All Politics Voices

Now that Republicans control the Senate, we’re likely to see more robust negotiations between Congress and President Obama. It will be very difficult for the president use his political capital to veto legislation if there is a good chance it can be overridden.

The cry of 'manufactured story' arises when one side is aggrieved that the other side is making a big deal out of something the former sees as trivial.

Republican presidential hopefuls are assiduously courting mega-rich elite potential donors, whose financial support is crucial in the wide-open 2016 GOP primary.

Tom Coburn, who delivered babies before running for Congress, relished taking on sacred cows and special interests. But he also understood that both sides had to give a little.

Although the high court declined to take up the constitutionality of same-sex marriage laws earlier this year, now there is a disagreement among federal appeals courts on the issue. 

Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos were shot by a gunman, who killed himself as fellow police officers closed in. Mayor DeBlasio may have bungled his relationship with the NYPD but that hardly makes him responsible for murder.

Advocates saw Vermont as the ideal laboratory for hatching a single payer system that might even serve as a role model for other states. But the price tag – $2.6 billion in a state with revenues totaling about $2 billion a year – was out of reach.

President Obama was correct to criticize Sony, and by extension the theater owners and distributors, for caving in to threats so quickly. The consequences open up other American businesses to extortion that would be very hard to combat.

Young turk flamethrowers tend to mellow into old bulls of the Establishment. It's the way of Washington. It's also why to expect creeping pragmatism in the new Congress.

Most Americans think that torture was justified in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks. The TV drama '24' debuted soon after those attacks and ran for eight seasons. But '24' also showed a cost to those who tortured others, even if the victims were bad guys.

Jeb Bush hasn’t been actively in the middle of the Washington political game for a decade, and politics has changed rapidly since then. He's not an ideologue or a populist – and that's good. 

The US has kept its embargo on Cuba in place since 1961 and it hasn't produced regime change, so there's nothing wrong with trying a different path. But Rand Paul better be ready for tough criticism on that point from some GOP primary rivals.

In sort-of announcing for the 2016 presidential race this week, Jeb Bush said he wanted to have 'conversations with citizens' before deciding whether to formally run. It's a tried-and-true rhetorical fig leaf.

MIT economist Jonathan Gruber, who has said some controversial things about Obamacare, also said he isn't the author of the law. But folks like him – not legislators – are just the sorts of people who do write laws.

'Jet fumes' is shorthand for lawmakers’ fierce desire to get to D.C.-area airports. It often drives legislative business – and that’s not a good trend, a former senator says.

The usually strife-torn House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bill to help parents of children with disabilities. It shows how D.C. can find common ground.

When politicians say 'the only poll that matters is on Election Day,' they're telling you their candidate is behind. So we're hearing that a lot with Sen. Mary Landrieu ahead of Saturday's runoff election.

The Obama administration took some fire Tuesday for choosing a soap opera producer (and successful fundraiser) as ambassador to Hungary. But the president’s record has been consistent with those of his recent predecessors.

Sen. Chuck Schumer says that his party 'blew the opportunity' – and, later, lost the Senate – when they focused on health-care reform, instead of jobs and helping the middle class.