Democrat Manchin Breaks Ranks to Back Mandate Delay  —  U.S. Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia broke ranks with fellow Democrats and said he'd support a stopgap spending plan that delays the individual mandate in President Barack Obama's health-care law.  —  “There's no way I could not vote for it …

Tea Party Support Dwindles to Near-Record Low  —  Republicans ambivalent about movement, while most Democrats oppose it  —  PRINCETON, NJ — As Washington braces for another budget showdown, this time with the threat of defunding the new healthcare law in the mix, the key political force pushing …

On Obamacare, Republicans get in their own way  —  When Dwight Eisenhower asked Gen. Georgy Zhukov how the Red Army cleared minefields, Zhukov replied that it marched through them.  Being profligate with lives is a perquisite of command and a luxury of those with an abundance of lives at their command.

Another Obamacare delay  —  The Obama administration is delaying another piece of Obamacare - this time postponing online enrollment in some of the small-business exchanges scheduled to open Oct. 1, sources tell POLITICO.  —  Small businesses looking to enroll in coverage on so-called SHOP exchanges run …

Comedian Arrested After Punching Journalist Josh Rogin at D.C.'s Funniest Celebrity Competition  —  This year's D.C.'s Funniest Celebrity contest may go down as the most memorable and not for what was going on onstage.  Comedy headliner Dan Nainan — a professional comedian who in the past …

Now Revealed by Stripper: Booker's Twitter Messages  —  Mayor Cory A. Booker has a high schooler's affinity for Twitter, reveling in its ceaseless flow of affirmation and infinite space for self-promotion.  —  But the occasional perils of his reliance on the social media service became evident …

‘I would never use homosexual couples in my adverts’: Barilla pasta brand faces boycott after boss's comments spark backlash  —  Gay rights groups are calling for a boycott of the world's biggest pasta maker Barilla after the company's chairman said he would never use homosexual couples in his advertisements.

What Iran's president really told CNN about Nazis and the Jews.  —  Reasonableness at last.  That was the general reaction Wednesday to the news that Iranian President Hassan Rouhani appeared to acknowledge and condemn the Holocaust during an interview this week with CNN's Christiane Amanpour.

“If I had to do it over again, I wouldn't let these people run my bathwater”  —  In one of the more remarkable television interviews with a politician I have ever seen, ex-Rep. Shelley Berkley eviscerated her U.S. Senate campaign staff for bottling her up, not having a strategy and being too paranoid.

Marissa Alexander will get a new trial  —  Marissa Alexander, the African-American woman who was sentenced to 20 years for discharging a firearm in Florida despite pleading Stand Your Ground against her husband, will get a new trial.  Alexander, 32, said she fired a bullet at the ceiling because she was afraid of her husband.

If John Boehner Knows What's Good For Him, He'll Shut Down the Government  —  What the hell is John Boehner thinking?  I don't mean that strictly in a rhetorical sense, though it's hard not to slap your head when you see the most powerful Republican in the country lurching from one cockamamie strategy to another.

Let ObamaCare Collapse  —  Congress can't kill the entitlement state.  Only the American people can.  —  What the GOP's Defund-ObamaCare Caucus is failing to see is that ObamaCare is no longer just ObamaCare.  It is about something that is beyond the reach of a congressional vote.

Woman Trades 300 Sandwiches for a Diamond Ring  —  Some afternoons, I will be eating a delicious sandwich alone at my computer when the Internet will heave up a personal essay so poorly conceived and utterly vacuous that it threatens to compromise my ability to ever love again.

How Obamacare may be holding down costs  —  The historic slowdown in health-care costs is continuing.  Earlier this month, the government's actuaries found that total national health spending continues to grow at the lowest rate we've ever seen.  And our annual employer health benefits survey released …