Outside the Beltway

At a minimum, Trump is betraying his oath of office. That is one hell of a minimum.

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.

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

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.

The Strzok hearing provides a return to this timeworn favorite.

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.

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

The right-wing government in Warsaw has purged more than one-third of the members of the Polish Supreme Court in a crackdown on political opponents.

Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a populist from the left, rode a wave of populism and public disdain for the outgoing President to a landslide win in Mexico

The current discussion about SCOTUS is a good excuse to look at how other countries handle these things.

Convicted leaker Chelsea Manning lost a bid for the Democratic nomination for Senate in Maryland, to the surprise of nobody.

Turkey’s authoritarian leader is going to be around for a long time.

A new survey shows that Americans are increasingly unable to tell the difference between fact and opinion. That’s a problem.

Madison was right about politicians and ambition. He just didn’t see the how it would all play out.

Either the President of the United States is a knowing liar or he is very easily duped. Neither is a comforting thought.

Another unilateral withdrawal from an international institution.

Dan Coates, the Director of National Intelligence, has issued a strong warning that has received little attention.

The actions of the Trump administration are helping Russian-EU relations (to the detriment of the US).

This President lies on a daily basis. It’s time to start calling him what he is.

Just as they did three years ago when they legalized same-sex marriage, Irish voters turned out in record numbers to repeal the nation’s ban on abortion.

In an election that pretty much everyone agrees was illegitimate, Nicolás Maduro has won a second term as Venezuela’s President.

Does the administration know what it is doing?

While longtime supporters have turned on the legendary attorney over his support of Donald Trump, he’s been astonishingly consistent.

For Donald Trump and his supporters, “Fake News” means any news that doesn’t shower enough praise on him.

A Federal Appeals Court has reversed a lower court ruling that struck down Texas’s Voter ID law as discriminatory against minority voters.

An essay from earlier in the year by Jacob T. Levy underscores some of the points I recently tried to make about democratic norms in the current era.

A longtime “Hillary Beat” reporter ruminates on what she and her candidate could have done differently in 2016.

Another early-morning edition of Late Night OTB.

Another Federal Court loss for gun rights activists challenging state laws banning “assault weapons.”

A woman who was fired after a photograph of her giving the middle finger to President Trump’s motorcade went viral is suing her former employer. She doesn’t have much of a case.

Under the proposal certain visa-seekers (such as China and India) would have to have their social media presence scrutinized.

As a general rule, Presidents are entitled to have a Cabinet and advisers he is comfortable with, but a Cabinet full of “yes men” is not ideal with any President, and certainly not with this one.

California has pushed back quickly against the Trump Administration’s decision to include a question regarding citizenship in the 2020 Census.

Critics warn this move would lead to a drastic undercount of Hispanic voters, impacting Congressional districting, federal programs, and more.

Republicans on Capitol Hill worried about all the leaking coming from the Trump White House would be wise to actually do the oversight the Constitution compels them to do.

Challengers to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s ruling on Congressional redistricting suffered two big setbacks in court yesterday that suggest that they’ve reached the end of the road legally.

Joseph E. diGenova has touted the theory that rogue FBI elements have tried to frame Trump in the Russia probe.

Will Bunch wildly exaggerates the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

A contest with no serious challenger will make him the longest-serving Russian leader since Stalin.

The FBI’s former deputy director was shamefully fired late Friday night, after which President Trump gloated on Twitter.

Nine years later, at least one member of the Norwegian Nobel Committee is admitting what seemed at the time a rather obvious fact.

While Team Trump has gone out of its way to waylay the Russia investigation, this may not be is part of that effort.

With the Winter Olympics over, the next step on the Korean Peninsula is utterly unclear.

Daniel Triesman offers an explanation as to “Why the poor don’t vote to soak the rich.”

China’s Xi Jinping solidified his hold on power well into the next decade over the weekend.

An emerging technology will take “fake news” to a whole new level.

A series of scandals at Oxfam and other charitable organizations raise troubling questions.

A few key observations on the bigger picture.