President Obama's speech on counterterrorism on Thursday won rave reviews among some who seemed to see it as a return of the liberal constitutional law professor who ran for president in 2008. But while the tone might have been refreshing, maybe we should wait to see Obama's follow-through?
Since the sequester hasn't forced a deficit-cutting deal, some pundits, like The Washington Post's editorial page, David Brooks, and most spectacularly Bob Woodward, are putting their faith in mind control magic to get the centrist deal they want.
Arkansas immediately joined seven other states where performing abortions after 20 weeks, if the pregnancy does not otherwise threaten the life of the mother, is banned. Now the state legislature wants to ban abortion past 12 weeks.
Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward has been telling everyone who will listen that the White House is so mad he called them out on the sequester that they're making threats. But on Thursday, the White House released the emails containing the threats. They turn out to be not that threatening.
After contemplating the country's recent woes — the recent resignation of Pope Benedict XVI plus the meltdown of Italy's election for Prime Minister — the Daily Show host offered some advice, and condemnation, to Italians, a third of whom voted for Silvio Berlusconi, the perpetually scandalized politician.
Bob Woodward tells Politico about how an Obama aide "yelled at [him] for about a half hour" and later said he'd "regret" asking the administration tough questions. But did the White House really threaten him? Some people think that Woodward's gone a little too far this time.
Everybody assumed that the Senate would confirm hard-working, navel-gazing Jack Lew as treasury secretary. And they just did. The real question is: Does Lew know what he's getting into?
Along with eyebrow-raising support from Silicon Valley and Hollywood, Chris Christie today got a contribution from another perhaps-unexpected source: Mitt Romney.
Using a Public Policy Polling poll on food issues and Pew data on gay marriage opinions, Dave Gilson of Mother Jones found that the people who won't try sushi are, age-wise at least, the same people who don't approve of gay marriage.
The notion that guns serve as phallic implements (and thus tokens of masculinity) is about as old as it is obvious. ("Consider your man card re-issued," read a recent gun ad.) But the idea that gun control exists to symbolically castrate gun owners is, surprisingly, a far more recent development.
When Gary Mead sent notice of his planned resignation to colleagues, it's likely he didn't expect that the move would almost instantly become a furious topic in the boiling debate over the sequester.
Because there appears to be no serious effort to stop it before it starts, we have to think about the actual mechanics of the sequester.
During Sen. Diane Feinstein's hearing on a new assault weapon ban, the NRA account returned to the point that regular old handguns and "things other than firearms" have been used in mass shootings. Wait a minute, guys: A handgun is a firearm.
Erick Erickson is all outraged out. The founder of the popular conservative blog RedState, a brand-new Fox News pundit, and the creator of a piece of outrage that inadvertently hobbled Mitt Romney's campaign, the "We Are the 53%" meme, writes today, "We do our cause more harm than good if we get outrageously outraged over every slight and grievance."
More than 55,000 people have "liked" her Facebook post with an ominous conspiracy, and a reality check is in order.
Today on MSNBC's Morning Joe, Bob Woodward blasted President Obama's "madness" for letting budget considerations influence military policy, continuing to stumble through his transition from Bush turncoat to Obama hater.
The Daily Show knows a thing or two about Purim. Hence the outrage, shared by nearly everyone who read about New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind, who applied blackface and dressed up as a "basketball player" for the Jewish holiday.
Which is worse: raising taxes or ceding your biggest and most important power to someone else? Some Senate Republicans would rather be irrelevant than raise taxes.
What looked like another obstructionist tangle between the ever-competing chambers is now looking more like an unnecessary House debate and another win for Harry Reid over Boehner and Cantor and Co.
A day after a group of prominent Republicans joined a Supreme Court battle over gay marriage, dozens of major American corporations, including Facebook, Apple, and Intel, announced they would also side with the pro-equality forces in court.
As the Supreme Court prepares to hear arguments in a case challenging the Voting Rights Act of 1968, civil rights advocates are rising to support the anti-discriminatory law. But why?
Gun control advocate Robyn Kelly won the Democratic primary in the race for Jesse Jackson Jr.'s old House seat, setting her up as a shoe-in to spend the next two years on Capitol Hill.
Now that Chuck Hagel's confirmation has gone off without a hitch (for the most part), it's John Brennan's turn to take the spotlight, and it look like those drone memos will be a real roadblock.
With each day that passes, Congress' efforts to curb automatic weapons and high capacity magazines becomes more irrelevant — and maybe not so much because of politics as technology.
A group of new lawsuits contends that Budweiser brands, from Bud Light Platinum to Michelob Ultra, make the beer giant the king of watered down beers. Somewhere, beer snobs are snickering — maybe even to the tune of $15 million.
The tweets were obliquely racist — and even homophobic enough — to chime through the halls of the Capitol and even get potential candidate Ashley Judd to speak up.
The Senate got their successful cloture vote on Tuesday afternoon, finishing the filibuster of Chuck Hagel's nomination to be Secretary of Defense — and clearing the way for a successful vote on his confirmation, 58-41.
A fresh bit of Kafka from the Supreme Court today: Since you can never be sure if the government is secretly spying on you, you can never sue the government for spying on you.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is not going to the Conservative Political Action Conference, but he is going to implement the expansion of Medicaid called for under Obamacare.
Now that the old white guy at the Pentagon is set to be confirmed, the online conservative media seems ready to target a female movie star, no matter how thin the evidence.
Despite his promise today that he's "not interested in playing a blame game," polls suggest that doing just that would be a very effective strategy for President Obama.
Even though Republicans have made a big stink about liberals coming for their fatty food and soda, well, Republicans like their soda calorie-free, according to a new poll.
Brand-new Secretary of State John Kerry gave a speech Tuesday proudly defending Americans' "right to be stupid" in front of the very people who are most likely to think Americans are stupid, Europeans.
A federal district court judge may set important precedent this week in considering whether Craig should have been allowed to use money from his campaign account to pay for his legal fees after that whole airport fiasco.
Jack Lew is well-known and well-respected for quietly doing his job well. He is not as well known for quietly quitting his job well.
We understand it's all very confusing, but if you take a look at the spin and talking points and (occasional) actual analysis, a few themes start to emerge. If you plan on talking about the sequester today, we advise going with one of these strategies.
Remember the President's secluded golf outing with Tiger Woods? Or the White House hosting the Miami Heat? Or the First Lady appearing during the Oscars? Or dancing on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon? All while wearing those bangs? Watch Daily Show correspondent Samantha Bee connects the dots.
At least 75 prominent Republicans, including two sitting members of Congress, will file a brief with the Supreme Court this week defending the idea that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry.
The Cherokee Scout of Murphy, North Carolina, has printed an absolutely groveling apology to its readers and to the local sheriff for even asking the sheriff for public records of those with concealed carry gun permits.
Chuck Hagel will likely get confirmed as secretary of Defense on Tuesday, with deep cuts to the Pentagon's budget set to hit three days later.
This time around, the man so affectionately referred to as "Diamond Joe" — he is a man for all memes, especially on The Onion's better days — is crossing his arms, smiling like only Joe can smile, and, well, you can't do anything about it. Here's GIF evidence.
The Obama administration has microtargeted its sequester warnings to appeal to very specific sets of people. Is it working?
The notorious recluse, occasional Simpsons joke, and perhaps America's greatest living writer is releasing a novel in 2013, and the word leaked in pretty reclusive fashion.
The person who deserves the most blame for the sequester -- the automatic spending cuts that kick in March 1 and will slow GDP growth by 0.5 percent -- is not President Obama or John Boehner, but House Majority Leader Eric Cantor.
As the rest of the country gawked at dresses on the red carpet, President Obama welcomed the governors from all 50 states to the White House on Sunday evening.
Ray LaHood plays sequester town criar; John McCain warns that John Brennan's confirmation could be held up until more Benghazi secrets are handed over.
Ted Cruz was so aggressive during Chuck Hagel's confirmation hearing that he was reprimanded by fellow Republicans. After it was revealed Cruz sees communists everywhere, the Texas Republican made a defense inspired by his recent foe.
Multiple outlets are reporting that the White House will provide to the Senate Intelligence Committee emails in which Obama officials discuss how to describe the attacks. Could the GOP's Benghazi fever finally be over?
Longer lines! Fewer flights! Doomsday delays! So let's not further fan the fire: This chart shows which sectors would be hit hardest by cuts to federal grants to states — amounting to $427.6 billion over the next ten years.
The New Yorker reports that the freshman Senator claimed there were 12 communists actively plotting against the government at Harvard Law School when he was a student there. But Harvard (and Chuck Hagel) shouldn't feel singled out — Ted Cruz sees anti-American plotters all over the place.
The gun lobby's task force of "trained security officials" are putting together a new rubric, all in the name of "safety standards," according to Asa Hutchinson, the man tapped by the NRA to develop its proposal of putting an armed guard in every school in America.
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