Outside the Beltway

The cost of Trump’s trade policies are well beyond the cost of soy beans.

No, abolishing the EC would not turn farmers into serfs.

Theresa May has announced she is stepping down as leader of the Conservative Party as of June 7th, starting a process that will have her out of Downing Street withing the next two months or so.

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has been indicted on seventeen counts under the Espionage Act arising out of his role in the Chelsea Manning affair.

A new poll shows that roughly two-thirds of Americans, including a large number of Republicans, do not want to see Roe v. Wade overturned.

President Trump is reportedly planning to pardon several American servicemen convicted of war crimes, an action that would be an insult to everyone who has ever worn an American uniform.

Forget high language about constitutional prerogatives. This is about parties and elections.

We already know enough to impeach.

Based on the early stages of the campaign for the 2020 Democratic Presidential nomination, it appears as though the party’s progressive wing has misread the signals being sent by the party’s voters.

As expected, the House Judiciary Committee voted yesterday on party lines to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt for refusing to turn over a full copy of the Mueller Report

California is the latest state to try to force all Presidential candidates, including the President, to release their tax returns as a condition for getting on the ballot. It’s not at all clear that this is permitted under the Constitution.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell declared “case closed” on the Mueller Report and the Russia investigation. This is far from the truth.

More Madisonian musing on the current state of our constitutional order.

Back to Fed 51 and this moment in oversight: we have to remember what ambitions drive politicians.

With the apparent failure of the coup attempt in Venezuela, what happens next?

Did I leave the Republican Party or did it leave me? Both.

The ongoing apparent attempted coup in Venezuela is already leading to talk of American intervention in the event of a crackdown. That would be unwise and unjustified.

Emperor Akihito became the first Japanese Emperor to abdicate the throne in 200 years today.

The narrow loser of the Georgia governor’s race has left open the possibility of running for President.

Ballot measures across the country would deny access to those who refuse to release tax returns.

A Federal Court in Michigan has found several of that state’s Congressional and state legislative districts to have been subject to extreme partisan gerrymandering.

Counter-Intelligence officials are warning that Russia is preparing another election interference campaign for the 2020 election.

A law professor asks some interesting questions, but ultimately not the right ones.

Having lost to him, she’s an ineffective voice on the matter of Donald Trump.

In case anyone needs a refresher.

The Vermont socialist likes to invent rights that don’t exist.

The Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez edition.

Sanders’ suggestion is not as outside democratic norms as one might think.

“We have to be careful in balancing big dreams and bold ideas with also recognizing that typically change happens in steps.”

A lesson from Puerto Rico and further reasons why the EC is a problem.

Princeton historian Sean Wilentz lays to rest a pernicious idea propagated by . . . Princeton historian Sean Wilentz.

Oral argument hints that we may have a 5-4 ruling allowing state legislatures to continue stacking the deck.

Ultimately, it isn’t a very good one.

Institutions matter. (No, seriously, they really, really matter).

Last November the state voted overwhelming to amend its constitution. The lawmakers they elected at the same time are sabotaging it.

David Gergen lives in a fantasy world.

Some context for ongoing discussions.

Some basics on the US party system.

Free expression sometimes enables horrible crimes. How does a free society deal with that tension?

The President’s latest ravings are “very bad, very bad.”

Massachusetts Democrat Seth Moulton makes an argument familiar to OTB readers.

Why rational discourse seldom changes the minds of some people.

The key remains the military.

It’s been a rough two years under Trump, but America’s institutions are surviving.

A second Federal Judge has found that the Commerce Department violated the law when it moved to put a question about citizenship on the 2020 Census form.

The Saudis tortured an American citizen, but the Trump Administration doesn’t care.

With criminal charges and an election hanging over his head, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is looking to the political right for support and survival.

In what was basically a throwaway line, Joe Biden said something nice about Mike Pence. The reaction from his fellow Democrats says a lot about our current political culture, and none of it is good.

The President of the United States and the most-talked-about freshman Representative in ages could not be more different.

Nancy Pelosi is tired of Democrats voting to please their constituents.