Rudy Giuliani Among Trump Allies Subpoenaed By Jan. 6 Panel

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The House committee investigating the Capitol insurrection issued subpoenas Tuesday to Rudy Giuliani and other members of Donald Trump’s post-election legal team who filed multiple lawsuits claiming election fraud that were roundly rejected by the courts but gave rise to the lie that Trump did not really lose the 2020 presidential contest.  The committee is continuing to widen its scope into Trump’s orbit, this time demanding information and testimony from Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, Sidney Powell and Boris Epshteyn. All four publicly defended the president and his baseless voter fraud claims in the months after the election.   “The four individuals we’vemore

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Biden Faces Tepid Approval at Start of Year 2, Pandemic Year 3

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U.S. President Joe Biden began his term under the long shadow of the January 6 Capitol riot, a grinding pandemic and an increasingly divided America. As he now rounds the one-year mark, he faces many of those same challenges – all as he tries to push through a sweeping and expensive legislative agenda. The difficulty of governing through the triple threat of a seemingly never-ending pandemic, increasing consumer prices and political polarization from Congress to city halls across America is neatly reflected in Biden’s approval ratings, which hover around 45%. Since he took office on January 20, his approval ratingsmore

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Big Voting Bill Faces Defeat as 2 Democrats Won’t Stop Filibuster

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Voting legislation that Democrats and civil rights leaders say is vital for protecting democracy appeared headed for defeat as the Senate opened debate Tuesday, a devastating setback enabled by President Joe Biden’s own party as two holdout senators refuse to support rule changes to overcome a Republican filibuster.  The Democratic senators, Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Joe Manchin of West Virginia, faced strong criticism from Black leaders and civil rights organizations for failing to take on what critics call the ” Jim Crow filibuster.” The debate carries echoes of an earlier era when the Senate filibuster was deployed in lengthymore

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Republicans Mull Trump’s Continuing Grip on Their Party 

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Former U.S. President Donald Trump recently addressed 15,000 ardent supporters in Arizona, making his first major public appearance since the one-year anniversary of the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol that sought to keep him in office despite having lost the 2020 presidential election.    In 93 minutes of remarks late Saturday, Trump repeated the false claim that the election had been stolen from him and predicted a Republican victory in the 2024 presidential contest, hinting at what political observers already assume: that he is planning a bid to return to the White House.    Trump is expected tomore

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US Civil Rights Leaders Push for Voting Rights Overhaul

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Descendants of slain U.S. civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. and their supporters marched on Washington Monday to urge Senate Democrats to overcome Republican opposition and obstruction within their own ranks to push through a national overhaul of voting rights. They rallied on the national holiday honoring King on the 93rd anniversary of his birth. The march occurred just days after two centrist Senate Democrats, Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin, said they would oppose attempts to change legislative rules in the politically divided 100-member chamber to allow Democrats to set uniform national election rules over the objections of allmore

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Somber MLK Remembrances Expected as Voting Rights Effort Dies in US Senate

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As the U.S. approaches the federal holiday honoring the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., modern-day civil rights advocates are facing the reality that despite years of increasing public focus on racial injustice, they appear likely to fall short of their goal of improving minorities’ access to the vote. Last week King’s family requested that celebrations of civil rights leader’s legacy be suspended this year, unless Congress passes legislation to expand voting rights in America. Democrats have championed legislation that would give Washington a stronger say in how federal elections are administered in each of the 50 U.S. states. While themore

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Ohio Supreme Court Rejects Second GOP-drawn Election Map

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Ohio’s Republican-drawn congressional map was rejected by the state’s high court Friday, giving hope to national Democrats who had argued it unfairly delivered several potentially competitive seats in this year’s critical midterm elections to Republicans.  In the 4-3 decision, the Ohio Supreme Court returned the map to the Ohio General Assembly, where Republicans hold supermajorities in both chambers, and then to the powerful Ohio Redistricting Commission. The two bodies have a combined 60 days to draw new lines that comply with a 2018 constitutional amendment against gerrymandering.  The commission was in the process of reconstituting so it can redraw GOP-drawnmore

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US House Panel Subpoenas Social Media Firms in January 6 Attack Probe

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The U.S. House committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol subpoenaed Meta, Alphabet, Twitter and Reddit on Thursday, seeking information about how their social media platforms were used to help fuel misinformation in a failed bid to overturn the 2020 presidential election.  “Two key questions for the Select Committee are how the spread of misinformation and violent extremism contributed to the violent attack on our democracy, and what steps – if any – social media companies took to prevent their platforms from being breeding grounds for radicalizing people to violence,” the House Select Committee’s chairman, Representative Bennie Thompson,more

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Biden Pushes for Voting Rights Measures, but Key Senator Blocks Path 

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U.S. President Joe Biden met Thursday with Senate Democrats in a last-ditch plea to overhaul the country’s election laws even as one fellow Democrat pointedly said she would not support changing the Senate’s legislative rules to circumvent uniform Republican opposition to establishing national voting rules.  Biden met with most of the Senate Democratic caucus over lunch to voice his support for two measures that would greatly increase federal oversight over congressional and presidential elections and establish uniform voting rules across the country. The bills would erase more restrictive regulations adopted by Republican-controlled legislatures in at least 19 states.  As hemore

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Democrats Consider Changes to US Senate Filibuster Rule

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U.S. President Joe Biden was a longtime supporter of the Senate supermajority rule known as the filibuster, but with the chamber’s Republican minority blocking parts of his agenda, the former senator said this week he is open to altering the rule in order to try to enact voting rights legislation. The 100-member Senate is currently divided evenly between members who caucus with Biden’s Democratic Party and members of the Republican Party. Democrats can pass bills using the tiebreaker vote Vice President Kamala Harris can cast when necessary. But before a bill can be put to a simple majority vote, theremore

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January 6 Panel Requests Interview With Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy

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The House panel investigating the U.S. Capitol insurrection requested an interview and records from House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy on Wednesday, shifting their investigation to a top ally of former President Donald Trump in Congress.  Representative Bennie Thompson, Democratic chairman of the panel, requested that McCarthy provide information to the nine-member panel regarding the violence that took place last January and his communications with former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows in the days prior to the attack. “We also must learn about how the President’s plans for January 6th came together, and all the other ways he attemptedmore

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White House Urges Continued Mitigation Efforts Amid Omicron Surge

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The White House COVID-19 response team on Wednesday reminded Americans of the continued need to slow the omicron variant’s spread despite its decreased severity and announced new efforts to help keep schools open. As the omicron variant sweeps across the U.S., Dr. Rochelle Walensky emphasized that wearing masks, getting vaccinated and undergoing COVID-19 testing when necessary are the best strategies to help lower cases of the virus. Walensky, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the omicron variant accounted for 98% of new COVID-19 cases in the U.S. Earlier this week, the U.S. set a recordmore

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Amid Partisan Rancor, US Looks to 2022 Midterm Elections

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As of Wednesday, there were 300 days until the next federal election in the U.S., when voters will cast ballots for all 435 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and one-third of the members of the Senate, with enormous consequences for the second half of President Joe Biden’s four-year term in office.    While it may seem to people outside Washington that it’s too soon to begin thinking about an election that far away, there is little question that key figures in Washington are already weighing their every move with an eye on how it might affect voters’ feelingsmore

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Former Senate Leader Harry Reid to Lie in State at Capitol

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Former Sen. Harry Reid will lie in state at the U.S. Capitol as colleagues and friends pay tribute to a hardscrabble Democrat who rose from poverty in a dusty Nevada mining town to the most powerful position in the U.S. Senate.  Reid will be honored Wednesday in the Capitol Rotunda during a ceremony closed to the public under COVID-19 protocols. He died last month at 82 after a four-year battle with pancreatic cancer.  The longest-serving Nevadan in Congress and the Senate majority leader alongside two presidents, Reid helmed the chamber during one of its more consequential legislative sessions — securing themore

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Biden Pushes Voting Rights Legislation Ahead of Vote

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President Joe Biden is pushing legislation to prevent states from imposing laws that limit access to the vote, arguing that voting rights are a bedrock American value and need to be better protected. His Republican opponents want states to support more rigorous voter identification and ballot security measures to prevent voter fraud. VOA’s Anita Powell reports from the White House. Produced: Bakhtiyar Zamanov  …

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January 6 Committee Subpoenas Trump Aide, 2 Republican Strategists 

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The House panel investigating the U.S. Capitol insurrection is demanding records and testimony from a former White House aide they say helped draft former President Donald Trump’s January 6 speech, along with two others it says were in communication with people close to Trump. Mississippi Representative Bennie Thompson, Democratic chairman of the panel, issued subpoenas on Tuesday to Andy Surabian and Arthur Schwartz, strategists who advised Donald Trump Jr., and Ross Worthington, a former White House official who the committee says helped draft the speech Trump gave at the rally directly preceding last year’s attack. “We have reason to believemore

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Biden Supports Changing Senate Rules to Pass Voting Rights Bills

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U.S. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris were in the southern state of Georgia on Tuesday to promote voting rights legislation that would greatly expand federal influence over elections.  The two bills are a top priority for many Democrats but have stalled in the Senate because of Republican opposition.  “Today, we come to Atlanta, the cradle of civil rights, to make clear what must come after that dreadful day when a dagger was literally held at the throat of American democracy,” Biden said, invoking the Jan. 6, 2021, siege of the U.S. Capitol by supporters of former Presidentmore

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Biden to Push for Voting Rights Measures

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U.S. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are headed Tuesday to the southern state of Georgia to promote voting rights legislation that would greatly expand federal purview over elections but has stalled in the Senate.  A White House official said Biden would use an address to advocate for the right to vote in free, fair and secure elections untainted by partisan manipulation, and say that the way to guarantee those rights is by enacting two pieces of voting legislation introduced by Democrats.  “The next few days, when these bills come to a vote, will mark a turning pointmore

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Prospects Dim as US, Russia Prepare to Meet Over Ukraine

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With the fate of Ukraine and potentially broader post-Cold War European stability at stake, the United States and Russia are holding critical strategic talks that could shape the future of not only their relationship but the relationship between the U.S. and its NATO allies. Prospects are bleak. Though the immediacy of the threat of a Russian invasion of Ukraine will top the agenda in a series of high-level meetings that get underway on Monday, there is a litany of festering but largely unrelated disputes, ranging from arms control to cybercrime and diplomatic issues, for Washington and Moscow to overcome ifmore

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Harry Reid Memorial in Vegas Drawing Nation’s Top Democrats

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The life of former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who rose from childhood poverty and deprivation in Nevada to become one of the nation’s most powerful elected officials, will be celebrated by two American presidents and other Democratic leaders on Saturday, a testament to his impact on some of the most consequential legislation of the 21st century. President Joe Biden, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer are scheduled to speak Saturday during an invitation-only memorial for the longtime Senate leader who died Dec. 28 at home in Henderson, Nevada, at age 82 of complications from pancreaticmore

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Silence Marks First Anniversary of January 6 Capitol Riot 

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The one-year anniversary of the first attack on the U.S. Capitol in two centuries passed in silence Thursday as differences between congressional Democrats and Republicans about the deadly riot were on stark display.  Over the past year, the events of January 6, 2021, have furthered the divide between Democrats who see the day as an attempted coup and Republicans who have largely chosen not to discuss what happened beyond addressing security failures at the Capitol.  Former Vice President Dick Cheney made a surprise appearance in the U.S. House chamber, sharing the somber moment with his daughter Representative Liz Cheney. Andmore

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On Anniversary of Capitol Siege, Biden Lays Blame on Trump

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On the first anniversary of the deadly January 6 Capitol riot, U.S. President Joe Biden delivered a forceful speech in defense of American democracy. He laid blame for the insurrection squarely on former President Donald Trump and Republicans who continue to spread the false narrative that the 2020 election was stolen. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara reports. …

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WATCH: Biden Speaks on Anniversary of Capitol Attack

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U.S. President Joe Biden will use the first anniversary of the January 6 Capitol riot to speak bluntly about the impact of the shocking event — and to lay responsibility at the feet of former President Donald Trump, the White House said Wednesday.  WATCH LIVE:   In an excerpt released ahead of the address, Biden says the United States “must decide what kind of nation we are going to be.”  “Are we going to be a nation that accepts political violence as a norm? Are we going to be a nation where we allow partisan election officials to overturn themore

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