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A phrase used by Vice President Spiro Agnew to refer to the members of the media with whom he had a very acrimonious relationship.

“Netroots” is grassroots political activism organized through blogs and other online social media.

The term was coined by Jerome Armstrong and is used in his 2006 book co-authored with Markos Moulitsas, Crashing the Gate: Netroots, Grassroots, and the Rise of …

The New Deal was a series of programs created during the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. It was designed to bring immediate economic relief during the Great Depression, as well as to bring about reforms in a number of …

The New Frontier was the slogan which President John F. Kennedy used when setting out his vision of America’s future. 

Kennedy first used the phrase when he accepted the Democratic party’s nomination for the presidency, on July 15, 1960. Kennedy …

The Night Mayor is the informal name for a city official charged with taking care of issues that arise in a city after dark. A growing number of major metropolitan areas in the United States have hired so-called night mayors …

In June of 1934, Adolph Hitler ordered his troops to carry out a large-scale purge of suspected dissidents within the Nazi party.

The night of the long knives actually took place over the course of several days and nights. Historians …

NIMBY is an acronym meaning Not In My Back Yard.

NIMBY refers to people who resist having potentially dangerous or disruptive projects carried out in their own neighborhoods; they usually don’t object to those projects when they are carried out …

“Nobody drowned at Watergate” was a phrase used, especially by supporters of President Richard Nixon, to minimize the impact of the Watergate scandal and to point to scandals in the Democratic party.

On June 17, 1972, five men managed to …

A “nose count” is a tally of people to see how many are present. It’s similar to a head count. The census is a form of nose counting.

Linguists have suggested that the origin of the term “nose count” …

“Not for attribution” refers to a specific kind of arrangement between a journalist and a politician or anyone passing along information to that journalist. 

Journalists make a range of different arrangements with their sources, setting out exactly how the journalists …

The “nuclear option” is when the presiding officer of the U.S. Senate disregards a rule or precedent.

This most commonly refers to an effort by the Senate to end a filibuster by a simple majority, even though rules specify that …

“Nut-cutting time” is when drastic actions are required, because all other methods have failed. The phrase is used in sports as well as in politics.

The term is similar to “crunch time” – it’s a moment when the stakes are …