Outside the Beltway

Conservatives finally seem to be waking up to the truth about Sarah Palin.

Advantage: Hillary.

While the issue of income inequality is quite real, Oxfam’s numbers are not.

My latest for The National Interest, “Obama’s Paris Blunder: Part of a Much Bigger Problem,” has posted.

Elizabeth Warren said once again that she’s not running for President, now or in the future. That’s not going to stop the efforts to draft her, though.

Some are criticizing the President for not going to Paris for yesterday’s rally.

New details in the shooting of 12 year old Tamir Rice raise more questions.

Bill Donohue rightly condemns insulting Muslims—but goes way too far.

Some preliminary thoughts on the inaugural college playoff system.

The news cycle in 2014 seemed to be dominated by a series of real and phony “crises” that grabbed our attention for short periods of time.

JetBlu is joining the competition in charging bag fees and cramming in more seats.

In the wake of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on C.I.A. torture, some have suggested that eight years of Jack Bauer helped make torture more acceptable to the American public.

A little round of Qs and As on US-Cuban policy.

Should a professor who says she “hates Republicans” keep her job?

Chris Rock wants us to remember that Bill Cosby isn’t the only celebrity accused of rape.

A dark and regrettable time in American history is finally seeing the light of day.

Thinking about that the state, law, violence, and the Garner incident (and contributing to the tl;dr phenomenon).

Yet another example of the need for context when discussing stats.

A former RNC chair says a black man’s life isn’t worth a ham sandwich.

If the President now believes he can act unilaterally on immigration reform, why did he spend the last five years saying that he couldn’t?

Every member of the Supreme Court graduated from an Ivy League Law School. That kind of homogeneity is not healthy.

Not surprisingly, a law passed in the wake of the September 11th attacks has been used mostly for things that have nothing to do with terrorism.

Tuesday’s Republican wave didn’t change the fundamentals.

What happened Tuesday? And what does it tell us about 2016?

Time to look into the crystal ball.

A travel ban sounds like a simple solution to a complex problem. Like most simple solutions, though, it becomes far less appealing when you think about the details.

President Obama has appointed an “Ebola Czar,” but it’s unclear why we need one when there are already people who are supposed to be in charge of the Ebola response.

We’ve become aware of failures in how we’ve handled the Ebola situation. The response is to figure out what went wrong and do our best to fix it, not to panic.

A new report from the New York Times confirms the adage that, in war, the first casualty is the truth.

My ongoing crusade to spark thought and discussion on the quality of representation in the US Congress.

Frank Foer proclaims, “Amazon Must Be Stopped. It’s too big. It’s cannibalizing the economy.”

A legal setback for the Affordable Care Act, but the important arguments on this issue lie in higher courts.

Two prominent Republican groups point out the blindingly obvious.

Alabamians like to exclaim, “Thank God for Mississippi.” Perhaps it’s time for that slogan to cross the Pond.

The announcement of a potential merger between Burger King and Tim Horton’s has led to much moral preening from the usual suspects.

There is a good possibility that Darren Wilson could be acquitted in the shooting of Michael Brown.. Are the protesters ready to accept that reality?

17-year veteran of the LAPD says, “If you don’t want to get hurt, don’t challenge me.”

Yet another example of how institutional choices matter.

We should not tolerate them acting otherwise.

It’s hard for a party to win four straight presidential elections. The Democrats may pull it off.

President Obama doesn’t seem to have any idea what he wants to do in Iraq.

Tea Party backed candidates may have lost most of the GOP primary battles, but they’ve won the war for control of the Republican agenda.

There is simply no evidence of the kind of in-person voter impersonation that Voter ID Laws were designed to prevent.

Our laws and social norms have not caught up to modern life.

Todd Akin continues to give Republicans headaches.

A lot of Republicans dislike the President enough to think that he should be removed from office, but will that make impeachment more likely to happen?

It appears that the GOP still has a problem communicating with women.

Much of the criticism of Hobby Lobby, and Citizens United before it, is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of what those decisions stand for.

There are legitimate issues regarding Presidential overreach and separation of powers that President Obama’s actions while in office have raised. But none of that will be discussed in our hyperpartisan political culture.

Modern devices are more fragile, frustrating, and resource intensive than those of a decade ago.