Outside the Beltway

Stephen Miller and others wanted to punish Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats by dumping detained migrants in their districts.

The Wikileaks founder has been detained by London authorities after 7 years hiding in Ecuador’s embassy.

Trump really has no plan about the border save for demagoging the issue.

Add DHS to the list of Departments being run by interims.

Trump’s threat will not make things better (and the notion of actually closing the border is insane).

Trump declares he will end aid to Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador.

It’s been a rough two years under Trump, but America’s institutions are surviving.

It turns out there actually is a crisis on the US-Mexico border.

The Supreme Court will hear a case dealing with a challenge to the Commerce Department’s decision to put a question about citizenship on the 2020 Census.

Some thoughts on the current mess.

President Trump’s impending decision to declare a national emergency to get funding for his border wall will quickly face serious legal challenges. It may be more vulnerable than the White House suspects.

The President will sign the bill to fund the government and avert another government shutdown, but in doing so he’ll also lay the groundwork for another showdown with Congress.

When it comes to the shutdown and border wall showdown that started back in December, Donald Trump is the biggest loser.

Negotiations to avert another shutdown appear to have stalled over the weekend with just four days left to go before funding runs out.

Late last night, the Supreme Court blocked a Louisiana abortion law from going into effect, the first significant abortion rights ruling since Justice Kavanaugh took the bench.

The President’s second State of the Union began and ended with calls for unity. In between, it was filled with the divisive partisanship that has marked his Presidency.

As public opinion of the President continues to slide his pandering to his far-right base increases.

As the shutdown enters day thirty-five, there are some signs of movement in Washington but no real progress.

The Senate rejected Republican and Democratic proposals as expected but there are some signs of movement forward.

As the shutdown enters its thirty-fourth day and the Senate gets ready to vote on proposals that have no chance of succeeding, Democrats are preparing a new proposal.

The Senate has the ball this week in terms of action on the government shutdown, but its work is going to end up being utterly pointless.

With Democrats making a new proposal and the President set to speak later today, there could be movement on ending the government shutdown. I wouldn’t be too optimistic, though.

President Trump appears to be backing away from the idea of declaring a national emergency to get his wall built. But the other options he’s considering aren’t much better.

President Trump’s speech on the border wall and the shutdown was fact-free, misleading, and overall a bomb.

President Trump is claiming that he could use authority to declare a “national emergency” to build his wall even if Congress doesn’t authorize it.

As the shutdown continues, there’s little sign of progress on either end of Pennsylvania Avenue.

President Trump is now threatening to close the border if he doesn’t get funding for his border wall.

The Supreme Court has rejected an attempt by the Trump Administration to have an injunction against its new asylum policy lifted.

Defense Secretary James Mattis has announced that the deployment of U.S. troops to the Mexican border will be extended through the end of this year.

A bad look for all concerned.

President Trump’s latest attack on the Federal Judiciary prompted a rare rebuke from the Chief Justice of the United States.

A Federal Judge has ruled that the Trump Administration’s efforts to limit the ability of migrants to claim asylum violates Federal law.

Now that the election is over, President Trump and his sycophants in the right-wing media seem to have completely forgotten about the “invading” “caravan” of Central American asylum seekers.

A filing in an unrelated case has apparently revealed the existence of a sealed indictment against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.

The next head to roll in the Trump Administration appears to be frequent Trump target DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen.

My latest for The National Interest.

As expected, the midterm elections ended up being a split result that gives Democrats and Republicans alike reason to celebrate.

National Republicans are worried that the President’s concentration on hot-button issues could end up backfiring. They should be.

As the midterm campaign draws to a close, Donald Trump is returning to the message of xenophobia and fear that dominated his Presidential campaign.

President Trump wants to send more troops than we have in Syria and Iraq combined to the border to deal with a non-existent threat.

Angela Merkel announced yesterday that she would step aside as Chancellor at the end of her current term. What that means for the short and long term future of Germany and Europe is unclear.

Former President Jimmy Carter is warning his party against drifting too far left as we head into the midterms and, beyond that, the 2020 campaign cycle.

Paul Laxalt, the former Nevada Senator who was one of President Reagan’s closest confidantes outside the White House, has died at 96.

A Federal Judge has rejected a Trump Administration effort to change a 20-year-old legal settlement that bars long-term detention of immigrant families.

The situation isn’t as awful as portrayed by the AP—but it’s still pretty bad.

America promised immigrants who volunteered to serve in our military a fast track to citizenship. Now, we’re throwing them out.

Today is a great day to reflect on the Enlightenment ideals that fueled a Declaration.

Trump uses an array of ugly language about immigrants. He pretends like he is just talking about MS13 but that is not the case.

President Trump’s short list of potential Supreme Court nominees consists mostly of conventionally conservative, well-qualified, jurists.

Donald Trump continues to demonstrate that he has nothing but utter contempt for the Rule of Law. At some point, he will either be called to account for this or our nation’s institutions will suffer as a result.