WASHINGTON -- The Internal Revenue Service took a bipartisan drubbing Friday morning over its targeting of conservative political groups, even as its acting director apologized and denied the activity was partisan.

"I want to apologize on behalf of the Internal Revenue Service for the mistakes that we made and the...

WASHINGTON -- The war authorization that Congress passed after 9/11 will be needed for at least 10 to 20 more years, and can be used to put the United States military on the ground anywhere, from Syria to the Congo to Boston, military officials argued Thursday.

The revelations came during...

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) delivered a blistering denunciation of President Barack Obama's Justice Department Wednesday, slamming investigators for secretly issuing subpoenas against the Associated Press.

Democrats have condemned the AP probe, but Rubio's GOP colleagues have, by and large, shied away from criticizing the...

WASHINGTON -- The nation's top two Republican leaders suggested Wednesday that criminal acts were likely committed by the Internal Revenue Service in its apparent targeting of tea party groups that were seeking tax-exempt status from the agency.

Their comments come after the release of an inspector general report that found...

WASHINGTON -- Senate Republicans have been outraged for months over the Obama administration's response to the Benghazi consulate attack. They're outraged this week about the Internal Revenue Service singling out tea party groups for extra scrutiny. But their response to the Justice Department secretly obtaining phone records of 20 Associated...

WASHINGTON -- Members of President Barack Obama's own party slammed his Justice Department's secret gathering of reporters' phone records as inexcusable and sickening on Tuesday, suggesting that Congress may have to act to protect the freedom of the press.

The Associated Press on Monday revealed that in April and May...

WASHINGTON -- Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) -- and just about every other politician on Capitol Hill -- slammed the Internal Revenue Service this week for targeting tea party groups applying for tax-exempt status.

But what McConnell left out was that he used to be deeply suspicious of groups...

WASHINGTON -- Democrats may not be running with one of their top choices in Georgia's U.S. Senate contest, but they still think they have a formula to win there, as well as in Kentucky and seven other states where they face tough Senate contests in 2014.

Rep. John Barrow (D-Ga.)...

WASHINGTON -- House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has been increasingly adopting one of President Barack Obama's key economic talking points on austerity, and he did it again Thursday -- much to the joy of Democrats who fear the GOP is pushing Congress to legislate the country into another economic showdown.

WASHINGTON -- The House passed a measure Thursday that would amount to the rough equivalent of declaring bankruptcy for the United States, directing the government to meet only certain obligations if Congress failed to raise the country's borrowing limit.

Republicans characterized the measure as a responsible step to mitigate the...

WASHINGTON -- God will not save us, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) declared in a Senate floor speech on climate change Wednesday that sounded more like a sermon than a political appeal.

Whitehouse has made it his personal mission for more than a year to highlight the catastrophic consequences of climate...

WASHINGTON -- It looks like Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) may have hurt the feelings of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) by calling the freshman a schoolyard bully.

It started Monday, when Cruz objected to Reid's request for unanimous consent to appoint Senate conferees to work out the...

WASHINGTON -- One of Democrats' two top recruits for the Georgia Senate seat of retiring Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R) bowed out of consideration Tuesday, potentially clearing the field for Michelle Nunn, the daughter of former Peach State Sen. Sam Nunn (D).

Democrats told The Huffington Post that Nunn...

WASHINGTON -- A group of Republicans are cooking up legislation that could give President Barack Obama an unintentional assist with disagreeable unemployment numbers -- by eliminating the key economic statistic altogether.

The bill, introduced last week by Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.), would bar the U.S. Census Bureau from conducting nearly...

WASHINGTON -- The chairman of the House Science Committee on Tuesday defended his controversial draft legislation that would subject the National Science Foundation's peer review process to politics as necessary to "improve" science.

Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) floated a proposal last week that would require the U.S. agency...

WASHINGTON -- Republicans on the House science committee are making an unprecedented move to require oversight of the scientific research process, pushing a bill that would in effect politicize decisions made by the National Science Foundation, according to a draft of the legislation acquired by The Huffington Post. As part...

WASHINGTON -- Lawmakers passed a bill Friday to ease air traffic delays before catching their own flights home for a week off, leaving unchanged other painful effects of the across-the-board spending cuts mandated by Congress' sequestration law.

While the legislators likely improved their chances for on-time flights when they return...

WASHINGTON -- House lawmakers rolled out a piecemeal approach to passing immigration reform Thursday, even as senators warned that a go-slow, incremental effort would likely fail.

Speaking to reporters on Capitol Hill, Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) said the House Judiciary Committee, which he chairs, would unveil a series of measures...

WASHINGTON -- An odd argument that President George W. Bush kept America safe from terrorism "except for 9/11" made its way to the House floor Wednesday, coming from Rep. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.).

The claim resurfaced on the right immediately after the Boston bombings, and made its way back...

WASHINGTON -- Lawmakers who called the Federal Aviation Administration on the carpet over its budget-related furloughs Wednesday warned that Congress likely would do nothing to end sequestration, the much-maligned across-the-board spending cuts affecting the agency.

"As a word to the wise ... we assumed this thing wasn't going to...