Outside the Beltway

Freshman Members of Congress are threatening to block a vote to raise the debt ceiling that Congress will have to take by this Spring. They’d be irresponsible if they did so.

The next round in the health care reform wars is about to start.

Will the Tea Party Movement grow up?

President Obama and Chief Justice Roberts are calling for bipartisanship in the New Year.

Cory Booker, Michael Bloomberg, and Chris Christie have been in the news this week due to the political fallout over their handling of the East Coast blizzard.

Was John McCain’s place of birth as big an issue to the fringe left as Obama’s has been (and continues to be) to the fringe right?

The seemingly sensible end-of-life counseling that was originally part of the Health Care Reform Bill is making a comeback.

Republicans are renaming three House committees, including bring back Ethics and taking out Labor.

For the first time in 35 years, the Senate may finally be on the verge of reforming the filibuster.

If Democrats had been this effective the previous two years, would they have lost as badly in November?

The new House Republican majority will force lawmakers to vote when they want to raise the nation’s debt ceiling, publish committee attendance records, ban former members from lobbying in the House gym and require new mandatory spending to be offset by cuts to other programs.

What’s up with McCain and DADT?

How likely are more sweeping health care reforms in the US? Not very likely at all.

The Congress has passed a repeal of DADT.

PolitiFact’s Lie of the Year 2010.

According to two new polls, Sarah Palin has absolutely no chance of beating Barack Obama in 2012. So, why does it look like she’s going to run anyway?

Judicial activism doesn’t mean “reaching a decision I don’t like.”

The incoming House Republicans aren’t making a good first impression.

A new poll shows that the American public is discontented, nervous about the economy, not entirely sure they can trust the new GOP majority in Congress, and has no idea what it wants from Washington. Sounds like a recipe for disaster.

More on the No Labels label problem.

Has anyone told Mike Bloomberg that “No Labels” is, well, a label?

Politics makes for strange bedfellows and, when it comes to the debate over the extension of the Bush tax cuts, anti-tax Republicans are making common cause with soak-the-rich progressives.

Columbia political science professor David Epstein has been charged with a 3-year incestuous relationship with his adult daughter.

Bernie Sanders took to the floor of the Senate yesterday to rail against President Obama’s tax cut deal. It was history in the making, but it’s not clear that it actually accomplished anything.

Several smart center-left commentators argue that President Obama is not triangulating. At least one argues there’s no such thing.

The Senate has constructed the legislation to correspond to the Obama-McConnell deal, sweeteners and all.