Outside the Beltway

The Senate has passed an amendment to a military spending bill that would require women to register for the draft.

After initially expressing doubts about his candidacy, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan has lined up behind Donald Trump.

Paul Ryan is declining to back Donald Trump for the time being, but other Republicans are making their own choices.

Conservatives are doing all they can to make sure Merrick Garland does not get either a hearing or a vote in the Senate, and it’s working.

Another Republican Senator has broken ranks and called for hearings on the nomination of Merrick Garland, as another poll shows most Americans support hearings as well.

It increasingly appears that the GOP is on the losing side of the argument over whether to hold hearings and a vote on the nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court.

A crack in the wall.

President Obama has selected his nominee to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court, now the question is whether the Senate will act.

The effort to stop Donald Trump seems likely to set off a civil war inside the Republican Party.

Another poll shows that most Americans would prefer that the vacancy on the Supreme Court be filled by President Obama than that it be left open for the next President to fill, but other factors make it unlikely the Senate will act.

It’s Super Tuesday, and both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are likely to go a long way toward securing the nominations of their respective parties.

Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions became the latest prominent Republican to endorse Donald Trump, but there are a lot more Republicans who are starting to panic over what Trump could do to their party.

Is President Obama planning a Checkmate move in the SCOTUS nomination fight?

Notwithstanding polling that indicates the American public disagrees with them, Senate Republicans emerged from a meeting today largely united on the idea of not giving any Supreme Court nominee named by President a hearing, or even the courtesy of a meeting.

Conservatives are sending a message to Senate Republicans about the vacancy on the Supreme Court, and it may require them to initiate a suicidal game plan.

Two new polls show that Americans are basically split equally on the question of who should appoint the Justice that will replace Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court.

The unity of the Republican Senate on the idea of no hearings or votes, if it ever really existed, appears to be cracking.

A crack in the Republican wall?

The politicization of Supreme Court appointments didn’t start with Republicans last night.

It didn’t take long for the political battle over the seat held by the late Justice Antonin Scalia to become another part of the 2016 political battle.

After making a big deal about voting against the budget bill passed yesterday by Congress during the last debate, Marco Rubio ended up missing the vote altogether.

Representatives from 195 nations reached an agreement supposedly devoted to addressing global climate change, but it’s really more hype than anything else.

Polling shows that most Americans oppose Donald Trump’s plan to bar Muslim’s from immigrating to the United States, but Republicans are far more receptive to the idea.

The quadrennial fantasy of a brokered convention, which American politics has not seen since 1952, is rearing its head again, and it’s no more likely now than it was when we talked about this four years ago.

President Obama is set to sign a military spending bill that effectively guarantees that his 2008 campaign promise to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba will go unfulfilled.

Republican Matt Bevin picked up what comes as a surprise win to many observers, and that sets up a big fight over what had been a PPACA program that the White House has touted.

Paul Ryan’s admission that immigration reform will not happen as long as Barack Obama is President simply reflects the reality of immigration politics in Congress.

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

Rand Paul is promising to filibuster the budget deal when it gets to the Senate, but it’s extremely unlikely he’ll be able to do anything but delay the inevitable.

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.

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

Rand Paul’s flailing Presidential campaign seems to be raising concerns about his Senate seat among some Republicans.

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

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

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.

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.

Senate Democrats successfully blocked a final vote on the Iran Nuclear Deal, meaning that Congressional debate on the matter is effectively over.

Some House Republicans are trying to delay the vote on the Iran Nuclear Deal with an argument that has no merit whatsoever.

At least on paper, Senate Democrats now have enough votes to block the Senate from voting on a resolution disapproving of the Iran Nuclear Deal.

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 to $500,000, Rand Paul bought himself a caucus so he can run for two offices at once.

Another poll shows that most Americans, and even most Republicans, support a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants.

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.

President Obama’s confrontational approach to opponents of the Iran Nuclear Deal ignores legitimate questions.