California's Impending Energy Disaster That Nobody Talks About

Alien Terrorist Removal Court holds its first-ever hearing after 30 years

Congress created the Alien Terrorist Removal Court in 1996 to make it easier for the Justice Department to use classified evidence to deport people from U.S. soil.

Here are the 14 senators who support canceling recess over SAVE America Act

Pressure is growing against Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) to keep the upper chamber in session until it passes the SAVE America Act. With just a handful of legislative days left until the Senate’s scheduled August recess, 14 senators have either called for the cancellation of recess or expressed support for staying in Washington […]

SAVE America or save face? What’s driving Trump’s recess fight 

In Focus delivers deeper coverage of the political, cultural, and ideological issues shaping America. Published daily by senior writers and experts, these in-depth pieces go beyond the headlines to give readers the full picture. You can find our full list of In Focus pieces here. The Senate is supposed to leave town on Aug. 7 […]

The Houthis Could Drive Up Gas Prices Even Further

The Houthi rebels in Yemen have expanded their military campaign against Saudi Arabia, which could drive up gas prices even further than they already are. Houthi ballistic […]

Republicans strangle bill to block Trump's IRS immunity deal

The Senate Finance Committee just voted down a check on the Trump administration's efforts to shield him from tax audits, according to a new report. Republicans in the Senate Finance Committee defeated the Democrat's block in a 14-13 vote as part of committee work on a broader tax-administration bill, Politico reported Thursday.While Democrats argued Trump's audit immunity arrangement amounted to an abuse of power, Republicans claimed the Senate committee wasn't the correct venue to address it. “This is not the place,” said committee chairman Mike Crapo (R-ID). “If this bill were to become the vehicle where this issue is resolved, it would achieve basically making this bill a partisan bill” and that “would turn this bill into a bill that has a much dimmer future for becoming law.”Lawmakers later approved the full bill at 26-1 with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) casting the lone dissenting vote.“No other taxpayer, ever, has gotten this kind of a deal,” Warren said. “I cannot support a bill that rubber stamps Donald Trump’s corruption. Congress needs to stand up and put a stop to it.”The audit immunity plan originated in May, when the administration proposed exempting Trump and his family from IRS audits in exchange for dropping a lawsuit against the agency over a contractor's leak of Trump's tax information to the New York Times.Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), who sits on both the Finance and Judiciary committees, has pushed for changes to narrow the plan's scope — limiting it to the parties named in Trump's lawsuit and to tax returns already filed, rather than future ones.Cornyn has said Blanche agreed to those terms verbally during his confirmation hearing but has not yet put them in writing, prompting the Judiciary Committee to postpone a scheduled vote on Blanche's nomination while negotiations continue.Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), another Republican critical of the original immunity plan, said he believes the administration is negotiating in good faith to resolve the outstanding objections.It remains unclear whether any revised version will be enough to satisfy Democratic critics of the arrangement.

Trump says he could pull Blanche's attorney general nomination until GOP holdouts leave

In a post on social media, President Trump threatened to pull acting Attorney General Todd Blanche's nomination to serve permanently in the role until two Senate Republicans who are withholding their support leave office next year. NBC News' Julie Tsirkin reports from Capitol Hill on why the senators oppose advancing Blanche's nomination to the full Senate.

Rebellion against 'oblivious' Trump tanks Dow in worst day of the year

Many critics anticipated that when President Donald Trump appointed Kevin Warsh as chairman of the Federal Reserve, he was getting a hack who would follow Trump’s order to cut rates regardless of the explosive consequences.On Wednesday, that’s not what happened — and Trump is likely stewing.“[Warsh’s] hard line on inflation must have … surprised Warsh’s patron, President Trump,” argued American Prospect co-founder Robert Kuttner.The Federal Reserve refused to lower interest rates from its current target range of 3.5 to 3.75 percent for short-term rates. Worse for Trump, the vote of the whole fed was 9-to-3, with three regional bank presidents voting to raise the target range for the federal funds rate by a quarter percentage point. Kuttner said this was the first time since 2016 that three officials dissented in the same direction.“The split vote signals that the Fed, despite President Trump’s wishes for a rate cut, is likely to vote for a rate hike between now and the November midterms. That’s because several factors, some of them of Trump’s own making, are increasing inflation, including the Iran war and retail price increases resulting from Trump’s tariffs,” said Kuttner.The decision to keep rates steady “tanked the Dow,” according to CNN anchor Kasie Hunt, delivering “the worst trading day for more than year.”But if Trump is stomping around the White House right now he only has himself to blame, said Kuttner.“Our impulsive and oblivious president is not good at connecting dots. One set of Trump policies raises inflation, while Trump pressures the Fed to ignore the problem and cut interest rates,” said Kuttner. “In his report to Congress on July 15, Kevin Warsh … surprised many observers by ignoring the Fed’s ‘dual mandate’ to pursue both price stability and high employment. In fact, Warsh had said, “The members of our [Federal Open Market] Committee have no tolerance for persistently elevated inflation. And we share a resolute commitment to restoring price stability.”Plus, Kuttner said Warsh made no mention at all of employment, implying Trump should have seen this coming.“Bonds are under pressure because of the massive increases in the federal debt under Trump, compounded by a lot of borrowing for the AI bubble and data center build-out. In many respects, these signals are a more important factor in Fed thinking than the month-to-month inflation rate,” Kuttner said. Worse for Trump, there are two more meetings of the policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee between now and November, when Trump’s voters are likely to show Trump how unhappy they are with his economy. And the challenge facing the Fed is that the widely expected rate hike won’t even be able to act fast enough to fix what’s broken about Trump’s economy.“And since the inflation is not the result of overheated demand but of the impact of the Iran war and Trump’s tariffs, higher rates will not moderate these prices,” said Kuttner. “But leaving rates alone would signal an indulgence of inflation that Warsh and his colleagues want to avoid.”