Outside the Beltway

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

Another nonsense ruling on an issue that doesn’t belong in court to begin with.

Joe Walsh, a former Tea Party stalwart who served in Congress nine years ago, has thrown his hat in the ring against President Trump for the 2020 GOP Presidential Nomination.

A Federal Court has ruled once again in favor of a transgender student in Virginia who was prevented from using the bathroom conforming to their gender identity.

President Trump says he’s thinking about commuting the sentenced of Rod Blagojevich, who has served seven years of the fourteen-year sentence he received for public corruption.

Dozens of well-off students from the Chicago area are getting college subsidies.

While much of the talk about Robert Mueller’s testimony has focused on the Trump campaign, there was another part to his testimony that brings attention to a far more serious threat.

Just over nine years after retiring from the Supreme Court, former Associate Justice John Paul Stevens has passed away at the age of 99.

The attempt by Arizona’s Governor to revoke tax benefits granted to Nike in the wake of the “Betsy Ross Flag” controversy is most likely unconstitutional.

POLITICO reports that some Democratic activists think she went too far.

Various federal and state agencies are enforcing existing laws while Congress scrambles to update them.

The Supreme Court has struck down a provision of the Lanham Act barring approval of “immoral” or “scandalous” trademarks as unconstitutional.

With hours to go before they were set to start. the President delayed the mass deportation raids that were supposed to begin this morning.

The Supreme Court has ruled to keep the long-standing “dual sovereigns” exception to the Double Jeopardy Clause in place.

Texas has become the latest state to eliminate red-light cameras amid increasing evidence that they are largely counterproductive.

Further progress for advocates of marijuana legalization from the Land of Lincoln.

Starting tomorrow, we should be getting some headline-grabbing opinions from the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court let a ruling against students opposed to a school district policy allowing transgender students to use the bathroom corresponding to their gender identity stand.

In the latest development in the child sex abuse investigations in the Catholic Church in the United States, five former Priests in Michigan have been arrested on sex abuse charges.

The size of the Democratic Presidential field, combined with other things peculiar to the way Democrats pick their nominee, is leading some to wonder if we might see a brokered convention in 2020.

A new poll indicates that at least some Democrats continue to hold Biden’s 2002 vote in favor of the Iraq War.

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

Stephen Moore, who has been nominated to a seat on the Federal Reserve Board by President Trump. has a history of controversial remarks about women.

The Supreme Court’s conservative majority appears poised to uphold the inclusion of a citizenship question on the 2020 Census.

Per-student investment in public colleges has not recovered from the Great Recession.

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

While polarization in our national politics gets the most attention, several states also face serious rural-urban tensions.

Scholars argue that the shifting media landscape is largely to blame for our political crisis.

One of the most bizarre cases in recent memory gets . . . much more bizarre.

How finite is prestige?

The woman famous for losing the Georgia governor’s race is eyeing a bigger job.

For their 2020 convention, Democrats are headed to the Midwest.

In what was basically a throwaway line, Joe Biden said something nice about Mike Pence. The reaction from his fellow Democrats says a lot about our current political culture, and none of it is good.

Gun laws requiring guns to be taken away from convicted felons are either being ignored or have too many loopholes. We need to fix that.

Actor Jussie Smollett is charged with staging an attack initially called a “hate crime.”

Ku Klux Klan jokes, fake lynchings, and the like were routinely depicted even at places like Cornell.

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.

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

The shooter who killed five people in a factory in Illinois on Friday should not have had a gun to begin with.

Two new reports identify hundreds of Catholic Priests who have been credibly accused of abusing children over the past decades.

Lyndon LaRouche, an eight-time Presidential candidate who ran a cult-like organization that spread bizarre conspiracy theories, has died at 96.

After a week of scandal and chaos in Virginia politics, there’s no sign that Virginia Governor Ralph Northam is going anywhere, and there’s very little that can be done to force him out of office.

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

A WaPo data analyst gives it a shot.

A Chicago police officer convicted of second-degree murder has been sentenced to seven years in prison, but could be out in as little as three-and-a-half.

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in a case that could make it easier for consumers to buy and ship wine and other adult beverages across state lines.

Tulsi Gabbard was born in American Samoa, an American territory whose residents are generally not American citizens from birth. However, she is nonetheless a “natural born citizen.”

The confirmation hearing for President Trump’s nominee for Attorney General appeared to go very well, making confirmation essentially a certainty.

President Trump is offering to change his ‘concrete wall’ with a ‘steel barrier’ in what he apparently things is a compromise.

With Congress out of town until at least Thursday and negotiations apparently deadlocked, the White House is saying it’s likely the shutdown will last into 2019.