Ron Elving

From George Washington's warning against "foreign entanglements" to Donald Trump's "America First," the pledge to keep the focus close to home has been almost as constant as the oath of office itself.

Tensions at the Ukraine-Russia border. Plus, Associate Justice Stephen Breyer's resignation and President Biden's pledge to nominate the first-ever Black woman Supreme Court justice.

Yet these early reversals haven't always been hobbling. On the contrary, three of the past four presidents elected — and five of the past eight — have recovered from shaky starts to win re-election.

Did President Joe Biden promise too much when he began his term a year ago? And what role did fellow Democrats, and the media, play in the current sense of disappointment?

The filibuster was once a rarely used tool for holding up Senate business. Now, it's a regular (still powerful) feature; some Democrats want it changed. Here are answers to your filibuster questions.

The U.S. Supreme Court's decision blocking the Biden administration's employer vaccine-or-test mandate was just one of multiple disappointments the president experienced this past week.

If America has another civil war, it is more likely to be a war within the states than between them. Citizens of any state of any size, red or blue, may not have to go far to find a fight.

The unrest in Kazakhstan presents a fresh dilemma for President Biden. Also, what last month's low job creation numbers mean, and how Democrats are using the Jan. 6 riot to their advantage.

President Joe Biden says there's no federal solution to the pandemic as cases climb dramatically.

This week, Democrats pushed through a measure to raise the debt ceiling, to avoid a default on the nation's debt. But how did the debt ceiling become such a hot-button issue on Capitol Hill?

Revelations from the Congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection, plus why the Build Back Better bill is not going to a vote in the Senate by Christmas.

November's Consumer Price Index spells trouble for President Biden, though he emphasizes inflation is a short-term problem. Also, the latest in the January 6th investigation.

Congress narrowly avoids a government shutdown by passing a temporary funding bill. We look at what's next in Congress as well as the House committee investigation of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

We look the latest on the House committee's investigation into the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, as well as the Biden administration's response to a new COVID-19 variant.

Tensions are driven by the still-divisive personality of former President Trump, by issues such as vaccines and mandates and by the prospect of big Republican gains in the elections of 2022 and 2024.

We track the progress of the $2 trillion Build Back Better bill, which passed the House on Friday morning and is heading to the Senate for further negotation.

One of the lessons from inflationary eras past is that voters are less interested in causal responsibility than in forcing a change. In other words, if you are in office now, you are holding the bag.

Karl notes often that Trump continues his campaign to invalidate the 2020 election — even now. The "Trump show" remains very much on stage, finding an audience and threatening to extend its run.

Will rising prices and an uncertain economic outlook change the prospects for President Biden's signature spending bill? Also updates on a House committee's probe into the attempted insurrection.

Both parties in Virginia and New Jersey were left to contemplate how Republicans ran well without Trump on the ballot or in office, while Democrats found it hard to hold recent gains in the suburbs.