Outside the Beltway

Some notes on House process and how it relates to recent and ongoing political news.

The octogenarian Speaker Emerita will not seek re-election.

The former Defense Secretary and Vice President is gone at 84.

How party change actually works in the US. Plus more on messaging and organzing.

We need to be focused on the system, not fantasies about messages and organization.

The second round of No Kings rallies will take place today. Will they matter?

SCOTUS appears ready to supercharge gerrymandering.

A four-pronged test.

Our current round of speech repression may prove worse than McCarthyism.

We’re not alone in dysfunctional politics.

A shocking, but not surprising, event. I fear it’s a harbinger rather than an outlier.

Can Democrats do anything?

Air Force honors for Ashli Babbitt.

Are Red and Blue states even part of the same country anymore?

Most of the world knows that PR is a better way to elect legislatures.

For all practical purposes, the Constitutional war powers have been stood on their head.

A state Representative and his wife have also been shot and are in the hospital.

The relationship appears to be an inverse one.

Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and both Roosevelts pushed the envelope, too!

Oh my.

A general conversation and a lot of specifics about RFK. Jr.

Not Gaetz and Hegseth bad, but still, pretty bad.

Not knowing the results of an election a week later is unacceptable.

It’s neither unprecedented nor powerful. It doesn’t exist.

Not a lot of true competition on my ballot in Alabama.

A low confidence Election Day forecast.

Floating the idea that NC should just award its EVs to Trump.

MTG is at it again.

More on Trump’s attempt to subvert the 2020 election.

And the grotesqueness of the Trumpian response.

The two most annoying Senators in the Democratic caucus are at it again.

An FNC report on the Alaska House race is a mess.

The Gaza conflict has ousted a member of “the Squad.”

Political grandstanding over dubious claims of privilege.

Democrats are helping the Republican Speaker tame his nihilist wing.

A famed political forecaster doesn’t believe the polls.

A win for the good guys and a loss for Trump and Putin.

The courts would likely allow restricting a Chinese data mining operation popular with American teenagers.

A longstanding project inches forward.

It’s easy if you try.

Why we are where we are.

The inevitable threats to remove Biden from the ballot emerge.

A never-ending saga of politicians choosing their voters.

It’s quite the week for politicians with generic names nobody has ever heard of.

His critics are focused on the wrong problem.

A competent leader versus a lunatic would seem an easy choice. Alas.

Jim Jordan is trying to bully his way into office. It almost certainly won’t work.

What does “complete victory” look like?

The latest reminder.

A weak leader has been ousted. Now what?