Outside the Beltway

As expected, the Senate easily passed the two-year budget deal early this morning.

With only a handful of opposition, Paul Ryan was easily elected the 62nd Speaker of the House.

Yesterday, Paul Ryan spoke out against the procedure under which the new budget deal was negotiated. Today, he announced that he’ll vote for it anyway.

Paul Ryan is blasting the process that led to the new budget deal between the GOP and the White House, but one suspects he’s secretly quite pleased with the fact that it makes his job-to-be a lot easier.

Congress and the White House have reached a tentative deal on the budget and debt ceiling that promises to make Paul Ryan’s initial months as Speaker a lot easier.

Paul Ryan has never really wanted to be Speaker Of The House, but he’s take the job if House Republicans meet the conditions he’s set out.

Paul Ryan is getting pressure from all sides to get into the race for Speaker Of The House.

Yes, Ben Carson’s comments about the debt ceiling are silly, but it’s the fact that a lot of Republicans agree with him that’s dangerous.

Congress will get a temporary funding bill passed in time to avoid a shutdown on Thursday, but it may just be delaying the inevitable.

John Boehner let loose on the “false prophets” on the right yesterday, and he’s absolutely right.

Big news out of Washington, D.C.

Congress has just over a week to pass a funding bill, and it’s not looking very good.

The final effort to block the Iran Nuclear Deal failed in the Senate yesterday, meaning that the deal will now move forward.

The latest effort by conservative Republicans to oust John Boehner appears to be coming to an unsurprising end.

With two weeks left until the Federal Government runs out of money, and the issue still quite unresolved, a new poll shows that the vast majority of Americans would oppose a government shutdown over funding for Planned Parenthood.

Speaker John Boehner seems likely to see another leadership threat from fellow Republicans this fall.

Mitch McConnell spoke a truth that many conservatives are likely not going to want to accept.

Some Republicans are threatening a government shutdown over funding of Planned Parenthood, but a new poll shows that it would be a big political risk for Republicans.

Another poll confirms the fact that Americans of all political stripes continue to hold Congress is disdain.

Thanks in part to a slow summer news cycle, the speculation about Vice-President Biden entering the race for President seems to be reaching a fever pitch.

Rand Paul held the Senate floor for nearly twelve hours yesterday to talk about the PATRIOT Act, but it’s unclear if he accomplished anything.

Five years after it became law, the Republican effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act appears to be over.

The scandal that will make everyone forget about Benghazi.

Another lesson in incompetence in governing from House Republicans.

Polling indicates that the American public opposes the GOP position on DHS funding, but that’s unlikely to change many minds on Capitol Hill.

By a wide margin Americans think it was wrong of the GOP to invite Israel’s Prime Minister to speak to Congress.

Even with a House and Senate majority, the GOP is unlikely to get what it wants in its current immigration battle with the President.

Several Tea Party backed Members of Congress claim to be challenging John Boehner in tomorrow’s vote for Speaker. They are, of course, delusional.

Despite opposition from both Republicans and Democrats, the compromise budget resolution passed narrowly last night, but not without some last minute drama

The budget bill Congress set to pass Congress would effectively reverse the will of the voters of Washington, D.C., who just voted to legalize marijuana.

It looks like Congress has averted a budget fight for the second straight year.

The House approved a bill to protest the President’s executive action on immigration that will go nowhere. The question is whether it will placate the right.

It’s an old story. Republican leadership wants to avoid a government shutdown, but the hard core conservatives want a fight, this time over the President’s immigration action. We have a week to see how it unfolds.

A new poll shows that a majority of Americans support the President’s changes to deportation policy, but don’t like that he acted unilaterally.

The fact that Republicans lack anything approaching a coherent immigration plan makes it hard to take their criticism of the President seriously.

Top Republicans worry that their party’s response to the President’s executive action will alienate Latinos. However, there’s little they can do about that.

Republicans don’t really have many options if the President pulls the trigger on immigration reform via executive action.

Mike Huckabee seems to be making the moves necessary to run for President again, For reasons only he can understand.

The GOP’s big wins last week seem to be just guaranteeing that this year’s battle between the Tea Party and the “establishment” will continue.

What happened Tuesday? And what does it tell us about 2016?

The GOP added to its majority in the House, giving it the biggest majority it has had since Truman was President.

The odds say that the GOP will end up with a Senate majority in the 114th Congress when all the votes are counted, but if it doesn’t happen then there’s likely to be quite a battle inside the GOP.

America’s federal workforce is increasingly disenchanted.

The death of the Tea Party is greatly exaggerated.

The GOP has bounced back significantly from the lows it experienced after last year’s government shutdown.

If Republicans win the Senate, what we’ve seen for the past three years could end up seeming tame by comparison.

Tea Party backed candidates may have lost most of the GOP primary battles, but they’ve won the war for control of the Republican agenda.

Despite a high profile effort to oust him, the most prominent libertarian Republican in Congress survived his primary challenge yesterday.