The U.S. economy is a difficult thing to get a handle on this holiday season. Some of the numbers look good, like the retail forecast, others don’t, like the Conference Board’s consumer confidence index.

But when you add the element of politics to the economic discussion, the numbers can look especially odd. Liberals and conservatives not only disagree about whether the economic glass looks half-empty or half-full for the year ahead, they disagree about the water levels over the past year. Read More »

That bromance between former presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush only goes so far, apparently.

Mr. Bush, speaking to CNN’s Candy Crowley, said the two are so close that he might even describe Hillary Clinton as the Bush family’s “sister-in-law.” Read More »

President Barack Obama welcomed today’s jobs report, noting that the economy has now created 10.9 million jobs over the past 57 months. This streak of growth is improving the net job creation over which Mr. Obama has presided, though among the last 10 presidents, Mr. Obama still ranks sixth in terms of job creation. Read More »

Amid tension over funding the government past next week’s deadline, Congress has invented a term that brings back memories of the 2012 losing Republican presidential nominee–for no reason other than it rhymes with his last name.

What do you get if you combine a short-term continuing resolution with a long-term omnibus spending bill?

A “Cromni” or “Cromnibus.” Read More »

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of California may run the minority party in the House, but the current maneuvering over a must-pass spending bill could serve as an example of how she still holds some power.

The Republican-controlled House faces a Dec. 11 deadline to pass a spending bill or risk a repeat of the government shutdown that occurred last year. To pass the measure, GOP leaders may need some Democratic votes, partly because a bloc of conservative Republicans is unhappy that the spending bill does not do enough to stop President Barack Obama from shielding millions of illegal immigrants from deportations.

Democrats have said their support depends on the contents of the spending measure, which is expected to be released next week. That gives Mrs. Pelosi some leverage, but at a news briefing Friday she did not show her cards as to how, if at all, she plans to wield it. Read More »

When Britain’s Prince William arrives in Washington on Monday, his first stop will be the White House.

The Obama administration announced Friday that the prince, who is second in line to the British throne, would have an Oval Office meeting with President Barack Obama. The two first met when President and Mrs. Obama visited London in May 2011. The prince is also scheduled to meet with Vice President Joe Biden and Jill Biden before attending a conference at the World Bank on illegal wildlife trade. Read More »

When the GOP takes control of Congress, Republicans outside Washington may be more reluctant to take swipes at the capital. But not yet.

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, a Republican who just won re-election to a second term, argues that the country would be better led by a president who served time as a governor because “we get things done.” Read More »

Natalie Wyeth Earnest, one of the longest-serving Treasury Department officials in the Obama administration, is stepping down at the end of this month.

Ms. Earnest, who is Treasury’s assistant secretary for public affairs, joined Treasury in May 2009 and has worked on a number of foreign and domestic crises with two different Treasury secretaries and an acting Treasury secretary during her time. She traveled numerous times with Treasury secretaries Timothy Geithner and Jacob Lew to Europe and China, and she was on the team of Treasury officials who worked through the debt ceiling standoff in 2011 and the partial government shutdown in 2013. Read More »

The Iranian judiciary’s decision to extend its detention of Washington Post correspondent Jason Rezaian by as much as two months reminded me of a traumatic moment during my own incarceration at Evin prison in 2007.

Ten weeks into my imprisonment, I was summoned by one of my female guards to see my interrogator. He stood by the entrance to the ward for women political prisoners, holding a piece of paper. Because the Intelligence Ministry was not finished with my interrogation, he said, my detention had been extended by two months. I was devastated. Read More »

Ashton Carter’s been a theoretical physicist, a medieval scholar and a nuclear weapons expert. He’s now Barack Obama’s pick for secretary of Defense. He can run rings around most people in the IQ department but can he run a war? Here’s a video report from Marshall Crook and Mark Scheffler. Read More »