Outside the Beltway

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

In the end, the race between Cindy Hyde-Smith and Mike Espy was not even close.

A brewing fight over funding for the President’s border wall could throw a monkey wrench into plans to pass a budget by next Friday.

Anti-Semitic violence has increased markedly over the past two years. So has the spread of far-right “anti-Globalist” conspiracy theories. This is not a coincidence.

Nearly two years into Republican control of Washington, the budget deficit is headed back up.

One month before voters in several states head to the polls to vote on legalization referendums, a new poll shows that public support for legalization remains at record high levels.

The Merrick Garland precedent is power politics, nothing more.

One last Kavanaugh Cold Open.

The F.B.I.’s updated background check is complete and will be reviewed by Senators beginning today. As a result, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is moving forward toward a final vote on the Kavanaugh nomination later this week.

After roughly a week of staying silent, President Trump decided last night to openly mock Dr. Christine Blasey Ford.

After placing limits on the scope of the F.B.I.’s reopened background investigation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh, the White House has relented and is allowing a more open-ended investigation.

Republicans have set a Judiciary Committee vote for less than a day after hearing from Christine Blasey Ford and Judge Brett Kavanaugh.

The status of a potential hearing in the Brett Kavanaugh nomination regarding the charges made by Dr. Christine Blasey Ford remain unclear, but the likelihood is that she will testify in the end.

Trumpism is a direct by-product of the poisonous populism of the Tea Party movement, and they’ve both taken over the Republican Party.

After a day of political pressure, Senate Republicans have agreed to hold a hearing regarding the sexual assault allegations against Judge Brett Kavanaugh next week.

A woman accusing Brett Kavanaugh of having assaulted her when he was 17 and she was 15 has come forward. What happens next is anyone’s guess.

Some last minute dramatics in the Kavanaugh nomination fight, but it seems unlikely to impact the outcome of the nomination fight.

Mitch McConnell has a plan that could pose problems for Democrats fighting for re-election.

Delaware Democratic Senator Tom Carper beat back a challenge from a ‘progressive” challenger in Thursday’s primary.

Washington said farewell to John McCain today in a service that both remembered his spirit and his heroism, and stands as a sharp rebuke to what politics has been reduced to in America today.

President Trump’s much-hyped replacement for NAFTA doesn’t really amount to much and won’t amount to anything unless he can get Canada, and the U.S. Congress, on board.

Judge Brett Kavanaugh reportedly told Senator Susan Collins that he considers Roe v. Wade
“settled law.” This will likely be enough to get her support and that of another holdout Republican Senator.

Another step forward in the seemingly unstoppable movement toward nationwide legalization.

President Trump is suggesting he may force a government shutdown over his immigration policies just a month before the midterm elections.

Senate Democrats appear to be recognizing that there’s basically nothing they can do to stop the confirmation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.

The Garden State has put a hold on marijuana prosecutions in anticipation of full legalization by the end of the year.

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

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.

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 selection that is likely to keep the Senate GOP united and red-state Democrats up for re-election under pressure to vote to confirm.

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.

In November, Michigan voters will be able to make their state the tenth state to legalize marijuana. This is just the latest step in what seems to be an irreversible trend.

President Trump’s short list of potential Supreme Court nominees consists mostly of conventionally conservative, well-qualified, jurists.

The odds of an immigration bill passing the House were already low. This morning, President Trump pretty much guaranteed failure.

The former New York City Mayor is prepared to spend $80 million to help Democrats take back Congress this year.

House Republicans are supposed to vote on one or more immigration bills this week, but can’t even agree what their policy should be.

Children are not political bargaining chips, but that’s exactly what this President plans to turn them into.

Democrats have decided to move up the date of their 2020 Convention.

House Republicans put forward a plan to protect DACA beneficiaries, but President Trump appears to have doomed it already.