Outside the Beltway

Are these four men our last, best hope for a deal that will end the shutdown and avoid breaching the debt ceiling?

To borrow a phrase from Stephen Colbert, if you want to understand how Congress works, you better know a District.

With just hours to go, the Republicans on Capitol Hill seem prepared to take a big political risk.

An absolutely ridiculous criminal case out of West Virginia.

Set backs for Pennsylvania in its effort to reverse the NCAA sanctions against Penn State, and a new lawsuit from the Paterno family. The Sandusky story returns.

The sequestration cuts are two months old, and it seems pretty clear that the claims of doom we heard before they went into effect were heavily exaggerated.

Southerners lie about their weight–but not as much as those lyin’ Yankees.

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

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

For the moment, Republicans appear to be blocking Chuck Hagel’s nomination to be Secretary of Defense but they don’t seem to know why they’re doing it.

Chuck Hagel will be confirmed, but the campaign against him tells us much about the current state of Republican foreign policy

My latest for The National Interest, “Ignoring the Hagel Hearing Farce,” has posted.