blogging the beltway

Sorry, Rick Santorum and Ron Paul fans. Mitt Romney won the Iowa caucuses on Tuesday night. Countering speculation over the past few days (Will Santorum rise up to take the whole thing? Will Paul’s dedicated base of supporters shut it down?), the candidate long perceived to be “the most electable” and “the inevitable nominee” came…

After 13 presidential debates, who-knows-how-many polls and seven major Republican candidates left in the game … the 2012 presidential election officially begins today. As the GOP contenders face off in the Iowa caucuses, here’s campaign news to know. 1. Seemingly out of nowhere, Rick Santorum rocketed to second place in Iowa. Despite placing dead last…

North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il died on Saturday at the age of 69 after “having a heart attack on a train,” according to a state television announcement. Kim, who isolated his country and kept the world on edge with his nuclear-weapons program, suffered a stroke in 2008. Last year he anointed his youngest son,…

After last-minute negotiating on Thursday night, congressional leaders reached a $1 trillion spending agreement to fund the federal government through 2012. Beating the deadline by just 27 hours, the deal put the brakes on an impending government shutdown. In the “You win some, you lose some” deal, Republicans agreed to drop a tacked-on policy measure…

Seven candidates for the Republican presidential nomination faced off in Sioux City, Iowa, on Thursday night for their final debate before the Iowa caucuses (that’s debate No. 13, for those of you counting). Hosted by Fox News, the high-stakes discussion served as their last chance to make an impression. Here are some of the night’s…

As the war in Iraq comes to an end this month, closing out nearly nine years of combat, thousands of service members will finally come home. On Wednesday President Obama and the first lady visited Fort Bragg, N.C.,  to thank hundreds of newly returned soldiers for their service. “As your commander-in-chief and on behalf of…

It’s no coincidence that Attorney General Eric Holder chose the Lyndon B. Johnson Library in Austin, Texas, as the site of a forceful speech against voter suppression. He referenced the location’s significance right at the top. “In 1965, when President Johnson signed the landmark Voting Rights Act into law, he proclaimed that ‘the right to vote…

Despite growing furor over state laws to restrict voting around the country — legislation that sets severe barriers to voter-registration drives, dramatic cuts to early voting and the permanent disenfranchisement of ex-felons, among other tactics — the Department of Justice hasn’t exactly staked a claim. For months, Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez has insisted that…

Doing what they do best these days, on Thursday Senate Republicans obstructed another measure — this time blocking a vote on the nomination of Richard Cordray for director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Seven votes shy of the 60 needed to bring Cordray’s nomination to the floor for an up-or-down vote, the bureau (which…

In a strikingly populist speech in Kansas on Tuesday, President Obama posited that the United States has a choice: to be a country in which a few do well while everyone else struggles to get by, or one where “we still have a stake in each other’s success.” Among several other policy pitches involving the…