Outside the Beltway

Is Peter Diamond qualified to be a Fed governor?

The first round of appellate arguments over the Constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act took place today in Richmond, Virginia.

A comedian-turned-Senator makes some strong points about how America goes to war.

Will days of strong economic growth ever return? And what happens if they don’t?

Obama’s main politics are hardly as leftist as many make them out to be. Indeed, much of them could have fit well in the the GOP of 1990s and early 2000s.

What, if anything, does the budget deal mean for the future?

Breathless hysteria over the trend toward a less white America misses an important fact: most Hispanics are white.

Paul Ryan unveiled an ambitious plan to cut the deficit today. The question is whether it will be the beginning of a debate, or an opportunity for Democratic demagoguery

A handful of young male bloggers have launched themselves to the head of the line, leapfrogging those who’ve spent years playing the game by the old rules.juice

Was the GOP’s maneuver legit? And what’s next?

Wisconsin Republicans stripped state employees of collective bargaining rights without the Democratic senators who fled the state to prevent a quorum.

Salmon Khan argues that students should watch videos at night and practice during the day.

The funny thing is that the quorum-busting in WI is more like a filibuster ought to be: a true delaying tactic that eventually has to give way to a democratic outcome.

Contrary to some assertions, Wisconsin public servants are not better compensated than their private sector counterparts.

Neither side is covering themselves in glory in the battle over the Badger State budget.

President Obama’s new budget involves nothing less than a thumb in the eye of anyone who hoped he would seriously address federal spending in his first term.

Ezra Klein dubs the Federal government “an insurance conglomerate protected by a large, standing army.”

Once again, it looks like efforts to reform the Senate’s filibuster rules have fallen victim to that old devil politics.

I don’t like it when things my allies say are misquoted and attacked; it’s no better when my allies do it.

The filibuster reform package that Senate Democrats unveiled yesterday has much to recommend to it. Unfortunately, it’s probably doomed.

Constitutional interpretation is easy, right?

Constitutional ambiguity is as old as, well, it’s as old as the Constitution itself

Like it or not, the U.S. Constitution has always been a political document, evolving depending on the players on the stage.

The abuse of the filibuster is just a symptom of a much wider problem.

For the first time in 35 years, the Senate may finally be on the verge of reforming the filibuster.

President Obama’s press conference yesterday, bitterly railing against Democrats in the Congress for being “purist” and “sanctimonious,” is brilliant triangulation.

President Obama is already taking heat from the left for his compromise on tax cut extensions, but will it actually hurt him in the end?

The unemployed are predominately poorly educated non-voters. Some argue that they are therefore getting far too little attention from the political class.

President Obama and the GOP have reached a deal on extending the Bush tax cuts that gives the GOP virtually everything it wanted.

Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley wants to fix the filibuster by making Senators actually filibuster. It’s a good idea.

There is a simple mathematical equation that explains why deficit reduction is so difficult.

President Obama is likely join the ranks of the unemployed come noon on January 20, 2013 if a Fed forecast is right.

The People In Charge telling us that something is Necessary For Our Own Good makes a large number of people accepting of the inconvenience, no matter how asinine or unsupported by evidence.

Ezra Klein argues that Sarah Palin’s Twitter account isn’t very popular. But that misses the point.

We must abandon an Industrial Age education system that rewards compliance and stifles creativity.

Former car czar Steve Rattner sat down with Ezra Klein to whine about how the American people and its Congress wouldn’t just turn over the whole economy to unelected experts such as himself.

Insane Clown Posse are Christians, yo. And they say Fuck a lot.

If Mark Zuckerberg hadn’t invented Facebook someone else would have. Probably within a month or two of his invention.

A case study in how one’s choice of graphing techniques can shape a debate over known data.

Is our problem that the very rich have too much money? Or that the rest of us don’t have enough?

Both the Constitution and the Federalist Papers, impressive as they are, must be understood in terms of not just applied political philosophy, but practical politics as well.