Outside the Beltway

Day One of questions for Judge Brett Kavanaugh went about as you’d expect.

A towering figure gone much too soon.

Barbara Bush, only the second woman in history to be the wife and mother of a U.S. President, has died at the age of 92.

Not an Easter song, exactly, but certainly evocative of some of the holiday’s major themes.

I hope Ben Carson has a comfortable couch at home.

This isn’t your ordinary windy day.

Ben Carson has expensive taste in office furniture.

A series of scandals at Oxfam and other charitable organizations raise troubling questions.

The new Black Panther movie raises a variant of the central question of the superhero genre. [No significant spoilers]

The Supreme Court heard argument yesterday in an important case dealing with the circumstances under which voters can be purged from the voting rolls.

A not guilty verdict in a case that Donald Trump turned into a political issue.

As expected, Donald Trump yesterday signed Executive Orders targeting Muslims and refugees.

A journalistic legend has passed away just days after his retirement was officially announced.

Should Donald Trump be classified as a fascist?

The longer this race goes on, the hard it becomes to deny the truth about Donald Trump.

The final episode airs tonight. How will Matt Weiner will wrap it up?

It’s complicated. And probably not a scandal.

We may have our first legal challenge to an Ebola quarantine order by tomorrow

America’s “Patient Zero” doesn’t appear to have spread Ebola very far, but continued vigilance is called for. And, we need to focus on the part of the world where there really is an Ebola Crisis.

It appears that there will be no Federal charges against George Zimmerman for shooting Trayvon Martin. This is not a surprise.

The Supreme Court has issued a stay that will allow changes to Ohio’s early voting law to remain in effect for this year’s election. That was the correct decision.

Electronic payments are convenient but sometimes there’s nothing better than money in your pocket.

Being a public intellectual doesn’t pay.

Virginia Tech English prof Steven Salaita implores us to “Stop saying ‘support the troops.'”

Shocking news out of California.

Finland gives all parents of newborns a cardboard box for their babies to sleep in. No, they’re not homeless.

It’s time to take a look at the pre-trial issues in what is likely to be the trial of the Summer of 2013.

The American tax code contains perverse incentives and barriers to getting out of poverty.

A photograph of a New York cop putting boots on a homeless man went viral. The man remains bootless, however.

My latest for The Atlantic, “Stop Feeling Sorry for American Veterans, has posted.

Why isn’t the American middle class and working class angrier at the 1 percent?

US society cannot so easily be placed into a maker/taker divide

Details are still sketchy but two men are dead in separate shootings at Occupy Oakland (California) and Occupy Burlington (Vermont).

The tents at Occupy Wall Street are increasingly housing the homeless.

What do this people want? Can’t you read the signs?

As the season changes, the Occupy Wall Street movement seems destined to peter out.

Unnamed “sources” claim that ACORN is somehow behind Occupy Wall Street and its offshoots.

Does “Occupy Wall Street” really represent the people they claim to be speaking for?