Outside the Beltway

Even if all he gets out of the Helsinki Summit is a handshake and a photograph, Vladimir Putin has already won.

California’s Democratic Party endorsed “progressive” upstart Kevin de León over Senator Dianne Feinstein, but this is unlikely to stop Feinstein from winning election to a sixth term in office.

The Strzok hearing provides a return to this timeworn favorite.

Some thoughts on the Strzok hearing.

The Office of Special Counsel Robert Mueller has issued indictments against twelve Russian intelligence officials for election-related hacking, and in the process has shown most of the arguments made by the President and his surrogates regarding the Russia investigation are nonsense.

Not surprisingly, the President’s visit to the United Kingdom wasn’t exactly diplomatic, or even borderline polite.

Happy Friday.

The Democratic National Committee is one step closer to adopting a rule change that would make superdelegates largely irrelevant to the party’s nomination process.

Another poll shows that the vast majority of Americans do not want to see the Supreme Court’s ruling in Roe v. Wade overturned.

The NATO Summit is going about as well as can be expected.

At least in these early days, Democrats appear to lack a coherent message, or a coherent strategy, to propel any effort to block Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court.

A new poll lends credence to the suggestion that Democrats should be careful about rallying behind the call to “Abolish ICE.”

There’s a reason President Trump’s Supreme Court picks are “normal” in a way his national security and economic teams are not.

In one area (with an important caveat) this has been a pretty normal administration.

A Federal Judge has rejected a Trump Administration effort to change a 20-year-old legal settlement that bars long-term detention of immigrant families.

There are good arguments as to why progressive Senators should vote against his confirmation. Let’s stick to those.

A selection that is likely to keep the Senate GOP united and red-state Democrats up for re-election under pressure to vote to confirm.

The Thai SEALs have completed an amazing rescue effort with success.

On the eve of the NATO Summit, President Trump continues to engage in tactics that seem to serve no purpose other than to undermine America’s most important and successful alliance.

With Brexit negotiations proceeding slowly, Theresa May loses her Brexit Minister and, more significantly, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, who is likely to become one of her leading critics inside the Conservative Party going forward.

A new poll finds that most Americans oppose key elements of the immigration policies that the President and Republicans in Congress support.

Some additional comparative info (internationally and state-to-state).

Some considerations on the politics of Roe v. Wade.

A police officer in Lancaster, Pennsylvania who tased an apparently compliant African-American man will not be disciplined by his department, and probably won’t face charges either.

A man who had been identified as an assailant at last year’s Charlottesville rally and apparent member of a white supremacist organization has been dismissed by defense contractor Northrop Grumman.