On March 3, US president Donald Trump spoke (via telephone) with Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, chief of the Taliban's Doha diplomatic office and signer, on behalf of his organization, of the recently-concluded Afghanistan "peace deal." "The direct contact between an American president and a top Taliban leader would once have been unthinkable," writes Michael Crowley at the New York Times.

Writing at the Florida Politics blog, AG Gancarski reports on three sales-tax "holiday" bills working their way through the state's legislature. Two of the bills would lengthen existing holidays on school supplies and storm-preparedness products. The third would expand the holiday habit to hunting and fishing items. According to the Sales Tax Institute, at least 16 states have sales-tax holidays scheduled this year on goods ranging from clothing to school supplies to generators to guns.

DES MOINES, IOWA (February 26, 2020) — With 168 days until the Iowa State Fair, August 13-23, 2020, now is your chance to create a part of Iowa State Fair history by designing your own concrete statue. Past sculptures have included an elephant, pig, cow, horse, ice-cream cone, Ferris wheel, state of Iowa, Iowa State Fair logo, and blue ribbon. The featured concrete sculpture for the 2020 Fair is a retro camper to symbolize the rich tradition and sense of community at the Fair.

According to selected members of the "US intelligence community" ("selected" for their loyalty to, and willingness to promote the line of, the Democratic Party establishment), Vladimir Putin and the Russian government just love them some Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. Can't get enough of 'em. If November is a Trump/Sanders shoot-out, the Kremlin wins either way.