Politics

NBC News recaps today’s address by the president: President Barack Obama pledged Saturday that Americans “will not be terrorized” by the threat of mass shootings, but described U.S. gun laws as “insane.” In his weekly address, he said the victims of the San Bernardino massacre should be honored by ongoing efforts to defend America. “That’s how we can send a …

The vote was overwhelmingly in favor of supporting the fight against ISIS. TIME reports: Members of Germany’s Parliament approved Chancellor Angela Merkel’s plan to send forces to Syria in support of the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) on Friday. Germany will deploy 1,200 troops as part of the one-year mission, which is projected to …

Right wing sites are slightly pausing their San Bernardino celebrations to trumpet the “media fail” evidenced by the latest national poll which shows Donald Trump leading the field by 20 points. CNN reports: Donald Trump is once again alone at the top of the Republican field, according to the latest CNN/ORC Poll, with 36% of registered Republicans and Republican-leaning independents …

This one will actually get to Obama’s desk. The Hill reports: The Senate on Thursday passed legislation repealing the core pillars of ObamaCare, taking a major step toward sending such a bill to the president’s desk for the first time. Republicans hailed it as a political messaging victory and a fulfillment of their promise from the 2014 midterm election to …

House Speaker Paul Ryan today dismissed President Obama’s call for new gun regulations, saying instead the nation should focus on mental illness. Via USA Today: “People with mental illness are getting guns and committing these mass shootings,” Ryan said on CBS This Morning. Ryan made the same point earlier this week in reaction to the post-Thanksgiving shooting at a Colorado …

Roll Call reports: Capitol Police arrested an employee with the Senate Sergeant-at-Arms for attempting to bring a loaded handgun into a Senate office building. Christopher Carpenter ‎of Stafford, Va., was arrested around 7 a.m. Tuesday at the Dirksen Senate Office Building, when an X-ray bag screening required to enter the building revealed a gun. Capitol Police Spokeswoman Kimberly Schneider wrote …

“Our history tells us that faith and public life are complementary parts of American life. But invocation of the “wall of separation” between church and state has become shorthand for a particular narrative about the history and status of religion in American life. This narrative is wrong. “Such an approach undermines religious liberty and limits the ways in which faith …

Paul Ryan is pumping out photos of his stubble on social media and is asking how long it’s been a House Speaker had a beard. SO many joke opportunities, but the most obvious answer is Dennis Hastert. Insert rim shot.

Former New York Assembly Leader Sheldon Silver was today found guilty on all seven federal counts of extortion, money laundering, and influence peddling. Among the charges were that Silver received millions of dollars in referral fees after pushing state grants for a cancer researcher who then sent mesothelioma patients to Silver’s ambulance-chasing law firm, which airs incessant television commercials offering …

President Obama’s final State Of The Union address has been scheduled for January 12th. TIME reports: The timing was announced by newly installed Speaker Paul Ryan, who will host the president’s speech. It will be the 10th time Obama has addressed a joint session of Congress and his seventh State of the Union. (His first, 2009 address is not considered …

British rapper and Oscar nominee M.I.A., whom you may best know from her bird-flipping 2012 Super Bowl performance with Madonna, addresses the refugee crisis in the video for her latest single. Newsweek reviews: It’s a visual feat, with striking images depicting hundreds of sullen people perched on boats, scaling fences, walking in the ocean and running across fields, mimicking the …

Reacting to yesterday’s shootings in Colorado Springs, President Obama today again called for stricter gun control measures. In a written statement, Obama said that regardless of the motive, it was unacceptable that these sort of mass shootings happen so frequently in the United States. “This is not normal. We can’t let it become normal,” he said. “If we truly care …

Early this week Canada announced that gay Syrian males will be admitted under their refugee policy, but other “lone males” will not. A gay Syrian who recently won asylum in Canada tells the local press that this policy could endanger the lives of gay Syrian refugees who identify themselves. Metro News reports: “If I was a refugee in a camp …

But so far only four bottom-of-the-pile candidates have asked for it. Talking Points Memo reports: NBC has agreed to give 12 minutes of air time to a handful of Republican presidential candidates who filed for equal time after Donald Trump, who is also seeking the GOP nomination, hosted “Saturday Night Live” earlier this month, Variety reported. Ohio Gov. John Kasich, …

Politico reports: White Christians now make up less than half of the U.S. population, largely receding from the majorities of most demographic groups, with one notable exception: the Republican Party. According to the latest results from Pew Research Center’s Religious Landscape survey published Monday by National Journal’s Next America project, just 46 percent of American adults are white Christians, down …

The Ottawa Citizen reports: Gay men will be among the Syrian refugees the government is willing to bring to Canada under a plan that will otherwise welcome primarily women, children and families. Security concerns over extremists potentially slipping in to Canada mean the Liberal government will likely exclude unaccompanied males from its planned resettlement of thousands of refugees. But the …

The Hill reports: Six GOP presidential candidates would beat Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton in a head-to-head matchup, according to a Fox News poll released Sunday. Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) would do best against Clinton, 50 to 42 percent, pollsters found. Billionaire Donald Trump, retired pediatric neurosurgeon Ben Carson, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas) and New Jersey …

This weekend Donald Trump twice declared that “thousands and thousands” of Arabs in Jersey City were cheering when the Twin Towers came down. Which never happened. Democratic Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop, who joined the Marines and served in Iraq after witnessing the attack, is furious. He was elected mayor in 2013 at the age of 36 and my pals …

John Oliver last night added fuel to a long-running “dump the penny” campaign. TIME reports: On the last episode of Last Week Tonight of the year, Oliver called for a small change that could have big results for the U.S. economy — ending the penny. According to Oliver, 8 billion pennies are produced each year, and in an ironic twist, …

Via the New York Times: With a victory that defied political geography and near universal predictions from just months earlier, a previously little-known Democrat, State Representative John Bel Edwards, soundly defeated United States Senator David Vitter in a runoff election on Saturday to become the next governor of Louisiana. A more promising red state Democrat could hardly have been found …