The Latest: Missouri black lawmakers condemn hanging remark

The Latest on a Missouri lawmaker who posted on Facebook that he hoped whoever vandalized a Confederate monument in Springfield is found and hanged : The Missouri Legislative Black Caucus chairman says a Republican lawmaker called for a lynching in a Facebook post and should be ousted from office. Legislative Black Caucus Chairman Alan Green on Thursday asked that House members formally reprimand Rep. Warren Love and remove him from office.

A Better Deal? Yes, Pelosi and the Democrats are on the right track

Democrats have a clear vision for how they'd lead the country if in power, and the Republican president has been in office for less than eight months. A Better Deal - the Democrat's new economic development and job creation manifesto - was presented to us Wednesday by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi in a meeting at The Denver Post.

Ohio Senator Joe Schiavoni Announces Job Growth Plan For Ohio

State Sen. Joe Schiavoni announced a comprehensive plan to increase job growth and employment through targeted investments Tuesday. This legislative package is the latest in a series of bills the senator has introduced to improve Ohio's small business climate and bolster job growth, a release from Schiavoni's office said.

Trump Gives Congress An Olive Branch With Tax Pitch, But Will It Last?

When President Trump traveled to Missouri on Wednesday to make his pitch for tax code overhaul, it was a more conventional - even conciliatory - chief executive who showed up. Trump expressed optimism that he could work together with the legislative branch to pass something meaningful - although as NPR's Scott Horsley noted, the president offered scant specifics about what that legislation would be.

We already tried one of Trump’s big tax ideas and it fell flat…

In an uncharacteristically short speech, President Trump went over the broadest strokes of the tax plan he and Congressional Republicans plan to unveil. The speech covered four main proposals, and the last one - a tax holiday for American multinational corporations that have cash stashed overseas - is a proven, abject failure.

Trump pushes tax overhaul to a bring back Main Streeta

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. >> President Donald Trump launched his fall push to overhaul the nation's tax system by pledging Wednesday that the details-to-come plan would “bring back Main Street” by reducing the crushing tax burden on middle-class Americans, making a populist appeal for a proposal expected to heavily benefit corporate America.

Wasserman Schultz leads efforts to remove Confederate names, statue

If U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., gets her way, the names of three Confederate generals will be removed from street signs in Hollywood, Fla., and the statue of a Confederate general representing Florida will be removed from the National Statuary Hall in Washington. Wasserman Schultz, the former chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee who resigned from the post in July 2016 amid allegations that she favored Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders for the party's 2016 presidential nomination, has asked local leaders in Hollywood to remove the names of Robert E. Lee, Nathan Bedford Forrest and John Bell Hood from city streets.

Trumpa s a American modela for tax cuts encourages Republicans, unites Democrats in opposition

After a rough summer of divisions within his own party in Congress , President Trump began his long-awaited push for tax cuts Wednesday, a move likely to unify Republicans and raise pressure on Democrats in conservative states for some rare cooperation. Traveling to Missouri, the home state of Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill, the president offered broad outlines of his unfinished plan for tax reform, calling it "the foundation" for better jobs and prosperity.

Daniel K. Inouye, Southwestern US, Wisconsin Food, More: Wednesday Afternoon Buzz, August 30, 2017

University of Hawaii: Sen. Inouye's congressional papers available to the public . "The congressional archival papers of the late Daniel K. Inouye, who served 53 years in Congress, 50 in the U.S. Senate, are now available to the public via the University of Hawai i at Manoa Library Congressional Papers Collection.

House Dems call for hearing on Trump’s Arpaio pardon

In a letter signed by ranking member Rep. John Conyers and 16 other members, Democrats argued that "although the President has wide constitutional authority to issue pardons, there is also ample precedent for our Committee to review pardons as controversial as this one." Hurricane Harvey moved toward the Texas Gulf Coast.

U.S. senator urges FBI to probe Icahn over biofuels push

A Democratic U.S. Senator on Wednesday urged the FBI to launch a criminal probe into whether billionaire investor Carl Icahn broke the law when he called for a change in the federal biofuel program that would have enriched him personally while he was an adviser to President Donald Trump. "It appears Mr. Icahn potentially violated the principal conflict of interest statute ... abused his role as a special adviser to the president of the United States on issues relating to regulatory reform," by participating in a government matter that affects his financial interests, Senator Tammy Duckworth of ethanol-producing Illinois said in a letter to the FBI, a copy of which was seen by Reuters.

5 Controversial Ideas For Shoring Up Health Insurance Markets

Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander , chairs the Senate's Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee; Sen. Patty Murray , is the committee's ranking Democrat. With Republican efforts to "repeal and replace" the Affordable Care Act stalled, tentative bipartisan initiatives are in the works to stabilize the fragile individual insurance market that serves roughly 17 million Americans.

Exploiting Hurricane Harvey: Fiscal hawks fear big spenders will capitalize on Harvey relief bill

A $100 steak knife, a $600 filing cabinet, $300,000 in sports equipment and an $88,000 tactical combat vehicle may have nothing to do with Hurricane Katrina, but those items were paid for as part of a multibillion-dollar spending bill that Congress quickly passed after the 2005 storm, which has prompted lawmakers to become skeptical of disaster-relief bills. Twelve years later, with Hurricane Harvey still dumping water on flood-ravaged Houston, some are already worried that the next relief bill will pose the same problem: millions of dollars spent on wasteful or unrelated projects.

Dianne Feinstein booed at San Francisco event after saying she hopes Trump can change

U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein was booed by some constituents Tuesday night when she said President Donald Trump could be a good president if he changed his approach to the job and brought the nation together. "I just hope he has the ability to learn and change, and if he can, he can be a good president," she said at a Commonwealth Club forum at the historic Herbst Theater, surprising San Franciscans used to hearing their politicians decry Trump in far more heated language.

Harvey breaks rainfall records, spreads more disaster

People evacuate a neighborhood in west Houston inundated by floodwaters after a release from nearby Addicks Reservoir when it reached capacity Tuesday. more > Hurricane Harvey's rainfall topped 50 inches in some spots, setting a record for the continental U.S., as flooding reached more neighborhoods in Texas on Tuesday, forced further evacuations, spurred thousands of heroic rescues and stranded many more people.