Ben Adler

With a Florida judge's ruling against the administration Monday, Obama's health-care plan seems destined for a Supreme Court showdown, where Justice Anthony Kennedy will be the swing vote.

Kentucky's new Republican senator and member of the Tea Party caucus is proposing socially conservative legislation.

On Friday afternoon, when congressional Republicans chose Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) to give their official response to the State of the Union address, Democrats must have been thrilled.

The Senate looks unlikely to reform the filibuster. That's too bad, because the status quo is broken.

Liberals are criticizing the Tea Party movement for its supposed ties to the school board in Wake County, N.C., which is removing the county's longstanding school-integration system. But those ties are tenuous.

Leading conservative politicians and pundits are suggesting that the assault-weapons ban would violate the Second Amendment. It wouldn't.

How did Bryan Fischer, a radio host in Mississippi with a small audience, become a media darling?

Coming on the heels of President Obama's choice of Bill Daley as his new chief of staff, the selection of Bruce Reed from the Democratic Leadership Council to run Vice President Biden's staff is causing concern on the left.

The country's leading gay-rights group examines the record of all the members of the 112th Congress, and finds that it has lost its sympathetic majority in both chambers. What does that mean for its legislative priorities?

Bill Daley, whom President Obama has just named to be his new chief of staff, is a banker, former Treasury secretary under Bill Clinton, and the brother and son of Chicago mayors. This may sound like a fairly typical Obama appointment, but it is actually a significant shift.

The Tea Party Patriots are pointing to Phoenix as a cultural, political, and economic model.

The possibility that Julian Assange will be prosecuted by the U.S. for his role in the WikiLeaks document releases could trample the First Amend-ment and threaten journalists. So why are they reluctant to object to it?

Now that gays can serve in the military, their advocates will turn to partnership rights and protection from workplace discrimination. And the existence of openly gay service members may help them win those battles.

With his rose-colored recollection of the Citizens' Council, the Mississippi governor belittled the pain of segregation and the struggle to overcome it. Will it sink his presidential ambitions? Probably not in the short term.

Bernie Madoff's victims who made a profit are being sued by a government-appointed trustee. The purpose is to reclaim profits withdrawn in the last six years to pay back people who withdrew less than they put in. Is that fair?

A bill to let gays serve openly in the military has passed Congress. It is a huge win for gay rights, but not a comprehensive one.

Why this week's federal district court ruling is only the start of the debate over whether the individual mandate to buy health insurance is unconstitutional.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), like many liberals, sees the extension of tax cuts for the wealthy as part of a larger war on working people.

President Obama and congressional Republicans made a deal to temporarily extend the Bush tax cuts. Now we know how they really feel about budget deficits.

Experts say that taking legislation hostage to pass something an individual senator or group of senators wants is common, but the current blanket legislative filibuster is more extreme.

Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke told CBS's "60 Minutes" that rising inequality is due to gaps in educational achievement. But there are other important phenomena at work.

Republican Sens. Jim DeMint of South Carolina and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma were Tea Partiers before the term existed. Staunch fiscal and social conservatives who are unafraid to alienate colleagues with principled but unpopular crusades, DeMint and Coburn have long been scourges of wasteful government spending, no matter how small.

Senate Republicans are refusing to do anything, even ratify the START treaty with Russia to prevent nuclear proliferation, unless they first get their way on tax cuts for the rich.

With Monday's proposal to freeze the wages of federal employees Obama has angered his base in exchange for modest deficit reduction, and no support from Republicans. So what is he thinking?

Washington can seem like a Venn diagram where the two circles—Republicans and Democrats—will never touch. But on the issue of education reform, the two parties may be able to come together.

Investment banker and Clinton administration veteran Roger Altman is rumored to be a likely replacement for Larry Summers, and the left is not pleased.

Fox News president Roger Ailes called NPR a bunch of "Nazis." The Anti-Defamation League has accepted his tepid apology, when the group should be calling for his resignation.

Joe Miller becomes the fourth Tea Party–affiliated GOP Senate nominee to lose. Is the Tea Party hurting Republicans more than it is helping them?

Round one in the Republican establishment vs. the Tea Party goes to the Tea Party. It persuaded Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to back a ban on pork-barrel spending.

Tea Party Patriots is asking its members to call Republican senators and demand that they vote next Tuesday to forgo all earmarks, calling it "our first battle with the newly empowered GOP."