Outside the Beltway

Bernie Sanders is likely to run for the Democratic nomination, but it won’t be like 2016.

Does trash become treasure with time?

Is Trump about to make an offer (plus the SOTU letter may have helped).

The efforts by Speaker Pelosi and President Trump to leverage their institutional powers raise interesting questions.

The Speaker is well within her rights to make Trump’s invitation conditional on ending the shutdown. But let’s not pretend we can’t keep him safe.

An argument against “bothersiderism” in this case and, yet again, noting the problem with single seat districts.

U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor contends that a recent change in tax law unravels the basis for the Supreme Court’s upholding of Obamacare.

It isn’t about foreign policy, it is about self-serving manipulation of the public.

Rather than cauterizing an open wound, she’s fanned the fuels of a fire.

BREAKING NEWS from multiple major news outlets.

An ugly day for the United States Senate and the United States of America.

We should take Congressional officers out of the line of succession.

Prominent supporters of the embattled Supreme Court nominee, including the President, are doing him no favors.

Trump has an autocrat’s view of justice.

A Federal Judge in Texas has declined to grant a request to bring the DACA program to an end, but its days appear to be numbered unless Congress acts.

The West Virginia Supreme Court has ruled that a candidate who lost the GOP primary for Senate cannot run as the nominee of another party due to the state’s “sore loser” law.

A new study concludes that the total death toll from Hurricane Maria was vastly higher than previously reported.

For the second time this year, a three-judge panel of Federal Judges has struck down North Carolina’s Congressional District map. The immediate question is what impact, if any, this will have on November’s election.

Max Boot proclaims “Trump is an illegitimate president whose election is tainted by fraud.”

California Republican Duncan Hunter Jr, who was an early backer of President Trump’s campaign, has been indicted on charges he used massive amounts of campaign funds to pay for personal expenses.

The President’s former lawyer and “fixer” is pleading guilty to a number of charges, including apparent campaign finance law violations related to the Stormy Daniels payment.

A Pennsylvania Grand Jury report reveals decades of abuse by some 300 Catholic Priests impacting more than 1,000 children and 26 of the state’s Roman Catholic Diocese.

A group of lawsuits filed across the country are seeking to challenge the predominant method for allocation of Electoral College votes. These lawsuits appear to have little merit.

A new poll shows that most Americans believe that race relations have gotten worse under President Trump.

A new government report indicates that President Trump’s border wall will cost billions more than initially projected. And Mexico still isn’t going to pay for it.

Another Federal Judge has ruled in favor of a transgender student seeking the right to use the gender that conforms to the gender they identify with.

New York Congressman Chris Collins, who was the first Congressman to endorse President Trump, has been indicted for what amounts to one of the dumber and most obvious cases of securities fraud ever seen.

Another Federal Judge has dealt a legal blow to President Trump’s effort to shut down the DACA program.

A Federal Appeals Court has found that a Trump Administration policy purporting to punish so-called sanctuary cities is unconstitutional.

A Federal Judge in Washington State has, at least temporarily, blocked the release of files that would allow anyone to make a 3-D printed gun. The First Amendment seems to clearly indicate that this ruling is wrong.

A Federal Judge in Oregon has rejected an efforts by a parent’s group to block a school district policy that allows transgender students to use the restroom facilities that conform to their gender identity.

A Federal Judge in Maryland ruled last week that a lawsuit against the President based on a rather obscure provision of the Constitution could go forward.

The Secretary of State of West Virginia has barred Don Blankenship, who came in third place in the GOP Primary, from mounting a third-party bid on the November ballot.

A three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down part of a Hawaii law barring open carry of weapons, but this win for gun rights advocates may turn out to be short-lived.

New York and several other states have filed an incredibly dubious lawsuit against the Republican’s new tax law.

Mariia Butina, a Russian “gun rights activist, is accused of being an unregistered agent of the Russian government and attempting to influence Republican Party policies regarding Russia in an operation that pre-dates the Trump Presidential campaign.

Some thoughts on the Strzok hearing.

The Office of Special Counsel Robert Mueller has issued indictments against twelve Russian intelligence officials for election-related hacking, and in the process has shown most of the arguments made by the President and his surrogates regarding the Russia investigation are nonsense.

A Federal Judge has rejected a Trump Administration effort to change a 20-year-old legal settlement that bars long-term detention of immigrant families.

A Federal Judge in California has largely rejected a Trump Administration challenge to a series of new laws in California designed to protect so-called “sanctuary cities.”

Federal law protects internet companies from liability for statements written by others.

It’s more complicated than one might think.

What was once a rare symbol of national mourning has become so commonplace as to be meaningless.

Next term, the Justices will revisit the issue of whether someone can be tried in state and Federal Court for the same crime for the first time in nearly sixty years.

Trump’s deal-making prowess in NK and Iran isn’t too impressive.

The unconscionable violation of norms in 2016 won’t apply in 2018; it’s a matter of power, not principle.

In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court has ruled that public sector unions cannot force employees to pay membership fees.

In a 5-4 ruling, the Supreme Court struck down a California law requiring Crisis Pregnancy Centers to provide information about abortion.

In a ruling that largely relies on the authority granted by Congress to the President to regulate immigration on national security grounds, the Supreme Court has upheld the final version of the Administration’s travel ban.