The Week: Most Recent Politics Posts

Is Wall Street literally writing America's laws now?

The Week — Fri, 24 May 2013 16:27:00 -0400

A bill called the Swaps Regulatory Improvement Act recently sailed through the House Financial Services Committee. But when The New York Times went through emails from a lobbyist to the congressmen who wrote it, the paper discovered an unofficial co-author: Citigroup.

It turns out that recommendations from Citigroup made up 70 of the bill's 85 lines, with two important paragraphs copied almost verbatim — save for two words that were changed to make them plural, according to the Times.

The bill takes aim at the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, the financial regulatory reform bill that was meant to prevent...

Eric Holder signed off on a Fox News search warrant: Finally, a smoking gun?

The Week — Fri, 24 May 2013 11:22:00 -0400

The growing furor over the Obama administration's secret investigation of journalists took a sharp turn Thursday with the revelation that Attorney General Eric Holder had personally authorized a controversial search warrant targeting a Fox News reporter.

Holder signed off on the search warrant for James Rosen, Fox's chief Washington correspondent, that alleged Rosen had possibly committed espionage "either as an aider, abettor, and/or co-conspirator," according to NBC. Rosen has never been charged with any crime, and that warrant has been universally condemned by journalists of all political stripes...

Here's a secret: Bipartisanship is working

The Week — Fri, 24 May 2013 06:27:00 -0400

On the surface, Washington seems hopelessly mired in chronic partisan dysfunction. Scandal hysteria continues to fuel bitter partisan rhetoric. Senate Republicans are still obstructing humdrum presidential nominations. House Republicans are threatening (again!) to block the perfunctory but essential task of raising the debt limit. Gridlock produced the hated sequester. The broadly popular gun background-check bill remains stalled. Obama recently lamented that the partisan "fever" he hoped his re-election would cure has "not quite broken yet."

And yet, amid the recent acrimony, landmark immigration...

How Obama plans to (finally) close Guantanamo

The Week — Thu, 23 May 2013 19:12:00 -0400

Days after taking office in 2009, President Obama made good on one of his central campaign promises, ordering that the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention center be closed within the year.

Or, at least he tried to make good on that promise. The delicate politics of the issue — and congressional obstruction — squelched that effort, and the detention center remains open.

On Thursday, as part of a broad speech outlining a narrower vision of American involvement in the war on terror, Obama once again called for the closure of Guantanamo. And this time, he offered specific details on how he...

Obama's sweeping speech on the war on terror: 7 key highlights

The Week — Thu, 23 May 2013 16:21:00 -0400

President Obama on Thursday offered a sweeping outline of the future of his administration's counterterrorism efforts, laying out in strikingly specific terms his vision for a more limited American military engagement around the globe.

"America is at a crossroads," he said. "We must define the nature and scope of this struggle, or else it will define us, mindful of James Madison’s warning that 'No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.'"

In a wide-ranging, hour-long speech, the president provided the clearest rationale yet for the use of drone strikes; insisted...

Can Congress solve the military's sexual assault problem?

The Week — Thu, 23 May 2013 16:05:00 -0400

Furious over a growing epidemic of sexual assault in the military, members of Congress are drafting a number of proposals aimed at addressing the problem.

On Thursday, a group of lawmakers unveiled a bill that would give sexual assault victims more power to challenge their alleged attackers, while at the same time making it harder for military brass to dismiss those cases.

The bill, introduced at a press conference by Sens. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine), along with Reps. Michael Turner (R-Ohio) and Niki Tsongas (D-Mass.), would bar commanding officers from throwing out...

Can Chris Christie win the GOP nomination?

The Week — Thu, 23 May 2013 07:27:00 -0400

There's a new "Happy Warrior" on the political scene — and an unlikely one, since critics have long called him a bully with anger-control issues.

But consider Gov. Chris Christie (R-N.J.): He has repeatedly clashed with conservatives in his party over his more moderate positions and unapologetic willingness to reach across the aisle. His national media appearances poking fun at himself have bolstered his national image, and a recent poll declared him the only potential 2016 candidate with presidential election crossover appeal. But can he seriously hope to get his litmus-test-fixated party...

Did IRS official Lois Lerner waive her right to silence?

The Week — Thu, 23 May 2013 07:00:00 -0400

IRS official Lois Lerner, the director of the agency's division that singled out Tea Party groups applying for tax-exempt status, invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination before a House oversight committee hearing on Wednesday. But before she took the Fifth, she made a short statement. (Watch below.)

After talking about her career and describing what the IRS inspector general reported and the House committee's accusation that she provided false information, Lerner said:

I have not done anything wrong. I have not broken any laws. I have not violated any IRS rules or regulations...

WATCH: Jon Stewart and Bill O'Reilly spar over the Obama scandals

The Week — Thu, 23 May 2013 05:31:00 -0400

On Wednesday night, The Daily Show played host to one of the occasional sparring matches between Jon Stewart and his Fox News frenemy, Bill O'Reilly. This go-around, Stewart and O'Reilly agreed that the Justice Department over-reached in its "troubling" investigation of Fox News reporter James Rosen, and that the IRS targeting of some conservative tax-exempt applicants is a big, bad deal. (You can watch extended versions of the O'Reilly interview below.)

Stewart asked O'Reilly: After five years of Fox News being "always on DEFCON 1, red alert" over Obama, how does it feel to "finally have a...

4 burning questions Obama should answer about drones and terrorism

The Week — Wed, 22 May 2013 20:40:00 -0400

One day before President Obama was scheduled to deliver a a major national security speech to discuss his administration's evolving counterterrorism policies, the White House for the first time acknowledged using drone strikes to kill four American citizens living in Pakistan and Yemen.

According to the New York Times, which obtained a letter Attorney General Eric Holder sent to Congress discussing those strikes, the administration has admitted to deliberately killing Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical Muslim cleric who was a member of Al Qaeda's Yemeni affiliate. Holder wrote that the government had...

8 things I'd like to hear from Obama's counterterrorism speech

Marc Ambinder — Wed, 22 May 2013 18:12:00 -0400

President Obama's speech on his counterterrorism policies may be his last, best chance to establish a solid foundation for the extraordinary actions he's ordered as the commander-in-chief. Legitimacy and sustainability are his watchwords. But those who follow this subject closely will be watching to see how he addresses several difficult questions, including how the executive branch can possibly hold itself accountable when secret military operations go devastatingly wrong. Repeating his mantras from past speeches won't speak to the rising concerns among lawmakers and American citizens about his...

Are Democrats finally serious about filibuster reform?

The Week — Wed, 22 May 2013 16:21:00 -0400

Facing Republican filibuster threats over a handful of President Obama's high-level nominees, Democrats are threatening to invoke the so-called nuclear option and revise the Senate's rules to effectively circumvent such obstruction.

Sound familiar?

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has floated similar threats before. Yet this time, with top cabinet picks on the line, there's reason to believe he's finally ready to pull the trigger.

"It hasn't gotten too much attention given the other things that are going on, but there is a battle looming this summer over the filibuster, one that could...

An embattled IRS official takes the 5th: Damning evidence of guilt?

The Week — Wed, 22 May 2013 12:22:00 -0400

Lois Lerner, a high-ranking IRS official, invoked the Fifth Amendment and refused to answer questions in an appearance Wednesday before a House committee investigating the tax agency's improper targeting of conservatives. IRS leaders and an inspector general have said there is no evidence anyone broke any laws in the case, in which IRS employees singled out conservative groups for extra scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status between 2010 and 2012. Conservatives disagree. Is Lerner's apparent concern that she might incriminate herself an admission of guilt, and proof that laws were in...

What 'crack babies' can teach our lawmakers

Taegan Goddard — Wed, 22 May 2013 10:40:00 -0400

Politicians, scientists, and journalists repeatedly warned that the United States would be plagued by a generation of "crack babies" putting a massive drain on the social service infrastructures of our inner cities.

Retro Report — an independent news organization of which I'm the publisher — went back and looked at the story decades later and traced the concern to a single 1985 study which concluded that pregnant mothers who smoked crack cocaine were seriously harming their unborn children. The explosive findings were kept alive through a steady drumbeat of media coverage. Laws were...

The White House has a public relations mess on its hands

Taegan Goddard — Wed, 22 May 2013 10:33:00 -0400

While there is still no evidence connecting the IRS's targeting of conservative groups directly to President Obama, senior White House officials, or to his re-election campaign, NBC's First Read smartly points out that this doesn't mean the White House doesn't have a serious public relations problem on its hands.

And this public relations problem is almost entirely self-inflicted.

In interviews and press briefings, the White House's explanation for when it learned about the problems at the IRS keeps changing.

As Politico reports, "Just a day after telling reporters that chief of staff Denis...

WATCH: Anthony Weiner announces New York mayoral run in new video

The Week — Wed, 22 May 2013 10:17:00 -0400

It's official: Anthony Weiner is running for mayor of New York City. In a new video, Weiner appears with his wife, Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin, to ask New Yorkers to give him a "second chance" after admitting to making some "big mistakes."

A Quinnipiac poll released Wednesday suggests Weiner has some ground to make up. City Council Speaker Christine Quinn currently leads the pack of Democratic candidates with 25 percent of the potential vote, with Weiner in second place at 15 percent.

Unsurprisingly, Weiner — who resigned from Congress in 2011 after being caught sending photos of his...