WASHINGTON - So after all the talk about fiscal balance and responsible choices, the pre-Christmas rush in Washington has come down to this: one more belly-up to the middle-class tax-cut bar.

Even before the Supreme Court agreed to hear a challenge to President Obama's health-care program, outside interest groups were angling to elbow out the justices they fear would not rule their way.

Russia's hermetic political system - a parody of democracy that begrudges dissent and bristles at independent voices - is growing even less tolerant.

The Supreme Court's current session is likely to prove one of the most important in many years.

WASHINGTON - To the victors go the spoils. Still, in the Democratic presidential contest four years ago, the losers did pretty well. Joe Biden is vice president and Hillary Clinton is secretary of state.

Politicians constantly search for the magical convergence of good policy and good politics. President Obama thinks that he has found it: his plan to extend the cut in the employee share of Social Security payroll taxes, from 6.2 percent of pay to 4.

What a difference 11 weeks make. In September, the first time the Republican presidential pack got into a scrape over immigration, no one paid much attention when Newt Gingrich urged a ”much more humane” alternative to dealing with illegal immigrants than mass deportation. And no wonder: At the ...

Foreign policy has played a marginal role so far in the Republican presidential contest, squeezed to the side during debates focused on the U.S. economy and by social issues such as immigration. What the candidates have said has sometimes been confusing: Front-runner Mitt Romney, for example, declar...

The Obama administration pledged that Iran would suffer painful consequences for plotting to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington and for refusing to freeze its nuclear program. Key European allies and Congress — not to mention Israel — are ready for decisive action. But on Monday the ...

For years repressive governments in the Middle East have sought to curb scrutiny of their human rights records and prevent the development of organized opposition by banning civil society groups from receiving funding from foreign governments. As the Arab Spring spreads across the region, some of th...