Outside the Beltway

Christopher Hitchens explains how to make tea.

Despite federal laws banning even prison officials from bringing phones inside, tens of thousands of inmates have smartphones.

Is there a legalization argument building?

Freshman Members of Congress are threatening to block a vote to raise the debt ceiling that Congress will have to take by this Spring. They’d be irresponsible if they did so.

The next round in the health care reform wars is about to start.

Shania Twain has married Frederic Thiebaud, former husband of Marie-Anne Thiebaud, the woman Twain’s ex-husband Mutt Lange had an affair with.

Will the Tea Party Movement grow up?

Diplomacy means having to be nice.

Wealthy Manhattanites are clamoring for a new status symbol: their own washer and dryer!

Chicago’s next mayor will be either Rahm Emanuel or Carol Moseley Braun.

208 years ago today, Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter to The Danbury Baptist Association that has resonated through the years.

The lawyer who argued The Pentagon Papers case points out how Julian Assange is not Daniel Ellsberg, and how prosecuting him could have disastrous results for press freedom in the United States.

President Obama and Chief Justice Roberts are calling for bipartisanship in the New Year.