Holding Firm  —  The same question keeps popping up: why doesn't Speaker John Boehner just pass a “clean” continuing resolution to fund the government?  It's a ubiquitous query at the Capitol, and it was asked many times this afternoon as House Republicans left their closed-door conference meeting.

EXCLUSIVE VIDEO: McDonald's Employee Admits Being Paid $15 to Protest WW2 Veterans (UPDATED)  —  Yesterday I reported from the National World War Two Memorial on several members of Congress crashing the barricades set up by the National Park Service that were keeping out several hundred Honor Flight veterans …

Obama to Wall Street: This time be worried  —  Obama to Wall Street: You should be concerned this time  —  In an exclusive interview with CNBC's John Harwood, President Obama says Wall Street should be concerned about the ongoing impasse between him and House Republicans over funding the government and the debt limit.

Tom Clancy, Best-Selling Novelist of Military Thrillers, Dies at 66  —  Tom Clancy, whose complex, adrenaline-fueled military novels made him one of the world's best-selling and best-known authors, died on Tuesday in a hospital in Baltimore.  He was 66.  —  Ivan Held, the president …

Juan Linz's Bad News for America  —  The Yale political scientist died this week.  His life's work tells us that American democracy is doomed.  —  Juan Linz, the distinguished Yale political scientist, died on Tuesday morning in New Haven, Conn., at the age of 86.

Exclusive: Mia Farrow and Eight of Her Children Speak Out on Their Lives, Frank Sinatra, and the Scandals They've Endured  —  See a slide show of Mia's children and quotes from Orth's piece.  —  Twenty years after Vanity Fair special correspondent Maureen Orth reported on the sexual-abuse …

The truth is, Americans love Obamacare  —  Among the many delusions guiding the Republican campaign against the Affordable Care Act, surely the most consistent is the idea that the public detests the law and is clamoring for repeal.  —  Here's the truth: The American public loves Obamacare …

Why Are So Many People in a Blind Rage These Days?  —  Paul Waldman, as he so often does, says what I've been thinking: … Roger that.  But then he adds this: … This is conventional wisdom, of course.  The reason the tea party caucus isn't willing to compromise is because there's no pressure on them to compromise.

What Happens to Conservatism When the Obamacare War Is Over?  —  When we look back decades from now, one of the keys to understanding this period in our political history will be the story of how a set of market-based health insurance reforms that started as a proposal from the Heritage Foundation …

Hold Your Ground and Shut John Cornyn Up  —  After three years of getting ready, yesterday the nation signed on to get Obamacare only to have websites across America crash.  The ones that were not crashing were scam sites designed for identity theft.  Amid all of that, if you tried …

President praises pope  —  President Obama said Wednesday he had been “hugely impressed” by Pope Francis after being asked about the new pontiff's comments that issues of homosexuality and abortion had consumed too much of the church's attention.  —  The president said that his admiration came …

Rick Perry: Implementing Obamacare “a Criminal Act”  —  HASBROUCK HEIGHTS, N.J. — In a campaign appearance Tuesday on behalf of New Jersey Republican Senate nominee Steve Lonegan, Texas Gov. Rick Perry said the government's implementation of the national health care reform law constituted “a criminal act.”