Outside the Beltway

The longer this race goes on, the hard it becomes to deny the truth about Donald Trump.

Scott Walker and Chris Christie apparently think that the key to turning around their dying campaigns is to pander to the people supporting Donald Trump’s anti-immigration platform.

Donald Trump’s immigration plan is would create a police state, violate people’s rights, and hurt America’s economy. And his supporters will most likely love it.

The buffoonish billionaire is tapping into something real.

Connecticut eliminated the death penalty several years ago, and now the state’s Supreme Court has ruled that the men remaining on death row cannot be executed.

Donald Trump’s assertion that he will get Mexico to pay for his border wall is being laughed at in Mexico City.

Jason Kottke points me to Stan Carey’s summary of Jack Grieve’s study of regional variations in swearing patterns across the United States.

This is not a serious Presidential campaign, it is a bloviating sideshow.

Despite the clear language of the 14th Amendment, Texas is apparently refusing to issue birth certificates to some children born in the United States whose parents happen to be in the country illegally.

A 1980 debate between Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush shows a different GOP.

Donald Trump says he still doesn’t know where the President was born, but he’d rather not talk about that anymore.

Republicans are finally starting to react to what Donald Trump has been saying.

Taxes on wine, beer, and spirits vary wildly from state-to-state and even within each state.

The latest Census data show a changing America.

PolitiFact rates President Obama’s claim that other countries don’t have mass shootings at rates comparable to America”Mostly False.”

Thanks largely to a series of court decisions, same-sex marriage is effectively legal in all of Mexico.

Cardinals executives were doing a little more than just stealing signs, apparently.

We live in a random and chaotic universe.

Martin O’Malley is running for President for some reason.

A new poll shows that nearly seven in ten Americans believe that people who are terminally ill should be allowed to end their lives with the help of a doctor.

Despite a veto from the state’s Governor, today Nebraska became the latest state to repeal the death penalty. Hopefully, others will follow.

The Republican debate stage in 2016 is going to be even more crowded than it was in 2012.

A plan to distribute migrants from the conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa across the entire European Union seems destined to cause political conflict.

Most managers work beyond 9-to-5.

Carly Fiorina, who flopped at Hewlett-Packard and in her lone previous political campaign, wants to be the leader of the free world.

The sources of new immigrants to the United States are changing, but it’s unclear if that will have any impact on the political debate over immigration reform.

Some thoughts on a column by Roger Noriega on the Obama administration and Latin America,

We’re down to debating whether bigots should have to sell cakes to gay people.

The Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal of three students disciplined for wearing American flag shirts on Cinco de Mayo

Indiana is about to become the latest state to grants special rights to religious business owners.

The 2008 runner-up has scared off all serious challengers for 2016. Why?

A fishy tale from the Supreme Court that may give us a clue about bigger cases to come.

Reflecting a growing national trend away from the barbarity of capital punishment, the Governor of Pennsylvania has imposed a moratorium on executions in the Keystone State.

It looks like Congress has averted a budget fight for the second straight year.

Texas has joined with 16 other states in a lawsuit against the Obama Administration over the President’s executive action on immigration. At first glance, it doesn’t appear to have much legal merit.

The Obama Administration took some fire yesterday for recent Ambassadorial Appointments, but the President’s record has been consistent with those of his recent predecessors.

The fact that Republicans lack anything approaching a coherent immigration plan makes it hard to take their criticism of the President seriously.

A new poll provides some interesting context to the political context to the President’s expected executive action on immigration.

Vladimir Putin’s reception at the G-20 Summit in Australia has been less than warm thanks to recent events in Ukraine.

Much like the disease itself, Ebola panic seems to have disappeared as the midterm elections become ever more distant in the rear view mirror.

Republicans performed better among Latino voters this year than they did in 2012, but that doesn’t mean they’ve solved their problems.

Good news for two released Americans, but no clue what’s motivating North Korea’s latest actions.

The Supreme Court heard argument this week in a case involving a somewhat strange application of Federal law.

Time to look into the crystal ball.