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OTTAWA—Prime Minister Justin Trudeau unveiled his diverse, gender-equal cabinet to the country by strolling to Rideau Hall with his family and ministers amid waves of applause from thousands of Canadians. Trudeau's cabinet is the first in Canadian history with equal numbers of men and women, the first ever Muslim minister, the first aboriginal justice minister, and the first northern fisheries minister, an Inuit who wore a sealskin tie to take his oath. Flanked later outside by his 30 ministers, a buoyant Trudeau addressed a throng of about 3,500 people as Canada's 23rd prime minister. He said it was an "incredible...

“Absolutely” hire him. Trump said Friday if he wins the election he has a special place for Carson on his Cabinet. “I would put him — I’d love to have that,” Trump said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” Trump also stated he regards Carson as a “nice man” although he seriously doubts Carson’s negotiation skills. Trump feels like he is the sure-shot for the presidential run. Could we possibly see a Trump-Carson ticket?

Donald Trump on Saturday responded to a question from CNN about whether Muslims pose a danger to the country, saying: "I love the Muslims. I think they're great people." The Republican presidential front-runner made the comment after addressing high school students here at their homecoming Saturday night. During a question-and-answer session with students, Trump was unable to avoid being asked about the latest political controversy dogging his campaign: his decision not to correct a supporter this week who called President Barack Obama a Muslim. One student told Trump that she considered Muslim-Americans to be an important segment of the country....

audi King Salman bin Abdulaziz has sacked his younger half-brother as crown prince and appointed his nephew, Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, as the new heir apparent, state television said. Al Jazeera's Mohamed Vall, reporting from Jizan in the country's south, said the reshuffle was announced by royal decree via state television early on Wednesday. SNIP-- Political earthquake' Khalil Jahshan, the executive director for the Arab Centre of Washington from Fairfax, Virginia, said that the reshuffle constitutes a "political earthquake of the greatest magnitude". "The Saudi Arabia we knew a few hours ago is no longer," Jahshan told Al...

KASIE HUNT, MSNBC: And are you smart enough to be president of the United States?"

I’m sure we’re all relieved to know that after the many media debacles in the last few election cycles, the cable news denizens have learned their lesson. This time around things are going to be different. Candidates will be treated fairly, with an opportunity to make their case before the American people while being subjected to rigorous examination of their actual record and their stated positions on the issues.Naw, I’m just kidding. Nothing has actually changed at all. And to lead off the two year parade of embarrassing media moments, MSNBC featured an interview with Texas Governor Rick Perry...

....Obama will discuss the situation in Ferguson, Missouri, Monday with his Cabinet, civil rights leaders, law enforcement officials and others.

Ashton Carter announced on Twitter that President Obama called to tell him he'd be nominated to be the next defense secretary. "President Obama phones me announcing his decision to appoint me as Defense Secretary. I'm honoured and happy," Carter tweets. CNN confirms: Ashton Carter, the former second-in-command at the Pentagon appears to be the top choice to replace outgoing Secretary Chuck Hagel. Barring any last minute complications, Ash Carter will be President Barack Obama's choice as the new Secretary of Defense, several U.S. administration officials told CNN.

President Obama will be naming his fourth secretary of defense in six years. Will he choose the first woman to run the Pentagon? Even before Chuck Hagel's resignation from the Defense Department became official, the names of a pair of longtime Pentagon veterans had already surfaced as top contenders to replace him as secretary: Michele Flournoy and Ashton Carter. Flournoy and Carter have been through this wringer before: Both were floated as possible Pentagon chiefs earlier in Obama's presidency, and both have served at the highest levels of the department. A third candidate, Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, said...

Another leftover from Sunday brunch via the Corner. Joel Pollak floated this idea a few weeks ago in a piece for Breitbart. I thought of it again on Thursday night, when I was busy enjoying my vacation from HA by watching Obama’s amnesty speech and screaming at my TV. Now here’s Cruz proposing the same plan, although with two caveats. One: It’s not so much that he wants the Senate to block O’s nominees as he wants Mitch McConnell to refuse to bring those nominations to the floor in the first place. That’s a clever way of killing two...

With President Obama expanding on his power, an amateur historian like myself looks to past growth of the Executive Branch and in this post looking at the number of Cabinet (Departmental) positions and their growth. How many can give the number of these positions currently and how that has changed? It is an interesting progression and given my preference for minimalist governance, frightening!

After being handed a series of defeats by the Supreme Court challenging his executive power, on Tuesday President Barack Obama gathered Cabinet secretaries to tell them to "be creative about how we can make real progress" on issues where Congress won't act.

President Barack Obama told his Cabinet on Tuesday to 'be creative' looking for areas where he might be able to govern by executive action given gridlock in Congress that is hampering his agenda. In a White House meeting, Obama brought together the top officials in his government a day after conceding that a deadlocked Congress will prompt him to act on his own authority where he can on an immigration overhaul. Obama said he wants to work with Congress where possible, "but if Congress is unable to do it," then he said his Cabinet officials and agency heads should look...

President Obama on Tuesday asked his Cabinet to help him find more ways to use his executive powers. “You’ve already seen the power of some of our executive actions making a real difference for ordinary families,” Obama said at a White House meting. “We’re going to have to be creative about how we can make real progress.” The president is increasingly relying on executive orders and regulatory moves to move his agenda, despite opposition from House Republicans, who have threatened to sue him over his executive actions, and the Supreme Court, which ruled last week that Obama’s recess appointments were...

Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki cannot get a handle on the recent scandalous treatment of veterans in VA hospitals, where more than 40 sick men were allowed to die without proper follow-up treatment. A cover-up allegedly followed. When the Walter Reed Army Medical Center scandal broke under the George W. Bush administration, heads rolled. So far, Shinseki seems immune from similar accountability. Almost nothing that former Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius promised before, during or after the implementation of the Affordable Care Act came true. She was also cited by the U.S. Office of Special Counsel for...

President Barack Obama can be heard whistling moments before a cabinet meeting Tuesday at the White House.

The Ministerial Committee for Legislation voted Sunday in favor of a bill that would annex the Jordan Valley and place it under full Israeli sovereignty. Four ministers voted in favor of the draft law, which was proposed Likud MK Miri Regev. Three opposed it. Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, who is in charge of “peace negotiations” with the Palestinian Authority (PA) attacked the ministers who voted for the bill, and called it “an irresponsible proposal that will harm Israel and isolate it.” "Some of those who supported the bill would have opposed it, if they had known it would pass,” she...

Sebelius: Obama didn't know about tech issues Dylan Stableford, Yahoo News By Dylan Stableford, Yahoo News 1 hour ago The woman at the center of the firestorm surrounding the tech-plagued launch of the Obamacare website says President Barack Obama was not informed of potential red flags until it went live. In an interview with CNN's Sanjay Gupta on Tuesday, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said the president was told of problems with the site in the "first couple of days" after the Oct. 1 launch of HealthCare.gov, but not before. "Nobody says the site is working the way...

Looking to combat headlines dominated by the technical problems plaguing the ObamaCare website, top Obama administration officials will fan out across the country to sell the American public on signing up for insurance under the law. "We are planning to deploy White House officials and Cabinet secretaries to the 10 cities across the country with the highest rates of uninsured Americans to do enrollment events and other grassroots activities," a White House official told CNN on Wednesday. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius will participate in the blitz, with two stops in Texas and another in Phoenix, Ariz., later...

I'm sure al-Qaeda is suitably impressed with the seriousness with which our president takes the threat of a terrorist attack in the next few days. Associated Press: President Barack Obama kicked off his birthday weekend Saturday with a round of golf with friends and a getaway to Camp David. Obama, who turns 52 on Sunday, left the White House just after 8 a.m. EDT -- that's unusually early for the half-hour motorcade ride to Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland -- to squeeze in some golf before the celebration shifted to the presidential retreat nestled in Maryland's Catoctin Mountains. Before...