Invoke the 14th — and end the debt standoff  —  On its current course, the United States is four weeks away from defaulting on its debt for the first time in its history.  If that happens, businesses will fail.  Financial institutions will fail.  Home values will decline.  Mortgage rates will skyrocket.

What became of ‘repeal and replace’?  —  When they took control of the House, Republicans could barely stop talking about their plans to “repeal and replace” the health care reform law.  —  Six months later, they hardly talk publicly about those plans at all.  And they're nowhere close to “replacing” the law.

WHY CLIMATE CHANGE HAS BECOME THE “DEAD PARROT SKETCH” OF AMERICAN POLITICS  —  For years now the climate campaign and the politicized science community has been complaining that it has a “communications problem,” which can be solved if only they shout louder, or get the human car alarm former …

Pawlenty's Homespun Tale  —  SOUTH ST. PAUL, Minn.—Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty brings a biographical peculiarity to his quest for the White House.  Were he to win, he'd be the first president who had never lived outside his home state.  —  In fact, Mr. Pawlenty has lived …

Mitt Romney raises $18.25 million  —  Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney talks with reporters outside Allentown Metal Works in Allentown, Pa., last week.  (AP Photo/Rich Schultz)Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney raised $18.25 million …

Better Lives for Mexicans Cut Allure of Going North  —  AGUA NEGRA, Mexico — The extraordinary Mexican migration that delivered millions of illegal immigrants to the United States over the past 30 years has sputtered to a trickle, and research points to a surprising cause …

Newt Gingrich raises $2M, reveals significant debt  —  Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich will report raising approximately $2 million in the second fundraising quarter of the year and ending the month of June with $225,000 in the bank, POLITICO has learned.

The 2012 Horse Whisperers  —  Who's giving foreign-policy advice to the crop of GOP front-runners?  —  Michele Bachmann: The Tea Party's new hawk  —  Despite all of Bachmann's Tea Party credentials, she's not looking like an isolationist when it comes to foreign policy.

Worse Than O.J.!  —  While the stunning Casey Anthony acquittal defied logic, O.J. Simpson prosecutor Marcia Clark details how juries often delude themselves—and why this verdict trumps even her case.  —  Sick, shaken, in disbelief.  As I listened to the verdicts in the Casey Anthony case …

Michele Bachmann's husband shares her strong conservative values  —  Lake Elmo, Minn. — In an interview last year with a Christian-  —  radio talk show, Marcus Bachmann, a therapist who runs a faith-infused counseling center here, compared homosexuals to “barbarians” who “need to be educated, need to be disciplined.”

Watch a 50-Mile Wide Dust Storm Devour Phoenix  —  Now, we have a new reason to compare the Great Recession to the Great Depression: Steinbeck-style dust storms.  Tuesday evening, a massive cloud of darkness known as a “habub” overtook Phoenix.  The National Weather Service reports that the wall …

Families of 7/7 victims ‘were targets of phone hacking’  —  New revelation deepens crisis at News of the World after it emerges that officers will review child murder cases  —  The phone-hacking crisis enveloping the News of the World intensified on Tuesday night after it emerged …

Obama plays small ball on policy  —  President Barack Obama swept into office as the anti-Bill Clinton, even saying at one point that he wasn't sent to Washington to “do school uniforms” — political shorthand for the former president's downsized ambitions against a Republican Congress.

Weapons prove Iranian role in Iraq, U.S. says  —  BAGHDAD — Iranian-backed militias in Iraq are using more sophisticated weapons than in the past to target U.S. troops and military installations in Iraq, according to senior U.S. officials.  —  James F. Jeffrey, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq …

N.Y.C. civil terror trial for Somali  —  In a move that has angered some congressional Republicans, a Somali man accused of having ties to two terrorist groups — who was secretly interrogated for months aboard a U.S. Navy ship — will be prosecuted in civilian court in New York by the Justice Department, the Obama administration said.

'That's racist' as a punch line  —  A phrase once considered one of the most serious accusations possible has become a gag line.  —  A scene from “30 Rock.”  Hannibal Buress, a comedian and writer for NBC's television program says “That's racist” works in comedy because it pushes buttons.  (NBC)

Investigation Finds ‘Widespread’ Cheating in Atlanta Schools  —  At least 178 teachers and principals at nearly four dozen schools in Atlanta have been implicated in what is likely the largest cheating scandal in U.S. history to date.  —  The report found that teachers …

Supreme Court to decide on Mexican's execution  —  The U.S. Supreme Court has until Thursday to intervene before Texas is scheduled to put to death a convicted murderer and rapist from Mexico whose execution could place the U.S. in violation of a 38-year international treaty.

DNC boss, president at odds on Cuba policy  —  Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (Fla.), tapped by President Obama to head the Democratic National Committee, is a hard-liner on Cuba, which means the chairwoman of the organization intent on reelecting the president disagrees with Obama …