US Defense Bill Includes $300 Million for Ukraine, Support for Taiwan

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U.S. lawmakers included efforts to push back against Russia and China in a massive annual defense bill released on Tuesday, proposing $300 million for Ukraine’s military and a statement of support for the defense of Taiwan.  But they omitted some measures that had strong support in Congress, including a proposal to impose mandatory sanctions over the Russian Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline and a plan to subject women to the military draft for the first time.  The compromise version of the fiscal 2022 National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, authorizes $770 billion in military spending, $25 billion more than requestedmore

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New York City Poised to Give Voting Rights to Noncitizens

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New York City, long a beacon for immigrants, is on the cusp of becoming the largest place in the country to give noncitizens the right to vote in local elections.  Legally documented, voting-age noncitizens comprise nearly one in nine of the city’s 7 million voting-age inhabitants. Under a bill nearing approval, some 800,000 noncitizens would be allowed to cast ballots in elections to pick the mayor, City Council members and other municipal officeholders.  Noncitizens still wouldn’t be able to vote for president or members of Congress in federal races, or in the state elections that pick the governor, judges andmore

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Congress Reaches Deal to Avoid Defaulting on US Debt

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U.S. senators struck a deal Tuesday to create a one-time law allowing Democrats to lift the nation’s borrowing authority and avert a credit default without requiring votes from the opposition Republicans.  The House of Representatives will vote on the fix as early as Tuesday evening and it is expected to be approved by Congress in the coming days, allowing lawmakers to avert the crisis with a simple 51-vote majority in the upper chamber.  The Bipartisan Policy Center said last week it expected the United States would no longer be able to meet its debt repayment obligations between December 21 andmore

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Attorney Says Meadows Won’t Cooperate with Jan. 6 Panel

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In an abrupt reversal, an attorney for former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows said his client will not cooperate with a House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, citing a breakdown in negotiations with the panel.   Attorney George Terwilliger said in a letter Tuesday that a deposition would be “untenable” because the Jan. 6 panel “has no intention of respecting boundaries” concerning questions that former President Donald Trump has claimed are off-limits because of executive privilege. Terwilliger also said that he learned over the weekend that the committee had issued a subpoena to a third-party communicationsmore

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US Sues Texas Over Legislative Redistricting

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The U.S. Justice Department sued the southwestern state of Texas on Monday, alleging that Republican state lawmakers discriminated against Latinos and other minorities by redrawing new congressional and state legislative districts to increase the voting power of white Texans.  Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the lawsuit, the Justice Department’s first major legal action since states throughout the country started reshaping their voting districts after the conclusion of the 2020 census.  Texas, the second-biggest U.S. state, with nearly 30 million people, grew dramatically since the last census in 2010, adding nearly 4 million residents. As a result, the state gained twomore

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Body of Late Senator Bob Dole to Lie in State at Capitol

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Senator Bob Dole’s body will lie in state in the U.S. Capitol on Thursday as congressional leaders honor the former Republican presidential candidate and World War II veteran who served in Congress for 36 years.  Dole died Sunday at the age of 98. He was a leader known for his caustic wit, which he often turned on himself but didn’t hesitate to turn on others, too. He shaped tax and foreign policy and worked vigorously to help the disabled, enshrining protections against discrimination in employment, education and public services in the Americans with Disabilities Act.  The U.S. Capitol has beenmore

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US Senate Plans Vote on Safety Net Legislation Before Christmas

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Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer laid out a tight timetable Monday for his Democratic colleagues to vote on and approve a roughly $2 trillion package to revamp U.S. health care, education, climate, immigration and tax laws before Christmas. The House of Representatives has already narrowly approved a version of the measure, but Senate Democrats are planning to make some changes. If they reach agreement, Democrats then will need all 50 of their votes in the 100-member chamber, plus the tiebreaking vote of Vice President Kamala Harris, to pass the legislation because the 50-member Republican caucus uniformly opposes it. If themore

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Trump-Backed Perdue Challenges Kemp in Georgia Republican Primary

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Former U.S. Sen. David Perdue will challenge Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp for governor, he announced Monday, setting up a bitter 2022 Republican primary fight while Democrat Stacey Abrams is likely to await the winner. Perdue had been flirting with the bid for months, encouraged publicly by former President Donald Trump. The 71-year-old former senator said he was running to stop Abrams from becoming governor and claimed Kemp would lose to her in November because some hard-core Trump Republicans oppose Kemp. “To fight back, we simply have to be united,” Perdue said. “Look, I like Brian. This isn’t personal. It’s simple:more

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Reactions to Bob Dole’s Death From US Dignitaries, Veterans

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U.S. dignitaries and military veterans are mourning former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, a World War II veteran and former Republican presidential candidate who served in Congress for 36 years. Dole, who had stage 4 lung cancer, died Sunday at age 98, according to his wife, Elizabeth Dole. ___ “Bob was an American statesman like few in our history. A war hero and among the greatest of the Greatest Generation. And to me, he was also a friend whom I could look to for trusted guidance, or a humorous line at just the right moment to settle frayed nerves. Imore

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Bob Dole, Longtime US Republican Figure, Dies at 98

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Bob Dole, a severely wounded U.S. soldier left for dead on a World War II battlefield and who later became a fixture for decades on the American political scene, died Sunday at the age of 98. Dole was the plain-spoken son of the Midwestern prairie state of Kansas, which he represented in the U.S. Senate for 27 years, rising to be the chamber’s Republican majority leader. Dole was the party’s nominee for vice president in 1976 and two decades later its presidential candidate in a losing effort as Democrat Bill Clinton won re-election. Dole’s death was announced by the Elizabethmore

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What is the US National Archives?

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When John Carlin started his job at the head of the U.S. National Archives back in June of 1995, he was shocked to learn that government emails were not being preserved.  “They, at that time, did not consider email as a record, and I said, ‘Folks, I may not be an archivist, but those are records,’” says Carlin, who served as archivist for a decade. “By September I was able to go through the process of getting that changed. More and more records now are coming in the archives in the electronic form.”  The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is themore

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White House Bedecked for Christmas

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“Gifts from the heart” is the theme of Jill Biden’s first Christmas as first lady, and she has filled the historic home with tributes to those who have inspired her over the past year: front-line workers who soldiered through the pandemic, service members who gave their lives, and members of her family and those of previous presidents. This year’s official Christmas tree is a 5.5-meter-tall Fraser fir covered with white doves and ribbons bearing the names of U.S. states and territories. “For all of our differences, we are united by what really matters, like points on a star,” she saidmore

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House Votes to Avert Shutdown, but Quick Senate OK in Doubt

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The House passed a bill Thursday that funds the government through February 18 and avoids a short-term shutdown after midnight Friday, but quick Senate approval was in doubt because of a fight over President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 vaccine mandates. An agreement among congressional leaders announced earlier in the day would keep the government running for 11 more weeks, generally at current spending levels while adding $7 billion to aid Afghanistan evacuees.  The Democratic-led House passed the measure by a 221-212 vote. The Republican leadership urged members to vote no; the lone GOP vote for the bill came from Illinois Rep.more

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Abrams to Run Again for Georgia Governorship

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Stacey Abrams, the Georgia Democrat and leading voting rights activist, said Wednesday that she would launch another campaign to become the nation’s first Black female governor. If she receives her party’s nomination, Abrams could again face off against Republican Brian Kemp, the current governor. Their 2018 contest was one of the most narrowly decided races for governor that year and was dominated by allegations of voter suppression, which Kemp denied.  Yet Abrams’ strong showing convinced national Democrats that Georgia should no longer be written off as a GOP stronghold. Her performance and subsequent organization persuaded Joe Biden to invest heavilymore

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US Government Shutdown Looms as Lawmakers Squabble 

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The threat of a U.S. federal government shutdown loomed larger Wednesday as lawmakers failed to reach a budget agreement with two days to go before the funding runs out. Congress has until Friday night to come up with a new budget in order to avoid a sudden stoppage of most so-called non-essential federal government operations, putting hundreds of thousands of workers on furlough without pay. Various administrative offices, national parks, museums and dozens of other services would see their congressional authorization to spend money stop at the end of Friday. During the winter 2018-2019 shutdown, which was the longest inmore

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January 6 Panel Votes to Hold Former DOJ Official in Contempt

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The House panel investigating the January 6 U.S. Capitol insurrection voted Wednesday to pursue contempt charges against Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department official who refused to answer the committee’s questions, even as the committee has agreed to let him come back for another try. The committee voted 9-0 to pursue criminal charges against Clark, who aligned with Donald Trump as the then-president tried to overturn his election defeat. The chairman of the panel, Mississippi Representative Bennie Thompson, said the committee had received a last-minute notification from Clark’s lawyer that he wanted to instead invoke his Fifth Amendment right againstmore

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Supreme Court Appears Poised to Roll Back Abortion Rights in US 

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The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday heard oral arguments in what will likely become a landmark abortion rights case. The court’s conservative justices, who have a 6-3 majority, gave hints that they are considering weakening or even overturning a 48-year-old decision that held that women have a constitutional right to abort a pregnancy. In the case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the court is being asked to decide whether a Mississippi state law that bans most abortions after the 15th week of pregnancy is constitutional. Two lower federal courts held it is not. The law is in conflict withmore

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Appeals Court Weighs Trump Arguments to Withhold Records

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A panel of judges on Tuesday questioned whether they had the authority to grant former President Donald Trump’s demands and stop the White House from allowing the release of documents related to the January 6 insurrection led by Trump’s supporters. But the judges also noted that there may be times when a former president would be justified in trying to stop the incumbent from disclosing records. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit heard arguments from lawyers for Trump and the House committee seeking the records as part of its investigation into the Capitol riot. Trump’smore

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Ex-Trump Chief-of-Staff Meadows Cooperating with Jan. 6 Panel, for Now 

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The House of Representatives committee investigating the deadly Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol riot said on Tuesday that Mark Meadows, who served as former President Donald Trump’s chief-of-staff, has provided it with records and agreed to appear soon for a deposition.  “Mr. Meadows has been engaging with the Select Committee through his attorney. He has produced records to the committee and will soon appear for an initial deposition,” Democratic Representative Bennie Thompson, chairman of the House select committee, said in a statement.  Thompson did not rule out future action against Meadows. Noting that the panel expects all witnesses to provide allmore

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Why Trump Is Suing the ‘Nation’s Filing Cabinet’

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Former President Donald Trump thrust the National Archives and Records Administration into the national spotlight after suing to keep the agency from releasing Trump White House documents to the congressional committee investigating the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.  A court is expected to hear the latest arguments in the case on November 30.  Why are the call logs, drafts, speeches, handwritten notes and other documents from Trump’s term in office in the possession of the National Archives?  “Presidential records are the property of the United States government and are administered by the National Archives,” says Meghan Ryan Guthorn, acting deputy chief operating officer of the agency. “So, all presidential papers, materials and records in themore

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January 6 Panel Sets Contempt Vote for Former DOJ Official

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A House committee investigating the January 6 Capitol insurrection will vote Wednesday to hold a former Justice Department official in contempt, demanding criminal charges against a defiant witness for a second time as lawmakers seek answers about the violent attack. The committee on Monday scheduled a vote to pursue contempt charges against Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department lawyer who aligned with former President Donald Trump as he tried to overturn his election defeat. If approved by the panel, the recommendation of criminal contempt charges would then go to the full House for a vote and then to the Justicemore

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Deadlines Loom for US Congress to Act on Budget, Defense Spending

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U.S. lawmakers have a busy month ahead as they face deadlines for major budget and defense actions, and what Democrats are hoping will be the completion of a $2 trillion collection of health care, climate and family services programs. The most pressing issue for Congress is funding the federal government. A previous stopgap agreement in late September allowed government agencies to continue operating through December 3, but that means by Friday there needs to be a new deal in order to avoid a government shutdown. Shortly after, Congress will need to address the debt limit by either raising the currentmore

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Carrie Meek, Pioneering Black Former Congresswoman, Dies at 95

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Carrie Meek, the grandchild of a slave and a sharecropper’s daughter who became one of the first Black Floridians elected to Congress since Reconstruction, died Sunday. She was 95. Meek died at her home in Miami after a long illness, her family said in a statement. The family did not specify a cause of death. Meek started her congressional career at an age when many people begin retirement. She was 66 when she easily won the 1992 Democratic congressional primary in her Miami-Dade County district. No Republican opposed her in the general election.  Alcee Hastings and Corrine Brown joined Meekmore

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