Mitch Mcconnel

Republicans intensified their confrontation with the White House on Thursday as the party's Senate leader defended his controversial assertion that a top GOP priority is to make Barack Obama a one-term president. Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said the Republicans' steadfast resistance to Obama contributed to Tuesday's electoral romp and that defeating the president in 2012 remained a leading priority. McConnell's comments, before a conservative Washington think tank, came as congressional leaders and the White House continued adjusting to historic shifts in political power in the Capitol.

The Big 12 is still deciding: West Virginia or Louisville? Could be one or the other, or maybe neither. Conference realignment took a strange turn Wednesday when, a day after it appeared that the Big 12 had decided West Virginia would eventually replace Missouri as the league's 10th member, the Mountaineers' Big East rival Lousiville reentered the picture. The result was conflicting stories about what happened and a U.S. senator threatening an investigation — while the Big East was left to wonder not only if it had to replace another member, but which one. A person with knowledge of the Big 12's discussions told the Associated Press that no decision was made by the conference to add West Virginia, and that Louisville is still a candidate to be invited to join.

The late Strom Thurmond is best known for his 48 years in the U.S. Senate representing South Carolina, his segregationist candidacy for the presidency in 1948 and the fact that even though he was a longtime opponent of racial equality, he fathered a child with a black teenage housekeeper. But Thurmond also lent his name to the so-called Thurmond Rule, according to which Senate action on judicial confirmations is supposed to stop several months before a presidential election. The rule - actually a custom that sometimes has been honored in the breach - goes back to 1968, when Thurmond and other Republicans held up action on President Johnson's nomination of Abe Fortas to be chief justice of the United States.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) vowed Sunday to fight the administration's requirement that insurers provide contraceptive coverage for faith-based employers. McConnell said on CBS' "Face the Nation" that he would press legislation to exempt all employers from providing insurance coverage for contraceptives if they have religious or moral objections. "We'll be voting on that in the Senate, and you can anticipate that would happen as soon as possible.…This issue will not go away until the administration simply backs down," he said.

President Obama said he "cannot guarantee" that millions of Social Security beneficiaries would get their checks as scheduled next month unless he and congressional leaders agreed to raise the nation's debt limit by Aug. 2, a warning that came as both sides ratcheted up the tension over the monthlong standoff. Amid a volley of charges and countercharges over who would bear responsibility for a crisis, the Senate's Republican leader proposed a complex plan under which Congress would largely surrender its authority to determine the debt ceiling.

Senate Republicans relented Sunday and said they would attend President Obama's bipartisan healthcare summit this week after all, but the chamber's GOP leader is far from resigned to the Democrats' idea of cooperation on the hot-button issue. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said he and his members wouldn't boycott the president's meeting set for Thursday and that he'd come ready to participate "in good faith." But he said Democrats were still being "arrogant" in their refusal to throw out current legislation and start over from scratch on a bipartisan compromise, as Republicans have asked.

Tuesday's State of the Union address will be the first test of whether President Obama's post-election shift to a more centrist course is more than symbolic, Republicans said Sunday. "We're going to find out beginning next week ? how much of this he really means," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said on "Fox News Sunday. " "It is kind of a trust-but-verify moment. Let's see if he's really willing to do it, and if he is, I think he'll find a lot of help among Republicans in Congress.

A plan by the Senate's two top leaders to allow President Obama to raise the debt limit without congressional approval is emerging as the most likely strategy to avoid a looming federal default. The plan being drafted by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada would lock in about $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction over the next 10 years — a figure considerably smaller than Republican leaders and Obama had been seeking. Administration officials have said they still would prefer a more sweeping deal on the deficit, but they signaled the idea would be acceptable to Obama.

If corporate and union officials want to pour money into election campaigns, they would have to disclose who they are -- and perhaps appear in an ad -- under legislation introduced in Congress on Thursday. The bill is a response to a controversial U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing unlimited corporate and interest group spending on elections. In Citizens United vs. the Federal Elections Commission, the court in January struck down most federal limits on corporate spending as a violation of free speech.

No fewer than 70,000 bridges across the country need repair, but the example President Obama highlighted Thursday stands out in one convenient political respect: It connects the states of the two Republican lawmakers who have the power to bottle up his jobs package. Obama stood before the Brent Spence Bridge and issued a challenge to House Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, prodding them to pass a jobs bill meant to create work for idle construction workers.