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Transgender care also targeted as House due to vote on spending; former Fox host’s forum with Republican presidential hopefuls happening without ex-presidentGood morning, US politics blog readers. Every year for the last 50 or so, Congress passes the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) outlining the defense department’s annual budget, but this year’s bill is looking to be especially contentious. Yesterday, rightwing Republicans, with speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy’s blessing, succeeded in adding amendments to the legislation blocking the Pentagon from paying travel expenses for employees seeking abortions out of states, and another barring a healthcare program for the armed forces from providing gender-affirming care.The House is expected to vote on final passage of the act around 10.30am eastern time today, but the amendments have sparked a revolt among Democrats, who are telling their lawmakers not to support it. And even if it passes Congress’s lower chamber, it still needs to be approved by the Senate, where Joe Biden’s allies have a majority and are unlikely to be friendly to conservative attempts to shoehorn culture war priorities into such crucial legislation. There will be plenty of news on this today, but one thing that can be said now is that this battle represents the latest consequence of the far right’s sway in the GOP, which only took control of the House at the start of this year.Tucker Carlson, eyeing a comeback after being fired from Fox News, will at 10am host a forum together with Blaze Media feature Republican presidential candidates Ron DeSantis, Tim Scott, Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy and Asa Hutchinson.Biden is taking it easy today after a long week visiting Nato allies in Europe, with no public events or press briefing scheduled.The state of American democracy: not good, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. A troubling one in 10 people surveyed give it high marks, with the rest saying America’s system of government isn’t doing a good job representing their interests. Continue reading...