Reports that a bipartisan bill seeking to ban the import of Russian oil could make it to a vote in the House this week
- Full story: Biden to ban Russian oil imports over Ukraine invasion
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Senator Ron Johnson is now backtracking from his comments on Breitbart News Radio, in which he discussed repealing and replacing Obamacare - the Affordable Care Act - if Republicans win the White House and the House and senate majorities in 2024.
“For example, if we’re going to repeal and replace Obamacare — I still think we need to fix our health-care system — we need to have the plan ahead of time so that once we get in office, we can implement it immediately, not knock around like we did last time and fail,” he said on air Monday.
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US news
Harry Reid obituary
Veteran Nevada senator who shepherded and protected Obamacare on its difficult passage into lawDuring a long, combative career in US political life, Harry Reid, who has died aged 82, made his most telling contribution as Democrat majority leader in the Senate. There, in 2010, he pushed through and then vigorously defended President Barack Obama’s groundbreaking healthcare reforms.
Given the huge strength of Republican feeling against “Obamacare”, the president needed a streetfighter to drive his measures through to the statute book – and Reid was the man for the job. Quietly spoken but toughened by a hard early life and years spent swimming in the shark-infested waters of Nevada politics, he fought through the deeply polarised atmosphere that surrounded Obama’s health reforms to shepherd the Affordable Care Act through the Democrat-controlled Senate.
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Harry Reid, who led Senate Democrats for 12 years, dies at 82
- Nevada senator helped to pass Obama’s Affordable Care Act
- Reid called Trump ‘the worst president we’ve ever had’
Harry Reid, who emerged from the unforgiving political landscape of Las Vegas, Nevada, to lead the Senate Democrats for 12 turbulent years, died on Tuesday at age 82.
Reid died Tuesday, “peacefully” and surrounded by friends “following a courageous, four-year battle with pancreatic cancer,” Landra Reid said of her husband.
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Fox News hosts and Trump Jr urged Mark Meadows to help stop Capitol attack, texts reveal – live
Texts turned over by Meadows to committee include pleas from Fox News hosts and Donald Trump Jr urging the chief of staff to take action
- House rules committee meets to take up Meadows contempt resolution
- Capitol attack panel recommends Meadows for criminal prosecution
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During the hearing aimed at taking up the contempt resolution against Mark Meadows,...
John Roberts is no longer the leader of his own court. Who, then, controls it?
Chief justice no longer sits in supreme court’s ideological center and has lost the power to cast the deciding vote in any ruling
When Chief Justice John Roberts delivered the decisive vote in 2012 that upheld Barack Obama’s signature achievement in office, the Affordable Care Act, he reportedly did so following after a month-long campaign by fellow conservatives to try to get him to join their side.
His decision to side with liberal colleagues inspired ire on the right but it ...
Republicans slap down Manchin’s voting rights compromise – US politics live
- Mitch McConnell says proposal is ‘rotten to the core’
- Manchin’s plan tries to attract bipartisan support in Senate
Christopher Staudinger reports for the Louisiana Illuminator and Floodlight, a nonprofit that partners with the Guardian:
One morning in September, word of layoffs began to spread quickly through Marathon Petroleum’s refinery in the small industrial community of Garyville, Louisiana.
Related: A US oil company cut nearly 2,000 jobs – and reaped $2.1bn in pandemic benefits
Greetings from Washington, live blog readers.
Most of the city’s attention was focused on the supreme court yesterday, as the justices dismissed a Republican challenge to the Affordable Care Act. However, there were also some significant developments on Capitol Hill.
Democrats can change the packaging, but their plan for a power-grab of America’s electoral system is still rotten to the core. My full statement: https://t.co/HLRuDSZ3lS
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US supreme court upholds Obamacare after Republicans seek to gut law
Justices affirm constitutionality of Affordable Care Act amid Republican attacks on key provision
The US supreme court has upheld the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, after Republicans attempted to gut an important provision of the law during the Trump era.
In a 7-2 decision, the court ruled Republican states ultimately did not have “standing” or the right to sue. The ruling avoided the issue of whether the tax provision of the law called the “individual mandate”, and therefore the entire law, was unconstitutional.
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Joe Biden signs bill making Juneteenth a federal holiday – as it happened
- ‘Great nations don’t ignore their most painful moments,’ president says
- ‘It is time to move forward,’ Biden says after supreme court decision
- Supreme court votes 7-2, preserving healthcare for millions
- House votes to repeal measure that gave Bush authority to invade Iraq
- New York grand jury stores up trouble for Trump Organization executives
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US failing to offer ‘Havana syndrome’ sufferers adequate care, diplomats say – live
- Officials ‘invalidating our injuries and experiences’, letter states
- Biden says US must redouble efforts to investigate virus origins
- Senate Republicans want to lower cost of $1.7tn infrastructure plan
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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Madam Speaker review: how Nancy Pelosi outwitted Bush and Trump
John Boehner calls the Democrat the most powerful House speaker ever. Susan Page’s authoritative biography shows why
John Boehner, a Republican predecessor, concedes that Nancy Pelosi may be the most powerful House speaker in history. Pelosi provided George W Bush with the votes he needed to prevent a depression, as Republicans balked. She helped make Obamacare the law of the land.
Related: On the House review: John Boehner’s lament for pre-Trump Republicans
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