Outside the Beltway

Should President Obama call Congress back into session? Not if there’s nothing to do he shouldn’t.

Michele Bachmann is claiming that the debt downgrade proves she was right about not raising the debt ceiling.

Will the Fed announce another round of Quantitative Easing?

If we cannot adequately diagnose our problems it will be even harder to fix them.

The Obama re-election campaign is preparing an extraordinarily negative campaign against Mitt Romney.

Honoring the fallen by ensuring that the didn’t die in vain is a recipe for getting more good men killed.

Joseph Nye explains why China’s “demand the United States address its structural debt problems and ensure the safety of China’s dollar assets” is really just talk.

Michele Bachmann’s view of history is based in a world view that would be foreign to most Americans.

Any politician telling you that solving our problems will be easy is lying to you.

The 30-year bond has actually gained more than a point in early trading after the S&P downgrade!

Lost in the hubbub of S&P downgrading the US bond rating is news that the Italian government has the ratings agencies under criminal investigation.

Watching the news and reading the op-eds makes it clear: America is doomed.

Former Oregon governor and long-time US Senator Mark Hatfield has died.

A political science-y response to the question of whether the system is broken.

The defense spending lobby is already engaging in fear-mongering over very modest defense cuts.

The primary calendar is going to look very different next year.

Upon further review, S&P’s downgrade of the United States bond rating . . . still makes no sense.

We are being warned once again that the Postal Service is on the verge of financial collapse. There really is only one solution.

The immediate reaction among the political class to the debt downgrade was the play the same old stupid games.

Like the rest of us, financial analysts across the globe are trying to figure out what the U.S. debt downgrade means.

A disastrous day for American troops in Afghanistan.

Texas Governor Rick Perry got lousy grades as an undergrad at Texas A&M. Does it matter?

While it’s hard to argue with S&P’s political analysis, its economic judgment is a head-scratcher.

The main issue driving the downgrade appears to be lack of faith in the political parties to act responsibly and compromise over entitlements and revenues.

So, it happened………

The agenda of the Tea Party movement doesn’t necessarily coincide with what voters say they want from Washington.

Does it matter which candidate the GOP nominates?

The job approval numbers for Congress are at historic lows, but will that matter in 2012?