WASHINGTON - Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Reince Priebus has released the following statement concerning the continuing and dangerous deterioration of the U.S. economy:

"The latest news from Wall Street is still more evidence of the utter failure of the Obama administration's economic policies. Wednesday's 519-point drop...

It happened on his watch!
It happened on his watch!
For events so consequential,
Guilt is wholly presidential,
And we're here to say
It happened on his watch!

Republicans claim that Obama's to blame
When the stock market's numbers go south,
...

I'm still trying to dig up the quote.

I know it was President Obama, and I know it was at least a few months ago, and I'm pretty sure I can picture him at a lectern in the Rose Garden when he said it. The president was explaining...

At first, we just thought they were waving. People take those little boats out on the water all the time -- they paddle around for a while, and then they paddle back to shore, while the rest of us sit on that tiny little beach with our blankets and our...

"That's what they sent me here to do!"

Let's assume that you're right, O Mighty Republican Congressional Class of 2010. Let's assume, that is, that the budget plans you're pushing now are the same ones you were pushing during your campaigns last fall. Let's assume that your constituents...

The sun is a furnace. The sun is an oven. The sun is clichés he hasn't even thought of yet.

And the air? The air is a shroud of hot, damp flannel wrapped tight around his every pore. A "heat dome," they're calling it. "Hell with humidity," he's...

"The measure has little to no chance of approval in the Senate. Still, Republicans hope that enabling the rank and file to vent their frustration and vote for the deficit-cutting plan could clear the air..." -- The morning papers, on the GOP's latest budget strategy

Just humor them.

The nice lady behind the table wonders if I might have an ID card I can show her. She's only asking, not demanding. She's certainly not requiring. Requiring starts next year. I show her my ID card.

Now the nice lady wants my signature in a big logbook. She seems...

President Obama needs to get Eric Cantor out on a golf course -- and bury him up to his chin in a sand trap.

When Eric Cantor stands shoulder-to-shoulder with John Boehner, you can hardly see the knife!

Are Obama and Boehner this generation's Reagan and Gorbachev,...

No wonder the negotiations collapsed: That's not a position -- it's a religion!

I'm way too old for this. Nobody gets his first pet in his sixth decade.

Then again, I'd always known pretty much everything I needed to know about why I wasn't remotely the pet type. I value my independence. I don't like the smells. I hate the inconvenience, the one...

[After hours, just a short walk from the Capitol...]

"We're gonna do it again -- I can feel it."

"Do what again?"

"What we always do -- we're gonna fold. We're gonna give 'em exactly what they want on the budget."

"'They?'"

"McConnell. Boehner....

"Newt's strength is his ability to put forward bold and new ideas."
Gingrich campaign spokesman

MEMORANDUM

RE: CAMPAIGN UPDATE

Because everything about "Gingrich 2012" is going precisely according to plan, I'm sending this memo to...

[Deep inside a large white house, there is counseling...]

"Do I have to lie down?"

"Not at all, Mr. President! Not at all! Whatever is comfortable for you."

"Good -- then I'll sit."

"Sitting is fine, Mr. President. Just think of it as...

Pakistan arrests five who helped CIA track down Osama bin Laden.

U.S.-Pakistan relationship deteriorating.

Ripped from the headlines

Dear P,

I never thought I'd be writing you a letter like this, but I have to face the facts: This isn't...

The amnesia sticks are kicking in. Already the distant past is lost to me, the recent past no more than a blur.

It's probably better that way: I'm watching the candidates, and I'm reading the news.

The candidates are complaining about the government. The candidates,...

Burt Bottomline knows banking.

And why shouldn't he? Burt Bottomline has been in banking -- Big Banking -- for years. He's one of Big Banking's biggest players. He knows how to play the game. He's used to winning the game. (That's what being a Big Banker is all...

He knows what his first line has to be.

"What an idiot!" (Although "What a fool!" and "What a jerk!" are momentarily in the running.)

What he's less sure about is exactly which idiot he has in mind.

Likewise his second and third lines: "How can you not know that?"...

So if you had him on the couch -- with the tasteful plants in every corner and the diplomas on the wall, with the pillows arranged just-so and the tissue box nearby -- would you find yourself saying something that sounded approximately like this?

"So Barack, how's that...

"If you don't have the law on your side, pound on the facts. If you don't have the facts on your side, pound on the law. And if you don't have either the law or the facts on your side, pound on the lectern." -- Old law-school joke

MILWAUKEE --...