Last week was one of the roughest weeks of the Obama Presidency to day, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at his job approval numbers: A new poll shows a majority approving of President Obama’s job performance after a week where his administration faced a tough trio of controversies. A CNN/ORC poll released Sunday [...]

Mitt Romney doesn’t think that the attack in Benghazi played a large role in deciding the 2012 election: The Obama administration’s talking points on the terror attack in Benghazi had no bearing on Mitt Romney’s defeat last year, the former Republican presidential nominee told Jay Leno. The issue of the administration’s talking points has been [...]

On Thursday afternoon, President Obama held a press conference with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. As is customary at this time of year, the joint appearance was set up to take place in the White House Rose Garden. Unfortunately, as the press conference went on, it started to rain and that’s where the source of [...]

We’re already hearing politicians talking about putting the IRS employees accused of targeting conservative organizations out of political bias in jail. However, as Aaron Blake notes, it’s unclear whether they actually broke any laws: In short: We don’t know yet. But it’s also quite possible that nobody will ever be convicted of breaking the law [...]

Among the more bizarre things to come out of today’s House Ways & Means Committee questioning of outgoing Acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller and Treasury Department Inspector General J. Russell George, was the revelation that one Christian group that applied for 501(c)(4) status was asked to document the contents of its prayers: While applying with [...]

Homicide rates are on pace to be lower than they were at the start of the 20th Century.

Well, this is embarrassing: WASHINGTON — The Justice Department temporarily lost track of two former terrorists who had participated in its witness protection program and until recently did not disclose the fictitious identities it created for terrorism-linked witnesses to the agency that generates watch lists, allowing some who were on the no-fly list to take [...]

The American public doesn’t seem to be following the latest round of Washington scandals with the amount of interest we’ve seen in the past, according to a new poll: A majority of Americans are following both the controversy over the attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi and the brewing IRS scandal – but at [...]

Yet another officer charged with heading up a sexual harassment prevention program has been arrested: FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. — Army officials say the manager of the sexual assault response program at Fort Campbell has been arrested in a domestic dispute and relieved of his post. Lt. Col. Darin Haas turned himself in to police late Wednesday on [...]

Just how serious was the leak that the Associated Press reported on last May?

What is the appropriate response to someone who’s acting like a jerk?

Venezuela seems to be running low on a rather crucial commodity: First milk, butter, coffee and cornmeal ran short. Now Venezuela is running out of the most basic of necessities – toilet paper. Blaming political opponents for the shortfall, as it does for other shortages, the government says it will import 50m rolls to boost supplies. That [...]

The Kepler Space Telescope, which has aided in the discovery of hundreds of planets orbiting other stars, may be permanently damaged: NASA’s planet-hunting Kepler telescope is broken, potentially jeopardizing the search for other worlds where life could exist outside our solar system. If engineers can’t find a fix, the failure could mean an end to [...]

A news report indicates that Ambassador Christopher Stevens turned down an offer of additional security in the weeks before the attack on Benghazi: U.S. ambassador Christopher Stevens — one of the four people killed in the Sept. 11, 2012, terrorist attack at in the U.S. post in Benghazi, Libya — twice declined a senior U.S. [...]

Takoma Park, a Maryland suburb just outside Washington, D.C., has granted teenagers the right to vote in town elections: When Takoma Park’s next Election Day arrives in November, the lines of voters ready to cast their ballots for the City Council will include a new set of voters making history. During its Monday meeting, the [...]

President Obama faces some perilous times ahead now that his Administration is under fire.

A potentially groundbreaking development in microbiology that is certain to have political consequences: Scientists say they have, for the first time, cloned human embryos capable of producing embryonic stem cells. The accomplishment is a long-sought step toward harnessing the potential power of embryonic stem cells to treat many human diseases. But the work also raises [...]

For the third week in a row, we’ve got a new state that has legalized same-sex marriage: (CNN) - Minnesota became the 12th state to legalize same-sex marriages Tuesday after Gov. Mark Dayton, a Democrat, signed a bill giving same-sex couples the right to marry. “It’s history,” his Twitter account read, along with a photo of [...]

What happened at the IRS looks a lot more like deliberate political bias than simple incompetence.

As improbable as it all seems, it appears that former Congressman Anthony Weiner is about to announce his candidacy for Mayor of New York City: Anthony Weiner’s bid to rise from the political dead is ready to begin in earnest — the disgraced former congressman will announce he is running for mayor as early as [...]

Well, here we go going: WASHINGTON (AP) — The Army says the coordinator of a sexual assault prevention program at Fort Hood, Texas, is under investigation for “abusive sexual contact” and other alleged misconduct. He has been suspended from all duties. The announcement Wednesday evening came just days after the arrest of the Air Force’s [...]

A government panel is recommending that the BAC limit for drunk driving be lowered nearly 40%.

The Deputy Attorney General in charge of the investigation that included the seizure of Associated Press phone records is defending the DOJ’s actions: James Cole, the deputy attorney general who the Justice Department said oversaw the secret collection of AP reporters’ phone records in 2012, says in a letter to the news organization that Justice [...]

Attorney General Eric Holder revealed today that he hasn’t been involved in the criminal investigation that resulted in the seizure of  the phone records of Associated Press reporters for nearly a year: Attorney General Eric Holder recused himself from the Department of Justice’s decision to secretly seize two months of phone records of Associated Press [...]

The man who was in charge of Hispanic outreach for the Republican National Committee in Florida has become a Democrat: The Republican National Committee’s former Hispanic outreach director in Florida has become a Democrat, citing the Republican party’s “intolerance” and a general frustration with the party’s attitude toward immigration Pablo Pantoja wrote in an e-mail to [...]

Pro Publica reported last night that the IRS had released to it confidential information consisting of applications for tax-exempt status of several conservative organizations: ProPublica on Monday reported that the same IRS division that targeted conservative groups for special scrutiny during the 2012 election cycle provided the investigative-reporting organization with confidential applications for tax-exempt status. That [...]

Several times, people have wondered why it is that UN Ambassador Susan Rice appeared on the Sunday morning talk shows in the wake of the Benghazi attack instead of Secretary of State Clinton. Well, it turns out Clinton hates going on those shows: “Secretary Clinton had originally been asked by most of the networks to [...]

No, they’re not selling President Obama’s plane out from under him, but the General Services Administration is offering for sale a plane that served as Air Force One for about three decades: The General Services Administration listed a plane that once served as Air Force One on its federal auction website, and bidding begins May 15. [...]

Will drivers really be okay with Google tracking everywhere they go in their self-driving car?

Public Policy Polling is out with the first new poll of public attitudes regarding the political firestorm surrounding the terrorist attack on U.S. diplomats in Benghazi last September and, so far, it doesn’t look like Republicans are winning this battle: PPP’s newest national poll finds that Republicans aren’t getting much traction with their focus on [...]

Not surprisingly, President Obama was asked about the unfolding IRS scandal at his joint press conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron: Washington (CNN) – President Obama vowed Monday to hold the Internal Revenue Service accountable if reports of political targeting are proved true. “If in fact IRS personnel engaged in the kind of practices that [...]

Presidential historian Michael Beschloss posted this photo on his Twitter feed yesterday of a letter that President Kennedy sent to his mother in November 1962 regarding a photograph of Kennedy and Soviet leader Nikita Khruschev that she had previously sent to the Soviet leader asking him to autograph it as well. Keep in mind that [...]

By the end of today, Minnesota is likely to become the 12th state to legalize same-sex marriage: ST. PAUL, Minnesota (Reuters) – The Minnesota Senate is expected to give final approval on Monday to a bill that would make the state the 12th in the United States to allow same-sex couples to marry and only [...]

Recent comments from an FDA official raise the prospect that the agency is considering minor’s access to caffeinated beverages.

There’s a fascinating story at The Daily Beast about a battle during the closing days of World War II in Europe and a battle in which the American and German Armies were on the same side: Here are the basic facts: on 5 May 1945—five days after Hitler’s suicide—three Sherman tanks from the 23rd Tank Battalion of the [...]

Partisan targeting by the IRS should not be permitted to stand.

Justice Ginsburg made some interesting comments about Roe v. Wade recently. Could they be a signal about where the Court is headed on gay marriage?

A former Pakistani Prime Minister who was deposed in a military coup is claiming victory in yesterday’s elections: ISLAMABAD — Former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif declared victory following a historic election marred by violence Saturday, a remarkable comeback for a leader once toppled in a military coup and sent into exile. The 63-year-old Sharif, [...]

The Obama Administration’s response to the Benghazi attack is approaching critical mass. It’s not going away any time soon.

Republicans are fighting over how best to deal with their demographic problems, but they seem to be fighting the wrong battle.

It’s been nearly two weeks since a building in Bangladesh housing five separate garment factories collapsed, killing an untold number of workers, and the news just keeps getting worse: The police said Saturday that the death toll from the collapse of a garment-factory building in Bangladesh had soared past 1,100 as recovery operations continued. Doctors said [...]

Large numbers of younger workers are having trouble finding work in many parts of the developed world.

Sandy Hook Elementary School has been shuttered since law enforcement concluded their investigation of the shooting that occurred there on December 14th of last year. The children who attended the school are now going to school at a previously unused school in a neighboring town. Now, Newtown has to decide what to do with the [...]

Michele Bachmann thinks she’s found the root cause of terrorism: Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) continued to promote a right-wing Sept. 11 “National Day of Prayer and Fasting” on Thursday, telling an audience gathered at a Capitol Hill event that such actions were necessary because “judgment” had been passed down by God on that day in [...]

The odds are that the highest paid public employee is either a football or basketball coach: You may have heard that the highest-paid employee in each state is usually the football coach at the largest state school. This is actually a gross mischaracterization: Sometimes it is the basketball coach. Based on data drawn from media [...]

The U.S. is withdrawing some of its diplomats from Libya in the wake of new protests rocking the country: Growing concerns over protests roiling Libya prompted the State Department to begin evacuating some diplomats from Tripoli, as the Pentagon put troops stationed at nearby European bases on high alert. The response was driven in part [...]

With its spire now officially attached as a permanent structure, One World Trade Center completes the new skyline of New York City. Photo via Time Magazine  

New York Times reporter Declan Walsh has been ordered to leave Pakistan on the eve of that nation’s elections: Pakistan’s Interior Ministry has ordered the expulsion of The New York Times bureau chief in Islamabad on the eve of national elections, the newspaper said Friday. The Times has strongly protested the move and is seeking his [...]

Would more information about the Benghazi attacks have changed the outcome of the Presidential election?

The talking points prepared in the immediate aftermath of the Benghazi attack were heavily edited at the request of the State Department.