Category Archives: US Senate

Ben Sasse, Republican who voted to convict Trump, to depart Congress

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Nebraska senator, to take top post at University of Florida, is latest GOP legislator to leave Capitol Hill after voting to impeach in 2021

Another Republican who stood up to Donald Trump is on his way out of Congress, with the news that the Nebraska senator Ben Sasse is set to become president of the University of Florida.

Of the 10 House Republicans and seven senators who voted to convict Trump at his second impeachment trial, for inciting the January 6 Capitol attack, only two congressmen and four senators are on course to return after the midterm elections.

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Democrats seek revenge after Opec+ cuts oil production ahead of midterms – live

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Three lawmakers come out with bill that essentially declares Saudi Arabia is no longer an ally of Washington

A Democratic senator has joined in on the calls to punish Saudi Arabia for backing the Opec+ cut to global oil production:

Meanwhile, John Kennedy, the Republican senator who two years ago proposed a similar measure to retaliate against Saudi Arabia for not cutting production even as global demand was crashing – thereby driving prices below the cost of production for American oil firms – today blames Biden for the Opec+ cut:

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Pelosi reportedly resisted Democrats’ effort to impeach Trump on January 6 – as it happened

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For all the supreme court’s pomp and ceremony, a new poll finds Americans increasingly are holding it in low regard.

According to Monmouth University, a majority of Americans find it out of touch with their beliefs:

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Biden takes aim at food insecurity with first hunger conference in 50 years – as it happened

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Biden releases national hunger and nutrition strategy, which includes a slate of goals to help end food insecurity

Biden is going into the main pillars of the national hunger and nutrition strategy released on Tuesday, which includes a slew of goals to help end food insecurity, give people more information and options to eat more healthily, and help folks take up regular physical activity.

Unfortunately, the goals are more a call to action, as Congress has ended Covid-era policies like the universal free school meals program and the expanded child tax credits which had massively reduced food insecurity and child poverty in the US.

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January 6 committee postpones Wednesday hearing over hurricane – as it happened

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Panel cites threat of Hurricane Ian bearing down on parts of Florida, and says the ‘investigation goes forward’

As the January 6 committee enters what is likely to be the home stretch of its investigation, a new poll has found it hasn’t meaningfully shifted beliefs about what happened that day.

Monmouth University finds that around four in 10 Americans hold Donald Trump responsible for the insurrection at the Capitol, slightly less than in late June, while three in 10 believe the election was stolen from him, a figure that’s moved little since November 2020.

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Senate advances funding bill to avert shutdown after Manchin measure scrapped

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Both parties opposed the measure on energy permits, which critics said would gut environmental protections

The US Senate has voted to advance a funding bill to avert a federal government shutdown, after a tense standoff over a controversial energy-permitting provision proposed by the West Virginia senator Joe Manchin ended with its withdrawal.

A procedural vote on Tuesday to move forward with the funding bill succeeded easily, 72-23, after Democrats announced that the West Virginia senator’s proposal, which faced opposition from both parties, would be stripped from the final legislation. It was clear that, with Manchin’s plan included, Democrats were falling far short of the 60 votes needed to proceed, as most Republicans objected to it.

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US senators refuse to let killing of Shireen Abu Akleh drop with Israel

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The state department seems keen to avoid questions about the Palestinian American journalist’s shooting by an Israeli soldier

Israel has declared the case closed. The US state department has done its best to duck difficult questions. But leading members of the US Congress are refusing to drop demands for a proper accounting of the death of the Palestinian American journalist, Shireen Abu Akleh, four months ago.

The longest-serving member of the US Senate, Patrick Leahy, recently upped the ante by warning that Israel’s failure to fully explain the Al-Jazeera reporter’s killing could jeopardize America’s huge military aid to the Jewish state under a law he sponsored 25 years ago cutting weapons supplies to countries that abuse human rights.

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Special master asks Trump team for proof of claims that FBI planted evidence – as it happened

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Special master also gives series of deadlines after judges overturn ruling that temporarily blocked DoJ from the material

The judge who had initially blocked the justice department from reviewing the documents seized from Mar-a-Lago and ordered a special master to weed out privileged materials has revised her ruling, Politico reports.

Federal judge Aileen Cannon’s changes come after an appeals court overturned the part of her opinion that had halted the government’s review of the documents taken from Donald Trump’s resort, hampering the investigation into whether the former president took government secrets with him when he left the White House.

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Senator Joe Manchin unveils bill that would speed fossil fuel projects

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The centrist Democrat believes he has votes to pass the measure, which would also power transmission for renewable energy

The US senator Joe Manchin released an energy permitting bill on Wednesday to speed fossil fuel projects and power transmission for renewable energy.

The bill is expected to be attached to a measure to temporarily fund the government that Congress must pass before 1 October. Manchin’s staff told reporters the senator believed he had the 60 votes needed to pass it.

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White House rejects ‘sham referendums’ in occupied Ukraine – as it happened

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National security adviser makes remark while Biden will ‘rebuke Russia’ at UN summit

Joined by his fellow New York senator Kirsten Gillibrand, majority leader Chuck Schumer is continuing to call for aid to Puerto Rico at a press conference outside the Capitol.

Here’s the latest from Nexstar media:

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Senate panel to investigate Trump allies’ alleged meddling in prosecutions

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Judiciary committee notifies justice department of investigation into claims made by fired US attorney Geoffrey Berman

The US Senate judiciary committee has said it will investigate claims made in a recent book that allies of Donald Trump politically interfered with a prominent US attorney’s office.

William Barr, Donald Trump’s second attorney general, fired Geoffrey Berman from the powerful southern district of New York (SDNY) five months before the 2020 election. In a memoir – Holding the Line: Inside the Nation’s Preeminent US Attorney’s Office and its Battle with the Trump Justice Department – which is published in the US on Tuesday, Berman alleges interference both on behalf of Trump allies and against Trump enemies.

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‘You have to run’: Romney urged Biden to take down Trump, book says

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Gabriel Debenedetti, author of book on Biden’s relationship with Obama, reports call on night of 2018 midterms

On the night of the 2018 midterm elections, as a wave of anti-Trump sentiment swept Democrats to take control of the House, top Republican Mitt Romney urged Joe Biden to run for president.

“You have to run,” said Romney, the Republican presidential nominee Biden and Barack Obama defeated in 2012, speaking to the former vice-president by phone.

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Trump’s Mar-a-Lago legal victory starts search for special master – live updates

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US midterms campaigns kick into high gear after Labor Day as Senate returns from month-long break

Legal pressure on Jeffrey Clark, the former justice department lawyer who schemed with Donald Trump and others to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia and other states, is expected to rise with the cooperation of another ex-DoJ lawyer who worked with him, say former prosecutors.

The cooperation from the ex-lawyer, in tandem with other evidence obtained by prosecutors, could help spur charges against Clark – a close ally of then president Trump – and benefit prosecutors as they go after bigger targets.

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Dr Oz campaign draws ire over unsavory remarks on Democratic rival’s stroke

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The Republican candidate’s aide said John Fetterman would not have suffered had he ‘ever eaten a vegetable in his life’

John Fetterman, the Democratic candidate for US Senate in Pennsylvania, might not have had a stroke if he “had ever eaten a vegetable in his life”, an aide to the Republican candidate, Mehmet Oz, said on Tuesday in a strikingly nasty moment in an already bitter contest.

The statement, to Business Insider, came in response to Fetterman’s mockery of a video in which Oz complains about the price of crudités while mangling the names of two Pennsylvania grocery stores.

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Biden hails ‘biggest step forward on climate ever’ as he signs Inflation Reduction Act – as it happened

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White House hopes climate and healthcare plan will mark turning point for Biden’s presidency and boost Democrats in the midterms

Meanwhile in Kansas, abortion foes have apparently not given up on the state’s ballot initiative to allow lawmakers to restrict the procedure, which voters resoundingly rejected earlier this month.

The Associated Press reports that an anti-abortion activist and an election conspiracy promoter have teamed up to coordinate a recount of the ballots in nine of the state’s counties, which accounted for more than half of the votes cast on the initiative and all but one of which rejected it. According to the report, the abortion foe, Mark Gietzen put almost all of the $120,000 cost on his credit card to pay for the recount.

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Liz Cheney looks set to lose Congress seat to Trump-backed rival

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Polls show congresswoman trailing far behind conservative lawyer Harriet Hageman in Wyoming’s Republican primary

Widely praised for her defence of democracy during the January 6 committee hearings, Liz Cheney looks set to lose her seat in Congress on Tuesday to a rival backed by former US president Donald Trump.

Opinion polls show Cheney trailing far behind conservative lawyer Harriet Hageman – who has echoed Trump’s false claims of widespread voter fraud – in a Republican primary election to decide Wyoming’s lone member in the House of Representatives.

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Democrats celebrate as climate bill moves to House – and critics weigh in

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Bernie Sanders calls climate measures a ‘very modest step forward’ and Republicans denounce the bill altogether

Democrats celebrated the much-delayed Senate passage of their healthcare and climate spending package, expressing hope that the bill’s approval could improve their prospects in the crucial midterm elections this November.

The bill, formally known as the Inflation Reduction Act, passed the Senate on Sunday in a party-line vote of 51-50, with Vice-President Kamala Harris breaking the tie in the evenly divided chamber.

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Senate passes $739bn healthcare and climate bill after months of wrangling

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Inflation Reduction Act will reduce planet-heating emissions and lower prescription drug costs – and give Biden a crucial victory

Senate Democrats passed their climate and healthcare spending package on Sunday, sending the legislation to the House and bringing Joe Biden one step closer to a significant legislative victory ahead of crucial midterm elections in November.

If signed into law, the bill, formally known as the Inflation Reduction Act, would allocate $369bn to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and investing in renewable energy sources. Experts have estimated the climate provisions of the bill will reduce America’s planet-heating emissions by about 40% by 2030, compared with 2005 levels.

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Senate Democrats given green light to vote on $430bn climate and tax bill

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Senate arbiter rules bill can bypass filibuster and be passed with simple majority, setting stage for ‘vote-a-rama’ next week

US Senate Democrats on Saturday were set to push ahead on a bill that would address key elements of President Joe Biden’s agenda, tackling climate change, lowering the cost of energy and senior citizens’ drugs and forcing the wealthy to pay more taxes.

A Senate rulemaker determined that the lion’s share of the $430bn bill could be passed with only a simple majority, bypassing a filibuster rule requiring 60 votes in the 100-seat chamber to advance most legislation and enabling Democrats to pass it over Republican objections, majority leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement.

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Democrats reach deal to pass major climate bill after Sinema says yes – as it happened

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Amy Weirich, a Memphis prosecutor with a checkered record who is best known for cracking down on a woman just for trying to register to vote, has lost her re-election bid. As Sam Levine reports:

Amy Weirich, the Memphis prosecutor who stirred national outrage for bringing criminal charges against a Black woman for trying to register to vote, has lost her re-election bid.

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