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ROME, Italy — The United States Embassy to the Holy See celebrated “Transgender Day of Remembrance” Sunday, offering tribute “to those of the transgender community who have been murdered because of hate.”According to the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR) is an annual observance on November 20 that honors the memory of transgender people whose lives were lost in acts of anti-transgender violence. Transgender activist Gwendolyn Ann Smith established TDOR in 1999 as a vigil to honor the memory of Rita Hester, a black transgender person who was killed in Allston Massachusetts in 1998....

President Biden’s new ambassador to the Holy See voted in favor of former President Obama’s legislative agenda supporting Planned Parenthood and gay marriage when he was a senator, despite previously speaking out against such measures. Joe Donnelly, who served as a Democratic senator from Indiana from 2013 to 2019, presented his credentials to Pope Francis at the apostolic palace in Vatican City on April 11. “I look forward to deepening our ties with the Holy See. My family and I are proud to be members of the Catholic faith,” Donnelly said in a video. “From my childhood, through my college...

Biden Taps Heterodox Catholic to Represent US at Vatican Joe Donnelly is Biden’s idea of a sound Catholic. In early October, Joe Biden nominated Joe Donnelly, a former Indiana Senator, to serve as his ambassador to the Vatican. News coverage of the nomination has been misleading. “Biden nominates pro-life Democrat Donnelly as new Vatican ambassador,” says National Catholic Reporter. Donnelly is not pro-life, at least not in any consistent sense. “He has voted with Planned Parenthood Action Fund 67 percent of the time since he’s been in Congress,” reported the Indianapolis Star in 2018.Like Biden, Donnelly is a Democrat first...

The senators who are most likely to reject President Trump's nominees are the very ones who want to challenge him in 2020. The Hill's review of two-and-a-half years of vote totals shows Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) voted against more Trump nominees than any other senator. At the same time, Republicans voted virtually in lock step for Trump's nominees; the average GOP senator backed 99 percent of his picks, and the one who went rogue most often -- Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) -- still voted to confirm 93 percent of his nominees. Trump's picks...

The U.S. Senate confirmed Fort Wayne attorney Holly A. Brady as a federal judge for the Northern District of Indiana on Wednesday afternoon, a year to the day after she was nominated by President Donald Trump.The Senate voted 56-42 in favor of confirming Brady. Three Democratic senators – Doug Jones of Alabama, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Krysten Sinema of Arizona – joined majority Republicans to approve her appointment.Brady fills a vacancy left by the senior status of Judge Joseph Van Bokkelen and the pending transfer of Northern Indiana District Chief Judge Theresa Springmann from the U.S. District Court's...

Indiana Democrat Joe Donnelly lost his Senate seat on Tuesday in a hard-fought race against Republican businessman Mike Braun. Donnelly, who took the seat in 2012, lost the first Democratic Senate seat of the midterm election in a state President Trump won by 19 points in 2016. Braun cast himself as an outsider and a staunch supporter of Trump, while claiming Donnelly was out of line with Indiana values by supporting abortion rights and other issues.

Time are EST You could be in for a long wait to know the results of the midterm elections and which party ends up controlling the House and Senate. But polling places close earlier in some states than others — and they could provide a hint of things to come as the night progresses. 6 p.m. Kentucky’s 6th Congressional District: President Trump won this district near Lexington by 15 points. Democrats are fielding retired Marine fighter pilot Amy McGrath against three-term incumbent Andy Barr. The race is rated as a toss-up. A Democratic victory could be an early sign of...

Sen. Joe Donnelly (Ind.), a conservative Democrat in one of the tightest reelection battles in the country, made a cringeworthy and puzzling statement about some minorities on his staff during a debate Tuesday night. To begin, here’s a quick vocab refresher. The definition of the word “but,” according to Google, is “to introduce something contrasting with what has already been mentioned." So it was strange when Donnelly, in what seemed like a genuine effort to compliment his aides, said this when asked how he would bring diversity into his staffing: “Our state director is Indian American, but he does an...

Republican candidate Mike Braun leads incumbent Democrat Sen. Joe Donnelly heading into the November midterm election for the Indiana U.S. Senate seat, according to the latest polling. Braun is ahead of Donnelly by three points, at 46 percent to 43 percent, according to the CBS News Battleground Tracker. The polling was conducted by YouGov from October 23-26. Eight percent are still not sure. President Trump looms large in the race: 42 percent said they were voting in the Senate race in support of Trump, while 33 percent said they were voting in opposition to Trump. Twenty-five percent said it was...

INDIANAPOLIS (WFFT) - A new statewide poll shows Republican Mike Braun is the favorite for Indiana's U.S. Senate seat, but the race is still too close to call. The IndyPolitics.org - Mason Strategies poll released Tuesday shows Braun leading Senator Joe Donnelly 47 to 43 percent. Libertarian Lucy Brenton had three percent of the vote and seven percent were undecided. Experts say this race is still a virtual tie, especially with the number of voters who still haven't made up their mind. Monday, the Downs Center for Indiana Politics shows Donnelly with a slight lead.

Good news, but four points happen to be the margin of error of this poll. That means the race is effectively tied, which would be in line with other recent polls showing the incumbent, Donnelly, with a lead of 2-4 points or less.As for the Kavanaugh effect, eh. There *is* evidence in this particular case to support it but there’s a bunch of evidence cutting the other way right now nationally. The poll, conducted by Mason Strategies with a margin of 3.9 percent, showed Braun leading Donnelly 47-43, Libertarian Lucy Brenton had three percent of the vote and seven...

Democratic U.S. Sen. Joe Donnelly leads Republican challenger Mike Braun by a single percentage point in polling results released Monday by the Mike Downs Center for Indiana Politics at Purdue University Fort Wayne. Donnelly is favored by 41 percent of likely voters, Braun by 40 percent and Libertarian Lucy Brenton by 8 percent, with 11 percent of respondents undecided. The poll of 816 likely voters was conducted Oct. 12 through 16 by SurveyUSA and has a 4.6 percent credibility interval, akin to margin of sampling error. "Whether Brenton is pulling more voters from one candidate than the other and who...

If there is a silver lining in the tragic farce wrought on the nation by the Democratic Party in the Judge Brett Kavanaugh nomination hearings it is this: Regular Americans are recoiling at the shocking spectacle and Democrat support is plummeting. Every new poll coming out is uniformly showing middle Americans fleeing from the Democrats while a once-mildly apathetic Republican Party has been ginned up to energetic levels equal to the Democratic base. Further trouble for the much-hyped blue wave is that black voters are trending against Democrats, participating in the #walkaway movement and viewing the Kavanaugh moment very differently...

10/5 8:46pm Democrat Senators Tester, McCaskill, Donnelly, Nelson and Heitkamp are discussing change of Kavanaugh vote tonight.

A new round of Fox News battleground polls shows a Republican trend in the fight for the U.S. Senate. The GOP candidates are helped by increased interest in the election among Republicans and pro-Donald Trump sentiment. Arizona Kyrsten Sinema: 47% Martha McSally: 45% Indiana Joe Donnelly: 43% Mike Braun: 41% Missouri Claire McCaskill: 43% Josh Hawley: 43% North Dakota Kevin Cramer: 53% Heidi Heitkamp: 41% Tennessee Marsha Blackburn: 48% Phil Bredesen: 43%

As the Senate Judicial Committee gathered to vote Friday afternoon to move Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination for a vote in the Senate, word trickled out that Democrat Senator Joe Donnelly of Indiana was a no vote on Kavanaugh’s nomination. Donnelly is in a tough re-election race back home and Republicans hope to separate him from the herd of Democrats in lock-step opposition Judge Kavanaugh. As we all know now, Senator Jeff Flake decided to lob a last-minute bomb into the committee’s proceedings by holding his yes vote hostage to a demand that the FBI investigate Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s allegations. He...

Democratic leaders need a unified caucus to put maximum pressure on a handful of holdout Republicans. Democrats have all the cover they need to vote in lockstep against Brett Kavanaugh. But a half-dozen of them have refused to go there, even after the pair of sexual assault allegations against the Supreme Court nominee. Democratic insiders are feeling more bullish than ever that the party’s 49 caucus members ultimately will oppose Kavanaugh. Yet the undeclared bloc of Democratic senators could be a problem for Democratic leaders, who want to put the weight of the nomination entirely on a handful of holdout...

Hoosier businessman Mike Braun leads Sen. Joe Donnelly (D-IN) in a poll released on Wednesday. A Fox News poll released on Wednesday found that Braun leads over Donnelly–45 to 43 percent—while Libertarian candidate Lucy Brenton has three percent support and eight percent of Indianans remain undecided. The margin of error for the survey is 3.5 percent, making the race a dead heat between Braun and the incumbent senator, especially considering that one-third of Hoosier voters are saying they could change their minds before the November midterm election. The Fox News survey found that 54 percent of Hoosiers approve of President...

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) is moving to set up a Judiciary Committee vote on Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination, likely next week. Grassley's office on Monday sent out an agenda for a business meeting the committee will have on Thursday. Kavanaugh's nomination is included as one of roughly two dozen judicial nominations that could get a vote. The move means Kavanaugh's nomination could get a vote as soon as this week. But Democrats are expected to delay the vote until next week, meaning Kavanaugh's nomination will likely be taken up by the committee on Sept. 20. Under committee rules, any...

Judge Brett Kavanaugh is going to be a weeks-long torment for some on the Hill—and I’m talking about red state Democrats. Senate Republican moderates Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski have been very receptive to Kavanaugh’s nomination, easing pressure from the right that they could sink this SCOTUS nominee if they defect. That could be the case, but for now, pressure has ramped up on Sens. Jon Tester (D-MT), Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND), Joe Manchin (D-WV), Joe Donnelly (D-IN), and maybe Bill Nelson (D-FL). Nelson needs help. Republican Gov. Rick Scott is outworking him on Hispanic outreach, and he’s beating Nelson...