Outside the Beltway

The case of Katie Porter’s committee assignments.

An explanation to a question you likely weren’t asking.

Yet another example.

On the one hand, true. On the other, so what?

Ted Cruz is at it again.

Foolish lies are for foolish liars.

It really does feel like a daily occurrence.

Also some ironic positions on capitalism.

Defense of the filibuster tend to be a combo of mistakes and mythology.

A way-too-early assessment of how it’s going.

Reacting to the asymmetrical polarization of the electorate.

Is the stimulus bill it for this administration?

Is humility the wrong play here?

The fixes worsen the stated problem (more on Iowa and other states’ attempts to restrict voting).

Making it harder to vote in Iowa.

Yet another SCOTUS rejection.

HR1 is a national approach to expanding voter access. State legislatures are trying to both expand and restrict the vote as well.

And what GOP opposition says about the party.

How the West Virginia Democrat came to vote for the stimulus bill.

The politics of bait-and-switch.

The ongoing codependency that is the Trump-GOP relationship.

Reflections on the events of 6 January two months later.

It’s easy if you try.

A story that is both unserious and yet emblematic of our age in a serious way.

The Lone Star State is celebrating its independence in a big way.

This feels like resignation territory.

The annual gathering showed us what the Republican Party would become years ago.

A CPAC speaker and the return of the problem of the Heritage electoral fraud database.

Yet another reminder about pathologies of US democracy.

The Senate parliamentarian has ruled against ramming it through in the COVID relief bill.

What was mere signaling under a Republican Senate and President could now become law.

What’s taking him so long?

Democrats are already jockeying to influence President Biden’s pick should a vacancy arise.

And a discussion of markets (and a warning about partisanship).

The man most famous for getting screwed out of a Supreme Court seat has a more interesting backstory.

The loaners, the dreamers, and schemes.

The Senate’s last conservative Democrat is taking President Biden’s call for unity seriously.

Now, we’re just haggling over price.

It is really so hard to understand that you don’t go on vacation during a massive disaster?

The 97-year-old former Senator and Presidential candidate is ill.

Nevada is mounting a challenge to the rural, lily-white states that always go first in the presidential primary gauntlet.

Another empirical indication of the toll of the pandemic.

The disgraced loser remains as popular as ever with his base.

America’s institutions are undemocratic but only some of them are a product of the Constitution.

The distance in accountability between the highest and the lowest must be shortened.

Early analysis merely confirms analysts’ priors.

Historical, but not enough.

And illustrations of the fact that this isn’t a regular trial.

Its founders are laughing all the way to the bank.