Outside the Beltway

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

A new poll shows that the Tea Party movement is more unpopular than it has ever been before, even among Republicans and conservatives.

The Department of Justice has informed Congress that its investigation has found no basis for criminal charges arising out of the targeting of conservative organizations by IRS officials evaluating applications for tax-exempt status.

With the voting now seemingly a mere formality, the question becomes what kind of Speaker of the House Paul Ryan will become.

With the top conservative caucus in Congress acquiescing to his candidacy, Paul Ryan is largely certain to become the next Speaker of the House.

What will likely be the apex of the House Select Committee’s investigation of the Benghazi attack begins and ends today with the testimony of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

With Congress set to come back from its recess, attention is once again turning to the race for Speaker and one Paul Ryan, Congressman from Wisconsin.

Another political earthquake in Washington as Kevin McCarthy drops out of the race for Speaker, and the House GOP doesn’t seem to know which way to go.

Quietly, Florida Senator Marco Rubio has been moving close to the front f the race for the Republican Presidential nomination.

The marriage equality issue is resolved, but that doesn’t mean the Supreme Court won’t have a lot of high profile cases on its docket over the next eight months.

In the wake of yesterday’s shootings in Oregon, President Obama took the airwaves to offer the same empty rhetoric he has on this issue in the past, and to make the false claim that there are simple solutions to what is a very complex problem.

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

Trump remains in the lead, but he has been steadily falling over the month of September. (And this triggers, as these things do, musings about institutions and our party system).

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

Big news out of Washington, D.C.

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

A Federal Judge has ruled that part of a lawsuit filed by the House of Representatives can go forward, but the legal battle is far from over.

Ohio politicos are predictably unhappy about the decision to return Mount Denali to its rightful place.

The Senate Majority Leader says there will be no immigration reform while Obama is President. This is unlikely to help the GOP’s already serious problems with Latino voters.

Lindsey Graham recently retired as a colonel in the Air Force Reserves after 33 years of service. He missed most of the last twenty.

A little known Congressman from North Carolina has filed a motion to “remove” John Boehner from the Speakership.

Ohio Governor John Kasich looks good on paper, but his campaign seems as though it’s unlikely to get out of the starting gate.

There are mutual embassies in Havana and Washington for the first time in 54 years. It certainly took long enough.

In the end, the odds that Congress can actually stop the new deal regarding Iran’s nuclear program are pretty low.

The NYT has left Ted Cruz’ new book off its bestseller list, despite it selling more copies than 18 of 20 titles on said list.

In the wake of the latest Supreme Court decision, the Affordable Care Act seems to have become even more firmly established than it was before last week, and the prospect of repeal has become even less likely.

SCOTUS has upheld the use of election commissions to draw Congressional district lines.

There are still legal challenges to the Affordable Care Act pending after King v. Burwell, but they aren’t quite as substantial as what we’ve seen over the last five years.

In an ordinary year, Ohio Governor John Kasich seems like he’d be a perfect candidate for Republicans in an era when winning the Buckeye State is essential to winning the White House. But things are far from ordinary in the GOP.

The people who continue to claim that the Confederate Flag is about anything other than hatred, racism, and a nation that celebrated slavery are lying to you and to themselves.

Political reality shows us that the shootings in Charleston are not going to have any appreciable impact on the likelihood of any type of gun control law passing anywhere outside of the bluest of the blue states.

Nine people died overnight in a shooting at an historic African-American Church in Charleston, South Carolina.

Lindsey Graham is the latest entrant into the Presidential race, but it’s hard to see how he gets out of the bottom of the polls.

Pollsters on both sides of the Atlantic have been trying to figure out why the polls released right up until the eve of the British General Election were so wrong. Here’s one theory, and it’s very compelling.

The House has passed a bill that would place real restrictions on the National Security Agency’s data mining program. Now, it moves to the Senate.

As expected, the Republican-controlled House passed a bill that would ban most abortions after twenty weeks. It also happens to be completely unconstitutional and has no chance of actually becoming law.

House Republicans are set to vote on a bill banning abortion in almost all cases after twenty weeks. What they can’t do is explain where the Constitution gives Congress the power to do this.

For reasons only he can understand. South Carolina’s senior Senator will be entering the race for the White House early next month.

Two men were killed last night before they could carry out what appears to be a planned attack on an anti-Islam event in Texas.

Bernie Sanders is running for President. He’s not going to win, but he’s not running because he thinks he can win.

Not surprisingly, the Select Committee established by House Republicans to investigate something that has already been investigated multiple times, will be in operation well into the Presidential Election season.

The confirmation of a new Attorney General has been held up nearly six months for what amounts to no legitimate reason.

Marco Rubio is the first Republican in the race who actually has a plausible chance to win the nomination, but it’s not going to be easy.

One Missouri legislator is going on a crusade against a “problem” that may not actually exist.