ThinkProgress

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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Some presidential candidates are making trans rights a 2020 campaign issue

News

A handful of presidential candidates say the needs of transgender Americans deserve more attention, and they’re making them an issue on the 2020 campaign trail.

Three candidates for the Democratic nomination spoke at length recently with the National Center for Transgender Equality Action Fund about how their policies on health care, education, and justice would affect transgender people. The action fund provided a transcript of a forum called Transform the White House.

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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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The Trump administration can now bar immigrants for being too poor

News, politics

On Monday, the Trump administration finalized its “public charge” rule, which will more forcefully impose a health and wealth test on people seeking green cards or temporary visas in the United States.

The 800-page final rule itself begins: “This final rule amends DHS regulations by prescribing how DHS will determine whether an alien applying for admission or adjustment of status is inadmissible to the United States … because he or she is likely at any time t...

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The 2020 presidential election might be the first to hinge on gun control

News, politics

When is the right time to have a meaningful, substantive debate on gun control? 

The correct answer, of course, is “yesterday.” For Republican lawmakers, the answer is “never.” For the field of Democrats running for president, the answer might finally be “now.”

It’s taken a few years — a few decades, perhaps — longer than one would hope, but Democrats in Congress and on the campaign trail are beginning to find their voice on the issue of gun control.

As recently as a f...

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