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    Jennifer Bendery

    Jennifer Bendery

    Senior Politics Reporter, HuffPost

  • Senate Confirms Another Trump Court Pick Rated 'Not Qualified' To Serve

    Justin Walker, 37, lacks the experience to be a lifetime federal judge, says the American Bar Association. Republicans voted for him anyway.

  • Susan Collins Will Oppose Controversial Judicial Nominee Steven Menashi

    She is the first Republican senator to come out against Trump's court pick, who has a record of opposing rights for women, LGBTQ people and minorities.

  • In Rare Appeal, Federal Judge Begs Senate To Fill Vacancies On His Court

    A U.S. district court in California faces "judicial catastrophe" without two more judges, says retiring Chief Judge Lawrence O'Neill.

  • Senate Advances Another Trump Court Pick Rated 'Not Qualified' To Serve

    Justin Walker lacks the experience to be a lifetime federal judge, the American Bar Association says. But Republicans are ready to confirm him anyway.

  • House Lawmakers Introduce Bipartisan Resolution Recognizing 'Indigenous Peoples' Day'

    They may not agree on much, but some in Congress can agree that it's time to do away with Columbus Day.

  • Mike Pence Won't Say If He Knew Ukraine Aid Was Tied To Biden Probe

    The vice president dodged the question four times in a row. Not a good look, man!

  • Trump Court Pick Ignores Senators' Questions About His Role In Ukraine Scandal

    Democrats asked Steven Menashi, a White House legal aide, what he knew about the president's potentially impeachable offenses. He didn't respond.

  • The Impeachment Story Is Simple. Republicans Are Trying To Confuse You.

    GOP leaders desperately want to lose you in the arcana of process and take attention away from what the president did.

  • Nearly One-Third Of 847,000 Vets With Pending Applications For VA Health Care Already Died

    More than 238,000 of the 847,000 veterans with pending applications for health care through the Department of Veterans Affairs have already died, according to an internal VA document provided to The Huffington Post. Scott Davis, a program specialist at the VA's Health Eligibility Center in Atlanta and a past whistleblower on the VA's failings, provided HuffPost with an April 2015 report titled "Analysis of Death Services," which reviews the accuracy of the VA's veteran death records. The report was conducted by staffers in the VA Health Eligibility Center and the VA Office of Analytics.

  • After Eight Months, Judicial Nominee Whom Everyone Likes Advances

    It took eight months, but the Judiciary Committee easily cleared circuit court nominee Luis Felipe Restrepo on Thursday. Restrepo is the latest casualty of Republicans' decision to slow-walk President Barack Obama's judicial picks, with some hoping they can hold out until 2016, when a Republican may be in the White House, to fill the bulk of the 62 federal court vacancies that currently exist. The Senate has confirmed a total of five district or circuit court nominees this year.

  • Democrats Happy To Exploit Embarrassing GOP Fight Over Confederate Flag

    House Speaker John Boehner's day went from bad to worse Thursday as his efforts to quietly ease a fight over the Confederate flag blew up. Democrats seized the opportunity to denounce Republicans as defenders of a painful symbol of racism. Democrats have been fuming since Wednesday night, when Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.) put forward a vaguely worded amendment to attach to an annual spending bill that would allow the Confederate flag to be displayed in national cemeteries.

  • White House Trashes House GOP's Push To Protect Confederate Flag

    Earnest kicked off his briefing with a statement about the ordeal, which began late Wednesday night when Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.) attached an amendment to the 2016 Interior and Environment appropriations bill to allow the Confederate flag to be displayed in national cemeteries. The move infuriated Democrats and ultimately led to House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) pulling down the whole bill Thursday. Boehner noted that he's personally opposed to displaying the flag on federal grounds, but wants both sides to talk it out.

  • Gary Peters May Be The Loneliest Senator, But He's Doing OK

    Not only is he a freshman, and not only is he in the minority party, but he's the lone Democrat in his class of 13 newcomers. When The Huffington Post informally polled a handful of Capitol Hill reporters a couple of weeks ago, some of them didn't even know who Peters was. Nobody even noticed that Peters wasn't listed as a senator on the official Senate Democratic website until May of this year, when his staff caught it.

  • Disappointed Dems Help Pass Trade Relief For Fired Workers

    The House passed a bill Thursday to help workers displaced by the trade deals Congress just gave President Barack Obama the power to sign, but it's a bitter consolation for Democrats who think the White House should have gotten much more. The Trade Adjustment Assistance program -- passed as part of a larger trade preferences bill on a vote of 286 to 138 -- will spend about $450 million a year to retrain workers whose jobs are destroyed by free trade deals such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership that Obama is expected to finish soon. “The reason we need TAA is because we have lousy trade deals that end up with the loss of a lot of American jobs.

  • A Day In The Life Of Waiting For The Supreme Court Decision On Marriage Equality

    Any day now, the Supreme Court is going to hand down a major decision on same-sex marriage. There will be rainbow flags. There will be little dogs with little rainbow shirts and little rainbow flags.

  • The 'Bizarre' Path Obama's Trade Agenda Has Taken

    President Barack Obama knew that getting his controversial trade agenda through Congress would be no easy task. The legislative jujitsu over Obama’s trade package has thrown Capitol Hill into a frenzy, with House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) summing up the process as just plain strange. “I would describe most of what’s gone on in the last three weeks as something close to bizarre,” Boehner said Thursday, when asked about the complex procedural tactics and lobbying effort he's been leading alongside Obama.

  • House Debates War Authorization For 2 Hours -- Then Votes Against Dealing With It

    Lawmakers determined to have a war authorization debate chalked up a win on Wednesday: they forced the House of Representatives to spend two hours debating legislation that would pull U.S. troops out of Iraq and Syria if Congress doesn't authorize the ongoing military campaign against the Islamic State by the end of the year. Reps. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), Walter Jones (R-N.C.) and Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) used an obscure provision in the War Powers Resolution to bring forward a concurrent resolution requiring troop withdrawals if Congress fails to pass an Authorization for the Use of Military Force against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, by Dec. 31.

  • 72-Year-Old Senator Plows Through 46 Pushups Like There's No Tomorrow

    It was an otherwise ordinary Wednesday afternoon on Capitol Hill, until Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) lured reporters into a Senate room, dropped to the floor and did 46 pushups at warp speed. Nelson lost a bet to Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) over the Stanley Cup. Nelson offered Florida's famous Cuban sandwiches to Durbin if his team, the Tampa Bay Lightning, lost to Durbin's team, the Chicago Blackhawks.

  • GOP On Trade Deal: 'No One Will Be Negotiating With Leader Pelosi On A Path Forward'

    House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has no plans to negotiate with House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) after her caucus torpedoed a trade deal backed by President Barack Obama and Boehner, a GOP leadership aide told The Huffington Post on Monday. Without talks between Boehner and Pelosi, it's difficult to see how Obama's trade agenda can be revived.

  • House Regroups To Save Obama's Trade Agenda From Democrats

    President Barack Obama suffered an embarrassing defeat Friday in his push to pass his trade agenda. Hours after House Democrats rejected a Trade Adjustment Assistance bill, which would have aided workers displaced by trade deals, the president pressed lawmakers to give it another go. "I urge the House to pass TAA without delay so that more middle-class workers can earn the chance to participate and succeed in our global economy," he said in a statement.