Conn Carroll, DC Examiner

Senators often make the rounds of the Sunday news shows, and Republicans are the most frequent guests.

Patricia Murphy, The Daily Beast

WASHINGTON -- Lying about receiving a military medal could become a crime, under a bill headed to the president's desk.

The Stolen Valor Act cleared the Senate Wednesday and the House earlier this week. The act makes it a crime to lie about military medals, if the purpose is to benefit from the claim.

The measure revives a law struck down by the Supreme Court. The court said it may be disreputable to lie about receiving a medal, but it's protected under the First Amendment.

This bill is narrower, making it a crime to lie about being decorated with the intent to profit personally or financially. It's sponsored by Nevada Republicans Joe Heck in the House and Dean Heller in the Senate. Violators could face up to a year in prison.

Sen. Marco Rubio
RUBIO: "The president doesn't have clean hands in this because, as I said yesterday on the floor of the Senate "¦ this administration has created a culture of intimidation."

President Obama’s latest cabinet-level nominees are running into deep resistance in the Senate, pitching Democrats and Republicans into another tense standoff over White House appointments.

Josh Kraushaar, NJ

Daniel Gross, The Daily Beast
On Monday, the Senate approved a measure that would let states tax retailers based in other states when those retailers sell to their own residents. In other words, states may soon get the green light to tax e-commerce.It’s about time.Here’s why.Governments are starved for revenue, particularly at the state and local level. We may be in a golden age of federal deficit reduction, but the federal deficit is still large. States and cities, which can’t run deficits, have been cutting jobs and spending across the board for lack of revenue. Since the beginning of 2009,...

Dana Milbank, Washington Post

E.J. Dionne, Washington Post
WASHINGTON -- The heroic and inspiring role played by the families of the Sandy Hook massacre's victims should not be used to create what would be a dangerously misleading narrative about how they changed the politics of guns.The importance of last Thursday's 68-31 vote in the Senate to proceed with debate on a bill to curb gun violence cannot be understated, and the testimonies from the citizens of Newtown were vital to that victory.To say this is not to deny that many fights loom ahead. This was a vote to debate, not to pass, a bill -- and the House of Representatives could prove...

Former Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) emphasized his ties to the Granite State during a Saturday appearance in New Hampshire, where he hinted he may pursue a senate run.

"I think it's important to note, I do have ties to New Hampshire," Brown said during an appearance during a National Guard conference, according to Patch. "For me to be here is not unusual. I have nine generations of ties to New Hampshire."

Brown shied away from any definite answers on a potential senate run, echoing comments he made on April 5 that he's "not going to rule out anything right now."

"Nothing's off the table, but nothing's on the table, either," Brown said on Saturday.

Democrats are taking advantage of Brown's hints at another run, using the talk to raise money for their incumbent in New Hampshire, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen.

Click here for more from Patch, including a video interview with Brown.

Michael Tomasky, The Daily Beast
As the Senate gets set to show that you can fight the National Rifle Association, let’s consider what has to be the worst reason ever put forward by anyone to oppose anything in the entire history of the human race: that the actions under consideration “won’t prevent” future tragedies or “wouldn’t have prevented” such-and-such sociopath from unloading hundreds of rounds into the bodies of children. Gun nuts invoke this argument as if it’s some kind of clincher, a discussion-ender. It’s anything but. It...

Gail Collins, New York Times
Wow, there’s a lot going on in Washington! Budgets are flying all over the place. The Senate might actually start voting on a gun bill Thursday. And immigration reform has now gotten so far that the House of Representatives has a bipartisan Gang of Eight working on it.

Sen. John McCain may have apologized for calling relative Senate newcomers Rand Paul and Ted Cruz “wacko birds,” but the Arizona Republican hasn’t given up fighting their isolationist position on U.S. foreign policy.

Sabato & Kondik, Wall Street Journal
President Obama's greatest setback to date has been the 2010 midterm elections. Gains that Republicans scored in the House and Senate still circumscribe his agenda. It is no surprise, then, that the Obama White House wants to achieve something no other president has ever done: Retake full control of Congress in a midterm. 

E.J. Dionne, Washington Post
WASHINGTON -- Just when our politics seemed destined to freeze into a brain-dead brand of partisanship, party lines started cracking up.It is common in politics to assume that whatever has been happening will keep happening. But a series of events last week suggested that human beings -- even those of a highly partisan and ideological sort -- bridle at being confined in intellectual straitjackets.Start with the progress on two of this year's central issues, gun safety and immigration.It was unfortunate that talks between Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and Senate advocates of universal...

Josh Kraushaar, NJ
President Obama’s advisers have telegraphed their goal to win control of the House in 2014, which would give the president unfettered control to advance his favored policies. But the bigger concern for the White House should be the more realistic possibility that they could lose the Senate in 2014 – an outcome that’s only enhanced by the president’s second-term strategy focusing on rallying the base over centrist governance.It’s no coincidence that on Wednesday, in a welcome about-face, Obama belatedly engaged a charm offensive with...

Jim Webb, National Interest
In matters of foreign policy, Congress, and especially the Senate, was designed as a hedge against the abuses exhibited by overeager European monarchs who for centuries had whimsically entangled their countries in misguided adventures. America would not be such a place. The Constitution would protect our governmental process from the overreach of a single executive who might otherwise succumb to the impulsive temptation to unilaterally risk our country's blood, treasure and international prestige. Congress was given the power to declare war and appropriate funds, thus eliminating any...

While Washington was obsessing Wednesday over whether or not the oh-so-intimidating Gene Sperling had threatened Bob Woodward over his deeply misguided take on the budget sequester, another veteran Democratic number-cruncher skated by: The Senate confirmed Jack Lew to be secretary of the Treasury, by a vote of 71 to 26.