Outside the Beltway

The Senate’s stonewalling of unemployment benefits extension makes no sense.

Oakland’s police chief, miffed at recent budget cuts, has listed 44 crimes that his officers will no longer respond to.

And we return, yet again, to specious comparisons to Hitler (and Lenin).

A common sense decision on broadcast “decency” standards was handed down by a Federal Appeals Court today.

Remember all those suddenly accelerating Toyotas ? Now, we’re learning the rest of the story.

The Iroquois lacrosse team has been caught in a classic Catch-22. The U.S. government won’t recognize their passports and they won’t use U.S. passports as a matter of principle.

France’s Christophe Lemaitre became the first white man to run the 100 meters in under 10 seconds when he clocked 9.98 on Friday. Untold blacks have done it since 1968.

Radley Balko, as tough a critic of excesses by police officer as any journalist working, offers a plausible defense of former BART cop Johannes Mehserle.

The Obama Administration seems to be saying that “Blame Bush” will be at the core of their re-election strategy. Good idea ? Not really.

The President likely has some very bad poll numbers on his mind this morning.

Did felons voting illegally put Al Franken over the top in Minnesota? Probably not.

It’s time for the Gingrich For President speculation to begin again.

Journalists have been following Maxwell Scott’s advice since long before “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” was made.

Since 9/11 there has been a steady trickle of stories about jihadists hooking up with Latin American drug cartels and the like. Here is a guide of story points that can help you identify when such a story is almost certainly bogus.

The Department of the Interior has, unwisely and unnecessarily, reimposed the ban on deep water offshore drilling.

If Jon Kyl’s recent comments are any indication, Republicans haven’t learned their lesson just yet.

Much like his pledge to close Guantanamo within a year, President Obama’s promised deadline to implement a “scientific integrity” program has come and gone.

Having a computer in the home does not have a significant impact on academic achievement, according to several new studies.

News headlines are increasingly divorced from the article content, with serious connotations for a nation of skimmers.

Reporters should start posting transcripts of their interviews with newsmakers on the Web.

There is an al Qaeda link to yesterday’s terrorist attack in Uganda.

For those readers who haven’t warmed up to the magazine layout of the front page, something more akin to the standard blog layout is one click away.

Switzerland will not extradite scumbag Roman Polanski.

The White House is making some very odd political choices in its response to the Arizona immigration law.

Before we raise taxes on the rich, let’s first stop the flood of tax money that’s subsidizing their lifestyle.

The evidence that humans are irrational continues to mount. What does this mean for self-governance?

Sarah Palin’s Political Action Committee is starting to look more and more like the beginnings of a run for the White House.

Not only is Hezbollah taking up with the cartels, they appear to have a massive new geography-bending technology. As such, we are all doomed.

Revisiting the application of the Declaration.

Attorney General Eric Holder said today that the Federal Government retains the option of suing Arizona a second time if the state’s new immigration law is enforced in a discriminatory manner.

Is it really too much to ask that when people try to make arguments based on our country’s founding documents that they at least understand the passages that they are quoting?

Pennsylvania Supreme Court says cops can’t arrest people sleeping in parking lots for drunk driving. Cops and DAs are annoyed.

Half a century later, Atticus Finch remains a touchstone for what an American lawyer is supposed to be.

American cops increasingly think they can harass innocents in the name of keeping us safe.

There are further signs that the economy will remain anemic through the end of 2010, if not longer.

Some people are saying that David Petraeus deserves promotion to a rank last held by Omar Bradley.

The Fox News headline “University of Illinois Instructor Fired Over Catholic Beliefs” is grossly misleading.