Newtown Task Force Returns Biden to Gun Control Arena  —  WASHINGTON — Never much known for restraint, Joseph R. Biden Jr. did not hold back during a presidential primary debate in 2007 when a voter asking about gun rights in a recorded video displayed a fearsome-looking semiautomatic rifle and declared, “This is my baby.”

Worst year in Washington: The tea party  —  The Gadsden flag, which flew proudly over the 2010 midterm elections, now lies in tatters — rent by internal disagreements, losses among its most visible standard-bearers and a growing sense that the tea party movement, which once looked …

Senators trade proposals into night to avoid ‘fiscal cliff’  —  Senate negotiators labored late into Saturday over a last-ditch plan to avert the “fiscal cliff,” struggling to resolve key differences over how many wealthy households should face higher income taxes in the new year and how to tax inherited estates.

Vilsack: Economy will suffer without farm bill  —  (CNN) - While Congress faces escalating pressure to avoid the fiscal cliff, a key Cabinet member is issuing dire warnings for the economy if Washington fails to immediately act on other vital legislation waiting in the wings.

Obama picks his favourite photos of himself for 2012 (not that he likes to show off)  —  What with a Presidential election, two severe hurricanes, multiple mass shootings and a fiscal cliff, it has been a busy year for Barack Obama.  —  But at every twist and turn, his decisions …

Obama urging state lawmakers to legalize gay marriage in Illinois: Sun-Times exclusive  —  WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama is urging the Illinois General Assembly to legalize gay marriage in his home state as lawmakers are poised to take up the measure as early as this week in Springfield.

Why the War Party Fears Hagel  —  In the fortnight since Chuck Hagel's name was floated for secretary of defense, we have witnessed Washington at its worst.  —  Who is Chuck Hagel?  —  Born in North Platte, Neb., he was a squad leader in Vietnam, twice wounded, who came home to work …

An Anatomy of a Most Peculiar Institution  —  A Campus-full of Contradictions  —  Almost everything about the modern university is a paradox.  It has become a sort of industry gone rogue that embraces practices that a Wal-Mart or Halliburton would never get away with.

Judge rebuffs feds' secret arguments on no-fly list  —  A federal judge in California has rejected the Obama administration's effort to use secret arguments and evidence to defeat a lawsuit relating to the so-called no-fly list designed to keep suspected terrorists off of airline flights.

In Congress, relatives lobby on bills before family members  —  In 2007, in the wake of the biggest lobbying scandal in decades, Congress limited the ability of family members to lobby their relatives in the House or Senate.  But it declined to ban the practice entirely.

Woman Accused of Hate-Crime Murder in Subway Push  —  A 31-year-old woman was arrested on Saturday and charged with a hate crime in connection with the death of a man who was pushed onto the tracks of an elevated subway station in Queens and crushed by an oncoming train.

Deport me?  If America won't change its crazy gun laws... I may deport myself says Piers Morgan  —  I have fired guns only once in my life, on a stag party to the Czech capital Prague a few years ago when part of the itinerary included a trip to an indoor shooting range.