Outside the Beltway

Under Nelson Mandela’s leadership, the country made a smooth transition from apartheid. Now it’s going the way of Zimbabwe.

A group of twenty states have revived an old argument to mount a new legal challenge to the Affordable Care Act.

A series of scandals at Oxfam and other charitable organizations raise troubling questions.

President Trump’s military parade would come with a not insignificant cost.

The Department of Education announced yesterday that it will no longer investigate civil rights complaints from transgender students regarding bathroom access in public schools.

After nearly four decades in power, Robert Mugabe has stepped down after a military coup. What happens next is another, more complicated, question.

Voters in Maine hand their conservative Governor a setback.

A gunman opened fire on a crowd of over 20,000 people in Las Vegas, and the results have been predictably horrific.

A van struck a crowd outside a London mosque late last night in an attack by a man who said he wanted to kill Muslims.

The tiny Balkan nation of Montenegro is set to become the latest member of the NATO alliance despite the fact that there is seemingly no good reason for it.

Scotland’s First Minister is calling for another independence vote in the wake of the beginning of the Brexit process, but she’s unlikely to get it.

I am going to construct a complicated mathematical model of the economy, and then I’m going to calibrate it using some actual data, and in the end I will be able to tell everyone how much better or worse off they are given various changes in the economy. And it will be totally and completely true. Trust me, it’s math and therefore science.

As expected, Donald Trump yesterday signed Executive Orders targeting Muslims and refugees.

A speech traditionally used to unite was instead a continuation of a divisive campaign.

Political change coming to Germany? Or more of the same.

One professor is suggesting that Bernie Sanders played a role in 2016 similar to the one that Ralph Nader did in 2000. It doesn’t pass even cursory examination.

A Trump surrogate warns of a “taco truck on every corner” if Trump loses. That sounds like more of a promise than a threat if you ask me.

Donald Trump engages in some nice post hoc ergo propter hoc by implying that the decline in manufacturing jobs in North Carolina is due to NAFTA. Ignoring that other factors are more likely playing a far greater role in the loss of manufacturing jobs.

There’s nothing compasssionate about protectionism.

Responding to comments on this morning’s post.

On the left and the right, there’s been a resurgence of a long-ago discredited economy theory.

The Supreme Court won’t hear the appeal of a pharmacist who objects to providing the ‘morning after’ pill.

A country music legend has passed.

One down. How many more to go?

Both Donald Trump and Ohio Governor John Kasich face big tests in tomorrow’s Michigan primary.

Bernie Sanders was more aggressive in last night’s debate than he has been in the past, but it’s likely too little, too late.

Britons will go to the polls in June to decide the future of their country’s relationship with the rest of Europe.

The no-fly list is a flawed, arbitrary mess that has kept innocent people from flying for years. Using it to deny people rights recognized by the Constitution is, quite honestly, insane.

Protests by students at Princeton are causing some people to finally pay attention to some inconvenient truths about America’s 28th President.

To the surprise of nobody who was actually paying attention to political reality, Vice-President Biden announced today that he will not be a candidate for President.

If pre-election polling is to be believed, Stephan Harper and Canada’s Conservative Party seem likely to lose power after Monday’s elections, but there are several reasons why this may not end up being the case.

In which I change my mind on an important topic.

It’s easy to see what Greece thinks it still needs Europe, it’s more of puzzle why Europe thinks it needs to hang on to Greece.

Greece reached a new deal with European bankers that seems oddly similar to the one that voters rejected just a week ago.

A 1980 debate between Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush shows a different GOP.

A Republican political consultant says Hillary Clinton is in danger of losing the nomination.

Greek voters rejected the latest bailout package, but that only seems likely to make things even worse for them.

A new Michigan law allows religious-affiliated adoption agencies to turn away parents for religious reasons, and it seems fairly obvious what the target is in this case.

Thwarted by the legislature, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal used his executive power to take action that seems directed more toward evangelicals in Iowa than anything happening in his home state.

With the election behind him, David Cameron’s biggest problems may be yet to come.

Great Britain heads to the polls in less than a week, and it remains unclear just what’s going to happen.

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is now appealing to the worst aspects of economic populism on the right.

Australia has an interesting new idea about how to encourage parents to vaccinate their children.

One Missouri legislator is going on a crusade against a “problem” that may not actually exist.

While the issue of income inequality is quite real, Oxfam’s numbers are not.

For the fourth time in three years, a Federal Court has ruled that Florida’s law requiring drug tests for welfare recipients is unconstitutional.