Ron Elving

We look at the latest push - and resistance - to the passage of President Biden's $1.75 trillion social spending bill, as well as what this week's elections mean for the Democratic party.

As the first statewide tests of a new political reality, Virginia and New Jersey send a signal early in a presidential term — much as Iowa and New Hampshire do in a presidential campaign.

President Biden mets with other world leaders abroad, as Congressional Democrats continue to negotiate over his domestic agenda. Meanwhile, eyes are on the tight Virginia gubernatorial race.

The former president threatens that GOP leaders must match their priorities to his or face a mass defection by the party's most reliable voters. It's without precedent, but there is a parallel.

Coronavirus infections fall as more Americans get vaccinated, meanwhile a Congressional probe into the January 6th attack continues. Also: a new poll asks Americans what they think of big government.

At their historic high tides, Democrats were not really more united than they are now. They may have been less so. The difference was they had enough votes to abide their disunity and still prevail.

Dec. 3 is the date on Washington's mind. That's when federal government funding runs out. And, it's the new date for the U.S. to default on its credit after a Senate vote to raise the debt ceiling.

As the U.S. entered World War I, Congress created a limit on aggregate federal debt and also a cloture rule to end filibusters. The two are linked again in the current battles on Capitol Hill.

The pandemic, migration crisis, and Congressional gridlock continue to create stumbling blocks for the Biden administration.

Increasing the debt ceiling used to be procedurally easy — and hardly newsworthy. That changed when control of Congress flipped to the GOP in 1994 and Newt Gingrich became House Speaker.

The atmosphere throughout this account is foreboding, darkened by the shadow COVID-19 cast over the country but also by the dangers to democracy the authors perceive and depict.

The new book Peril — written by Washington Post journalists Bob Woodward and Robert Costa — turns out to be just as much about Joe Biden, and how he got to be Trump's successor.

Democrats will try the same budgetary process from four decades ago when first-year President Ronald Reagan used reconciliation to achieve his "revolution" in federal fiscal policy.

Vice President Kamala Harris is attending the Shanksville, Pennsylvania, memorial event. Shanksville was the site of the Flight 93 crash.

Former President Bush, who was in office the time of the 9/11 attacks, is attending the Shanksville, Pennsylvania, memorial. Shanksville was the site of the Flight 93 crash.

We look at how in response to the September 11 attacks, the George W. Bush administration totally reshaped U.S. national security appartus.

A Texas law that effectively bans abortion after about 6 weeks is allowed to stand, the U.S. military is now out of Afghanistan after 20 years, and the president's approval numbers take a hit.

Presidents' reactions have consistently combined outrage with promises of revenge. The language is remarkably similar. But there has been far less consistency in the delivery of actual retaliation.

We look at the continued political fall out for the Biden Administration from Afghanistan, progress on the Infrastrucure Bill, as well today's Voting Rights marches, planned in several cities.

President Biden defends his decision on Afghanistan as thousands of people try to flee the country. Also, divisions in the GOP over refugees, and what the House will tackle when it's back next week.