Outside the Beltway

The fight over Federal funding for Planned Parenthood seems to be about much more than whether taxpayer dollars should be going to Planned Parenthood.

Yet again: to the Commerce Clause!

Nine years into a war that seems to be without end, it’s time to declare victory and go home.

President Obama’s decision to decline to defend Section Three of the Defense Of Marriage Act on appeal was a proper and appropriate exercise of his authority as President Of The United States.

A former Democratic state attorney general thinks Wisconsin’s Republican governor may have violated state ethics laws while on a prank phone call.

Some conservatives are finally waking up and realizing what people like Glenn Beck are doing to the movement. It’s probably too late, though.

Is Saudi Arabia the next domino to fall in the Middle East? The Royal family is hoping that money will be enough to make sure that doesn’t happen.

Huge news in the marriage equality debate today as the Obama Administration has decided not to defend the Defense of Marriage Act in court anymore.

The Bahraini state appears willing to continue to use force against its population.

Michael Medved wishes that conservatives would stop implying that the President of the United States wants to destroy the United States.

Shirley Sherrod’s lawsuit against Andrew Brietbart promises to be an interesting test of the boundaries of defamation law in the political blogosphere.

DHS Secretary Napolitano issues some vague warnings to Congress.

If Mubarak is driven from power, will that make Egypt a case of “revolution”?

Glenn Beck seems to have more in common with End Time preachers than he does with a serious political analyst.

It seems to me that inactivity can have just as profound affects as activity and likewise that it is rather difficult to argue that health care isn’t part of interstate commerce.

Amy Chua captured the two things we fear most: the Chinese and our children.

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

Demanding that the new GOP House hold the line at the current number is satisfying rhetorically, but all-but-impossible politically.

There is a problem with political rhetoric in this country, but telling people to be nicer to each other isn’t going to cool it down.

150 years ago, President-Elect Abraham Lincoln was presented with a chance to avert Civil War. He passed it up, and we should be glad that he did.

The Stuxnet virus that has set back the Iranian nuclear weapons program by several years at least appears to have originated as a joint project between the United States and Israel.

David Kurtz reports, “House Republicans are about to use “deem and pass” — a.k.a., a self-executing rule — which you may recall was the same legislative mechanism they decried last year during the health care reform debate as a threat to all that is right and good about America.”

Some people in the D.C. area are worried that the Federal spending gravy train may be coming to an end. They should be.

Andrew Sullivan makes a rather bizarre charge offhandedly: “Who among the neocons would have thought that one of George W. Bush’s final legacies would be bringing pogroms, bombings and genocide to Christians in his new zone of freedom?”

Chicago’s next mayor will be either Rahm Emanuel or Carol Moseley Braun.

The seemingly sensible end-of-life counseling that was originally part of the Health Care Reform Bill is making a comeback.

Hawaii’s new Governor is taking on the Birther myth.

So, Kodak is suing Shutterfly because it claims to have invented the idea of putting pictures on the Internet.

Ohio Congressman Steve Driehaus is suing a pro-life PAC for “defamation” and “loss of livelihood” over its role in his defeat in the 2010 Elections.

The repeal of DADT has resulted in some odd claims being made.

Judicial activism doesn’t mean “reaching a decision I don’t like.”

Hinckley, California — the town that Erin Brockovich made famous — has slightly less cancer than we’d expect.