Menendez: Immigration Reform Doesn't Have 60 Votes Yet
 Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- The Gang of Eight immigration bill does not yet have a 60-vote majority in the Senate, according to one of its authors, Sen. Bob Menendez.During an interview with Univision's Jorge Ramos, Menendez, D-N.J., appeared confident that Congress will pass a comprehensive immigration reform bill. But he said the Senate bill's backers haven't yet cobbled together a large enough majority to avoid a potential filibuster."We don't currently have 60 votes identifi
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Another Fallen Bridge Unlikely to Spur Infrastructure Funding
 iStockphoto/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) -- It's almost as if Washington has seen this movie before: a bridge collapses, groups decry the nation's crumbling infrastructure and Congress does nothing.Like the tragic Minneapolis, Minn. bridge collapse in 2007 that came before it, Thursday's Mount Vernon, Washington collapse is unlikely to spur Congress to pour hundreds of billions of dollars into fixing roads and bridges.The political inertia in Washington around transportation funding and projects hasn'
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Obama, Chris Christie to Reunite on Jersey Shore
 Official White House Photo by Pete Souza(NEW YORK) -- President Obama and N.J. Gov. Chris Christie will reunite once again when the president visits the Jersey Shore Tuesday.The post-Memorial Day trip comes as the New Jersey coast prepares for its first summer season after Superstorm Sandy. A senior White House official confirmed the visit to ABC News.Obama and Christie have become something of a political odd couple since the storm’s devastation nudged them closer together in the fall. Th
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At Naval Academy Commencement, Obama Talks Sexual Assault in Military
 MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images(ANNAPOLIS, Md.) -- As a cold rain poured down on the commencement ceremony, President Obama addressed the graduating class of the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., Friday and used the recent scandal of sexual assaults in the military as a call for the graduates to restore trust and honor in America’s institutions. “We must acknowledge that even here, even in our military, we’ve seen how the misconduct of some can have effects that rippl
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Obama Nods to Drones in Naval Academy Speech
 John Moore/Getty Images(ANNAPOLIS, Md.) -- President Obama gave a nod to his newly articulated drone policy as he addressed the graduating class of the U.S. Naval Academy on Friday.“We still face threats from al Qaeda affiliates and individuals caught up in its ideology,” Obama said, addressing the academy’s graduation ceremony in Annapolis, Md. “Will still need to conduct targeted strikes against terrorists before they kill our citizens.”Obama laid out his drone po
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Rand Paul Impresses Iowa Voters, Still Loses to Hillary Clinton
 SAUL LOEB/AFP/GettyImages(DES MOINES, Iowa) -- Hillary Clinton sits at the top of the pack in a new poll of Iowa voters, but her closest competition is firebrand Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, a new poll found.
Clinton would beat rising-star Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., handily, 48 to 37 percent, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll released today. But Paul trails her by only 4 points.
Paul, 50, traveled to Iowa earlier this month, stoking speculation that he is courting voters for
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Did Obama Forget to Salute?
 Comstock/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) -- The president may have forgotten to do something as he boarded Marine One Friday morning.
On his way to the U.S. Naval Academy graduation ceremony in Annapolis, Md., President Obama didn’t return the salute of the marine standing guard at the door of Marine One, as he climbed the steps to the helicopter cabin.
Obama soon ducked his head out, waved to the pilot, and jaunted back down the stairs to address the marine, shaking his hand. In the short video cl
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Budget Cuts Get Personal; Those Who Are Hurt, Holler
 Image Source/Getty Images(NEW YORK) -- The federal budget sequester may be dampening a rise in economic optimism: Nearly four in 10 Americans now say sequestration has hurt them personally, up substantially since it began in March -- and they’re far less sanguine than others about the economy’s prospects overall.
Thirty-seven percent in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll say they’ve been negatively impacted by the budget cuts, up from 25 percent in March. As previously, a
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Ohio Voter Fraud 'Does Exist,' But 'Not an Epidemic'
 iStockphoto/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) -- In what was one of the 2012 election cycle’s most important battleground states, “voter fraud does exist,” Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted acknowledged in a report on Thursday. “But it is not an epidemic.”Husted, a Republican and the state’s chief elections official, said at a news conference and in an accompanying report that was based on a survey of all of Ohio’s 88 counties conducted in the wake of last November&
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Lois Lerner Placed on Administrative Leave
 Pete Marovich/Bloomberg via Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- Congressional and administration sources confirm that IRS director of Exempt Organizations Lois Lerner has been placed on administrative leave.Lerner came under fire this week when she chose to invoke her Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate herself rather than testify before the House Oversight and Government Reform committee.Earlier Thursday, Rep. Darrell Issa, the chairman of the committee, announced that he believes Lerner waived he
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Republicans Aim to Recruit, Elect More Women
 Jupiterimages/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) -- Making sure that more Republican women run for office and that they get the support they need is the focus of “Right Women, Right Now,” a new initiative by the Republican State Leadership Committee to encourage and mentor GOP women considering a run for office.Ed Gillespie, chairman of the RSLC, said the goal of the program, which was started last year but relaunched Thursday, was to grow the Republican Party and “foster up-and-coming div
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Obama Orders DOJ Review of Leak Investigations
 Edward Linsmier/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- President Obama is a little uneasy with the way journalists have been dragged into the Justice Department’s aggressive pursuit of national security leak investigations. In fact, he has ordered Attorney General Eric Holder to conduct a 45-day review of the department’s guidelines on the issue.That bit of news was buried in the middle of the president’s hourlong speech Thursday at National Defense University.“Journalists should no
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New Bill Would Allow Pets on Amtrak
 BananaStock/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) -- If a bill that was introduced in Congress this week is passed, Amtrak will be required to allow pets onboard some of its trains. The bill, introduced by Jeff Denham, R-Calif., states that Amtrak will designate one car of each train where passengers may transport "a domesticated cat or dog in the same manner as carry-on baggage" if the animal can be contained in a pet kennel and the kennel can be stowed in accordance with Amtrak size requirements for carry-on
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Obama Lays Out Strategy for 'New Phase' in Terror Fight
 The White House(WASHINGTON) -- In a wide-ranging speech at the National Defense University, in Washington D.C., Thursday, President Obama launched a spirited defense of his administration's efforts to pursue terrorists overseas, even while he outlined a more limited path forward in the fight against terror. "We are at war with an organization that right now would kill as many Americans as they could if we did not stop them first. So this is a just war -- a war waged proportionally, in last resor
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Obama Defends Drone Program in Counterterrorism Speech
The White House(WASHINGTON) -- A decade after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Obama said Thursday that the war on terror is still being waged -- and that it's a war unlike any other, with terrorists determined to attack America again.President Obama defended the use of drones as he outlined the country's national security policy, in a speech at the National Defense University in Washington.In a passionate defense of drone strikes, President Obama insisted they are legal and extremely accurate.&l
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