Outside the Beltway

With Donald Trump now confirmed as the GOP nominee, some conservatives are suggesting that the Senate GOP should just give in on the nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court.

Former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell’s fate lies the hands of the Supreme Court.

It may be the talk of Washington, but the political fight over Justice Scalia’s vacant Supreme Court seat does not seem to be something voters care very much about.

A Federal Appeals Court has reinstated the four game suspension imposed on Tom Brady over the so-called ‘Deflategate’ scandal.

In a huge step forward for criminal justice reform, Virginia’s Governor has restored voting rights for some 200,000 people who have paid their debt to society.

The Supreme Court heard oral argument in the case challenging the President’s deportation relief plan, but it’s unlikely we’ll see a ruling on the merits.

A New Jersey judge, along with a Judge in Pennsylvania, is among the first to rule on the meaning of the ‘natural born citizen’ clause.

A Connecticut Judge has allowed a lawsuit against the manufacturer and seller of the weapons used in the Sandy Hook Shootings to go forward, but a Federal Law appears to make dismissal inevitable.

Justice Sotomayor argued last week that we ought to look somewhere other than just the Courts of Appeal, the Ivy League, and the Northeast for Supreme Court Justices. She’s right.

A group of New England Patriots fans are providing us with the latest example of stupid lawsuits that don’t belong in Court at all.

Bernie Sanders pulled off another win, but it puts him no closer to having a realistic chance of winning the nomination.

One down. How many more to go?

With surprising unanimity, the Supreme Court rejected an effort to restrict the meaning of ‘one person, one vote’ in legislative redistricting.

A treasure trove of documents from a law firm in Panama could prove problematic for a large group of international leaders.

Two Republicans who broke with their party to support hearings for Judge Merrick Garland have changed their minds and gotten back in line with the Senate GOP Caucus.

A victory in the fight to reform civil asset forfeiture laws.

The Supreme Court appears to be looking for a way to resolve an issue that has been mired in controversy for six years now.

The 2016 Campaign just keeps getting weirder.

Thanks to an equally divided Supreme Court, public employee unions won a case they most likely would have lost had Justice Scalia lived.

Conservatives are doing all they can to make sure Merrick Garland does not get either a hearing or a vote in the Senate, and it’s working.

Another Republican Senator has broken ranks and called for hearings on the nomination of Merrick Garland, as another poll shows most Americans support hearings as well.

The Supreme Court appeared deadlocked during oral argument in the latest case dealing with the PPACA’s contraceptive coverage mandates.

It increasingly appears that the GOP is on the losing side of the argument over whether to hold hearings and a vote on the nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court rejected a lawsuit filed by Nebraska and Oklahoma against Colorado’s decision to legalize marijuana.

George Will’s column on the Garland nomination sparks a few thoughts.

A crack in the wall.

President Obama has selected his nominee to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court, now the question is whether the Senate will act.

The coming political battle over President Obama’s effort to fill the vacancy created by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia will likely be unlike anything we’ve seen before.

Donald Trump has spent nine months encouraging his supporters to beat up protesters and calling the press “scum.” Words have consequences.

The violence that Donald Trump encourages among supporters is manifesting itself in real life.

The President could nominate someone to fill the vacancy created by Antonin Scalia’s death as soon a next week, but Republicans in the Senate remain firmly committed to their decision to deny the as yet unnamed nominee any consideration.

The producer behind a group of music legends has passed away at the age of 90.

Another poll shows that most Americans would prefer that the vacancy on the Supreme Court be filled by President Obama than that it be left open for the next President to fill, but other factors make it unlikely the Senate will act.

The Supreme Court seems as closely divided as ever on an issue that has divided the nation for forty years, but the implications of Justice Scalia’s death were quite apparent during oral argument in the Texas Abortion Law case.

A Federal Judge in New York has denied an F.B.I. request to force Apple to extract data from iPhones involved in a Federal drug case.

The Republican frontrunner doesn’t want newspapers to be able to write negative stories about him.

Is President Obama planning a Checkmate move in the SCOTUS nomination fight?

Notwithstanding polling that indicates the American public disagrees with them, Senate Republicans emerged from a meeting today largely united on the idea of not giving any Supreme Court nominee named by President a hearing, or even the courtesy of a meeting.

The American people do not seem to support the Republican position on whether President Obama’s expected Supreme Court nominee should get proper consideration by the Senate.

Conservatives are sending a message to Senate Republicans about the vacancy on the Supreme Court, and it may require them to initiate a suicidal game plan.

In 1992, Joe Biden said that no action should be taken on any potential Supreme Court nominations until after that year’s Presidential election. Sound familiar?

The Grease Is The Word Edition OTB Caption Contest^TM is now over.

Two new polls show that Americans are basically split equally on the question of who should appoint the Justice that will replace Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court.

The unity of the Republican Senate on the idea of no hearings or votes, if it ever really existed, appears to be cracking.

Apple is resisting a Federal Court order that it assist the F.B.I. in decryption of the iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino terrorists.

A crack in the Republican wall?