Outside the Beltway

Meet Edward Snowden, the 29 year old CIA/NSA contractor who has confessed to leaking the details of the NSA’s data mining projects.

Has the West inadvertently handed Iran a victory in Syria?

Denied her chance at being Secretary of State, Susan Rice will be moving to a position that is arguably just as important in shaping American foreign policy.

The government is changing the way it calculates Gross Domestic Product.

The sequestration cuts are two months old, and it seems pretty clear that the claims of doom we heard before they went into effect were heavily exaggerated.

The US Senate wants to know why Apple and other big technology companies are paying so little into the US Treasury.

President Obama delivered another powerful speech on race.

My latest for The National Interest, “Never Again, Except This Time,” has posted.

The world oil markets aren’t too far away from being hit by the shock of massively increased demand from China. Somehow, we’ll have to adapt.

The possible presidential contender has an op-ed in a rather dubious outlet.

President Obama may regret drawing a line in the sand over Syrian chemical weapons.

The GOP’s most promising alternative to Mitt Romney in 2012 may run again in 2016, but it doesn’t seem like he’d go very far.

In a chaotic week, one source of chaos was remarkably quiet.

So what, exactly, is going on in North Korea? And how should we respond to Kim’s bluster?

The gambling mogul is self-reporting violations of the law against bribing foreign officials.

North Korea has conducted its third test of a nuclear weapon.

North Korea’s latest provocations may be testing the patience of their patrons in Beijing.

The Weekly Standard is proud that Mitt Romney’s intentionally false Jeep ad was technically true.

A company’s best programmer was a Chinese man working for a fifth of what lesser employees earned. Alas, one of those employees was getting paid the other four-fifths.

The notion that guns prevent tyranny is based on fantasy and movies, not reality.

Kevin Drum argues that, “We Don’t Have a Spending Problem. We Have an Aging Problem.”

Alex Pareene’s annual hack list omits an obvious candidate: Alex Pareene.

Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates is bemused that the generals who worked for him lived more lavish lifestyles than he did.

Will a disagreement over accounting rules increase the bad feelings between China and the U. S.?

The National Intelligence Council has released its quadrennial strategic forecast, Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds.

More griping about poor analysis.