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U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to reporters before boarding Air Force One at Palm Beach International Airport on Monday, March 23, 2026, in West Palm Beach, Fla.
(Roberto Schmidt/Getty Images/TNS)
Team Trump had to start a war to learn how the global economy works
Apr 01, 2026
Early Monday morning of March 23, financial markets surged when President Donald Trump claimed there had been productive talks with Iran about ending the war. Therefore he backed off a vow to bomb Iranian power plants if the Strait of Hormuz wasn’t reopened by Monday evening. Iran denies any such talks actually took place.
This is a rare moment in which reasonable people can be torn about which government is more believable.
Regardless, markets were buoyed by the hope that this might be another TACO moment — Trump Always Chickens Out — and the belief that he was looking for an off-ramp.
I have no idea whether this partial pause will last, whether Iran will grab Trump’s lifeline, or whether markets will stay upbeat. And neither does anyone else. But whichever way things go in the days and weeks ahead, we’ve already (re)learned some useful lessons.
For starters, overall success is dependent on more than military success. Critics and supporters of the war have been talking past each other since it started because it has been extremely impressive militarily, but politically, geo-strategically and economically, it’s been far murkier.
That’s because Iran has an asymmetric advantage. It can disrupt the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly 20% of the world’s oil and numerous other vital resources from fertilizer to natural gas are shipped. It can also strike its neighbors’ oil and gas facilities.
It’s like Iran is a beaten weakling holding a vial of nitroglycerin in the engine room of the global economy. You can take him out, but only at great peril.
As the Economist recently put it, “Although President Donald Trump says he has ‘destroyed 100% of Iran’s Military Capability’, the 0% that remains is playing havoc with the global economy.”
Economic vulnerability is nearly synonymous with political vulnerability and political vulnerability is strategic vulnerability. It’s great that the Iranians haven’t blocked the strait with thousands of mines as military textbooks foresaw, but if it’s impassable because ships are uninsurable, the results are largely the same.
That’s why I have some sympathy for the administration’s effort to deal with the economic challenge it didn’t adequately prepare for.
That effort includes releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, waiving Jones Act rules that require American-flagged and built ships to transport oil for American markets, and lifting some sanctions on Russian oil (a boon to President Vladimir Putin).
And, most remarkably, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced a temporary suspension on Iranian oil sanctions for already oil-laden ships parked in the strait.
This is exceedingly unusual. Normally, one intensifies economic blockades on enemies in wartime. But that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily a bad idea if it works to lower prices. (Although the fact that this could potentially give Iran 10 times more money than President Barack Obama did when he infamously sent them pallets of cash to secure the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action is pretty wild.).
I’m skeptical that Trump’s effort to single-handedly manage the price of oil will work. For whatever momentary relief it provides markets, it also demonstrates that Iran’s has got leverage.
But here’s what I find fascinating. The Trump administration has been obsessed with maximizing the president’s war powers to justify his agenda on such things as industrial policy, immigration, domestic deployment of the National Guard and, most glaringly, trade. But now, when we’re actually at war, they’re reversing their economic philosophy in service to Trump’s seat-of-the-pants decision-making.
Trump’s trade policies are exactly what the great 19th century economist Henry George had in mind when he warned, “What protectionism teaches us, is to do to ourselves in time of peace what enemies seek to do to us in time of war.”
What’s so strange is Trump’s turning George on his head, by easing economic pressure on our wartime enemy. But he’s also reversing his own biases by liberating our domestic economy.
Of course, sanctions are more coercive than tariffs, but economically they operate on the same logic: Sanctions restrict exchange, reduce supply and raise costs. The administration is effectively conceding that supply restrictions — i.e., tariffs — raise prices and that relaxing them lowers prices. It usually scoffs at such market logic when defending tariffs or domestic shipping restrictions.
The Jones Act, an egregious economic albatross conceived in the wake of World War I that makes all manner of goods more expensive in peacetime, is being waived during wartime, even though the point of the Jones Act is to leave us better prepared to fight wars.
I wish I could believe that the Trump administration was actually learning any of these lessons and that might endure after this war eventually ends. But at this point, that lesson is beyond his ability to learn. Trump believes he’s not just the master of his fate, but everyone else’s as well.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.
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A Transportation Security Administration (TSA) worker screens passengers and airport employees at O'Hare International Airport on January 07, 2019 in Chicago, Illinois. TSA employees are currently working under the threat of not receiving their next paychecks, scheduled for January 11, because of the partial government shutdown now in its third week.
Getty Images, Scott Olson
Nope. Nevermind. Some DHS agencies still shut down.
Apr 01, 2026
House Republicans reject clean bill to open shut-down DHS agencies (March 28 update)
House Republicans (and three Democrats) rejected the Senate's clean bill to end the shutdown late Friday night. Instead, the House passed a different bill that fully funds every agency in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) but for only 60 days with the knowledge that this short-term continuing resolution will not pass in the Senate.
Both chambers are out until April 13 so the shutdown is expected to last until then at least. Hope that no major weather disasters occur before then because FEMA is one of the DHS agencies out of commission (though some of its employees may be working without pay). It's possible that air travel security lines won't get worse since the President signed an Executive Order authorizing DHS to pay TSA workers. New DHS Secretary Mullin says paychecks will start to go out as early as Monday. How long can this approach continue? Unknown. Leaving aside the questionable legality of repurposing funds in this way, DHS may not be willing to keep paying TSA from these other funds long-term.
The Senate proposal to end the shutdown didn't contain specific rest-of-year funds for the immigration agencies ICE and CBP, or for that matter any of Democrats' prior demands for immigration enforcement reform. Congress gave ICE and CBP $75 billion dollars last year in the reconciliation bill, more than enough to carry the agencies for a few years without the specific yearly appropriation that House Republicans now demand, which is why those agencies aren't shut down but the rest of DHS, like TSA and CISA are. So it's unclear what House Republicans are really after other than appearances.
Instead, the impasse will drag on for no one knows how long.
Other legislative activity last week
This has been, measured by bills that passed, a highly productive week for Congress.
All of the bills listed on the House's Weekly Schedule for the week of March 23-27 passed. Many were by voice vote. You can see everything that got some kind of action this week at this variation of our Legislation Advanced Search. You want to look at the second column which tells you what happened (example: Passed House, Senate Next or vice versa) and the date.
None of the bills voted on by the House will become law until addressed by the Senate, but still, it's been a while since everything they intended to hold a vote on got a vote and even longer since they all passed.
The Senate's bill to fund DHS
Because we get our data from Congress and there's always a slight delay, the biggest item of the week, the Senate's bill for nearly complete funding of the Department of Homeland Security, isn't showing up yet on that Advanced Search (at least as of the morning of March 27).
But it did happen! At a little after 2am Eastern time on March 27, the Senate passed a funding bill that excludes ICE and parts of CBP by unanimous consent.
Unanimous consent is basically what it sounds like. No Democrat or Republican stood in the way of passing it.
The bill does not contain any of Democrats' prior demands for immigration enforcement reform.
This would not instantly resolve the massive lines at airports. Over 500 TSA agents are reported to have quit. So, even if all agents who've been calling in sick rather than work without pay come back, there's still going to be a shortage of TSA workers for some time.
The President announced yesterday that he would, by Executive Order, have TSA agents paid the paycheck they've missed. It's not clear if this is even legal.
It went to the House next where it was rejected, as noted at the top.
More coming on a major ethics violation
Programming note: we will be writing separately about yesterday's (March 26) Adjudicatory Hearing covering Rep. Cherfilus-McCormick's (D-FL20) ethics investigation.
The immediate effect is that the Ethics Committee says they believe she violated nearly all of the items listed in the Statement of Alleged Violations. They say they will decide on a recommendation for action to the full House when they return from the April recess.
Nope. Nevermind. Some DHS agencies still shut down. was originally published by GovTrack and is republished with permission.
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Amazon’s court loss over Just Walk Out highlights a deeper issue: employers are increasingly collecting workers’ biometric data without meaningful consent. Explore the growing conflict between workplace surveillance, privacy rights, and outdated U.S. laws.
Getty Images, Deagreez
The Quiet Rise of Employee Surveillance
Mar 31, 2026
Amazon’s loss in court over its attempt to shield the source code behind its Just Walk Out technology is a small win for shoppers, but the bigger story is how employers are quietly collecting biometric data from their own workers.
From factories to Fortune 500 companies, employers are demanding fingerprints, palmprints, retinal scans, facial scans, or even voice prints. These biometric technologies are eroding the boundary between workplace oversight and employee autonomy, often without consent or meaningful regulation.
Everyone has to weigh data privacy decisions. Delete social media accounts for data privacy or be isolated from friends and family? Do a retina scan at the airport or risk being the uptight person who slows down security check?
But the questions are becoming way more existential, particularly as they invade the workplace. Workers now have to ask a totally different question: Forfeit data or forfeit income?
Because there’s no federal employment law that gives people the option to consent to biometric collection and use, employers can require employees to undergo scanning systems and other biometric applications.
This legal gap exists because, out of the 20 states with privacy laws that regulate private data collection, some still exclude data collected in employment contexts. So, biometric data protection is largely based on where employees live and work, workers’ rights firm Outten & Golden says.
This patchwork of legal protections is worsened by minimal regulation on corporate data collectors. Right now, companies only provide notices about their data collection and use of personal information: Notice and Choice. In this paradigm, people are shown tons of company privacy terms, but the density and legal jargon of those documents leave people bewildered.
And notices do not wholly cover the frontier of consent. As former Director of the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection Samuel Levine stated back in 2019, “Even if we read the policies and understood them, we can hardly exercise choice given how much we rely on digital services, and the lack of competition in many markets.”
A 2023 Pew study backed up Levine’s statements, showing that 67% of Americans don’t understand and 73% believe they have little to no control over what companies do with their data. Clearly, most Americans are making uninformed decisions about the data they give up just to earn a living.
Now, combine that with no option to consent at all, and workers are being strong-armed into funneling their biometric data into a black box. Faced against the risk of being fired or staying unemployed, it becomes a no-brainer decision. Yet the ease of that decision is not a reflection of how much people actually value their personal data.
In a 2025 IPSOS poll, biometric data ranked fourth (32%) in the types of data believed to be most important to keep private. Only financial, health, and credit card usage data ranked higher.
Given this, employers should allow workers the option to indicate these privacy values through choice. Instead, the only two exceptions to bypass surrendering biometrics are religion or disability. That these are the only “outs” tells us that legislators either aren’t aware of, or don’t care about, the privacy preferences of everyday people.
Employers’ reasons for mandating biometrics include building security, tracking employee time and attendance, machine activation, and authenticating users. Because of this, privacy statutes have carveout defenses tied to security, fraud, and crime prevention.
Ironically, corporations’ interest in security stomps out employees’ right to secure their own data. As noted by the Wyoming Law Review in 2024, current case law ignores how an intrusion or breach of employee biometric data opens people up to limitless invasions of privacy in their personal lives.
This should not be the case. States and the federal government should enact laws that eliminate employment contracts that make biometric data a condition of employment. Given existing dubious consent practices, a new form of choice should become normalized: opt in or opt out.
Faith Wilson is a Public Voices Fellow on Technology in the Public Interest with the OpEd Project.
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a person is casting a vote into a box
Photo by Element5 Digital on Unsplash
Primaries Are Already Shaping the 2026 Election – Here’s What We’re Seeing So Far
Mar 31, 2026
Primary elections are already underway across the United States, and this year’s contests are giving early clues about what voters may prioritize in the general election.
Several states have recently held high-profile primary races that could influence the balance of power in Congress over the next two years, in both state-wide and local elections. Many of these races involve open seats or competitive districts, making the outcomes especially significant as parties prepare for November.
One trend political analysts are watching closely is turnout. Historically, primaries typically attract far fewer voters than general elections, with data suggesting a national average of around 20%; however, early data from this year’s elections to-date suggests a slight uptick in participation, depending on the issues and candidates on the ballot. In Chicago, for example, youth turnout in the 2026 primary increased compared with the last midterm primary. Larger turnout percentages have been mostly favorable to Democratic candidates, a trend that has been observed in both statewide and local elections.
A shining example of this trend is Democrat Emily Gregory’s recent win in Florida, where she flipped House District 87, a legislative district that includes President Trump’s own Mar-a-Lago. Previously, the 87th District was represented by Republican Mike Caruso, who won by 19 percentage points in 2024. In the shocking victory, Gregory edged out her competitor, Jon Maples, by 2.4 percentage points.
While the results suggest that Democrats have more momentum in the primaries currently, it is still too early to know whether these trends will hold over the course of election season; in addition, it remains uncertain if this year’s higher yield of voter turnout will signal a permanent change in the public’s relationship with primary elections.
Another factor shaping this year’s primaries is the growing influence of money and emerging industries in politics. New political action committees tied to the artificial intelligence industry have already spent millions supporting candidates in congressional primaries, highlighting how technology policy is becoming a major campaign issue.
At the same time, some races are revealing divisions within political parties themselves. In several states, competitive primaries are turning into debates over ideology, strategy, and which candidates are most likely to win in November. This can be seen in Maine, where Democrats are worried tensions between members of the party may upset their chances of ousting long-time Senator Susan Collins (R) in the November election. While contentious primaries may draw more voters in, remaining tensions can also make it more challenging for the eventual nominee to garner collective support come the general election.
All of this helps explain why it is important to pay close attention to primaries. They don’t just decide who advances to the general election; they can also signal where the political landscape in the United States may be heading next.
- YouTube youtu.be
Britton Struthers-Lugo is a journalist and visual storyteller. She currently works as a Digital Content Producer across The Fulcrum and The Latino News Network.
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