I am Sam Adams

An outside group founded this spring by two former Obama White House advisers has raked in millions in donations since April, relying in part on top-flight fundraisers and labor unions to counter GOP-leaning ads this summer critical of the president and congressional Democrats. 

President Barack Obama is stepping up his criticism of Syria's crackdown on protesters, charging that the Syrian president is "completely incapable and unwilling" to respond to what Obama calls the legitimate grievances of the Syrian people.

A top House Republican mocked President Obama for trying to leverage his Twitter bully pulpit to pressure Congress into approving a debt-limit deal. 

President Obama announced Sunday night that leaders of both parties in both chambers have reached an agreement on a debt-reduction deal that will "lift the cloud of uncertainty that hangs over our economy."

Five months after President Obama told him to leave Libya, Muammar Qaddafi is pressing on against NATO-backed rebel forces, flaunting his remaining power in the face of Western nations fearful of combatting him with greater force. And four months after Obama offered Syria's leader an ultimatum to lead reform or leave, Bashar Assad's crackdown on dissent rages on.

The fight over the debt ceiling has turned into a dramatic leadership test for President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner, opponents in a divided government who've gone from negotiating in secret to facing off in public at a watershed moment for the country and their own political careers.

President Obama has been “getting absolutely no sleep” amid tireless work on the debt-ceiling crisis, according to senior aide Valerie Jarrett. No, countered press secretary Jay Carney, the president seemed “well rested and very focused.”

The apparent contradiction illustrated the White House choice as the budget battle with Congress nears its climax: whether to present Obama as a central player asserting his power to craft a deal, or as an above-the-fray observer waiting for a polarized Congress to do its job.

The House on Friday narrowly approved Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) debt-ceiling framework, one day after leaders postponed the vote and revamped the measure to secure support from conservatives and four days before the deadline for Congress to raise the federal borrowing limit or else send the country into default.

The new Boehner debt plan – which would allow for a short-term increase in the country’s $14.3 trillion borrowing limit but would make a second increase dependent on Congress sending to the states a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution – passed the House shortly before 6:30 p.m. on party-line vote, 218 to 210.

As lawmakers struggle to resolve the debt crisis, a growing number of observers wonder whether President Obama has one last trump card at his disposal: ignoring the debt ceiling altogether.

Top Democrats are reviving an argument — one that has arisen several times — that the White House could invoke the 14th Amendment of the Constitution to raise the debt ceiling without congressional approval.

“Is there anything that prohibits him from doing that?” Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) told the newspaper The Hill. “The answer is no.”

With recent polls showing Americans increasingly frustrated with the debt-ceiling fight in Washington, Comedy Central’s late-night comedians are finding a goldmine of material -- and no party is safe from satire.

In a segment titled “Armadebtdon 2011” on Tuesday, Jon Stewart of “The Daily Show” lambasted President Obama’s plea for Americans to make the case for compromise directly to their members of Congress.

“That’s your idea, call your congressman?” Stewart chortled. “Did the president just quit?”