Outside the Beltway

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s decision to call a snap election pays off big time.

Spanish Prime Minister Rajoy has said he will act to remove Catalonia’s pro-independence leadership from power.

President Obama spoke out yesterday against his successor and the America he has created.

The standoff between Madrid and Barcelona over Catalan independence appears to be ready to come to an end.

New polling shows Democratic nominee Ralph Northam continuing to lead Republican Ed Gillespie in the Virginia Governor’s race, but anything is still possible with three weeks to go until Election Day.

A new poll shows Democratic nominee Doug Jones tied with twice-removed former Chief Justice Roy Moore in Alabama’s Senate race, but it’s still too early to be optimistic.

The President’s job approval numbers remain at historic lows, while a growing number of Americans say that the country is headed in the wrong direction.

Susan Collins will stay in the Senate rather than running for Governor of Maine next year.

New polling shows increased support for gun control measures in the wake of Las Vegas, but it’s not likely to last and it won’t lead to any significant action by Congress.

At least for now, Republicans seem to be giving up on repealing and replacing the PPACA. That’s not going to make the base happy.

Former Trump aide Steve Bannon is declaring war on Republicans in the Senate.

More thoughts related to Gill v. Whitford and the problem of extreme gerrymandering.

And even moreso when they are consciously created by the winner.

The nation’s only competitive Governor’s this year appears to be going in favor of the Democratic candidate.

Some interesting statistics.

The Supreme Court appears split on the question of whether or not partisan Gerrymandering is unconstitutional.

Catalonia voted overwhelmingly for independence from Spain, but it’s not at all clear that the vote will amount to anything.

Previewing the next term of the Supreme Court, which starts today.

Roy Moore’s victory in Alabama is raising fears of a wider battle in the Republican Party heading into 2018.

Bob Corker, who has served in the Senate since winning election in 2006, announced yesterday that he would not stand for re-election.

Despite, or perhaps because of, his bigoted, radical, far-right positions on the issues, Roy Moore beat the sitting Senator from Alabama in a runoff election that essentially guarantees that he will win the General Election later this year.

The latest effort to ‘repeal and replace’ the Affordable Care Act appears to be dead.

Angela Merkel was re-elected to a fourth term as German Chancellor as expected, but voters also sent a warning.

More evidence of apparent Russian-backed efforts to interfere in the election.

The GOP’s effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act appears to suffer a fatal blow as Senator John McCain announced his opposition to what is the last gasp of that effort in the Senate.

Senate Republicans have ten days to act on their last-ditch attempt to ‘repeal and replace’ Obamacare, and it’s not at all clear if they have the votes to do so.

The ‘No Labels’ movement is back, and it’s as irrelevant to contemporary politics as ever.

Some more interesting post-election commentary from Hillary Clinton.

Hillary Clinton has found another group to blame for her loss, educated white married women in suburbia.

Republicans will introduce a tax package by the end of the month, but whether they can actually pass anything is another question entirely.

Americans support allowing Dreamers to stay in the country, and most of them also support allowing them to eventually become citizens.

Republicans on Capitol Hill and elsewhere were gambling when they lined up behind Donald Trump. So far, they’ve lost.

Steve Bannon may be out of the White House, but his efforts to continue pushing President Trump, and the Republican Party, even further to the populist far-right continues.

For the second time this year, there are rumors that Mitt Romney could run for Senator from Utah if Orrin Hatch decides to retire.

Despite pleas from conservative lawmakers, the Dept. of Justice will not reopen the case against former I.R.S. official Lois Lerner.

Ed Gillespie, the Republican nominee for Governor of Virginia, has come out against the most recent immigration-related action by the national leader of his party.

The effort to ‘repeal and replace’ the Affordable Care Act is dead for now.

Donald Trump made a deal with Democrats on spending and the debt ceiling, but it was an exceedingly bad one.

We’re a long way away from the start of the 2020 election cycle, but Democrats are already maneuvering for support and money.

A key step in the Colombian peace process.

While the rest of us have been distracted by a hurricane in Texas, Robert Mueller’s investigation continues moving forward.

A Federal Appeals Court has upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit filed by Gary Johnson and Jill Stein regarding their exclusion from Presidential debates.

President Trump’s attempts to interfere in the administration of justice go beyond the Russia investigation.

A race for the Virginia House of Delegates straight out of a civics book.

Texas suffers another legal setback in its effort to pass a Voter ID law.

They may both be Republicans, but the relationship between the President and the Senate Majority Leader is bad and seems to be getting worse.

Three new polls show Trump’s job approval down significantly in the three states that put him over the top in the Electoral College last year.

President Trump’s reaction to the terror attack in Spain included an easily debunked lie about one of America’s most decorated Generals.