Outside the Beltway

It’s Election Day in Louisiana again, and voters have the same crappy choices they usually end up with.

The United States and Europe are giving everything the perpetrators of the Paris attacks hoped for.

Another European capital is on edge over fears of a terror attack.

An apparent ongoing terrorist attack in Central Africa.

John Kasich wants the United States Government to create an agency to spread ‘so-called ‘Judeo-Christian values.’

A collection of material that tries to separate the facts of the U.S. Syrian refugee screen process from the fear, myth, paranoia, and xenophobia.

French officials have confirmed that Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the man believed to be the plotter of last Friday’s attacks in Paris, was killed in a police raid early Wednesday morning. This doesn’t mean authorities in France or elsewhere in Europe are any less concerned about future attacks, though.

Remarks by a Democratic politician in Virginia regarding the Administration’s Syrian refugee program have brought up disturbing reminders of a shameful time in American history.

Not surprisingly, a new poll shows that most Americans are at the very least skeptical about the Administration’s plans regarding Syrian refugees.

Even the people hired to advice Ben Carson on foreign policy seem to recognize that he is clueless on the subject, and has no apparent desire to educate himself.

Republicans insist that uttering the words “Radical Islamic Terrorism” is somehow important in the fight against ISIS and other terror networks, but it is entirely unclear what doing so would accomplish.

In the wake of the attacks in Paris, some people have argued that American solidarity with France, in contrast to seeming disregard for tragedy elsewhere, is something we should feel bad about. That argument is ridiculous.

Violence leads to irrational policy responses. Who does that help?

Syrian refugees have quickly become political footballs in the United States in the wake of the Paris attacks, and it’s become an exceedingly shameful display of pandering and fearmongering by a group of largely Republican politicians.

Confirming speculation that had already been all but confirmed, we now know that it was a bomb that brought down a Russian passenger jet on October 31st.

In the wake of the attacks in Paris, there’s a strong impulse to do “something,” but that doesn’t mean we should do something utterly foolish. And a no-fly zone would be utterly foolish.

France launched its first attacks against ISIS even as the investigation into Friday’s attacks continues, but it’s not clear that the retaliation really accomplished anything.

The initial responses of the Republican candidates for President to the attacks in Paris are about what you’d expect, but it’s far too early to tell what impact the events of the weekend will have on the race for President here in the United States.

We are going to learn a lot about the GOP electorate in the coming weeks.