Outside the Beltway

No, there really haven’t been 355 ‘mass shootings’ since January 1st. Not unless you’re relying on completely unreliable data.

Yesterday, the British Parliament debated the expansion of that nation’s military strikes against ISIS. For more than a year, our cowardly Congress has failed to even hold one debate or vote on America’s role in that conflict.

The suspects in the San Bernardino shootings are dead, but that’s about all we know so far this morning.

The British Parliament has approved expansion of that countries airstrikes into Syria, but it’s unclear just how much of an impact that will have on the ground.

Multiple victims, and possibly multiple shooters, reported in San Bernardino, California.

Blaming political opponents for criminal acts they clearly didn’t commit or advocate isn’t a political argument, it’s demagoguery.

Given his rhetoric, it’s fairly clear that Donald Trump is drawing from a poisonous political well. So there’s no point in failing to acknowledge reality.

We still don’t know very much about Robert Dear, the man who shot and killed three people at the site of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado, but that hasn’t stopped the usual suspects from politicizing the case.

The election of an anti-austerity government in Portugal is raising some concerns.

France’s President has spent the week trying to forge and agreement on an anti-ISIS policy, but the two nations that matter the most also disagree the most.

Tensions between Russia and Turkey remain high in the wake of yesterday’s incident, but there are some signs that things are starting to cool down.

Hillary Clinton’s recently announced policies toward the ISIS fight are as incoherent and misguided as President Obama’s and those of her Republican opponents.

Another poll shows Ted Cruz rising and Ben Carson falls in the Hawkeye State. The only question is who attacks who first, Donald Trump or Ted Cruz?

A potentially big complication in an already complicated situation.

A new poll taken in the wake of the Paris attacks finds Americans increasingly fearful of ISIS attacks in the U.S., opposed to the admission of Syrian refugees, and not very confident in President Obama’s ability to deal with the ISIS threat.

The Obama Administration is asking the Supreme Court to review a ruling that kept a hold on last year’s immigration execution action in place.

Disturbing reports over the weekend that American leaders may not be getting the kind of unbiased intelligence analysis about ISIS that they need to make decisions.

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.

The news that at least some of the men who were involved in the terrorist attacks in Paris were among the refugees who have arrived in Europe since the summer is likely to complicate an already complicated situation.

This was not only predictable but predicted.

We are legally, morally, and practically obligated to respond. Let’s not do so stupidly.