politics

Texas congressman’s retirement points to a tough 2020 for House Republicans

News, politics, texas

Rep. Bill Flores became the fifth Texas Republican this term to announce he will not seek reelection as a growing number of longtime GOP incumbents heading for the exits in 2020. While his solidly Republican district is not as likely to flip as several other districts are, the decision could indicate a lack of optimism about his party’s chances of regaining a majority in the next Congress.

Flores was first elected in the 2010 Republican landslide as part of the new majority. H...

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After trying to kill health insurance for millions, Paul Ryan now profits from medical tech

health care, News, obamacare, Paul Ryan, politics, trumpcare

As Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan (R-WI) was best known for his repeated attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act (commonly known as Obamacare) and take away health insurance coverage from tens of millions of Americans. Now a private citizen, Ryan is about to profit from his own legislative failures.

According to his hometown paper, Ryan has joined the board of directors at SHINE Medical Technologies. The Janesville-based company makes molybdenum-99, a radioactive isotope used to...

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Retiring Congressman Duffy to rely on pre-existing condition protections he voted to repeal

health care, News, obamacare, politics, trumpcare

Rep. Sean Duffy (R-WI) announced on Monday that he will soon resign his House seat, citing family reasons. He and his wife, Fox News contributor Rachel Campos-Duffy, said their soon-to-be born ninth child will require heart surgery soon after her birth.

On Tuesday, Duffy explained that he had made sure the child will have access to health insurance despite her pre-existing conditions.

It is laudable that the Duffy family is preparing to provide as much care as possible for a ...

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Why Planned Parenthood was right to refuse federal funding | Moira Donegan

Contraception and family planning, health, News, planned-parenthood, politics, US news, US politics

The Trump administration put Planned Parenthood in an untenable position – and the organization made the moral choice to walk away

The Trump administration expanded its assault on women’s rights this week, engineering the loss of birth control and other reproductive healthcare coverage for millions of low income women.

On Monday, the administration’s Title X gag rule went into effect, barring any provider who performs abortions or even provides referrals for them from receiving...

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Hickenlooper closes door to presidential run, opens one that could lead to the U.S. Senate

News, politics

In a sign that the sprawling field of Democrats running for president in 2020 may finally be thinning, former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper ended his candidacy Thursday.

He said in a video that he was giving a run for U.S. Senate back in his home state against Republican Eric Gardner, who is running for re-election, “some serious thought.”

“Now today, I am ending my campaign for president. But I will never stop believing that America can only move forward when we work...

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Five Democratic senators just declared all-out war on the Supreme Court

News, politics

A tone of ritualized obsequiousness pervades most briefs filed in the Supreme Court of the United States. Judges are powerful and, at the Supreme Court level, unaccountable. They wield enormous, arbitrary power not just over litigants but over the lawyers who appear in their courtrooms. So when most lawyers speak to a court, they speak with a painful awareness of the power dynamic separating the bar from the bench.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), however, is not most lawyers.

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Koch-linked dark money group accuses Republican Chuck Grassley of promoting socialism

health care, Medicare, News, politics

A conservative dark money group has launched a series of radio ads attacking a bipartisan bill authored by the senior Republican in the United States Senate, Iowa’s Chuck Grassley.

Joining in the right’s “everything we don’t like is socialism” parade, the group suggests that by reducing the amount senior citizens and government insurance programs pay for prescription drugs, the bill is a socialistic plot that would stop pharmaceutical companies from cur...

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The battle to save gun control by destroying it

guns, News, politics

Just over a week ago, two mass shooters murdered more than two dozen Americans in a single weekend — bringing the total number of U.S. “mass shootings” (incidents in which a person with a gun shot four or more people) to at least 251 this year.

While the nation mourns these deaths, the Supreme Court is preparing to hear a case that could gut what little remains of American gun-control laws. The case, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. City of New ...

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