US Politics News

The chairman of the Federal Reserve is concerned that congressional efforts at financial reform could weaken the central bank's ability to handle future crises and may politicize monetary policy.

As Meg Whitman has been introducing herself to California voters, she retells a line that usually generates a chuckle: "The next governor of California needs to know exactly what SHE believes." The statement conveys the kind of confidence the former eBay executive displayed in her trailblazing role as the female head of a Fortune 500 company.

In this May 8, 2009, file photo President Barack Obama speaks during an unannounced visit to a Spanish language town hall meeting on the swine flu virus in the Eisenhower Executive Office building in the White House complex in Washington.

For the first time under Chief Justice John Roberts, the Supreme Court failed to issue opinions before Thanksgiving in any of the cases that were argued in recent months.

The leaders of Britain and France gave their backing Friday to a global fund that would provide billions of dollars to poor countries to help them reduce the output of greenhouse gases linked to climate change.

Consumer activist and Connecticut native Ralph Nader said Friday he is "absorbing" the reaction he's receiving about a possible bid for the U.S. Senate, saying he wants to first gauge the level of grassroots support before making a decision.

A top House Republican today blasted a ruling by the Justice Department that allows the Obama administration to pay ACORN for services provided under contracts signed before Congress passed a law banning the community advocacy group from receiving taxpayers money.

"It is telling that this administration continues to look for every excuse possible to circumvent the intent of Congress," Issa said in a statement. "Taxpayers should not have to continue subsidizing a criminal enterprise that helped Barack Obama get elected president. The politicization of the Justice Department to payback one of the president’s political allies is shameful and amounts to nothing more than old-fashioned cronyism."

Reporting from Washington - Troubled by the rising jobless rate, President Obama and the Democratic majority in Congress are assembling a new jobs package that would devote billions of dollars to projects meant to put people back on payrolls in 2010 and keep them working.

You've heard of wedding crashers. But how about state dinner crashers? Well, that's exactly what happened at the White House this week.

Thousands of drivers on the nation's roads don't carry auto insurance, despite laws in all but two states requiring it.

Sarah Palin has been tricked by a second Canadian comedian. Last year, she was "punk'd," made to think she was talking to French president Nicolas Sarkozy when in reality it was The Masked Avengers, a Quebec comedy duo. At a recent stop on her "Going Rogue" book tour, Sarah Palin told Canadian comedian Mary Walsh that Canada should get rid of its public health care system (which will go over poorly with Canadians; more on that later)

China announced plans Thursday to cut its carbon emissions by up to 45 percent as measured against its economic output a ' a commitment from the world's largest polluter that builds momentum ahead of a widely anticipated climate conference in Copenhagen next month.

President Barack Obama and a top House Republican acknowledged in holiday messages Thursday the economic struggles facing Americans this Thanksgiving but offered starkly different recipes for relief.

Among Catholic politicians, Patrick Kennedy is both an obvious target, because of his prominence, and a deeply ironic one, because of the decades of loyalty and support the Kennedy family has given to the Catholic Church. Though they may not always have lived strictly by church teachings, Patrick’s father, uncles, aunts, and grandmother were all devout Catholics whose intensive commitment to worship drew others into the church. The Kennedys accorded priests and bishops an honored position in their lives. Edward Kennedy’s dying appeal to the pope proves that the church was never far from the late senator’s mind.

Former CNN host Lou Dobbs is seriously considering running for U.S. Senate in New Jersey in 2012 as a stepping stone to a possible White House bid - a congressional matchup that would pit one of illegal immigration's biggest critics against a champion for immigrant rights.

As you may recall, former White House press secretary Dana Perino has a poor memory when it comes to history. For example, she had no knowledge of what the Cuban Missile Crisis was. She also apparently forgot about 9/11, perhaps conveniently.

A crudely altered photograph of Michelle Obama, which often comes up as the first result on a Google image search of her name, will not be removed from the company's search process despite protests that the depiction is racist and repugnant.

"It's offensive to many people, but that alone is not a reason to remove it from our search index," Google Inc. spokesman Scott Rubin said Tuesday. "We have, in general, a bias toward free speech."

The image, which depicts the first lady as having monkey-like features, is posted without explanation on a blog called Hot Girls -- which also contains several legitimate photographs of Obama.

Sarah Palin, who says the 2012 presidential election isn't on her radar, took her "Going Rogue" book tour to the biggest of the battleground states Tuesday, including a stop in the retirement community where tens of thousands of people gave her star treatment in the 2008 presidential election.

President Barack Obama will announce his decision on whether to send more U.S. troops to Afghanistan "within days" after he held a final strategy session with top aides, the White House said on Tuesday.

Even his allies feel let down by the president’s lack of progress both in Asia and at home.

It was not just that the US media have suddenly turned a lot more sceptical about a president with grand ambitions to reshape politics at home and abroad — even one previously friendly newspaper noted dismissively: “Obama goes to China, brings home a T-shirt.”

Nor was the steady decline in the president’s approval ratings — which fell below 50% for the first time in a Gallup poll last week — the main cause of White House angst. Obama remains more popular than either Ronald Reagan or Bill Clinton a year after their elections, and both presidents eventually cruised to second terms.

The real problem may be Obama’s friends — or rather, those among his formerly most enthusiastic supporters who are now having second thoughts.

The doubters are suddenly stretching across a broad section of the Democratic party’s natural constituency. They include black congressional leaders upset by the sluggish economy; women and Hispanics appalled by concessions made to Republicans on healthcare; anti-war liberals depressed by the debate over troops for Afghanistan; and growing numbers of blue-collar workers who are continuing to lose their jobs and homes.