This week's announcement that the Justice Department is going to drop its appeal against providing the morning-after birth control pill to anyone who needs it comes as such a welcome change that we feel the award is deserved.

We gather here today to mourn the passing of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Although weakened and battered in the past, it seems that it has finally succumbed and will be heard of no more.

Lincoln Chaffee is our Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week award-winner. See, Republicans? Not only will you be welcomed, you'll actually get awards for making the trek across the aisle! Step right up, there's room for everyone!

Some weeks, not much happens in political news, and other weeks it seems like almost too much happens. This was one of the latter types of week.

A professional pundit was fired because he wrote an opinion piece that was factually inaccurate. Is that even a thing? "Journalists" can get fired for saying things which are false (things that five minutes of fact-checking would have proven laughably wrong), and for other stupid comments?

While it certainly was (quoting the Flintstones theme) a "gay old time" in Washington this week, I have already spent the whole week on the subject, so I'm really only going to mention it in passing.

Our Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week was Representative Zoe Lofgren, who (with a Republican co-sponsor) this week introduced legislation to regulate the use of drones for domestic police work.

Here is our 238th installment of valiantly attempting to get Democrats to occasionally speak with one voice, and not get lost in the weeds of rhetoric.

Every member of Congress began this year knowing what was going to happen at the end of 2012. They have now had over ten months to work on the impending crisis. And what have they done about it? Nothing.

When Mitt is releasing tax returns to change the subject, you just know he's in a bad place politically. It may still be way too early to confidently predict the outcome of the election, but it isn't too early to call Romney's campaign (so far) an unmitigated disaster.

Defending free speech is easy when everyone agrees with the speech -- it's defending odious and reprehensible speech that is always the harder path. More on this subject next week.

Mitt Romney opened up several new lines of attack on his taxes this week -- such as labeling him "Mister Thirteen Percent" for his admitted tax rate. Even juicier is attacking what Mitt Romney would pay under Paul Ryan's budget plan.

We're not going to have our normal partisan talking points today. We're going to follow the lead set by Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, and we're just not going to go there today.

Welcome to the 200th Friday Talking Points! Because of this occasion, we are going to take a look backwards at our history. So, if you're looking for an update on what is going on in the political world, you'll have to wait until next week. Sorry.

It has been a big week on the foreign policy front, with the death of Libya's dictator and President Obama's announcement today that all U.S. troops would be out of Iraq by the end of this year.

The Occupy Wall Street protest continues. So far, its staying power has surprised and enthused a large swath of America, and surprised and bemused mu...

[Note: Today's column is seriously disjointed. If you're already sick of hearing what a wonderful guy Steve Jobs was, then I strongly advise you to j...

Welcome back, everyone, to this week's edition of So You Think You Can President?!? Just to remind everyone, this year we've got the Republican field of candidates for the party's nomination.

As was entirely predictable, once Obama stood up for taxing the rich folk a wee bit more, the Republicans fired back with what they think is the biggest weapon in their arsenal: screaming "Class warfare!"

Obama should run a few ads right now which do not even mention the election. Instead of saying "vote for me!" these ads should say "pass my jobs bill" in as many creative ways as possible.

President Barack Obama opened his re-election campaign last night with a wowzer of a speech to a joint session of Congress.

It surpasses all irony and actually enters into the realm of bitter humor that we're about to celebrate Labor Day when the unemployment rate remains at the sky-high level of 9.1 percent.

President Obama is on vacation. This fact is being subject to ridicule from Republicans, and their enablers in the media. Which has prompted me to -- in the fashion of Bill Maher -- come up with a New Rule.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: the Iowa straw poll is meaningless. The Republican debate last night in Iowa wasn't as meaningless, but will also soon be forgotten.

With the conclusion of the debt ceiling "crisis," the media pivoted swiftly to their standard larger questions (to them, at any rate) about any politi...