Outside the Beltway

There should be no question about a request to interview a former US Ambassador.

You keep using that word. It does not mean what you think it means.

An initiative that would have purported to split California into three separate states has been barred by the California Supreme Court from appearing on the November ballot.

More evidence that the politics of the moment aren’t just about illegal immigration.

It took less than twenty-four hours for President Trump to essentially repudiate his purported attempt to walk back the appalling comments he made in Helsinki.

Some Democrats want to compel President Trump’s translator to testify about his private meeting with Vladimir Putin. That’s a bad idea.

Initial polling on Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court find the public more divided than they have been for other recent SCOTUS picks, but that’s unlikely to impact the fate of his nomination.

One day after an embarrassing performance at the Helsinki Summit, President Trump an absurd, completely unbelieve walk back of things the entire world heard him say loud and clear.

Rick Scott is pulling in impressive fundraising numbers, giving Democrats reason to worry that they’ll have another Senate seat to worry about in November.

Mariia Butina, a Russian “gun rights activist, is accused of being an unregistered agent of the Russian government and attempting to influence Republican Party policies regarding Russia in an operation that pre-dates the Trump Presidential campaign.

President Trump’s summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin was an even bigger disaster than anticipated.

Despite Republican hopes, the tax cuts passed by Congress in December are not manifesting themselves in increased wages.

The midterm elections are still four months away, but Democrats are already making moves to prepare for the race for their party’s Presidential nomination in 2020.

Forget the “republic v. a democracy” abstraction. The numbers show some serious flaws in translating popular will into government.

A reference point for the future.

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

A Federal Judge in California has largely rejected a Trump Administration challenge to a series of new laws in California designed to protect so-called “sanctuary cities.”

Democrats are rallying around the “Abolish ICE” slogan in response to the Trump Administration’s immigration policies, but it could end up backfiring on them.

The President is generating so much outrage on a daily basis that we’re missing important stories.

The ill-advised move is sure to raise costs for businesses and consumers and roil global stock markets.

He had to go (and should have been gone some time ago).

Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 213,000 in June and the unemployment rate rose to 4.0 percent.

America promised immigrants who volunteered to serve in our military a fast track to citizenship. Now, we’re throwing them out.

MS13 is one thorough gang.

Democrats are making largely meaningless appeals to the so-called ‘Merrick Garland Precedent” to argue for a delay in confirming the President’s next Supreme Court nominee. The American people feel differently.

Donald Trump had to be talked down from considering military intervention in Venezuela.

With the President set to announce his Supreme Court pick Monday evening, another name has entered the game.

The National Debt has passed $21,000,000,000,000 for the first time in history just as the nation begins its return to the era of trillion dollar budget deficits.

It’s more complicated than one might think.

Yes, it’s still okay to celebrate America.

Today is a great day to reflect on the Enlightenment ideals that fueled a Declaration.