Outside the Beltway

In an era of incredibly polarized politics and 24/7/365 campaign mode, it’s refreshing to see politicians treat each other as human beings now and again.

He definitely wouldn’t appreciate it, but in some sense you can thank Robert Bork for the Supreme Court’s opinion in Obergefell v. Hodges.

Former Virginia Senator Jim Webb is running for President for reasons I would assume make sense to him.

A long history of opposing marriage equality could end up hurting Republicans even though that battle is over in this country.

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker will be entering the race for President later this month, but it’s unclear if his recent turn to the hard right will help him or hurt him.

The June Jobs Report was okay, but it certainly doesn’t inspire much confidence.

The Confederate Flag needs to be removed from official places of honor, but do we really need to worry about reruns of The Dukes of Hazzard?

Donald Trump has gotten almost nothing but negative press since entering the race for President, but it doesn’t seem to be hurting him very much just yet.

For the first time since 1961, there will soon be an American Embassy in Havana, and a Cuban Embassy in Washington. It’s well past time that this happened.

Greece’s Prime Minister seemed to give in to some of Europe’s demands today, but bankers are continuing to hold to the strict conditions they set last week.

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a major case about public employee unions that could go a long way toward restraining their power.

A new poll shows that solid majorities of Americans support the Supreme Court’s decisions on Obamacare subsidies and marriage. It’s a different story for Republicans.

The Supreme Court’s decision on marriage equality seems to have revived an idea that has been mentioned before, but as it has always been, the idea of “getting government out of marriage” is little more than a simplistic slogan.

Chris Christie is in the race for the Republican nomination, but it’s tough to see how he has a plausible path to relevance.

When you’re being paid $65,000 to speak for less than an hour, you’re pretty much the poster child for privilege.

In the wake of the latest Supreme Court decision, the Affordable Care Act seems to have become even more firmly established than it was before last week, and the prospect of repeal has become even less likely.

The Supreme Court agreed yesterday to wade back into the thorny issue of race and higher education.

The Supreme Court rejected a challenge to the way the death penalty is administered, dealing a serious blow to opponents of the death penalty.

SCOTUS has upheld the use of election commissions to draw Congressional district lines.

There are still legal challenges to the Affordable Care Act pending after King v. Burwell, but they aren’t quite as substantial as what we’ve seen over the last five years.

The Attorney General of Texas is responding to the Supreme Court’s marriage ruling by telling Clerk’s who issue marriage license that they are free to ignore the law.

The events of the past two weeks could allow the Republican Party to move forward.

In an ordinary year, Ohio Governor John Kasich seems like he’d be a perfect candidate for Republicans in an era when winning the Buckeye State is essential to winning the White House. But things are far from ordinary in the GOP.

There’s a lot of pandering and outright nonsense in the wake of the Supreme Court’s legalization of gay marriage.

The Greek Government is basically shutting the banking system down tomorrow as negotiations over its debt problems continue.

It was a close vote, but Virginia’s Republican leaders did the smart thing yesterday in picking a primary over a convention in 2016.

Debating the proper role of the judiciary.

In week a that has seen discussion of lost causes, the Chief Justice of the Alabama Surpreme Court appears poised to fight one last battle.

Wherein I take the view that as our understanding of language changes, so too does our application of the Constiution.

The people who continue to claim that the Confederate Flag is about anything other than hatred, racism, and a nation that celebrated slavery are lying to you and to themselves.

Good for her.

If you’re under 21 in Hawaii, you’re still technically an adult but you can’t buy tobacco.

Andrew Sullivan, perhaps the man most responsible for putting the notion of marriage equality into the national debate, has come out of his blogging retirement to weigh in on yesterday’s historic ruling.

The reaction of many of the GOP candidates to the decision in Obergefell v. Hodges is about what you’d expect, but there are a few interesting surprises.

A proposed California law would require all students who attend public school to be vaccinated, with limited exemptions for medical reasons.

The Supreme Court has issued a ruling whose roots can be found in case law going back half a century.

The US Supreme Court has ruled 5-4 that the U.S. Constitution contains a right to same-sex marriage.

Bernie Sanders is closing in the polls, but it still seems as though it doesn’t mean as much as some political pundits will try to tell you it does.

The latest Census data show a changing America.

A Congressman wants to force Supreme Court Justices to get their health care through the ObamaCare exchange.