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TODAY'S HEADLINES:

Bernie Sanders steamrollers ahead after a decisive, overwhelming win on Saturday in the Nevada Caucuses, and centrist democrats are starting to panic.

Meanwhile, Trump heads to India to hang out with fellow overt fascist leader Narendra Modi and host one of his biggest rallies yet, named Namaste Trump.

And lastly, The Supreme Court will hear arguments on Monday on a strange, thrilling case that could have major implications for U.S. energy policy, when the Appalachian Trail goes up against the Atlantic Coast Pipeline.

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

The Nevada caucuses put Iowa to shame this weekend, proceeding without any major catastrophes and ushering in a new era of Bernie Sanders’s campaign, cementing the Vermont senator as a dominant frontrunner in the race.

Sanders won the state by an enormous margin -- with 88 percent of precincts reporting, he currently has over 47 percent of the vote, demolishing all of his competitors by over 20 points. His closest rival in the state is Joe Biden, with 21 percent of the vote.

Per a new report in Politico, however, Sanders’ impressive momentum is absolutely terrifying centrist Democrats.

Listen to this stuff: Matt Bennett, a VP at the centrist think tank Third Way, said quote “It’s this incredible sense that we’re hurtling to the abyss. Today is the most depressed I’ve ever been in politics.” endquote. The most depressed he’s ever been? Because Bernie Sanders won Nevada? Buddy. Get a grip.

Bennett and status-quo fetishists’ argument basically boils down to this: they think Sanders is too radical and would lose to Trump, possibly having wide down-ballot fallout for Democrats nationwide. It’s unclear where they’re getting this from, as almost every national poll has Bernie ahead of Trump in a hypothetical general election.

It’s also particularly hysterical because the results in Nevada decisively showed that Sanders is capable of mobilizing an extremely diverse, highly motivated coalition of traditional Democratic voters and newcomers alike.

It’s unclear whether the two-party fence-sitters at Third Way are oblivious to that or if they just don’t care -- after all, their version of the Democratic party probably doesn’t include the poor, brown, black, young and other minority demographics that Sanders brought in in Nevada.

Donald Trump is in India for the next 24 hours or so, touching down in the country early on Monday for a quick trip.

More than 100,000 people showed up for a massive, joint rally with India’s fascist president Narendra Modi in the western city of Ahmedabad on Monday afternoon local time. The two leaders palled around onstage, with Trump praising the stadium he was speaking in and the relationship between the two countries.

It’s clear to see why the two get along. Trump has struggled to enact a Muslim ban on immigration in the U.S., while Modi has just dispensed with the formalities and enacted a country-wide campaign of outright persecution against Indian Muslims, particularly those in the Muslim-majority region of Kashmir.

Modi even put up a wall of his own, erecting a six-foot barrier along the side of a road Trump may have taken to the stadium to shield an a slum from his eyes. It simply would not do for our glorious leader to see a poor person on his way to the largest cricket stadium in the world.

The visit likely has several political aims for Trump. One, he’s still trying to negotiate a trade deal with the country, and two, he’s hoping that Modi’s popular support in India could carry over to some Indian-American swing voters in key states come November.

While the Indian diaspora tends to lean Democratic, Modi’s new right-wing populism is growing in India, and Trump likely wants to tap into that particular alliance.

And as for the Kashmiris who face daily violence and persecution at the hands of the state? Well, a senior administration official told the Washington Post that Trump would “raise the issue” with Modi in private. Sure.

The Supreme Court will hear arguments today in a strange case involving conservation, oil pipelines, complicated bureaucracy, and hiking. Yeah, hiking. I know.

The case is over the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, a 600-mile planned oil pipeline that will take the fracked fruits of natural gas drilling from West Virginia to Virginia and the and North Carolina. But there’s one small problem standing in its way: the Appalachian Trail.

The trail is the longest and one of the most popular through-hikes in the country, and is beloved by casual hikers and the small set of endurance junkies that do the whole 2,192 miles of it.

Big Oil lobbyists have been pretty successful in getting the permits necessary to carve up parts of National Forest land, often overlapping with Native American heritage sites, in order to move their crude product across the country.

But the Appalachian Trail, see, is administered by the National Parks Service, not the Forest Service. And federal law technically prevents authorizing pipelines in the Parks system.

A local environmental group, the Cowpasture River Preservation Association, challenged the ACP’s permit on these grounds, and the case has now made it all the way to the Supreme Court. If the Court rules in favor of the Cowpasture crew, it could have massive ramifications across the country.

There are more than 10 proposed pipelines that cross the Appalachian trail, and a recent New York Times op-ed suggests that if the trail stops them in their tracks, it could force the region to begin a shift away from natural gas and toward renewable energy.

And there seems to be a pretty good case for it. The last appeals court to hear the case held that the U.S. mineral leasing act doesn’t let the Forest Service give a company a permit to blast through National Parks land.

If the case makes precedent, who knows? Maybe the next president will start declaring a whole lot more hiking routes to be under the purview of the National Parks service.

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

Brigham Young University removed quote “homosexual behavior” from its strict honor code, allowing queer students to openly date on campus. It’s not much, but it’s progress, considering the school and larger Mormon Church’s attitude toward any form of sex or gender diversity.

The Coronavirus has hit Europe, with a fresh rush of cases in Italy, forcing officials to cancel schools, sports, and cultural events across the country and especially around Milan, where there are a reported 150 cases.

The Trump administration issued a memo last week that could affect the 750,000 federal contractors working for the Department of Defense forming or participating in a union. In an utterly surreal argument, the memo states that in some cases, a unionized workforce could present a threat to national security.

Health officials in rural Tennessee are going as far as to teach six year old children how to administer Narcan, a nasal spray that can save lives in the case of an opioid overdose, in a grim reminder of just how desperate that crisis is in some communities.

And on that note, that’s it for the AM Quickie today. Make sure to catch the full Majority Report with Sam later today.

#AMQuickie: Feb 24, 2020

HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner

WRITER - Jack Crosbie

PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn