Outside the Beltway

Robert Bork, the controversial jurist whose failed Supreme Court bid ushered in a new climate in American politics, has died at 85.

If nothing else, the Petraeus affair is teaching us a valuable lesson in just how extensive the Surveillance State has become.

Like the men who came before him, Barack Obama has vastly increased the powers of his office. Someone should have asked him about that last night.

Another loss in the Federal Courts for the Defense Of Marriage Act.

Secret surveillance of American citizens has dramatically increased under the Obama Administration.

Our War On Drugs is having a disastrous impact on our neighbors to the south, and they’re starting to notice.

Mitt Romney is a deeply flawed candidate, but that doesn’t mean the President is any better.

Apparently, questioning someone who may have violated their probation on the way to contributing to a series of international incidences is a major civil liberties violation.

The 9/11 attacks and our response to them changed America, and not for the better.

Based on its recently passed platform, the Democratic Party has given up any pretense of putting civil liberties ahead of “national security.”

Hey GOP, Lt. Sulu has some questions for you.

The GOP claims to be a party that favors limited government, but its foreign policy positions reveal this to be little more than a lie.

The Republican Party has apparently solved all of the nation’s real problems and decided it can waste time on nonsense.

A victory for the proponents of Voter ID Laws in Pennsylvania.

A Federal case in Virginia is testing the boundaries of what constitutes protected speech in the digital age.

Sometimes, we just ought to accept the fact that people have disagreements when it comes to hot-button social issues.

An important ruling on the Obama Administration’s contraceptive coverage mandate from a Judge in Colorado.

The Koch brothers will spend more money in this election cycle than the entire McCain campaign did in 2008.

Opponents of the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United continue to miss the point of what the case was really about.

In advance of tomorrow’s ruling, some pundits on the left are displaying some very odd views on the role of the law in American politics.

New York’s Governor is proposing a change in the law that could spare thousands of people a year from an unnecessary trip through the legal system.

The president has come a long way from his days as a “liberal law professor who campaigned against the Iraq war.”

Alan Dershowitz thinls the charges against George Zimmerman should be dropped. With due apologies to the good Professor, he’s wrong.

While the United States has some serious problems with policing, we’re not a police state.

Eduardo Saverin has become a political whipping boy.

Did Joe Biden misspeak, or drop a hint that he shouldn’t have?

There are advantages to cash that electronic transactions cannot replicate.

We’re literally choosing locking up drug offenders over investing in our children.

Attorney General Eric Holder offered a somewhat alarming defense of the Administration’s policy on targeted killings.

A legal dispute exposes an open wound.

Conservatives are rejecting Andrew Sullivan’s Newsweek essay out of hand, but they ought to pay attention to what he’s saying.

After almost a year of campaigning, it’s finally time for someone to cast a vote.

Ron Paul’s opposition to the Fourteenth Amendment would make a Paul Administration an enemy of civil liberties.

A new set of proposed Constitutional Amendments reveals that many people still don’t understand what Citizens United was about.

Newt Gingrich’s foreign policy vision leaves much to be desired.

Why we shouldn’t be surprised that police are using tools of violence against protestors.

Huntsman will gain little if any traction and none of the frontrunners really helped or hurt themselves.

Legal guidelines for protestors.

Some 700 protesters were arrested yesterday afternoon after they shut down the Brooklyn Bridge for 2-1/2 hours, apparently mistaking it for Wall Street.

Giving the President the unchecked power to kill American citizens raises some serious red flags.

When the FBI essentially creates a terrorist in order to arrest him, have we really accomplished anything?

My latest for The Atlantic, “The Thorniest Question: When Can a President Order an American Killed?” has been posted.

Measuring our progress a decade after the 9/11 attacks

Supreme Court nominees were confirmed quite easily within recent memory. What’s changed?