Stephen Reader

This morning, a spokesperson for Newt Gingrich announced that the former House Speaker would launch his 2012 presidential bid on Wednesday via Facebook and Twitter. Gingrich will be the first Republican hopeful polling in double digits to formally enter the race.

What's the one thing every Democratic New York State Senator who has voted against gay marriage has in common? They're all from New York City.

Tim Pawlenty's the most important sleeper in the race. He has good ties to all segments of conservatives and in the Republican party. He's bright, he's articulate, he doesn't have f...

New Yorkers United for Marriage, the gay rights advocacy supergroup that formed last month to fight for marriage equality legislation in the state, has identified at least 12 Republican state senators that they're trying to turn into "yes" votes. (The State Assembly has never had trouble passing a gay marriage bill; still safely held by Democrats, consensus is that garnering votes in that chamber is a non-issue.) In the Senate, they'll need every single Democrat and as many members of the GOP as they can muster if a bill has any chance of surviving; similar efforts died on the Senate floor in 2007 and again in 2009, with every Republican voting against it.

Here's a quick look at four senators on the list, and why they're there.

After spending all year warning the government against failing to raise the debt ceiling, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner announced on Monday that the default deadline, originally scheduled for May 16th, could be pushed back to August 2nd. He'd already delayed his estimate once before, to land somewhere in July. 

So why all the dilly dallying? Is the debt ceiling an impending problem, or not?  

It was in fact the detainees who were interrogated without enhanced interrogation techniques who helped find the path to bin Laden. You can't have it both ways; members of the Bush ...

A new poll from the Pew Research Center shows President Obama getting high marks following the death of Osama bin Laden, while a Quinnipiac survey has Mitt Romney leading the pack of 2012 GOP hopefuls.

It took less than 24 hours for "Osama's dead" merchandise to flood the internet. How can you cash in on the meme? Easy. Just follow these simple steps, and you'll be making money off the likeness of a dead person in no time.

The U.S. has known for a long time that Pakistan is playing a double game, but the U.S. doesn't have many options. We play the cards we're dealt. The ISI has very different prioriti...

With Republicans now controlling most state legislatures, the GOP has the luxury of steering the process. That likely means packing newly-distributed black voters into strategically d...

A new Siena poll released this morning shows Republican Jane Corwin leading Democrat Kathy Hochul and the Tea Party's Jack Davis in a special election for New York's 26th congressional district.

The energy right now in the Republican party is over fiscal issues...this fear about America becoming more like Europe in terms of a social welfare state. That said, there are still...

The irony is that we have congestion pricing in New York City, in that we pay, according to a study by the Partnership for New York, $13 billion a year in terms of time wasted in tr...

It's almost off-to-the-races time! With only months to go before the first Republican presidential debate, the big question right now is who will run. Some front-runners are remaining...

The real job here is for [Mayor Corey] Booker to be a Geronimo and convince people that he's not just going to apply what Zuckerberg wants him to do; that he's out there, he's liste...

Back in 1987 he was flirting with the idea of running for president and saying, 'Of course, if I ran, I'd win.' And this is in the 1988 election, almost a quarter-century ago. Just ...

Public support for same sex marriage in New York state is at an unprecedented 58 percent. Only 36 percent of New Yorkers are opposed. Taking those numbers along with Governor Andrew C...

A new Washington Post/ABC News poll shows President Obama getting better marks than the Congressional Republicans who have frustrated his agenda at every turn.

Yesterday Standard & Poor's downgraded the outlook for U.S. sovereign credit ratings from 'stable' to 'negative.' That prompted It's a Free Country readers to ask one question over an...

Right now we don't have an incentive that is based appropriately in the consumer world. There are no incentives to bring those costs under control, and yet we are faced with a situa...