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Considering the stubbornness of his opposition, I thought President Barack Obama was being quite generous in expressing "regrets" over his role in Washington's dysfunction. "It's one of the few regrets of my presidency," he said Tuesday during his last State of the Union address to Congress, "that the rancor and suspicion between the parties has gotten worse instead of better." He shouldn't be too hard on himself, in my view. When it comes to stirring "rancor and suspicion," he had plenty of assistance from his stubbornly resistant conservative adversaries. I am not one to complain, as many Obama supporters do,...

There are two ways to talk up bipartisanship. You can give the notion lip service. You can lament its loss in modern politics. You can lay the blame of partisan rancor on the times and not at your own clay feet. You can say, "It's one of the few regrets of my presidency -- that the rancor and suspicion between the parties has gotten worse instead of better," as President Barack Obama shared in his State of the Union address Tuesday. Believe me. I am sick and tired of criticizing the president. I miss the first term, when there were...

White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough on Sunday vowed that President Obama will close the Guantanamo Bay detainee facility before his presidency ends in 11 months. "He feels an obligation to his successor to close that, and that's why we're going to do it," McDonough said on "Fox News Sunday." "Sure we are." However, McDonough declined to answer whether Obama would use his White House powers to sidestep Congress and close the facility. "The president just said he's going to present a plan to Congress and work with Congress and then we'll make some final determination," McDonough said. Obama...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: I wonder if President Obama will shed any tears over the North Koreans. I mean, he got all teary-eyed yesterday thinking about the loss of life because of guns in America. So the North Koreans announced another nuclear test out there. The Iranians the same thing, by the way. Afghanistan is falling apart. Afghanistan's being propped up -- apparently -- I watched Ralph Peters today on Fox this morning. Ralph Peters said that Afghanistan right now is being propped up by Special Forces soldiers, and that's about the extent to which we have any actual operations on...

The tyrant cries. While announcing his new slate of gun control measures designed to pave the way for a national gun registration regime, President Obama welled up in a press conference on Tuesday. He'd spent nearly half an hour berating Republicans, American voters and the National Rifle Association for their supposed intransigence in failing to embrace his executive actions. Finally, he reached up to his eyes, rubbed at them, and as tears wet his cheeks, he stated, "Every time I think about those kids, it gets me mad. ... We need voters who want safer gun laws, and who...

On Thursday, CNN will host a town hall with President Obama as part of his "final-year push to make gun control part of his legacy." In addition to sitting down with liberal anchor Anderson Cooper, the network says Obama will "take questions from the audience." Uh-oh. Get out your best pruning shears and trowels. In an age of micromanaged partisan stagecraft and left-wing media enablers, there is no such thing as a spontaneous question. CNN has a long history of allowing political plants to flourish in its public forums. At the cable station's Democratic debate in Las Vegas in...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Man, I'll tell you, Obama is mad. I have not seen this kind of expression on the face of Barack Obama as often and as consistently as I have the last 15 minutes watching this fatwa he's announcing on his executive action on guns. This is amazing. He's really, really ticked off about this. Anyway, folks, greetings. How are you? Great to have you. Rush Limbaugh back at it. Three straight hours of broadcast excellence headed your way. Telephone number, if you want to be on the program, 800-282-2882, and the e-mail address, ElRushbo@eibnet.com. This is striking,...

Washington (dpa) - US President Barack Obama is seeking to expand background checks on gun buyers as part of efforts to be announced Tuesday that attempt to keep more criminals from getting guns. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosive will clarify its rules to require anyone engaged in the business of selling firearms regardless of the location to have a license and conduct background checks, US officials told reporters late Monday. "The goal is keeping bad actors away from firearms," Attorney General Loretta Lynch said. The move that Obama will announce aims to target sellers who have avoided...

A hallmark of Obama's presidency since his early days in office has been his habit of pitting American citizens against each other: Democrats vs. Republicans, blacks vs. whites, rich vs. poor, climate change alarmists vs. climate change skeptics, gay vs. straight, etc.It was shocking at first. Seven years in, it is depressingly expected of the Community-Organizer-in-Chief.In his weekly address, released Friday, Obama vowed to spend his final year in office seeking ways to impose gun control policies via executive fiat, and urged American citizens to stand up against groups like the NRA -- which, of course, is made up of...

One thing that's striking about the presidential race, which, finally, officially begins soon, is how much the race has been shaped by Barack Obama. The course of the contests for both the Republican and Democratic nominations would be inconceivable absent the course of the Obama presidency. This is most apparent in the phenomenon that goes by the name of Donald Trump. Trump's gratuitous insults of rivals reflect the coarseness of Obama's nonstop insults of Republicans and anyone who does not share his views and priorities. Despite his pre-presidential promises of nonpartisanship, Obama has been the most grating and vitriolic partisan...

That’s odd. What could Democrats possibly see in a lifelong true conservative like Donald Trump? There’s something for everyone in Nate Cohn’s new post. If you’re a Trump fan, here’s the smoking gun that he really is a new Reagan, the guy who’s going to broaden the tent and sweep to victory in November by bringing centrist Democrats into the GOP. If you’re a Trump critic, here’s further proof that he’s the RINO of RINOs, a man who’s blended nationalism, center-left economics, and Jacksonian foreign policy into something that tastes better to members of the other party than it does...

Good news, America: the Obama administration has achieved peace in Syria. That's according to John Kirby, the Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Public Affairs and spokesperson at the US State Department, who issued a blog post filled with five-word summations of 2015. Here's their summation of the Syrian crisis: "Bringing Peace, Security to Syria." So the hundreds of thousands dead, the millions of refugees, the rise of ISIS, the enshrinement of dictator Bashar Assad -- none of it ever happened. According to the State Department, everything's going swimmingly. More good news: the Obama administration has also defeated...

President Obama extended his "warmest wishes" to families across the U.S. celebrating Kwanzaa, a holiday which honors African-American culture. "Today begins a week-long celebration of African-American heritage and culture through family and community festivities," a statement released the White House on Saturday said. "Kwanzaa's seven principles -- unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity and faith -- are also shared values that bind us as Americans," he continued. "And in the spirit of the season, we reflect on the blessings of the past year and commit to building a brighter future for all our children. "As families,...

HONOLULU -- Stanley Chang hatched a plan last year to overcome seven years of failed attempts to name something after Hawaii's most famous native son. His target: Sandy Beach, a stunning strip of sand and volcanic ash that he hoped to re-christen "Barack Obama Beach." Chang had heard from a congressional staffer that Obama often spoke fondly of body surfing there as a teen. And he had read an interview in which the president described his ideal day as one spent at the Oahu beach. "It was almost a prose poem," Chang said. Obama imagined a sea turtle swimming in...

President Obama went golfing in Hawaii yesterday and called the press over when he reached the 18th hole. The commander in chief then made what ABC News describes as a 40-foot chip shot:

resident Obama and Hillary Clinton have intensified attacks on Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump, accusing him of manipulating voters' "fear and ignorance" and using anti-Muslim rhetoric that helps recruit Islamic State terrorists jabs that appear to be energizing his supporters and strengthening his campaign. But campaign strategists say the attacks are not aimed at knocking down Mr. Trump. Instead, the smears are part of a calculated ploy by Democrats who want to help him win because they are convinced the billionaire businessman will lose in the general election. "It definitely makes my allegiance to Donald Trump much greater," Jeff Moorman,...

Barack Obama continues to fundamentally transform and tilt our nation to favor one of his favorite groups - Muslims -- at the expense of everyone else. Early in his presidency, Barack Obama's plans to control the Census Bureau unleashed a firestorm of criticism. The White House in a radical move ordered the Census Bureau to work directly with Barack Obama aides. Since the 2010 census would play a key role in drawing House districts and electoral votes at least until 2020 there was criticism that Obama's moves, supported by other Democrats, would be used for partisan purposes to empower Democrats....

President Obama's weekly remarksHi, everybody. It's the most wonderful time of the year. Not just for spreading holiday cheer -- but also for list makers. You've got wish lists; Santa's list; and of course, a blizzard of year-in-review lists. So I decided to get in on the action. As a nation, we face big challenges. But in the spirit of 2015 retiree David Letterman, here -- in no particular order -- are my top 10 things that happened in 2015 that should make every American optimistic about 2016. Number ten: The economy. Over the past 12 months, our businesses have...

For your Friday evening viewing pleasure, the third major speech he’s delivered in the last few months demanding more leadership from his colleagues. The first, in early November, was a general indictment of Senate dysfunction. The second, which came just last week, was a plea for clarity in the war on radical Islam, especially from Obama. This one is a hard knock on both parties for cowering as the executive branch gobbles up more and more of Congress’s prerogatives. And the hook, as any media-savvy pol nowadays would insist on, is Trump. That comes right at the beginning (transcript here);...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Closing out a tumultuous year, President Barack Obama sought to lay the groundwork Friday for his last year in office by vowing not to fade in the background but instead use his remaining months to push longstanding goals to fruition. "In 2016, I'm going to leave it all out on the field," he said. "Wherever there's an opportunity, I'm going to take it."