Outside the Beltway

In a new interview, Justice Antonin Scalia says that the 14th Amendment does not bar discrimination against women, whether it’s done by public or private entities. He couldn’t be more wrong.

Just over 100 years after his death, Mark Twain’s two greatest novels are once again the subject of controversy.

David Kurtz reports, “House Republicans are about to use “deem and pass” — a.k.a., a self-executing rule — which you may recall was the same legislative mechanism they decried last year during the health care reform debate as a threat to all that is right and good about America.”

President Obama is likely to issue a signing statement in order to keep his Gitmo options open.

The author of AZ’s SB1070 has a new idea.

Compromise in politics involves more than compromising one’s principles.

The New Chevy Dolt from Government Motors Edition OTB Caption Contest^TM is now over.

Getting an American passport will set you back around $230. Is that reasonable?

John P. Wheeler III, chairman of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund during the Ronald Reagan era, has been murdered.

Some people in the D.C. area are worried that the Federal spending gravy train may be coming to an end. They should be.

A Michigan man faces five years in prison for reading his wife’s email.

Andrew Sullivan makes a rather bizarre charge offhandedly: “Who among the neocons would have thought that one of George W. Bush’s final legacies would be bringing pogroms, bombings and genocide to Christians in his new zone of freedom?”

Christopher Hitchens explains how to make tea.

Despite federal laws banning even prison officials from bringing phones inside, tens of thousands of inmates have smartphones.

Time for the Monday OTB Caption Contest^TM

Since the Christmas commercials will (hopefully) be going the way of the dodo soon, here are the Hyundai hipsters doing a non-holiday song.

Is there a legalization argument building?

Freshman Members of Congress are threatening to block a vote to raise the debt ceiling that Congress will have to take by this Spring. They’d be irresponsible if they did so.

The next round in the health care reform wars is about to start.

Shania Twain has married Frederic Thiebaud, former husband of Marie-Anne Thiebaud, the woman Twain’s ex-husband Mutt Lange had an affair with.

Will the Tea Party Movement grow up?

Diplomacy means having to be nice.

Wealthy Manhattanites are clamoring for a new status symbol: their own washer and dryer!

Chicago’s next mayor will be either Rahm Emanuel or Carol Moseley Braun.