Outside the Beltway

“Now this campaign is over, what is the will of the people? What is our mandate?”

The two parties learned different lessons from the last contested election.

One man’s fecklessness has gotten untold people sick.

Are those with kids getting over?

What would a reborn GOP look like and who would vote for it?

Having failed to prevent or contain it, aggressive stupidity is now washing over us.

The lousy hybrid option has been scrapped in favor of a worthless virtual one.

Two rulings greatly expand the ability to evade the law for on Free Exercise grounds.

Sometimes, a cigar is just a cigar.

The emotional and economic impact of the pandemic is hitting women especially hard.

An accomplished racist will no longer be honored by the university.

My latest at War on the Rocks.

We need a better vocabulary for treating the spectrum between rude and horrific.

This isn’t likely to end any time soon.

A fiasco wrapped in a clusterfuck.

We’re passing grim milestones on a daily basis.

The greatest crisis the nation has faced in my lifetime.

Which ones have you owned?

A book out today makes an odd case.

Revisiting a recent post.

She’s been fibbing about how she left a teaching job nearly half a century ago.

Bernie Sanders has slipped in the polls but retains his ability to raise money.

There’s an inherent tension in our national ethos.

Rural Americans are much less likely to go to college than their urban counterparts. Is there a solution?

Amusing results, and a history lesson, in a new poll

Despite opposition from the Catholic Church, or perhaps in rebellion against it, Irish voters overwhelmingly approved a new law liberalizing that nation’s divorce laws.

We’ve soon see whether the current Supreme Court will overturn Roe v Wade.

It’s an interesting idea, although one fraught with moral hazard.

In case anyone needs a refresher.

US higher education is made up of far more than just the Ivies and other elite schools.

A weird takedown from within the #Resistance.

Labor law has not kept up with our changing economy.

A student in Florida has been charged with creating a disturbance after declining to recite the Pledge Of Allegiance in class.

Gender bias in student evaluations of college professors diminishes considerably by changing the scale.

A leading conservative makes a truly bizarre defense of the President.

Iowa’s Steve King has long expressed anti-immigrant and racist views, now he’s asking why that’s a bad thing.

Terrorists aren’t walking across the desert to get here. Flying is so much easier.

The damage done for Mickey Mouse in the name of Sony Bono is finally coming to an end.

Honoring the 41st President cast a poor light on the 45th.

Rather than cauterizing an open wound, she’s fanned the fuels of a fire.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints wants to be referred to by its given name. Shouldn’t we respect that wish?

The State of Texas is arguing in Court that a school district can force a student to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. This is a blatant violation of the First Amendment.

Entertainers work for a living, too.

California is taking a major step in Criminal Justice reform by eliminating cash bail.

A top Vatican official is alleging that Pope Francis and Pope Benedict XVI were both aware of previously unknown allegations of sexual abuse and chose to allow them to be covered up rather than bringing them to light.

The head football coach at the University of Maryland has been suspended after reports of a “toxic environment” that led to the death of a student athlete in June.

In what amounts to a significant, albeit not surprising, change in Catholic doctrine, Pope Francis has declared that the death penalty is unacceptable in all circumstances.

A reference point for the future.

The Supreme Court declined, for now, to hear the appeal of a Washington state florist who declined to provide services for a same-sex wedding. The issues it raises, though, are likely to return to the Court in the future.

A controversial name is disappearing from one small stretch of road.