Winners and losers of the debt-limit fight  —  The 2013 fiscal showdown was ugly, especially for Republicans.  —  Both parties have scoffed that there are winners and losers in the debate.  —  Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) recently said, “This isn't a damn game!”

Ted Cruz left with few friends after Obamacare fight fails, government shutdown ends, debt limit rises  —  Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said he wouldn't try to block the Senate agreement.  “There's nothing to be gained from delaying this vote one day or two days.  The outcome will be the same,” Cruz said.

Cory Booker makes history as he defeats Steve Lonegan in U.S. Senate election  —  NEWARK — Cory Booker's star-quality and his skill at surviving the roughhouse politics of New Jersey's biggest city took him from the mayor's office to the U.S. Senate today in a hard-fought victory over Republican iconoclast Steve Lonegan.

Hillary Clinton, Welcome to the White House  —  She has no Democratic challenger, and the Republican Party is no longer a credible opposition force.  —  Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton smiles as she waits to answer questions from an audience at Chatham House on October 11, 2013 in London, England.

The Abysmal, Pathetic Obamacare Rollout  —  It's a colossal, expensive failure that projects a 1970s-era DMV experience into cyberspace.  Welcome to Healthcare.gov, the botched website of Obama's botched health-care reform, writes Nick Gillespie.  —  The best jokes about the absolutely abysmal rollout …

There's a little pork in that bill: The 5 most surprising provisions in the debt deal  —  (CNN) — So much for a “clean” bill.  The measure passed by Congress to fund the government and raise the debt ceiling also contains some goodies and gifts tucked into the 35-page bill.

The Year of Living Carlos Dangerously  —  Anthony Weiner's sexting addiction nuked his political career (twice!), endangered his marriage (twice!), and turned him into a walking penis joke (forever!).  —  Marshall Sella tails Weiner through his doomed campaign for New York mayor …

Documents reveal NSA's extensive involvement in targeted killing program  —  It was an innocuous e-mail, one of millions sent every day by spouses with updates on the situation at home.  But this one was of particular interest to the National Security Agency and contained clues that put …

Conservatives Learned The Wrong Lessons From The Shutdown Debacle  —  For a certain block of House conservatives, the ones who drove Speaker John Boehner toward a government shutdown and near-default against his will, the lesson of the last few weeks isn't that they overreached.

McCain: No more shutdowns, ‘I guarantee it’  —  Washington (CNN) - Sen. John McCain promised Thursday the government will not shut down again in the near future, and argued the President, as the victor in the recent showdown, will now have to engage with his political opponents on Capitol Hill.

Republicans are wasting no time in rewriting the history of their own defeat.  —  For the men and women of the U.S. Senate, Wednesday morning was a time of jubilation.  Hark—a deal was born!  Sens. Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell came bearing a bipartisan agreement that punted the debt …

Mental Floss Exclusive: Our Interview with Bill Watterson! … For the December issue of mental_floss magazine, Jake Rossen managed to do something we thought was impossible—he snagged an interview with the legendary Bill Watterson!  Since we're guessing there are a few Calvin and Hobbes enthusiasts …

Kenya shopping mall attack: Chilling new footage from inside Westgate shows terrorists casually gunning down innocent shoppers  —  The video also shows terrorists calmly chatting on their mobile phones and taking turns to kneel down and pray  —  Warning: Video contains images that some may find disturbing.

Don't Execute the Man Who Paralyzed Me (Guest Column)  —  Joseph Paul Franklin, who has confessed to shooting Flynt in 1978 and been convicted in a series of racially motivated murders, is set for execution in Missouri in November.  Flynt writes for THR, “I have every reason to be overjoyed with that decision, but I am anything but.”

N.J. GOPer: If My Rival Comes To Your Door, ‘Get Your Gun’  —  A Republican candidate running for the New Jersey state Senate urged an group of gun rights activists earlier this month to get their guns if approached by his Democratic opponent.  —  The candidate, Atlantic County Sheriff Frank Balles …

The Pro-Discrimination Left  —  Not everyone thinks white people have constitutional rights.  —  The Declaration of Independence declared that “all men are created equal,” but the U.S. Constitution as originally ratified did not live up to that principle.  By political necessity it permitted …

The Vote to Free the Hostages  —  It was a foregone conclusion that the bill to end the manufactured fiscal crisis would sail through Congress once Ted Cruz foreswore a filibuster and John Boehner abandoned the “Hastert Rule.”  The actual votes were anticlimactic, but still interesting.