WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama's suggestion Thursday that "history will cast a harsh judgment" if the nation fails to deal with the detainees at Guantanamo Bay in 10 to 20 years might come as a harsh surprise to some of his top military and civilian defense advisers.

That's...

WASHINGTON -- A tea party rebellion by several U.S. senators blocking progress on the federal budget may be working for them, but not for their fellow Republican lawmakers -- even ones who mostly agree with them.

Tension has occasionally been evident in the simmering, behind-the-scenes struggle between the Senate's tea...

Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-Tenn.) was fined $500 Thursday by Tennessee medical authorities for carrying on sexual affairs with his patients.

DesJarlais' infidelities were first reported by The Huffington Post last year, based on records from his 2001 divorce.

The pro-life, family-values congressman -- a doctor who once urged...

WASHINGTON -- The United States Senate decided again Thursday that it simply does not want to let states tell people whether or not they are eating genetically modified food.

The Senate voted overwhelmingly -- 71 to 27 -- against an amendment to the sweeping farm bill, squashing a...

WASHINGTON -- Oklahoma's senators can thank sequestration, and perhaps more importantly, funding for Superstorm Sandy cleanup that they opposed, for sparing them from a difficult vote on disaster aid for tornado-ravaged Oklahomans.

Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) argued that an aid bill for the Sooner State would be

WASHINGTON -- Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz made a remarkable admission on the floor of the U.S. Senate Wednesday, admitting in a dispute with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) that not only does he not trust Democrats, he doesn't trust Republicans, either.

McCain had challenged Cruz, as well as fellow tea...

WASHINGTON -- Two prominent old-line Senate Republicans threw down the gauntlet to their more conversative colleagues on Tuesday, challenging them to stop obstructing the passage of a budget.

Led by tea party Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Mike Lee (R-Utah), Republicans have been preventing the Senate from...

WASHINGTON -- Veterans have a reminder for the Senate as it takes up plans to cut food stamps by $4.1 billion this week: The aid has been -- and still is -- vital to people who served their country.

For Iraq veteran Don Martinez, 33, food stamps kept his children...

WASHINGTON -- The top Democrat and Republican on the Senate Finance Committee on Monday fired off a lengthy letter demanding answers to 41 separate questions about Internal Revenue Service officials' role in targeting tea party groups.

Among them were questions about whether anyone in the White House, including President Barack...

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...