Outside the Beltway

The filibuster reform package that Senate Democrats unveiled yesterday has much to recommend to it. Unfortunately, it’s probably doomed.

Today’s job numbers make it clear that Congress has only one duty, and that is to do everything it can to stimulate real economic growth.

Mike Bloomberg says we’re electing people to Congress who “can’t read” and “don’t have passports.”

The incoming freshman of the 112th Congress say that they won’t repeat the mistakes that Republicans made when they gained power sixteen years ago, but some of the advice they’re getting virtually guarantees it will happen if they aren’t careful.

Rand Paul is taking some heat for remarks that may or may not indicate that he’s backtracking on his previous vow not to seek earmark spending for Kentucky. Yes folks, the phony war on earmarks is back.

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.

Pundits and partisans constantly overreact to the momentary mood expressed in a single election. The Republicans have already rebounded from 2008. The Democrats will recover from 2010.

Will a Republican-controlled Congress bring about the third Presidential Impeachment in American history? Jonathan Chait thinks it’s virtually certain that it will, I’m not so sure.

The Obama White House is asserting that the President has the authority to issue assassination orders against American citizens, and that no Court has the authority to review his decision. If that doesn’t worry you, it should.

In 1994, it was the Contract With America. In 2010, it’s the Pledge To America. But does it really mean anything regardless of what it’s called ?

Newt Gingrich is drawing fire for his comments about that the President has a “Kenyan world view.” But, will Newt every pay the price for his inflammatory rhetoric ? Don’t count on it.

Newt Gingrich is feeding the fires again, this time claiming that the President may be guided by a “Kenyan,” “anti-colonialist” worldview.

Is the GOP really serious about changing the citizenship rules in the 14th Amendment ? Not likely.

A growing number of conservatives are in dismay about the state of their movement.

American Conservatism has changed significantly since the days of William F. Buckley Jr. One former National Review editor says that it’s changed for the worse.

Conservatives aren’t as united over the “outrage” of the New Black Panther Case as you might think.

Some Republicans in Congress are worried they won’t be able to control the future Congressmen and Senators that the Tea Party might be sending to Washington.

One conservative argues that the “scandal” over the New Black Panther Party’s alleged voter intimidation is a tempest in a teapot.

Miss yesterday’s opening round of the Kagan hearings ? You didn’t miss much.