Liqueurs are known for their densely-sweet taste with an alcoholic kick. Made from a variety of ingredients, liqueurs add concentrated hits of flavor to drinks.
Mashed – Fast Food, Celebrity Chefs, Grocery, Reviews
Month: May 2026
Ella Langley’s on a winning streak after snagging seven ACM Awards, but she’s not slowing down anytime soon. What’s next for this country sensation? Continue reading…The Boot – Country Music News, Music Videos and Songs
Ella Langley’s on a winning streak after snagging seven ACM Awards, but she’s not slowing down anytime soon. What’s next for this country sensation? Continue reading…Country Music News – Taste of Country
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Where Does Riley Green Keep His Awards?
Green keeps his ACM and CMA trophies next to another, very different, prized possession. Continue reading…Country Music News – Taste of Country
Ever wondered what your preferred brand of whiskey reveals about your personality? We asked whiskey experts and bartenders what they really think.
Mashed – Fast Food, Celebrity Chefs, Grocery, Reviews
Like a citrusy shandy, Keystone Light’s fruity spinoff beer was built for summer, but unfortunately, the first iteration didn’t last very long.
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Dairy products rule supreme in “America’s Dairyland,” but how far is too far to dissuade Wisconsin consumers from substituting margarine for butter?
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President Donald Trump has finally delivered on his promise a decade ago: He has made Republicans “so sick and tired of winning.”
The winning — a series of retributive primary challenges this month that settled scores up to five years old — has led to a fresh round of chest-thumping from MAGA allies boasting about their victories in Indiana, Louisiana and Kentucky.
Trump ended his vendetta spring Tuesday by dropping a two-stage MAGA bomb, backing Attorney General Ken Paxton for Senate in Texas on the same day he ushered Rep. Thomas Massie to the exits in Kentucky.
But the revenge tour is increasingly imperiling Trump’s midterm agenda on the Hill.
That’s because for every apostate ousted by Trump this month, there’s a sign of not only his waning political capital on the Hill, but that his backward-focused endeavors have damaged his own legislative ambitions, leaving him a victim of his own primary success.
“Those so-called victories over the last couple weeks are just a mirage. They are self-owns,” said one senior Senate Republican operative, granted anonymity to speak candidly about frustration with the White House. “We’re not actually beating Democrats, and we’re not actually advancing legislation. Instead, gas is up 45% due to our actions and the President’s decision to go to war with Iran. He’s focused on the ballroom. He’s announced a $1.8 billion restitution fund with zero details or congressional authority to do so. It just is crazy.”
In just one day, a conquered — and, consequently, unbridled — Sen. Bill Cassidy joined Democrats to become the 50th yes vote on a war powers resolution, opposed Trump’s ballroom funding in reconciliation and called Trump’s freshly picked Paxton a “felon.” And that was just day three of Cassidy unchained.
Cassidy is not alone. Trump’s ballroom funding is stalled, the SAVE America Act is mired in the Senate and Majority Leader John Thune is pushing back on his desire to fire the parliamentarian. That’s not to mention the pushback even from the likes of the friendlier senator from Louisiana, John Kennedy, who expressed doubt about the Justice Department’s $1.8 billion Anti-Weaponization Fund.
“There are still many, many months to go before the election, and this president is going to have to continue to deal and work with, and partner with, or battle with this group of lawmakers,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska told reporters Tuesday. “Even though Bill Cassidy lost his primary, he is still a voting member of the Senate until January. … So the president may have just opened some opportunities for people.”
Now Cornyn could join their ranks. After Trump endorsed Paxton, the senior Texas senator faces increasingly slim chances of surviving next week’s runoff election. Should he lose, Cornyn will be liberated to vote his conscience — unmoved by threats of further political vengeance from Trump — for the final months of his term.
“What is the return on investment for Trump?” said Greg Lamantia, a Texas businessman who supports Cornyn, about Trump’s Paxton endorsement. “I don’t understand why you take this risk, versus sitting back and doing nothing. Now you’ve created an enemy for six months, when you have a razor-thin majority.”
“Republicans are united behind President Trump because we share one vision: securing the border, strengthening the economy, restoring common sense, and putting America First,” said RNC spokesperson Kiersten Pels. “While the media tries to manufacture division, Republicans remain focused on delivering results for the American people and building momentum heading into 2026.”
Come November, if Paxton loses to state Rep. James Talarico, this week and Trump feeling himself after victories in Indiana and Louisiana could be remembered as the week where he overreached.
“Some of the issues I hear about when I’m at home in the grocery store, in the hardware store, are not the same issues we’re talking about in Washington, so I think it’s really important that we prioritize what people are talking about,” said Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo).
That daylight between Trump’s priorities and the top issues for voters is widening. The economy and cost of living remain voters’ top priorities, even as patience for the Iran war wavers. And though Trump has flexed his electoral muscle in primary after primary, his endorsement may hurt more than it helps in battleground races this November, according to a recent analysis from The POLITICO Poll.
“It seems to me his agenda is mostly vengeance,” said former Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), who spent 15 months as a vocal Trump critic after deciding not to run for reelection during Trump’s first term. “It’s not just those that he’s going after he’s gonna have to deal with — Massie and Cornyn and Cassidy — it’s anybody who’s gotten past the filing deadline, or past their primary, and realizing that supporting a lot of what he wants is not good for the general election.”
At the end of a month that put on full display Trump’s dominance over his own party, his season of settling scores may not have advanced the ball toward November.
That dynamic could pose a problem for Republicans, Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley told POLITICO. “Congress doesn’t do much,” he said.
“In November, voters are going to say to Congress, ‘What have you done for me?’ And it’s not going to be enough to say that, ‘Well, you know, we liked some stuff President Trump did, but we didn’t do any of it,’” Hawley said. “I mean, we better do some stuff.”
What does it mean that Trump has vanquished his foes at the expense of his own agenda?
“It means President Trump and his team have completely lost sight of how DC operates and why the American people elected him in the first place,” said the senior Senate Republican operative.
Last year, chief of staff Susie Wiles told Vanity Fair that she had a “loose agreement that the score settling will end before the first 90 days are over.” That was 395 days ago.
Ali Bianco contributed to this report.
Politics
Every Ariana Grande album cover features a photo of the singer, each one capturing the intention behind the release. On Dangerous Woman, she projects youthful playfulness with her signature ponytail, though her black-latex bunny mask hints at something more provocative beneath the bubble-gum surface. It was clear that Grande’s third studio album would showcase the singer’s more sensual side while exploiting her knack for interpreting any style or sound with transformative results.
Released on May 20, 2016, Dangerous Woman picked up from where My Everything had left off, delivering more floor-filling dance hits and moving further away from her ballad-heavy beginnings.
Over the hopping backing track of “You Don’t Know Me,” Grande sings, “The girl you see in photographs is only a part of the one I am.” Through its title alone, Dangerous Woman vowed to showcase a new maturity in Grande’s artistry. Sonically, the album furthered that mission, enhancing the retro R&B elements of her first two albums, Yours Truly and My Everything, while exploring more electro-pop soundscapes that would shape her future career.
Entering dangerous new territory
The Dangerous Woman era started with the promotional single “Focus,” which was in October 2015. While “Focus” featured the same upbeat, horn-driven energy of Grande’s 2014 smash hit “Problem,” it also teed up the album’s first official single, as Grande coquettishly instructed listeners to “focus on me.”
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Emerging five months later, the album’s title track found Grande venturing into moodier territory than the frothy pop of “Focus.” Sparked by an electric guitar, the singer climatically calls out, “Somethin’ ’bout you makes me feel like a dangerous woman!” throughout the track. We knew Grande could deliver arena-sized singalongs, and this slow jam channeled all the great power ballads of the 80s with a hook that promised, “All girls wanna be like that/Bad girls underneath, like that.”
Listen to Dangerous Woman now.
On the other side of the spectrum, “Be Alright” offered a stark contrast to the slow tempo and sensuality of “Dangerous Woman.” Dipping into a deep house sound, Grande’s celebratory single was adopted as an anthem for the LGBTQ community.
Embracing collaborators
A month later, she’d embark on the new course that trap-R&B had laid out in mainstream music, dropping the hypnotic “Let Me Love You,” featuring Lil Wayne. This paved the way for the dance-pop perfection of “Into You,” which signaled that Grande was ready to storm the summer of 2016.
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With a belting declaration of love that revolved around thudding EDM basslines, “Into You” is Grande and hitmaker Max Martin at their best. It contained all the hallmarks of a classic earworm, with Grande’s breathy falsetto floating over the thick beats. Grande finished off the album’s advance singles run with the retro-pop, uptown funk of “Greedy,” a song given away with digital pre-orders and which featured a choir of her exuberant vocals over a slick bassline.
Dangerous Woman opens with the swinging doo-wop ballad “Moonlight,” closely aligning with the sound Grande experimented with on Yours Truly. On the deep cut “Leave Me Lonely,” she brought Macy Gray back into the public eye, the latter expertly delivering some Nina Simone theatrics that fit in with the dramatic nature of the song.
A mature transition
Keeping in line with the album’s premise, Grande debuts her “adult” anthem, “Side To Side,” with help from hip-hop’s raunchiest queen, Nicki Minaj. Like many former child stars turned pop divas before her, Grande was consciously leaning into her “grown-up” phase, while at the same time side-stepping all the usual clichés that came with the territory.
One of the best pop and hip-hop collaborations of the decade, “Side To Side” capitalized on the dancehall trend of the time, with reggae riddims and plenty of sexual innuendo packaged in the campy imagery of the SoulCycle fitness craze. Just as Olivia Newton-John made her “body talk” in the iconic “Let’s Get Physical” music video, Grande and Minaj’s cardio-driven duet rode its way to the top of the charts, hitting No.4 on the Billboard Hot 100.
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Grande followed “Side To Side” with another collaborative effort on the Future-assisted “Everyday.” As trap-influenced pop started to gain more traction in the mainstream, “Everyday” helped fuel its dominance, paving the way for the trap leanings on her subsequent albums Sweetener and thank u, next.
Evolving the pop formula
Much of Dangerous Woman sees Grande playing with tempos, genres, and time shifts. “I Don’t Care” finds her embracing orchestral R&B to forget a lost love, “Sometimes” ventures into more acoustic pop (a rarity for Grande), and “Bad Decision,” “Touch It,” “Knew Better/Forever Boy” and “Thinking Bout You” all rely on Grande’s powerful pipes and EDM synth-pop production.
With her third album, Ariana Grande found success in evolving the pop formula she’d already established while venturing into uncharted, edgier territory. The gamble paid off, with Dangerous Woman debuting at No.2 on the Billboard 200 charts and notching her first No.1 album in the UK. It was clear that the ascending pop queen was just getting started.
Dangerous Woman can be bought here.
Discover more about the world’s greatest R&B artists | uDiscover Music
The MAGA takeover of the Georgia GOP is nearly complete.
The old-guard of the Republican Party in Georgia has fallen after withstanding MAGA’s furor since 2020, replaced by a new breed of candidates — up and down the ballot — closely aligned with President Donald Trump.
On Tuesday, the Trump allies marched on: Trump-backed Lt. Gov. Burt Jones clinched a spot in the gubernatorial runoff on Tuesday alongside billionaire Rick Jackson, who told supporters he’d govern like the president “with a southern tone.” In the GOP Senate primary, Rep. Mike Collins, a staunch MAGA ally, advanced to a runoff. And House candidates Jim Kingston, Houston Gaines and Clay Fuller won their races by wide margins, boosted by the president’s endorsement.
Meanwhile, longtime Trump antagonists — especially those who denied the 2020 election was “stolen” — lost their primary battles: Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, Attorney General Chris Carr and Gabriel Sterling, a former top Raffensperger aide.
The results offered the clearest sign yet that Georgia Republican voters increasingly want their political future tied to Trump-style politics and messaging — a shift in one of the nation’s premier battlegrounds that could shape elections in 2026 and beyond.
“It’s key to success in a Republican primary in Georgia today to either have the president’s endorsement or be able to make the case to voters that you’re certainly a Trump-aligned candidate,” said Georgia Republican Party chair Josh McKoon, a loyal Trump ally.
Candidates like Raffensperger may now be “relics of the past,” said Chip Lake, a longtime Republican strategist who helped Jones’ campaign. “That doesn’t mean they’re bad human beings, it just means that their style of politics is not consistent today with where the base of the party is.”
But hugging Trump that tightly in the primary has proved lethal for some Republicans in the general election, and Democrats in Georgia hope 2026 will echo the GOP’s 2022 election losses.
The Republican Party in Georgia, like in other states, has been drifting more and more toward a full-throated populist approach during the Trump era. But the old guard led by outgoing Gov. Brian Kemp (R) as well as Raffensperger and Carr managed to hold on through the 2022 midterm primaries against a number of Trump-backed challengers, delaying the hard MAGA takeover that occurred in many other states earlier on. The sharp shift this cycle comes as the GOP pushes for more resources and attention in the key swing state.
Now, some GOP strategists increasingly view aligning with Trump not just as an ideological litmus test, but as a practical necessity — especially as Trump’s political operation sits on roughly $300 million in campaign funds.
“It is good for the state of Georgia to choose these MAGA-aligned candidates in that the president has a huge war chest, and that war chest can be utilized for candidates that he likes,” said one Georgia-based Republican strategist granted anonymity to speak candidly about the state’s dynamics.
Across the state’s marquee Senate and governor’s primaries, the winning GOP candidates all embraced Trump’s brand. The expensive and rancorous primary for the governor’s mansion quickly evolved into a contest over who best carried the MAGA mantle — Jones, who has the president’s explicit support, or Jackson, who tried to convince voters that he, too, was closely aligned with Trump.
Trump has stayed out of the Senate primary so far, but the candidates still raced to align with his movement. Collins, a hardline immigration hawk and loyal Trump ally on Capitol Hill who appeared at a rally with Trump earlier this year, said that he is “unapologetically Pro-God, Pro-Trump, Pro-2nd Amendment, Pro-Strong Military” after advancing to the runoff.
Even former football coach Derek Dooley — Kemp’s handpicked candidate who will face off against Collins in the June runoff — leaned into his status as an outsider (à la Trump) and adopted a “Georgia First” pitch.
“We haven’t made any attempts to alienate Trump whatsoever. Derek supports the agenda. He’s made it clear through the debate and multiple interviews that he supports the president,” said a senior Dooley adviser, who was granted anonymity to speak openly about the race, prior to Election Day.
It’s a notable gamble for a party that was punished during the 2022 midterms for nominating hardline MAGA candidates across the country — including former football star Herschel Walker for Georgia Senate — who later lost in key races. This midterms cycle appears to be trending much harder toward Democrats, given Trump’s low approval ratings, voters’ concerns with the economy and the unpopular war in Iran.
Democrats are more than eager to tie Republicans to the president. Devon Cruz, a spokesperson for the Georgia Democratic Party, said in a statement that the Senate runoff will leave Collins and Dooley “terminally inseparable” from Trump.
Still, Tuesday’s results underscored how Trump’s dominance is increasingly shaping which Republicans can win statewide primaries in key races. And it’s not just in Georgia.
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who has long been a thorn in the president’s side, lost his seat to a Trump-endorsed challenger in a bitter retributive campaign. Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy was ousted by the president’s favored candidate. Trump vanquished a majority of the Indiana Republicans who bucked him on redistricting. And he finally backed Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton for the Senate race after deeming Sen. John Cornyn to be an insufficient ally.
“The party has completely changed in 50 states,” Lake, the Republican strategist, said. “It looks nothing like it did a decade ago, and it looks absolutely nothing like it did 15 years ago.”
“We’re a party that’s a lot different, that’s got a sharper focus, that’s willing to fight more, ” he added.
Raffensperger, who had become the biggest icon of standing up to the president, acknowledged to reporters following his loss that conspiracies about the 2020 election – despite no evidence to support any claims of fraud – helped tank his chances with Republican voters.
But he stopped short of blaming Trump’s grip on the party on his failure to advance in the runoff: “I just think terms are up, and so it’s a changing of the guard and turning over a new leaf,” he told reporters after his election loss. “We’ll have new people with new plans, new hopes, new visions, and we’re going to see where it goes.”
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