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WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel on Thursday sharply criticized U.S. states that are defying the Pentagon by refusing to allow National Guard facilities to issue ID cards that enable same-sex spouses of military members to claim benefits. "This is wrong," Hagel said in remarks prepared for delivery in New York.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on Thursday blamed frustration with President Obama for the poor performance of Democratic candidates in New York, saying his victory fell short of a landslide because of discontent unrelated to the state. “This was a real Republican wave that went across the country,” Mr. Cuomo said. He added that voters were motivated by “dissatisfaction with a Democratic administration in Washington, premised on economic anxiety.” “And I don’t think anything we were talking about had any relevance, frankly, that would change that one way or the other,” he said on.

In the coming weeks, Hillary Rodham Clinton will stop delivering paid speeches. She will embark on an unofficial listening tour to gather ideas from the business community, union leaders and others. And she will seek advice from such far-flung advisers as an ad man in Austin, Tex., behind the iconic “Don’t Mess With Texas” campaign and a leading strategist at a Boston-based public affairs consulting firm with ties to the Kennedys. The Democratic debacle in Tuesday’s midterm elections has put new urgency on Mrs. Clinton’s efforts to create a blueprint for a 2016 presidential candidacy, including exploring White Plains as...

The New York Times put together a little article about some of the disgusting race-baiting attack ads run by frenzied Democrats in the fading days of the midterm election season. It’s not really surprising that the Times would find nothing terribly objectionable about this – the Paper of Record’s eyebrow is raised a bit, but not enough to make its monocle fall out – but it’s a sobering reminder of how very, very different the rules for Democrats are. They can be as nasty as they want to be, without fear of the media making them pay much of a...

Radical liberal feminism — the kind that likes abortion on demand and taxpayer-funded birth control — has been rejected at the polls. Or, at least, it’s been a really rough week, or so. And I’m not just talking about the fact that Sen.-elect Cory Gardner effectively pushed back on the “war on women” narrative by defeating Colorado’s ”Mark Uterus.”The story also played out in Texas, where — writing about the race — Mollie Hemingway observed: “Wendy Davis was the face of ‘War On Women’ Politics. How’d that go?” And it played out in California, where Sandra Fluke lost a bid for...

Sen. Charles Schumer said President Obama should take executive action to change immigration policy because Republicans have refused to pass a reform bill. “The president has no choice but to take executive action where he can, wherever it's legally allowed, to help reform the immigration system. We cannot put up with this constant obstruction. We need to fix our broken immigration system,” Schumer said Thursday.

The Daily Show” host Jon Stewart may mock the 1 percent, but he is one of them — and now he’s even richer, thanks to a Tribeca real-estate sale. The political funny­man and social critic just sold his sprawling downtown duplex penthouse at 161 Hudson St., on the eighth and ninth floors, in what appears to be an off-market deal for $17.5 million. --SNIP-- Like other members of America’s super-rich, Stewart hid his ownership of the penthouse behind an LLC, according to public records.

Leftovers: A roundup of uncalled races By: Kevin Robillard November 6, 2014 02:28 PM EST More than 36 hours after the last polls closed, two statewide races in Alaska, the Virginia Senate race and a slew of West Coast House races have yet to be called.Here’s how things stand:THE HOUSEAZ-2: Highly touted Republican recruit Martha McSally leads Democratic Rep. Ron Barber by just under 1,300 votes. The Arizona Republic reports that only a few thousand votes remain uncounted in Cochise County, while 47,000 votes still need to be counted in Democrat-friendly Pima County.CA-7: Former GOP Rep. Doug Ose has...

The Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) offers our warmest congratulations to the Jewish Republicans who won their races yesterday in the important election of 2014. We are especially delighted that Lee Zeldin won his congressional race in New York’s first district, making him the Jewish Republican in the 114th U.S. Congress. We are also pleased that the Jewish Republicans in state offices around the country won their reelections. Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens, Ohio State Treasurer Josh Mandel, South Dakota State Senator Dan Lederman, Texas State Representative and House Speaker Joe Straus and Texas State Representative Craig Goldman all won reelection....

The New York City doctor who is being treated for Ebola has been playing the banjo and riding an exercise bike in his hospital room. A spokeswoman for the city Health and Hospitals Corporation says Dr. Craig Spencer requested the banjo and bike and has been using both. The agency's president, Dr. Ram Raju, said Thursday that Spencer continues to be stable and is making good progress.

So how is NYC handling Ebola? Throughout New York City, health officials announced that 357 individuals are being actively monitored, representing travelers from Ebola afflicted countries as well as hospital staff who cared for the latest Ebola patient, Dr. Craig Spencer, at Bellevue Hospital. In a letter to Congress Thursday afternoon, President Obama asked representatives to approve $6.18 billion emergency appropriations request for the 2015 fiscal year to develop a comprehensive strategy to contain and end the Ebola outbreak. This request mirrors the appeal to Congress in 2009 to combat the H1N1 flu outbreak.

Former Obama White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, now a political commentator for CNN, casually admitted that, yes, his party uses race to convince minorities that Republicans seek to oppress them. Before the midterm election, Carney said: "Republicans are going to pick up seats in the Senate and the House, and they may win control of the Senate. So (Democrats) need to mobilize their base voters, and that is especially true of minority voters." Carney also admitted that the use of the race card is cynical: "Equating support for stand-your-ground law ... doesn't mean you supported the action that took...

The number of people under "active monitoring" for Ebola symptoms has increased from 117 on Monday to 357 people Wednesday, health officials said. The vast majority of those being monitored arrived in New York City within the past 21 days from the three Ebola-affected countries, the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation said in a statement. Others being monitored are the staff caring for Dr. Craig Spencer, the physician being treated for Ebola at Bellevue Hospital, the lab workers who conducted his blood tests and the FDNY EMTs who transported the doctor. All of those being monitored showed no...

Elise Stefanik, 30, became the youngest woman elected to Congress in the nation's history on Tuesday, winning New York's 21st open district 56-32 against Democrat Aaron Woolf. "I didn't think I was ever going to run for office," Stefanik, a Republican, told Business Insider in the lead-up to Election Day.

Republican Elise Stefanik on Tuesday became the youngest woman ever elected to Congress. And she’s pro-life. And she’s from New York state. Stefanik, who was a staffer with the presidential campaign of pro-life Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, romped to a 22-point victory over Democratic challenger Aaron Woolf in New York’s 21st congressional district. The 30-year-old Stefanik is considered a rising Republican star and leading pro-life groups like the Susan B. Anthony List campaigned for her. elisestefanik“I didn’t think I was ever going to run for office,” Stefanik told Business Insider recently. “But I was disappointed in the 2012 elections. I...

The epicenter for House Democrats' losses Tuesday night was in New York State, where Republicans scored stunning margins or performed better than expected in race after race. "Roughly a quarter of the House losses nationally occurred in New York," a Democratic insider told Business Insider. None of the Republican seats Democrats had targeted went their way, even as Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.), the chair of the DCCC, the campaign arm of House Democrats, made a number of those races a priority. Republicans were more than happy to crow about the results. "Steve Israel said it himself — 'New York was...

GOP Rep. Chris Gibson cruised to reelection Tuesday, derailing the political dreams of wealthy Democratic candidate Sean Eldridge. Eldridge, the 28-year-old husband of Facebook billionaire and New Republic publisher Chris Hughes, spent nearly $3 million on his quest to win New York’s Hudson Valley-based 19th District. Eldridge conceded with Gibson holding a 65 percent to 35 percent lead. Twenty-eight percent of precincts were reporting. Gibson, a decorated Army veteran, has held the seat since 2011 and managed to win over many Democrats, building a solid lead over Eldridge, who moved to the district only a few years ago. Eldridge tried...

UPDATE 11:05 PM: Rep. Michael Grimm has defeated Democratic challenger Domenic Recchia for the 11th Congressional District seat. We will continue to update this story with additional information. Original story below.

Political narratives are necessarily reductive, invariably gauzy and thus often misleading," writes the New York Times Magazine's Robert Draper in a 7,000-plus word profile of Texas Democratic candidate for governor Wendy Davis. Draper favorably examines the complicated biography of Davis, which the Dallas Morning News revealed is different than the one told by her campaign. While Draper acknowledges that key facts of her biography remain disputed, he insists that "female politicians were far more constrained than men in how they recounted their stories. "A man could break the mold of American virtue. A woman challenged stereotypes at her peril," he...

What the hell is going on at Duke University that a professor of public policy, drawing on the hard-won wisdom of a junior, could write a New York Times op-ed piece that lacks even a junior-high civics-class familiarity with the U.S. Constitution? And who’s minding the rear gate at the Grey Lady’s opinion section that the paper would publish something so shoddy? You’ll be asking yourself these and other questions after reading “Cancel the Midterms,” a passionate call to return the former (and future?) British colonies in America to a more kingly state. The piece is by Duke professor...