Deal to Avert US Default, Raise Debt Limit Advances in Senate

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The U.S. Senate took a step toward raising the federal government’s $28.9 trillion debt limit on Thursday when it voted to limit debate on the first of two necessary measures, as the Treasury Department urged action by next week.  Fourteen Republican senators joined the Senate’s 48 Democrats and two independents in voting to advance the first of two bills needed to increase the Treasury Department’s borrowing authority under a deal crafted by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Republican Leader Mitch McConnell.  The Senate voted 64-36 to clear the way for passage of the bill setting up the fast-track procedure. more

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NY Attorney General Letitia James Ends Run for Governor

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New York Attorney General Letitia James suspended her campaign for governor on Thursday, saying she will run for reelection to her current position to “finish the job” amid numerous ongoing investigations. James, a Democrat, had announced in late October that she was running for governor, two months after a sexual harassment investigation she oversaw led former Gov. Andrew Cuomo to resign. She had been expected to be a strong challenger against Gov. Kathy Hochul for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in an increasingly crowded field. “I have come to the conclusion that I must continue my work as attorney general,” James, a Democrat,more

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Biden Takes Infrastructure Tour to Missouri as White House Retools Message

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U.S. President Joe Biden visited a bus depot Wednesday to spotlight the $1 trillion infrastructure bill’s investments in public transit as the administration sought to boost the popularity of his agenda with a new communication strategy. Biden toured the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority, which will be among the beneficiaries of the spending bill’s $89 billion for public transit over five years, including $5.6 billion to buy low- and no-emission transit vehicles like electric buses. “It’s gonna be infrastructure decade, now man. No more talking. Action,” Biden said. Kansas City, which has two electric buses, hopes to build a fullymore

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US Senate Rejects Biden’s Vaccine Mandate for Businesses

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The Senate narrowly approved a resolution Wednesday to nullify the Biden administration’s requirement that businesses with 100 or more workers have their employees be vaccinated against the coronavirus or submit to weekly testing. The vote was 52-48. The measure now goes to the Democratic-led House, which is unlikely to take up the measure, which means the mandate would stand, though courts have put it on hold for now. Still, the vote gave senators a chance to voice opposition to a policy that they say has sparked fears back home from businesses and from unvaccinated constituents who worry about losing theirmore

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California Plans to Be Abortion Sanctuary if Roe Overturned 

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With more than two dozen states poised to ban abortion if the U.S. Supreme Court gives them the OK next year, California clinics and their allies in the state legislature on Wednesday revealed a plan to make the state a safe place for those seeking reproductive care, including possibly paying for travel, lodging and procedures for people from other states.  The California Future of Abortion Council, made up of more than 40 abortion providers and advocacy groups, released a list of 45 recommendations for the state to consider if the high court overturns Roe v. Wade, the 48-year-old decision that forbidsmore

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January 6 Panel to Move Forward With Contempt Against Meadows

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The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection has “no choice” but to move forward with contempt charges against former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows now that he is no longer complying with a subpoena, the panel’s chairman said Wednesday. In a letter to Meadows’ attorney, Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said that Meadows has already provided documents to the committee, including personal emails and texts about former President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat. Yet Meadows did not show up Wednesday for a scheduled deposition after his lawyer, George Terwilliger, told the panelmore

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US House Approves Massive $768 Billion Defense Spending Bill

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Lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives approved legislation Tuesday night that would provide $768 billion for the nation’s military for the 2022 fiscal year.  The bill’s passage by a vote of 363-70 came after weeks of unusually contentious debate over the annual defense spending budget due to a number of issues. The final version, which was crafted in closed-door sessions between leaders from both the House and the U.S. Senate, includes the creation of an independent commission to investigate the United States’ 20-year war in Afghanistan, $300 million in aid to the Ukrainian armed forces, and a statement of support for the defensemore

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US House Passes Bill to Speed Passage of Debt Limit Increase

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The U.S. House of Representatives late on Tuesday approved a measure allowing Congress to fast-track legislation raising the federal government’s debt limit and stave off a potential unprecedented default.  The Senate is expected to take up the measure, which prevents the use of stalling tactics, on Thursday.  That would speed the way for Congress to consider separate legislation to actually increase the current $28.9 trillion limit on federal borrowing authority to a still-to-be-determined level.  The House voted 222-212 in favor of the measure designed to speed approval of a debt limit increase in the often-plodding Senate. Only one Republican backed it.  “Increasing the debt ceilingmore

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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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