Odds and Ends — 20 March 2026

Congressional Republicans are confronting serious doubts they can pass Iran war funding on their own, especially as the potential price tag balloons into the hundreds of billions of dollars.
The alternative — relying on a handful of Democrats to push it through the Senate — doesn’t look any more likely as Middle East hostilities expand, energy prices rise and more Democratic lawmakers dig in against an unpopular war.
In recent weeks, some in the GOP floated using the party-line budget reconciliation process to give the Pentagon a slug of new money without needing to gather 60 votes in the Senate. But the revelation that a war funding request could reach $200 billion has quickly cooled those hopes, given the political complications of finding offsets for the spending and the procedural gyrations it would require.

https://twitter.com/WeTheBrandon/status/2034613432595497354

https://twitter.com/WajahatAli/status/2034476978393211089

https://twitter.com/FuckedUpYogis/status/2034717858383511809

Trump Had No Plan B for Iran

…Trump did seem to have an overarching goal at the start of the war: regime change. In a video he released during the first night of the attack, he told the Iranian authorities to surrender and called on the Iranian people to rise up against their government.
Unfortunately, the regime in Tehran seems to be recovering and, even worse, consolidating power. The American intelligence community has reportedly issued an assessment that the regime ‘will remain intact and possibly even emboldened, believing it stood up to Trump and survived.’
Trump now appears lost, unable to comprehend how a blockbuster movie that he scripted out, one in which he cast himself as the Liberator of Iran, has turned into a poorly received miniseries that might yet be renewed for another dreary season.

https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/2034989760624656612

https://twitter.com/revpaulwhite/status/2034661527882449238

Trump Is Getting Drilled, Baby, Drilled

Trump is right to be worried. And he’s right in particular to be completely freaked out by the possibility of more attacks from either side on the region’s energy infrastructure. Putting LNG and oil production facilities on the legitimate-targets list would mean heavy long-term damage to the energy economy.
Trump knows how little buy-in the American public has for this war even on its own merits, and how little pain people will be willing to suffer on its behalf. For him, the single most important thing he needs to accomplish in this conflict is a crisp end date—preferably very soon.
Pretty much his worst-case scenario would be higher energy prices for the rest of his term because the Middle East’s energy infrastructure had been reduced to rubble.

https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/2034651797684412585

https://twitter.com/Daractenus/status/2034637779120824390

Politics:

https://twitter.com/mmjukic/status/2034621374606495941

Senate GOP plows forward on SAVE America Act amid pressure from right

What a waste of time. They don’t have 60 votes and they’re not going to trash the filibuster.

———— Minnesota Under Siege ————

https://twitter.com/GovTimWalz/status/2034758387758506372

———— Stark. Raving. Mad. ————

https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/2034666283665424744

Trump mocks Japan about Pearl Harbor in response to question about Iran war

US president was meeting with Japanese PM when he said: ‘Who knows better about surprise than Japan?’

https://twitter.com/Arin_Yumi/status/2034680978002911695

https://twitter.com/Strandjunker/status/2034750575653322826

A federal arts panel comprised of members appointed by Donald Trump on Thursday unanimously approved a commemorative gold coin featuring his image, the latest effort by the administration to celebrate the president.
The U.S. Mint will now produce final dimensions for ⁠the coin. Trump has already approved the design and it is expected that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, a Trump loyalist, will order the coin to be minted.