Alexis Simendinger

Congress seemed stuck in an endless loop this week as Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) introduced new plans to avert a shutdown in October, only to watch them crumble hours later. After House Republicans on Thursday failed for the second time to clear a rule that would take up the Pentagon funding bill, McCarthy threw up...

The definition of chaos in Washington is when Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) loudly dares GOP colleagues to “bring it on” to try to oust him, and the Justice Department indicts the son of pro-background checks President Biden on a felony weapons charge. The nation’s capital was in rough shape on Thursday and may not look...

Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Tuesday directed House committees to open a formal impeachment inquiry into President Biden based on the prosecution of his son Hunter Biden and House Republicans’ investigations of his family’s foreign business dealings.  Now, as the chamber preps its probe into the president, the Speaker will have to contend with the...

Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has an autumn to-do list that faces more deadly traps than the average Hollywood action flick.  As President Biden likes to say, “Not a joke.”  The traps have been set by the Speaker’s House Republican colleagues. The Sept. 30 deadline is set by statute. If McCarthy looks for help in the...

Fall is fast approaching, even though the temperatures may be saying otherwise. But one season is in full swing, no matter rain or shine — polling season. The upcoming weekend will give both Democrats and Republicans plenty of time to mull over the most recent numbers as they hash out strategies for the upcoming primaries....

Labor Day weekend is upon us, which means the back-to-school season is in full swing. While many students across the country already started classes in August, others are gearing up for their first days in September, heading back to the classroom amid national uncertainties across K-12 and higher education. Teacher shortages are affecting schools in...

Hurricane Idalia, packing powerful winds with enough force to destroy structures and push huge volumes of water inland, will make landfall early today along Florida’s Gulf Coast. A hurricane warning has been issued for the East Coast between South Carolina and Georgia.    After moving slowly across warm water, Idalia intensified and is now a major...

Unless former President Trump and his army of lawyers find a way to slow-walk a March 4 trial date set by a federal judge Monday in the 2020 election case, he could be anchored to a courtroom chair through Super Tuesday, and for months beyond that. The Wall Street Journal editorial board, after describing the...

Former President Trump scowled into a camera during his arrest Thursday at the Fulton County Jail in Georgia. The mugshot, released by the Sheriff’s Department, was instantly in circulation around the world and Trump posted it on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, with his own caption: “ELECTION INTERFERENCE” (The Hill). He also posted...

President Biden on Monday viewed Maui’s apocalyptic scenes in Lahaina, at one point gingerly touching the frame of a car left scorched by flames and now marked with a large “X” by searchers trying to locate signs of the missing.  As he has while visiting other disaster sites during his political life, Biden referred to...