POLITICAL NEWS
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- Gov. Dave Heineman of Nebraska said Saturday he would not be a candidate for the Senate seat in his state that will become vacant next year because Sen. Mike Johanns is not running for a second term.
“After careful consideration of all of the issues involved in a race for the United States Senate, I have decided to keep my focus on being the best governor that I can for the citizens of Nebraska,” Heineman said in a letter to his supporters. “Every day, I enjoy the challenges and opportunities of being the governor of the best state in America.”
Heineman, a popular Republican governor who could have almost
...Read more
SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images(WEST POINT, N.Y.) -- Speaking at the commencement ceremony at the United States Military Academy at West Point, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told cadets that sexual harassment and sexual assault in the military are a “profound betrayal” and charged them with the responsibility to stamp out the sexual assault problem plaguing the military.
“You will need to not just deal with these debilitating, insidious and destructive forces but rather you must be the generation of leaders that stops it. This will require your complete commitment to building a culture of respect and dignity for every member of the military and
...Read more
Alex Wong/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- The Justice Department stopped short of saying that Attorney General Eric Holder O.K.’d the investigation into Fox News reporter James Rosen. But critics have seized on a comment Holder made last week, asking if the attorney general misled Congress.
The Obama administration has been criticized for reportedly seizing Rosen’s emails and phone records, and for tracking his movement in and out of the State Department through security-badge records, as it investigated possible leaks of information about North Korea. Last week’s Washington Post report added fuel to an already controversial time for the Justice
...Read more
The White House(WASHINGTON) -- In a Memorial Day themed weekly address, President Obama celebrates U.S. troops and paid tribute to those who died while serving in the military.
"They are heroes, each and every one. They gave America the most precious thing they had – 'the last full measure of devotion.' And because they did, we are who we are today – a free and prosperous nation, the greatest in the world," he said.
"Every time a threat has risen, Americans have risen to meet it. And because of that courage – that willingness to fight, and even die – America endures," he said. "That is the purpose
...Read more
US Senate(MOORE, Okla.) -- In this week's Republican address, Oklahoma's senior senator, Jim Inhofe, speaks about the tornado that devastated Moore, Okla. this week.
Oklahoma has been hit hard, but we're not knocked out," Sen. Inhofe says in the address, delivered on location in Moore.
Inhofe says in times like these, whether during other tornadoes that struck Oklahoma in the past, or after the Oklahoma City bombing, Oklahomans always take care of each other, and praised those this week who demonstrated selfless acts "to ensure the safety and protection of their fellow neighbors, and their friends, and their students."
“The accounts of
...Read more
iStockphoto/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) -- It's almost as if Washington has seen this movie before: a bridge collapses, groups decry the nation's crumbling infrastructure and Congress does nothing.
Like the tragic Minneapolis, Minn. bridge collapse in 2007 that came before it, Thursday's Mount Vernon, Washington collapse is unlikely to spur Congress to pour hundreds of billions of dollars into fixing roads and bridges.
The political inertia in Washington around transportation funding and projects hasn't eased despite President Obama's nearly constant push for additional funding.
In February, Obama renewed his nearly annual call for $50 billion
...Read more
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- The Gang of Eight immigration bill does not yet have a 60-vote majority in the Senate, according to one of its authors, Sen. Bob Menendez.
During an interview with Univision's Jorge Ramos, Menendez, D-N.J., appeared confident that Congress will pass a comprehensive immigration reform bill. But he said the Senate bill's backers haven't yet cobbled together a large enough majority to avoid a potential filibuster.
"We don't currently have 60 votes identified in the Senate," he said during the interview with Ramos, which was conducted in Spanish for Al Punto, Univision's Sunday public affairs show.
...Read more
John Moore/Getty Images(ANNAPOLIS, Md.) -- President Obama gave a nod to his newly articulated drone policy as he addressed the graduating class of the U.S. Naval Academy on Friday.
“We still face threats from al Qaeda affiliates and individuals caught up in its ideology,” Obama said, addressing the academy’s graduation ceremony in Annapolis, Md. “Will still need to conduct targeted strikes against terrorists before they kill our citizens.”
Obama laid out his drone policies in another speech Thursday seeking to explain why, how, and when the U.S. will decide to kill Americans living abroad.
Obama raised the issue
...Read more
Official White House Photo by Pete Souza(NEW YORK) -- President Obama and N.J. Gov. Chris Christie will reunite once again when the president visits the Jersey Shore Tuesday.
The post-Memorial Day trip comes as the New Jersey coast prepares for its first summer season after Superstorm Sandy. A senior White House official confirmed the visit to ABC News.
Obama and Christie have become something of a political odd couple since the storm’s devastation nudged them closer together in the fall. The October storm, which came ashore shortly before the 2012 presidential Election Day, and Christie’s praise for Obama are credited with helping
...Read more
MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images(ANNAPOLIS, Md.) -- As a cold rain poured down on the commencement ceremony, President Obama addressed the graduating class of the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., Friday and used the recent scandal of sexual assaults in the military as a call for the graduates to restore trust and honor in America’s institutions.
“We must acknowledge that even here, even in our military, we’ve seen how the misconduct of some can have effects that ripple far and wide,” Obama said at the Naval Academy commencement ceremony. “In our digital age, a single image from the battlefield
...Read more
SAUL LOEB/AFP/GettyImages(DES MOINES, Iowa) -- Hillary Clinton sits at the top of the pack in a new poll of Iowa voters, but her closest competition is firebrand Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, a new poll found.
Clinton would beat rising-star Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., handily, 48 to 37 percent, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll released today. But Paul trails her by only 4 points.
Paul, 50, traveled to Iowa earlier this month, stoking speculation that he is courting voters for a 2016 run. Incidentally, around the same time he pointedly jabbed Clinton saying that her
...Read more
Comstock/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) -- The president may have forgotten to do something as he boarded Marine One Friday morning.
On his way to the U.S. Naval Academy graduation ceremony in Annapolis, Md., President Obama didn’t return the salute of the marine standing guard at the door of Marine One, as he climbed the steps to the helicopter cabin.
Obama soon ducked his head out, waved to the pilot, and jaunted back down the stairs to address the marine, shaking his hand. In the short video clip, one can’t hear the two men talking, so it’s unclear what exactly was said. A faint smile appeared to cross the marine’s face as the they exchanged
...Read more
Image Source/Getty Images(NEW YORK) -- The federal budget sequester may be dampening a rise in economic optimism: Nearly four in 10 Americans now say sequestration has hurt them personally, up substantially since it began in March -- and they’re far less sanguine than others about the economy’s prospects overall.
Thirty-seven percent in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll say they’ve been negatively impacted by the budget cuts, up from 25 percent in March. As previously, about half of those affected say the harm has been “major.”
Those who are hurt, holler. Among people who report no personal impact of the sequester,
...Read more
iStockphoto/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) -- In what was one of the 2012 election cycle’s most important battleground states, “voter fraud does exist,” Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted acknowledged in a report on Thursday. “But it is not an epidemic.”
Husted, a Republican and the state’s chief elections official, said at a news conference and in an accompanying report that was based on a survey of all of Ohio’s 88 counties conducted in the wake of last November’s election, 625 possible voting irregularities were reported across the state and 135 of them have been sent to law enforcement for further investigation.
...Read more
Pete Marovich/Bloomberg via Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- Congressional and administration sources confirm that IRS director of Exempt Organizations Lois Lerner has been placed on administrative leave.
Lerner came under fire this week when she chose to invoke her Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate herself rather than testify before the House Oversight and Government Reform committee.
Earlier Thursday, Rep. Darrell Issa, the chairman of the committee, announced that he believes Lerner waived her right to refuse to testify when she read a statement and authenticated a document for the record during the hearing.
National Review Online
...Read more
Advertisement
