Anti-Gay Pastor Removed From Inaugural Program … Louis Giglio, the anti-LGBT pastor who had been announced to perform the benediction at President Obama's second inauguration, has been removed from the program, ABC News's Jonathan Karl reported Thursday.  —  The move came after ThinkProgress …

Giffords gun control group wants $20 million for 2014 elections  —  (Reuters) - A new gun control group led by Gabrielle Giffords, the former U.S. congresswoman wounded in a Tucson shooting rampage, wants to raise $20 million for the 2014 congressional elections, matching …

A GOP Strategy for the Debt-Ceiling Fight  —  The House should pass a bill pairing spending cuts with a dollar-for-dollar debt-ceiling increase.  —  President Obama says he won't negotiate with Republicans over his proposed more than $1 trillion increase in the debt ceiling as a matter …

First Thoughts: The disorganized cabinet shuffle  —  The Obama White House's disorganized cabinet shuffle... And some legitimate excuses for it... Obama to nominate Jack Lew for top Treasury job at 1:30 pm ET... Biden meets with the NRA and other gun-rights groups at the White House …

Carney on coin gambit: ‘There is no backup plan’  —  For all the recent scuttlebutt about resolving the Republican debt-ceiling crisis with a trillion-dollar coin, there was an elusive detail: what does the White House think about this?  Yesterday, for the first time, press secretary Jay Carney was pressed for an answer.

Obama Will Keep His “Heat Shield”  —  Eric Holder is the Obama Administration's indispensable man.  —  Image by Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images  —  Eric Holder may be the least popular member of the Obama cabinet.  He is at the center of many of the Administration's ugliest fights with left and right …

What Crazy Fascist Executive Orders Might Obama Use to Take Away Your Freedoms?  —  The Drudge Report is America's leading source of hyperlinks to Alex Jones articles, so I'm not sure why this splash page so shocked Washington.  (Apparently there are reporters who still use Drudge as a sort of homepage?

Joe Scarborough Goes Off On Mika Brzezinski After She Asserts He's ‘Being Chauvinistic’  —  The Morning Joe family got heated and a bit awkward this morning during a discussion about the lack of diversity in President Obama's inner circle.  As Joe Scarborough pointed to the lack of outrage …

Robert Bork's Tragedy  —  Even before Robert Bork died last month, he had achieved something close to martyrdom.  In the quarter-century since the Senate rejected his Supreme Court nomination, successive generations of conservative lawyers and activists have carried the torch …

Bank Made Huge Bet, and Profit, on Libor  —  Deutsche Bank AG made at least €500 million ($654 million) in profit in 2008 from trades pegged to the interest rates under investigation by regulators world-wide, internal bank documents show.  —  The German bank's trading profits resulted …

Cory Booker Wrestled With His Own Homophobia  —  “I was disgusted by gays.  The thought of two men kissing each other was about as appealing as a frontal lobotomy.”  How Booker's mind was changed.  —  Image by Julio Cortez / AP  —  Newark Mayor Cory Booker's December announcement that he would …

Cornyn: Why I can't support Hagel  —  Editor's note: John Cornyn, a Republican, is the senior United States Senator from Texas.  —  (CNN) — To the surprise of many, including me, President Barack Obama has nominated former Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel to be his next defense secretary.

11 days to inaug — NRA MEMBERSHIP SURGES — POTUS names Chief of Staff Jack Lew as Treasury secretary, 1:30 p.m. - Jim Warren to D.C. — Kevin Sheridan joins Dyke-Madden firm — TapprTumblr  —  THE JUICE: As pushback to N.Y. Times' A1 boys'-club photo, the White House yesterday blast-emailed …

Republican Party Path Back From 2012 Election Requires Shift In Culture, Not Just Tactics … REACT:  —  FOLLOW:  —  Elections 2012, Barack Obama , Mitt Romney, Barack Obama , Republican Party, Elections 2012, GOP, Barack Obama 2012 , Video, Heritage Foundation, Teddy Goff, Harper Reed …

The Debt Ceiling's Escape Hatch  —  THE fiscal cliff may have been avoided, but an even higher-stakes political standoff — this time, over the federal debt ceiling — is just around the bend.  —  Congressional Republicans have said they will demand immense cuts to popular government programs …

Dick Armey dishes dirt accidentally  —  There's been a remarkable amount of drama surrounding Dick Armey's departure from FreedomWorks, culminating Friday with a stunning report from Media Matters, who interviewed the former House Majority Leader directly.  Armey had all kinds of interesting insights …

Boehner takes flak from defense hawks on sequester stance  —  House Republican defense hawks are pushing back strongly against Speaker John Boehner's claim that he has GOP support to allow steep automatic budget cuts to take effect if President Obama does not agree to replace them with other reductions.