Russia

An increasingly furious President Trump has taken to twitter this afternoon to express his outrage, in a way only the President can, over the thinly-veiled double standard within the U.S. intelligence community and mainstream media over how they basically ignored the Hillary Clinton email scandal while endlessly pursuing his administration without being able to present a single shred of tangible evidence that any wrong doing ever occurred.

"Why is that Hillary Clintons family and Dems dealings with Russia are not looked at, but my non-dealings are?"

Less than a day after the Senate overwhelmingly voted to impose new sanctions against the Kremlin, on Thursday Germany and Austria - two of Russia's biggest energy clients in Europe - slammed the latest U.S. sanctions against Moscow, saying they could affect European businesses involved in piping in Russian natural gas.

Authored by George Friedman and Jacob Shapiro via MauldinEconomics.com,

There’s no end in sight to slumping oil prices - good news for consumers but a dire development for major oil producers like Saudi Arabia and Russia. And now, rising US oil production and exports are contributing to the slump.

Vladimir Putin trolled the US on Thursday, when speaking in a live call-in show with the Russian nation, the Russian president likened Comey to Edward Snowden, who was granted asylum in Russia in 2013, and scoffed at James Comey's disclosure of his conversations with U.S. President Donald Trump, saying the move has made Comey eligible for political asylum in Russia.

The U.S. Senate on Wednesday approved new sanctions to punish Russia for "meddling" in the 2016 election.

The bipartisan legislation, which passed with an overwhelming 97-2 vote, slaps new sanctions on Russia and restricts President Trump from easing them in the future without first receiving congressional approval. The only two senators to vote against the measure were Sens. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Rand Paul (R-KY), while Chris Van Hollen (D-Maryland) abstained.