Madam Speaker review: how Nancy Pelosi outwitted Bush and Trump

April 24, 2021 Democrats, House of Representatives, News, US Congress, US news, US politics, World news

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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Biden says he’s willing ‘to compromise’ with Republicans on infrastructure bill – live

April 19, 2021 News, US Congress, US news, US politics

President meets with a bipartisan group of lawmakers
Biden says everyone in US now eligible for Covid vaccine
Biden directs agencies to stop using phrases like ‘illegal alien’
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8.53pm BST
Mike Lindell (a.k.a. the MyPillow guy) kicked his feud with Dominion Voting System Inc. up a notch on Monday, according to Bloomberg News:

The Guardian

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Fauci hits back at rightwing criticism and says attacks on him ‘bizarre’

April 5, 2021 News, US news, US politics, World news

Scientist forced to defend himself from attacks by Trump allies and says ‘I can’t be bothered with getting distracted’
Anthony Fauci has described attacks on him from Republicans as “bizarre”, after a barrage of criticism from senior GOP figures.
Related: ‘There is a solution’: a Covid survivor’s life-or-death battle for Medicare for All
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Covid cases fall over 80% among US nursing home staff and residents

March 15, 2021 News, US news, US politics, World news

Despite vaccine hesitancy, figures show a big drop in infections – giving hope that, after a brutal year, an end is in sight
Joan Phillips, a certified nursing assistant in a Florida nursing home, loved her job but dreaded the danger of going to work in the pandemic. When vaccines became available in December, she jumped at the chance to get one.
Months later, it appears that danger has faded. After the rollout of Covid vaccines, the number of new Covid cases among nursing home...

Republicans want to make it harder to pass ballot initiatives. That should alarm us | David Daley

March 2, 2021 News, Republicans, US news, US politics, World news

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...

Don’t swerve the culture war – that’s the lesson from Joe Biden to UK progressives | Owen Jones

January 29, 2021 News, politics, US news, US politics, World news

The Democrats’ victory involved working with minorities and helping the working class. Keir Starmer, take heed
“Culture war” used to be a term inextricably linked with the maelstrom of US politics. Popularised by American sociologist James Davison Hunter in his 1991 book Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America, it described how socially progressive and conservative coalitions were locked in a seemingly eternal conflict. It could make for surprising alliances, he noted, citing Pr...

New York schools to close again as US approaches 250,000 Covid deaths – live

November 18, 2020 Donald Trump, News, US news, US politics, World news

New York City public schools to close again on Thursday
President-elect Biden peaks virtually with healthcare workers
Trump campaign to request recounts in two Wisconsin counties
House Democrats reelect Pelosi as nominee for speaker
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10.51pm GMT
The US coronavirus death toll has now surpassed 250,029, representing a higher death toll than an...

Enough is enough: Republicans’ fealty to Trump imperils America itself | Jill Filipovic

November 11, 2020 Democrats, News, Republicans, US news, US politics, World news

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...

Trump’s longshot election lawsuits: where do things stand?

November 10, 2020 News, US news, US politics, World news

The president and other Republicans have filed a series of lawsuits in different states that several judges have already dismissed
US politics live – follow all the latest
Since election day, Donald Trump and other Republicans have filed a smattering of lawsuits in battleground states that have provided cover for Trump and other Republicans to say that the election still remains unresolved.
Related: US election 2020: Biden to speak as Trump and the supreme cou...

Conservative US supreme court justices suggest Obamacare will be upheld

November 10, 2020November 10, 2020 News, US healthcare, US news, US politics

Brett Kavanaugh and John Roberts indicated law could be upheld even if court deems one part of it unconstitutional
Two conservative supreme court justices have suggested the Affordable Care Act (ACA) could be upheld, as oral arguments began in a suit backed by the Trump administration which threatens the healthcare of millions amid a global pandemic.
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