Outside the Beltway

In the wake of yesterday’s killing of eight in a Texas high school, WaPo’s Philip Bump provides a chilling statistic.

Another school shooting, this time in Texas.

Backing up the nation’s intelligence agencies, the Senate Intelligence Committee said in a preliminary statement that it had concluded that Russia sought to aid Donald Trump’s campaign in the 2016 Presidential election.

The Supreme Court ruled that the mere fact that the driver of a rental car is not listed on the rental agreement is not sufficient to justify a warrantless search of the vehicle.

61 percent of Americans have a favorable impression of a man who left office a failed president.

Republicans are trying to fight back against efforts to limit their ability to gerrymander Congressional and State Legislative Districts. It’s a fight they deserve to lose.

Ohio voters have approved a referendum designed to reform the manner in which district lines are drawn.

A small group of Republican rebels in the House are attempting to push legislation protecting DACA beneficiaries to a floor vote. Unfortunately, they’re not likely to succeed.

John McCain continues to bravely battle an aggressive form of brain cancer, but he’s already made clear that he doesn’t want the 45th President of the United States at his funeral.

While the Trump Administration slowly tries to remake the Federal Judiciary, states are moving to pass radical new challenges to Roe v. Wade.

Support for gun control spiked in the wake of the Parkland, Florida school shooting but it appears to be returning to more normal levels, and that’s bad news for gun control advocates.

A new lawsuit seeks to have the 2012 DACA program declared unconstitutional.

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

A Federal Appeals Court has reversed a lower court ruling that struck down Texas’s Voter ID law as discriminatory against minority voters.

With the accusations mounting, the nomination of Ronny Jackson to be Secretary of Veterans Affairs is becoming more and more imperiled.

The Supreme Court heard oral argument yesterday in a case alleging that Texas’s Congressional and state legislative districts were drawn with the intent to discriminate based on race.

Travis Reinking shot four people dead in Nashville over the weekend with a gun that he wasn’t supposed to have access to. Thanks to what seem to be loopholes in existing gun laws, he had one anyway.

The transformation is complete. The GOP is now the party of Donald Trump. If you’re sticking around and not speaking out against what the President represents, you’re part of the problem, not part of the solution.

Kyrsten Sinema, the likely Democratic nominee for the Senate in Arizona, is leading all three of her potential Republican challengers. This could spell trouble for the GOP.

Cuba has a new President and he isn’t named Castro, but that doesn’t mean we’re going to see significant change in the near future.

The first real poll of the Senate race in Texas shows Ted Cruz with a much thinner lead than might be expected in a state like Texas. That doesn’t mean we should expect a Democratic upset there, though.

Barbara Bush, only the second woman in history to be the wife and mother of a U.S. President, has died at the age of 92.

The parents of two of the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre are suing Alex Jones for falsely accusing them of lying about the deaths of their children.

A Federal Judge in Texas has ruled that discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity is barred by Federal Law. Legally speaking, this is a tenuous argument at best.

Paul Ryan won’t be running for re-election this year, opening up both a Congressional seat and a leadership spot.

Not surprisingly, a joint Senate Committee failed to really lay a glove on Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg at yesterday’s hearing.

Republicans are raising the fear of impeachment to motivate a base that could become disaffected heading into November.

The answer is, of course, no. Really, this is a post about the wall as policy.

President Trump’s call for National Guard troops isn’t going over well even with Republican Governors.

Leland Bohannon objects to same-sex marriage on religious grounds. What rights should he have to act on that belief?

President Trump wants to send the military to the Mexican border. This is both unnecessary and a bad idea.

New York and nearly two dozen other jurisdictions have filed a lawsuit seeking to bar the Trump Administration from asking about citizenship in the 2020 Census.

Descriptions of Robby Jackson as “Trump’s personal physician” mischaracterize his qualifications for the job.

Mitt Romney staked out a position on DACA that is to the right of the President, and to the right of a majority of Utah voters.

Not surprisingly, John Bolton has some links to particularly shady people on the right.

The Department Of Justice is proposing a rule change that would ban bump stocks, but it could run into legal problems.

Repeated studies have demonstrated their bias against women and minorities. Why do we use them to make employment decisions?

Mississippi has passed a law that seems designed to directly challenge the underpinnings of Roe v. Wade.

A package exploded in San Antonio overnight. It was believed bound for Austin. It would be the fifth in a spree of bombings in the city this month.

The head of the House Intelligence Committee’s Russia investigation admitted yesterday that the committee was never focused on any potential evidence of collusion.

Local and federal authorities are investigating a spree of explosions terrorizing Austin, Texas.

Will Bunch wildly exaggerates the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

He’s been in the music business in some form or the other since 1985. He has been, it’s fair to say, the opposite of an overnight success.

The near-impossible happened last night, demonstrating why March Madness is the most exciting and most absurd way to pick a champion.

Theresa May has expelled 23 Russian diplomats and convened the North Atlantic Council.

Ending an investigation that was flawed and tainted with partisanship from the start, the House Intelligence Committee has abruptly concluded its investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

Not surprisingly, the Trump Administration is backing away from gun regulations opposed by the N.R.A.

This is from the band Jack Levitt off their 2007 release “Conversations With A Chupacabra.”

What the heck is going on in Kentucky and Tennessee?

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.