It is now official, the Democrats will take control of the House in the 2018 midterms, and the Republicans will hold the Senate. We reported earlier that Fox News had called the House it for the Democrats, but now MSNBC has officially called it too. Just minutes ago, MSNBC also ...read more
Since his inauguration, Donald Trump has challenged America's belief that its history was an upward trajectory, correcting past mistakes and rising towards Abraham Lincoln's "more perfect union." Other countries had experienced grave democratic crises, but we thought we were the ...read more
There's an annoying habit among people to bitch and moan about "Congress" as if everything that's going wrong in our government is somehow the fault of all 100 Senators and all 435 congresspeople. People love to joke about how great it would be to just get rid of all of them. ...read more
Last night Democrats lost a special election. Republican Debbie Lesko beat Indian-American ER physician Hiral Tipirneni by roughly 6 points to represent Arizona's 8th district after Congressman Trent Franks resigned over charges of sexual harassment. Republicans had reason to ...read more
A House Committee passed a resolution that allows them to get bulletproof vests with taxpayer money. Thanks, GOP! Thanks for taking more of our money to protect yourselves from the very thing you are perpetuating -- gun violence. Last year, they also received an added $25,000 for ...read more
The Banter Long Read: While every president chafes at the restrictions placed on his power, it's only been in the last few administrations that that power has been grotesquely expanded thanks to the naked greed and absolute disregard for democracy of the Republican Party...To ...read more
Let’s play a game. Imagine just for a moment what the front pages of newspapers or home pages of websites would look like if we removed articles about the hacking of emails in the 2016 election. Now go even further and imagine how a cable news hour and its line up of stories ...read more
No matter what you think about Donald Trump, one thing he seems to be accomplishing is his promised shakeup of the political classes in Washington. Everyone knew Democrats would find little good in a Trump administration. But what he probably didn't expect was that he would very ...read more
This is going to sound strange coming from someone at The Daily Banter, but so far at least there may be one good thing to come out of the chaotic presidency of Donald J. Trump. In some ways he may be slowing down Republican plans to finish the destruction of America's middle and ...read more
Earlier this week everyone was talking about the Republican move to gut the independent Office Of Congressional Ethics (which they later rescinded). But few people noticed the GOP brought back an old rule that could have serious consequences for federal agencies and the people ...read more
"Emoluments" is not a word often used daily speech. It simply means a "salary", "fee", or "profit" from employment or office. Our Founding Fathers were so concerned about emoluments from foreign governments creating a conflict of interest, they wrote the Emoluments Clause into ...read more
I'm still in shock today but, as the fog clears, I'm instinctively mustering the fortitude to press on knowing that, as a political writer and podcaster, I have no choice but to re-focus my efforts to an opposition posture. I frankly didn't expect to make this adjustment for at ...read more
With less than two months to election day, most political reporting has focused in on the race for the White House. Understandable – we’ll be electing our 45th (and if Trump wins, possibly our last) president soon. But did you know that our current cast of political characters ...read more