Outside the Beltway

The 20th Amendment was supposed to eliminate lame duck sessions, but it didn’t.

Do graduates of elite colleges earn more because of where they went to school? Or because of the traits that got them selected?

The battle over the individual mandate is really just nothing more than the latest round in a batter that has been ongoing for 221 years.

Are Marco Rubio, Haley Barbour, and Mike Huckabee the favorites to win the White House?

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.

One of the most active American diplomats of the past twenty-five years has passed away.

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.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg says he isn’t running for President, but he’s sure acting like a guy who’s at least thinking about it.

President Obama is already taking heat from the left for his compromise on tax cut extensions, but will it actually hurt him in the end?

President Obama and the GOP have reached a deal on extending the Bush tax cuts that gives the GOP virtually everything it wanted.

How would appointed Senators affect the partisan mix of the Senate?

Republican maneuvering to extend the Bush tax cuts for all Americans appears about to pay off.

They aren’t going to stop, but the cliches that pass for debate sure are tiresome (plus some musings about the tax cut extension debate).

Republican pollster Glen Bolger makes a bold promise: The GOP will retain House control in 2012 – Guaranteed.

Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley wants to fix the filibuster by making Senators actually filibuster. It’s a good idea.

The Republican Party is united on the issues in a way it hasn’t been in a long time, but personalities threaten to tear the fragile coalition apart.

Is President Obama’s Federal pay freeze a sign that he’s moving to the right, or just pointless symbolism?

Nearly four weeks after Election Day, Alaska’s Joe Miller still won’t concede the inevitable.

The Republican talking point that lowering taxes lowers spending and raising taxes increases spending is denied by reality.

President Obama is likely join the ranks of the unemployed come noon on January 20, 2013 if a Fed forecast is right.

According to a new poll, the Tea Party movement, which is largely now the base of the GOP, is not completely in step with the views of American voters as a whole.

The latest forecast from the Federal Reserve foresees stagnant growth and high unemployment for the next two years.

Some on the right are beginning to realize that Sarah Palin’s popularity may cause a serious problem for the GOP in 2012.

Unless there’s an emergency, is it proper for representatives who have been defeated in a mid-term election to be voting on controversial legislation?

The cholera outbreak in Haiti continues unabated; riots against UN peacekeepers have broken out.

At least one group of Tea Party activists seems to realize that their biggest mistake of the 2010 election cycle was backing candidates like Christine O’Donnell who turned out to be their own worst enemies.

The incoming freshman of the 112th Congress say that they won’t repeat the mistakes that Republicans made when they gained power sixteen years ago, but some of the advice they’re getting virtually guarantees it will happen if they aren’t careful.

Former Washington Redskins Quarterback, and current Congressman, Heath Shuler has launched a quixotic campaign against Nancy Pelosi for House Minority Leader.

While not inherently unconstitutional, lame duck Congresses have the potential for violating the spirit of the Constitution and create the potential for mischief on the part of Representatives who have been thrown out of office.

The white, Southern Democrat is a dying breed.

As the counting of write-in ballots in Alaska continues to go in Lisa Murkowski’s favor, the Miller campaign is getting more desperate in its ballot challenges.