Outside the Beltway

Censorship or sound business practice?

On it’s own, the so-called “Buffett Rule” is unlikely to do much to reduce the deficit.

Wikipedia’s English language site will be offline for 24 hours tomorrow to protest two controversial online piracy bills.

The Republican candidates for President have apparently forgotten that this guy was their party’s nominee twice.

Congress eliminates a bad subsidy, but it’s only because there’s a worse one on the books.

Some Republicans are starting to realize just how badly the House GOP has messed up this time.

A progressive columnist has been outed as having sympathies for the Democratic Party.

Not surprisingly, the Supercommittee is a Super Failure.

Increasing taxes on the rich may be a fiscal policy worth talking about, but it won’t make the poor richer.

The Leaf Us Alone Edition OTB Caption Contest^TM is now over.

A new patent granted to Apple raises once again the question of how far patent protections should extend.

In a shot across the bow of the current publishing model, Princeton is requiring professors to retain rights to their published work so that it may be freely distributed.

The decision to split Netflix into two companies makes no sense. Unless you look behind the scenes.

In five days, Rick Perry has gone from calling Social Security a “monstrous lie” to saying we need to have a conversation about fixing it.

Matthew Yglesias resurrects an argument that should have died off when Napster disappeared.

He’s been out of office for more than two years, but George W. Bush is still being blamed for the state of the economy.

For the past 18 months, Medicare spending has slowed down considerably – especially compared to the private sector.

Any politician telling you that solving our problems will be easy is lying to you.

Now that America’s political leadership have probably averted a self-inflicted global economic calamity, it’s time to assess the winners and losers.

Another government program isn’t going to bring health care costs under control.

John Boehner and Harry Reid introduced their debt plans. Now, where do we go from here?

A new Tim Pawlenty television ad is raising copyright issues rather than, as intended, bringing back memories of the 80s.

President Obama smiled as he signed the 2009 stimulus into law, but the results aren’t anything to smile about.

Jack Kirby’s heir are trying to posthumously renegotiate half-century old deals with Marvel.

For the second time in two weeks, copyright lawsuit mill Righthaven has suffered a loss in Federal Court.

Herman Cain says he wouldn’t sign any bill longer than three pages. It’s a line that will get him applause, but it’s totally impractical.

It’s hard to get paid for work others will do for nothing.

Academic publishers want to end the Fair Use of scholarly journal articles in the classroom.

Local newspapers in Belgium inexplicably don’t want to be linked by Google and are using copyright law rather than a robots.txt file to enforce their wishes.

Republicans seem to have realized that the Ryan Plan’s Medicare reforms aren’t going anywhere.

To borrow a phrase: budgeting is the science of muddling through (with an emphasis on the “muddling” far more than the “science.”

The Congressional Budget Office has come up with slightly different calculations of the savings created by the Obama-Boehner budget compromise.

The iconic WKRP in Cincinnati is not being syndicated or available on DVD in its original format because it’s classic rock soundtrack is hamstrung by copyright laws and music licensing fees.

A New York judge has sided with comedian Jerry Seinfeld in a bizarre lawsuit by a crazy woman who writes cookbooks.

The Social Security “trust fund” may actually be worse than worthless.