Senate Democrats, holding out for health care, reject government funding bill for 10th time

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Democrats rejected for the 10th time Thursday a stopgap spending bill that would reopen the government, insisting they won’t back away from demands that Congress take up health care benefits. The vote failed on a 51-45 tally, well short of the 60 needed to advance with the Senate’s filibuster rules. The repetition of votes on the funding bill has become a daily drumbeat in Congress, underscoring how intractable the situation has become. It has been at times the only item on the agenda for the Senate…

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Senate sets date for vote on 2026 defense policy bill

  The Senate will vote on its version of the 2026 defense policy bill on Sept. 2. The House has not yet scheduled a floor vote on its version of the National Defense Authorization Act, though the House Committee on Rules has set an Aug. 28 deadline for lawmakers to file NDAA amendments. The Senate bill authorizes nearly $ 925 billion for national defense, while the House version aligns with the White House’s $ 883 billion request. Congress has passed the NDAA every year for the past 64 years. (Senate…

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House defense bill boosts military pay, increases family separation allowance

The House Armed Services Committee’s version of the 2026 defense policy bill, passed Tuesday night after a full day of debate, includes a 3.8% pay bump for service members, a 60% increase in the family separation allowance and excludes the basic allowance for housing from income calculations.  The committee passed its version of the annual National Defense Authorization Act less than a week after the Senate Armed Services Committee advanced its own version of the legislation. The House defense bill, just like the Senate’s version, focuses heavily on reforming the…

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House-passed reconciliation bill includes more changes to proposed federal benefits cuts

House lawmakers narrowly passed the GOP’s budget reconciliation bill early Thursday morning in a vote of 215-214, after making one last revision to a series of proposals cutting federal benefits and civil service protections. Four of the six provisions on federal benefits cuts that originated from Republicans on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee remain in the House-passed version of the bill, which now heads to the Senate for consideration. But notably, the proposed change to a “high-5” annuity calculation is no longer on the table. The provision was…

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Democrat Invokes ‘Trans Jesus’ After Amending Gender Bill Out of Recognition in Middle of Night

A Colorado state senator appeared to belittle the faith of critics by referring to “trans Jesus” amid debate on HB 25-1312, after he and his party amended the bill beyond recognition in the wee hours of Monday night, two days before the end of the Colorado legislative session. HB 25-1312 drew national scrutiny after a Colorado Democrat compared concerned parents to the Ku Klux Klan. The bill originally mandated courts to consider “deadnaming” and “misgendering” as forms of “coercive control” in custody disputes, meaning that parents who dissent from gender…

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