Poll shows Democrats and Republicans tied for control of Congress ahead of midterms – as it happened

Polling released over the weekend confirms that Democrats will have to fight hard to keep their hold on Congress in the midterms, including with Hispanic voters, an important party bulwark. Meanwhile, Joe Biden has arrived back in Washington DC after paying his respects at the funeral for Queen Elizabeth II in London.

Here’s what else happened today:

• Biden committed to providing Puerto Rico with federal support after Hurricane Fiona knocked out water and power across the island.

• The White House cheered the release of an America held hostage by the Taliban in Afghanistan, saying it underscores its commitment to freeing jailed citizens worldwide.

• Congress may soon vote on a bill to stop the sorts of legal schemes that could have overturned the 2020 election results on January 6.

• As always, the legal wrangling in the Mar-a-Lago case continued.

• “Fighting zombies”. That’s how comedian Jon Stewart described the process of getting a bill through Congress in an interview.

Senators will later this week vote on a measure that would require more disclosures from super PACS, but which could stumble in the face of Republican opposition.

According to Politico, top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer announced the renewed effort to pass the DISCLOSE Act:

Democrats have been wanting to pass such legislation for a while, but have been unable to overcome GOP opposition, HuffPosts reports:

President Joe Biden spoke with Puerto Rico’s governor Pedro Pierluisi and promised federal support to help the recovery from Hurricane Fiona, which knocked out power and water to the island.

Here’s what the White House had to say about the call, which took place as Biden returned from Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral in London:

.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}President Biden described the surge of Federal support to the island, where more than 300 Federal personnel are already working to assist with response and recovery. In the coming days, as damage assessments are conducted, the President said that number of support personnel will increase substantially.

The President said that he will ensure that the Federal team remains on the job to get it done, especially given that Puerto Rico is still recovering from the damage of Hurricane Maria five years ago this week. Governor Pierluisi expressed his appreciation for the partnership and support that he is receiving already from the Biden Administration.

Case in point of the perilous moment America is in: Donald Trump continued his embrace of the extremist QAnon conspiracy theory at a weekend rally, The Guardian’s Richard Luscombe writes:

Donald Trump made one of his highest-profile embraces to date of the extremist conspiracy group QAnon at a political rally in Ohio on Saturday, making the apparently deliberate choice to play music that is virtually indistinguishable from the cult organization’s adopted anthem.

Dozens of the former president’s supporters in Youngstown engaged in raised-arm salutes as Trump delivered a fiery address to the background of a song his team insisted was a royalty-free tune from the internet, but to many ears it was nearly identical to the 2020 instrumental track Wwg1wga.

“I think we’re in the fourth and perhaps the most difficult crisis in the history of America.” That’s how acclaimed documentarian Ken Burns described where the United States is today in an interview with The Guardian’s David Smith. Read the interview here:

Ken Burns is driving in heavy traffic, trying to get from New York, where he was born, to New Hampshire, where he lives and works in bucolic splendour. He made the move in 1979, not to service a grand masterplan but out of financial desperation.

“I was making my first film and starving and rent was going up in New York City and I couldn’t afford it,” the documentarian recalls by phone. “I found the connection to nature incredibly important for this labour-intensive work that we do.”

But when Burns’s debut film, Brooklyn Bridge, was nominated for an Oscar, friends and colleagues assumed that he would move back to New York or try Los Angeles. He surprised them. “I made the biggest, the most important professional decision, which was to stay.

Negotiations over government spending bills in Congress are somewhat high risk, because if no agreement is reached, the government could be forced to shut down, as has happened repeatedly in recent years.

These shutdowns – and there’s been a bunch of them – often come when one faction in Congress or another refuses to budge on a contentious issue, resulting in everything from embassies abroad to government offices at home closing their doors until an agreement is reached.

Politico reports on an early sign of that spirit of intransigence remaining alive, at least in some corners of the House. Around 50 far-right Republican lawmakers say they will not vote for any funding measure approved in this Congress:

Democratic leaders in Congress are pushing for another $12 billion in aid to be sent to Ukraine, and hope to get it into a bill to fund the government through mid-December, Punchbowl News reports.

Administration officials will brief lawmakers tomorrow about how the aid could be used, which comes as Kyiv presses its offensive in Ukraine’s east that has retaken substantial territory from Russia.

The aid is among several provisions of the spending bill – known as a continuing resolution – that is under negotiation in the final months of year. Congress members are also considering how much new Covid-19 aid to include, as well as provisions to reform the process for permitting energy projects, including both fossil fuel and renewables.

The US territory of Puerto Rico appears to be in the midst of a major humanitarian crisis after a hurricane knocked out power to the island and cut off clean drinking water, with forecasts predicting more rain to come. Here’s the latest from Nina Lakhani:

Most of Puerto Rico was still without power or safe drinking water on Monday, with remnants of a category 1 hurricane that struck there a day earlier forecast to bring more heavy rain and life-threatening flooding.

Hundreds of people are trapped in emergency shelters across the Caribbean island, with major roads underwater and reports of numerous collapsed bridges. Crops have been washed away while flash floods, landslides and fallen trees have blocked roads, swept away vehicles and caused widespread damage to infrastructure.

Two-thirds of the island’s almost 800,000 homes and businesses have no water after Hurricane Fiona caused a total blackout on Sunday and swollen rivers contaminated the filtration system. The storm was causing havoc in the Dominican Republic by early Monday.

To its Democratic and Republican supporters, the Freedom to Marry Act does nothing more than ensure same-sex couples don’t have their rights rolled back by the conservative-dominated supreme court. But to rightwing GOP senator Ted Cruz, the yet-to-be passed bill is something else.

“This bill is about empowering the Biden IRS to target every church and school and university and charity in America that refuses to knuckle under to their view of gay marriage,” is how the Texas lawmakers described it in a recent interview.

His comments weren’t much of surprise, since he has already declared he would not support the measure. But as for whether or not it would get the 60 votes it needs to pass the Senate, Cruz said he did not know – underscoring the mystery around the legislation, which will likely only be resolved when it comes up for a vote after the midterms.

“You have to seal up every window, and every vent, and every door… you’re fighting zombies, and if there’s any way that they get in the house, you lose.”

That’s how comedian and former host of The Daily Show, Jon Stewart, described his experience over the summer of pushing Congress to expand medical coverage for military veterans exposed to toxic substances.

The Pact Act, as the legislation was called, passed in August.