Outside the Beltway

Missed it by that much.

Another political earthquake in Washington as Kevin McCarthy drops out of the race for Speaker, and the House GOP doesn’t seem to know which way to go.

Hillary Clinton has started to distance herself from President Obama on some issues. It’s an understandable strategy, but it carries many risks.

Obama’s first Secretary of State has come out against Obama’s Trans Pacific Partnership.

An FCC rule from a bygone era may get Bernie Sanders and company some time on NBC.

One of the nation’s preeminent polling firms is sitting out the 2016 primaries.

With just a day to go before House Republicans pick their candidate for Speaker, conservatives don’t seem to be able to unify behind a candidate.

In which I change my mind on an important topic.

Quietly, Florida Senator Marco Rubio has been moving close to the front f the race for the Republican Presidential nomination.

With time running out for him to make a decision, a new report shows how deeply Vice President Biden has been in stirring up the speculation that is now surrounding him.

A woman who has been running for President for at least eight years is apparently having trouble explaining why she wants to be President.

Linking view on guns to political self-identity.

California Governor Jerry Brown has signed a bill legalizing physician-assisted suicide, making California the fifth state to legalize the practice and possibly giving real political momentum to the Right To Die movement.

President Obama is reportedly considering a plan that would keep up to 5,000 American troops in Afghanistan past the withdrawal date he had already set.

The marriage equality issue is resolved, but that doesn’t mean the Supreme Court won’t have a lot of high profile cases on its docket over the next eight months.

Thanks mostly to Republicans unhappy with the Court’s decisions on same-sex marriage and the Affordable Care Act, public disapproval of the Supreme Court is nearing a new high.

Your tax dollars at work.

In the wake of yesterday’s shootings in Oregon, President Obama took the airwaves to offer the same empty rhetoric he has on this issue in the past, and to make the false claim that there are simple solutions to what is a very complex problem.

September’s Jobs Report was disappointing to say the least, and calls into question the Federal Reserve’s apparent plan to raise interest rates in the near future.

Up to 13 people are dead and as many 20 injured after another mass shooting on a college campus.

Rand Paul’s fundraising in the just completed quarter is disappointing enough that it’s clearly time for him to consider calling it a day.

With Russia now launching its own airstrikes in Syria, it’s become obvious that U.S. policy in the Syrian Civil War is irrational and contradictory. And Russia’s policy isn’t any better.

Vice-President Biden will apparently not be at the first Democratic debate, which may be yet another sign that he’s not running for President.

Budget cuts mean it is now harder to get an ID in much of Alabama.

The criteria for next month’s third Republican Presidential debate have been announced, and they’re likely to end up being bad news for several Republican candidates.

The man who will likely be the next Speaker of the House accidentally acknowledged the real motivation behind the Select Committee investigating, yet again, the Benghazi attack.

RNC Chairman Reince Priebus suggested that Iowa and New Hampshire shouldn’t get used to their place at the top of the primary calendar. He’s right, but fixing the crazy system that put them there isn’t going to be easy.

The Taliban dealt a major defeat to a numerically superior Afghan Army force, raising questions about just how well Afghanistan can defend itself on its own.

Congress will get a temporary funding bill passed in time to avoid a shutdown on Thursday, but it may just be delaying the inevitable.

Trump remains in the lead, but he has been steadily falling over the month of September. (And this triggers, as these things do, musings about institutions and our party system).

The next Republican debate is likely to be a lot smaller than the previous two, and that could prove fatal for several candidates.

NASA had a potentially significant announcement today.

John Boehner let loose on the “false prophets” on the right yesterday, and he’s absolutely right.

The seeds of the current peace deal date back to 2007-2008 (plus some longer-term background notes).

Peace between the FARC and the Colombian state appears nigh.

A bizarre hatchet job on Carly Fiorina’s autobiography.

WaPo’s Robert Costa reveals an emotional reaction by the Speaker to the papal visit to Congress.

She’s where she’ belongs.

The final GDP revision for the second quarter showed the economy grew at a nearly four percent rate.