Reid savings trumps Boehner plan  —  In the battle of budget scores, the Senate Democrats deficit reduction bill is the clear winner thus far over an alternative by Speaker John Boehner, which has had to be pulled back from a floor vote for retooling.  —  The Congressional Budget Office released …

Romney Leads Field of Announced GOP Candidates  —  Perry would be more competitive with Romney than Palin, Giuliani  —  PRINCETON, NJ — Mitt Romney is the leader for the GOP nomination among the current field of official candidates, supported by 27% of Republicans, compared with 18% for Michele Bachmann.

Credit hit worries Obama, Congress more than default  —  It's not the default that strikes the most fear in the White House and Congress these days.  It's the downgrade.  —  Even Republican leaders say the country can't go into default, and they'll do everything possible to raise the debt limit by Aug. 2.

The Cult That Is Destroying America  —  Watching our system deal with the debt ceiling crisis — a wholly self-inflicted crisis, which may nonetheless have disastrous consequences — it's increasingly obvious that what we're looking at is the destructive influence of a cult that has really poisoned our political system.

U.S. officials believe al-Qaeda on brink of collapse  —  U.S. counterterrorism officials are increasingly convinced that the killing of Osama bin Laden and the toll of seven years of CIA drone strikes have pushed al-Qaeda to the brink of collapse.  —  The assessment reflects a widespread view …

FBI report at odds with ATF claim on weapons  —  A copy of the FBI document shows ballistics tests did not rule out the Fast and Furious guns in the death of Border Patrol Agent Brian A. Terry.  —  Reporting from Washington— The claim by senior ATF officials that none of the weapons lost …

SwiftVets revenge  —  The Navy Times (no link) reported last week that Navy Secretary Ray Mabus stripped the Silver Star from a Vietnam swift boat veteran, Capt. Wade Sanders:  —  “Had the subsequently determined facts and evidence surrounding both the incident for which the award …

Suicide blast kills mayor of Afghanistan's Kandahar  —  (Reuters) - A suicide bomber killed the mayor of Afghanistan's Kandahar city on Wednesday, two weeks after the assassination of Afghan President Hamid Karzai's brother in the same city created a power vacuum in the country's turbulent south.

Bachmann: other House GOPers “will have to come to their own conclusion” (audio)  —  GOP presidential candidate Michele Bachmann held a news conference in Ankeny early this afternoon.  “I wanted to be able to have just a word with you in response to President Obama's statement last night regarding raising the debt ceiling,” she began.

Captain America's Faux Integration, Ctd  —  Alyssa Rosenberg argues that Captain America: The First Avenger lacks any acknowledgement of Armed Forces segregation because The Avengers is about “institutional optimism.”  —  I'm not buying it.  Not just because these kinds of issues …

Can't We Do This Right?  —  There is only one thing worse than Republicans and Democrats failing to agree to lift the debt ceiling, and that is lifting the debt ceiling without a well-thought-out plan and with hasty cuts totaling trillions of dollars over a decade.

US eco-activist jailed for two years  —  Campaigners denounce sentence of ‘hero’ Tim DeChristopher for disrupting oil and gas industry auction as excessive  —  An activist who became a hero to campaigners for disrupting a Bush administration auction for the oil and gas industry with $1.8m …