Outside the Beltway

Elliot Cohen laments the lack of steel in the spine of the statesmen, diplomats, soldiers, and thinkers of the current generation.

President Trump is calling on the Justice Department to ban bump stocks, but it seems clear that this is an area where Congress needs to be taking the lead.

Continuing a pattern that has gone on for eight years now, the Supreme Court has declined to hear another appeal regarding a Second Amendment challenge to state gun control laws.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has redrawn the state’s Congressional Districts based on its recent ruling finding the current map to be unconstitutional partisan Gerrymandering. It makes a lot more sense than the map the state is currently using.

The Russia probe charges Alex Van Der Zwaan made false statements about past communications with former Trump campaign aide Rick Gates.

Donald Trump’s dereliction of duty in response to clear evidence of Russian interference in the 2016 election is a staggering and flagrant dereliction of the duties he agreed to take on when he took the Oath Of Office more than a year ago.

NRO’s David French offers “A Gun-Control Measure Conservatives Should Consider.”

Rather than spamming every comment thread with issues, list any other issues here and we’ll see what we can do. 

The prospects for extending legal protections for DACA beneficiaries are getting grimmer by the day.

Blake Hounshell has doubts about whether Trump colluded with Moscow.

President Trump’s tweets, other public statements, and actions are causing world leaders to doubt the reliability of the United States on the world stage.

Mueller tightens the screws even further.

Pork barrel politics is complicating Germany’s replacement of its 1970s fighter jet.

Nick Statt argues that the iPhone X is just too nice to ruin with a plastic case.

A series of scandals at Oxfam and other charitable organizations raise troubling questions.

A few key observations on the bigger picture.

The Russian government likely is quite pleased.

Donald Trump is now claiming that he had never denied that Russia interfered in the 2016 election. This is, of course, not true.

On the one hand, this is cool. On the other, it’s just another sign of how damned old I am. I graduated high school in 1984. 

The tragedy in Florida last week revealed once again how hyperpartisanship is destroying our politics and harming the country.

He’s tan. He’s rested. He’s old.

Al Hoffman Jr., a Florida-based real estate developer who was a leading fund-raiser for George W. Bush’s campaigns, said he would seek to marshal support among other Republican political donors for a renewed assault weapons ban.

There are no adequate words.

Even with yesterday’s indictments, President Trump still won’t acknowledge reality even though it’s staring him in the face.

The new Black Panther movie raises a variant of the central question of the superhero genre. [No significant spoilers]

Thanks for nothing, anti-vaxxers.

Phil Carter makes an interesting argument but he’s ultimately mistaken.

The long-overdue redesign of OTB is now live.

From the F.B.I. on down, there were multiple warnings that could have prevented Wednesday’s tragedy in Parkland, Florida.

A significant and important development in the Russia investigation that shows that President Trump’s claim that the stories of Russian interference in the 2016 election were “Fake News” is completely untrue.

More security clearance problems for the White House.

To the surprise of nobody, Mitt Romney entered the race to succeed Orrin Hatch in the Senate. He’ll probably win.

The prospect for a fix to help DACA beneficiaries is looking gloomier than ever.

Another day, another Court ruling against the Trump Administration.

President Trump’s military parade would come with a not insignificant cost.

A bipartisan group of Senators has proposed a largely reasonable fix to the DACA problem, but its fate remains unclear.

Poland’s new Holocaust legislation just keeps sounding worse and worse.

Despite what his own intelligence chiefs are saying, President Trump still does not believe that Russia interfered in the 2016 election.

In my life I have not once, not a single time, encountered the name of Chelsea Handler in any context apart from Fox News articles. 

Another school shooting, this time in Florida.

Whether it’s the abuse angle or the more serious issue of security clearances, the White House still can’t get the story straight on the Rob Porter case.

Donald Trump’s lawyer admits to making a six-figure payment on the eve of the 2016 election to a porn star that Trump was alleged to have had an affair with. That just raises a host of other questions.

Another Federal Judge has placed a hold on President Trump’s order to end DACA.

Israeli police have recommended that charges be brought against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Whether that damages him politically remains to be seen.

With time seemingly running out, the Senate debate over extending DACA is moving slowly.

While I don’t always agree with her, I’ve never ceased to be amazed at the sheer vitriol she inspires, given that she’s unfailingly polite, not discernibly partisan, and bends over backwards to acknowledge the merits of competing viewpoints.

Why does the U.S. continue to pursue the seemingly impossible goal of denuclearization with regard to North Korea? In part, it’s because we’re still locked into thirty-year-old rhetoric.