Outside the Beltway

A little debt ceiling, a little higher ed, and other misc delights.

A brilliant journalist is gone at 44.

Cities across the United States are taking the wrong approach to a crisis.

Electoral Count Act reforms are “hidden” in the bipartisan budget bill.

That time the Nazis made a movie about the Titanic.

Can moderate Republicans take back their party?

A revealing comparison of Republican districts that deny and don’t deny the 2020 outcome.

Putin is committing war crimes in retaliation for an attack on a legitimate military target.

CNN’s original anchorman is gone at 82.

As more details emerge about the documents he stole, defenders are falling away.

A precision drone strike on a balcony in Kabul took out a longtime nemesis.

Paywalls are not our problem.

Yet another study that confirms my pre-existing biases.

Alas, it’s unlikely to change the policies that enable them.

The Ohio GOP Senate contest.

It’s okay to ask a war criminal for some political dirt on your opponent, right?

Thomas gets the ball rolling, and I take off from there.

Two unclassified after-action reports shine a new—if one-sided—light on the evacuation.

How do we know when our government is telling us the truth?

Yet another grim milestone.

But from what? Comparing two stories from Tennessee that show our society’s contradictory impulses when it comes to “protecting the children.”

The silly season has commenced a mite early.

The safety gap between affluent, white and poor, minority communities has grown over the last three decades.

A pioneering Black actor is gone at 94.

Apparently, New York and Oregon are not the same place.

The longtime Senate leader is gone at 82.

Democrats and Republicans are playing by different rules.

There is a lot of anger out there.

The convicted criminal has taken his shenanigans to court.

Humanitarian instincts rightly trumped security concerns.

An unsatisfying first(?) response.

Thirteen Marines and dozens of Afghan civilians are dead in a much-anticipated attack.

The evacuation could soon become a terrorist target.

It’s no better than Joe Manchin’s.

The indicators are pointing in the direction of caffeine being good for most people.

A problematically wide-open election in difficult times.

Biden’s America is a place and idea in which the trappings of empire or glory are ephemera in comparison with perennial human relationships—families; friendships; communities; schools; neighbors; partners.

There’s a word for people who use outrageous violence to terrorize.

In hindsight, there were more than a few clues.

Usually candidates don’t talk about how bad things are across the country while appealing to be re-elected.

A reckoning for 2500 Kosovar Serb civilians who were slaughtered is at hand.

Fewer people are very happy and more are not too happy than any time in a longstanding survey.

And a broader discussion of the ongoing Tara Reade story.

The grand jury was disbanded, so there was no need to continue the coercion tactic.

The men who gathered in Philadelphia to write the Constitution were geniuses. But they couldn’t predict the future.

A sad day for those of us who grew up watching Big Bird, Kermit, and the rest of the Muppets.

Suicide has become a bigger threat to members of the military and veterans than combat. That needs to change.

Revisiting a recent post.

There’s apparently big news in the fight against ISIS.