Outside the Beltway

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

After a fairly bad 2010, Barack Obama is starting off 2011 in a very good position.

Sarah Palin’s unfavorability ratings continue to climb. And there’s very little room for her recovery.

There is a problem with political rhetoric in this country, but telling people to be nicer to each other isn’t going to cool it down.

House Republicans want to do away with the increasing number of “czars” in the White House.

Andrew Sullivan makes a rather bizarre charge offhandedly: “Who among the neocons would have thought that one of George W. Bush’s final legacies would be bringing pogroms, bombings and genocide to Christians in his new zone of freedom?”

What’s up with McCain and DADT?

The repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is a sign that the political ground is shifting. Will the GOP take notice?

Are Marco Rubio, Haley Barbour, and Mike Huckabee the favorites to win the White House?

A new poll shows that the American public is discontented, nervous about the economy, not entirely sure they can trust the new GOP majority in Congress, and has no idea what it wants from Washington. Sounds like a recipe for disaster.

A Federal Judge in Virginia has handed the first legal defeat to the President’s health care reform package.

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

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg says he isn’t running for President, but he’s sure acting like a guy who’s at least thinking about it.

President Obama is already taking heat from the left for his compromise on tax cut extensions, but will it actually hurt him in the end?

According to a new Gallup poll, President Obama is not only less popular than George W. Bush, but the only president from the last half century less popular is Dick Nixon.

The editors of the Washington Post want you to know that “Fair Game,” the new movie about the Valerie Plame affair, is “Hollywood myth making.” Propaganda and lies is more like it.

The Senate rejected an effort to limit the extension of the Bush tax cuts based on income level. At this point, the only question is when Democrats will concede defeat on this debate.

The prospective Republican field for 2012 is dismal. Then again, it always is.

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

After 1 1/2 years in office, President Obama has yet to grant a single request for a pardon or clemency, continuing a thirty year trend in which the Presidential pardon power has nearly fallen in to disuse.

A new round of Wikileaks documents is out, and it opens the door on diplomatic correspondence previously hidden from the public.

The Republican talking point that lowering taxes lowers spending and raising taxes increases spending is denied by reality.

President Obama is likely join the ranks of the unemployed come noon on January 20, 2013 if a Fed forecast is right.

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

A ten year old case out of Texas raises yet more doubts about the justice of the death penalty.

The latest story being repeated by the conservative talking heads is the claim that President Obama will be spending $ 200 million per day on his upcoming overseas trip. The problem is that it’s not true.

George W. Bush’s new memoir reveals that he briefly considered replaced Dick Cheney as Vice-President before the 2004 elections. His decision not to do so reveals much about the relationship between Presidents and Vice-Presidents in modern American politics.