Outside the Beltway

Does your kid qualify for subsidized lunch? One candidate for Senate in Georgia wants to put them to work.

Not surprisingly, Time’s editors chose Pope Francis as Person Of The Year. However, Edward Snowden arguably would have been the better choice.

The most important leader to come out of Africa in the 20th Century, and perhaps in all of history, has died.

Conservatives have their own Kennedy myth to compete with the myth of Camelot.

A Pentagon Equal Opportunity training manual points out the obvious.

The Richmond Times-Dispatch has endorsed “none of the above” for governor of Virginia.

Walter Russell Mead explains why a well intentioned, carefully crafted and consistently pursued grand strategy failed.

A negligible price hike of hamburgers might enable fast food outlets to pay their workers much better.

The high cost of raising children is making it difficult for many Americans to have multiple children.

President Obama has once again weighed in on the Trayvon Martin case in a personal manner.

The return of a really bad idea.

Yes, it ended slavery. But at a huge cost.

As if the region didn’t have enough problems.

President Obama delivered another powerful speech on race.

The economics of higher education is increasing the gap between rich and poor.

A new GOP would make it very difficult to get a good read on the state of the nation’s economy.

Think Progress continues a silly meme: “12 programs that Congress cares less about than averting flight delays.”

The Iraq War did significant damage to the legacy of the Republican Party.

The main who coined the word “meritocracy” meant it as a pejorative term.

The American tax code contains perverse incentives and barriers to getting out of poverty.

Amusing in light of the birther nonsense:Obama half brother Malik seeks Kenya governor’s office.

New York Jets quarterback Greg McElroy was experiencing post-concussion syndrome but hid it from the team for days.

A rich child is 45 percent more likely to earn a four-year college degree than a poor one.

Will the massacre of twenty children in a Connecticut elementary school mark a turning point in America’s gun culture? Don’t count on it.

Ross Douthat says American women should stop being decadent and have more babies, explaining that raising children is easier than it used to be, so there’s really no excuse for women to be so selfish.

The best single means of becoming such an economic winner is to gain admission to a top university

It’s time to panic over anonymous guys in Philadelphia again, at least if you work at Fox News Channel.

Last night’s debate was rough and tumble, but it’s unlikely to change the state of the race.

Florida’s new education policy essentially assumes that minority students cannot do as well as their peers. That’s a mistake.

A five year old “shocking” video of President Obama speaking to a group of African-American ministers proves to be not very shocking at all.

A lot more people than expected are likely to be hit by the ObamaCare individual mandate tax penalty than previously thought.

Republicans think they found the smoking gun of the 2012 election. They’re kidding themselves.

So, Mitt Romney opened his mouth again.

A legal setback for the Texas Voter ID law, but not much of a political setback for Voter ID laws in general.

Whether or not it’s proper to call the FRC a “hate group,” the persecution complex being displayed in the wake of Tuesday’s shooting is absurd.

Entirely unsurprisingly, the shooting at the Family Research Center’s office in Washington, D.C. is already being politicized.

A columnist for The Guardian says she wishes her mother had aborted her.

Doug Saunders makes the counterintuitive claim that things are better for Britons than ever.