Outside the Beltway

Let’s not start celebrating just yet.

Kimberly Webb Joyner, my first wife and the mother of my children, has been gone a decade.

Exercising Constitutional rights comes with a price.

Officers are under enormous pressure–including from the Federal government–to write tickets.

A party invitation going terribly wrong.

We’re an incredibly divided country but splitting it into two is impossible.

Legislatures and school boards politicize what our kids are taught.

Looking to Federalist 22.

It’s not just Red states that put up too many barriers.

A Trump-era policy designed to screw over blue states may actually be a good one.

Many states are moving to a first come, first served basis for COVID shots.

What was mere signaling under a Republican Senate and President could now become law.

America’s institutions are undemocratic but only some of them are a product of the Constitution.

Could the Vice President end the filibuster herself?

The Emoluments Clause is essentially unenforceable.

Injecting data into the conversation.

The President has hit rock bottom.

The Constitution in times of extreme crisis.

Gina Raimondo has apparently lost her copy of the Constituiton.

The men who gathered in Philadelphia to write the Constitution were geniuses. But they couldn’t predict the future.

After a two-year investigation, the Inspector General of the Department of Justice found no basis for the conspiracy theories being pushed by the Republicans regarding the Russia investigation.

A sad day for those of us who grew up watching Big Bird, Kermit, and the rest of the Muppets.

As the impeachment proceedings move forward, Democrats are shifting their focus to a specific, and powerful, charge.

The Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal of a case from Connecticut filed by the parents of victims of the Sandy Hook massacre.

It’s not just Ukraine.

At last week’s debate, Beto O’Rourke handed Republicans and gun rights advocates a nicely wrapped gift with his claim that he would seize guns from otherwise law-abiding Americans.

The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals has once again upheld a local ordinance banning assault weapons.

An Oklahoma state court Judge has handed down what many are hailing as a landmark ruling related to the opioid crisis, but there’s reason to be skeptical about his conclusions.

A defense of a modest philosophy of judicial interpretation.

In the wake of the back-to-back shootings in Texas and Ohio, a new poll shows increased support for some gun control measures. But we’ve been here before.

Another day, another mass shooting and, as is becoming all too common in this country, this one appears to have been racially motivated.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi suffered a major defeat on a signature issue.

Attorney General William Barr has opened a new investigation into the origins of the Russia investigation, a move that seems suspiciously political.

The IRS is outgunned.

Ballot measures across the country would deny access to those who refuse to release tax returns.

Are people fleeing blue states to avoid repressive taxes? It depends who you’re asking.

A racist scholar took some fascinating photos of an enslaved man in 1860. Now, his descendants want the rights to them.

Sometimes symbolism is important. This is one of those times.

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.

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

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

In a rare display of assertiveness in the foreign policy arena, the House voted yesterday to bar U.S. assistance in Saudi Arabia’s genocidal war on Yemen.

Pensions and health care costs for the elderly are crowding out other vital spending.

For the first tine in nearly ten years, the Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case involving Second Amendment rights.

Herb Kelleher, who helped found an airline that revolutionized the industry thanks to his unconventional choices, has died at the age of 87.

The scandal-plagued Secretary of the Interior is leaving office at the end of the year.

Trump has selected current Budget Director Mick Mulvaney to replace John Kelly as Chief of Staff, but that’s unlikely to change how the West Wing operates.

William Barr, who served as Attorney General under President George H.W. Bush, has been selected to replace Jeff Sessions as Attorney General.

Three Democratic Senators are suing the Acting Attorney General, asserting that his appointment was unconstitutional.

Another part of the country that was once a Republican stronghold is now almost completely blue.