Steve Benen

As recently as Wednesday, federal employees were receiving ominous instructions: prepare, once again, for a possible government shutdown. The deadline for a spending deal was Friday night. Late yesterday, an agreement came together. Congressional negotiators signed off Thursday evening on a $1 trillion spending agreement for 2012 for federal agencies, barely 27 hours before a […]

It was good to have a couple of days off, but I’m back and ready to go. I want to thank the always-terrific Jonathan Bernstein for his great work in my absence — I clearly left Political Animal in capable hands — and I encourage readers to check out his work wherever it appears. You […]

In news that may surprise some of you, I’ll be off today. In fact, I’ll be off today and tomorrow. It will be the first time I’ve taken two days off in a row, including weekends and holidays, in 30 months. That’s not an exaggeration; I actually checked. In fact, I’ve been meaning to report […]

Today’s edition of quick hits: * Fed stands pat: “The Federal Reserve said Tuesday that it will take no new steps to boost economic growth this year, citing mounting evidence that the American economy is chugging slowly toward good health.” It added, however, that a European meltdown “could undermine the nascent American recovery.” * The […]

In September, Mitt Romney claimed that the federal regulatory burden had increased four-fold since President Obama was elected. When NPR asked Romney’s campaign to back that up, aides said the former governor “misspoke” when he made the bogus claim. Yesterday, as Pat Garofalo noted, Romney repeated the same lie his campaign had already walked back […]

Intra-party leadership races on Capitol Hill are generally the quintessential examples of inside-baseball, of limited interest to regular folks, but the Blunt/Johnson contest in the Senate was actually pretty interesting. Sen. Roy Blunt (Mo.) defeated Sen. Ron Johnson (Wis.) today to become the new Republican Conference vice chairman. The secret-ballot election for the No. 5 […]

House Republicans are willing to consider an extension of the payroll tax break, but only if they get all kinds of rewards, including new restrictions on unemployment benefits. One Democratic leader today had a compelling response to one GOP demand in particular. South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn, a member of House Democratic leadership, told POLITICO […]

To rationalize the “war on voting,” Republican policymakers point to the scourge of voter fraud. The problem, of course, is that the allegations of fraud are largely imaginary, and GOP officials are really just looking for excuses to block traditionally-Democratic constituencies from voting. But wait, Republicans say, occasionally there really is fraud. In fact, the […]

In the debate over the weekend for the Republican presidential candidates, Mitt Romney offered to bet $10,000 on a health care claim, generating all kinds of attention. But just a couple of minutes earlier, Romney made a claim that was far less colorful, but far more dishonest. As part of a discussion on the Affordable […]

When it comes to inanity of the far-right “sharia” hysteria, Newt Gingrich has positioned himself as one of the ringleaders. Indeed, the disgraced former House Speaker hasn’t exactly been subtle, saying things like, “Sharia is a mortal threat to the survival of freedom in the United States and the world as we know it.” Whether […]