Conservatives rage against the machine  —  Opponents of Obama's immigration action hoped the GOP would use budget to push back harder on issue  —  Conservatives began the lame-duck session enraged over President Barack Obama's executive actions on immigration and hell-bent on unraveling …

Torture Is Who We Are  —  A country, like a person, is what it does.  —  Torture, declared President Obama this week, in response to the newly released Senate report on CIA interrogation, is “contrary to who we are.”  Maine Senator Angus King added that, “This is not America.  This is not who we are.”

Ed Rendell trash-talks ‘pathetic’ Chris Christie's Cowboys loyalty  —  (CNN) — Former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell said Gov. Chris Christie's unapologetic love for the Dallas Cowboys is “pathetic,” adding that it's rooted in a “basic inferiority complex.”  —  “If you are a Jerseyite …

Veteran Fox News correspondent Dominic Di-Natale dead at 43  —  Dominic Di-Natale, a globetrotting journalist whose work at Fox News Channel and other news organizations took him to Usama bin Laden's compound, demonstrations in Egypt's Tahrir Square and, more recently, to the scene of racially charged riots in Ferguson, Mo., has died.

ISIS issues guidelines for sex slavery  —  Shares -  —  Members of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) have kidnapped thousands of women and girls in their raids on non-Sunni Muslim towns and villages across northern Syria and western Iraq.  —  Many of the captives are believed to be sold …

Tortured tantrums: Feinstein's fake fury  —  Angus King raises an excellent point about torture.  It's just not the point he probably intended.  —  This week on CNN, Maine's Independent senator was asked about the Senate Democrats' release of a scathing report saying the CIA interrogation program …

Charles Krauthammer: A travesty of a report  —  The report by Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee regarding CIA interrogation essentially accuses the agency under George W. Bush of war criminality.  Committee Chair Dianne Feinstein appears to offer some extenuation when she reminds us …

Michel du Cille, Post photojournalist who won Pulitzer three times, dies at 58 … Michel du Cille, a Washington Post photojournalist who was a three-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize for his dramatic images of human struggle and triumph, and who recently chronicled the plight of Ebola patients …

Backers: Romney more open to 2016 run  —  He has sounded unimpressed with the emerging GOP field, associates say.  —  For most of the past year, Mitt Romney supporters have publicly said he should consider running again.  And for most of the past year, Romney has seemed uninterested.  —  Until recently.

Tea party fumes over campaign finance plan  —  Activists see high dollar limits as a power grab by GOP establishment.  —  Tea party activists are attacking a campaign finance rider in the $1.1 trillion spending bill that they view as a sneaky power grab by establishment Republicans designed to undermine outside conservative groups.

Inside the collapse of the year's biggest tax deal  —  It was a rough few weeks for Sen. Ron Wyden (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)  —  Sen. Ron Wyden has so many knives in his back, it's a wonder he's still walking around upright.  But as his tenure as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee draws …

Open Carry Activist Charged With Shooting Ex-Husband And Stepdaughter Dead  —  A woman charged with shooting and killing her ex-husband and stepdaughter has strong connections to groups advocating for expanding open carry gun laws in Texas.  —  Local news outlets on Wednesday reported …

Scott Rudin Apologizes After Leak Of Sony's Hacked Racially Insensitive E-Mails On Barack Obama  —  EXCLUSIVE: Producer Scott Rudin has issued a public apology for the racially insensitive comments that surfaced last night in an exchange of hacked private e-mails between him and Sony Pictures Entertainment chairman Amy Pascal.