Outside the Beltway

Good intentions aren’t an excuse for failure to follow the law.

The junior Senator from Florida drops some hints.

Who watches Sunday morning talk shows anymore?

Adding paywalls isn’t stopping the decline of the newspaper industry.

Could economic chaos bring Egyptians back out into the streets?

At least on Capitol Hill, the political middle is dead and buried.

Apple’s “1984” Super Bowl commercial ran only once, but it remains in a class by itself.

A bunch of people talking on cellphones during a plane flight would annoy the heck out of me, but the government shouldn’t be involved in deciding if it should be allowed.

The Fox News Channel created “War On Christmas” officially entered the absurd zone last week.

Yesterday’s change to the filibuster rule is likely to have little impact outside the beltway and the political chattering class.

Ted Cruz isn’t ruling out a reprise of his foolish, quixotic, crusade.

The real world impact of what’s happening in Washington is becoming apparent.

One cannot support the shutdown tactic and then be outraged that part of the government is shutdown.

Can differences in media coverage of two unrelated filibusters be explained solely by media bias?

Surprisingly, many pundits on the left don’t seem too thrilled about the idea of a Senator Cory Booker.

Three years after joining The New York Times, Nate Silver is jumping ship to Disney’s ESPN and ABC.

Despite yesterday’s tragic events in San Francisco, flying by plane remains the safest way to travel.

Public trust in the news media, along with many other institutions, continues to fall. That’s troublesome for many reasons.

Not only do we not know the whole story of the NSA data mining operation, key details of what thought we knew are wrong.

The United States is as politically polarized as it was in 1865.

Yesterday was not a good day for the Cable “News” Network.

There’s a lot we still don’t know about what happened in Boston, so maybe it’s time to stop speculating.

Tragedy in Boston.

A mix of media and abortion politics.

Rand Paul’s filibuster is one that all American’s should thank him for that.

The Chinese are hacking Washington institutions to unearth the secret plan under which the town operates.

Cory Booker’s decision to explore a run for the U.S. Senate has upset the powers-that-be in New Jersey Democratic politics.

Arab news giant Al-Jazeera is buying Al Gore’s failing Current TV network, hoping to get a bigger presence in the US cable market.

Alex Pareene’s annual hack list omits an obvious candidate: Alex Pareene.

Jake Tapper is moving to CNN, where he’ll host a daily show and run their political coverage.

Is it good to live in a world where news of a massacre can travel around the world in an instant?

Almost a decade ago, Roger Ebert wondered if making mass murderers famous doesn’t provide a perverse incentive.

Barack Obama’s Washington is more foul-mouthed and course, according to no evidence whatsoever.

Why do natural disasters cause the news media to act so stupidly?

Once again, it seems necessary to debunk some commonly believed myths about polling.

Should we stop televising political debates?

Getting to the heart of the problem from my POV (plus historical numbers).