Incredible scenes from today's pro-Magyar, anti-Orban rally in Budapest. Only 4 weeks left until the most consequential election in the EU this year
🇪🇺🇭🇺
🇭🇺 Hungarian opposition leader Peter Magyar’s supporters packed central Budapest in a show of strength a month before elections that polls show could spell the end of Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s 16-year rule, - Bloomberg
Thousands of opposition supporters fill central Budapest along Andrassy Avenue for over a kilometer behind Peter Magyar, as Orban's supporters gather at parliament. A poll gives Magyar's Tisza party a 20-point lead among decided voters, Bloomberg reported. #Europe
Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski says she opposes the Trump-backed SAVE Act: ....“In rural states like Alaska it's gonna disenfranchise an extraordinary majority…”
To be clear: the SAVE Act does not simply require the identification voting ALREADY requires. It demands proof of CITIZENSHIP— a birth certificate with a name that matches yours now (bye, bye, married women), or a passport— both of which are expensive and take a long time to obtain.
"An obscure methodological change lowered a key measure of inflation in January, prompting questions about how government statistical agencies produce and report economic data...
"The bureau provided no public disclosure of the change...
www.nytimes.com/2026/03/13/b...
Grassley admits Trump raised food prices with his tariffs.
The Senator from North Carolina adding insult to injury.
BREAKING:
A federal judge says he's blocking the subpoenas the Trump Justice Department served to Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.
Judge James Boasberg says the government has produced "essentially zero evidence" to suspect Powell of a crime.
JUST IN: Judge Boasberg has rejected DOJ’s subpoenas for Jerome Powell, finding they were issued for an improper purpose — Trump’s bid to pressure him to lower interest rates storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
The Pentagon is moving a Marine expeditionary unit to the Middle East, as Iran steps up its attacks on the Strait of Hormuz, according to two U.S. officials. Expeditionary units typically consist of up to 2,500 Marines.
An inflation gauge closely monitored by the Federal Reserve moved higher in January, the latest sign that prices were persistently elevated even before the Iran war caused spikes in oil and gas costs.
i feel like if i was tasked with not starting a war and bringing back US manufacturing jobs, i could have done a better job than this
"Top Trump officials acknowledged to lawmakers during recent classified briefings that they did not plan for the possibility of Iran closing the strait in response to strikes."
www.cnn.com/2026/03/12/p...
NEW: Election Records Handed Over to the FBI in Maricopa County, Arizona, Could Be Fatally Flawed, Experts Say
Unlike in Fulton County, Georgia, where actual ballots were seized, a federal grand jury subpoenaed digital data related to a partisan audit of the 2020 election in Maricopa County.
If this is enacted, Florida will be sued.
"Florida lawmakers are poised to approve sweeping new restrictions that would require voters to prove their citizenship status, as well as remove student ID as an acceptable form of voter identification." www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/...
1. Trump was told a war could trigger oil shocks, especially at home, where the affordability issue is rapidly eating the heart out of his presidency. But risks were “downplayed,” the Times said, in favor of a plan to “decapitate” Iran.
www.nytimes.com/2026/03/10/u...
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The countries that use mail in voting.
An amazing stat:
Iran exported more oil *today* than it did daily before the war.
It's the one country whose tankers are getting through the Strait of Hormuz.
www.wsj.com/world/middle...
In the last 24 hours, Iran has:
- Struck three ships trying to cross the Strait of Hormuz, disabling a Thai cargo ship
- Blown up a large oil storage facility in Oman
- Struck two oil tankers at harbor in Iraq, setting both ablaze.
- Blown up oil storage tanks next to Bahrain’s main airport
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101) *PENTAGON OFFICIALS MET WITH LAWMAKERS ON IRAN ON TUESDAY: NYT BFW 16:35
102) *NYT CITES 3 PEOPLE FAMILIAR WITH CONGRESSIONAL BRIEFING ON IRAN BFW 16:33
103) *PENTAGON SAYS IRAN WAR COST MORE THAN $11B IN FIRST WEEK: NYT BFW 16:33
03/11/2026 16:31:40[NYT]
Billion
By Catie Edmondson
(New York Times) -- In a Capitol Hill briefing, officials gave their most
comprehensive assessment of the cost of the first six days of the war, but the
number omitted several aspects of the operation.
Pentagon officials told lawmakers in a closed-door briefing on Capitol Hill on
Tuesday that they estimated the cost of the war against Iran had exceeded
$11.3 billion in the first six days alone, according to three people familiar with
the briefing.
The estimate did not include many of the costs associated with the operation,
such as the buildup of military hardware and personnel ahead of the first
strikes. For that reason, lawmakers expect the number to grow considerably as
the Pentagon continues to calculate the costs that accumulated just in the first
week.
Still, it appeared to be the most comprehensive assessment Congress had
received so far amid mounting questions about the objectives, scope and time
frame for the war. The New York Times and The Washington Post reported
earlier that defense officials had said in recent congressional briefings that the
military used up $5.6 billion of munitions in the first two days of the war.
That is a far larger amount and munitions burn rate than had been publicly
disclosed. The Center for Strategic and International Studies had estimated that
the first 100 hours of the operation cost $3.7 billion, or $891.4 million each
day.
The first wave of the bombardment used weapons including the AGM-154 glide
bomb, which can cost from $578,000 to $836,000. The Navy …](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:pnx2fjuannbdpy3337ggthpp/bafkreihcsjdum2q7hdoyqqbb5x6nhtiw3ldqmxfeuf6dutasyn2xyeecni)
$2bn/day, with $2.8bn/day in munitions alone over the first two days. I tend to think of myself as a Large Number Scale Understander but this is just mind-boggling amounts of money.
Billionaires’ % share of federal election spending in:
2008: 0.3%
2024: 19%
@nytimes.com #GildedAge
www.nytimes.com/2026/03/09/u...
A group of us in the Senate are demanding public hearings on Trump's disastrous war with Iran with Secretary Hegseth and Rubio. And we've introduced a half dozen war powers resolutions to force the Senate to vote every day on the war if the hearings don't happen.
BREAKING: Per WaPo, a new whistleblower report alleges a former DOGE member said he kept his SSA computer & credentials, giving him “God-level” access to Social Security systems.
Meanwhile, Trump wants to force every state to rely on SSA data for voter roll purges under the SAVE America Act. 1/
Five-byline alert: 🚨
“.. An ongoing military investigation has determined that the United States is responsible for a deadly Tomahawk missile strike on an Iranian elementary school, according to U.S. officials and others familiar with the preliminary findings.”
www.nytimes.com/2026/03/11/u...
Commodity analyst Paul Sankey on CNBC, with an unnerving analogy:
"Some of us are looking at this a bit like what we saw with Covid, where the market seemed to be 'air-walking', regardless of what was clearly a very bad situation -- and then, suddenly, you know, collapsed when it all came home."
The Defense Department has barred press photographers from briefings on the Iran war after they published photos of Pete Hegseth that his staff deemed "unflattering," according to two people familiar with the decision who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation.
JUST IN: Democrats flip a seat in the New Hampshire state House.
Dem Bobbi Boudman has won today’s special election, NHJournal reports.
(Boudman was the Dem nominee in 2024 & lost by 14%; Trump won here by 9%.)
This is Dems’ third legislative flip so far this year, after Texas and Arkansas.
"Once universities and their allies recovered from their shock and challenged Trump, they were able to block many, if not most, of the White House’s moves in court. Trump has certainly left his mark on America’s universities. But he has not broken them."
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
