Outside the Beltway

While it has an admitted populist appeal. the idea of Congressional pay being withheld during a shutdown is a non-starter due to the Constitution.

President Trump announced today that James Mattis would be out as Secretary of Defense by the end of the year.

President Trump has lost another one of his top advisers on the fight against ISIS.

One of the strongest climate regulations in the country is almost certainly unconstitutional.

There was no progress on resolving the government shutdown today, and little hope that anything will happen before late next week.

President Trump is now apparently on the warpath against the Federal Reserve Board Chairman he appointed only a year ago.

While the political media is spending a lot of time talking about it, the actual impact of this latest government shutdown is likely to be limited and possibly even unnoticeable to most Americans.

Trump doesn’t understand (nor respect) the role of the Fed.

The government entered its third shutdown of the year with little sign of an immediate resolution.

The Pentagon is being ordered to draw up plans to withdraw roughly one-half of the American forces remaining in Afghanistan. It’s about time.

With just hours to go, a partial government shutdown is becoming more and more likely.

In what clearly appears to be a rebuke of the President, Defense Secretary James Mattis is retiring as Secretary of Defense.

Hours before the House was set to vote on a temporary funding bill for the government, President Trump has apparently changed his mind.

The North Korean government is making clear what it means when it speaks of denuclearization, and its far different from what the United States means.

New York State seems likely to join the list of states where marijuana has been legalized sometime next year.

Tennessee will have an open Senate seat in 2020 thanks to Lamar Alexander’s decision to retire at the end of his current term.

The Senate passed a bill that keeps the government funded through the beginning of February, but fails to provide any funding for the President’s border wall.

The Senate overwhelmingly passed major reforms in Federal sentencing and related laws. As the name of the bill implies, it’s a first step, but a good first step.

The latest entry in the unity third party presidential candidate genre is just as bad as they always are.

The mystery surrounding a secret proceeding in Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation has at least partly been solved.

With three days to go before a government shutdown, there are at least some signs that the President may be backing away from his threats to shut down the government over funding for his border wall.

Under fire from the New York Attorney General, Donald Trump’s questionable charitable foundation is shutting down.

With the Friday night deadline fast approaching, nobody in Washington seems to know what’s going on.

Republicans scored a win in Court last week, but it seems likely to lead to a political loss in the long-term.

After a barrage of criticism, New Jersey Democrats are abandoning a controversial redistricting proposal.

Mystery continues to surround a proceeding that has been making its way through the Federal Courts in Washington, D.C.

As Washington heads into the final days of a budget shutdown, Republicans find themselves on the losing end of a public relations battle.

Former Vice-President Biden and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders are, not surprisingly, leading the early polls for the 2020 Democratic nomination.

An argument against “bothersiderism” in this case and, yet again, noting the problem with single seat districts.

On the way out the door, Scott Walker signed a bill to take powers away from his successor (and demonstrated a lack of understanding of Venn diagrams).

Eight years after it was signed into law, a Federal Judge has ruled the Affordable Care Act to be unconstitutional.

In a small, but meaningful, step, the Senate has rebuked the Administration’s policies toward the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Jon Kyl was named to replace John McCain back in September, but as expected he’s already announcing that he’ll be leaving at the end of the year.

More evidence that President Trump was an active participant in the scheme to silence Karen McDougal and Stormy Daniels in advance of the 2016 election.

House Republicans reportedly don’t have the votes to fund the President’s border wall.

Federal prosecutors are investigating the Trump Inaugural Committee, adding to the long list of the President’s legal troubles.

The Trump Administration appears to think that the Budget Deficit and National Debt aren’t a big deal because we can just grow our way out of the problem. This is highly unlikely to happen.

Gerrymandering. It’s not just for Republicans.

The publisher of the National Enquirer admits that it made payments to a Playboy model for the purpose of protecting Donald Trump’s campaign for President.

Jacob T. Levy has a column worth a read.

The President’s former lawyer and “fixer” Michael Cohen has been sentenced to three years in prison for his role in assisting the President in various scandals and cover-ups.

Nancy Pelosi is apparently close to a deal with dissident Democrats that will keep her in power until at least 2022.

While most Hollywood blockbusters have male leads, films starring women actually do better on the aggregate.

Once again, President Trump is threatening a shutdown over the border wall that Mexico was supposed to pay for.

The Supreme Court declined to hear a case involving state laws banning Medicaid reimbursement for non-abortion services provided by Planned Parenthood.

Senator Mitch McConnell and others are blocking a criminal justice reform bill currently pending in the Senate.

The verdict of last month’s elections was clear, but Republicans still don’t seem to get it.

This month’s budget fight is likely the last chance the President will have to get any funding for his border wall.

President Trump’s first choice to replace John Kelly as Chief of Staff turned the job down, leading one to wonder why anyone would want the job.