Outside the Beltway

The internal debate in the Republican Party over the tax cut extension deal with President Obama is serving as a preview of some of the battles that may erupt during the race for the party’s nomination in 2012.

The incoming House Republicans aren’t making a good first impression.

Has anyone told Mike Bloomberg that “No Labels” is, well, a label?

Despite yesterday’s victory for opponents of the Affordable Care Act, the prospects in the Supreme Court are not good.

Politics makes for strange bedfellows and, when it comes to the debate over the extension of the Bush tax cuts, anti-tax Republicans are making common cause with soak-the-rich progressives.

Republicans were largely silent during the Bush Administration as spending went out of control. Will they do that again?

The Senate has constructed the legislation to correspond to the Obama-McConnell deal, sweeteners and all.

Krauthammer thinks Obama tricked the GOP into agreeing to Stimulus II.

Just weeks after voting for a broad ban on earmarks, Republicans are looking for ways to get money to their districts without calling it an “earmark.”

Did Obama’s tax cut deal demolish the Republican charge that he’s a radical? Not hardly.

President Obama’s press conference yesterday, bitterly railing against Democrats in the Congress for being “purist” and “sanctimonious,” is brilliant triangulation.

Would returning to indirect election of Senators really have a significant impact on the growth of the Federal Government? Probably not.

Incoming House Majority Leader Eric Cantor is speaking positively about an Amendment that would drastically alter the relationship between the Federal Government and the states, and a method of ratifying it that could do serious damage to the Constitution as a whole.

The Republican Party is united on the issues in a way it hasn’t been in a long time, but personalities threaten to tear the fragile coalition apart.

Former Republican Congressman Joe Scarborough wants the GOP to stop kowtowing to Sarah Palin and her acolytes. He’s right.

Nearly four weeks after Election Day, Alaska’s Joe Miller still won’t concede the inevitable.

According to a new poll, the Tea Party movement, which is largely now the base of the GOP, is not completely in step with the views of American voters as a whole.

Within the first few months of 2011, Congress will be required to take another unpalatable vote to raise the debt ceiling. Already, some incoming Republicans are talking about waging an effort to block the vote. That would be politically, and financially, stupid.

Are the American people finally waking up to the absurdity of TSA security theater? One can only hope they are.

The battle between social and fiscal conservatives continues, with the SoCons now saying that criticism of South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint is now considered evidence of ideological impurity.

At least one group of Tea Party activists seems to realize that their biggest mistake of the 2010 election cycle was backing candidates like Christine O’Donnell who turned out to be their own worst enemies.

The response from social conservatives to the call for a truce on social issues is about what you’d expect.

The incoming freshman of the 112th Congress say that they won’t repeat the mistakes that Republicans made when they gained power sixteen years ago, but some of the advice they’re getting virtually guarantees it will happen if they aren’t careful.

The GOP is being urged to avoid social issues and concentrate on reducing spending, shrinking government, and economic freedom. It’s a good idea.

Maine’s Olympia Snowe appears to be the next target of the Tea Party movement, but she is also uniquely situated to retain her seat if she chooses to.

Former Congressman Bob Barr argues that the right should not be so eager to rehabilitate George W. Bush. He’s right.

Okahoma’s James Inhofe has a message for the Tea Party movement — don’t be fooled by the “War On Earmarks.”

The immediate reactions from left and right to the proposals from the Chairmen of the Debt Commission are about what you’d expect.

Bristol Palin’s success on Dancing With The Stars is apparently due largely to the fact that she is Sarah Palin’s daughter. That tells us much more about Sarah Palin’s supporters than it does either Sarah or Bristol.

Eliminating earmarks is good policy and good politics.

Rand Paul is taking some heat for remarks that may or may not indicate that he’s backtracking on his previous vow not to seek earmark spending for Kentucky. Yes folks, the phony war on earmarks is back.