Outside the Beltway

Republicans looking to Benghazi for political ammunition are likely going to be disappointed.

Yesterday’s hearings shed more light while also raising yet more questions to which we’ll likely never get a satisfactory answer.

Is someone who’s only be a Senator for just over 100 days a serious contender for the Republican nomination in 2016?

Several Senators who voted against the Manchin/Toomey background checks bill have suffered in the polls, but it’s unclear if that matters in the long run.

2012’s election represented a significant change in voting patterns in the United States. What’s unclear is if the change is a permanent one.

The GOP’s most promising alternative to Mitt Romney in 2012 may run again in 2016, but it doesn’t seem like he’d go very far.

The artist known as Kid Rock endorsed Mitt Romney but now says he’s “embarrassed to be a Republican.” Because of their stance on paperless tickets, naturally.

Social conservatives are seeing their clout slip away, but there’s not much they can do about it.

Mother Jones’s recording of a secret McConnell campaign strategy meeting is much less than meets the eye.

One Virginia Republican Member of Congress recently got a lesson in what going against the GOP’s hyperpartisan atmosphere feels like.

Republicans seem to think they need fewer Presidential debates in the 2016 cycle, but it’s unclear how they can make that happen.

Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum apparently talked about uniting to stop Romney during the 2012 Republican primaries.

Kentucky Senator Rand Paul won a completely meaningless straw poll.

Senator Rob Portman changes his position on same-sex marriage. Another sign of the times.

Rand Paul’s filibuster has made him a darling among conservatives but it may not last.

The post-Newtown momentum for gun control has slowed significantly.

The Hagel confirmation, like Obama’s election, was big news to some avid news consumers.

Republicans at the state level are still trying to cook the books in the Electoral College

CPAC’s organizers have decided not to invite the most popular Governor in the country.

NYT Magazine asks “Can the Republicans be Saved From Obsolescence?”

Pretending like the Bush administration never happened is a problem for the GOP.

The American tax code contains perverse incentives and barriers to getting out of poverty.

Conservatives complaining about biased coverage from the liberal media should instead look in the mirror.

Virginia has decisively killed a bill that would have awarded the Commonwealth’s electoral votes to the winner of gerrymandered congressional districts rather than the statewide winner.

The GOP seems to be drawing all the wrong lessons from the 2012 elections.

Some proposed reforms just need to be ignored.

Republicans continue to fight over their party’s future.

The Weekly Standard is proud that Mitt Romney’s intentionally false Jeep ad was technically true.

Despite the push it’s likely to receive, most of President Obama’s gun control proposals will barely even see the light of day in Congress.

Amusing in light of the birther nonsense:Obama half brother Malik seeks Kenya governor’s office.

Our politicians have averted an artificial crisis of their own making. The next one’s in two months.