ABOUT:
Defense policy analysis, commentary and discussion.Steven Dennis has covered House leadership for Roll Call since 2007. Prior to that, he covered budget and appropriations for Congressional Quarterly starting in 2005. Before covering Congress, he covered state and local politics in Maryland at the Gazette of Politics and Business, the Montgomery Gazette and the Herald-Mail in Hagerstown. He is a 1994 graduate from the University of Maryland's College of Journalism.
1. It’s not particularly grand. Nor is it necessarily a bargain. Or even new. It’s mostly a repackaged offer of proposals the president has offered before.
The effort by conservatives in the House and Senate to threaten a government shutdown over Obamacare could force Speaker John A. Boehner into the arms of House Democrats.
President Barack Obama’s latest pivot-to-the-economy speech at Knox College in Illinois struck familiar themes pointing to a popular-if-thwarted middle-class agenda while challenging Republicans not to shut down the government or spark another default crisis.
The House is expected to vote later today on Rep. Justin Amash’s amendment to defund the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of phone records of millions of Americans — and the White House very much wants it to lose.
Budget brinkmanship is on tap again this fall, if this week’s renewed finger-pointing over a potential government shutdown is any guide.
President Barack Obama’s vision for a middle-class economic agenda has been knocked off stride in the first six months of his second term, and he’ll try to fix that starting this week and heading into the big budget fights this fall.
In rare, direct remarks on race in America, President Barack Obama spoke at length about how the African-American community views the death of Trayvon Martin and the acquittal of George Zimmerman, and laid out a path forward in surprise remarks Friday at the White House.
Updated 3:49 p.m. | An unusually stern veto threat by President Barack Obama — aimed at a bill codifying his own administration’s health policy — has sparked incredulity from the GOP but may help rank-and-file Democrats faced with a political dilemma.
President Barack Obama would like to see senators work something out at tonight’s extraordinary meeting in the Old Senate Chamber to streamline the confirmations of his nominees, but he will ultimately defer to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s effort to deploy the “nuclear option” if they don’t.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano’s decision to leave the Cabinet this fall means President Barack Obama will have to find a replacement just as deliberations over an immigration overhaul may reach their peak.
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney defended the president’s record on border security Wednesday and dismissed concerns raised by members of both parties over the legality of delaying the employer health care mandate of the Affordable Care Act for a year.
The Club for Growth told lawmakers Wednesday that it would key vote against the House farm bill, despite GOP leadership’s plans to drop food stamps from the measure.
President Barack Obama’s decision to delay enforcement of the employer health mandate last week had GOP leaders crying foul Tuesday and pushing for a broader repeal of the health care law.
President Barack Obama made another pitch Monday for Congress to give him fast-track authority to reorganize the federal government after lawmakers ignored his request to do so last year.
President Barack Obama’s latest legal end run around Congress — delaying enforcement of the employer health mandate — has sparked more questions about whether he’s abusing his executive discretion under the Constitution.
The White House is delaying the employer health mandate of the Affordable Care Act by one year, bowing to corporate pressure and sparking another round of calls from Republicans to repeal the law.
Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz warned Republicans during an Appropriations Committee markup that they will be exposed for hypocrisy if they vote in committee to kill transportation funding in their districts while backing the projects back home.
The Supreme Court has ruled 5-4 to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act as unconstitutional in a major victory for advocates of gay marriage and a blow to House Republican leaders. California’s Proposition 8 banning gay marriage also fell, with the court ruling that the appellants did not have standing to appeal a lower court decision overturning the law.
An hourlong meeting between President Barack Obama and top congressional leaders at the White House on Tuesday afternoon was exclusively about foreign policy, according to an aide to Speaker John A. Boehner, R-Ohio.
China is back on the White House’s naughty list after letting Edward Snowden leave Hong Kong, and Russia has a chance to get on the nice list.
President Barack Obama will meet with the top four Congressional leaders on Tuesday at the White House — with student loans, immigration and the budget among the topics expected to be discussed.
Congress had its chance on climate change. Now, the president is ready to go it alone.
Updated 6:23 p.m. | The House’s stunning defeat of the farm bill Thursday dealt another blow to Speaker John A. Boehner’s leadership and set off a poisonous round of partisan finger-pointing that raised questions about the ability of the chamber to craft bipartisan deals on immigration, the budget and the debt later this year.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska has become the 54th sitting senator, and third Republican, to back gay marriage.
Speaker John A. Boehner looked to cut off a budding revolt Tuesday when he told his fellow Republicans that he couldn’t see a way to bring a bill to the floor without majority GOP support — a move that alarmed Democrats and appeared to shrink the chances of a bill reaching the president’s desk.
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