Outside the Beltway

The Obama administration has persuaded the nation’s most liberal appellate court that the executive branch’s right to secrecy trumps the rights of people claiming they were tortured by the United States Government.

David Frum assesses the current state of right-of-center think tanks and the significance thereof.

Fidel Castro is back in the public eye, but he’s singing a slightly different tune now.

Everyone from David Petraeus to Sarah Palin is speaking out against a nutbag pastor’s Koran burning event. While they’re right, they’re emphasizing the wrong message.

Tonight’s topics: The Gallup poll and the vanishing 10-point Republican lead, whether we overreacted to 9/11, Mike Castle and the RINO/DINO problem, income inequality, and the retirement of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley.

With Rahm Emanuel apparently set to leave the White House to run for Mayor of Chicago, speculation is turning to who may replace him in what some have called the nation’s de facto Prime Minister-ship.

According to Gallup, there was a ten point move in the public’s preference on the Generic Congressional Ballot between last week and this week. What’s more likely is that Gallup is making a mistake somewhere.

An academic study reveals that police officers with college education are less violent than their peers. But the real story is how violent cops are, period.

Google will now display and adjust search results as you type. This should be a boon to searchers and a terror to website operators, who live at the mercy of Google.

Beloved comedian and character actor Andy Griffith’s popularity in his home state has plummeted since making commercials endorsing ObamaCare and some Democratic candidates.

Has the digitization of entertainment — DVRs, iPods, iPods, digital cameras, Netflix, and so forth — transformed it from fun into work?

Robert Gates has been a reluctant Secretary of Defense but his impact at the Pentagon has been tremendous.

Lost amidst the welcome news of British-French cooperation on military cost-sharing in some tough talk from their ministers of defense on NATO.

The Washington Post’s Jonathan Capehart is suffering a little New Media embarrassment after writing a blog post based on comments by a Congressman who doesn’t exist.

Comments sections on larger blogs seem inevitably to turn into cesspools. Is it worth trying to stop it happening?

Despite conceding the primary race last week, Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski is apparently still trying to find a way to get on the November ballot.

Responding the near-collapse of the Greek economy, forestalled only by a massive bailout from their brethren, the EU’s finance ministers agreed this morning to submit the outlines of their budget plans for approval by the European Commission.

It’s getting harder and harder to tell blogs from newspapers.

Currently roughly 1 in 8 federal judgeships remain vacant.

As the mid-term elections enter their final eight weeks, there’s more bad news for Democrats.

Most of what passes for conventional wisdom about learning is wrong.

According to Paul Krugman’s latest column, the massive destruction of World War Two was actually good for the U.S. economy. Sadly, there are people who consider him an expert.

Christine O’Donnell has become the latest star of the Tea Party movement, and her primary battle with Mike Castle the latest battleground over the future of the Republican Party.

The plan by one fringe church in Gainesville, Florida to burn copies of the Koran on September 11th is igniting fires of protest across the Muslim world.

What’s the deal with iTunes?

Ohio has long been a bellwethers state and, if a new statewide poll is any indication, it looks to be ready to hand the Democrats a very bad defeat in November.

Will Israel attack Iran ? You’d better hope not.

A new insurance industry survey confirms what anyone who’s spent an afternoon driving in metropolitan Washington, D.C. should already know in their heart.

Democrats are sending some of their candidates to the Death Panels.

Party labels are just names, as such all Republicans are Republicans in name only.

Fareed Zakaria argues that the fact al Qaeda has not launched a major attack on U.S. soil since 9/11 proves we overreacted to those attacks. I beg to differ.

Both the Constitution and the Federalist Papers, impressive as they are, must be understood in terms of not just applied political philosophy, but practical politics as well.

Is our Federal system a mere political compromise? Or were the Founding Fathers visionaries with a plan?

The nation’s 2nd smallest state is becoming the biggest battleground between the Establishment GOP and Tea Party insurgents.

For most of the year, a GOP takeover in the Senate seemed beyond the realm of possibility. That’s no longer the case.

Governor Brewer walks back he beheadings claims.

The writer of the infamous “Fonzie Jumps The Shark” episode of Happy Days breaks his silence.

If you think anti-Muslim sentiment in the United States is running high, a look across the Pond will put things in perspective.

AP staff have been instructed “combat in Iraq is not over, and we should not uncritically repeat suggestions that it is, even if they come from senior officials. The situation on the ground in Iraq is no different today than it has been for some months.”