Outside the Beltway

A purported ‘short list’ of potential running mates for Hillary Clinton is out. Here’s how the candidates stack up.

In case anyone noticed: I got the Trump nomination wrong.

With Republicans in Trump-induced disarray, Libertarians are meeting to pick their nominee and the hope that 2016 could be the year their party finally gets the attention it has craved for four decades.

Oklahoma’s Republican legislature passed a clearly unconstitutional bill outlawing abortion in the state.

A journalistic legend has passed away just days after his retirement was officially announced.

The rise of Trump and Sanders has resurrected a debate as old as Western civilization.

Donald Trump’s win last night made him the presumptive Republican nominee, whether Republicans will unify around him is another question.

Ted Cruz pulled off a win in Wisconsin, giving some hope to the “Stop Trump” crowd.

There are some signs of hope out of Wisconsin for those trying to stop Donald Trump.

Donald Trump takes opposition to abortion to a new, extreme, level.

Conservatives are doing all they can to make sure Merrick Garland does not get either a hearing or a vote in the Senate, and it’s working.

The Supreme Court appeared deadlocked during oral argument in the latest case dealing with the PPACA’s contraceptive coverage mandates.

President Obama has selected his nominee to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court, now the question is whether the Senate will act.

The Supreme Court seems as closely divided as ever on an issue that has divided the nation for forty years, but the implications of Justice Scalia’s death were quite apparent during oral argument in the Texas Abortion Law case.

Ben Carson announced today that he is skipping the next GOP debate and admitted that he does not see a viable path forward for his campaign. However, he didn’t formally withdraw from the race for the Republican nomination.

Is President Obama planning a Checkmate move in the SCOTUS nomination fight?

Conservatives are sending a message to Senate Republicans about the vacancy on the Supreme Court, and it may require them to initiate a suicidal game plan.

Donald Trump racks up another big win, while Marco Rubio surges into second and likely saves his campaign for now.

In the short term, Justice Scalia’s death will have a significant impact on cases the Supreme Court has already heard, and cases it is scheduled to hear in the next two months.

One week before the South Carolina Primary, the remaining Republican candidates for President clashed in a headed debate.

Marco Rubio was the man in the cross hairs in last night’s Republican debate.

Without Trump, the seventh Republican debate largely focused on Ted Cruz, who doesn’t seem to have done himself any favors. Donald Trump, meanwhile, will likely not pay any price at all for skipping the last pre-Iowa debate.

We’re in another Presidential election cycle so it must be time to speculate about Michael Bloomberg again.

Sarah Palin is back, and she’s endorsing Donald Trump for the Republican nomination for President.

The Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal in what is guaranteed to be a high profile case heading into the 2016 elections.

We will have a two party system for the foreseeable future.

A five minute segment on the O’Reilly Factor clearly underscores how intertwined he is in secular politics.

Ted Cruz surges to a lead in the latest Iowa poll, setting up a seemingly inevitable showdown between the Texas Senator and Donald Trump.

The man who killed three and wounded several others at a Colorado Planned Parenthood seemingly admitted guilt and motive in a courtroom outburst, but questions about his mental capacity remain.

Donald J. Trump continues to turn the dial higher and higher on his fascist demagoguery.

After requesting a 30 day extension to reply to the Federal Government’s request for appeal in the case challenging President Obama’s immigration executive action, the states get only eight days.

Blaming political opponents for criminal acts they clearly didn’t commit or advocate isn’t a political argument, it’s demagoguery.

We still don’t know very much about Robert Dear, the man who shot and killed three people at the site of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado, but that hasn’t stopped the usual suspects from politicizing the case.

The Obama Administration is asking the Supreme Court to review a ruling that kept a hold on last year’s immigration execution action in place.

The Supreme Court has accepted for appeal a Virginia case that deal with the issue of using race and politics as a basis for drawing district lines.

The Supreme Court has accepted a case involving a new Texas abortion law for review, the first abortion rights case it will hear in eight years.

As Ben Carson rises in the polls, it’s worth noting his many examples of having what can only be called a very odd relationship with truth and the basic facts of history.

Forget about Congress, the real story going forward is likely to be Republican dominance of state legislatures nationwide.

A man with one of the more unique political and personal resumes in recent memory has passed away.

Instead of eliminating the Department of Education, Ben Carson wants to give it a new, bizarre, and dangerous mission.

Another Republican Congressman has said that the Select Committee investigating the Benghazi attack is primarily concerned with scoring political points against Hillary Clinton.

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.

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

Ben Carson has no government experience, he has a history of saying things that don’t seem grounded in reality, and he lacks the resources for a credible campaign. And yet, he’s closing in on Donald Trump in the polls.

Mitch McConnell spoke a truth that many conservatives are likely not going to want to accept.

Some Republicans are threatening a government shutdown over funding of Planned Parenthood, but a new poll shows that it would be a big political risk for Republicans.

A Federal Appeals Court has upheld a 1949 law that bars protesters from the property around the Supreme Court building. This seems inconsistent with the Court’s recent First Amendment jurisprudence.

Even if Donald Trump isn’t the Republican nominee in 2016, he could still end up causing real harm to the party’s chances of winning the White House and holding on to the Senate.

Donald Trump is leading in Iowa, and very few things make sense anymore.

In 1992, an eccentric billionaire ran an independent campaign against a Bush and a Clinton. It could happen again.