Outside the Beltway

While the news media is focused on sixteen battleground states, the professionals running the Obama and Romney campaigns are focused on a much narrower list.

In an ideal world, today’s Recall Election in Wisconsin would not even be legally possible.

New York’s Governor is proposing a change in the law that could spare thousands of people a year from an unnecessary trip through the legal system.

Another sign this morning that the economic has been slowing, and may be contracting.

The factors influencing Russian policy in Syria are many, and some of them are quite ancient.

The president has come a long way from his days as a “liberal law professor who campaigned against the Iraq war.”

As societal attitudes change, what counts as an insult so bad you can sue someone over it also changes.

The first shots have been fired in cyberspace. How will it end?

New York City’s Mayor wants to control the size of soft drinks.

The economic statistics aren’t pointing in a very optimistic direction.

The New York Times finds some infighting among old Republican foreign policy hands.

Will more knowledge bring an end to the public debate over evolutionary theory? Don’t count on it.

Mitt Romney continues to keep Donald Trump close. It makes no sense, but it isn’t likely to matter in the end.

Contrary to what you’re hearing, the Facebook I.P.O. was a huge success.

Illinois wants to solve its Medicaid problem by hoping its citizens smoke more cigarettes.

The Obama campaign’s focus on Mitt Romney’s years at Bain Capital don’t seem to be working.

China’s economic engine may be sputtering.

The City of Detroit appears ready to abandon vast sections of itself to the metaphorical jungle.

Etan Patz went missing 34 years ago tomorrow morning. The mystery of his disappearance may have been solved today.

It was supposed to be the return of the heady days of the great Tech Industry IPOs. But, things didn’t quite go as planned.

A North Carolina teacher screamed and cursed at students for criticizing President Obama.

The “Clinton-Biden Switcheroo” Scenario is the pundit’s fantasy that will not die.

The Catholic Church has fired a legal shot across the bow of the Affordable Care Act.

The people who gave us the “war on Christmas” are now touting an upsurge on black-on-white crime.

Yesterday, Cory Booker committed the rookie mistake of saying what was on his mind.

Alan Dershowitz thinls the charges against George Zimmerman should be dropped. With due apologies to the good Professor, he’s wrong.

Recipe plagiarism and a bonus tale.

The private office is quickly becoming a relic, despite the loss of morale and productivity that comes from open floorplans.

Republican politicians have largely avoided the topic of same-sex marriage since President Obama’s announcement. Why?

Since Mexico’s President Felipe Calderón began an all-out assault on drug cartels in 2006, more than 50,000 people have lost their lives across the country in a nearly-continuous string of shootouts, bombings, and ever-bloodier murders.

Americans Elect is dead. This should surprise nobody.

All the available evidence suggest that the Occupy movement has fizzled away into virtual nothingness.

White babies now constitute slightly less than half of American births.

Thoughts on tradition, church, and state.

A pro-Republican SuperPAC may be bringing the Jeremiah Wright story back. That would be bad news for the Romney campaign.