Outside the Beltway

Republican pollster Glen Bolger makes a bold promise: The GOP will retain House control in 2012 – Guaranteed.

Michael Yon provides a digital copy of PFC Bradley Manning’s Charge Sheet, dated 29 May. It makes for interesting reading.

Despite the Defense Department releasing its study showing that the effects of allowing gays to serve openly would be minimal, Senator John McCain isn’t convinced.

Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley wants to fix the filibuster by making Senators actually filibuster. It’s a good idea.

Bridget Terry Long, a professor of education and economics at Harvard, argues that we should give prospective college students and their families better information on such matters as loan burdens, graduation rates, average class size, average aid package, salaries earned and positions held by recent graduates, and alumni satisfaction.

The Pentagon could have taken down WikiLeaks but decided not to. Out of kindness, I suppose.

Meghan McCain doesn’t know what a “blue blood” is but doesn’t want to be called one.

Tonight’s topics: The fallout from the latest WikiLeaks dump and the Pentagon’s report on gays in the military.

WikiLeaks has been dumped from Amazon’s servers.

The prospective Republican field for 2012 is dismal. Then again, it always is.

A top Saudi cleric says nothing in the Koran forbids women from driving cars.

Citibank is helping the US catch up to the rest of the world with free, easy wire transfers.

Incoming House Majority Leader Eric Cantor is speaking positively about an Amendment that would drastically alter the relationship between the Federal Government and the states, and a method of ratifying it that could do serious damage to the Constitution as a whole.

Mike Bloomberg says we’re electing people to Congress who “can’t read” and “don’t have passports.”

The US has always outspent our G7 brethren on healthcare but the divergence has skyrocketed over the last three decades.

Another Federal Judge dismisses a Constitutional challenge to the health care reform law, and demonstrates just how unlikely it is that any of the lawsuits against the law will be successful.

The Republican Party is united on the issues in a way it hasn’t been in a long time, but personalities threaten to tear the fragile coalition apart.

The latest wrong of documents from Wikileaks show that American diplomats are as worried about Pakistan as the rest of us, and not quite sure how to deal with the situation.

The Feds famously got notorious mobster Al Capone on tax evasion charges. Will WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange be done in by sex crimes?

Is there really anyone who can credibly argue at this point that the policy regarding homosexuals openly serving in the armed services is anything other than basic discrimination?

The Pentagon has spoken. Repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell would not cause any real harm to the military, they have said. Now, the ball is in the court of the United States Senate.

Should blogs and other online forums ban anonymous comments?

Former Republican Congressman Joe Scarborough wants the GOP to stop kowtowing to Sarah Palin and her acolytes. He’s right.

Is President Obama’s Federal pay freeze a sign that he’s moving to the right, or just pointless symbolism?

Roughly 150 years ago, the CSA was born. Is this something worthy of celebration?

The latest Wikileaks revelations suggest that China may not be willing to protect North Korea for much longer.

President Obama’s plan to free federal employee pay is getting praised by Republicans but is wildly unpopular among progressive activists.

Sarah Palin has taken to her Facebook page to raise “Serious Questions about the Obama Administration’s Incompetence in the WikiLeaks Fiasco.” They’re more interesting than I’d expected.

After 1 1/2 years in office, President Obama has yet to grant a single request for a pardon or clemency, continuing a thirty year trend in which the Presidential pardon power has nearly fallen in to disuse.

A crippling, and technologically advanced, computer virus and attacks against Iranian nuclear scientists lead to only one conclusion; someone is doing everything they can short of military action to make sure Iran doesn’t develop nuclear weapons.

The choice is between a world in which officials can share information and carry out reasoned debates with one another and a world in which nothing can be written down.