Outside the Beltway

Mandatory vaccination laws raise personal liberty issues that ought to be taken seriously, but in the end, public health concerns weigh heavily in favor of laws mandating vaccination.

It’s that time of year again, and once again people are asking if it isn’t time to drop the whole ritual of changing time every six months altogether.

For the fourth time since the 2008 election cycle, Michael Bloomberg flirted with the idea of running for President. For the fourth time, he declined to do so.

We won’t have Hillary Clinton to kick around anymore.

Former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper is the latest entrant into an already crowded Democratic field.

Washington Governor Jay Inslee is running for the Democratic nomination for President on a platform primarily focused on climate change. Whether that helps distinguish him from a growing field of candidates remains to be seen.

Breathless coverage of this freshman Congressman is getting tiresome.

There’s only one solution to the D.C. statehood issue. It’s called retrocession.

The 83-year-old is taking time off finishing his LBJ quintilogy to write his memoirs. Is that selfish?

Bernie is back and running for President, but he’s likely to face a tougher road this time around.

Gender bias is real. Most examples cited, though, aren’t.

The ignominious saga of Anthony Weiner appears to have reached its end.

Pope Francis defrocked former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick after decades of allegations of abuse of young boys and seminarians.

Two new reports identify hundreds of Catholic Priests who have been credibly accused of abusing children over the past decades.

Faced with a field that could be more crowded than the Republican field in 2016, Democrats have come up with a different solution to the rather obvious problem of debate scheduling.

Thanks mostly to political opposition that misrepresented the nature of the deal it had made, Amazon has abandoned plans to locate parts of its new headquarters in New York City.

A reading recommendation.

Pensions and health care costs for the elderly are crowding out other vital spending.

Starbucks Founder Howard Schultz is considering an independent run for the Presidency. This would likely be good news for President Trump.

The Speaker was dealt a winning hand and played it with the skill of a seasoned pro. But the outcome was all but inevitable.

For the first tine in nearly ten years, the Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case involving Second Amendment rights.

President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will meet again in February, but it’s hard to see why.

Could Maryland Governor Larry Hogan be just the kind of Republican to challenge Trump in 2020?

New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand is the latest Democratic entrant into the 2020 race for President.

Doctors have declared Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg cancer free but she is still expected to miss one more week of oral argument as she recovers from her surgery in December.

Several states are getting rid of caucuses in favor of primaries, a move that could be to the disadvantage of candidates like Bernie Sanders.

I’m not saying it was aliens, but……..

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg underwent surgery to remove cancerous nodes from a lung, but reports seem to point to a quick recovery.

New York State seems likely to join the list of states where marijuana has been legalized sometime next year.

A particularly appalling case of press censorship from Australia.

The President’s former lawyer and “fixer” Michael Cohen has been sentenced to three years in prison for his role in assisting the President in various scandals and cover-ups.

President Trump’s first choice to replace John Kelly as Chief of Staff turned the job down, leading one to wonder why anyone would want the job.

Lies and possible evidence of obstruction of justice make up the bulk of Robert Mueller’s new case against former Trump campaign director Paul Manafort.

Bernie Sanders has not officially said that he’s running for President, but he’s reportedly planning a much more aggressive campaign than what we saw in 2016 if he does.

President Trump has canceled a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin over the recent confrontation between Russia and Ukraine in the Black Sea.

A state trial court Judge in New York rejected efforts by the Donald Trump to halt a lawsuit alleging charity fraud in connection with the operation of The Trump Foundation.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor sat down to talk about the Supreme Court, her career, and the newest member of the nation’s highest court.

Starbucks Founder Howard Schultz is apparently considering running for President.

Amazon has reportedly decided to split its second headquarters between an already urbanized area of Northern Virginia and the outer boroughs of New York City.

Rest in Peace and Excelsior, Stan Lee!

Late last week, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals became the fifth Federal Court to rule against the Trump Administration’s efforts to repeal DACA.

With the election over, New York’s junior Senator seems to have changed her mind about running for President.

Michael Bloomberg is flirting with the idea of running for President in 2020. He’s done this before, of course, but this time he seems far more serious.

Anti-Semitic violence has increased markedly over the past two years. So has the spread of far-right “anti-Globalist” conspiracy theories. This is not a coincidence.

While the numbers seem to show that scandal-plagued Senator Bob Menendez will win re-election on Tuesday, national Democrats aren’t taking any chances.

President Trump wants to send more troops than we have in Syria and Iraq combined to the border to deal with a non-existent threat.

Authorities have arrested a Florida man named Cesar Sayoc, a 56-year-old Trump supporter, in connection with the wave of bombing attempts directed at critics of the President.

Two more potential explosive devices, addressed to New Jersey Senator Cory Booker and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, have been discovered by law enforcement.

More explosive devices sent to prominent Trump critics, including Robert DeNiro and Joe Biden, have been located.

Four suspicious packages addressed to prominent political and media figures have been intercepted in the past three days.