Bill Clinton Brushes Off Trump Attacks  —  We're exactly four weeks away from the Iowa caucuses — and the 2016 presidential race is switching into high gear.  Republican frontrunner Donald Trump is holding a rally in Massachusetts tonight after releasing his first television ad of his 2016 campaign …

Donald Trump's provocative first TV ad raises the temperature of GOP race  —  NEW YORK — Donald Trump's ad begins with a shot of President Obama and Hillary Clinton.  Then comes a U.S. battleship launching a cruise-missile strike.  From there it moves swiftly through an explosive montage …

THE BIG IDEA:  —  —Mitt Romney says concern about Jeb Bush's electability was a major reason he seriously considered running for president a year ago.  —  “A Bush-versus-Clinton head-to-head would be too easy for the Democrats,” he told my colleagues Dan Balz and Philip Rucker during …

White House calls Oregon standoff a ‘local law enforcement matter’  —  The White House on Monday referred to an armed occupation of a federal wildlife refuge in Oregon as a “local law enforcement matter.”  —  Spokesman Josh Earnest's comments come even though the Federal Bureau of Investigation …

Obama rolls out gun control strategy  —  The White House unveiled President Barack Obama's executive actions on gun violence on Monday as part of a multi-day rollout meant to contain the political fallout and to cast Obama as the voice of common sense in a raging culture war.

Ted Cruz Calls for Oregon Armed Protesters to ‘Stand Down’  —  Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz on Monday called for armed protesters who occupied a federal building in Oregon to “stand down peaceably.”  —  “Every one of us has a constitutional right to protest, to speak our minds,” Cruz told reporters in Iowa.

The Absurdly Harsh Penalties That Sparked the Oregon Rancher Protest  —  As Ed Krayewski noted yesterday, the armed men who are occupying an office building at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon broke off from a demonstration protesting the sentences received by two ranchers …