Outside the Beltway

In reality, it probably doesn’t,

A crack in the orthodoxy?

What walking around knowledge about our political system is necessary to be an informed citizen?

Worried the GOP might eliminate the filibuster if they gain control of the Senate? Don’t be.

The Obama Campaign is being criticized for agreeing to play the SuperPAC game like everyone else does.

American politics is as polarized as ever, and it shows no signs of changing regardless of who wins in November.

The truth about a Second Obama Term is that it likely wouldn’t be all that remarkable.

Senator Jim DeMint demonstrated clearly today what is wrong with Washington.

While the President’s recess appointments are bound to set off a political dispute with the Republicans, there does not appear to be a Constitution ban against them.

There is a fundamental problem with the feedback loop in American politics.

Newt Gingrich last night declared that he would abolish the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

How likely is it that a GOP Senate would eliminate the filibuster? Not very.

A Democrat sees doom and gloom as far as the eye can see.

Will we wind up with a backdoor mandate? Or a single payer system?

Have Republicans been co-opted by the Big Government they claim to hate?

Even if the Senate operated under wholly majority rules, it would not be the House.

Harry Reid’s “nuclear option” has changed the rules of the game, for now.

Harry Reid is playing hardball, invoking a tactic that he himself decried being threatened when Republicans were in charge.

When the old rules don’t apply anymore, the system breaks down.

Republicans have a plan to wrest half of the Keystone State’s electors from Obama.

It never ceases to amaze me how many smart people manage to believe, against all evidence to the contrary, that their political philosophy has massive support.

Is America’s political system to blame for our current problems?

The “super committee” created by the debt ceiling deal is already the subject of criticism, most of it unwarranted.

Michael Cohen argues that our system is broken because Republicans will no longer compromise.

How the reelection incentive and parliamentary procedure are affecting the debt ceiling debate in Congress.

European leaders have put another Band Aid on the Greek sovereign debt crisis while America’s leaders are trying to stave off a self-inflicted financial default.

Let’s look at the actual proposal.

It was a largely fruitless weekend in the debt negotiations.

A few liberal law professors say Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg should resign now so President Obama can pick her successor.

More on the whole “republic not a democracy” discussion.

44 Republican Senators have already pledged to filibuster John Bryson’s nomination as Commerce secretary.

As Congress left town for the long weekend, the Senate Minority Leader threw a grenade into the budget negotiations.

An attempt at explaining where I am coming from on in the health care discussion.

Contempt for Congress is an old American tradition. Unfortunately.

One of the Tea Party movement’s favorite Senators used the dreaded c-word.

The next week promises to be a battle between John Boehner and the Tea Party over whether or not compromise is a good idea.

The funny thing is that the quorum-busting in WI is more like a filibuster ought to be: a true delaying tactic that eventually has to give way to a democratic outcome.

The Democrats appear ready to come home (or, as per the update, maybe not).

Republicans won the right to govern Wisconsin. What does that mean for Democrats?

Once again, it looks like efforts to reform the Senate’s filibuster rules have fallen victim to that old devil politics.

More tortured logic on the issue of the filibuster.

The filibuster reform package that Senate Democrats unveiled yesterday has much to recommend to it. Unfortunately, it’s probably doomed.