Just when you thought New York politics couldn't get any more drenched into dirty money, Bronx Assemblyman Eric Stevenson was charged on Thursday morning with several counts of corruption and conspiracy.
Right now, people around the country and beyond are heading to their computers and looking up the word marriage. What does the definition of the word tell us about the current state of our view of marriage equality?
The Atlantic's Ta-Nehisi Coates appeared on last night's Colbert Report, where host Stephen Colbert interrogated him about politics; the ascendance, election, and re-election of President Obama; and how race continues to bear on American life, both public and private.
It's pretty fantastic, this picture from the Kennedy Center Honors Gala dinner at the State Department last night: Meryl and Hillary are an itsy-teeny bit just like us!
Thursday's lunch, between a couple of men who didn't seem terribly keen on each other just a few weeks ago, brings up a host of modern-day etiquette questions. Here, we do our best to answer them.
After mysteriously disappearing from the Mayo Clinic a little over a week ago and keeping mum ever since, Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. has handed in his resignation to Speaker John Boehner this afternoon.
The search for bridges that Keith Olbermann has not yet burned has stopped at the MLB Network where he'll be a guest host ... while there is no baseball being played. Laugh all you want—we know it's not glamorous as his previous jobs, but we think it's actually all a pretty good fit.
Did the 2012 election change America? Or has America been changing all along, with our votes simply a way of registering that fact?
Whether you've been waiting for four years, since the last election, to cast your ballots in another, or for just days or weeks or months, you can't have failed to become in some way swept up as a news reader in the undulating rhythms of politics in some way or another. Waiting! Waiting is the worst.
Can you, if you are a Democrat, even, perhaps, not an actively campaigning one, but one who would certainly never deign to vote for Mitt Romney, consider in good faith a Republican as a possible suitor? Can you, if you are a Republican, ever love someone who believes in the presidency of Barack Obama?
Just days ago, Nate Silver wrote in the New York Times that "if only women voted, President Obama would be on track for a landslide re-election, equaling or exceeding his margin of victory over Senator John McCain in 2008." Today, a new Associated Press-GfK poll, cited by CBS News, indicates that that gender gap is "all but gone."
Last week, Australia's Julia Gillard, the first woman to serve as the country's prime minister, gave an impassioned speech against sexism, accusing conservative Opposition Leader Tony Abbott of being a misogynist. Her words have inspired changes in how that word is defined in Australia's Macquarie Dictionary.
Tuesday evening we went down the old presidential debate road yet again, meeting our candidates Mitt Romney and Barack Obama for a second time with all the convivial discourse-ready trappings of America.
GOP forces have outed Maine State Senate candidate Colleen Lachowicz as a hardcore, level 85 rogue of orc descent—meaning yes, the world of politics has completely gotten all World of Warcraft on us.
Britain's prime minister David Cameron has recently used the word butch in a sarcastic fashion to describe a Labour party leader as not good at his job, i.e., not masculine enough. What can we learn from this?
Pennsylvania's highest court made it very clear they still have doubts about the state's restrictive voter identification law can be fairly implemented by election day, but their ruling stopped short of overruling it, asking a lower court to reconsider its decision to uphold the law.
The past two weeks of party conventions and all of the speeches, dresses, and dazzle that politics and politicians have enjoyed are now over, and now our elected representatives will finally roll up their sleeves and get to what we pay them for: hearings which will get nothing done, bills eliciting meaningless votes, and a possible adjournment.
It is hard to go from cultural darling to elder statesman. That, essentially, is the takeaway from Alex Williams' piece in the New York Times reflecting upon how a bunch of formerly cool-kid Gen Xers feel about having one of their cohort, Paul Ryan, 42, running for vice president.
Herewith, a discussion of a few words and phrases that have become stumbling blocks for a variety of men, and sometimes women, in the public arena—and what one should know before using them.
One of the most immediate reactions to the announcement that Paul Ryan would be Mitt Romney's V.P. was the ensuing debate over whether he was hot or not. Today, The New York Post's Andrea Peyser has a column on our dirty little habits.
Should Jane Austen join Ayn Rand among conservatives' favorite writers? A National Review Online article has opened up a debate that touches the literary and political worlds, making us wonder: Can anyone really claim Austen as an ideological heroine?
Some (like John McCain) may deny similarities between the VP picks of Paul Ryan and Sarah Palin, but the Internet feels differently. Here are a few demonstrated learnings and consistencies (and predictions of further consistencies) gleaned from online reactions thus far.
The New York Post has been generally keeping us up to date on how to feel about Anthony Weiner. Today's exclusive, on the family's $3.3 million Park Avenue apartment, leads to a few more questions than answers, though.
Hillary Clinton did something again. What did she do? A pop quiz.
It's rare that politics offers so much excitement for the grammatical folks among us, but this season is shaping up quite nicely, what with "Amercia"-gate, and now some great word nerd backlash about Obama's campaign slogan.
A recent feature in People magazine with Anthony Weiner, his wife Huma Abedin, and their baby Jordan had a lot of people wondering if this meant that Weiner was spurring up public goodwill for a comeback. Maybe it wasn't about him at all.
The New York Post follows Anthony Weiner's pro-family People photo shoot and interview with a front page today warning of "Operation Comeback!" Should we be so warned?
The New York Times' Jeremy Peters has a blistering report on how the majority of quotes you're reading from politicians and their teams are increasingly asking for final-editing power and even more troublesome: more often than not, news outlets oblige.
The couple that many would say never should have been is no longer. John Edwards and Rielle Hunter are splitsville.
After learning how much was lacking in John Edwards — lack of character, lack of what we need in a leader and, more personally, in a husband and father, lack of a certain kind of humanity — his criminal trial came down to a lack of evidence.
Even though the Clintons consist of the current Secretary of State (Hillary) and the former U.S. President (Bill), they are just normal folks, and pretty darn good neighbors, too, more involved in their chosen town more than anyone might have imagined, writes Peter Applebome in a piece in The New York Times.
It was nearly a year ago that Anthony Weiner resigned from his Congressional seat after being busted in a sexting scandal. But The New York Post is not done with him yet.
By now you've seen the photo of Bill Clinton with the porn stars, the one that began circulating on Twitter last evening and is now in Page Six, and in various other tabloids, along with faux shocked headlines like "What would Hillary say?"
Dispatches from John Edwards' trial over campaign finance law violations continue to come out. Today's episode takes an interesting romantic turn.
Christine Quinn, New York City Council speaker, is soon to wed her girlfriend, Kim M. Catullo. It's a wedding like any other wedding—except it's a gay wedding, and Quinn is, quite possibly, going to make a run for New York City Mayor.
It's been something of a rocky round between women and Rick Santorum in the past, as he seemed to have had a special way of offending some female or another at nearly every turn. And now that he's gracefully bowed out, we'd like to gracefully thank him.
Inspired by the ongoing debates and misunderstandings about birth control and women's health care, Jezebel's Tracie Egan Morrissey has run down the general cost of being a woman.
The seemingly placid world of golf continues to invite criticism and commentary over the Masters Tournament—in particular, the fact that no woman has been offered membership into Georgia's Augusta National, where the Masters is held.
Hey, America. You have something in common with Mitt Romney. Like you, he had a good time watching The Hunger Games movie this weekend.
The Violence Against Women Act is a U.S. federal law signed into effect by President Bill Clinton in September of 1994, providing $1.6 billion to help investigate and prosecute violent crimes against women. Now, once again, it's the focus of a fight.
A phrase that keeps coming up this Republican primary season is "war on women." But what's interesting in the conversations about a so-called "war on women" is that women do not seem to be having it.
On the morning of March 7, Mario Lurig, a 32-year-old "author, web developer, and chocolatier" who resides in the Greater Denver area, was on the Internet, catching up on the latest happenings involving Rush Limbaugh, the word "slut," and a woman named Sandra Fluke.
The Upper East Side "Mommy Madam," Anna Gristina, 44, who was charged yesterday with promoting prostitution is getting a lot of attention in the tabloids today. While no client list has been released, the details coming out about Gristina's personal life are fascinating.
House majority leader Eric Cantor has thrown his support behind Mitt Romney, as has Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn. Here's what people are saying about it.
Today on the (much) lighter side of political news: A cat named Hank is running for Congress in Virginia. Minus the fact that he's a cat, he's doing what every modern-day politician dreams of: Going viral.
If you're the best-looking member in Congress, that won't guarantee you a high-ranking committee chair but it will bring you coveted media attention.
The Former Pennsylvania Senator proved last night that old people saying dirty things is inherently funny.
Clint Eastwood's not a Republican. He's not a Democrat either. He didn't object when GQ classified him as a "social libertarian" in an interview last month, but it's technically not a form of libertarianism, which is okay, because Eastwood and politics were a bad match from the start.
Herman Cain likes to keep his advisers secret, but perhaps his campaign realized national security was a bit of a weakness after Afghan president Hamid Karzai made fun of his problems with geography, because his foreign policy team was revealed Wednesday.
Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano gave a hint at an event this morning
And nary a reference to former co-host Kathleen Parker
Have a story we missed? A link we have to click? A sharp opinion about the news? Instead of waiting for us to post it, tell us on the Open Wire.
Submit your news and ideas | See all reader postsThe Atlantic Wire is your authoritative guide to the news and ideas that matter most right now. Our team tracks newsmakers and opinions across the entire media spectrum: newspapers, web sites, television, radio and magazines.
But we do more than just collect information. By synthesizing, analyzing and summarizing what’s out there, and adding new information when we can, we are a news engine that gives you a quick and valuable account of the issues of the day.
Have a hot tip? A story we missed? Tell us on the Open Wire
How to send us editorial or technical feedback
Get Five Best Columns in your inbox each morning (preview)
