For a brief period, it looked as though the horrific Las Vegas shooting that killed 58 people and injured 548 others might finally be the moment Congress would act on gun violence. The firearm attachments used by the killer, called “bump stocks,” serve no reasonable civilian purpose, upgrading semi-automatic weapons into fully automatic machine guns. […]

Donald Trump is beginning to experience the rumblings of discontent from Senate Republicans. Retiring Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker has said he will not support Trump again in 2020. And Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake, who suddenly announced Tuesday that he also will not seek re-election, publicly castigated his colleagues for their complicity in Trump’s assaults on the […]

The Republican Party — the party that claimed complete victory in November, taking the White House and maintaining control of the House and Senate — is falling apart. “A political implosion is underway,” said Nicolle Wallace, a longtime Republican strategist who worked in George W. Bush’s White House and on John McCain’s presidential campaign in […]

Republicans just lost their second Senate incumbent for next year. Jeff Flake, the junior senator from Arizona, has thrown yet another monkey wrench into the Republicans’ playing field in the 2018 midterms by announcing he will not run for re-election, saying, “The path that I would have to travel to get the Republican nomination is […]

Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker has lately been hailed as a strong, courageous voice against Donald Trump within the Republican Party. He has accused Trump of “publicly castrating” his secretary of state. On Tuesday morning, he proclaimed Trump a danger to national security and admonished him to leave global diplomacy “to the professionals.” His words prompted […]

Ohio Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown slammed the white nationalism in the Trump administration in an interview Sunday morning. Friday, Florida Democratic Rep. Frederica Wilson told The New York Times that the White House is “full of white supremacists.” Her comments came as she has been the target of a weeklong attack by Donald Trump and senior members of […]

Late Thursday night, while America slept, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell shamelessly rammed through a budget bill with nakedly partisan intentions. The budget framework is being sold by Republican leaders as simply a routine procedural vote to outline government spending for the next year. But it is not. It authorizes $1.5 trillion in cuts to […]

Roy Moore, the disgraced ex-judge now running for Jeff Sessions’ vacant Senate seat in Alabama, has a long history of bizarre interpretations of the law, including that God’s word overrides all written laws, and that federal judges do not have power to overrule states. But one of his most interesting recent positions is that First […]

Now that GOP Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee is retiring, Republicans are defending another open seat. And the most obvious choice to replace him is Rep. Marsha Blackburn. But her Senate announcement this week is off to a rocky start, with Twitter pulling her ad for being false and excessively offensive. The ad features Blackburn […]

Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) let loose on Donald Trump in a jaw-dropping interview Sunday evening, just hours after he referred to the White House as an “adult day care.” Corker told the New York Times that Trump is treating the presidency like “a reality show” and that he acts “like he’s doing ‘The Apprentice’ or something.” […]

There is no single reason why the National Rifle Association has a death grip over the debate on gun regulation in the United States. Much of its power comes from its cult-like cultural propaganda videos to NRA membership, which galvanizes them to relentlessly call members of Congress. But another source of the NRA’s power lies in […]

On Monday, America woke up to news of a gruesome mass shooting at a country music concert near Mandalay Bay Casino in Las Vegas. According to reports, this is the deadliest shooting massacre in modern U.S. history. But we have been here many times before, and everyone knows how the story will play out. And […]

There is no question that Arizona Republican Jeff Flake is one of the most vulnerable senators, from either party, up for reelection in 2018. And polls show that he is in massive trouble just as a promising Democratic challenger is stepping up. Rep. Krysten Sinema, an Ironman triathlon winner who represents Arizona’s 9th Congressional District, […]

Fresh from his humiliation over health care this week, Donald Trump has been dealt another blow in Alabama, where the election to fill Jeff Sessions’ Senate seat is in full swing. The GOP runoff came down to Luther Strange, the incumbent appointed to the Senate by Alabama’s ex-governor under corrupt circumstances, and Roy Moore, a […]

Time after time, Republicans in Congress have spitefully tried to take away health care from millions of the most vulnerable and sick, and time and time again, they have been smacked down by the American people. Now, the latest attempt, the Graham-Cassidy bill, has officially died without a vote. Sen Roberts leaves GOP luncheon saying […]

Republicans’ prospects of passing their universally loathed health care bill are cratering, and at a CNN policy forum, one of its chief authors, Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, did nothing to improve the bill’s outlook. Joined by co-author Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and independent Sen. Bernie Sanders […]

Senate Republicans are still not quite at the required 50 votes to pass their disastrous, massively unpopular Graham-Cassidy Obamacare repeal bill. But rather than try to find broad compromise or consensus, GOP leadership is instead making narrow tweaks to the bill that make it even harsher, to specifically target the votes of hard-right male senators […]

From the outset, the latest Republican health care repeal bill was the worst of all the Obamacare repeal proposals introduced this year in the Senate. The so-called Graham-Cassidy bill is now less popular than Vladimir Putin, with only 20 percent support from voters and all major doctor, patient, and insurer groups opposed. Less than half of […]

The Graham-Cassidy Obamacare repeal bill is still just shy of the 50 votes it needs to pass the Senate, and Republicans are getting desperate as the September 30 deadline gets nearer. One of their main targets is Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who has solidly voted against previous GOP repeal bills, but who has publicly […]

GOP Sen. John McCain of Arizona has long been a wildcard in Senate Republicans’ on-again, off-again attempts to repeal Obamacare. In July, McCain flew to the Capitol while undergoing treatment for brain cancer to cast the deciding vote to begin debate on Obamacare repeal, even as he condemned the lack of “regular order.” Days later, […]

GOP Rep. Todd Rokita of Indiana, who hopes to challenge Democratic Sen. Joe Donnelly in 2018, has a reputation that precedes him. An unapologetic Trump supporter who once took to the air to warn immigrant children might be carrying Ebola, Rokita is better known on Capitol Hill as a ruthless taskmaster. He once forced an aide […]

One the most appalling features of the Graham-Cassidy Obamacare repeal bill that Senate Republicans are trying to ram through without debate is its impact on sick people. The bill would totally wipe out all Obamacare protections, and let insurers jack up prices based on pre-existing illness. According to the Center for American Progress, asthma would […]

For the second time this year, Republican Sen. Dean Heller of Nevada has been faced with protecting the health care of his constituents or protecting his own Senate seat from a Trump-fueled primary opponent. For the second time this year, Heller has chosen to protect himself and hang his constituents out to dry. And they’re […]

The clear GOP frontrunner in the Alabama Senate special election has become Roy Moore — if anything, an even worse, more dangerous, and more embarrassing person than Jeff Sessions himself. But while he is divisive even among national Republicans, many prominent GOP figures are now jumping in to support him. According to Axios, disgraced ex-Trump adviser […]

What connection does the Senate’s Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee have with pending health care legislation that Republicans are trying to ram through Congress? Absolutely none. But that’s not stopping the GOP from setting up what appears to be a sham hearing scheduled for next week to debate a pending health care bill. Even […]

After making moves toward a bipartisan, publicly debated health care bill in the wake of their spectacular failure in July, Republicans unexpectedly started pushing to pass an even worse Obamacare repeal bill just before the deadline in two weeks, once again shutting out Democrats and only pretending to schedule a hearing. Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy […]

Republicans have long been willing to throw away the rights of the American people in the name of defeating foreign enemies. To this day, the 9/11-era bill giving the president open-ended power to declare war anywhere he wants is still rigorously protected by Republican leadership. And Donald Trump’s arbitrary Muslim ban has already ruined the […]

Earlier this year, Republicans rewrote Senate rules to steal a seat on the Supreme Court. And that was only the beginning. Senate Republicans left open a huge number of federal judgeships for Donald Trump to fill. But Democratic Sen. Al Franken of Minnesota is standing in the way of one particularly extreme appointment. Trump has […]

The past few decades have seen a dramatic shift in public opinion on marijuana use. Once considered a menace to society, cannabis can now be legally prescribed for medical purposes in 29 states and D.C., but massive obstacles to studying its medicinal effects remain. Marijuana, despite having no fatal dose and no discernible negative impact […]

The Republican Party has fallen into disarray and confusion in the wake of their dramatic failure to repeal the Affordable Care Act in July. But the experience has only emboldened Democrats, who are now ready to take the next step and fight for fully universal health care. “Health care goes to the core of our […]