Outside the Beltway

Hackers who have divulged embarrassing secrets from deep within Sony Pictures are now threatening violence if a film about a plot to kill Kim Jong Un is released.

A day of terror at a school in Pakistan.

Was Man Haron Monis a terrorist, or just a lone nut who had latched on to the rhetoric of ISIS to justify his own delusions? In the end, it hardly matters.

The “ticking time bomb scenario” is a TV trope and, therefore, is a terrible guide for making policy.

Vice-President Cheney’s amoral defense of torture has come to define how most conservatives view the issue, and that’s a problem.

A hostage crisis has been unfolding overnight at a cafe in Sydney, Australia that has apparent links to international terrorism.

What now?

A dark and regrettable time in American history is finally seeing the light of day.

The next President will have a profound ability to shape the future of the Supreme Court, but that is unlikely to be the most important issue on voters minds in 2016.

A critic of the imperial presidency becomes an imperial president.

The shocking has become routine. We’re no safer because of it.

The House Intelligence Committee has concluded that the conspiracy theories regarding the 9/11/2012 attack in Benghazi are not supported by the evidence. That’s unlikely to change anyone’s mind, though.

The idea that the U.S. does not negotiate with terrorists is simply not historically accurate, so should we be reconsidering the policy of not negotiating with ISIS for the release of Western hostages?

The latest ISIS video is horrible and barbaric but we should not take the bait they are offering before considering the consequences of our actions going forward.

Civil asset forfeiture gives “highway robbery” a whole new meaning.

Not surprisingly, a law passed in the wake of the September 11th attacks has been used mostly for things that have nothing to do with terrorism.

Facing a tough re-election battle, Kansas Senator Pat Roberts is engaging in abject fearrmongering.

We’ve handed off operations in Helmand Province to the Afghanistan army.

Yesterday’s apparent terrorist shooting in Ottawa reveals again a phenomenon that seems difficult if not impossible to stop in advance.

A massacre is about to unfold “a stone’s throw” from Turkey’s border.

Last week’s security breach just became a lot more serious.

Speaker Boehner wants to delay a vote on the ISIS war until January, but any such debate will be meaningless because Congress has already abdicated responsibility.

Apparently, the buck doesn’t stop in the Oval Office these days.

The American public’s support for the President’s war against ISIS has its limits.

The Khorasan Group is, functionally, al Qaeda. Or is it?

The TSA is up to its usual shenanigans.

A fired Oklahoma worker beheaded a woman and was attacking another when he was shot. Workplace violence? Or terrorism.

Before leaving office, Hamid Karzai is once again biting that hand that has fed him for the past decade.

President Obama hits new job approval lows, while the GOP seems poised for success in November,

After keeping his distance from them for three years, President Obama is placing much misplaced hope in the “moderate” Syrian rebels,

Despite the President’s assurances of an international coalition, the rest of the world doesn’t seem all that interested in joining the fight.

The Obama Administration’s legal justification for war against ISIS is laughably flimsy.

The Global War on Terror isn’t over after all.

Dan Froomkin says Obama is as bad as Bush, if not worse.

Massive US intervention has for now liberated Amerli, averting humanitarian disaster. Another crisis looms.

Is the West next in ISIS’s crosshairs?

American journalist James Foley has been beheaded by the terrorist network calling itself the Islamic State.

17-year veteran of the LAPD says, “If you don’t want to get hurt, don’t challenge me.”

Does Hillary Clinton remember that she was Secretary of State for four years?