“Speaker Mike Johnson may have squeezed out a pair of legislative wins yesterday, but his headaches are far from over as the legislative deals made now face snarls in the Senate,” Politico reports.

“After a chaotic, all-day vote series on the House floor, lawmakers approved a budget framework setting up a path to fund immigration enforcement at the Department of Homeland Security, which has been shut down for more than two months. They also passed a three-year extension of government spy powers known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.”

“They’re clearly not talking to their members. They have no clue on strategy or how to move anything across the finish line, and it’s just frustrating as hell.”

— Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA), quoted by Punchbowl News, on the House Republican leadership.

“Vice President Vance will lead a U.S. delegation for another round of talks with Iran in Islamabad before the ceasefire is scheduled to end on Tuesday,” Axios reports.

Politico: “In the 2018 midterms, only five super PACs raised more than $50 million over the entire cycle, according to data from OpenSecrets, which tracks money in politics, with four of the five being each party’s traditional caucus-aligned groups.”

“Now, at least seven super PACs have already exceeded that threshold, according to a Politico tally, with the midterm election cycle only starting to heat up.”

New York Times: “What unfolded over the next two hours was an at-times combative session marked by frequent interruptions; competing bursts of applause and jeers; and repeated attempts by Mr. Lawler to justify or distance himself from President Trump’s handling of the war in Iran.”

“It captured how the conflict has created a worst-case political scenario for members of his party in the run-up to November’s midterm elections, in which the party is fighting to maintain its minuscule majority.”

“Having largely sat on the sidelines as Mr. Trump began the war without congressional authorization, then abruptly announced a cease-fire and now is imposing a blockade — sending gas prices soaring amid persistent economic anxiety — Republican members of Congress like Mr. Lawler are facing mounting questions from voters, who do not appear satisfied by the answers they are getting.”

Washington Post: “The sharply conservative Supreme Court that President Donald Trump’s three appointees remade is the first since at least the 1950s to reject civil rights claims in a majority of cases involving women and minorities, according to a detailed analysis conducted for The Washington Post.”

“The shift brings to an end a streak of successive courts expanding such protections that began with the dawn of the civil rights era.”

Sally Jenkins: “Until this past week, a certain ho-humness had set in about human space flight. The International Space Station has been manned for more than 25 years; routine trips carry relatively anonymous men and women to a giant fan doing its repetitive circles in low-Earth orbit. NASA’s Artemis II scanning expedition to the lunar far side, using repurposed space-shuttle engines, at first seemed hardly capable of breaking an audience’s collective yawn.”

“Then it took off: four people arrowing atop what amounts to a bomb bound for the remotest point that man has visited in the cold, splintering sky. As they soared and circuited and sent back stirring images from their 330-cubic-foot canister, awe made its reappearance among the multitudes of casual sky watchers. So did respect for astronauts’ courage and their ancient-explorer’s hearts.”

New York Times: “For the first time since 1972, NASA is sending astronauts to the moon. (But not to land there.)”

“The mission, Artemis II, is scheduled to launch on Wednesday at 6:24 p.m. Eastern time. A giant rocket will lift off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and the crew of four astronauts — three Americans and one Canadian — will embark on a 10-day journey around the moon and back to Earth.”

Wall Street Journal: “It was supposed to be a banner year for Wall Street. Now investors are just hoping to avoid a global recession triggered by a historic run-up in energy prices.”

“U.S. stocks are set to deliver their worst quarter in nearly four years. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite lurched into correction territory on March 26, meaning it had fallen 10% below its recent high. A day later, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (a benchmark for the real economy) joined it.”

Energy Common Sense: “Ethylene, methanol, and petrochemical feedstocks, the inputs that underpin manufacturing, agriculture, and industrial systems, are tightening. More than half of global refining capacity has been impacted, along with significant shares of ethylene and methanol production, and those constraints are already showing up in prices, particularly across Asia, where the effects are most acute.”

“Energy disruption does not stay in energy; it moves through everything energy touches.”

Politico: “The White House offered additional immigration enforcement concessions to Democrats Friday evening as border czar Tom Homan met a second time with a bipartisan group of senators seeking to end the Homeland Security shutdown.”

“Leaving the private meeting, Republican senators said they hope Democrats respond over the weekend to the Trump administration’s bolstered proposal of immigration enforcement changes meant to address Democratic demands for funding DHS.”

CNN: “As millions of Americans braced for a series of brutal storms this winter, the senior official in charge of the federal government’s disaster response had been on the job only a few weeks — and had previously claimed on podcasts that he once teleported to a Waffle House.”

“Gregg Phillips, appointed in December to lead FEMA’s Office of Response and Recovery, rose to prominence not through his time as a federal emergency management professional but as a far-right activist who spread conspiracy theories about voter fraud and frequently used violent rhetoric toward political opponents.”

“Most notably, Phillips on multiple podcasts made bizarre claims to have been involuntarily teleported, including once to a Georgia Waffle House 50 miles away.”

Said Phillips: “Teleporting is no fun. It was real.”

Wall Street Journal: “President Trump is seeking to lower the profile of his mass deportation effort, and has directed his top advisers to adopt a new approach on one of his central campaign promises.”

“In conversations with top advisers and his wife Melania, Trump has become convinced that some of his administration’s deportation policies have gone too far, and voters don’t like the term ‘mass deportation.’ The president has told them he wants to see more attention on arresting ‘bad guys’ and less chaos in American cities, according to people familiar with the matter.”

“Whether I free it, take it, I think I could do anything I want with it, if you want to know the truth. They are a very weakened nation right now.”

— President Trump, quoted by the Financial Times, on Cuba.

Derek Thompson: “In its war against Iran, the White House has already failed: to offer evidence that the country posed a direct threat to Americans; to provide a consistent justification for the attack; or to explain under what terms the conflict might end.”

“Now the evidence is piling up that this rather unjustified and thoroughly unexplained war could very likely lead to an energy crisis, just as the US economy is showing new signs of weakness…”

“Surely, one thing the US economy doesn’t need right now is a war of choice shutting down a major trade route, blowing up oil markets, and driving up the cost of energy for Americans, just as the labor market seizes up.”