While most of the attention this week has been on the Iowa caucuses and development of the extended drama that has become the Republican primary, the GOP has taken some time to point out their disapproval of President Obama’s recess appointment of Richard Cordray to run the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. “What kind of Monster… .com is he?” Jon Stewart asked, before noting that, not only are recess appointments common, the Senate wasn’t even in recess.

Say what you will about Sen. Al Franken‘s politics — and people tend to either love or hate the Democrat from Minnesota — but his idea for the Senate’s first-ever Secret Santa gift exchange turned out to be a winner. Organized with the help of Sen. Mike Johanns (R-Neb.), the Secret Santa exchange attracted 39 Democrats and 22 Republicans, with the hopes of fostering some across-the-aisle goodwill and cheer. It seemed, at least momentarily, to work.

With Americans increasingly becoming concerned about the state of income inequality in their country, a new report is showing that the disparity between the average American’s wealth and that of their Congressional representative is, to put it mildly, stark, with the Center for Responsive Politics reporting that nearly half of Congress is worth more than $1 million, and their total wealth increased 11% since 2009.

In a heated interview, Vice President Joe Biden spoke with Today‘s Ann Curry today on the defeat of the jobs bill in the Senate. “The president’s jobs bill didn’t even get unanimous vote from Senate Democrats. Why didn’t the president roll up his sleeves months ago and line by line address this issue for the need for jobs to create a bill that both parties could support?” Curry asked. “The president’s jobs bill didn’t even get unanimous vote from Senate Democrats. Why didn’t the president roll up his sleeves months ago and line by line address this issue for the need for jobs to create a bill that both parties could support?” Curry asked. “Hey, he not only rolled up his sleeves; we rolled up our sleeves, our pant legs, we were in our gym shorts working like the devil. They’ve made it real clear that under no circumstances are they prepared to pay for anything that we need to do now so we don’t raise the debt further in order to help people have jobs.”

Yesterday’s insane earthquake was an atypical event for East Coasters, and in response, a constitutionally-required session of the Senate was called. For about 22 seconds. Yes, that’s right. According to the New York Post, Sen. Chris Coons ran a special session in a conference room near Union Station. Nothing was discussed during the meeting, it [...]

Congress has been out of session for little more than a week, but it’s never too early for boisterous Town Hall meetings where constituents get a chance to lash out at their representatives for their perceived incompetence. First up this year is Sen. John McCain, who confronted an enraged (but polite) Tea Party member who demanded an apology for the Senator having mocked her movement on the Senate floor during the debt debate. “I am not sorry for what I said,” the Senator replied dryly.

It seems no one is fully satisfied with the deal that last month’s debt crisis finally carved out of Congress, with polls showing Americans feel Congress behaved like “spoiled children” and the deal with nothing short of “disgusting.” On tonight’s Daily Show, Jon Stewart took a closer look at the congressional “supercommittee” that is supposed to navigate the country out of this mess, and found the comic book heroes at least marginally underwhelming.

While the Tea Party is by and large considered right wing, that doesn’t mean it gets along with most Republicans, though tonight one of those blacklisted GOPers sent love to a group largely distrustful of him. On tonight’s John King USA, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told host John King that, no matter how much they may dislike him, “I love them” for helping them regain a sizable contingent in Congress.

After proposing a balanced budget amendment to the Reid bill and having it struck down, Sen. Rand Paul sat down with Don Lemon to explain what was happening on the floor and what compromises he was up for making. Lemon was in a curt mood, it seems, as weeks have gone by and the debt deadline looms with little to no visible progress occurring. The two had a contentious exchange as Sen. Paul tried to explain he did have the will to compromise when Lemon questioned what it would take.

It’s a rare episode of Hannity that includes a segment where the show’s host exclaims “you are dead wrong!” indignantly at Ann Coulter. This is one of those gems. Sean Hannity could not understand the argument that Republicans were in jeopardy should Cut, Cap, and Balance pass the House but not the Senate, and Coulter attempted to explain that the spin would be unfavorable to them. Aside from the media bias, she argued, “everyone knows, deep in our conservatives hearts, we want the government shut down.”

The debt ceiling debate got a whole lot more colorful yesterday as Sen. John McCain turned it into an elaborate Lord of the Rings analogy, with the Tea Party taking the protagonist hobbit role. He then took back most of what he said later that night on Sean Hannity‘s eponymous show, where he assured raging Tea Partiers that he “admired, respected, and appreciated them.” The 180º turn did not go unnoticed by Lawrence O’Donnell, who mocked Sen. McCain’s defeat in what he says should have been a “preposterous mismatch” against Hannity.

In a fit of anti-Tea Party rage, Sen. John McCain tossed a media exposure lifesaver out to former Delaware senatorial candidate Christine O’Donnell, insulting the Tea Party for having launched her to the Republican nomination. O’Donnell graciously accepted the opportunity to make headlines once again, releasing as epic a statement as we haven’t seen since the Homeric tribute to Newt Gingrich last May.

Sen. John McCain ruffled America’s already disheveled political feathers today with a Senate floor rant mocking the Tea Party’s position on the debt ceiling debate comparing them to hobbits and disparaging them for turning Sharron Angle and Christine O’Donnell into Republican nominees. Unsurprisingly, Sean Hannity had a bone to pick with the senator tonight on those comments, and on his opinion that the Republicans will get the blame for a debt default if they do not compromise.

Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL) appeared on Fox News this evening to support the “Simpson-Bowles” plan, one of the many Congressional offerings for how not to default on our national debt. As a Republican, however, supporting the plan requires jumping over a particularly problematic hurdle– it calls for “revenue increases.” In a tense discussion, Fox’s Gregg Jarrett did his best to make Sen. Kirk admit he was calling for a tax increase, getting increasingly frustrated as Sen. Kirk denied the fact.

As the budget talks heat up and the time to reach any deal necessitates compromise, many on the right are becoming disillusioned with the evolution of the new budget. Among these is Sarah Palin, who told Sean Hannity tonight that she thought Sen. Mitch McConnell‘s plan “makes no sense” and that now, more than evern, “we have to reload. We will not capitulate.”

Among the most shocking concessions to many Democrats that President Obama proposed during this week’s budget talks was the idea that cuts to Social Security and Medicare are “on the table.” The idea, given that Republicans have obstinately refused to negotiate on many points of the budget talks, struck Rachel Maddow on the program tonight as useless, only servicing to “aggrevate and alienate” the Democratic base.

The Republican struggle to reducing government spending has taken many forms, one of which as of late has been an attempt to clamp down on the FAA’s pilot regulations. That effort is being led by Sen. James Inhofe in the Senate, which, Rachel Maddow notes, is rather curious, since the FAA reprimanded Sen. Inhofe lately for being a terrible pilot and almost landing his private plane on a closed runway full of people.

Sarah Palin‘s name is often floated for all sorts of potential projects, especially since she has yet to determine whether she will run for president next year. But here’s a new project: Ann Coulter, still dismayed that her first choice for 2012, New Jersey governor Chris Christie, refuses to run, told Sean Hannity today that she nonetheless does not want to see Palin run for president but, instead, make a Senate bid– in the state of Arizona.

LulzSec (“Laughing at your security since 2011!”) is an offshoot of Anonymous that has gained increasing notoriety after its members successfully hacked websites belonging to major corporations (like Sony), networks, such as PBS, and government agencies.

The group is taking credit for taking CIA.gov offline yesterday afternoon, although the agency has yet to issue confirmation of a hack. In addition, it appears that the official website of the U.S. Senate may have been hacked by the group this week for a second time.

When a fellow senator “meowed” at Australian Labor Party member Senator Penny Wong during a meeting of the senate economics legislation committee, she wasn’t content to simply ignore his rudeness and let it go.

Without skipping a beat, Wong called her colleague, Liberal senator David Bushby, out on his juvenile behavior.

After a Memorial Day respite that likely only served to give everyone involved time to catch up on “weinergate,” the Rod Blagojevich corruption trial has resumed. Blagojevich, still on the stand but now being forced to answer to his incriminating conversations with staffers has found a new roadblock in his testimony, however, and it has nothing to do with the facts of the crime: the prosecution is “making faces” at him.

The Senate may have recently, and unanimously, passed a resolution honoring those involved in the successful raid on Osama bin Laden‘s Abbottabad compound (including President Barack Obama and former president George W. Bush), but the House apparently has no plans to follow suit. The move stems from a resolution, passed in January, that sought to put an end to passing the type of congratulatory measures some in the GOP felt “clogged up the House floor.”

Congressional publication Roll Call is reporting that Sen. John Ensign is planning on resigning tomorrow. Sen. Ensign is an embattled Nevada Republican best known for carrying on an affair with the wife of his former top aide, an affair which indirectly resulted in Sen. Ensign’s parents paying said wife a sum of money.

While the media is reveling in Donald Trump‘s newfound status as Republican presidential candidate, not everyone on the right seems to understand why Trump has chosen President Barack Obama‘s nationality as a battlefront. One voice opposed to spotlighting the “birther” issue is Sen. Marco Rubio, who wondered aloud this week how President Obama’s birthplace has become a legitimate campaign issue.

While last night’s anticlimactic government non-shutdown peeved more than a few in Congress and around Capitol Hill, Sen. Charles Schumer may have come up with the most comically derogatory metaphor for the other side: House Republicans, he griped yesterday, are a “flea, wagging a tail, wagging a dog.”