Outside the Beltway

Ezra Klein dubs the Federal government “an insurance conglomerate protected by a large, standing army.”

Ron Paul has won the CPAC straw poll for a second straight year. But YAF has voted him off its board over his opposition to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

President Obama’s approval numbers have dropped 9 points since the Egypt crisis broke out.

The US has limited influence over events in Egypt–something that recent history should underscore (although not everyone appears to understand this fact).

The GOP is facing a battle between its fiscal conservatism and i’s military adventurism.

The initial instant reaction to the President’s speech last night was largely positive, but does it really matter?

The Beast has released its The 50 Most Loathsome Americans of 2010, which I gather is supposed to be amusing rather than taken seriously.

Time for midterms.

America’s foremost tax foe has weighed in on the Afghanistan War debate.

The American military personnel system works against keeping the best and brightest officers in the service.

Does NATO membership serve a strategic purpose?

With just over a week to go before the 112th Congress convenes, battle lines are already being drawn in battle over the defense budget.

A capsule look at the world situation as 2010 draws to a close.

Unless you paid close attention, you probably missed most of the coverage of the war in Afghanistan in 2010.

Is Sarah Palin really against child nutrition? Or just taking cheap shots at Michelle Obama?

One has to love the Telegraph headline “Drone kills white al-Qaeda pair in Pakistan mountains.”

One of the most active American diplomats of the past twenty-five years has passed away.

Is the West’s string of luck about to end?

There’s been much talk recently about treason charges in the Wikileaks case, an most of it has been entirely wrong.

Republicans were largely silent during the Bush Administration as spending went out of control. Will they do that again?

WikiLeaks’ reveals that DynCorp, a government contractor, provided drugs and child sex slaves to Afghan police–and the State Department helped cover it up.

Is Obama really the most liberal President ever? Not really.

What will Republicans think of a candidate for President who admitted to smoking marijuana as recently as two years ago?

The latest Wikileaks leak is a list of foreign infrastructure sites deemed vital to U. S. security.

The commander-in-chief, secretary of defense, and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff all support removing the ban on gays in the military without further delay. A long-awaited Pentagon study showed no reason not to do so. But three of four Service chiefs disagree.

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 two English language newspapers who have been Julian Assange’s accomplices in disseminating stolen secrets defend themselves.

A new round of Wikileaks documents is out, and it opens the door on diplomatic correspondence previously hidden from the public.