Moscow and Kyiv exchanged strikes on each other’s energy infrastructure, with oil facilities hit in Russia’s Black Sea port of Novorossiysk as well as gas and oil structures in Ukraine’s Poltava and Kharkiv regions.
Americans face near-record gas prices this Memorial Day weekend as Iran tensions disrupt oil supplies and squeeze families dealing with inflation.
In general, front offices view the first third of the season for gauging what they assembled in the offseason, the next third to fix it and the final third to live with it.
Appearing on MS NOW on Saturday morning, the New York Times' Glenn Thrush claimed acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has no one to blame but himself as he gets battered by Democrats, Republicans and in the press as he does Donald Trump’s bidding.And it shows in his face, he noted.As bad as Donald Trump’s week was, the man who took fired Attorney General Pam Bondi’s place was raked over the coals in a Senate hearing and then was berated by Republican senators in a closed-door meeting described as "incredibly hostile."That led Thrush to tell the hosts of “The Weekend” that Blanche has looked deflated in all of his public appearances.“The one thing you can say about Todd Blanche is you definitely want to play poker with the guy, because just look at his face I mean, he looks miserable,” he observed. “He, like, wears his agony on his face and he's just being he's just reaping what he has sown as somebody who refuses to say no to Donald Trump, he has simply not turned down any request.”“And this, as we were reporting and figuring out how this all came down, it seems that this huge thing that he has sort of blown up the Senate and created this enormous rift in his party was an expedient so that they could get out of having to actually pay Donald Trump money, which Blanche and folks at the White House actually believed would have been a bridge too far,” he added.“So believe it or not, this fund, this weaponization fund, which everyone is calling a slush fund with no rules, no guidelines on who will distribute the money, and apparently no guardrails was actually considered to be the best of other alternatives. This was actually their best possible plan,” he revealed. - YouTube youtu.be
Rep. Gimenez says Castro's indictment sparks regime paranoia, adding that Trump is letting pressure percolate while drawing up contingency plans.
President Donald Trump is dragging the Republican Party down at a moment when it could cost them everything, the conservative-leaning Wall Street Journal editorial board wrote in an analysis published on Friday evening."Republicans don’t want to say this publicly, but privately they do," wrote the board, an increasingly frequent critic of the president's policies despite sharing many of his political beliefs. "President Trump’s personal political obsessions are hurting his Presidency, harming the chances for further policy gains the rest of this year, and putting control of the House and Senate in jeopardy."GOP lawmakers' inability to pass Trump's Homeland Security funding bill, while also turning up the heat against his "Anti-Weaponization Fund" to pay out $1.776 billion to his political allies, is beginning to make the cracks show, the board wrote. Trump's other fixation on getting White House ballroom funding passed has similarly ground the DHS budget bill process to a halt, and the ongoing war powers votes Democrats are forcing against his action in Iran are starting to divide the party as well.But the real catalyst, the board wrote, is Trump working to unseat two Republican incumbent senators."First he helped defeat Lousiana's (sic) Bill Cassidy in a primary, and this week he endorsed Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton over Sen. John Cornyn," wrote the board. "Mr. Trump’s motives in both cases were largely personal — he wanted revenge against Mr. Cassidy for thinking his behavior on Jan. 6, 2001 (sic), was an impeachable offense, and Mr. Cornyn didn’t endorse him for President with enough alacrity to suit his loyalty test."Through all of this, the board wrote, Trump "seems incapable of rising above, even as voters care much more about the economy and prices and his job approval falls to new lows.""Mr. Trump’s Presidency will be all but over — except for impeachment 3.0 — if the GOP loses control of Congress in November," the board concluded. "If he wants to accomplish more legislatively, he has only a few months to do it. Does he want his remaining legacy to be a ballroom, an Arc de Trump, and payoffs for his friends from a fund that Republicans would denounce if a Democratic President tried it?"
While American voters have increasingly soured on President Donald Trump’s handling of the economy, Republican voters have largely remained consistent in giving the president passing marks on the issue – that is, until a new survey revealed the first cracks among GOP voters, Axios reported Saturday.“Trump's approval rating has been dropping for months, but the University of Michigan's May consumer sentiment survey released Friday revealed something more striking: Republicans are beginning to lose confidence in the economy, too,” wrote Axios’ Mike Zapler in the outlet’s report.According to the survey, GOP and independent voters’ view of the economy hit an all-time low of Trump’s second term, with overall sentiment hitting a historic all-time low. In February, about 8 in 10 Republicans approved of Trump’s handling of the economy, but as of this week per another poll, that figure dropped to around 6 in 10.Megan Brenan, a senior editor with Gallup, noted that the drop in GOP voters’ support on Trump’s handling of the economy was “a crack we’re seeing,” with a Gallup poll released Friday also finding Republicans’ view on the economy had dipped in the past four months to its lowest level of Trump’s second stint in the White House.With Democrats already projected to take back control of the House in the upcoming midterm elections – and possibly the Senate – Zapler noted how “even small cracks in Republican confidence,” such as the aforementioned drop in support on Trump’s handling of the economy, only “add to the litany of warning signs for the GOP this year.”
Escalating tensions in Iran continue to disrupt oil supplies as Americans prepare for the holiday weekend