What you should know about being LGBT and Muslim, from a leading LGBT Muslim group

What Congress is doing — and not doing — on guns

This post has been updated. According to Congress.gov, 227 pieces of legislation introduced in Congress in 2015 were related to firearms. Most or even all of those proposals are going nowhere, but it’s not for lack of attention on the issue. Republicans control both chambers, and their leaders have said they think new gun laws aren’t the […]

The shooting in Orlando is the deadliest mass shooting in American history

Details on the mass slaying in Orlando that occurred early Sunday morning aren’t yet finalized, but officials have confirmed that at least 50 people were killed in the incident at the Pulse nightclub in that city. Dozens more were reported injured. Even if that fatality figure remains the same, it surpasses by a wide margin the previous record: […]

Hillary Clinton has been running for president for a quarter-century, to hear the media tell it

On a cold night in early February, Hillary Clinton looked out at the voters CNN had assembled for a town-hall event at the Derry Opera House in Derry, N.H., and told them, “I never thought I would do this.” “I never thought I’d be standing on a stage here, asking people to vote for me for president,” she […]

What’s happening to two undocumented Texas valedictorians says it all about the immigration debate

A pair of high school valedictorians in Texas have become the targets of social media attacks. Plenty of people are subject to abuse online. But those who dare to be anything other than white, straight or male had better learn to practice deep breathing. This is especially true if one is also an undocumented immigrant […]

Late-night laughs: Hillary Clinton edition
In the middle of any election season, politicians become the brunt of late-night television jokes — or, sometimes, play the jokester themselves. So each week, we pick out a theme and mash up our favorite late-night jokes. This week, the late-night shows were filled with one-liners about Hillary Clinton becoming the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee over the objections […]

A visual history of how old our first families — and their children — were

Sasha Obama was born in 2001. This century. That’s insane. I realize that I’m betraying my own age by finding that astonishing; Boomers went through this when Bill Clinton was elected president, and millennials are too young to know math think that’s odd. Her 15th birthday was Friday, meaning that her actual birthday was on […]

Donald Trump had the Worst Week in Washington

What Donald Trump needs right now is a quiet week. Once in which he visits a handful of swing states, stays on message and maybe even gives a policy speech. This was not that week. It began with the Republican establishment in something very close to outright revolt amid Trump’s continued ham-handed handling of the […]

A GOP senator might vote for Hillary Clinton. Here’s how rare that is.

It is at least within the realm of possibility this election that a Republican senator could support the Democratic presidential nominee. One of the Senate’s most moderate Republicans, Susan Collins of Maine, left that option open in an interview this week with the New Yorker. Here’s the full Susan Collins exchange. Says it’s unlikely but possible she’ll […]

Gawker’s bankruptcy could be a sign of what’s to come if Donald Trump is president

A vengeful billionaire succeeded Friday in bankrupting a media company he doesn’t like. At its most basic level, that is what happened when Gawker Media Group filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and put itself up for sale just three months after losing a $140 million lawsuit funded by technology entrepreneur Peter Thiel. The case didn’t directly […]

Why Bernie Sanders isn’t going to suddenly win California

There are four possible options for why Hillary Clinton beat Bernie Sanders in California on Tuesday by a wider margin than most polling suggested. They are as follows. 1. Votes are still being counted, including provisional ballots, and Sanders will win once they’re all tallied. 2. Clinton won the early and absentee vote. But Sanders […]

The 5 House seats that could signal a Democratic majority in 2016

Democrats need a lot of things to go right if they want to win the House of Representatives this year. Actually, they need just about everything to go right. That’s because they currently need to net 30 seats to end Republicans’ historically big majority. (The current breakdown is 246-188.) Right now, most nonpartisan political analysts project Democrats […]

Republicans now say Donald Trump wasn’t talking about Gonzalo Curiel’s heritage. Except he was.
These aren’t the droids you’re looking for. That was the message of Republican National Committee senior adviser Sean Spicer when asked to defend Donald Trump’s comments about Judge Gonzalo Curiel on CNN Friday morning. Here’s exactly what Spicer said: RNC spokesman Spicer: Trump “has made clear he was not trying to speak to the judge’s […]

This simple staffing chart tells the story of the 2016 campaign

Part of Donald Trump’s current effort to prove that he can win the general election just fine, thank you, is to downplay the fact that Hillary Clinton has far more staff than he does. As a general rule, more staff allows you to better contact voters, since it means more robust campaign operations in more […]

Donald Trump’s polling surge has faltered — and Democrats haven’t even united

Donald Trump’s beloved polls have betrayed him. Trump uses polls the way other people use love from a child or a good report card: as validation that all is right with the world and that he’s doing okay. At nearly every campaign stop and in nearly every campaign speech, Trump mentions the polls, usually cherry-picking […]

Even some Democrats are casting doubt on an all-female Clinton-Warren ticket. But why?

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) — economist, Harvard professor, and long-time economic-inequality combatant — just endorsed Hillary Clinton. And Friday morning the two are set to meet, fueling suspicion that Warren may be in line to join the Clinton presidential ticket. But her endorsement and the much buzzed about Friday morning meeting with Clinton will come on the heels of public […]

Elizabeth Warren’s up-and-down relationship with Hillary Clinton began with a 1998 op-ed

On April 27, 1998, the New York Times published an op-ed by a 48-year-old Harvard Law School professor named Elizabeth Warren. In the piece, Warren argued that a bankruptcy reform bill that was working its way through Congress would hurt middle-class families — women, in particular. Among the readers who found Warren’s case persuasive was the first […]

Why I still don’t think Elizabeth Warren makes Hillary Clinton’s vice presidential short-list

The “Elizabeth Warren for Vice President” chatter is at an all-time high Friday. Between Warren’s endorsement of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign on Thursday night and the planned meeting between the two women today, many people are already penciling in Warren on the ticket. And, there is an argument to be made for why Clinton picking […]

Obama recaps his 8 years as president — with a bunch of double entendres
What better way to pitch your legacy than with a bunch of double entendres?

Did Elizabeth Warren play her cards right to be Hillary Clinton’s vice president?

Up until Thursday evening, Elizabeth Warren was the only female Democratic senator who hadn’t endorsed Hillary Clinton. In fact, she was one of the last high-profile members of the Democratic Party to endorse her. Elizabeth Warren on @maddow: “”I am ready … to work my heart out for Hillary Clinton” — Amber Phillips (@byamberphillips) June […]

Never tweet, Hillary Clinton

I am on-record as being opposed to following politicians on Twitter. Following a politician on Twitter is like paying $15 a month in order to receive boring press releases from a local drywall installation company: It’s a drain on you and almost never gives you any information you care about. That’s an exaggeration, of course, […]

Why President Obama was itching to endorse Hillary Clinton

Bernie Sanders had barely made it back to Capitol Hill after his meeting with President Obama at the White House when the news broke: Obama was endorsing Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination. And not only that! Obama was delivering the endorsement via a prerecorded video, recorded on Tuesday — 48 hours before he […]