Outside the Beltway

Almost no one can confidently explain, let alone define, the specifics of the 501(c)4 designation.

What happened at the IRS looks a lot more like deliberate political bias than simple incompetence.

Partisan targeting by the IRS should not be permitted to stand.

For several years, Tea Party and other conservative groups have contended that they were being targeted for investigation by the Internal Revenue Service and it turns out that they were right.

The CIA unsuccessfully lobbied to put Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the eldest of the Boston Marathon bombers, on the counterterrorism watch list in 2011.

A mix of media and abortion politics.

Habemus Papam

John Karlin, an industrial psychologist for Bell Labs that you’ve probably never heard of, has died aged 94.

Conservatives complaining about biased coverage from the liberal media should instead look in the mirror.

George Zimmerman’s attorneys have filed a defamation lawsuit against NBC News.

Not as much learning going on as one might like, to be honest.

There are some expected and unexpected results in Nate Silver’s review of pollster accuracy in 2012.

An attempt to lay down some basic groundwork for discussing this story.

As is often the case with sex scandals, pretty much everything ever written about General David Petraeus takes on an ironic double meaning in hindsight.

I just came across Peggy Noonan’s pre-election column. It is quite illustrative.

Equating opposition to the President with racism is absurd.

As in 2010, Scott Rasmussen’s polling in 2012 has shown a distinct bias in favor of Republicans.

The arguments in favor of major changes in the way we elect our President are unpersuasive.

President Obama had some prominent liberal journalists over for coffee.

Once again, it seems necessary to debunk some commonly believed myths about polling.

One pollster has called three battleground states 27 days early.

Getting to the heart of the problem from my POV (plus historical numbers).

The arguments of the people claiming that every single poll showing Mitt Romney is unfairly biased do not stand up to scrutiny.

There’s no doubt about it, our political culture is pretty horrible.

Public distrust of the media is at an all-time high. It’s easy to see why.

The Romney campaign infighting is becoming public.

Lindsey Graham: “We’re not generating enough angry white guys to stay in business for the long term.”

Seniors face a variety of economy-based difficulties–but let’s criticizes the media!

Left with a choice between their hawkish foreign policy and their supposed commitment to fiscal conservatives, Republicans will, without fail, spend the nation into debt.

Security at the Republican Convention in Tampa looks more like a war zone than a political convention in a democratic republic.

NYT executive editor Jill Abramson is shocked that her outgoing public editor thinks her paper “virtually bleeds” a “kind of political and cultural progressivism.”

When and how often must they disclose their relationship? And can we take them seriously at all?

Whether or not it’s proper to call the FRC a “hate group,” the persecution complex being displayed in the wake of Tuesday’s shooting is absurd.

Justice Scaiia’s dissent in Arizona v. United States included many odd forays into areas that had nothing to do with the case before him.

Mitt Romney faces the same resistance to the idea of a Mormon President that his father did when he ran for President four decades ago.

A surprisingly short sentence in a case that caused a nationwide sensation.

The Rule Of Law is incompatible with political rabble rousing

Andy Baio and friends have undertaken an interesting project: color coding political blogs to track bias.

The media circus around the shooting of Trayvon Martin is getting worse.