Outside the Beltway

A bipartisan group of Senators has proposed a largely reasonable fix to the DACA problem, but its fate remains unclear.

Poland’s new Holocaust legislation just keeps sounding worse and worse.

Despite what his own intelligence chiefs are saying, President Trump still does not believe that Russia interfered in the 2016 election.

Israeli police have recommended that charges be brought against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Whether that damages him politically remains to be seen.

With time seemingly running out, the Senate debate over extending DACA is moving slowly.

If Trump is able to insist upon a package deal or no deal at all, he may muck up his chance of policy success, but it may be the Democrats who lose politically.

Republicans spent the eight years of Obama Administration railing against fiscal irresponsibility. Now that they have power, they’re the ones being fiscally irresponsible.

Congress seems likely to pass a budget deal today that will massively increase spending, putting to rest once and for all the rank hypocrisy of Republicans when it comes to claims that they are “fiscally conservative.”

Congress appears to be moving closer to a budget deal even as the President tries to throw a monkey wrench into the whole thing.

Poland’s President has signed a controversial bill that purports to criminalize any effort to tie Poland to the Holocaust.

Congress seems no closer to a DACA deal than they were in January.

The current budget deal expires in six days and Congress doesn’t seem to know what it’s going to do about it.

In addition to deadlines on the Federal Budget and DACA, Congress also has to deal with the debt ceiling at some point in the next month.

In May, Irish voters will vote on a referendum to remove the near-universal ban on abortion in the nation’s Constitution. And it looks as though it will pass.

Once again, President Trump is going soft on Russia. Why? I’ll leave that up to the reader to decide.

Democratic norms are eroding.

The Polish Government appears ready to approve a law that seeks to whitewash the truth about the role that many Poles played in the Holocaust.

Despite mounting evidence and outrageous behavior, Republicans nationwide and on Capitol Hill continue to do the Administration’s dirty work. They’ll most likely live to regret it.

America’s closest European allies are rebuffing the Trump Administration’s efforts to renegotiate the nuclear deal with Iran. They’re right to do so.

Less than a day after the President appeared to make a major concession regarding DACA, the White House has thrown a monkey wrench into the whole process.

Democrats in the Senate appear ready to de-link DACA from the budget. That would remove the threat of a government shutdown, but it could anger their base.

Getting to a DACA deal isn’t going to be easy.

It’s been seven years since Congress eliminated earmarking, and what we’ve seen has provided good evidence for the argument that it should never have been eliminated.

While final votes remain to be taken, the Federal Government shutdown effectively ended this afternoon with an overwhelming bipartisan vote to reopen the government, combined with a commitment from Republicans to consider a DACA bill over the next three weeks. What happens next, though, is entirely uncertain.

As the Federal Government shutdown moves into the work week, there are some rumors of a possible deal, but nothing concrete and the lack of trust between the two parties could make a deal hard to achieve.

President Trump called on Senate Republicans to eliminate the legislative filibuster to resolve the government shutdown. That’s not going to happen.

The government is shut down and Washington is playing the usual blame game. In reality, there’s plenty of blame to go around, and one of the guilty parties is the American people.

Both #TrumpShutdown and #SchumerShutdown put the blame in the wrong place.

One year after his Inauguration, Donald Trump is the most unpopular new President since the invention of modern polling. However, his numbers are generally the same that they’ve been for some time now.

With just hours to go, it seems increasingly unlikely that the Senate can reach a deal to keep the government open.

With less than two days to go, the prospects for Congress finding a way to prevent a government shutdown aren’t looking good.

Norway is poised to make some big changes to its drug laws.

With only days to go, Congress seems unable to come up with either a funding deal for the Federal Government or a solution to the DACA issue.

Late last week, the Supreme Court agreed to hear a case involving the question of whether online and out-of-state businesses can be required to collect sales taxes in states with which they have no connection.

Donald Trump’s latest Twitter rant is one of his most bizarre.

Republican David Yancy was declared the winner of a disputed election, giving the GOP a slim one-seat majority in the state’s House of Delegates.

The Trump Administration is reversing policy on an Obama Era policy that allowed states to choose their own course on marijuana laws.

2017 was quite a year. 2018 promises to be just as interesting.

Attempts to pre-pay property taxes lead to confusion and frustration.

Your tax dollars at work.

Republicans passed their tax bill yesterday. What that means for the economy and the 2018 midterms is another question.

As we near the end of the year, the President’s job approval numbers remain at historically low levels, and there’s no sign that they’ll improve in 2018.

Once again, tax “reform” won’t make it easier to prepare or file tax returns.

The final version of the tax bill appears to be on track for passage, but the devil is in the details.

With the results from Alabama. the GOP faces a hard road ahead defending its majority in the Senate.

House and Senate Republicans say they have reached agreement on a final tax bill, and Democrats are engaging in an effort to delay a vote in the Senate until Doug Jones can be seated.

There are no good outcomes for the GOP in Alabama.

After a long wait, gays and lesbians in Australia have achieved marriage equality.

Most Americans are unlikely to remember John Anderson, but he was a harbinger of things to come.