Donald Trump invited the entire Senate for a briefing at the White House on North Korea and military preparation, but only spent 14 minutes with his fellow leaders. Based on what those senators are now telling reporters, the entire meeting seems to have been a colossal waste of time. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) told the Washington […]

With their health insurance market on fire, Iowa is forced to turn to the man holding an empty gas can and a smoldering match: Donald Trump. Insurers are pulling out of huge sections of the state, which would leave more than 70,000 Iowans uninsured. This instability is not an accident — it is a direct, […]

The last time Attorney General Jeff Sessions testified before the Senate, when he was still a senator from Alabama seeking to lead the Department of Justice, he lied under oath. And now he might do it again. Sessions has agreed to testify publicly Tuesday afternoon before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Whether his testimony will be under oath has […]

After House Speaker Paul Ryan forced through a nightmarish Obamacare repeal bill that would strip 23 million people of health care and send insurance markets in much of the country into a death spiral, Senate Republicans immediately tried to disavow the bill and position themselves as the grown-ups. “We’re writing a Senate bill and not passing the […]

As the Russia investigation continues to heat up, Attorney General Jeff Sessions was scheduled to follow former FBI director James Comey and testify before the Senate on Tuesday. But on Saturday, he abruptly canceled that public testimony in favor of a closed-door hearing instead, sparking outrage from Senate Democrats. The most senior member of the Senate, Patrick […]

A new poll in Georgia’s 6th Congressional District shows that the health care repeal plan being pushed by Donald Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan is extremely unpopular. Only 25 percent of respondents have a favorable opinion of the law, while a massive 62 percent have an unfavorable opinion. The bill is a point of […]

Three months after launching an investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election, Senator Richard Burr (R-NC), the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, is refusing to do his job. If you watched the Senate Intelligence Committee hearings in March on Russian interference in the presidential election, you would have seen what appeared to be reassuring […]

Americans are overwhelmingly in favor of an independent commission to investigate how Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election. A new poll from NBC finds that 73 percent of respondents want an independent probe over the congressional investigations being led by Republicans in the House and Senate. The poll shows a majority of Americans do not […]

When Donald Trump nominated Betsy DeVos as his Secretary of Education, it was immediately clear that her main qualification, in the administration’s view, was her willingness to help them all but destroy the department entirely. Her lack of readiness for the actual work the job entails was made even more evident during her confirmation hearings, […]

Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield will pull out of the health exchange set up in Ohio by the Affordable Care Act, leaving 18 counties in that state without an insurance option and hurting about 10,500 people. In a statement to the Dayton Daily News, the company directly blamed the Trump administration and congressional Republicans […]

Education Secretary Betsy Devos is not good for education in America. Her positions come as no surprise to anyone who believes in public education. We are braced for the worst. But that doesn’t mean a single day can go by when her policies are not documented and resisted. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) demonstrated how to do just that […]

Republicans in the Senate have been saddled with the unpopular, toxic health care bill passed by their House counterparts, and it is causing major problems in their efforts to build a health care bill of their own. The Hill reports that Senate Republican aides say that legislation is not yet drafted, and that Republican leaders […]

Donald Trump famously would not look German Chancellor Angela Merkel in the eye during their recent photo op, but Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky has him beat. According to Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), McConnell has not spoken to her, and will not even look at her, since he silenced her for trying to read a letter from Coretta Scott […]

The Senate map in 2018 poses a massive challenge for Democrats, who have to defend 24 seats to Republicans’ 10. But already, one Democratic senator is building up a huge war chest to fight off a GOP challenge. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) is reporting a fundraising haul of $2.4 million in the first quarter of 2017 — the largest […]

Rep. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) is expected to challenge Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp in next year’s midterm election. In advance of that matchup, Cramer has publicly taken an extraordinarily hostile position toward the popular Social Security system. In a radio interview, Cramer argued in favor of “making adjustments” to Social Security for people who are 30, […]

Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) now has a Democratic challenger in the 2018 Senate race in Texas, after Rep. Beto O’Rourke announced that he would step up to the plate. O’Rourke is a three-term congressman from El Paso, and as the Wall Street Journal notes, “His entry in the race against a heavily favored incumbent is […]

The Republican Party’s unprecedented theft of a Supreme Court seat is reason enough for Senate Democrats to oppose Donald Trump’s illegitimate nominee, Judge Neil Gorsuch. But the White House’s refusal to make Gorsuch available to even meet with some Democratic senators to answer their questions leaves them no choice but to vote no. According to Huffington Post, […]

Women’s health and family planning capabilities are once again being targeted by Republicans, as the Senate just voted to roll back crucial protections, put in place by President Obama, that shielded organizations like Planned Parenthood from discrimination in funding by state governments. And Vice President Mike Pence was all too happy to help them do […]

As pressure mounts for House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) to recuse himself from that committee’s investigation into Donald Trump’s Russia ties and all House intel public hearings have been cancelled, the Senate Intelligence Committee is attempting to fill the void. While an independent investigation and special prosecutor are still sorely needed, Senator Mark Warner […]

After Donald Trump fired FBI Director James Comey — in the midst of that agency’s investigation into the connections between Trump’s campaign and Russia’s election interference — leading Democrats are demanding that a special prosecutor must be appointed to continue that probe before the Senate votes on a new FBI director. Revelations that Trump gave highly […]

Merrick Garland is one of the most respected jurists in the United States. He is the chief judge of the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and served as associate deputy attorney general under President Bill Clinton, where he prosecuted Timothy McVeigh for the Oklahoma City bombing. He is a centrist who has won […]

Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress keep trying to make questions about Russia’s involvement in our election go away, but so far, they are failing miserably. A new NBC/WSJ poll shows that voters want an investigation, despite claims by various White House officials, and Trump himself, that the investigation “should be over.” But voters do not believe Congress is up to […]

Politico reports that the House Republicans just voted to roll back Americans’ right to privacy on the internet: House Republicans voted Tuesday to revoke the FCC’s broadband privacy rules, sending legislation to the White House that would undo the federal government’s strongest-ever online privacy regulations. Republicans passed the bill 215 to 205 over the fierce […]

Donald Trump has plunged the nation headlong into a constitutional crisis by firing FBI Director James Comey as the bureau investigates his own collusion with Russia. It is one of Trump’s most brazen abuses of power so far, intensifying calls for his impeachment. Trump is the most unqualified president of our time, and certainly one of the most […]

On the heels of Donald Trump’s failure to repeal Obamacare, Democrats are already formulating a strategy to capitalize on Trump’s ostensible overtures for bipartisanship. Whether those overtures are genuine or not, they provide Democrats with an opportunity to pressure Trump and the Republicans to improve the current health care system, rather than trying to make […]

Senate Democrats are treating Donald Trump’s decision to fire outgoing FBI Director James Comey as a “crisis” and are slowing down business as Republicans enable what amounts to a cover-up. Because Democrats are in the minority, they cannot shut everything down completely. But they can throw a wrench into how the Senate operates, slowing down […]

When the Affordable Care Act was finally passed in 2010, it was done through a process called “reconciliation,” which allows a bill to overcome a Senate filibuster by only requiring a simple 51-vote majority, but only if the bill is restricted to budgetary matters. This became necessary when Scott Brown won the seat vacated by […]

Jeffrey Perkins, the father of an autistic child whom Judge Neil Gorsuch ruled against in a court case, made a strong case against Gorsuch’s Supreme Court nomination at a Senate hearing. In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court recently repudiated Gorsuch’s ruling in Thompson R2-J School District v. Luke P. as his confirmation hearing was in progress. […]

Based on questions both about the wisdom of allowing a president who is under investigation by the FBI to make a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court, and about the judicial objectivity of Donald Trump’s nominee, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer announced that Democratic senators are preparing to filibuster to stop Neil Gorsuch’s confirmation. The […]

The Trump administration continues to attack the legitimacy of the media, and the GOP tries to shift attention away from the investigation into Trump’s ties with Russia by focusing instead on leaks about those ties to the media. Nevertheless, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) focused on an essential truth during the Senate hearing Monday on the investigation into […]