blogging the beltway

As the battle over whether employers can opt to decline to cover birth control on religious grounds heads to the Supreme Court, another lawsuit is further challenging what role religion can play in patient health care, or denial of care. In a lawsuit filed with the American Civil Liberties Union, Tamesha Means of Muskegon, Mich.,…

When your party’s presidential candidate can only muster a dismal 6 percent of black votes, 27 percent of Latino votes and 26 percent of Asian-American votes in the most recent election, one thing should be abundantly clear: You can’t expect to solve that problem with a tweet. But in a roundabout way, that’s how the…

Those who know me well know that despite the fact that I make most of my living writing about politics, I almost never watch political talk shows, including those on which I sometimes appear. I almost never read comments on pieces that I write or pieces in which I’m mentioned, unless my mother specifically says…

Sasha Obama has done it again. Weeks ago the youngest first daughter wore a sweater in public that ended up selling out shortly thereafter. Now her recent ensemble at her father’s official Thanksgiving Turkey-pardoning press conference has also generated headlines, and style watchers are anticipating that it may spark frenzy, too. This would simply mean…

Despite the seemingly endless bad press that the rollout of the Affordable Care Act has received in recent weeks, supporters of the Obama administration and “Obamacare” could take comfort in one thing: Aside from Sen. Ted Cruz et al’s blustering, overturning Obamacare was virtually impossible. That is, virtually impossible at the legislative level, something critics…

The 50th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination generated extensive media coverage of what happened that fateful day in Dallas, fresh discussion of conspiracy theories about who was really responsible and nostalgia for the glamour of “Camelot,” in particular the 35th president and his iconic wife, Jackie. But one less-covered angle was the impact…

Democratic Senate leader Harry Reid has generated most of the headlines for his willingness to “go nuclear,” specifically his willingness to, as the publication Politico put it, take the “unprecedented step of gutting Senate filibuster rules for presidential nominees on a straight party-line vote.” The move, which alters how the Senate has operated for more…

Yesterday the president said what every American not living under a rock already knew: “I mean, we fumbled the rollout on this health care law.” He also stated, “I think it’s legitimate for them to expect me to have to win back some credibility on this health care law in particular, and on a whole…

Thanks to the book Game Change, which captured the behind-the-scenes drama of the 2008 presidential campaign, authors Mark Halperin and John Heilemann are now as feared among those keeping political secrets as Karinne “Superhead” Steffans is feared among the rappers and athletes worried about being name-checked in her next tell-all.   The most recent revelation…