Chris Deaton

Can a new system of voting really deliver civility?

As far as people-watching goes, you could do worse than the third hole at Augusta National. The rope line separating the gallery from the green is to the right of the putting surface, which is also just behind the tee box of the Homeric par-3 fourth. With no sand traps or obstructive trees around,…

The basketball term "jump shot" describes the act of a player springing from their toes and flicking the ball toward the rim. Its form was perfected by Ray Allen: body oriented toward the basket with the exactness of a NASA flight path, feet quickly off the ground with token resistance from…

Atlanta

A group of moderate Republicans was pushing this week to include legislation for “stabilizing” Obamacare within a spending bill that funds the government beyond its latest shutdown deadline of Friday night. The lawmakers’ proposal contains new money subject to abortion funding restrictions—a…

There is an argument, based on both stats and results, that the 10 best programs in Division I men’s basketball the last half decade are Arizona, Duke, Gonzaga, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan State, North Carolina, Villanova, Virginia—and Wichita State.

There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that could make a primary election for Texas land commissioner interesting. Not if Kinky Friedman were running. Not if Milton Friedman were running. Not if an underwater city of gold and vibranium and sweet crude oil were discovered on election eve 10 miles off…

Hours after the Parkland, Fla., school shooting, Zeynep Tufekci spent part of her evening calling out major media that aired video of students trembling while the noise of gunshots ruptured the air. “This is a snuff film,” she said of one such clip, which was embedded atop a New York Times story.…

We laid our grandfather to rest last weekend. Among his many honorifics—Claude the Wise, the Servant, the War Hero, the Parent, Her Majesty’s Loyal and Precious Cincinnati Reds Fan—was Claude the Catholic.

Three answers to one question Tuesday night summed up the Republican primary in the Indiana Senate race. During the campaign’s opening debate, the moderator asked the trio of candidates running to replace incumbent Democrat Joe Donnelly to name two spending cuts they would vote to make right away.…

Who among us hasn’t said, “I’m so mad I could beat my television with a hammer”? Finally, the National Rifle Association has acted on the impulse.

For a stupid but explicable reason—American culture is bored, indulgent, tribal, and unthinking—Kim Yo-jong, the younger sister of North Korean dicator Kim Jong-un, was memed (flatteringly) because she gave Vice President Mike Pence “side eye.” As the Washington Post's Philip Bump tweeted (before…

During the trophy presentation after the Super Bowl, Philadelphia Eagles head coach Doug Pederson, tight end Zach Ertz, and MVP Nick Foles each began their interviews with mentions of their faith.

George P. Bush, the Texas land commissioner and son of the former Florida governor and Donald Trump rival Jeb Bush, tweeted his unmistakable support for the president’s agenda on Tuesday, in response to an endorsement from Donald Trump, Jr. of his reelection campaign.

Philadelphia Eagles defensive end Chris Long is the first Super Bowl athlete this year to say he won't visit the White House if his team becomes champions. Like the Golden State Warriors’ Stephen Curry—the face of basketball’s signature franchise, who said after the NBA Finals last year, “I don’t…

President Trump’s second annual address to Congress passed Tuesday night without him mentioning a sole word about entitlement spending, continuing a deviation from the economically conservative Congress he inherited.

The Associated Press reported Tuesday that Major League Baseball will expand its experiment of starting extra innings in certain games with a runner at second base.

If there were ever an occasion for President Trump to create some buzz for his health care agenda in 2018, it was on Monday morning, in a case of man-meets-moment. Trump introduced new Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar before the Cabinet official’s swearing-in ceremony, one day before…

The Centers for Disease Control alarmed the public in early January when it announced that the topic of its next monthly public health briefing would be preparing for nuclear war. But the agency soon changed the subject to something it deemed more urgent: this season’s flu outbreak.

It’s Virginia Woolf’s 136th birthday, meaning she’s had plenty of time to finish her description of the child orbiting the lake by foot and how it brings to mind the circular nature of life. After all, the kid made it just five steps, and it was a century ago.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and President Trump negotiated toward a bargain on immigration reform that could have satisfied both parties and reduced the likelihood of a shutdown, the New York Times reported hours before government funding expired at midnight Saturday. Democrats would have…

In one part of the room, lawmakers and public health experts debated whether an increase in opioid abuse among Medicaid expansion states could be a direct result of Obamacare policy. In the other part by himself—a shock, I tell you—was Rand Paul.

There must be a specter of bad timing that haunts good athletes, like some ghost that breathes allergenic dark matter into a player’s airway and makes him cough up the moment. It appears in about two and a half seconds: Which is how long it took the ball to leave Mookie Wilson’s bat, bounce toward…

Customs and Border Protection told THE WEEKLY STANDARD this week that testing continued on eight prototypes for a barrier along the U.S.-Mexico border. The prototypes were commissioned earlier this year to give officials ideas for what types of structures they ultimately want to build. “Through the…

About 28 million people live in Texas. Imagine a population the size of Austin has cholera, and one the size of Austin, Houston, San Antonio, Dallas, Fort Worth, El Paso, Arlington, and Corpus Christi faces the imminent threat of famine. Add Plano, Laredo, and each of the 167 cities down the line…

Media critics and anti-Trump skeptics are charging that President Trump may have violated Twitter’s terms of service Tuesday evening for initiating a nuclear button-measuring contest with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un. “I think they're trying to decide if this kind of tweet—referring to a…

Few goods reflect a culture’s welfare, tastes, and very zeitgeist like food. Black-and-white images of hungry Londoners gripping loaves of bread define our perception of England in the mid-1800s. (They gripped Dickens’s, at least.) In times of decadence, spoiled Americans order an appetizer of peas…

Basketball is “Indiana’s Game,” says the slogan of the state’s NBA franchise, the Pacers. It’s not Hoosier imagery of burnished hoops nailed to barn doors, the scent of popcorn inside a gym, keeping warm in winter with the exhalations of 5,000 spectators under the same rafters. It’s two of those…

Pending certification on Wednesday, a recount of a Virginia House of Delegates race has resulted in a one-vote win for the Democratic candidate, turning what was once ca 66-34 Republican majority into a 50-50 split.

Winning isn’t everything, nor is it the only thing for Democrats in special elections this year. Political observers had built up Tuesday’s Alabama Senate vote as yet another put-up-or-shut-up moment for Washington’s minority party, suggesting that a loss by Doug Jones there would be another…

Birmingham, Alabama

The New York Times suggested there would be two lessons from a Roy Moore victory: “It would illustrate the enduring limitations of Democrats in the South and suggest that the tug of partisanship is a forbiddingly powerful force.”

Birmingham, Alabama

Athens, Alabama

Former Trump administration adviser Steve Bannon opined that Mitt Romney “hid behind” his religion instead of serving in the Vietnam War during a rally Tuesday night for Senate candidate Roy Moore.

Birmingham, Ala.

As if there was a need to remind everyone that American politics has lost its marbles and then pulverized them with a steamroller, here are five observations from recent domestic events and the president’s Twitter feed.

President Trump retweeted three incendiary videos from a fringe far-right British activist, called for a boycott of CNN, floated the firing of NBC executives for propagating “fake news,” and suggested an investigation into the 2001 death of an aide to then-Rep. Joe Scarborough: a matter the far…

President Trump retweeted three incendiary videos from a fringe far-right British activist, called for a boycott of CNN, floated the firing of NBC executives for propagating “fake news,” and suggested an investigation into the 2001 death of an aide to then-Rep. Joe Scarborough: a matter the far…

House minority leader Nancy Pelosi didn’t say Sunday if she believed the multiple women who have accused Democratic Rep. John Conyers of sexual misconduct, and instead encouraged “due process” as a congressional ethics committee probes allegations made against the 88-year-old lawmaker in multiple…

At 12:30 p.m. Thursday, the NFC North-leading Minnesota Vikings (8-2) will visit their lone division challenger, the Detroit Lions (6-4). It will be the only hour of the day it can be said that Thanksgiving football is better than Thanksgiving basketball.

Doug Jones’s Senate campaign called Roy Moore a sexual “abuser” in an advertisement released Wednesday, its bluntest attack yet against the Republican candidate’s alleged history of pursuing teenage girls sexually, some of them underage.

Birmingham, Ala.

An attorney for Roy Moore failed to defend his client Wednesday from multiple allegations of past sexual misconduct printed in theWashington Post, and instead questioned the credibility of a separate accuser’s account and attacked her celebrity representation, Gloria Allred.

Roy Moore and his defenders have questioned the timing of a Washington Post story that includes the first-hand account of a woman who said that Moore, now 70, initiated an intimate sexual encounter with her when he was 32 years old and she was 14. “To think grown women would wait 40 years before a…

(This post has been updated to account for additional vote returns reported Wednesday.)

Roy Halladay, one of two pitchers in Major League Baseball history to toss a playoff no-hitter and a two-time Cy Young Award-winner, died in a plane crash Tuesday at age 40.

The House Republican tax reform package met immediate resistance after it was unveiled Thursday. Some blue-state GOP reps were wary of the measure’s treatment of state and local sales taxes. Sens. Marco Rubio, Mike Lee, Jeff Flake, and Bob Corker expressed their own concerns. The National…

Baseball is not obligated to resemble your imagination.

President Trump proposed axing Obamacare’s individual mandate in a tax reform bill late Wednesday morning, to help offset the cost of reducing rates. To meet this year’s budget, an overhaul cannot increase the deficit by more than a projected $1.5 trillion over the next decade, and Republican…

American society expects the president of the United States to be all things to all people. Some roles are related to constitutional or political duty: the country’s chief diplomat, its civilian head of the military, and its primary influence on domestic policy. Others flow from the nation’s…

The windows one floor up and diagonal from the living room window were illuminated shortly past midnight. We’ve all been there: A child wails, an animal skedaddles, a stomach growls, a phone rings, a bladder pleads, and suddenly you’re ambulant when the rest of the home is prone, wondering why…

Boston

Potential Senate candidate Kid Rock, a term that never becomes any less weird each time you write it, said Tuesday that he will not challenge Michigan Democrat Debbie Stabenow in next year’s election.

Boston

Reduced for the time being to pruning Obamacare, Sen. Lamar Alexander announced 11 Republican cosponsors Thursday afternoon to a health insurer subsidy bill the president may or may not like, conservatives detest, Senate Democrats embrace, and the House speaker has all but dismissed.

Senators Lamar Alexander and Patty Murray reached a bipartisan deal on Tuesday to reinstate subsidies paid to insurers for lowering costs on certain low-income insurance enrollees. This “cost-sharing” process is a one-two step: One, a carrier reduces the amount of health expenses a particular…

The Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate’s health committee have struck a deal to fund reimbursements to insurers that discount prices for low-income individuals, just days after the Trump administration determined the payments were illegal without an appropriation from Congress.

Trump administration officials announced late Thursday they will end reimbursements to insurers for lowering costs on individuals “immediately,” potentially destabilizing premiums on the exchange unless Congress reacts with legislation to continue the payments.

The Red Sox and Yankees survived on Sunday, setting up a Columbus Day quadruple-header. Were they lucky or just timely? And what’s in store now?

Vice President Mike Pence departed an NFL game Sunday afternoon in response to several players who knelt during the playing of the National Anthem, he said in a statement.

California representative Linda Sanchez, a member of the House minority leadership, says in an interview set to air Sunday on C-SPAN’s Newsmakers that it’s time for a new generation of Democrats to replace Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, and Jim Clyburn.

It’s a classic case of man bites Blue Dog. The southern Arizona chapter of the Indivisible Project, a leading organizer of anti-Trump progressives, protested outside Democratic Rep. Tom O’Halleran’s office Tuesday for supporting a crime bill making it easier for the government to deport…

Construction began Tuesday in San Diego on eight prototypes of a proposed southern border wall, U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced, with the six contractors chosen by the federal government expected to complete work within the next 30 days.

Protesters in pristine pulmonary health didn’t stop chanting until chairman Orrin Hatch asked “Where’s the damn police?” and the damn police showed up. Sen. Lindsey Graham traveled miles off script and actually had saliva on his lips as he vowed to thrust “a stake in the heart of single-payer…

Bubble-dwellers everywhere in American culture are prone to make comparisons that become hackneyed over time. In music criticism, someone’s going to liken a songwriter to Dylan. In political punditry, someone’s going to call a bad guy Voldemort. And in baseball, someone’s going to compare Joey…

There are two campaign commercials from House hopefuls in 2018 worth considering as a pair. The first one is from Iraq and Afghanistan veteran Dan Helmer, a Democrat challenging at least seven others in Virginia’s 10th Congressional District to face Rep. Barbara Comstock.

The Graham-Cassidy health reform bill is notable for how much its policy caters to governors—no matter their party affiliation. Its private-market provisions are premised on a simple plan: Take the money projected to be spent on four key Obamacare-driven expenditures, including the Medicaid…

Some of Kid Rock’s best-known work is mashups of genres and past hits. He made a fortune fusing rap and metal. He created a worldwide chartbuster mixing “Werewolves of London” with “Sweet Home Alabama.” Now he’s sewing a political image cut from the theatrics of Idiocracy’s President Camacho and…

Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal will always have London and Sydney and yes, even Paris. But in 2017, and likely forever, they won’t have their long-awaited clash in Queens.

President Trump sat at the inflection point of a horseshoe with Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell on either side of him and Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi just to McConnell’s left. A reporter asked him if he would support Congress bunching aid money for Hurricane Harvey relief with a three-month…

For a town accustomed to punting major policy issues, the Trump administration’s boot of DACA to Congress could nab it a Pro Bowl nod.

A bipartisan health reform proposal headlined by Governors John Kasich and John Hickenlooper would preserve Obamacare and instead provide states more flexibility under the existing law, according to an outline of the plan released Thursday.

The Trump administration and congressional Republicans mixed it up the first several months of 2017, concocting a doozy of four parts discord and one part accomplishment. Candidate Trump made antagonism with the GOP establishment a selling point of his campaign. While that approach earned votes at…

President Trump returned to demanding money from Congress for his border wall on Tuesday night, just a couple of weeks before the issue takes top billing in a showdown over keeping the government funded beyond September.

Bob Ley is one of ESPN’s all-time great personalities. With Chris Berman (of “back-back-back-back . . . gone!” fame), Ley is one of the last two original SportsCenter anchors still with the company. His longevity isn’t attributable to some Milton Waddams fluke: He is sharp and versatile, having…

Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson had already heard the name Benjamin Banneker by the time the Maryland-born free black wrote to him on August 19, 1791. Banneker, a farmer and self-taught man of scientific pursuits, lived near the Quaker Ellicott brothers in what is now Ellicott City, just north…

Even Bob Gibson wasn’t this merciless. In what has to be a new best worst first pitch of all-time, 17-year-old Jordan Leandre plunked a photographer standing several feet behind and to the left of home plate before Wednesday’s game between the Boston Red Sox and St. Louis Cardinals at Fenway.…

Evaluating the violence in Charlottesville and the reaction to it from public officials and commentators requires basic levels of reason and decency. To botch it reveals some terribly unflattering trait: It could be related to political or partisan obsession, ego, honest-to-goodness insensitivity,…

President Trump wants lawmakers to sign off on something his own Department of Homeland Security can’t yet provide. As Axios’s Jonathan Swan reported last week, “sources close to Trump say he’s dead serious about building an impressive wall and will go crazy when he realizes Congress has no plans…

The summer of 1992 was owned by Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson—in that order, His Airness certainly would attest. It was 25 years ago this week that they led the Dream Team to Olympic gold in men’s hoops in Barcelona: an eight-game romp in which they outscored their opponents by 350 points. It’s…

I’ve been wondering what in the hell Robin Ventura was thinking since I was age 7, when the pup third baseman for the Chicago White Sox charged Nolan Ryan like he was an untrained bull calf loosed upon Pamplona. This was the sequence of events:

The (really good) website FiveThirtyEight is tracking how often members of Congress vote with the positions favored by President Trump. A “Trump Score” of 100 percent indicates that a senator or representative has matched the White House’s stance on every bill to have been weighed up or down. The…

In a provocative excerpt of his new book, Arizona Republican Jeff Flake identifies hazards of the Trump aura that conservatives have abetted and must challenge today. They include: “the most egregious and sustained attacks on [President] Obama’s legitimacy” ... “the strange specter of an American…

In a shot at their colleagues in the Senate who failed to pass their Obamacare repeal measure overnight, House GOP members reportedly played “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” before a meeting on Friday. "The searches all say they’d have made Whitefish Bay, If they’d put 15 more miles behind…

From full repeal to skinny repeal to no repeal.

Pictured above: Three skinny health reform amendments that could stand a chance of passing.

Senator John McCain has voted during the last two days to consider—not approve—a practically empty vessel which Republicans will try filling with legislative cargo; to waive Senate rules restricting an amendment as-written; against adopting one of those amendments as working language for a bill;…

Senate Republicans advanced an instrument more than an idea for Obamacare repeal Tuesday with a wild vote interrupted by jeering protesters and applause for the pivotal return of an ailing colleague.

The Senate’s way forward on health care is still uncertain, but majority leader Mitch McConnell said Wednesday that the upper chamber will take a procedural vote on at least something next week.

Wisconsin senator Ron Johnson, a Republican wildcard in the upper chamber’s health reform discussions, accused majority leader Mitch McConnell Friday of being duplicitous in his struggle to assemble 50 yea votes to pass the Better Care Reconciliation Act.

Several reporters were piqued Thursday evening by a county-level Republican official's one-liner cited in the Tennessean (emphasis mine):

Leave sausage out of this. The ever-evolving Republican health care bills demonstrate how rancid legislative livermush gets made: a pudding of policy innards blended and baked with haste because the ingredients were up against their expiration date, or in this case the August recess. The concoction…

Oklahoma, where the wins came sweeping down the plain Tuesday for a couple of state-level Democrats, is the new flashpoint for progressives hoping the resistance is taking electoral root. Karen Gaddis, a retired public school teacher, captured a House district representing parts of Tulsa. Michael…

The Associated Press reported Sunday some accurate, if incomplete information about Sen. Ted Cruz’s health reform proposal. “Cruz’s plan,” the story reads, “… aims to lower premiums for healthy people.” The article provided no additional details, either specifics or their presumed consequences,…

Two of the most mordant videos from the Trump era were clipped from the real world. In one, the camera zooms on the pained face of Chris Christie as he stands behind Donald Trump, staring into the abyss on the night of Super Tuesday. In the other, Sean Spicer excavates a new low for White House…

The Washington, D.C. rapid transit system was restored to full capacity Sunday, meaning it now runs as fast as a moped instead of a riding mower. The “Metrorail” had undergone significant repairs since last June, creating service disruptions on multiple train lines week after week. Sometimes this…

It’s often said that reforming the U.S. health care system amounts to reshaping one-fifth of the economy. It’d follow, then, that voters would hold the GOP’s grotesquely unpopular health bills against its reputation on economic issues. But historic polling shows that the public doesn’t relate the…

One of the major hang-ups of the Senate GOP’s stalled health bill is how the legislation approaches Medicaid and insuring low-income populations. The Better Care Reconciliation Act overhauls the state-federal program so dramatically that many individuals who want insurance and otherwise might have…

The legislation faces opposition from both conservatives for not doing enough and from moderates for cutting too much.

The Senate GOP has revealed its closely guarded alternative to the American Health Care Act, which stitches together significant changes to Medicaid intended to unify disparate Republicans and modifies the House approach to Obamacare regulations in a way that still provoked the immediate ire of…

Two years ago, the NBA’s New York Knicks drafted Kristaps Porzingis, a 7’3” superweapon who can shoot, run, and jump. He’s unique. The team’s general manager, Phil Jackson, called him a “unicorn” on Wednesday. Porzingis is only 21 years old but has withstood the withering heat lamp of playing ball…

Between the fundraising and national attention, it all appeared just peachy for Jon Ossoff. Then Georgia voted.

All this time, the national headlines about health care reform in Congress have prioritized the terms “CBO” and “pre-existing conditions.” Not nearly enough attention has been paid to “Medicaid.”

Democratic donors have poured tens of millions of dollars into the most expensive test run in the history of House campaigns.

It was two years ago Friday when Donald Trump descended an escalator inside Trump Tower to announce his candidacy for president. Did he drag the country's political conduct with him? "Any debate about civility in politics begins with Trump," New York Times reporter Glenn Thrush tweeted on Thursday.…

Atlanta

Jon Ossoff, the Democratic nominee in the special election to replace Tom Price in Georgia's 6th congressional district, is the progressive hope du jour. He has a small lead in an average of polls against his opponent, Republican Karen Handel, ahead of the vote next Tuesday. The district favors the…

What the Golden State Warriors accomplished Monday was, as it had been most nights of the NBA season, amazing. Not because they won and did so in emphatic fashion—12 months ago they were a juggernaut, Kevin Durant made them a cyborg, and their victories typically have been inevitable. Rather, they…

Donald Trump's campaign changed the political playbook in elections across the country. But if Republicans in greater Atlanta retain an imperiled House seat next Tuesday, it will be thanks in so small part to their having called a familiar play.

Atlanta

Scooter Gennett hit four home runs on Tuesday night. "Scooter Gennett" is not an anagram for "Mike Trout." Though it is only a "u" short of having the letters to spell "get out" and a "d" short of Scrabbling together his traditional position, "second"—which isn't often associated with power…

American culture may be approaching the event horizon of politics, from which all matter(s), including harmless diversions, cannot escape. This includes the Twitter account We Rate Dogs (@dog_rates), which was sucked into the singularity on Thursday.

The United States has experienced a tumultuous last decade. It's endured an historic financial crisis, prolonged government dysfunction, eroding trust in public institutions, a farcical presidential election, and Twitter. No society should have to suffer any of these. But gaze upon the world for…

President Trump urged the Senate to eliminate its 60-vote threshold for ending debate on most legislative matters Tuesday morning, though his reasoning appears to be garbled.

There's a scene in the John Landis comedy Trading Places when Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd stand in the potential energy of the New York Stock Exchange's trading floor. It's a few ticks before the opening bell, and the camera cuts from the wall clock to the zombies below: pit traders in shirts,…

Republican businessman Greg Gianforte won the special election for Montana's open House seat Thursday, one day after instigating a violent confrontation with a reporter that his campaign blamed on the journalist and left him with a misdemeanor assault charge.

The ball in Times Square hit zero Wednesday evening for the Congressional Budget Office's latest projection of the American Health Care Act. As with the agency's estimate of an earlier version of the bill, the document was immediately put to political use. "The Congressional Budget Office just…

The AARP is targeting five GOP senators in an ad campaign about the American Health Care Act, even though Senate Republicans have said they'll scrap the bill in favor of new legislation that presumably won't tank with the American public.

Several Republican senators reacted to President Trump's budget request Tuesday by highlighting just 0.0001 percent of its spending.

Enes Kanter of the Oklahoma City Thunder shrank his nearly 7-foot-tall frame into the red dot on Indiana Jones's map this offseason. Since his team was eliminated from the NBA playoffs last month, the Turkish center said he went from countries in the Asia-Pacific to eastern Europe, and eventually…

On the same day Donald Trump called his deputy attorney general's letter about James Comey a "recommendation" for termination, Rod Rosenstein told senators in private that he assembled the document at the president's request only after Trump decided to fire the FBI director.

Utah representative Jason Chaffetz, whose committee chairmanship has tasked him with oversight of the tumultuous Trump administration, announced his intention Thursday to resign from Congress at the end of June.

Speaker Paul Ryan committed the House Wednesday to "follow the facts wherever they may lead" in response to a growing briar patch of allegations against the Trump White House, including a report that the president discouraged James Comey from continuing an investigation of former national security…

Transportation secretary Elaine Chao told the Chamber of Commerce Monday that the Trump administration will unveil its infrastructure plan in the "next several weeks," the latest such estimate from a top official in recent days for one of the president's most touted priorities.

The Republican party's dream of an Obamacare replacement might yet become reality. But the House-passed American Health Care Act is a nightmare: a labyrinth of policy trade-offs and academic ideas the public has resisted entering. It's currently polling in the 30s—a relative achievement, given that…

Mississippi governor Phil Bryant would waive certain Obamacare mandates specified in the House-passed health care bill if doing so would improve the state's insurance market, Bryant's office told THE WEEKLY STANDARD on Wednesday.

A national survey conducted entirely after House passage of the Republican health care bill found that support and opposition to Obamacare is split evenly among Americans.

House Republicans held together just enough on Thursday to pass their partial Obamacare replacement, a surgically repaired bill that a critical mass of conservatives and moderates blocked until they became more comfortable with the final product in recent days.

Republicans are adding another $8 billion over five years to their health bill to help Americans with pre-existing medical conditions pay for insurance, the latest such supplement designed to stop moderates and a few skeptical conservatives from bailing on the legislation.

The latest version of the American Health Care Act continued to leak GOP support on Tuesday, as Republicans stumbled to defend critical details of the bill that Democrats and outside groups have effectively defined as dangerous to sick consumers.

Colonel Bruce Hampton, a four-star general of the South's jam band scene, contemporary of the Allman Brothers and Grateful Dead, influence and mentor to blues artists, occasional actor and constant character, passed away early Tuesday in Atlanta after collapsing onstage during a concert celebrating…

The term "pre-existing conditions" has become a catch-all to describe a certain category of health status, high-cost medical patients, and a popular provision of Obamacare under scrutiny in the health care reform process. It's applicable to all three of these things. But without understanding how,…

He should’ve stuck with "ridiculous." That was the word President Trump used in late April to describe the "first 100 days" standard by which new commanders in chief are judged for their productivity. Trump himself cited the timeline before the election in his Contract with the American Voter, a…

Ohio governor John Kasich dismissed changes to the American Health Care Act designed to give states flexibility under Obamacare's insurance regulations on Friday, telling reporters that the House amendment process is a "bouncing ball" he hasn't been interested in following.

He should’ve stuck with "ridiculous." That was the word President Trump used in late April to describe the "first 100 days" standard by which new commanders in chief are judged for their productivity. Trump himself cited the timeline before the election in his Contract with the American Voter, a…

The House Freedom Caucus officially backs an updated version of the GOP health care bill that includes a significant amendment co-sponsored by the group's chairman, the conservative bloc's spokeswoman announced early Wednesday afternoon. She did not respond immediately to a Twitter inquiry asking…

President Trump cited a conversation he had with Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly when he emphatically stated Tuesday that the United States will build a wall along its border with Mexico “soon."

It's supposed to go like this: Lawmakers make the law, and the president then enforces it. That very obvious function of government might help the Republican party prevent a government shutdown later this week.

The word around Capitol Hill is that Republicans are preparing to revive the dormant American Health Care Act after members return from their Easter break. Lawmakers have tried adding some conservative muscle to the bill in an effort to make weight. But a central reason why the AHCA could be back…

President Trump has provided his opponents abundant material with which to criticize him. His Twitter feed as commander in chief is similar to what it was when he was a candidate: an early-morning soapbox about cable news and what bothers him. It often gets him into trouble. So do his policy planks…

Speaker Paul Ryan will take advantage of the House recess to lead a bipartisan delegation to the United Kingdom and three other European countries next week to discuss economic and security matters facing NATO member countries, his office announced Wednesday.

The Senate is unique among American political bodies in that its very rules and traditions have often been the basis for consequential oratory. Such was the case on Thursday, when South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham delivered a 3,000-word speech on the chamber's elimination of the 60-vote…

President Donald Trump certainly did his part in setting the table for the current state of public discourse. Make what you will of his agenda: His successful campaign has transformed the substance of political speech. This is an era when offhand vulgarity counts as straight talk; when “bomb the s—…

Oregon senator Jeff Merkley, who spoke on the Senate floor for 15 hours Tuesday night and Wednesday morning in opposition to the nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, said in an interview three years ago that he supported eliminating the 60-vote procedural threshold for High Court…

Delaware's Chris Coons became the forty-first senator to pledge a no vote on ending debate of Judge Neil Gorsuch's nomination to the Supreme Court later this week, giving Democrats the minimum number needed to filibuster his confirmation.

No politician is bigger than the game. This is not a lesson unique to President Donald Trump, though he doubtless has a new appreciation for how entrenched Washington is in its ways. But it may be a revelation to some of the millions who voted for him, energized by a pledge that this would finally…

No politician is bigger than the game. This is not a lesson unique to President Donald Trump, though he doubtless has a new appreciation for how entrenched Washington is in its ways. But it may be a revelation to some of the millions who voted for him, energized by a pledge that this would finally…

Despite being forums to question and receive testimony from public officials and experts, House committee hearings often rank near Cher's Twitter feed as informative sources of information about politics and government. Sometimes this is because of the prevarication of the witnesses. Almost always…

Senate Democrats delayed a committee vote Monday on Supreme Court nominee Judge Neil Gorsuch to next week, with the top Democrat on the judicial panel citing the failed appointment of Merrick Garland, interest-group spending in support of Gorsuch, and the jurist's answers about past High Court…

Republicans pulled out all the stops but ultimately pulled the bill.

Sen. Ted Cruz and House Freedom Caucus chairman Rep. Mark Meadows have called on Republicans to roll back Obamacare's insurance mandates in the American Health Care Act. These include blanket requirements for coverage of those with pre-existing conditions: Insurers are prohibited from denying…

The House GOP health bill faces more defections than it can withstand from inside the party's own conference, after a spokeswoman for a conservative caucus announced several no votes on Wednesday, and multiple members have warned that several moderates are also still opposed to the legislation in…

Backed by several letters from his former law students refuting a claim that he advocated employers probing the family planning of female job candidates, Supreme Court nominee Judge Neil Gorsuch explained to a senior Democrat on the Judiciary Committee that he facilitated classroom discussion of…

President Donald Trump emerged from a meeting with House Republicans Tuesday morning confident that their health care bill would pass the lower chamber this week, even as conservatives continued to express doubts about the legislation's new and arguably improved substance.

Utah senator Mike Lee had a wish for Neil Gorsuch: "You are not a politician, which means that the acrimony, duplicity, and ruthlessness of today's politics are still foreign and unfamiliar to you. May that continue to be true."

Texas senator Ted Cruz, one of the leading critics of the congressional GOP's health reform plan, revealed Sunday that he and two of his colleagues met White House officials at Mar-a-Lago this weekend to discuss changes to the American Health Care Act.

One of the conservative sticking points in judging the House GOP's health plan has been the measure's treatment of "non-budget"-related items. Under the legislative mechanism Republicans are using to move the American Health Care Act, the bill's particulars must have an impact on spending and…

NCAA office pools once served a special societal purpose. Before the advent of tweeting, they were the one communal activity in which the entire populace could weigh in on things it knew absolutely nothing about. (Well, that, and elections.)

In the hour it was reported with smothering ubiquity that the GOP's Obamacare replacement would cause 24 million individuals to "lose" insurance, the debate about government health care policy was given a bucket of buffalo wings, a wet nap, and a day off. It was about to get sloppy and awfully lazy.

Trusting the process makes for good life advice and bad legislating. The morning after congressional Republicans released their Obamacare replacement, dubbed the American Health Care Act, conservative talk show host Laura Ingraham complained it lacked the "Trumpism of the health care reform" the…

A budget estimate of the House GOP's health bill has found that millions of Americans insured through Obamacare's exchanges would opt out of purchasing coverage once the federal government stops penalizing them for doing so.

The New York Times Magazine's Charles Homans has an in-depth look at the rapid evolution of Democratic resistance to the Trump administration.

Trusting the process makes for good life advice and bad legislating. The morning after congressional Republicans released their Obamacare replacement, dubbed the American Health Care Act, conservative talk show host Laura Ingraham complained it lacked the “Trumpism of the health care reform" the…

House speaker Paul Ryan got himself into trouble Thursday for broadly describing why the GOP considers the risk-sharing under Obamacare between younger and older consumers a failure, leaving out the details that got reporters questioning his understanding of insurance.

Amid unsparing challenges from conservative critics and policy wonks, Vice President Mike Pence said Tuesday that the House GOP's new health care legislation is "the bill" to begin undoing and supplanting Obamacare, and has the White House's backing.

House Republicans revealed draft legislation Monday evening designed to allay conservative lawmakers without spooking moderates, reassure wary voters, and not alienate Democrats too much.

With the confirmation of four more of President Trump's secretary-level appointments this week, the new administration is close to filling all 15 openings that technically comprise the "cabinet". Only two departments, Agriculture and Labor, still have vacancies.

Former Democratic governor Steve Beshear sat inside a Kentucky diner and drawled a picture of Obamacare's benefits to his state on Tuesday night. Meanwhile, minority congressional leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer attacked President Donald Trump for being a corporate sellout despite his…

On Tuesday's episode of Man, We're Really Going to Spend Time Talking about This, Aren't We, New York representative Eliot Engel announced that he will not position himself along the receiving aisle to shake the president's hand as he enters the House chamber Tuesday night for a speech to Congress.…

It wasn't Ted Kennedy—not that he'd want it to be—but House speaker Paul Ryan quipped Tuesday morning that his dream of entitlement reform hadn't died.

Former House speaker John Boehner, who oversaw multiple attempts to undo Obamacare during his tenure, predicted Thursday that most of President Obama's health care law "is going to stay there," and that previous talk of repealing and replacing the law amounted to "happy talk."

Vice President Mike Pence told a group of Missourians on Wednesday to spread the word about the Trump administration among their townsfolk.

Beyond the fuss created by President Donald Trump's social media habit, the new Oval Office occupant is undertaking many of the same policy initiatives a generic Republican administration would have pursued, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell told a calm group of his Kentucky constituents on…

The politics of Democratic opposition to Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito were twofold. One, 2006 was an election year, and senators in the minority were hearing about it from their base. Two, partisanship, a vessel for the Senate filibuster, had dropped anchor inside the confirmation process.…

A congressional oversight panel is seeking details from the White House about President Donald Trump's discussion of a North Korean missile test in the presence of dinner guests at his Mar-a-Lago resort last weekend.

Amid mixed messaging from the Trump administration, House speaker Paul Ryan was the first major Washington official on Tuesday to announce that the president had asked former national security advisor Michael Flynn for his resignation. Ryan's take, which contradicted White House counselor Kellyanne…

Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer said President Donald Trump's behavior in the first few weeks of the new administration necessitates a "new standard" for Supreme Court nominees, including a unique a demonstration of judicial independence.

A single anti-Semitic valentine attributed to a College Republicans group has been found to be the work of a non-student, Central Michigan University concluded on Friday.

Days after the Super Bowl in Houston, the NFL is warning Texas that legislation requiring individuals to use public bathrooms in accordance with their biological sex could cost the state future opportunities to host the big game.

Supreme Court nominee Judge Neil Gorsuch has been defending the integrity of his branch of government and not attacking the president during his private meetings on Capitol Hill, Nebraska senator Ben Sasse said during a speech on Thursday afternoon.

If this was 1920, and Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge had disciplined his fellow Bay Stater for impugning the integrity of a colleague, we might have fairly said Elizabeth Warren was silenced on Tuesday night. Lacking an instantaneously publishing Internet and 'round-the-clock cable news, she would have…

The NCAA says it has not ruled out venues in North Carolina as possible sites for championship events between 2018 and 2022, after a letter from a local marketing agency addressed to lawmakers said all the Tar Heel state's bids to host post-season competitions in that time frame would be rejected…

Amid concerns of cold feet in the congressional GOP and noncommittal comments from President Donald Trump, House speaker Paul Ryan said Tuesday the House and Senate would conclude their role in repealing and replacing Obamacare by the end of 2017, but cautioned that implementing a new regime will…

Arkansas senator Tom Cotton, a leading congressional hawk on U.S.-Russia relations, broke with President Donald Trump in his characterization of Vladimir Putin on Monday, but contextualized the commander in chief's defense of the Kremlin last weekend as just one comment amid a broader approach to…

Like a reflex hammer to a knee, it's now obligatory that any comment a celebrity makes in opposition to Donald Trump gets retweeted 10,000 times. As of early Monday afternoon, New England Patriots tight end Martellus Bennett was more than 99 percent of the way there.

Among Frederick Douglass's many indispensable roles in American society—that of abolitionist, reformer, and statesman—was educator. Learning was his hope and inspiration, opposite qualities of what made a "contented slave". To make one, he wrote, "It is necessary to darken his moral and mental…

President Donald Trump continued encouraging his party's Senate leader Wednesday to waive a 60-vote threshold to confirm Judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, if necessary, the morning after the upper chamber's top Democrat suggested a nomination fight was coming.

Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer said Tuesday night he has "very serious doubts" whether Judge Neil Gorsuch will meet his standard for winning confirmation to the Supreme Court. "The burden is on … Gorsuch to prove himself to be within the legal mainstream and, in this new era, willing to…

West Virginia senator Joe Manchin said he won't block President Donald Trump's choice to replace Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court, who is scheduled to be announced Tuesday evening.

Former labor secretary Elaine Chao won confirmation to lead the Department of Transportation on Tuesday, sailing through the Senate by a wide bipartisan margin of 93 to 6.

A weekend Wall Street Journal story examines the interior design trend of maximalism, roughly defined as, if it has the properties of matter, screw it (and hang it up):

Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell said Republicans had 12-to-15 billion dollars in mind for construction of a southern border wall, as they await a supplemental spending request from the White House to move forward on the project.

President Donald Trump derived power from a 2006 law to order work on a "secure, contiguous, and impassable" barrier along the United States's southern border Wednesday, advancing a campaign promise many critics have said is too ambitious to fulfill.

Seven Greenpeace activists climbed to the top of a crane north of the White House and hung a large banner reading "RESIST" on Wednesday morning. Given the timing, one would think the word might allude to President Trump's orders to revive the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines. Greenpeace is…

Democrats have taken stock of Dr. Tom Price's financial dealings before the Senate votes on his nomination to be secretary of Health and Human Services. The two most recent lines of attack, reported in separate media stories last week, concern health care investments Price said were made at the…

It was an odd time for the inauguration goers to sing the boos. Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, a liberal Democrat, had just delivered a few lines that could have easily prompted applause had they been uttered by President Donald Trump, the populist Republican most people in attendance were…

Two key members of President Donald Trump's national security apparatus sailed through Senate confirmation votes Friday afternoon, as retired Marine Gens. James Mattis and John Kelly earned overwhelming support in the upper chamber to become the first cabinet picks of the new administration to win…

Jonathan Last presciently writes this morning of the tennis calendar's first major tournament, the Australian Open:

It's an elastic stretch to compare Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro to Donald Trump, as pundits and critics of the Hugo Chavez successor have done for the last year and a half. Maduro's opinion of immigration from Colombia into his country—"Who comes over from Colombia? It's people practically…