House Democrats formally announced the formation of the Medicare for All caucus on Thursday, and were joined by representatives from various progressive groups — like National Nurses United, Social Security Works, and Center for Popular Democracy — who helped save Obamacare last summer and now demand more than the status quo. So far 66 members, or one-third of House Democrats, have joined the caucus led by Reps. Pramila Jayapal (WA), Debbie Dingell (MI), and Keith Ellison (MN)....
politics
Interior’s Zinke faces 11th federal investigation as new probe launches
More than 10 federal investigations have now been opened into Secretary of the Interior Department Ryan Zinke’s financial and ethical decisions during his tenure with the Trump administration.
The agency’s internal watchdog announced an eleventh investigation on Wednesday evening, drawing further attention to Zinke’s behavior while running the department, and in this case, his connections to one of the world’s most powerful oil companies.
The Departmen...
White House economists say federal programs helped end poverty. Now they want to end the programs
“Based on historical standards of material wellbeing and the terms of engagement, our War on Poverty is largely over and a success,” wrote the White House’s Council of Economic Advisors in a report relea...
Record number of Muslim Americans running for office
A record number of American Muslims are running for Congress, state, and local office this election cycle, motivated into action in large part by President Donald Trump’s Islamophobic rhetoric and policies, a new report by the Associated Press found.
More than 100 candidates ran for office over the past year, more than ever since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, according to Jetpac, a 501(c)(3) organization working to increase American Muslim civic engagement. Roughly 40 of th...
Bernie Sanders will be live-streaming his town hall to shame CEOs
Bernie Sanders is holding a get-together tonight (July 16), but he’s still waiting for a few RSVPs.
Sanders, the relentless independent and leftist senator from Vermont, and a former presidential candidate who is expected to run again in the 20...
Republican lawmakers advocate for arming toddlers in debut of Sacha Baron Cohen’s new show
Sacha Baron Cohen’s new show Who is America? debuted on Sunday by embarrassing several Republican lawmakers.
Cohen portrayed Col. Erran Morad, a former Israeli commando offering a provocative claim: He can prevent school shootings by putting “deadly weapons into the hands of America’s schoolchildren.” After impressing a couple of guns rights advocates with his program providing gun training for children “from the age (of) 16 down to the age (of) ...
How Lori Lightfoot plans to ride the Ocasio-Cortez wave without endorsing her policies
It was a Tuesday in late June when Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez turned the world upside down. The New York machine shuttered to an unexpected halt. A 28-year-old socialist had taken on the King of Queens in the state’s 14th congressional district and won.
Some 800 miles west, in Chicago, mayoral candidate Lori Lightfoot was hoping to replicate that victory. A little more than seven months out from the city’s election, Lightfoot and her campaign have tried to paint her as the...
How Kavanaugh will use religion to turn back the clock
It’s a polite fiction that religion isn’t a factor in the American legal system. But religion plays an outsize role, both in judicial decisions and in the decisions of presidents in nominating a judge. President Donald Trump’s latest pick for the Supreme Court, Judge Brett Kavanaugh — a Catholic, whose appointment preserves the Catholic majority on the Supreme Court — will shift the high court dramatically to the right, most noticeably when it comes to religion.
Accordin...
Who is Brett Kavanaugh, Trump’s pick to replace Anthony Kennedy?
If you could grow a judge in a vat, and design every moment of their life to appeal perfectly to the Republican establishment, the man who would emerge fully-formed from that vat would be Brett Kavanaugh. A two-time Yale graduate, Kavanaugh clerked for the retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy, worked for Bill Clinton inquisitor Ken Starr, and served as one of President George W. Bush’s top White House aides.
Kavanaugh was a frequent opponent of President Barack Obama’s Envir...
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Twitter clapbacks show the kids are alright
President Donald Trump has credited Twitter for putting him in the Oval Office, but politicians’ attempts to connect with mostly younger constituents on social media are often cringeworthy (Chuck Grassley is the rare exception):
@Sn00ki u r right, I would never tax your tanning bed! Pres Obama's tax/spend policy is quite The Situation. but I do rec wearing sunscreen!
— John McCain (@SenJohnMcCain) June 9, 2010