One week after the leak of a draft Supreme Court opinion that would eliminate the constitutional right to abortion.  Republican candidates and strategists are increasingly confident that such a decision would not seriously harm the GOP’s chances of regaining House and Senate majorities come November, as Democrats have suggested it might.

That belief is rooted in reams of polling, nearly all of it conducted before the leak, showing that economic challenges, particularly runaway inflation, are by far the most powerful force motivating voters this year, followed by crime and immigration — issues where Republicans believe they will have an enduring advantage. And, so far, they see scant evidence that reproductive rights are set to dislodge those priorities, given the often-muted reaction in states that have already moved to restrict abortion rights.

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Two U.S. Senators from opposite sides of the aisle are teaming up to pass a resolution to urge the Secretary of State to designate Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism.

Senators Richard Blumenthal and Lindsey Graham say that Ukraine asked the U.S. to designate Russia as a terrorist country, and that doing so would show Ukraine it has the full support of the United States.

“Putin is a thug and a criminal,” Blumenthal said. “That’s why our own national security is at risk.”

“This designation will matter in U.S. law. There are only four other countries that have such designation,” Graham added.

Russia is accused of committing war crimes, such as intentionally targeting civilians in Ukraine. Graham says that he believes that Putin’s goal is to “recreate the Soviet empire of the former Soviet Union as much as he can.”

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President Biden signed into law on Monday afternoon a bill that will expedite the process of sending military aid to Ukraine, as the Eastern European country presses into its third month of fighting off a Russian invasion.

Flanked by Vice President Harris and members of Congress from both sides of the aisle, Biden vowed the United States will continue to support Ukraine “in their fight to defend their country and their democracy” against Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war.

“Every day Ukrainians fight for their lives,” Biden said. “The cost of the fight is not cheap, but caving to aggression is even more costly.”

Do you think Biden is right?

Vladimir Putin blamed the West for the war in Ukraine in his Victory Day speech. He also expressed sympathy for the loss of Russian soldiers in Ukraine.

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Mark Esper, the former secretary of Defense under President Trump, says that the former president proposed a number of “outlandish” foreign policy proposals while he was in the White House, including pulling troops out of South Korea and shutting down embassies in Africa, according to an excerpt from Esper’s upcoming memoir.

In a new excerpt, shared by Politico.  Esper wrote that shortly after he was hired to be the new Pentagon chief in 2019, Trump was railing against NATO and corruption in Ukraine, two personal issues that the rest of the national security and foreign policy team tried to tamp down because they weren’t considered leading concerns at the time.

Trump also said he wanted a “complete withdrawal” of forces from South Korea and that he wished to “bring our people home” from embassies in Africa, according to Esper.

The book: A Sacred Oath: Memoirs of a Secretary of Defense During Extraordinary Times

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Afghanistan’s supreme leader has ordered the country’s women to cover their faces in public – one of the harshest restrictions imposed on them since the Taliban seized power last year and an escalation of growing restrictions on women that is drawing a backlash from the international community and many Afghans.

“They should wear a chadori (head-to-toe burqa) as it is traditional and respectful,” said a decree issued by Taliban chief Haibatullah Akhunzada that was released by authorities at a function in Kabul on Saturday.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Fawzia Koofi, former Afghanistan parliament deputy speaker, said the Taliban’s decrees regarding women can only be regarded as “oppression and repression”.

“The question is, in the middle of all this suffering for Afghan people, why is the issue of women the only one taking priority,” asked Koofi, while referring to the deepening economic crisis across the country.

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Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said in an interview with USA Today that a national abortion ban is “possible” if Roe v. Wade gets overturned this summer. “If the leaked opinion became the final opinion, legislative bodies — not only at the state level but at the federal level — certainly could legislate in that area,”  McConnell told USA Today when asked if a national abortion ban is “worthy of debate.

”GOP lawmakers have begun to campaign on the exaggerated notion that Democratic lawmakers support abortion until the moment of birth. And Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell raised the possibility of bringing a national abortion ban to a vote if Republicans take power in the midterms, though the Biden White House would almost certainly veto such a bill.

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Another Friday, another great slate of movies to talk about with Jan Wahl. And this week, it's mother's day movies!

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The new WH press secretary will be the first LBTBQ+ and black woman to take the position, and John talks about what that means. Also, how do we feel about Bitcoin? Is it profitable or a Ponzi scheme? 

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On the eve on the 6th, justices of the SCOUTS are in danger. After their reported decision leaked, protests around the capitol have been heated. John will dive into that and much more on this hour of the program

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From Susan:

 I’ve been a vocal critic of Boudin’s since before he took office. On the campaign trail in 2019, he bragged that he was “the only person on the stage who had never prosecuted a case.” When you’re vying to become San Francisco’s “top cop,” that’s nothing to brag about. But even more disturbing was Boudin’s defense of those pedaling deadly opioids like fentanyl to the city’s most vulnerable communities, which he considers a “quality of life” issue rather than a crime.

Besides Boudin’s allegiance to victimizers over victims, there is the simple fact that he is unqualified for the job. Over 30 prosecutors have quit or left the office in the last two years — that’s nearly half the legal staff. Two of the attorneys who quit, Brooke Jenkins and Don Du Bain, have joined the recall effort, describing Boudin’s policies as “dangerous.”

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