Outside the Beltway

The Democrats have lots of problems. Salesmanship is pretty far down the list.

An irresponsible Trump-era practice continues.

The tech giant is even more powerful than you think.

The Southeast has been hit especially hard.

The Internet killed the newspaper without really replacing it.

A really weird proposal to solve a problem that probably doesn’t exist.

The quasi-monopoly power of the world’s largest bookstore is problematic. Maybe.

The reflections on the departed right-wing talk host continue.

President Biden masterfully used the pageantry of the day to shatter the self-asserted Trumpian monopoly on patriotism.

Hashtag: You’re Fired.

The Pundit’s Fallacy meets opportunism.

A brand dating back to 1889 is being retired.

The pandemic is massively more livable given modern technology.

To defang impeachment is an invitation for presidents to ignore the rule of law.

Just over nine years after retiring from the Supreme Court, former Associate Justice John Paul Stevens has passed away at the age of 99.

Virginia has finally repealed a dumb and unconstitutional restriction on how bars could advertise Happy Hours.

We all know the Internet broke the monopoly on classified advertising. Here’s the rest of the story.

At least some conservatives appear to finally be recognizing that their movement has been taken over by grifters and frauds. The only question is, what took them so long?

Strong public records laws, not an excess of weirdness, has driven a sad meme.

Do you want to get money out of politics? You need to get politics out of money.

Earlier this week, SpaceX deployed the first 60 satellites in a network that could result in Internet access from virtually anywhere in the world.

A Washington Post columnists tries to make the case.

The key remains the military.

Republicans face a choice in the coming days. Do they support the Constitution, or do they support Donald Trump? You can count on them making the wrong choice.

It was only a matter of time before Trump’s rhetoric against the press would lead to something violent. Last night in El Paso, it happened.

One of the longest-lasting characters on The Simpsons may not be long for this world, but before we write him off perhaps we ought to stop and think.

A quick hit and run post to provide a proper definition.

President Trump’s short list of potential Supreme Court nominees consists mostly of conventionally conservative, well-qualified, jurists.

A towering figure gone much too soon.

Instead of attending the White House Correspondents Association Dinner last night, Donald Trump took his show on the road where he continued his long-standing attacks on the press. Unfortunately, it’s a message that resonates with his supporters.

Mark Zuckerberg’s second day before Congress was somewhat more contentious than the first, but at the end of the day it’s still unclear that more regulation is the answer to the issues raised by recent Facebook “scandals.”

Not surprisingly, a joint Senate Committee failed to really lay a glove on Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg at yesterday’s hearing.

If Trump is able to insist upon a package deal or no deal at all, he may muck up his chance of policy success, but it may be the Democrats who lose politically.

The rise of ‘car sharing’ services has greatly benefitted consumers but had a devastating effect on taxi drivers.

In a healthy democracy we need not agree, nor must we finally even respect one another’s objects of devotion.  But we should exercise a salutary measure of mutual forbearance and be willing to acknowledge that no side has a monopoly on either truth or justice.

A Federal Appeals Court has upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit filed by Gary Johnson and Jill Stein regarding their exclusion from Presidential debates.

Foolishly, President Trump is rolling back part of President Obama’s opening to Cuba.

Part One in a series of observations about health care and health insurance in light of the introduction of the House GOP’s health care plan.

There are two sides in this war between Trump and the media, but only one of them is the right side.

Democracy produces good rulers, right?  Sometimes.  What good democracies actually produce best is good losers. Let us then be grateful for gracious losers, for our losers no less than our winners carry forward the American experiment in self-rule.  

If polls are any indication, voters are set to legalize marijuana in five more states on Tuesday.

Once again, the debate commission controlled by the two major parties is excluding third-party candidates from the Presidential debates.

The minimum wage has been a big part of this year’s election cycle, mainly due to Bernie Sander’s campaign and his idea of a national minimum wage. There has been lots of discussion of this, but most of it is just, well, bad. There are really two things that one can point to as to why wages above the market wage can be good.

The rise of Trump and Sanders has resurrected a debate as old as Western civilization.

Jim Webb’s recent criticism of Hillary Clinton is renewing speculation about an independent bid for the White House, but he hardly seems like a viable candidate for such a run.

Delaware has become the latest state to liberalize its laws regarding marijuana.

Paradoxically, the children of affluent parents are less happy than those of the poor.

A controversial marijuana legalization initiative that even many pro-legalization advocates opposed, lost in Ohio last night. But the nationwide momentum in favor of legalization will likely not be abated.

Republicans seem to be thinking that Hillary Clinton will be an easier General Election candidate than the evidence suggests she is likely to be.