Category Archives: US Congress

Biden talks up vaccine mandates and says unvaccinated have ‘put our economy at risk’ – as it happened

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Now almost a full year later, Republicans in several states are still continuing their partisan reviews of the 2020 election results

“They have slight differences tactically, but they all share the same strategic goals, which are primarily to continue to sow doubt about the integrity of American elections overall,” said David Becker, the executive director of the Center for Election Innovation & Research, and an election administration expert who has denounced the reviews. “I don’t know that there’s a word to describe how concerning it is.”

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Senate approves short-term deal to raise debt ceiling and avert economic crisis

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Agreement would extend US borrowing authority into December but larger disputes remain

The US Senate has approved a deal to extend the government’s borrowing authority into December. The compromise between Republican and Democratic leaders would temporarily avert an unprecedented federal default that experts say would have devastated the economy.

With a 50-48 vote, senators agreed to increase the borrowing limit by $480bn, sufficient to prevent the US government from defaulting by keeping debt payments up until 3 December.

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Senator urges more Facebook whistleblowers to come forward – live

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• Richard Blumenthal also calls on Mark Zuckerberg to testify

• Senator Chris Coons says there may be 50 votes for filibuster reform

• Senate to vote on raising debt ceiling

So now that the Democrats don’t have the 50 votes needed to make a change to the filibuster rules ahead of the debt ceiling vote today, they could always appeal to the Republicans...by not calling it a filibuster, or a change to filibuster rules with the debt ceiling, etc.

However, that route doesn’t look promising either, according to Republican senator Josh Hawley:

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‘Moral bankruptcy’: whistleblower offers scathing assessment of Facebook

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Frances Haugen’s animated remarks were a striking contrast to Mark Zuckerberg’s robotic testimony before Congress

It might, as one senator put it, be remembered as “the big tobacco jaw-dropping moment of truth”.

The truth-teller was former Facebook data scientist Frances Haugen, appearing on Capitol Hill on Tuesday to testify that the online platform knowingly harms children, just as cigarette makers did before they were brought to heel.

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Biden says debt limit must be raised because of ‘reckless’ policies under Trump – live

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Another piece to the whole debt ceiling todo is the infrastructure bill and the $3.5tn reconciliation bill (also known as the Build Back Better Act).

Republicans have long balked at the amount of spending proposed by the Democrats in each of these key pieces of legislation for the Biden administration and are using them to justify voting against raising the debt limit - they’re saying the Democrats are spending too much domestically.

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Sanders urges progressives to stand firm in Democratic battle over Biden agenda

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Party locked in a bitter struggle over two massive legislative bills that could make or break the Biden presidency

Bernie Sanders, the leftwing firebrand who has drawn the fight against poverty and inequality into the mainstream of American politics, issued a call to arms on Sunday for fellow progressives to stand firm in the intensifying battle over the future of Joe Biden’s economic and social policy agenda.

With the Democratic party locked in a bitter struggle over two massive legislative bills that could make or break the Biden presidency, Sanders said the outcome of the next few weeks would be critical not just for the future of American working families but also for the country’s political future.

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Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema: the centrists blocking Biden’s agenda

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The West Virginia and Arizona senators’ resistance threatens to upend Biden’s entire presidency – is self-preservation to blame?

Donald Trump’s favorite insult for political opponents inside his own party is “Rino” – Republican in name only. By such logic, Senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona are the epitome of Dinos, two elected Democrats whose dogged resistance to Joe Biden’s social agenda threatens/threatened to upend his entire presidency.

Their standoff with the party’s progressive wing over the price tag of Biden’s ambitious reform package has become almost more of a hazard to his legacy than anything the Republicans, currently in a narrow minority in both chambers of Congress, can throw at it.

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Democrats brace for bruising October talks as Biden agenda stalls in Congress

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Two massive economic and social packages have reached an impasse, threatening to derail Biden’s first term in office

Warring factions of the Democratic party are bracing themselves for a potentially bruising month of negotiations over the two massive economic and social packages that have reached an impasse in Congress threatening to derail Joe Biden’s first term in office.

With Democratic leaders racing against a new 31 October deadline to pass the legislation, and with pressure building on the White House from both centrist and progressive wings of the party, the centerpiece of Biden’s agenda now hangs in the balance. Democratic prospects in next year’s midterm elections are also at stake.

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‘We’re going to get this thing done,’ says Biden amid likely delay on infrastructure vote – live

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Here’s where the day stands so far:

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Biden upbeat on rare Capitol Hill visit but domestic agenda hangs in jeopardy

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President meets Democrats for talks and insists ‘it doesn’t matter whether it’s six minutes or six weeks – we’re going to get it done’

Democrats returned to the Capitol on Friday deeply divided but determined to make progress on Joe Biden’s ambitious economic vision, after an embarrassing setback delayed a planned vote on a related $1tn measure to improve the nation’s infrastructure.

Biden on Friday made a rare visit to Capitol Hill to meet privately with House Democrats amid a stalemate that has put his sprawling domestic agenda in jeopardy. The visit comes after after the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, delayed a vote on part of his economic agenda, a bipartisan $1tn public works measure, on Thursday night after a frantic day of negotiations failed to produce a deal.

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Congress passes stopgap bill to avert government shutdown – live

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Bill passed by Senate and House will extend funding until 3 December as Democrats continue to wrangle over Biden’s economic agenda

House speaker Nancy Pelosi left her press conference by urging reporters to “think positively” about the negotiations over the infrastructure bill and the reconciliation package.

And yet, as Pelosi was making her comments, House majority leader Steny Hoyer said he was not confident that the infrastructure bill would pass today, as Democratic leadership had previously hoped.

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The US government avoided a shutdown – but what happens next?

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Congress passed a bill to fund the government into December. But questions remain over the debt ceiling and Biden’s agenda

The US government went into Thursday embroiled in a game of three-dimensional chess with time running out and trillions of dollars at stake.

The first dimension was a must-do: fund the government by midnight to avoid it shutting down. In a typical shutdown, hundreds of thousands of federal employees stop getting paid and many stop working; some services are suspended and numerous national attractions and national parks temporarily close.

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Democrats struggle to advance Biden’s agenda amid tense negotiations – live

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Melody Schreiber reports for the Guardian:

The southern US state of Alabama, which has the highest death rate from Covid-19 in America, is planning to use Covid relief funds to help construct three large prisons and renovate several others.

Related: Alabama plans to use Covid relief funds to finance prison-building spree

As Democrats remain at an impasse over the infrastructure bill and the reconciliation package, some have expressed concern that the American public could have been better informed about what the latter bill actually aims to achieve.

The White House has packaged the wide range of initiatives under the loose slogan of “Build Back Better,” but the bill has more commonly been labelled in the media by its headline price tag - $3.5 trillion - with Democrats also unable to say definitively what would be in it.

The package, now the subject of furious negotiations on Capitol Hill, would fundamentally transform the government’s relationship with its citizens and dramatically expand the social safety net.

It sets out to broaden well-known programs for example, adding dental vision and hearing aid benefits to Medicare and continuing the Obama-era health law’s temporary subsidies that helped people buy insurance during the pandemic [...]

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Blame-shifting over US withdrawal ignores deeper failings in Afghanistan

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Analysis: Senators’ questions to military leadership a contest in sharing out responsibility for failures

The deeply partisan US Congress is rarely a conducive place for national introspection and Tuesday’s Senate hearing on the Afghanistan withdrawal did not provide an exception.

In the midst of the point-scoring and blame-shifting on display in the senators’ questions to the nation’s military leadership, it was clear that it was a contest to apportion shares in failure.

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US Afghanistan withdrawal a ‘logistical success but strategic failure’, Milley says

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  • General and other military leaders in heated cross-examination
  • Milley defends loyalty to country and rejects suggestion to quit

The withdrawal from Afghanistan and the evacuation of Kabul was “a logistical success but a strategic failure,” the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff has told the Senate.

Gen Mark Milley gave the stark assessment at an extraordinary hearing of the Senate armed services committee to examine the US departure, which also became a postmortem on the 20-year war that preceded it.

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Barack Obama: tax the rich, including me, to fund Biden spending plan

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Former president says billionaires should ‘pay a little bit more in taxes’ to fund healthcare, childcare and the climate crisis fight

Barack Obama says wealthy Americans – including himself – can afford tax rises to help fund Joe Biden’s ambitious spending plan.

Related: Pelosi: Biden spending plan, infrastructure deal and funding ‘must pass’ next week

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Top US general to face heated questions in Congress after Woodward revelations

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Mark Milley poised for tense cross-examination after book said he took steps to prevent Trump from starting a war

The top US general will appear before Congress on Tuesday in what is expected to be the most heated cross-examination of a senior US military officer in over a decade.

The chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Mark Milley, can expect a hostile interrogation from Republicans on the Senate armed services committee after accounts in a recent book that he carried out acts of insubordination to prevent Donald Trump from starting a war as a diversion from his election defeat last year.

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Biden officials move to protect Dreamers brought to US as children – live

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Earlier, the governor of New York, Kathy Hochul, pleaded with healthcare workers to get vaccinated against Covid-19 before an end-of-day deadline which could bring staff shortages at hospitals, nursing homes and other facilities.

The Biden administration’s announcement of a new approach to protecting Dreamers from deportation is meant to “bulletproof” existing measures guarding against litigation, a leading expert said.

“Dreamers” are undocumented migrants living in the US who were brought to the country as children. Their fate has long been held in limbo by deadlock in Congress over immigration reform.

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Nancy Pelosi: Democrats will pass $1tn infrastructure deal this week

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Speaker says she will work to build consensus on Biden’s separate $3.5tn social agenda, which has caused division within the party

The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, said on Sunday Democrats will pass a $1tn bipartisan infrastructure bill this week.

Related: ‘We couldn’t be more inconsistent’: discordant Democrats imperil Biden’s agenda

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Pelosi: Biden spending plan, infrastructure deal and funding ‘must pass’ next week

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  • Speaker sends letter to party at mercy of warring factions
  • One reporter observes: ‘Well, this is raising the stakes’

In a letter to Democrats on Saturday the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, set her sights high, saying Joe Biden’s $3.5tn spending package, a bipartisan infrastructure deal worth $1tn and a measure to expand government funding “must pass” next week.

Related: ‘We couldn’t be more inconsistent’: discordant Democrats imperil Biden’s agenda

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