Outside the Beltway

It’s been 441 days since Donald Trump held a full-fledged Presidential press conference. Does anyone care?

Republicans are worried about 2018, and they’re even more worried that they have a President who is refusing to acknowledge political reality.

Failed Senate candidate Roy Moore is suing several of the women who accused him of sexual misconduct during last year’s campaign.

Republicans joined with Democrats to advance a bill to protect Special Counsel Robert Mueller, but it’s unlikely to go anywhere beyond that.

For better or worse, Mike Pompeo will be confirmed as the 70th Secretary of State by the end of this week.

Republicans are planning on pushing judicial nominees through the Senate in case they lose control in November. Meanwhile, the possibility of a Supreme Court vacancy raises the stakes.

An essay from earlier in the year by Jacob T. Levy underscores some of the points I recently tried to make about democratic norms in the current era.

The highest ranking Democrat in the Senate has introduced a bill that would effectively decriminalize marijuana nationwide and leave it up to each state to decide how far they wish to go with regard to cannabis regulation. It’s a huge step in the right direction.

Despite facing headwinds in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Mike Pompeo will probably be confirmed as the next Secretary of State. That’s unfortunate.

Republicans on Capitol Hill and in positions of power are slavishly backing their President over their country. They should be ashamed.

Congress passed a funding bill to avert a shutdown with time to spare early this morning, but now the President is threatening a veto.

This is no way to run a railroad.

Profiles in courage? With Republicans in the Trump Era, it’s more like profiles in cowardice.

President Trump continues to obsequiously praise Russian President Vladimir Putin

The nominations of Mike Pompeo and Gina Haspel could be in trouble in the Senate.

Once again, there’s speculation in Washington that Justice Anthony Kennedy could retire this year.

The 80-year-old Mississippi Republican, who was first elected to the Senate in 1978 after serving six years in the House, has been in poor health.

A group of twenty states have revived an old argument to mount a new legal challenge to the Affordable Care Act.

President Trump appeared to change positions on several gun control ideas, but he probably doesn’t mean it.

The prospects for extending legal protections for DACA beneficiaries are getting grimmer by the day.

The prospect for a fix to help DACA beneficiaries is looking gloomier than ever.

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.

The Tea Party is dead, but it was never really alive to begin with.

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.

After an extended break for the Republican retreat, Congress heads back to work today with just three days before a possible government shutdown.

He’s tan. He’s rested. He’s ready. And, yes, he’s running.

After spending much of 2017 trying to do it, Republicans are giving up on any effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act before the midterms.

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

The White House’s immigration plan is facing opposition in both chambers of Congress from moderate and conservative Republicans alike.

The prospects for a deal in Congress on DACA are starting to look grim.

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.

The deal that led to the end of the Federal Government shutdown isn’t sitting well with the progressive wing of the Democratic Party.

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.

It’s Day Two of the Federal Government shutdown and there are few signs of a quick resolution.

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.

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.

Steve Bannon loses his position at Breitbart after his blistering comments about the President and others in the Administration became public.

After forty years in the Senate, Orrin Hatch announced that he will not seek re-election this year, thus opening the door for Mitt Romney to succeed him.

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

Roy Moore’s loss in Alabama is bringing out into the open a civil war that has been going on for seven years now.

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.