NEWS
May 16, 2012 | By Morgan Little
New figures from Gallup place President Obama's reelection bid in a precarious gray zone between the one-term exit of presidents like George H.W. Bush, and successful second-term victories like those of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Combining Obama's job approval rating with several evaluations of public sentiment on the economy, Gallup's indicators show that the president is performing better than he was just a year ago, but his numbers are nonetheless lackluster compared with those of his predecessors.
NATIONAL
May 12, 2012 | By David G. Savage, Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON - By the time the Supreme Court wrapped up the last of its public arguments for this term, it had been an unusually rough first year for U.S. Solicitor Gen. Donald Verrilli Jr., the Obama administration's chief courtroom lawyer. A respected, reserved corporate attorney, Verrilli also had a passion for defending inmates on death row. But he had not handled high-stakes, politically charged cases in the high court. He seemed repeatedly caught off guard when his liberal arguments were met with skepticism and even scorn from the justices, a majority of whom lean to the right.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
May 10, 2012 | By Ralph Vartabedian and Patrick McGreevy, Los Angeles Times
The Obama administration threatened California on Thursday with rescinding $3.3 billion in federal grants to start construction of a bullet train if the Legislature does not act by June to appropriate the state's share of funding. In a series of meetings with key lawmakers in Sacramento, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said that the recent proposal by state Senate leaders to delay a $2.7-billion decision on the high-speed rail project until August is not acceptable. "We need the Legislature to make the strongest commitment possible," LaHood said in an interview.
NATIONAL
May 6, 2012 | By Christi Parsons, Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON - Vice President Joe Biden gave a nod to same-sex marriage Sunday by saying he is comfortable with the idea of "men marrying men" and "women marrying women" having the same rights as heterosexual couples. In an interview on "Meet the Press," Biden declined to rule out the possibility that, in a second term, President Obama might move from his position of supporting civil unions to backing same-sex marriage. Biden prefaced his comments with the caveat that the president sets administration policy, and then said: "I am absolutely comfortable with the fact that men marrying men, women marrying women, and heterosexual men and women marrying one another are entitled to the same exact rights, all the civil rights, all the civil liberties.
OPINION
May 6, 2012 | Doyle McManus
In recent weeks, a parade of top officials has given sober, underpublicized speeches explaining why President Obama not only considers "targeted killing" drone strikes against terrorists legal but has massively expanded their use, even approving a strike against a U.S. citizen, the New Mexico-born Al Qaeda preacher Anwar Awlaki, in Yemen last year. Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. gave a lecture arguing that the government has a right to kill U.S. citizens who practice terrorism as long as it observes some form of "due process" in its secret decision-making.
NATIONAL
May 5, 2012 | By Christi Parsons and Michael A. Memoli, Washington Bureau
COLUMBUS, Ohio - President Obama officially kicked off his reelection campaign on Saturday by blasting the economic policies of likely Republican nominee Mitt Romney and arguing that Americans would be better off under four more years guided by his own vision for the country. Speaking at Ohio State University, Obama blamed the trickle-down policies of the past for the current economic situation and questioned whether a return to the Republican school of thought was a good idea.