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'So Be It,' Says Schumer After Trump Issues Unhinged Threat Against 2026 Voting Rights
"Senate Democrats will not help pass the SAVE Act under any circumstances," vowed the Senate Minority Leader.
Mar 08, 2026
The extremes to which the Republican Party will go to sway the 2026 elections in their favor was highlighted again on Sunday after US President Donald Trump said he will sign no other legislation into law this year until the SAVE Act—a bill that would deeply erode voting rights and threatens ballot access for tens of millions of Americans—is passed by Congress.
"It must be done immediately," Trump declared in a characteristically unhinged social media post on Sunday, referring to the SAVE Act, versions of which have passed the Republican-controlled House but so far stalled in the Senate.
"It supersedes everything else. MUST GO TO THE FRONT OF THE LINE," Trump continued in an all-caps tantrum. "I, as President, will not sign other Bills until this is passed, AND NOT THE WATERED DOWN VERSION - GO FOR THE GOLD: MUST SHOW VOTER I.D. & PROOF OF CITIZENSHIP: NO MAIL-IN BALLOTS EXCEPT FOR MILITARY - ILLNESS, DISABILITY, TRAVEL: NO MEN IN WOMEN’S SPORTS: NO TRANSGENDER MUTILIZATION FOR CHILDREN! DO NOT FAIL!!!"
Voting rights experts and Democratic lawmakers have denounced the SAVE Act as a dangerous threat to millions of eligible voters, calling it a clear effort by the GOP to tip the scales in their favor by depressing voter turnout in 2026 and beyond.
"In every form, the SAVE Act would require American citizens to show documents like a passport or birth certificate to register to vote. Our research shows that more than 21 million Americans lack ready access to those documents," warned Eliza Sweren-Becker and Owen Bacskai of the Brennan Center for Justice, which advocates for robust voting rights, in a blog post last week.
"Roughly half of Americans don’t even have a passport," Sweren-Becker and Bacskai continued. "Millions lack access to a paper copy of their birth certificate. The SAVE Act would disenfranchise Americans of all ages and races, but younger voters and voters of color would suffer disproportionately. Likewise, millions of women whose married names aren’t on their birth certificates or passports would face extra steps just to make their voices heard."
In response to Trump's threat on Sunday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) characterized the SAVE Act as "Jim Crow 2.0" as he condemned the president and his GOP allies.
"If Trump is saying he won’t sign any bills until the SAVE Act is passed, then so be it: there will be total gridlock in the Senate," said Schumer. "Senate Democrats will not help pass the SAVE Act under any circumstances."
Melanie D'Arrigo, executive director of the Campaign for New York Health, said Sunday that the SAVE Act—which Trump said last week must be passed "at the expense of everything else"—is not a voter ID bill, but rather "voter suppression" legislation bill masquerading as a solution to a problem that doesn't exist.
"If it was a voter ID bill, it would provide people with the proper IDs to vote, with no barriers — but it doesn’t," noted D'Arrigo. "The voter fraud rate is .0001%, and this bill would potentially prevent up to 69 million women, 40 million who don’t have access to their birth certificate, and 140 million without a passport, from voting."
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Trump's Iran War Is an Affordability Disaster
You can’t say affordability is your top priority and then start a war in the Middle East.
Mar 08, 2026
We are one week into Trump's war on Iran. Gas prices are already up more than 11%. The Dow Jones has erased all of its 2026 gains.
These are the real, immediate costs of a new war of choice. Wars in the Middle East are expensive, and ordinary people pay the price.
The War Tax at the Pump — and Beyond
Twenty percent of the world's oil travels through the Strait of Hormuz. That path is now shut off. The results are predictable.
Every gallon of gas now carries a war tax. And this is only the beginning. War with Iran means the constant threat of strikes on oil facilities in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, or the UAE. Secretary Hegseth has said the campaign could last anywhere from three to eight weeks—and that the U.S. can "sustain this fight easily for as long as we need to." As long as this conflict goes on, prices will stay up.
This war is illegal and most Americans are against it. The cost is already hitting them at the gas pump, at the grocery store, and in their retirement accounts.
And it doesn't stop at the pump. Oil prices affect the entire supply chain. Nearly everything Americans buy moves by truck at some point between the factory and the shelf. When fuel costs go up, shipping costs go up, and those costs get passed on to the consumer. Affordability was already the number one concern of voters going into 2026. People remember what it felt like when the grocery bill became something to dread. This war risks bringing that back.
The bottom line? You can’t say affordability is your top priority and then start a war in the Middle East.
Remember When They Wouldn't Shut Up About the Dow?
When the Dow crossed 50,000 in February, Trump posted on Truth Social that he had hit it "three years ahead of schedule" and predicted 100,000 before he left office. Attorney General Pam Bondi was lampooned for bringing up the Dow during a hearing that had nothing to do with the stock market. Now that argument is in peril.
By Thursday, the Dow had wiped out all of its 2026 gains, turning negative for the year after dropping nearly 800 points on March 5th alone. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq are down too.
If the Dow at 50,000 was the administration's achievement, so is the Dow at 47,500. You don't get the credit without the blame.
"A Big Fat Mistake" — Donald Trump, on the Last Middle East War
The man who started this war spent years arguing against the cost of Middle East wars. That argument was central to his political rise.
At the 2016 Republican primary debate, Trump went after Jeb Bush directly: "Obviously the war in Iraq was a big fat mistake, alright? George Bush made a mistake... we should have never been in Iraq, we have destabilized the Middle East." He mocked Jeb for taking five days to decide whether Iraq was a mistake. The crowd booed. Trump didn't back down. That moment helped define his candidacy.
In his 2021 farewell address, Trump declared he was "especially proud to be the first president in decades who has started no new wars." On election night 2024, he told supporters: "I'm not going to start a war. I'm going to stop wars." His 2026 New Year's resolution, posted publicly, was "peace on earth."
Forty-eight hours after that resolution, he ordered a military raid on Venezuela. Two months later, he launched the war on Iran.
At a 2018 White House infrastructure event, he said: "We've spent $7 trillion in the Middle East. What a mistake... We're trying to build roads and bridges that are falling down, and we have a hard time getting the money. It's crazy." He was right. Money spent on bombs cannot also be spent on schools, hospitals, and bridges.
The roads that were falling down when Trump gave that speech are still falling down. And now we're adding another war to the tab—on top of tariffs already squeezing family budgets—with no clear goal and no plan for what comes next.
The People Know Better
A University of Maryland Critical Issues Poll found only 21% of Americans support U.S. strikes against Iran. Three-quarters said no before the first bomb dropped. They knew—from Iraq, from Afghanistan, from two decades of watching—what a war in the Middle East costs and how it ends. The gas prices and the stock market are just the receipts.
The work now is making sure that the majority speaks up.
This war is illegal and most Americans are against it. The cost is already hitting them at the gas pump, at the grocery store, and in their retirement accounts. If we have to pay at the pump, the politicians who started this war should pay at the ballot box.
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Imperial Oil Grab: The Abduction of Venezuela’s President as a Prelude to the Attack on Iran
Make no mistake—the ultimate goal of the empire remains regime change. A pliant nation under its thumb is all the United States craves from oil-rich nations.
Mar 08, 2026
Venezuela and Iran hold the largest and third-largest petroleum reserves in the world, respectively. Both have been targeted for regime change by Washington. The world’s hegemon naturally seeks access to such resources. Yet it would be simplistic to think that would be only for narrow economic motives.
Dominion over energy flows—especially from countries with large reserves—is central to maintaining global influence. Washington requires control of strategic resources to sustain its position as global hegemon; a goal reflected in its official policy of “full spectrum dominance.” The 2017 National Security Strategy establishes “energy dominance” as an instrument of imperial power.
For Venezuela and Iran, sovereign control over their vast hydrocarbon wealth is a prerequisite for exercising even a modest degree of independence and some regional and global influence within a geopolitical landscape dominated by the US and its allies.
Venezuela-Iran nexus
Venezuela and Iran were founding members of the OPEC alliance of oil-producing countries in 1960. Both countries rejected Western dominance and nationalized their considerable oil sectors. In Iran, Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh established the National Iranian Oil Company in 1951, precipitating the CIA-MI6 coup that deposed him. In Venezuela, President Carlos Andrés Pérez nationalized the oil industry in 1976 through the creation of state oil company. The PDVSA was later expanded and reoriented by President Hugo Chávez after 2002.
In a prescient address at Tehran University, Venezuelan President Chávez admonished:
If the US empire succeeds in consolidating its dominance, then humankind has no future. Therefore, we have to save humankind and put an end to the US empire.
Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution and Iran’s Islamic Revolution are both of necessity anti-imperialist projects that have forged ties with Russia and China, Washington’s two major-power “strategic competitors.” The hegemon’s response reflects its broader pattern of targeting resource-rich, independent states that resist integration into the US-led “world order.”
Both countries have been targeted for their non-aligned foreign policy. Iran occupies a central position in the resistance to Zionism, supporting Hezbollah, the former Syrian government, Ansar Allah (the Houthis), and above all the Palestinian struggle. Likewise, Venezuela has been among the strongest supporters in Latin America of Palestinian self-determination, severing relations with Israel in 2009. Venezuela, too, has been the main supporter of the beleaguered Cuban government.
In 2015, US President Barack Obama declared Venezuela an “extraordinary threat” to US national security as an excuse to impose unilateral coercive measures on Caracas. Two years later, President Donald Trump intensified the hybrid war against Venezuela, modeled on the “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran.
Washington has repeatedly signaled its disregard for international law: Obama’s drone strikes on US citizens in 2011; Trump’s killing of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani in 2020; the January kidnapping President Nicolás Maduro and “First Combatant” Cilia Flores; and on February 28, the murder of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
In short, the US-led empire has demonstrated its readiness to capriciously employ lethal force whenever deemed expedient—with confidence that it will face few immediate consequences from the international community.
Oil markets and the timing of war
The US-Israeli attack on Iran of February 28 was anticipated. Iran’s Defense Minister Aziz Nasirzadeh and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi both warned of an imminent strike. Nasirzadeh was killed in the attack, while Araghchi survived. Israeli officials had earlier described previous attacks as “only the beginning,” while President Trump publicly acknowledged that a strike “could very well happen.”
Energy markets had also been anticipating escalation. Official agencies, market commentary, and the corporate press repeatedly warned about potential oil supply disruption, especially via the Strait of Hormuz chokepoint. Oil market indicators reflected these concerns, with oil prices surging in the days preceding the attack.
For years US policymakers had explicitly linked Iran sanctions to oil-market management. Foreshadowing the present escalation, the US announced in 2019 that ending Iranian oil waivers was intended to drive Iran’s exports to zero, while coordinating with major producers to keep global markets “well supplied.” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo based the pace of reducing Iranian oil exports on “market conditions.”
At the same time, US officials openly discussed Venezuela’s vast oil resources as strategically significant. This convergence suggests that Venezuelan oil capacity played a role—at least indirectly—in the timing of Washington’s Iran policy.
Oil-market stability therefore acted as a timing constraint on Washington’s Iran policy. In this context, Venezuelan oil assets could potentially be an offset option to buffer the impact of supply disruptions in the Middle East. It was expedient for the US to stabilize the Venezuelan oil supply prior to upending the Iranian one.
Thus, Washington’s Venezuela strategy was in part to secure oil assets to cushion markets. The same senior personnel and “maximum pressure” logic applied to both countries. Elliott Abrams, for example, held roles relating to both Iran and Venezuela during the first Trump administration. US interdictions of Iranian petroleum shipments to Venezuela in 2020 further illustrated how the two sanctions theaters intersected.
At the same time, Venezuelan oil was only one factor. Washington had already identified Saudi and Emirati production capacity as critical to maintaining global supply should Iranian exports disappear. Restoring Venezuela’s oil infrastructure to former levels will take time. So US intervention there may mainly serve a psychological purpose—helping calm markets during the Middle Eastern conflict.
Venezuela’s resilience
Despite the January 3 seizure of President Maduro, Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution survived the decapitation with a seamless continuation of leadership under interim President Delcy Rodríguez. This outcome compelled the US to negotiate rather than outright conquer—as they did in Iraq and Libya and are attempting to do in Iran. Still, the strategic balance of power is heavily titled in Washington’s favor.
So far Venezuela has avoided Iran’s fate: an ever mounting death toll, massive infrastructure devastation, widespread destruction of cultural institutions, and the assassination of top political, religious, and military figures. The US president has even floated the threat to “wipe them [Iran] off the face of this Earth.” The same USS Gerald R. Ford—the world’s most technically advanced aircraft carrier—was part of the January 3 attack on Venezuela and is now deployed off the coast of Iran.
Against this backdrop, President Rodríguez received the CIA director, cabinet-level energy and interior secretaries, the commander of US Southern Command, and the US diplomatic envoy. On March 5, Washington and Caracas announced an agreement to reestablish diplomatic and consular relations.
Venezuela’s new Organic Hydrocarbons Law reflects changing conditions since the original legislation was enacted a quarter of a century ago. Higher cost structures for heavy and extra-heavy crude require major investments, while Venezuela’s ability to attract foreign capital has been strangled by US sanctions.
The new law preserves state ownership of PDVSA and majority state ownership in joint ventures. In contrast, opposition politician María Corina Machado’s “Venezuela, Land of Grace” program would privatize it all.
An ephemeral détente
But make no mistake—the ultimate goal of the empire remains regime change. Washington’s kidnapping of President Maduro was intended to demonstrate the empire’s dominance. Yet it also revealed its limits: the durability of the Bolivarian Revolution and the reality that even great powers must sometimes negotiate with governments they oppose.
As Venezuelan oil analyst Franco Vielma observed, the country’s leadership has developed “creative resilience, strategic prudence, and pragmatic flexibility.”
“They have their strategy, and we have ours,” said Venezuelan President Rodríguez. The contest between imperial domination and national self-determination therefore continues.
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'Oh Come on,' Says Senate Democrat After Jake Tapper Plays Voting-Against-the-Troops Card
"The American people don't want this war," said Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut. "Virtually nothing good happened from sending thousands of Americans to die in Iraq in the 2000s and if we don't learn that lesson then shame on every single one of us."
Mar 08, 2026
Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut offered immediate push back on Sunday when CNN anchorJake Tapper said a vote against an expected $50 billion request by President Donald Trump to fund his attack on Iran would be seen as "voting against the troops."
"Oh come on," said Murphy, incredulous. "I mean, the American people don't want this war. They don't want this war—they have seen what happens when American troops go into places like Iraq, places like Afghanistan. Ultimately we get a lot of people killed, we waste a lot of dollars. The one thing the people of the American people have been clear about is that they don't want the United States dragged into another long-term war in the Middle East."
Polling has shown that Murphy is correct, with only one out of four people—a mere 25%—in a Reuters/Ipsos poll released last week showing any kind of support for Trump's war of choice against Iran.
"If you support the troops," said Murphy, "then you should vote against this war so that we get our troops out of harm's way. Virtually nothing good happened from sending thousands of Americans to die in Iraq in the 2000s and if we don't learn that lesson then shame on every single one of us."
TAPPER: "You have said you're a 'hell no' on funding the war. We have seen this movie before. We know that vote will be cast as - especially if you run for higher office - you voting against the troops."
MURPHY: "Oh come on I mean, the American people don't want this war." pic.twitter.com/lTB5isM8I7
— State of the Union (@CNNSOTU) March 8, 2026
Trump has yet to make the formal request for the $50 billion in funding, but estimates for just one week of fighting have put the cost of the military operations thus far at something close to $1billion per day.
Murphy has said he is a "hell no" on any additional funding and other members of the Democratic caucus have echoed that message.
"Trump is already spending $1 BILLION PER DAY on his illegal regime change war of choice in Iran," said Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) on Thursday. "Now, he's going to ask Congress to give him up to $50 BILLION MORE. My vote: hell NO."
"We could be lowering the cost of health care, but instead Trump is spending BILLIONS on his reckless war with Iran," said Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) on Thursday. "Trump is blowing YOUR taxpayer dollars on war and causing gas prices to spike while he's at it."
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