Outside the Beltway

Hillary’s leading potential Republican candidates, but so is Bernie! Rand Paul does better against Hillary than other Republicans! Those are the headlines you get from head-to-head match-up polls, but it’s all largely meaningless.

The seeds of the current peace deal date back to 2007-2008 (plus some longer-term background notes).

The fallout from Donald Trump’s debate performance, and his comments afterward, continues, and it’s leading some to wonder if we may finally be at the end of this ridiculous charade.

The murders in Charleston have revived a debate that should have been over a long time ago.

A word that has come in recent years to be used to refer chiefly to Muslim fanatics obviously applies to a man who murdered nine people because they’re black.

A black leader is running a billboard campaign to improve his community. Racism ensues.

Lindsey Graham says that, if elected president, he would summarily kill anyone thinking about joining ISIS.

An attack on al Qaeda outposts in January resulted in the death of two hostages, but also resulted in the death of two high value al Qaeda targets.

The Atlantic has a fascinating cover story by Graeme Wood titled “What ISIS Really Wants.”

My latest for The National Interest, “Obama’s Paris Blunder: Part of a Much Bigger Problem,” has posted.

An entirely unsurprising decision from Federal Prosecutors in Washington, D.C.

Reversing a previous decision, Sony will allow The Interview to be screened in a small number of theaters.

There are again reports of Chinese frustration with the Kim regime in North Korea, but change is unlikely to happen in the DPRK until Beijing is ready to let it happen.

There’s not a whole lot the United States can do to respond effectively and proportionally to North Korea’s hacking attack against Sony.

NYPD Officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu were shot dead while sitting in their patrol car In Brooklyn. And those suggesting that anyone other than the killer has “blood on their hands” are being absurd.

President Obama believes the North Korean attack on Sony was “an act of cyber vandalism” rather than “an act of war.”

President Obama criticized Sony for backing down, and said that the U.S. would respond to North Korea’s cyber attack “at a place and time we choose,”

In the wake of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on C.I.A. torture, some have suggested that eight years of Jack Bauer helped make torture more acceptable to the American public.

The U.S. Government has formally charged North Korea with responsibility for the hacking attack on Sony. How to respond to that attack is a more complicated question.

With major theater chains having pulled out, Sony bowed to the inevitable, but now there appears to be proof that a foreign power is behind the Sony hacking attacks and threats of violence.

Hackers who have divulged embarrassing secrets from deep within Sony Pictures are now threatening violence if a film about a plot to kill Kim Jong Un is released.

A critic of the imperial presidency becomes an imperial president.

For better or worse, Marion Barry was a fixture in D.C. politics for much of the 40 year period of home rule that began in 1975.

A Presidential candidate’s health and fitness for office are legitimate issues. When it comes to bringing up Hillary Clinton’s age in the context of 2016,, though, Republicans need to proceed with caution.

The U.S. embargo of Cuba, and our lack of diplomatic recognition of the government in Havana, is an outdated relic of the Cold War. It’s time to end it.

The Khorasan Group is, functionally, al Qaeda. Or is it?

Former Reagan speechwriter and gun control activist Jim Brady’s death has been ruled a homicide. No, there was no foul play involved—at least not recently.

Could John Hinckley, Jr. face murder charges 30 years after his attempted assassination of President Reagan?

What the West does in response to Russia’s actions in Ukraine is largely up to Europe, not the United States.

History matters.

Rather than being a bad thing, negative campaigning is an essential part of our political system.

The news media of 1914 didn’t see World War One coming, but it’s not clear that we’re any better.

A century later, the shots fired in Sarajevo 100 years ago still echo.

Does encouraging binge watching make sense for Netflix?

Trying to make some sense out of a week of outrage.

For the fourth time in 30 years, an American President spoke at Normandy to honor a day of sacrifice and triumph.

Using a chemical to commit a purely domestic crime doesn’t make you an international criminal, the Supreme Court correctly decided today.

Could the upcoming House Select Committee on Benghazi actually accomplish something useful?