Former President Donald Trump now enjoys the highest favorability rating among the seven U.S. political leaders tracked in the RealClearPolitics (RCP) polling average, marking a striking political transformation from where he was 15 months ago while leaving office.
Trump has a favorability rating of 45.8%, more than three points higher than President Joe Biden’s rating of 42.6%, according to the RCP average.
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Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are pressuring the Internal Revenue Service over ongoing problems and unaddressed issues from last year’s filing season even as this year’s season is in full swing.
A bipartisan group of more than 100 lawmakers from the U.S. House and Senate sent a letter to the IRS raising concerns about “continued confusion” and “numerous problems” with the agency.
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U.S Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., is stepping down from his Senate seat.
The senator said in a letter to Oklahoma Secretary of State Brian Bingman he and his wife, Kay, felt like it was time to “stand aside and support the next generation of Oklahoma leaders.”
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The Senate late Thursday rejected a Democratic effort to alter the filibuster in order to pass their long-sought voting bills over unanimous Republican opposition, capping one of the most consequential days in the history of the chamber.
The vote failed 48-52 after Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema voted as they said they would for months, joining a unanimous Republican caucus in opposition and denying their party the necessary support for the change to take effect. The change, had it been adopted, would have established a “talking filibuster” pertaining to the voting bills only, allowing any senator to speak for or against them for as long as they wanted but lowering the 60-vote threshold for passage to a simple majority.
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After House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) proposed possible new legislation to limit the practice of insider stock trading among members of Congress, even some within his own ranks have anonymously voiced their opposition to such a plan.
As reported by the New York Post, McCarthy first made the suggestion to Punchbowl News, suggesting such a bill as one of many things he would want to see introduced if the GOP retakes the majority in November. Among other things, his proposal would restrict members to only holding professionally managed funds, as well as prohibit lawmakers from owning stocks in companies that are overseen by committees they serve on.
McCarthy pointed to the example of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who has a net worth of over $100 million, and whose husband was found to have traded millions more worth of tech stocks. “I just think if you’re the Speaker of the House, you control what comes to the floor, what goes through committee, you have all the power to do everything you want,” McCarthy said on Tuesday. “You can’t be trading millions of dollars.”
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The U.S. Senate voted Tuesday to raise the debt ceiling $2.5 trillion, a move that would avoid a default on the nation’s debt payments likely until 2023, beyond the midterm elections.
The 50-49 vote along party lines now sends the measure to the U.S. House of Representatives.
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The U.S. Senate Wednesday night sent the Biden administration a message: Congress’ upper chamber does not support the president’s vaccine mandate on private businesses.
With two Democratic senators joining all 50 Republicans, the Senate voted 52-48 to repeal President Joe Biden’s executive mandate requiring that private-sector employers with 100 or more workers ensure their employees are vaccinated against COVID-19 or face weekly testing. Businesses that didn’t follow the directive were to face stiff fines.
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A recently-appointed U.S. Attorney who has been praised for her commitment to fixing the “injustices” in the criminal justice system launched into an expletive laden rant when approached by reporters.
Wednesday, Rachael Rollins was confirmed by the U.S. Senate to be the U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts. She was appointed by President Joe Biden.
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Five years ago, the U.S. Department of Education approved a grant application for a summer research program whose “core feature” was introducing student fellows to “critical race theory.”
The feds approved a five-year extension of the original grant for the Research Institute for Scholars of Equity (RISE) this year, with one notable and unexplained omission: the term “critical race theory.”
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A business law professor who has been put on paid leave for refusing to wear a mask in class is defending his actions with an unexpected authority: the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
“[B]y requiring employees to wear a mask, you are promoting the idea that the mask can prevent or treat a disease, which is an illegal deceptive practice,” David Clements, who teaches consumer law at New Mexico State University (NMSU), told provost Carol Parker in a Sept. 13 letter.
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On Tuesday, the United States Senate confirmed one of Joe Biden’s most controversial federal nominees, Kristen Clarke, to a key leadership post in the Department of Justice, as reported by the Daily Caller.
Clarke was confirmed as head of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division with 51 votes, when Republican Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine) sided with the chamber’s 50 Democrats to confirm her nomination. As previously reported, her nomination originally stalled in the Judiciary Committee after the committee vote to advance her nomination ended in a tie, before Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) brought the motion to a full floor vote to advance it out of the committee.
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A foe of former President Donald Trump is leading the Biden Justice Department’s push to discredit or halt an election audit in Arizona’s largest county—an issue that is heating up this week.
Pamela S. Karlan, principal deputy assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, warned the leader of the Arizona state Senate that the audit of Maricopa County’s election results in November could run afoul of federal law regarding security of voter information and voter intimidation.
President Joe Biden, who appointed Karlan, narrowly defeated Trump in Arizona, where Maricopa County was a crucial battleground.
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A Republican former U.S. Senate candidate from Michigan is launching a Political Action Committee (PAC) with the goal of helping other GOP candidates get elected in 2022.
John James is a West Point graduate, Iraq War veteran and businessman who ran twice for U.S. Senate in Michigan. In 2020, he was barely edged out by incumbent Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI) by a 49.6 percent to 48.5 percent margin.
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Rep. Ilhan Omar said she is disappointed that Democrats are “ultimately sending money to less people than the Trump administration.”
The $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package passed Saturday by the U.S. Senate includes $1,400 stimulus checks for individuals making up to $75,000 and married couples with a joint income of up to $150,000. Unlike the two previous relief bills — which included $600 and $1,200 stimulus payments — higher-income earners won’t receive partial checks.
“I see it as a really disappointing development. We obviously are now ultimately sending money to less people than the Trump administration and the Senate majority Republicans,” Omar told CNN Friday night.
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Two months after the November 3 presidential election, the Georgia Secretary of State’s office and county officials in the state have failed to produce chain of custody documents known as ballot transfer forms that tracked the movement of 76 percent of the estimated 600,000 absentee ballots deposited in 300 drop boxes around the state and subsequently delivered to county registrars responsible for accurately and honestly counting those votes in that election.
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Senate Republicans voted overwhelmingly Sunday to advance Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett toward final confirmation despite Democratic objections, just over a week before the presidential election.
Barrett’s confirmation on Monday was hardly in doubt, with majority Republicans mostly united in support behind President Donald Trump’s pick. But Democrats were poised to keep the Senate in session into the night in attempts to stall, arguing that the Nov. 3 election winner should choose the nominee to fill the vacancy left by the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
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A Democratic PAC that has spent millions attacking Republican Senate candidate John James took donations from the United Auto Workers (UAW), whose former president pleaded guilty to embezzlement last week.
Former UAW President Gary Jones pleaded guilty to embezzling more than $1 million in union dues in addition to charges of racketeering and tax evasion. He is one of 14 former UAW officials convicted in an ongoing federal corruption investigation.
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President Donald Trump will declare a national emergency Friday afternoon in response to the coronavirus outbreak, various reports claimed.
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One of the effects of the Senate impeachment’s abrupt conclusion in President Donald Trump’s favor is that the Republican Senate can get right on with the business of confirming constitutionalists to federal court, of which Trump recently touted 191 having been confirmed.
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Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI) aired his first ad of the campaign Saturday, which uses a line straight out of his opponent’s playbook.
The minute-long ad first aired Saturday during the Michigan-Michigan State basketball game and features Peters’ wife, Colleen, discussing her husband’s military service.
Read More Republican Senate candidate John James announced Friday that his campaign has donated more than $250,000 to charity over the last six months.
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Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI) said in a recent interview that he supports the Green New Deal’s goal of achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.
Read MoreThe Michigan Democratic Party recently launched a new website for the exclusive purpose of exposing Republican Senate candidate John James’ “far-right statements and positions.”
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The Michigan Democratic Party recently launched a new website for the exclusive purpose of exposing Republican Senate candidate John James’ “far-right statements and positions.”
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Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), the fourth highest-ranking Democratic senator, announced this week that she supports a “formal impeachment inquiry” against President Donald Trump.
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