Political Jason

A ruling that emerged from a powerful federal appeals court in Washington on Wednesday morning is strong evidence that the courts are unlikely to be receptive to President Donald Trump’s claims that he and his political supporters are being silenced by social media platforms like Twitter. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit resoundingly rejected a lawsuit the conservative legal organization Freedom Watch and right-wing provocateur Laura Loomer filed in 2018 against four major technology companies: Google, Facebook,…

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President Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order aimed at social media companies on Thursday, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany told reporters Wednesday evening, a move that comes as the president and his allies have escalated their allegations that companies like Twitter and Facebook stifle GOP voices. McEnany told reporters aboard Air Force One that the order is “pertaining to social media” but shared no additional details on what it will do. But the announcement revived fears…

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On Wednesday afternoon, Rep. Brendan Boyle of Pennsylvania quietly made some history. Acting on behalf of Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), Boyle was the first member ever to cast a proxy vote for a colleague on the House floor. Boyle joked that he had to “thank the alphabet for this one” because the chamber was voting in alphabetical order, but he also insisted that the move would be praised by the Constitution’s drafters. “Our Founding Fathers were some of the most…

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UPDATE: Speaker Nancy Pelosi and top Democrats postponed a vote on Wednesday to reauthorize key parts of the federal surveillance program known as FISA, after an 11th hour revolt by Republicans and progressive Democrats. Democrats have not decided when or if they will take up the bill. The legislation had broad bipartisan support in the Senate, but lost support from GOP lawmakers after sudden resistance from President Donald Trump and the Justice Department. ORIGINAL STORY: Speaker Nancy Pelosi and top…

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The White House is renewing a push to end “surprise” medical bills — possibly as part of the next coronavirus rescue package — in a bid to deliver on protecting insured patients from sometimes staggering costs of emergency or out-of-network care. Trump administration officials are floating a plan that would outlaw health care providers from putting patients on the hook for thousands of dollars in expenses — but without mandating how doctors and hospitals would recover their costs from insurers,…

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President Donald Trump threatened Monday to pull the Republican National Convention out of North Carolina if state officials don’t roll out the red carpet soon. On Tuesday, those officials put the onus on national Republicans to show they can pull off a 50,000-person event safely. In a letter to Marcia Kelly, the president and CEO of the convention, North Carolina secretary of Health and Human Services Mandy Cohen acknowledged the president’s warning and requested a public health plan for the…

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David Bossie and Corey Lewandowski, two key allies and former political advisers to Donald Trump, went to the White House last week to issue him a warning: The president was slipping badly in swing states, and he needed to do something to fix it. Three days later, the Trump campaign’s political directors in Arizona and Florida — states the president won in 2016 but where surveys show him lagging — were summoned to the White House Roosevelt Room. The officials…

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MIAMI — President Donald Trump’s allies in his newly adopted home state of Florida are making a play to snatch the Republican National Convention from North Carolina. Moving the presidential nominating convention to Florida — with Republican-led Jacksonville as a likely host city — was raised as a serious option to Trump in a phone call Sunday by one of his new favorite congressmen, Florida Rep. Michael Waltz, who represents Jacksonville and Orlando. During the call, which concerned Trump’s plan…

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Twitter took a small stand against a pair of unsubstantiated President Donald Trump tweets about voting fraud on Tuesday by adding fact-check warnings, but the move was unlikely to stem the onslaught of criticism the company is facing about tweets it hasn’t acted on, including those peddling conspiracy theories about a deceased congressional staffer. Here’s what Twitter did, and why the company didn’t do more to admonish the president. Why Twitter stepped in on Trump’s mail-in ballot tweets The social…

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President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden amped up their ongoing spat over wearing face masks in public on Tuesday with Biden calling the president an “absolute fool” for stoking controversy around the use of masks. The beef began Monday evening, when the president retweeted an image that appeared to mock Biden wearing a mask in his first public appearance in months because of the coronavirus pandemic. “This might help explain why Trump doesn’t like to wear a…

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