Three big scandals. Two Marine umbrellas. And a non-salute en route to Memorial Day. Plus more visual evidence from 12 days of scandal town.
Mark Sanford, famous for not hiking on the Appalachian Trail, is polling behind Elizabeth Colbert Busch, famous for being the sister of a guy who lampoons conservatives, in the race for South Carolina's conservative first congressional district.
Ted Cruz birthers are like classic birthers in that they deny reality, which is that the freshman Texas senator meets the constitutional requirements to be president. They are not like classic birthers in that they are not seeking mythical documents that will prove Cruz was born outside America.
Clinton signed the federal Defense of Marriage Act in the middle of the night in 1996 because he'd been burned by supporting allowing gays in the military, and he didn't want to get burned again. He's been doing penance for it ever since, and times have certainly changed.
Slate's liberal economics blogger Matt Yglesias bought a $1.2 million three-bedroom condo in Washington, D.C., and a bunch of conservatives are pretty appalled that a liberal would have the gall to be rich.
The civil rights movement wanted to integrate black people into American society. Obama, most Israelis, and Palestinians want a two-state solution. That takes more than changing hearts and minds of average people.
After careful study of Bush's work, we are forced to consider the theory that Bush is the dogs.
Does the Tea Party still exist? Michele Bachmann's Tea Party Caucus has been all but dormant for months, while new Republican stars are stealing the limelight.
President Obama, members of Congress, and their aides will have to enroll in Obamacare's health exchanges next year — Congress because they legally have to, and Obama because he publicly promised to.
If Latinos won't reward Republicans, why should Republicans do anything to help Latinos?
When Fox News chief Roger Ailes found out a reporter was writing mean biography about him, he commissioned a glowing one to counter it, Roger Ailes: Off Camera. It's only been out for a day, but both Ailes chief and favored biographer Zev Chafets are quite pleased with the result.
Crusty old reporters like to complain that the Internet, Twitter, memes, GIFs, and whatever are ruining journalism and America. But when you look back at, say, the invasion of Iraq, it's hard not to think the country could have benefitted from a little mass mockery to puncture the madness.
The South Carolina senator called for U.S. troops to secure weapons of mass destruction sites in Syria on Tuesday, the eve of the tenth anniversary of the Iraq invasion he supported.
The Iraq War did not go as planned — not for Iraq, not for the United States, and not for the careers of the people who told us it'd be such a great idea to go. Let's catch up with the folks who brought us there a decade ago today.
Paul will endorse a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants Tuesday, and to measure how much and how quickly Republicans have changed on the issue, just look at what he used to say. Then just look at the voters Republicans are infuriating while they win over new ones.
As the Republican party continues to re-evaluate itself this week, Rove's role is looking increasingly dangerous when you compare his predictions to the facts on gay marriage, the Iraq war, the 2012 election, and more.
The Republican National Committee says in a new report that it can figure out how to win national elections by following the examples of the 30 Republican governors. But a closer look at what state those 30 governors govern, and when they got elected, complicates the picture.
The lessons the Republican National Committee learned from the 2012 elections is that both the party's message and its policy needs fixing.
There were really two CPACs this weekend: official CPAC and angry CPAC. This is where you could see the conflict between the party's attempt to get new voters and the rebellion of its old ones.
After three days of panels and speeches about what the GOP can do to make a comeback, the idea that no comeback is necessary must have been refreshing to the CPAC attendees. By the end of Cruz's closing keynote speech, they were on their feet. Of course, that was because he asked.
Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul won the presidential primary straw poll at the Conservative Political Action Conference Saturday with 25 percent of attendees' votes, just ahead of Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who also got 25 percent.
President Obama is hurting the country by abandoning his responsibilities in order to run a permanent campaign, Sarah Palin told CPAC Saturday. Then she took a sip from a Big Gulp. At the close of her speech, she carried it off stage like a trophy.
Like many of the politicians at CPAC with ambitions for higher office, Michele Bachmann offered a vision of a new path forward for Republicans. Bachmann's was unique in that it combined a more inclusive message — "We care about people!" — with her signature cable news-ready attacks on President Obama.
A panel about how conservatives can fight back when liberals call them racists descended into shouting when an actual segregationist joined a CPAC panel titled "Trump the Race Card: Are You Sick and Tired of Being Called a Racist and You Know You're Not One?" We're not making any of this up.
Taking the CPAC stage to cheers for his first major speech since November, Romney did not in any way name what his mistakes might be, instead reprising a 2012 stump speech for a 2013 version of the party that he left necessarily vague.
Why did Republicans lose the 2012 elections when so many Republicans really didn't like President Obama?
All that attention the National Rifle Association leader has gotten since the Newtown shooting might be getting to him.
The conservative provocateur was the coolest thing at the first day of the annual conservative gathering, even though he died a year ago.
He was a controversial pick for a speaking slot at CPAC, with organizers saying Trump was wildly popular with attendees. But it's hard to say why. He doesn't know how to give a political stump speech, and that was evident on the floor Friday morning.
Rand Paul presented old ideas as new ones in his I'm-the-future-of-the-GOP speech to CPAC Thursday, while Marco Rubio presented newish ideas as old ones.
Pundits are skeptical about whether President Obama will be able to charm Republicans into agreeing to a "grand bargain," but Republicans have plenty of tips for the president for getting a deal done.
Republican senators inserted several gun rights measures into a bill to fund the government through September, including one that says the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives must attach a disclaimer to any gun data saying it "cannot be used to draw broad conclusions about fire-arms-related crimes."
The only thing keeping Michelle Obama out of elected office is Michelle Obama. If Sandberg really wants to start a social movement, maybe she can start with a single "ambition gap": the First Lady's. It might even keep those newfound rumors of a Hillary-Michelle ticket going.
Now that the sequester has settled in, we've learned that Republicans do not feel much urgency to protect defense spending. After President Obama's dinner diplomacy failed to produce a grand bargain, it doesn't look like they were after party invitations. And, now, we're learning that Republicans aren't all that enthusiastic about entitlement reform, either.
Paul Ryan is Washington's top chart man, and, as expected, was flanked by a chart when he presented the House Republican budget Tuesday. But terrifying charts of impending fiscal fears — and in bright blocks of color — are not a new thing.
President Obama's biggest problem used to be that he wasn't schmoozing with Congress. His biggest problem now is that he's schmoozing with Congress. Who gave him such terrible advice? The very same reporters who were demanding he get snacks with senators in the first place, obviously.
Ryan's 91-page budget is not a budget document; it is a political baseline. From that standpoint, it's already a success. But here's what it actually looks like.
Ryan defends his plan to cut $5 trillion in government spending over 10 years by saying it will create jobs, and dismisses critics of his budget by suggesting they're blowing things out of proportion. But the world already has hard evidence that he's wrong on both counts.
Repealing Obamacare is impossible in the near term, so why does Paul Ryan's budget assume it's repealed? To keep a little more than a dozen guys happy.
A bipartisan group of senators has reached a tentative agreement to create a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants, but that path is filled with stuff both parties usually reject as intolerable for American citizens.
After doing five Sunday talk shows to promote his new pre-campaign book, Jeb Bush got tired of being asked if he's going to run for president in 2016.
Fox News has a tendency to worship the Founding Fathers as not pretty-cool-but-flawed revolutionaries, but demi-gods. And yet, when Fox & Friends brings on an actor to pretend to be Thomas Jefferson, co-host Gretchen Carlson talks to him like he's an idiot child.
It is a symbolic thing, but the White House got the symbolism wrong. Especially after the whole Rand Paul thing.
President Obama is finally having the dinner parties that Washington is so obsessed with in an attempt to get some Republicans to support a deal to replace the sequester that includes more tax revenue.
Gun groups have increased a push for teachers to be armed across the country since just after the shootings, but South Dakota Gov. Dennis Daugaard has signed the first law to allow teachers to carry guns in school since December.
The new conventional wisdom is that Sen. Rand Paul's 13-hour filibuster laid bare this week the divisions within the Republican party between the hawkish old guard and the insurgent young guns. The new conventional wisdom is wrong.
Rand Paul declared victory Thursday when his 13-hour filibuster forced Attorney General Eric Holder to answer his question of whether the government can kill by drone an American citizen now engaged in combat on American soil. But that victory was fairly narrow.
Attorney General Eric Holder has answered Sen. Ran Paul's question of whether the government can use a drone to kill an American citizen on American soil if that person is not engaged in combat: "The answer to that question is no."
Sen. Lindsey Graham cares more about Benghazi than John Brennan, but more about drones than Benghazi.
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