As Policy Watch reported earlier today, U.S. Senate Republicans -- including North Carolina's Thom Tillis and Richard Burr -- blocked an attempt by Democrats on Monday evening to begin debate on a broad bill that would avert multiple looming fiscal crises for the federal government. The measure in question would have kept the government operating past the end of the fiscal year on Thursday, increased the federal government's borrowing limit (also known as the "debt ceiling") and approved billions in aid for regions struck by extreme weather.
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Staff's articles and posts
Biden refutes continuing GOP conspiracy claims: "The big lie is just that, a big lie" PHILADELPHIA — Returning to the state that handed him the White House, President Joe Biden made a passionate plea Tuesday for Americans to rise up and protect their voting rights from a series of restrictive measures pushed by Republicans in Washington and in state capitols nationwide.
...University boards of trustees hold considerable power over the institutions they govern, but get attention only when they’re hiring a new president or if there is a crisis. Yet, increasingly boards aren’t navigating or mediating crises – they are creating them. On June 30, after deliberating in a closed session, the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill Board of Trustees voted 9-4 to grant journalist, MacArthur Fellowship recipient and Pulitzer Prize winner Nikole Hannah-Jones tenure.
...Marjorie Taylor Greene in new attack on Fauci demands his salary be stripped WASHINGTON — U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia on Tuesday led a group of House Republicans calling for the firing of Dr. Anthony Fauci, formalizing their intense criticism of his public statements and actions throughout the coronavirus pandemic into legislation.
...Not one usable vaccine so far out of Baltimore plant with multi-million-dollar federal contract WASHINGTON — Angry U.S. House Democrats on Wednesday had one key question as they grilled executives of a Maryland biotech manufacturer forced to dump 15 million doses of Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine: Has there been one usable vaccine dose produced as a result of the $271 million paid to date by the U.S. government?
...Scores of NC physicians, nurses, clinicians, and counselors say bill racing through state House would foster "environment of fear, stigma, and interrogation" Editor's note: Republicans in the North Carolina House and Senate are once again advancing legislation to restrict abortion access. As Policy Watch has reported here and here, two committees in the House of Representatives have already given approval to a proposal...
...A new 'must read' report from authors Gene Nichol and Heather Hunt of the North Carolina Poverty Research Fund at the UNC School of Law provides a powerful and damning examination of the ways in which poverty has become, in the words of one knowledgeable attorney, "the foundational principle of what's going on" in North Carolina's juvenile justice system.
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