Outside the Beltway

Actor Jussie Smollett is charged with staging an attack initially called a “hate crime.”

Ku Klux Klan jokes, fake lynchings, and the like were routinely depicted even at places like Cornell.

President Trump will get his Space force, but it won’t exactly be what he wanted when he first proposed that idea.

Twenty days after we learned about racist yearbook photos and everything that followed from it, there’s been no action against any of Virginia’s top political leaders. Don’t expect to see it either.

Robert Mueller appears to be winding down his investigation and getting ready to submit a report to the Attorney General.

A Coast Guard officer and aspiring domestic terrorist was arrested late yesterday for plotting to kill Democratic politicians and members of the media.

Following Donald Trump’s lead, the GOP is making clear that its game plan for 2020 is paint all Democrats as ‘socialists, baby killers, and anti-Semites.’

The Supreme Court issued a ruling that places new limits on civil asset forfeiture by state and local government.

Polling continues to suggest that voters in Virginia are not nearly as concerned with the past behavior of state leaders as the political establishment might be.

The American Civil Liberties Union has joined the list of groups with lawsuits against the President’s declaration of a “national emergency” at the southern border.

With just over two months to go until the March 29th deadline, British Prime Minister Theresa May is no closer to a Brexit deal.

Justice Clarence Thomas argues that a 55-year-old precedent should be overturned.

Tennis great Martina Navratilova is facing criticism for raising questions about how sports handles the issue of transgender athletes competing within the gender they identify with. She shouldn’t be.

While I’m sympathetic to his plight, he has no case.

At this early stage of the Democratic race, it doesn’t appear that voters care very much about the controversy surrounding Elizabeth Warren’s claims of Native American ancestry.

For now,former President Obama is staying on the sidelines in the race for the Democratic nomination.

Roger Stone is being ordered to Court after an Instagram post that appears to be a direct threat against the Judge presiding over his criminal case.

The end of racism may have been prematurely declared.

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

Notorious RBG is back on the bench.

The lawsuits against President Trump’s “national emergency” have begun. Except more.

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

Thanks mostly to it’s complete and enthusiastic embrace of Donald Trump , the Republican Party faces a bleak demographic future.

The Trump Administration continues to drive a wedge between the United States and Europe, can it ever be repaired?

The shooter who killed five people in a factory in Illinois on Friday should not have had a gun to begin with.

The Supreme Court will hear a case dealing with a challenge to the Commerce Department’s decision to put a question about citizenship on the 2020 Census.

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.

The NYT has a useful classification of previous declarations (which does show the odd nature of Trump’s wall declaration).

Saturday Night Live mocked the President’s declaration of a ‘national emergency,” which caused him to lash out on Twitter.

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

Patrick Caddell, who helped Jimmy Carter win the Democratic nomination and White House in 1976, has died at the age of 68.

Two months after being named, Heather Nauert withdrew her name as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations due to a ‘Nannygate’ problem.

There is a bit of a disjuncture between the terminology and the reality (but that does not excuse Trump’s current actions).

Levitsky and Ziblatt on emergency powers.

Some thoughts on the current mess.

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.

Supreme Court watcher Jeffrey Toobin speculates that Clarence Thomas could be the next Supreme Court Justice to step aside.

Former Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld is preparing for a primary challenge against Donald Trump. He won’t win, but he could still have an impact.

A confidential agreement has ended a collusion suit filed against the National Football League in 2017.

Happy Friday!

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg returned to the Supreme Court today and appears to have fully recovered from her December surgery.

President Trump declared a national emergency at the southern border while at the same time undercutting his own case for doing so.

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.

Walter Jones, a former supporter of the Iraq War who became one of the most prominent anti-war voices in Congress, has passed away at the age of 76. He will be missed.

President Trump’s impending decision to declare a national emergency to get funding for his border wall will quickly face serious legal challenges. It may be more vulnerable than the White House suspects.

The President will sign the bill to fund the government and avert another government shutdown, but in doing so he’ll also lay the groundwork for another showdown with Congress.

William Barr was easily confirmed as Attorney General in a 54-45 votes that included three Democrats crossing over to support him.

A Federal Judge found that former Trump Campaign Manager Paul Manafort lied repeatedly after entering into a plea agreement with Special Counsel Robert Mueller. This either makes him incredibly stupid or willing to sacrifice himself to hide the truth from Federal investigators.

The former #2 official at the FBI is trying to sell a book.