Outside the Beltway

Tom DeLay is a sleazebag and has been found guilty by an Austin jury for skirting the law. But it may in fact be a miscarriage of justice despite the victim being as unsympathetic as it gets.

As bicycle advocates have been getting new lanes and other concessions in major cities across the country, a minor backlash has formed in reaction.

North Korea has unveiled to the world a new nuclear processing facility that puts back on the table the question of just what we should, or can, do about the fact that a rogue state possesses nuclear weapons and wants to build more.

A new poll about the proposals coming out of the Deficit Commission makes it clear that the American public needs to grow up.

Yet another sign that the GOP’s biggest nightmare may actually end up coming true.

Here’s my plan for creating a budget surplus of $126 billion by 2015 and $592 billion by 2030.

Thanks to an interactive web tool from The New York Times we can all try to make the hard political choices needed to fix the budget mess.

There are grumblings from within the Democratic caucus in the House that Nancy Pelosi may not be the best choice for Minority Leader. Unfortunately for Democrats, though, they don’t seem to have a viable alternative at the moment.

The New York Times has joined the mostly muted chorus calling on Democrats to select someone other than Nancy Pelosi as their new Minority Leader. In all likelihood, their call will go unheeded.

NYT columnist Nick Kristoff says America’s income inequality makes us a banana republic.

Keith Olbermann was reportedly suspended for failing to apologize for making political donations to Democratic candidates, but it really seems intended to serve to justify the illusion that MSNBC’s programming is not partisan.

While health experts warn Americans to cut the amount of fat in their diet, the Federal Government helps businesses like Domino’s and Taco Bell promote high-fat products to the public.

The race between Jeb Hensarling and Michelle Bachmann for Chair of the House GOP Conference is a microcosm for a battle that is likely to take place within the GOP for the next two years.

A longish NYT postmortem titled “Democrats Outrun by a 2-Year G.O.P. Comeback Plan” attributes Tuesday’s Republican victories to a January 2009 PowerPoint presentation. But structural factors were more important.

Rasmussen polls were biased toward Republicans by 3 to 4 points. Rigged results? Or screening error?

Who are the Tea Party candidates and who will be the Tea Party office holders?

The British press takes a look at America’s Midterm Elections.

Thanks to a combination of good intelligence and fast action, it looks like the U.S. and UK avoided a serious attack on airliners last week.

Theodore Sorensen, a speechwriter and close adviser to President John F. Kennedy, died today at the age of 82

The Rally To Restore Sanity And/Or Fear ended up having a point after all, but it’s not one that anyone is likely to take to heart.

Did President Obama degrade his office by appearing on “The Daily Show”? Or is that notion a relic of a bygone era?

After months of media reporting on the Republican advantage in outside spending, NYT reports that Democrats retain a sizable advantage at the campaign level.

A call for ideological purity in the Democratic Party in today’s New York Times demonstrates that Democrats can be just as foolish as Republicans.

New multifunction credit cards will soon change the way Americans handle simple transactions.

In what is being described as the largest leak of secret documents in U.S. history, Wikileaks has made public more than 400,000 documents related to the seven year long Iraq War.

President Obama is reportedly avoiding a visit to India’s Harmandir Sahib, or Golden Temple, for fear that he’ll be accused of being a Muslim.

Recklessness.

Nineteen years after they ended, the Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill hearings are back in the news thanks to a voicemail that Thomas’s wife left for Professor Hill.

Remember that $400 tax cut President Obama gave you? Neither do 90 percent of Americans.

Politico says 99 Democratic House seats are “in play.” They’re not. But dozens are.

Who’s to blame for the rise in anti-Muslim sentiment in the United States, President Obama or those who have actually been encouraging bias against Muslims?

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates acknowledged in a newly released letter that the Wikileaks Afghan War document dump wasn’t as damaging as the Pentagon initially claimed. So what was the uproar all about?

Some Democratic candidates for Congress are working hard to distance themselves from Nancy Pelosi.

A new law allows Presidential candidates to set up transition offices while they’re still running for election, perhaps providing an opportunity for shortening the 2 1/2 month interregnum between Election Day and Inauguration Day.

It’s been a decade since al Qaeda attacked the USS Cole, killing 17 American sailors. The perpetrators are still at large.

Republicans are suddenly targeting — and Democrats in some cases are conceding — House seats that were until recently considered out of play.

If everything you know about Islam comes from Pam Geller and Christianity from Christopher Hitchens, you’re doing yourself a grave disservice.

More on Greg Mankiw’s thought experiment on taxes and incentives to work.

Greg Mankiw argues that, the more of his money the government takes, the less incentive he has to earn more. That’s debatable.

Are we facing a Sharia take-over?

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s wife Virginia is under scrutiny ? Why ? Because she has a job.

InstaPaper’s business model is stealing content created by others, stripping it of the ads that pay the creators, and running their own advertising on it.

MSNBC.com is contemplating a name change to distinguish their brand from that of a left-leaning cable news channel.

Responding to the rant that got Rick Sanchez fired, Slate’s Brian Palmer investigates the question, “Do Jews Really Control the Media?” His short answer, “Maybe the movies, but not the news.”

The Silent Majority Wants a Dictatorship Run by Thomas Friedman

Thomas Friedman engages in some early speculation about a serious third party presidential run. As usual, such speculation ignores the basic structures of American politics.