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There’s an old brain teaser that goes like this: You have a pond of a certain size, and upon that pond, a single lilypad. This particular species of lily pad reproduces once a day, so that on day two, you have two lily pads. On day three, you have four, and so on. Now the teaser. “If it takes the lily pads 48 days to cover the pond completely, how long will it take for the pond to be covered halfway?” The answer is 47 days. Moreover, at day 40, you’ll barely know the lily pads are there. That grim...

President Donald Trump was "verbally and emotionally abusive" toward Kirstjen Nielsen when she was the secretary of homeland security, according to a new book by the Washington Post reporters Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig. An excerpt of the book first published by The Post said Trump "made fun of her stature and believed that at about five feet four inches she was not physically intimidating." The president reportedly told others that Nielsen was "so short." Trump would tell Nielsen, "Kirstjen, you're just not tough enough," and say she didn't "look the part" of homeland security secretary, the book reported, according...

It was supposed to be a county budget meeting in Chattooga County, Ga., last Friday — but before it could even begin, the county commissioner’s wife stormed in and dumped a soda on a reporter’s head. The shocking moment, captured partially on video, stunned the room into silence. Chattooga County Sole Commissioner Jason Winters’s jaw dropped. He uttered, “Oh, my God.” Another voice said: “There you go. I’m sick of it” — and Winters appeared to nod his head in agreement at his wife’s actions. Meanwhile, the reporter sat at the table drenched, saying nothing. “Oh, that’s classy!” a taxpayer...

The whistleblower’s identity remains obscured, the details of his work for the CIA cloaked in secrecy. But the document he delivered reveals almost as much about the investigative mission he carried out in stealth as it does about the alleged abuses of power by the president. From the moment he learned about President Trump’s attempts to extract political dirt on former vice president Joe Biden from the newly elected leader of Ukraine on July 25, the CIA officer behind the whistleblower report moved swiftly behind the scenes to assemble material from at least a half-dozen highly placed — and equally...

VIDEO: Save money, have a more productive garden, healthier soil, and help the environment with composting.

A Washington Post article first posted online on Jan. 19 reported on a Jan. 18 incident at the Lincoln Memorial. Subsequent reporting, a student’s statement and additional video allow for a more complete assessment of what occurred, either contradicting or failing to confirm accounts provided in that story — including that Native American activist Nathan Phillips was prevented by one student from moving on, that his group had been taunted by the students in the lead-up to the encounter, and that the students were trying to instigate a conflict. The high school student facing Phillips issued a statement contradicting his...

Sen. Joe Donnelly (Ind.), a conservative Democrat in one of the tightest reelection battles in the country, made a cringeworthy and puzzling statement about some minorities on his staff during a debate Tuesday night. To begin, here’s a quick vocab refresher. The definition of the word “but,” according to Google, is “to introduce something contrasting with what has already been mentioned." So it was strange when Donnelly, in what seemed like a genuine effort to compliment his aides, said this when asked how he would bring diversity into his staffing: “Our state director is Indian American, but he does an...

The Washington Post’s continued labeling of blogger Jennifer Rubin as a “conservative” in the years since she has repeatedly rejected conservative ideas and principles is an example of why the American people are unable to trust the media, more than three dozen top conservative leaders say.“In truth, it is nearly impossible to discern any conservatism in Rubin’s contemporary writing,” the leaders said in an October 3 letter to the Washington Post editorial board. Citing the rejection of her previous positions on climate change, gun control, Middle East foreign policy, tax cuts, immigration, and abortion, the group said the notion that...

President Trump’s declaration that “I don’t have an attorney general” was not merely the cry of an executive feeling betrayed by a subordinate. It was also a raw expression of vulnerability and anger from a president who associates say increasingly believes he is unprotected — with the Russia investigation steamrolling ahead, anonymous administration officials seeking to undermine him and the specter of impeachment proceedings, should the Democrats retake the House on Nov. 6. In a freewheeling and friendly interview published Wednesday, Trump savaged Attorney General Jeff Sessions, mocking the nation’s top law enforcement official for coming off as “mixed up...

Former National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers on Tuesday disputed a report published in May 2017 alleging that President Donald Trump asked him to push back against the FBI’s collusion investigation. “I’ve never had a discussion with collusion with the president of the United States,” Rogers said at an event held at George Mason University, according to CBS News. “I’ve never been directed to do anything, coerced — any time I had a discussion I felt I was able to say, ‘Hey, here’s my view on that.'” (RELATED: Director Of National Intelligence Says He Can’t Comment On Report That Trump...

For months now, the focus of Campaign 2018, rightly, has been on control of the House. All the metrics continue to point to a midterm election in which Democrats could seize control of that chamber. But for sheer drama and unpredictability, the contest for control of the Senate could be the place to look. The House is no slam-dunk for the Democrats, but most Republicans following the campaigns are genuinely worried and probably right to be that way. The overall environment is difficult for the GOP because of President Trump and because of the location of the competitive races; suburban...

On Wednesday, we learned from Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh, under questioning from Democratic senators: He cannot say whether a president can promise a pardon in exchange for a witness’s silence. He won’t say whether the president is subject to a subpoena to give live testimony in an ongoing criminal matter. He cannot say whether firing a prosecutor looking into the president’s wrongdoing (akin to the Saturday Night Massacre) is acceptable, even though he opined on the subject in 1998. He refuse to say whether a president can self-pardon. He will not recuse himself from matters pertaining to the president’s status...

This is the story of a congressional staffer who committed a crime, and a larger crime that was committed against him. It’s a story of a fever on Capitol Hill, spiked by right-wing extremists with help from President Trump. Last year, a congressional information-technology staffer who worked for more than a dozen Democratic members of Congress (a permissible and customary practice on Capitol Hill) was suspected of using multiple usernames and passwords to skirt House rules and purchase office items. This isn’t exactly the stuff of gripping television crime drama. But rules were broken and the staffer, along with four...

Carson is an acclaimed neurosurgeon who oversees a large government agency for which he has no particular qualifications and in this way represents the grand theme of the Trump administration. He, like the president, came to power by promising that an outsider would have the "common sense" it takes to cure what ails us. And so, while conservative gadfly Armstrong Williams played host to this party at the Monocle restaurant, it was Carson everyone came to see. "There's never been a time in the history of the world where a society became divided like this and did well," Carson said...

Former White House chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon’s hopes of leading a revolt in the Republican Party this year suffered a severe blow Thursday as his allies rebuked and abandoned him following a nasty public break with President Trump. Candidates who once embraced Bannon distanced themselves from his efforts, groups aligned with his views sought separation, and his most important financial backer, the billionaire Mercer family, which has championed him for years, announced that it was severing ties. Even his position as chairman of Breitbart News, a website he has referred to as one of his most effective “weapons,” was...

President Trump has made 1,950 false or misleading claims over 347 days By Glenn Kessler, Meg Kelly and Nicole Lewis January 2 at 3:00 AM With just 18 days before President Trump completes his first year as president, he is now on track to exceed 2,000 false or misleading claims, according to our database that analyzes, categorizes and tracks every suspect statement uttered by the president. As of Monday, the total stood at 1,950 claims in 347 days, or an average of 5.6 claims a day. (Our full interactive graphic can be found here.) As regular readers know, the president...

<p>WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) - President Donald Trump has demanded and received an apology from a Washington Post reporter over a photo of Trump's Florida rally on Friday.</p> <p>Trump tweeted Saturday that ".@DaveWeigel @WashingtonPost put out a phony photo of an empty arena hours before I arrived @ the venue, w/ thousands of people outside, on their way in." The post included photos of the Pensacola venue as Trump spoke.</p>

Al Franken announced his resignation on the floor of the Senate today, a development that makes abundantly clear that the Democratic and Republican parties have never been more different in modern American history than they are right at this moment. Franken’s speech started off on a surprisingly defiant note, going much farther than he had up until this point in asserting that the charges made against him are not true. But that only reinforces the point I’m making about the two parties, as I’ll explain in a moment: “Over the last few weeks, a number of women have come forward...

The White House on Saturday disparaged the legacies of the only two living Republican presidents to precede Donald Trump, after reports that both men castigated Trump in interviews last year and refused to vote for him. Former president George H.W. Bush mocked then-candidate Trump as a “blowhard” and voted for a Democratic president, while the younger Bush worried aloud that Trump would destroy the idea of a Republican president in all but name, according to “The Last Republicans,” which is scheduled to go on sale later this month. The White House responded after quotes from the book were published on...

(CNN)As he approaches the first anniversary of his election victory over Hillary Clinton, President Donald Trump's approval ratings have hit historic lows. According to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, 59% disapprove of Trump's handling of the presidency — the worst of any president at nine months in office since modern polling began. Of those who disapprove, 50% say they do so strongly. Only 37% of those polled approve of Trump's performance in office.