Outside the Beltway

A pandemic-inspired perk seems to be going away.

The rioting never seems to stop.

We’re seeing our lowest test scores in decades among a key cohort.

Hollywood and the news media are roiled in labor disputes.

Dueling headlines give radically different impressions of the same case.

“The question we are facing is whether in the years ahead we have more freedom or less freedom. More rights or fewer.”

France shines new light on an old problem.

My (apparently) annual reflections on “The content of their character” day

We charge patients way more than other counties.

Washington has imposed a contract that workers rejected.

Would bypassing politicians altogether make the system more just?

An impasse over schedule flexibility could have widespread impact.

What’s being billed as the largest hike in years is anything but.

Is it time to call the whole thing off?

The symbolic vote attracted a handful of Republican votes.

How long can the unsustainable be sustained?

Half a century have passed since a botched burglary changed history.

Are we too regulated for our own good?

A diplomatic nightmare brewing since last week is now upon us.

The plural of anecdote is not data.

A too-small step in the right direction.

The pandemic seems to have broken the social contract.

It’s not compelling.

The equivalent of Pennsylvania’s entire labor force is sitting on the sidelines.

Doing nothing is still a choice, and the legitimacy crisis is here, like it or not.

We’re an incredibly divided country but splitting it into two is impossible.

President Trump’s destruction of longstanding norms continues under his successor.

Our love for cheap goods and services requires lots of people willing to work for very little.

The new CDC guidelines raise some serious questions.

The reaction to the pandemic has long since been about much more than the pandemic.

Look at who’s lined up against H.R. 1.

The Free State may have gotten just a little freer.

An interesting but uneven debate.

The politics and the science are in conflict.

Multiple indicators point to a decline in the representativeness of the American system.

The evidence is too clear to ignore at this point.

Policy wonks are seeing a refreshing return to the normal order. Some believe that’s a bad thing.

Thinking about unsupported narratives and a little bit about data usage.

When an apolitical process gets politicized.

A world in which we’re all contractors is a dystopian utopia.

The lousy hybrid option has been scrapped in favor of a worthless virtual one.

“Lift Every Voice and Sing” will reportedly precede the “Star-Spangled Banner” in the opening week.

Contra the CDC, the AAP says getting kids to class outweighs the modest risk of their catching COVID-19.

The Commonwealth is the first state in the nation to issue regulations.

The system makes it next to impossible to punish bad cops.

How to translate understandable frustration at injustice into tangible reform?

Until our kids go back to school, we can’t go back to work.

The bad news keeps on coming.