Outside the Beltway

The next round in the health care reform wars is about to start.

Will the Tea Party Movement grow up?

208 years ago today, Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter to The Danbury Baptist Association that has resonated through the years.

The lawyer who argued The Pentagon Papers case points out how Julian Assange is not Daniel Ellsberg, and how prosecuting him could have disastrous results for press freedom in the United States.

President Obama and Chief Justice Roberts are calling for bipartisanship in the New Year.

Like it or not, the U.S. Constitution has always been a political document, evolving depending on the players on the stage.

The Christmas Cheer Edition OTB Caption Contest^TM is now over.

The seemingly sensible end-of-life counseling that was originally part of the Health Care Reform Bill is making a comeback.

Hawaii’s new Governor is taking on the Birther myth.

Frustrated that it couldn’t achieve desired environmental legislation despite huge majorities in both Houses of Congress, the Obama administration has decided to govern by executive fiat.

Those who argue that tariff increases, and not slavery, were the key reason for secession have some basic problems with the historical sequence.

The abuse of the filibuster is just a symptom of a much wider problem.

For the first time in 35 years, the Senate may finally be on the verge of reforming the filibuster.

President Obama is supporting the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Is this the end of America?

The Federal Communications Commission is using a statute from the 1930s to try to regulate the technology of the 21st Century. It’s a mistake.

What the Haley Barbour situation illustrates is that we, as a country, have not fully accepted or dealt with our own past.

150 years ago today a group of men gathered in Charleston, South Carolina and made one of the gravest mistakes in American history. They should not be honored for it.

The repeal of DADT may open the doors for ROTC to return to many elite institutions, if cost doesn’t get in the way.

How likely are more sweeping health care reforms in the US? Not very likely at all.

The Congress has passed a repeal of DADT.

The 20th Amendment was supposed to eliminate lame duck sessions, but it didn’t.

Did we have a free market in health care prior to the passage of PPACA? No.

The new health care law’s individual mandate was the subject of another bruising court battle yesterday, but the real question in the room was what, if any, are the limits on Congressional authority?

Since when is working the week before Christmas sacrilege?

The incoming House Republicans aren’t making a good first impression.

Despite yesterday’s victory for opponents of the Affordable Care Act, the prospects in the Supreme Court are not good.

Politics makes for strange bedfellows and, when it comes to the debate over the extension of the Bush tax cuts, anti-tax Republicans are making common cause with soak-the-rich progressives.

A Federal Judge in Virginia has handed the first legal defeat to the President’s health care reform package.

Inspired by the reaction to the Julian Assange case, a feminist writer proposes dangerous changes to American rape laws.

The Senate has constructed the legislation to correspond to the Obama-McConnell deal, sweeteners and all.

Republicans have blocked a bill that would have helped rescue workers who became sick helping others at Ground Zero.

Senate Democrats cancel vote on DREAM Act, meaning the immigration measure is likely dead for the year.

Just weeks after voting for a broad ban on earmarks, Republicans are looking for ways to get money to their districts without calling it an “earmark.”

Amid signs that Democrats in Congress might rebel against the tax cut deal he struck with Republicans, President Obama took to the airwaves today to defend it at the same time that his base is rebelling against it.

President Obama is already taking heat from the left for his compromise on tax cut extensions, but will it actually hurt him in the end?