The State of Our Union Is Always Strong
We already know how President Obama will describe the state of our union in his State of the Union address Tuesday: strong. Here's how the traditional line became a cliché.
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When Senator Mark Pryor voted against a gun background check compromise, he was taking a measured political risk. Even as an anti-gun group announces a plan to spend $350,000 on ads criticizing Pryor ahead of a near-certain second vote, a detailed new poll shows why it may have made political sense.
We already know how President Obama will describe the state of our union in his State of the Union address Tuesday: strong. Here's how the traditional line became a cliché.
Giffords has narrated a new public service ad pushing for background checks on all gun sales, and it's tough to imagine anyone — even the NRA's Wayne LaPierre — finding a way to attack her message without looking monstrous as the next fight looms.
Even as outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta continues to push the Supreme Court to open up more rights, the Pentagon has officially begun extending certain benefits to same-sex military families.
The king of all geeks thinks the would-be king of all Super PACs is about to watch his house of campaign cards implode, which could actually lead to something of a Tea Party resurgence.
Despite continuing objections from Republican holdouts, the Senate Armed Services Committee will hold a panel discussion and vote on Chuck Hagel's nomination to become the next Defense Secretary on Tuesday afternoon.
In a reversal, the Obama administration is considering signing an sign executive order that would protect gay federal contractors from workplace discrimination.
"Nobody has bought me, No. 1. Nobody. Never," New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez told Univision last week. But if you survey the kind of things Menedez has done for opthamologist Salomon E. Melgen in the last 20 years, Menedez sure is a great friend.
Lawmakers wait for hours to get one of these coveted seats, but at what cost?
President Obama will unveil a set of concrete proposals in his State of the Union speech Tuesday, and as in his inaugural address last month, he's expected to sound pretty liberal.
As the East Coast of the United States was digging itself out of a blizzard on Sunday, a monster tornado ripped through the town of Hattiesburg, Mississippi, destroying hundreds of homes and injuring at least 12.
Rand Paul defended his Tea Party response to the President's State of the Union address from criticism that it shows division in the Republican party, and Lindsay Graham has a new problem with confirming the nominations of Chuck Hagel and John Brennan: he wants more info on Benghazi.
Ron Paul is feuding with his rabid fan base over the ownership of RonPaul.com. Paul wants it, but his fans own it. They're willing to sell it to him... for a price Paul doesn't agree with. So now he's taken the dispute all the way to the United Nations.
Has Newark Mayor Cory Booker, and the Superman myth his frequently-updated Twitter feed generates, finally jumped the shark?
The Washington Free Beacon gives a glowing review to George W. Bush's hacked-and-leaked self-portraits, declaring, "Greatest Living President is Also Fantastic Painter." Sadly, it appears to be a joke.
Though closed off the press, comments from a meeting between House Democrats and the host of The Colbert Report leaked out Friday via Twitter and elsewhere. And, yes, Congress is less popular than colonoscopies.
There is broad agreement that allowing the sequester -- automatic spending cuts set to go into effect March 1 -- to go into effect would be disastrous. And yet, like fresh growth after a forest fire, both parties see a way to benefit from all the economic destruction.
If you're ever in a meeting with the leader of the free world, you know it's important. Or rather, you better show it's important.
The former president was called upon Friday morning, at a retreat for House Democrats in Virginia, to explain how Democrats can persuade undecided voters to vote for them in mid-term elections — despite the truth about 1994 and 2010.
Washington might blame Mitch McConnell for this even having a chance to become a thing, but Karl Rove is blaming Hollywood — and he isn't backing off his Ashley Judd for Senate smear campaign.
The morning after Bush family emails burst online, revealing self portraits by George W. Bush and about his father's health, the Secret Service opened an investigation into the apparent infiltration of the private, post-presidency accounts for Bushes 41 and 43, raising questions about personal-tech security all the way up to Obama.
If only Chris Christie were a woman, his weight, and his ability to make jokes about his weight, would make him a folk hero. But the New Jersey governor is s dude, so his fat is a liability.
In the week before John Brennan's confirmation hearing, the conversation about the nominee to be CIA director was almost entirely about drones. The hearing itself mostly wasn't.
Just when we thought it was going to be Chris-Christie-yells-at-a-doctor day, Brennan's otherwise very serious confirmation hearing on Thursday afternoon was interrupted — after the Code Pink protestors — by several Christie jokes. Yes, really.
Early into the John Brennan's confirmation hearing to be CIA director, his most difficult to believe statement is his claim, "I never believed it's better to kill a terrorist than to detain them." The Obama administration's drone program has, since 2008, incinerated not-even-high-ranking Al Qaeda members in thousands of drone strikes.
Just when you thought Rove had taken back control of his own war on the Tea Party, the outspoken Iowa congressman sent a fundraising email to supporters today that, in very clear language, says Rove is trying to "bully" him out of running in 2014.
President Obama's top counterterrorism advisor faced the Senate Intelligence Committee today.
On Fox and Friends and elsewhere, Brown's decision to pay for expensive sex reassignment surgery drew derision — and prompted criticism of... Obamacare.
President Obama previewed the disappointment that members of his party are almost destined to eventually feel in a speech at the House Democratic Issues Conference on Thursday in Leesburg, Virginia.
Even with a juicy new story line developing over health-care fraud, conservative media outlets remain fixated on Menendez's alleged cavorting with Dominican prostitutes on a Florida optometrist's dime.
The two newest targets of John McCain's barbs over the attack on the Benghazi are the outgoing Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who McCain essentially called a liar.
A new poll shows strong public support for banning assault weapons. Here's why that doesn't translate into legislation.
Drones will no doubt be the central issue of contention at John Brennan's confirmation hearing on Thursday to become Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, but whatever happened to torture?
Fox News and the Republican Party, while still technically distinct entities, are moving to purge figures who are so controversial they're damaging the conservative brand. Even Dick Morris says he was wrong.
Parliament thus far has managed to push forward legislation without comparing gay marriage to bestiality, or incest, or polygamy. That was a sign of hope to the Daily Show host last night.
As he continues to fill out his cabinet, a report emerged late Wednesday that President Obama is "close to choosing" Chicago billionaire Penny Pritzker as America's next Secretary of Commerce.
As the issue of gun control has flooded Washington since the Sandy Hook shooting, a lot of people have been wondering if lawmakers were actually serious about addressing mental health as well.
Democratic Senator Carl Levin announced the Senate Armed Service Committee will not be taking Hagel's confirmation vote to the Senate floor on Thursday. When they do get around to voting on his confirmation, what are his real chances of him getting nixed? Math time!
The CIA drone program sure feels like a war, and if you look at the reach of the targeted killing — now that everyone seems to be looking at the reach of the targeted killing — well, it's nearly worldwide. Here's a map to catch you up before Brennan's hearing.
Unemployed Treasury secretaries generally don't stay unemployed for long, but unlike some of his predecessors, newly private citizen Tim Geithner won't be going for the big bucks right away.
Yes, it is possible for a pundit to lose his job for being very, very wrong. Dick Morris, one of the most spectacularly wrong pundits of the 2012 election, has been fired by Fox News.
At a hearing on immigration Tuesday, Republican Rep. Robert Goodlatte tried to define a proposal to eventually grant illegal immigrants citizenship as extreme. If that's true, then some of his most conservative fellow Republicans are liberal extremists.
Government watchdogs are dubious. They say Menendez's financial situation adds fuel to questions about his motives and whether the free flights he accepted were a simple oversight.
President Obama will appoint Jewell, the CEO of outdoor equipment co-op REI, as his new Secretary of the Interior Department today. And from what we can tell she's going to be the fittest person hanging around the White House — easily. Forget Ken Salazar; watch out, Michelle.
Jon Stewart got into some questions of linguistics on last night's show, since the Republican Party has decided that "messaging" is its problem.
Karl Rove said on Fox News Tuesday night, "This is not Tea Party versus the establishment... I don’t want a fight." It looks like he's too late.
Just three days after his husband Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes relaunched The New Republic, 26-year-old investor and activist Sean Eldridge filed papers to run for a seat in the House.
The Pentagon will unveil the extension of as many benefits as it legally can to gay and lesbian military partners, but until a Supreme Court decision arrives this summer, an increasingly open Defense Department needs to tread lightly.
A (possibly too) thorough investigation reveals that the former Mitt Romney aid and possible Senate candidate may have been playing a literally watered-down, Romney-friendly version of the (possibly too) popular drinking game. Sorry, bros.
Both Republicans and Democrats cast themselves as deficit cutters during the presidential election, but the new reality from the anual CO report is further evidence that no one in Washington — not Obama or Boehner — will take credit for the sequester anymore.
After being heavily criticized for not visiting the State of Israel during his first term, the second-term President Obama will be making a trip there very soon.
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