G.O.P. Gains Strength and Obama Gets Low Marks, Poll Finds  —  A New York Times/CBS News poll shows that President Obama's approval ratings are similar to those of President George W. Bush in 2006 when Democrats swept both houses of Congress in the midterm elections.

Cruz: Dempsey, Hagel sound like social workers  —  Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said on Tuesday that the U.S. military should not play the role of “social workers” in Iraq.  —  Speaking on Fox News's “Hannity,” Cruz voiced his frustration with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey's responses …

Jewish group brands Biden's Shylock comment ‘offensive’  —  Yahoo News 16 hrs ago  —  Vice President Joe Biden drew fire from a prominent Jewish group on Tuesday after he described unscrupulous bankers who prey on servicemen and servicewomen deployed overseas as “Shylocks” — a term frequently condemned as an anti-Semitic caricature.

NRA goes big in key Senate, governor's races  —  The National Rifle Association has reserved $11.4 million for its initial fall advertising campaign and will begin airing its first TV commercials Wednesday in three Senate races crucial to determining which party controls the chamber next year.

Benghazi Select Committee Holding 1st Open Hearing  —  The House Select Committee on Benghazi gets its public debut Wednesday, two years after militants in the eastern Libyan city killed a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans, and four months after Republicans launched their special investigation.

How The FiveThirtyEight Senate Forecast Model Works  —  The FiveThirtyEight Senate forecast model launched earlier this month.  Right now, it shows Republicans with about a 53 percent chance of picking up the Senate next year.  We owe you a lot more detail about how that forecast is calculated …

How many young women can a school legally punish for dress code violations?  —  Singling out female students for humiliation and discipline because of their sex is a blatant violation of federal law  —  Do school administrators think they're more stubborn than teenage girls who are told what they can't wear to school?

Hannity On NFL's Peterson: My Dad Hit Me With A ‘Strap’ And I'm Okay (VIDEO)  —  On Fox News last night, Sean Hannity said he thinks that Adrian Peterson, the NFL player indicted on child injury charges, should not go to jail for hitting his child.  —  Hannity explained that he was hit …

Rubio: ISIS could be entering US from Mexico  —  Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said late Tuesday that ISIS militants could be crossing the Mexican border into the United States.  —  Asked by Fox News host Sean Hannity if ISIS “would use the southern border to cross,” Rubio said “Sure, potentially.”

The Disappearing “Undue Burden” Standard for Abortion Rights  —  Those words—"undue burden"—represent Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's most important triumph during her long and consequential tenure on the U.S. Supreme Court.  Almost single-handedly, O'Connor rewrote abortion law.

Boehner: ‘I have a few knuckleheads in my conference’  —  Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Tuesday said he has “a few knuckleheads” in his conference.  As a result, Boehner described his House majority as being a “paper majority.”  —  “On any given day, 16 of my members decide they're going to go this way …

Too bad it's almost certainly unconstitutional.  —  You are no doubt as excited as I am about the advent of Constitution Day, which explodes into being again Wednesday, Sept. 17, with its customary flurry of greeting cards, traffic-stopping parades, fraught and complicated holiday dinners with the family …

Another Look at Electoral Change  —  Last fall, I posted some data on the changes in Democratic and Republican support in the states in presidential elections, in part in response to observations made by a number of pundits and politicians that there is an increasing Democratic “lock” on the Electoral College.