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The Minnesota Supreme Court this afternoon ruled unanimously that Al Franken is “entitled to receive the certificate of election as United States Senator from the State of Minnesota.” Barring an appeal by G.O.P. incumbent Norm Coleman to the U.S. Supreme Court — an appeal that court would be unlikely to be heard until the next …

It’s not often that a former political aide gets a hefty $$ deal to write a tell-all book – such a betrayal would come after only the harshest kind of disillusionment. Apparently Andrew Young, John Edwards’ former aide who once claimed Rielle Hunter’s baby as his own, is that disappointed and angry with his former boss. Young …

I have a Time.com story up today about Obama’s decision to attend church services at the chapel up at Camp David for the time being, rather than join a D.C.-area church. The plan makes a lot of sense for the First Family–it was also how the Bush family chose to worship in semi-privacy for the past eight years. But given the intense …

The Great Americans over at the Weekly Standard have a parody this week that involves a quote from one of my posts here a few weeks ago.

“Iran…is breezy with freedom.”

Which raises the question: Why the ellipses? Well, because the words elided were “by contrast.” By contrast to what, one might ask.

By contrast to the Soviet …

I generally agree with Michael Scherer’s assessment of the great Wapo-Huffpo faceoff. Too much petulance by both Nico Pitney and Dana Milbank on Howie Kurtz’s show. But let’s cut to the chase: Pitney is right; Milbank is wrong. Yes, the Obama Administration let Pitney know, in advance, that the President might ask Pitney for a question …

In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court upheld the challenge by Frank Ricci, and other firefighters, to the city of New Haven’s decision to throw out the results of their promotion exam because no African-Americans passed the test. That seems eminently fair–unless someone could prove, in some way, that the test was inherently racist, …

The New York Times is reporting that Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak may be coming to Washington bearing gifts: a 3-to-6 month freeze on new settlements. It’s not what the international community has been demanding–the East Jerusalem settlements are not included–but it’s close enough for diplomacy. It’s a step in the right …

If you want to know what’s wrong with the current state of America’s political discourse, take some time to watch this Sunday’s CNN’s Reliable Sources, where two American journalists acted like petulant politicians, abandoning any pretense to reasonable discussion so they could launch specious attacks on each other’s integrity. No doubt …

Glenn Greenwald, toying with the Weekly Standard’s Michael Goldfarb, points out that the release of the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit is a triumph of diplomacy. It should be something more than that, though: the beginning of a negotiation. Releasing Shalit is a gesture by Hamas that clearly demands an Israeli response–opening the …

The U.S. House of Representatives passed sweeping climate change legislation just after 7:15pm tonight by 219-212. The bill is House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s signature issue and a top priority of the Obama Administration. It now goes to the Senate which is aiming for passage in October. Pelosi decided just Monday to fast track the …

A collaborative reporting team of the Washington Post and Pro-Publica is reporting this afternoon that the Obama Administration is getting closer to issuing an Executive Order that would “would reassert presidential authority to incarcerate suspected terrorists indefinitely.”

There seems to be some confusion, however, about just how …

There’s a privilege granted to leaders of both parties in the House to speak for as long as they want on the House floor on whatever subject they want. After nearly five hours of debate on the climate bill, House Minority Leader John Boehner took the floor around 5:30pm and began speaking about the 300-page chairman’s amendment added to …

Monica Conyers, Detroit councilwoman and wife of House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers, pled guilty today in a bribery case and now faces five years in prison. Conyers is only in her first term on the council, but had already previously made headlines for threatening to shoot a mayoral staffer, accusing then-mayor Kwame Kilpatrick of …