has been muddled. The Daily Wire's Matt Walsh wrote on X as MAGA fractured over Rubio's remarks: "So he's flat out telling us that we're in a war with Iran because Israel forced our hand. This is basically the worst possible thing he could have said."

But Philip Klein, editor of National Review Online, wrote that those who think Rubio "said that Netanyahu forced the U.S. into war … are conflating the question 'Why?' with the question of 'Why now?'"  More

State taxes

States with the Lowest Tax Rates	States with the Highest Tax Rates
1. Alaska	42. Texas
2. Delaware	43. Ohio
3. Wyoming	44. Iowa
4. Idaho	45. Nebraska
5. Montana	46. Kansas
6. South Carolina	47. New Jersey
7. Colorado	48. Pennsylvania
8. Nevada	49. Connecticut
9. Florida	50. New York
10. District of Columbia	51. Illinois

 
WalletHub’s 2026 Taxpayer Resources

Health

Axios - Hospitals are increasingly billing health plans for more complex care than they actually provide, according to a new analysis of Blue Cross Blue Shield claims from 2022 to 2025.

The so-called coding intensity swells health care spending, and it corresponds with an increase in hospital use of AI to help document patient visits.

While automated coding can boost productivity, newly billed diagnoses still have to reflect what's actually happening with a patient, according to the analysis from Blue Health Intelligence, which is affiliated with BCBS.

The top 10% percent of hospitals in the study sample drove most of the increases that were detected, with almost 60% of inpatient admissions that could be coded as complex done so at those facilities by the end of March 2025.  More

Nautilus - A study finds that weight loss drugs might lead to bone disease like osteoporosis or gout. (Read on NBC News)

Nautilus -  What Alzheimer’s feels like from the inside.

Democratic presidential candidates on Iran

The Hill -   Former Vice President Kamala Harris, who arguably has the most foreign policy experience of all the potential candidates, argued Trump didn’t need to go to war and the president should have sought congressional approval before striking. She declared her opposition to the idea of regime change in Iran.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) slammed the U.S.-Israeli attack as executive overreach but also went after the Iranian regime. He declared the “leadership of Iran must go,” though said that doesn’t “justify” Trump’s actions.

Meanwhile, former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg criticized a lack of a nuanced strategy in the attack and warned against potential escalation without clear goals. He and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D) each said domestic issues should be Trump’s priority.

ICE

Newsweek -    Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) faced a major legal setback as federal judges in New Jersey and Texas criticized the agency over prolonged detentions and repeated violations of court orders.

A federal judge in New Jersey wrote a withering critique of the agency and the Department of Justice (DOJ) over what he described as widespread violations of court orders in immigration matters. Meanwhile, in Texas, another federal judge ordered that an ICE detainee be given a bond hearing or be released, continuing a string of rulings challenging the agency's mandatory detention policy.

Washington Post -   Training for ICE agents was drastically cut amid a hiring spree last year.

According to records seen by The Post: The agency removed about 240 hours from its basic training program, including half the 56 hours once spent on firearms training.

Coming up in the Senate soon

Forward Blue - After passing in the House, the Senate is considering the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, legislation that would require documentary proof of citizenship such as a passport or certified birth certificate to register to vote.

Electric vehicles

NPR - In the early days of modern electric vehicles, drivers worried that EVs would require expensive battery replacements within a few years. Everyone knows the painful reality of a dying smartphone battery. EV batteries were designed to last longer than smaller, cheaper batteries. Even though batteries come with warranties, the warranties often expire before the car does. If a high-voltage battery fails halfway through a car's life, drivers must replace it, facing a price tag of $5,000 to $20,000. But there's good news. As the EV fleet ages on the road, new data gathered from tens of thousands of vehicles clearly shows that these batteries are lasting longer than anyone expected.

Electric vehicle battery tests underestimated their lifespan because real-world driving is gentler. Unlike testing, driving involves stops and starts. Each start draws the battery’s energy down a bit, while each stop allows a slight recharge.

.... EV owners can extend battery life by parking their vehicles in the shade and reducing fast charging. Fast charging is the biggest stressor that can lead to faster-than-usual degradation. 

More Than Half of Teens Use Chatbots for Schoolwork

NY Times -   More than half of teenagers in the United States use artificial intelligence tools for help with their schoolwork, according to a new study from the Pew Research Center.

Fifty-four percent of students ages 13 to 17 said they had used a chatbot like OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Microsoft’s Copilot for tasks like researching school assignments or solving math problems, Pew said in a report published on Tuesday.

In 2024, 26 percent of U.S. teenagers said they had used ChatGPT for their schoolwork, according to a previous Pew study asking specifically about their use of that chatbot. That was a twofold increase from 2023, when only 13 percent of students said they used ChatGPT for school help, according to Pew, a nonpartisan research center.

The latest report, based on a survey of 1,458 teenagers and their parents last fall, found that A.I. use among teenagers varied widely. While 44 percent of teenagers said they used A.I. for “some” or “a little” schoolwork, 10 percent said they turned to chatbots for help with all or most of their schoolwork.

City Where Traffic Fatalities Vanished

Reasons to be Cheerful - A U.S. city of 60,000 people would typically see around six to eight traffic fatalities every year. But Hoboken, New Jersey? They haven’t had a single fatal crash for nine years — since January 17, 2017, to be exact. 

Campaigns for seatbelts, lower speed limits and sober driving have brought national death tolls from car crashes down from a peak in the first half of the 20th century. However, many still assume some traffic deaths as an unavoidable cost of car culture.

The global Vision Zero movement, by contrast, believes traffic deaths aren’t inevitable, celebrating Hoboken and related milestones in larger cities like Helsinki, Finland, as proof of what can be achieved. By studying which factors contribute to local crash fatalities, Vision Zero proponents say, communities can decide to change policies, infrastructure and human behavior to reduce the likelihood of fatal accidents.  MORE

Transgender students

AP News -  The Supreme Court cleared the way Monday for California schools to tell parents if their children identify as transgender without getting the student’s approval, granting an emergency appeal from a conservative legal group.

The order blocks for now a state law that bans automatic parental notification requirements if students change their pronouns or gender expression at school.

The split decision comes after religious parents and educators challenged California school policies aimed at preventing schools from outing students to their families. Two sets of Catholic parents represented by the Thomas More Society say it caused schools to mislead them and secretly facilitate the children’s social transition despite their objections.

Iran

BBC -   President Volodymyr Zelensky has warned that the war in the Middle East could leave Ukraine struggling to source air defence missiles.

He also said there was "a risk" Ukraine's allies could be distracted by the conflict, and forget his country's defence against Russia's full-scale invasion.

"We could find ourselves having difficulty obtaining missiles and weapons to defend our skies," he told Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. "The Americans and their allies in the Middle East might need them to defend themselves, for example Patriot missiles."

Asked if there was a risk the United States and the European Union could forget Ukraine's defence while focused on the Middle East, Zelensky replied: "Of course, it's a risk. But I hope the Iranian crisis remains a limited operation and doesn't turn into a long war. We know first-hand how bloody it risks being."

The Guardian -   A near-total internet blackout makes verifying civilians deaths extremely difficult. But the Human Rights Activists news agency, a US-based NGO focused on Iranian human rights, says US-Israeli airstrikes have killed at least 742 civilians, including 176 children, with hundreds more cases under review. Elsewhere, the Iranian Red Crescent Society reported a death toll of 787 people, and the Norway-based Hengaw said its count of the death toll was at least 1,500, including 200 civilians and 1,300 Iranian military members. The numbers are likely to rise....

NPR - The U.S. has evacuated diplomats across the Middle East and shut down some embassies today as the war with Iran enters its fourth day. The U.S. is telling citizens to evacuate more than a dozen countries. Limited flights out of the Middle East resumed yesterday, but hundreds of thousands of travelers remain stranded at aviation hubs in the region. Israeli warplanes are striking Tehran in Iran and Beirut in Lebanon. Meanwhile, Iranian drones hit the U.S. Embassy in Saudi Arabia. At least six U.S. service members have died in action. Trump said his administration expects the conflict to go on for "four to five weeks, but we have the capability to go far longer than that." The Iranian Red Crescent Society reports at least 555 Iranians have been killed since the joint U.S.-Israeli military campaign began on Saturday.

Today, the Israeli military said it is prepared for weeks of war. An official in the region, speaking anonymously, tells NPR’s Daniel Estrin that Israel believes it can achieve its war goals in just two weeks. But Estrin says there are mixed messages about those goals. Yesterday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Fox News that regime change is the objective. In contrast, U.S. officials yesterday walked back the idea that this war was about regime change. 

Trump administration officials briefed top congressional lawmakers yesterday about the war. Congress is set to vote this week on measures that would limit the president's ability to intervene further in Iran without congressional approval. NPR’s Barbara Sprunt tells Up First that the lawmakers are expected to vote largely along partisan lines, despite most Americans' disapproval of the war. But Sprunt says there are some outliers. A small number of Republicans plan to curb the president's actions, while some Democrats fear the resolution restricts the flexibility needed for real-time threat response.

The recent conflict between the U.S. and Iran is hardly the first time the two nations have clashed politically and militarily. These are seven key historical points in their relationship since 1953. 

Trump court cases

Alternet -   A federal judge Monday temporarily blocked a Department of Homeland Security policy that instituted a seven-day notice requirement for members of Congress to conduct oversight visits at facilities that hold immigrants, finding it likely violates appropriations law that allows for unannounced visits. The order from Judge Jia Cobb of the District Court for the District of Columbia rejects initial arguments from the Trump administration that the separate funding stream from the tax cuts and spending package passed last year circumvents a 2019 appropriations law that allows for unannounced oversight visits to those facilities from lawmakers.

NY Times -  The Trump administration on Monday abandoned its attempts to impose potentially crippling executive orders against law firms that refused to capitulate to the president, walking away from its appeal of victories the firms had won against the White House.

With a brief due this week, Justice Department lawyers told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia that they were no longer interested in pursuing the cases and were voluntarily asking the court to dismiss them.

The decision is the White House’s most significant acknowledgment that the executive orders cannot be successfully defended in court. The move is particularly striking given that some firms opted to reach deals in a bid to head off executive orders that President Trump’s Justice Department said it would no longer stand behind.

Donald Trump

Joe G

Newsom and Trump

California Governor Gavin Newsom has claimed during a recent interview that President Donald Trump called him to try out a derogatory nickname for him, "Newscum."

The pair have long been vocal critics of one another, often clashing on social media. Trump regularly targets the governor in his posts, while Newsom frequently fires back with jabs of his own.

“I said, no, it's not original. I said, Mr. President, in eighth grade…they were calling me Newscum.”

Supreme Court refuses to review gun rights for nonviolent felons

Independent, UK -   The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to expand gun rights further, rejecting a challenge to a federal law that prohibits individuals with serious criminal convictions, including nonviolent felons, from owning firearms.

The justices opted not to hear an appeal from Melynda Vincent, a Utah woman, against a lower court's decision. That ruling affirmed that the gun restriction did not infringe upon her Second Amendment right to "keep and bear arms" under the US Constitution. The prohibition on gun possession by nonviolent felons is enshrined in the Gun Control Act of 1968.

Vincent, a single mother residing in Utah, was barred from firearm ownership following her 2008 felony conviction for bank fraud, specifically cashing a fraudulent cheque worth approximately $500.

Is Cuba next?

Independent, UK -   Republican Senator Lindsey Graham says President Donald Trump will target Cuba next after joint U.S. and Israeli airstrikes on Iran have sparked a massive regional conflict in the Middle East.

“I am a big admirer of Ronald Reagan, but I’m here to tell you that Donald Trump is the gold standard for Republicans, maybe any president, when it comes to foreign policy,” Graham told Fox News Sunday night.

 “Cuba’s next. They’re gonna fall. This communist dictatorship in Cuba? Their days are numbered.”

Polls

Independent, UK - Only one in four Americans support Donald Trump’s airstrikes on Iran and most believe the president is too willing to use military force, according to a new poll.

Just over a quarter (27 percent) said they approved of the strikes, which were carried out in the early hours of Saturday alongside the Israeli military, while 43 percent disapproved and 29 percent said they were not sure.

The poll, conducted by Reuters/Ipsos, found that 56 percent of respondents thought that the president was too quick to use force to advance U.S. interests, following strikes in Syria, Nigeria and Venezuela in recent months.

Just over a quarter (27 percent) said they approved of the strikes, which were carried out in the early hours of Saturday alongside the Israeli military, while 43 percent disapproved and 29 percent said they were not sure.

The poll, conducted by Reuters/Ipsos, found that 56 percent of respondents thought that the president was too quick to use force to advance U.S. interests, following strikes in Syria, Nigeria and Venezuela in recent months.

PollingNumbers 

🔵 Newsom 47%
🔴 Vance 42%

Reuters/Ipsos poll | 2/28-3/1 President Trump approval Disapprove 60% (+2) Approve 38% (-2) (Previous poll | 2/18-2/23) Trump approval on the issues Crime: -12 Immigration: -17 Foreign policy: -21 Economy: -24 Cost of living: -36

Trump wants illegal third term

Alternet - President Donald Trump raised eyebrows and angst among democracy defenders Friday for saying he deserves an unconstitutional third term in office, remarks that came a day after reporting that right-wing activists are drafting an executive order that could empower him to ban mail-in ballots and voting machines ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

Pentagon to Curb Ties With Top Universities and Think Tanks

NY Times -   The Defense Department has decided to curb academic ties with nearly two dozen top universities and think tanks as part of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s campaign against what he calls anti-American values and “wokeness.”

In a video published to social media on Friday hours before the United States and Israel attacked Iran, Mr. Hegseth denounced the institutions in blistering language, calling them politically liberal institutions with “wicked ideologies” that were indoctrinating U.S. service members. Beginning in the new school year in September, a Defense Department memo shows, the military will ban service members from attending certain graduate-level programs and fellowships at those universities.

In addition to Harvard, which was banned earlier this month, the Defense Department said the banned institutions would include the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton, Yale, Brown, Georgetown, Johns Hopkins, Columbia, George Washington, Tufts, St. Louis and Carnegie Mellon, as well as the College of William & Mary, Middlebury College and Queen’s University in Ontario.

When Mr. Hegseth curbed ties with Harvard, it was seen as part of a wider pressure campaign by the Trump administration to force the university to cut a deal with the government. But some of the universities that were banned on Friday have already agreed to a laundry list of demands from the Trump administration as part of an effort to remake the culture of higher education.

ICE is even detaining Native Americans

Maine Morning Star -   ICE officers are arresting and detaining Native Americans, not distinguishing them from Central and South American immigrants.

As a result, tribal nations across the U.S. are encouraging their citizens to always carry their tribal identification cards with them, not just in Minneapolis but around the country.

Since 1780, the U.S. has repeatedly promised in more than 370 treaties with various tribes to always protect the lives of Indigenous citizens. Therefore, this questioning and detaining people without regard to their legal status as U.S. citizens – the first U.S. citizens – is beyond the pale.

... In Redmond, Washington, Northern Exposure actor Elaine Miles (Confederated Tribes of Umatilla Indian Reservation in Oregon) was detained by ICE and told her tribal ID looked “faked.” In the Southwest, members of the Navajo Nation have been arrested by ICE and detained in Arizona and New Mexico. Tribal members of the Standing Rock Sioux have also been detained by federal immigration officials.

...Tribal officials from many of the country’s 575 federally recognized tribes have condemned the actions. Still, the words are falling on deaf federal ears.

Tribal nations are quickly issuing new tribal citizenship cards to their members, especially to those who live away from the tribe’s lands. It is important to note the majority of Indigenous Americans now live away from their traditional areas, many in urban centers.

Not all aged folk lose their memories

NY Times -   Many people’s brains deteriorate as they age, becoming riddled with malfunctioning proteins that result in cell death and the loss of memory and cognition. But other people’s brains remain almost perfectly intact, their thinking as sharp at 80 as it was in their 50s.

A paper published Wednesday in the journal Nature provides a new potential explanation for this discrepancy, and it taps into one of the hottest debates in neuroscience: whether human brains can grow new neurons in adulthood, a phenomenon called neurogenesis.

The study found that so-called super-agers — people 80 and up who have the memory ability of someone 30 years younger — had roughly twice as many new neurons as older adults with normal memory for their age, and 2.5 times more than people with Alzheimer’s disease. The research focused on an area of the brain called the hippocampus, which is important for learning and memory and is thought to be the primary birthplace of new neurons.

Data: ACLED (Armed Conflict Location & Event Data). Chart: Axios Visuals ("Other" includes Iran, Iraq, Libya, Nigeria and Venezuela — as well as the waters off Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Colombia, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.)

DETAILS

Billions in Medicaid cuts

Axios -   State Medicaid budgets will be reduced by $665 billion over a decade due to changes from the Republican tax-and-spending law, with California and New York taking the biggest hits, according to a new RAND analysis.

New work requirements on nondisabled adults and limits on provider taxes will have the greatest impact on state budgets, forcing some to cut benefits, pare enrollment or draw more heavily on general funds to maintain coverage.

20 states are expected to see substantial reductions of 5% or more to their Medicaid budgets.

...Arizona, Iowa and Nevada could see declines of more than 15%, while California and New York are projected to experience the greatest reductions in dollar terms, about $112 billion and $63 billion, respectively.

A few less populous states, including Wyoming and South Dakota, could see modest increases in Medicaid budgets due to the law's $50 billion in rural health funding.

Savings to the federal government will total $714 billion over the period studied, and the authors estimate there will be 7.6 million fewer Medicaid enrollees by 2034.

Children

NPR - According to data from the National Digital Car Seat Check Form, 74% of the almost 60,000 car seats that child passenger safety technicians (CPSTs) checked in 2025 were not being used as intended by the manufacturer. Car accidents are a leading cause of death among U.S. children, according to a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration report. Correctly used car and booster seats significantly reduce this risk. Learn what a secure car seat base and a tightly fastened tether look like with Life Kit’s visual guide.

🚗 The top mistake parents make with car seats has to do with the seat belt. The car seat shouldn't move more than one inch side to side or front to back when you secure it in a fastened seat base. Firmly shake it to confirm.