- Officials ‘invalidating our injuries and experiences’, letter states
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Michigan’s Democratic secretary of state, Jocelyn Benson, was on the front lines of the protests and election disinformation fueled by Trump’s “Big Lie” about election fraud as the battleground state’s chief election official.
In a new interview with the Associated Press, Benson warns that the ongoing disputes and conspiracy theories around the 2020 election are only the beginning of what she sees as a sustained attack on American democracy that will culminate in a renewed attack on election legitimacy in 2024.
AP: Across the country, we are seeing several GOP-controlled legislatures seeking to exert more control over election officials. How concerned are you that we could end up seeing more of these outside ballot reviews like in Arizona or even takeovers of local election offices?
BENSON: I feel very strongly that the battles that we saw around 2020’s election ... was just the beginning of what is clearly turning out to be a multi-year, strategic, nationally coordinated, partisan assault on the vote in our country and on our democracy. And we will see another battle in the 2022 elections around that truth and around the security of the vote, around access to the vote. But it’s also all going to culminate, I believe, in an effort to try again in 2024 what those democracy deniers attempted to do in 2020 but failed. And in 2024, the bad actors, I believe, will be more coordinated, more strategic, better funded and will have the benefit of doing this work for a number of years. I’m deeply concerned about the future health of our democracy.
Democrats Move to Fulfill Biden’s Election Promise on Healthcare ‘Public Option’
Two Congressional Democrats are pushing to create a “public option” for healthcare coverage to compete with private health insurance plans, and aim to introduce legislation by the end of the year, NBC News reports.
A federal public option will help lower health care costs and guarantee that health care is a right not a privilege.@FrankPallone and I plan to work with our colleagues to craft comprehensive legislation to create a federal public option. https://t.co/Df0YmgEN35
Unlike 2009, @JoeLieberman isn't around to kill the public option. But now Democrats have thinner majorities, no hope of Republican support and are guaranteed to face an assault from health industry groups who are prepared to fight this. https://t.co/nMXYoQzPhG
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Republicans
Republicans want to make it harder to pass ballot initiatives. That should alarm us | David Daley
State legislators are trying to make it more difficult for citizens to take action when their own representatives won’t
They walked through Michigan college football games dressed as gerrymandered districts. They crisscrossed Idaho in a decades-old RV dubbed the Medicaid Express. In Florida, they united black and white, left and right, Trump-loving “deplorables” and radical criminal justice reformers into a mighty moral movement to end an ugly vestige of Jim Crow.
Related: The...
The Ten Year War review: Obamacare, Trump and Biden’s battles yet to come
Jonathan Cohn’s study of the fight for healthcare coverage delivers depth, dish and much for Democrats to ponder
Once upon a time, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was unpopular, viewed by many as welfare redux. Barack Obama’s promise that “If you like your healthcare plan, you’ll be able to keep your healthcare plan”, didn’t exactly work out. By the middle of the 2010s, so-called Obamacare had cost the Democrats both houses of Congress.
Related: The Good American review: Bob Gersony and a better foreign policy
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Enough is enough: Republicans’ fealty to Trump imperils America itself | Jill Filipovic
When the president refuses to concede, it has a tangible impact on the nation’s future. Why are Republicans enabling this?
The Republican party has spent four years enabling Donald Trump: backing up his lies, defending his most egregious misbehaviors, shattering longstanding democratic norms to keep his, and by extension their, iron grip on power. But by refusing to push him to concede an election he clearly lost, they’re truly following him off a cliff – and threatening to take Amer...
Joe Biden names former Ebola tsar Ron Klain as chief of staff – as it happened
- Biden’s lead over Trump in the popular vote surpasses 5m
- ‘An embarrassment’: Biden criticizes Trump’s refusal to concede
- Pompeo promises smooth transition to ‘second Trump administration’
- Conservative supreme court justices suggest Obamacare will be upheld
- The misinformation media machine amplifying Trump’s election lies
- Sign up to receive First Thing – our daily briefing by email
Waleed Shahid, the communications director for the progressive political action committee Justice Democrats, said Klain “understands the Democratic party has moved in a more progressive direction”.
Progressives and moderates came together to help elect Joe Biden. But post-election, the two camps have already begun to spar over the party’s future, with progressives saying that Biden should embrace more ambitious policy on climate change, policing and healthcare.
Ron Klain understands the Democratic Party has moved in a more progressive direction and that voters expect bold action.
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Best of luck to @RonaldKlain as he manages a team to act on the biggest crises of our time.
Progressives will keep pushing. pic.twitter.com/rxytnuAIy4
Barr tells prosecutors to pursue ‘clear’ fraud claims, without evidence – as it happened
- Attorney general says investigations ‘may be conducted’ in some cases
- President announces ‘Mark Esper has been terminated’
- Biden gets to work as president-elect while Trump refuses to concede
- US coronavirus cases surpass 10m as Ben Carson tests positive
- Republicans back Trump challenge to Biden election victory
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4.02am GMT
Here’s a r...
Barack Obama recalls epic battle for healthcare law in excerpt from memoir
- Advance chapter released as ACA faces supreme court threat
- Ex-president details Republicans’ norm-breaking attacks
- US politics – live coverage
An advance chapter from Barack Obama’s first memoir of his White House years, published on Monday by the New Yorker, takes readers inside the epic political battle behind the passage of the Affordable Care Act at the end of his first year in office.
Related: Republicans closely resemble autocratic parties in H...
Democrats hold Senate floor overnight to protest Amy Coney Barrett confirmation – live
- Trump aide admits ‘we’re not going to control pandemic’ as Pence staff test positive
- Nearly 60 million Americans cast early vote as record-shattering turnout expected
- Many midwest Democrats stayed home in 2016. Will they turn out for Biden?
The summer has been characterised by a series of extreme weather events on both coasts of the US, and that looks set to continue.
Hundreds of thousands of Californians lost power as utilities sought to prevent the chance of their equipment sparking wildfires and the fire-weary state braced for a new bout of dry, windy weather.
Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy has just described himself as “sad and furious” on his way home from the Senate in the early hours of the morning having been part of the Democrats night long occupation of the Senate floor.
Just finished the 3-5am shift on the Senate floor in protest of the vote later today on radical Amy Coney Barrett.
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She will rule to invalidate Obamacare, causing 23M to lose insurance in the middle of a pandemic. Catastrophic.
Both sad and furious on my rainy drive home. pic.twitter.com/hVEw3AvibW
Party chair insists Republicans will hold Senate after Trump voices doubt
- Trump tells GOP donors holding Senate will be ‘tough’ – report
- How ending Obamacare would kill Fauci plan to conquer HIV
After Donald Trump reportedly told donors it would be “tough” for Republicans to hold the Senate, and said he could not and did not want to help some senators, party chair Ronna McDaniel insisted the Senate would stay in GOP hands, saying: “I don’t see these senators distancing themselves from the president.”
Related: Mitch McConnell says ...
Trump told Republican donors holding Senate will be ‘tough’ – report
- Washington Post reports remarks before Nashville debate
- President also said he ‘just can’t’ help some GOP senators
- How ending Obamacare would kill Fauci plan to conquer HIV
Shortly after Donald Trump insisted to reporters in Ohio he expected a “red wave” on election day, 3 November, it was reported on Saturday that he told Republican donors this week it would be “tough” for the party to hold on to the Senate.
Related: US election polls tracker: who i...