Farm Bill's Failure Poisons Well in House  —  Updated 6:23 p.m. |  The House's stunning defeat of the farm bill Thursday dealt another blow to Speaker John A. Boehner's leadership and set off a poisonous round of partisan finger-pointing that raised questions about the ability of the chamber …

Revealed: top secret rules that allow NSA to use US data without a warrant  —  Fisa court submissions show broad scope of procedures governing NSA's surveillance of Americans' communication  —  • Document one: procedures used by NSA to target non-US persons

FAA to Relax Rules for Gadgets in Flight  —  Airline passengers irritated at having to turn off their devices could soon see some reprieve, with regulators set to allow wider use of gadgets in flight.  —  The Federal Aviation Administration is expected to relax the ban on using some types …

Obama hits a wall in Berlin  —  The question of whether Barack Obama's second term will be a failure was answered in the affirmative before his Berlin debacle, which has recast the question, which now is: Will this term be silly, even scary in its detachment from reality?

The Last Mystery of the Financial Crisis  —  It's long been suspected that ratings agencies like Moody's and Standard & Poor's helped trigger the meltdown.  A new trove of embarrassing documents shows how they did it  —  By  —  W  —  hat about the ratings agencies?

On the left, Howard Dean open to presidential bid  —  San Jose, California (CNN) - Howard Dean, the former Vermont governor who electrified anti-war liberals during the 2004 presidential race, said Thursday he would consider another run for the White House - a statement that will surely be met …

Revealed: Bush ancestor was heavily invested in kidnapping Africans into slavery  —  Thomas “Beau” Walker, the great-great-great grandfather to U.S. President George W. Bush, was a notorious slave trader who either personally led or heavily invested in expeditions to kidnap Africans …

Russ Tice, Bush-Era Whistleblower, Claims NSA Ordered Wiretap Of Barack Obama In 2004  —  Russ Tice, a former intelligence analyst who in 2005 blew the whistle on what he alleged was massive unconstitutional domestic spying across multiple agencies, claimed Wednesday that the NSA had ordered wiretaps …

WikiLeaks says Michael Hastings contacted it just before his death.  Are they implying he was murdered?  —  WikiLeaks just threw some gasoline onto the conspiracy fire.  On Wednesday night, they Tweeted: “Michael Hastings contacted WikiLeaks lawyer Jennifer Robinson just a few hours before he died …

George Zimmerman trial: Jury selected, opening statements begin Monday  —  SANFORD - A jury has been seated and sworn for the second-degree murder trial of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, after more than a week of intensive jury selection in the high-profile case.

The top 9,486 ways Jay Carney won't answer your questions (interactive)  —  Jay Carney doesn't have an answer for that.  He hasn't discussed that subject with the president.  He will refer you to the Department of [insert agency here].  He refuses to speculate on that.  He'll have to get back to you.

Gov. Cuomo was death ray target of Ku Klux Klansman  —  Nutty Glen Crawford, an industrial mechanic at General Electric, and Hudson man Eric Feight have been accused of building a deadly radiation-emitting device, which Crawford planned to use it on Gov. Cuomo, sources say.

Hundreds Of Texans Stand Up Against Sweeping Anti-Abortion Bill, Block It From Coming To A Vote  —  Protesters projected “End the War on Women” onto the building where the hearing on SB 5 was held.  (Credit: @TaneneAllison)  —  Texas lawmakers are currently rushing an omnibus anti-abortion bill through …

White House Offers Stealth Campaign to Support Immigration Bill  —  WASHINGTON — The hide-out has no sign on the door, but inside Dirksen 201 is a spare suite of offices the White House has transformed into its covert immigration war room on Capitol Hill.  —  Strategically located down the hall …

Inside the border deal that almost failed  —  Sen. Chuck Schumer spent Tuesday privately urging President Barack Obama and the entire Democratic caucus to just be patient — a border security deal they could accept was still within reach.  —  But after a testy, 45-minute call that night …

Chelsea Clinton Laments: My Great Grandmother Did Not Have Access to Planned Parenthood  —  New York, NY (CFAM) — From the stage at the recent Women Deliver conference, former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's daughter Chelsea revealed that her much-admired maternal grandmother …

Icelandic Businessman Has Jet Ready For Snowden  —  REYKJAVIK, June 20 (Reuters) - An Icelandic businessman linked to WikiLeaks said he has readied a private plane to take Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor who exposed secret U.S. surveillance programmes, to Iceland if the government grants him asylum.

Experts: Tough to stick perjury to Holder  —  Legal experts say Republicans don't have much of a chance at making perjury charges stick to Attorney General Eric Holder.  —  “Perjury is a very tough charge to prove because you have to show that the statement he made was a false statement …

This is why global markets are freaking out  —  Around the world, markets were frazzled by the latest out of the Fed.  (Kin Cheung/AP)  —  A wave of selling washed across the financial world Thursday, driving the stock market down, interest rates up, and bringing new tremors of concern …

The Incarceration Epidemic  —  About one-fourth of all incarcerated people on Earth is in the U.S. That constitutes a public health problem.  —  The U.S. incarceration rate has more than quadrupled since 1980.  It's now the highest in the world, just ahead of Russia and Rwanda.

FEDERAL NULLIFICATION EFFORTS MOUNTING IN STATES … JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Imagine the scenario: A federal agent attempts to arrest someone for illegally selling a machine gun.  Instead, the federal agent is arrested - charged in a state court with the crime of enforcing federal gun laws.

In Syrian chemical weapons claim, criticism about lack of transparency  —  UNITED NATIONS — Despite months of laboratory testing and scrutiny by top U.S. scientists, the Obama administration's case for arming Syria's rebels rests on unverifiable claims that the Syrian government used chemical weapons …