Outside the Beltway

The Catch-22 of passing a massive spending bill in an undemocratic system.

He beats the alternative.

A departure from the Internet-era tradition.

The President has lost his patience with the unvaccinated.

Misc. stories worth noting, but that I don’t have time to write about.

Humanitarian instincts rightly trumped security concerns.

We may be out of Afghanistan but the ‘war on terror’ is likely to continue indefinitely.

I guess you proved your point about great powers picking and choosing their battlefields.

An unsatisfying first(?) response.

Thirteen Marines and dozens of Afghan civilians are dead in a much-anticipated attack.

As the pandemic’s effects continue to worsen in Florida, DeSantis continues to play the worst kind of politics.

The President is looking for any leverage he can to get refuseniks vaccinated.

The evacuation could soon become a terrorist target.

They’ve got a lot of gall blaming Biden for this mess.

US health agencies are clashing with the World Health Organization on the question.

A humanitarian crisis made worse by shameful delays.

The collapse is not his doing. But he’s accountable for the poor planning.

The postmortems are well underway.

Some recent news items that add to concern about American democracy.

The President is in open defiance of the Supreme Court.

The President hit all the right notes.

An interesting podcast conversation.

The country’s largest employer is soon going to be less tolerant of the unvaccinated.

An emotional day set the tone for the investigation.

Emotional testimony from police will kick off the event.

J.D. Vance’s cynical suggestion.

Democrats and Independents are losing their enthusiasm. But some perspective is needed.

A chance for a real investigation? Ruined legitimacy?

It’s not getting any better, folks.

A new career and a pending art sale.

He has nominated only 304 people out 1,200+ that require Senate confirmation.

President Trump’s destruction of longstanding norms continues under his successor.

The President announced a whopping 72 initiatives to rein in corporate power and lower prices.

It’s not perfect but it beats our usual approach to picking winners and losers.

Not surprisingly, it has been a bit contentious.

Some Democratic election observers think so.

A shameful exit from an ill-conceived war.

Some people claim there’s a woman to blame.

When he said he wouldn’t sign it if it wasn’t accompanied by a second bill, he wasn’t implying that he would veto it if it wasn’t.

A bizarre development looks to upend it less than 24 hours after it was announced.

Public health shouldn’t be made into a partisan issue.

Details are quite scant at the moment.

The second won’t be so fortunate.

It turns out a 51-50 Senate majority isn’t enough.

He’s in the minority but promises to start obstructing again if that changes.

One party is divided on how to govern and the other is united in not governing.

Should he be worried about the appearance of partisan gaming?

The project that has been on-again, off-again since 2008 seems to be off for good.

Vague reporting makes it hard to know whether the latest scandal is scandalous.