Outside the Beltway

In a rare display of assertiveness in the foreign policy arena, the House voted yesterday to bar U.S. assistance in Saudi Arabia’s genocidal war on Yemen.

Lindsey Graham is telling his fellow Republicans that they better back the President if he decides to declare a national emergency to get funding for his border wall.

In what amounts to a setback, the Supreme Court has lifted an injunction barring the Trump Administration’s ban on transgender service in the military to go forward pending further legal proceedings.

President Trump responded to the suggestion that the State of the Union be rescheduled by revoking military transportation for a Congressional trip to visit troops in Afghanistan.

President Trump appears to be backing away from the idea of declaring a national emergency to get his wall built. But the other options he’s considering aren’t much better.

The government shutdown has now entered historic territory, and the Trump Administration is moving closer to a “national emergency” or other extra-legal means to get money for his wall.

President Trump is claiming that he could use authority to declare a “national emergency” to build his wall even if Congress doesn’t authorize it.

China has landed a probe on the far side of the Moon, the latest step forward in an aggressive Chinese push into space.

Former Senator and Denocratic Presidential candidate Jim Webb is reportedly being considered for Defense Secretary.

President Trump announced today that James Mattis would be out as Secretary of Defense by the end of the year.

There was no progress on resolving the government shutdown today, and little hope that anything will happen before late next week.

While the political media is spending a lot of time talking about it, the actual impact of this latest government shutdown is likely to be limited and possibly even unnoticeable to most Americans.

In what clearly appears to be a rebuke of the President, Defense Secretary James Mattis is retiring as Secretary of Defense.

The Trump Administration is reportedly preparing to withdraw the small contingent of American troops from Syria. If it actually happens, this would be a good move.

In a small, but meaningful, step, the Senate has rebuked the Administration’s policies toward the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Defense Secretary James Mattis has announced that the deployment of U.S. troops to the Mexican border will be extended through the end of this year.

American troops have been in Afghanistan for seventeen years now, it’s time to bring them all home.

The Trump Administration is attempting to bypass the Circuit Courts of Appeal and get immediate Supreme Court review of the President’s ban on transgender Americans serving in the military.

Now that the election is over, President Trump and his sycophants in the right-wing media seem to have completely forgotten about the “invading” “caravan” of Central American asylum seekers.

A filing in an unrelated case has apparently revealed the existence of a sealed indictment against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.

As the midterm campaign draws to a close, Donald Trump is returning to the message of xenophobia and fear that dominated his Presidential campaign.

President Trump wants to send more troops than we have in Syria and Iraq combined to the border to deal with a non-existent threat.

The Trump Administration is preparing a policy change that will essentially define transgender Americans out of existence.

Reports about tension between Defense Secretary James Mattis and President Trump are becoming louder, and it’s being suggested that Mattis could be out of office after the midterms.

In the past, President Trump has threatened to shut down the government if the doesn’t get what he wants in the budget. The latest budget deal effectively dares him to do it.

Donald Trump’s vanity-seeking military parade has been postponed amid reports that the estimated cost has increased dramatically.

A new government report indicates that President Trump’s border wall will cost billions more than initially projected. And Mexico still isn’t going to pay for it.

We still don’t know what President Trump and Vladimir Putin talked about or agreed to during their two-hour meeting on Monday.

The situation isn’t as awful as portrayed by the AP—but it’s still pretty bad.

America promised immigrants who volunteered to serve in our military a fast track to citizenship. Now, we’re throwing them out.

There is a general anti-immigrant current in this administration.

Donald Trump continues to do something that Russian and Soviet leaders likely only thought possible in their wildest dreams, drive a wedge between the United States and its NATO allies.

Seemingly out of nowhere yesterday, the Commander-in-Chief ordered the Pentagon to create a fifth service.

Donald Trump continues to claim that Mexico will pay for his still non-existent border wall. Mexico says otherwise.

A long-overdue overhaul of the way the United States vets those who access classified information is underway.

Clashes between the US and Chinese navies in the South China Sea have intensified.

This President lies on a daily basis. It’s time to start calling him what he is.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivered a bombastic speech on Iran yesterday that reveals just how empty and dangerous the Trump Administration’s policy toward Iran actually is.

In the wake of yesterday’s killing of eight in a Texas high school, WaPo’s Philip Bump provides a chilling statistic.

For some reason, the President wants to help a Chinese company that has been accused of being a security risk by American intelligence services.

When a President lies with the ease and regularity of Donald Trump, it’s the responsibility of all of us to call it what it is and not hide behind weasel words like “misleading.”

As expected, President Trump has withdrawn the United States from the nuclear deal with Iran. There was no rational basis for doing so.

Seven years after deactivation, the U.S. Second Fleet will be patrolling the North Atlantic again.

Despite the fact that President Trump’s continues to praise him, Ronny Jackson will not be returning to the White House as the President’s personal physician.

Ronny Jackson did not invent the practice of giving Ambien and Provigil to high-level government workers.

With the accusations mounting, the nomination of Ronny Jackson to be Secretary of Veterans Affairs is becoming more and more imperiled.

A Federal Judge has struck down the revised version of the ban on transgender members of the military from serving openly, and the ruling has significance that goes well beyond the issue at hand.

Running for and being President of the United States has been very lucrative for the family business.

There is no obvious strategy and even the expressed rationale makes no sense.

Once again, President Trump’s foreign policy tweeting is causing problems.