Outside the Beltway

Some context for ongoing discussions.

With criminal charges and an election hanging over his head, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is looking to the political right for support and survival.

And a link to a worthwhile read.

President Trump personally overrode the objections of security officials, the White House Counsel, and the Chief of Staff to make sure his son-in-law got a security clearance.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is being charged with three charges of corruption even as he faces an election in just over a month.

The Trump Administration continues to drive a wedge between the United States and Europe, can it ever be repaired?

You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means.

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.

Florida’s New Governor has removed the Sheriff of Broward County over his officer’s lack of response before and during the Parkland shooting.

In his annual message, Kim Jong Un sent a message to President Trump on denuclearization and the future of the Korean Peninsula.

With just hours to go, a partial government shutdown is becoming more and more likely.

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.

In what has to qualify as one of the most horrifying displays of moral depravity on the international stage, the Trump Administration is saying it doesn’t really care if the Saudi Crown Prince is a murderer or not.

Anti-Semitic violence has increased markedly over the past two years. So has the spread of far-right “anti-Globalist” conspiracy theories. This is not a coincidence.

Trump’s words matter.

Charges have been filed against the man responsible for the massacre in Pittsburgh in both Federal and State court.

Saudi Arabia’s story about the disappearance and death of Jamal Khashoggi continues to “evolve.”

For the second time this year, a Federal Court has struck down a state law designed to punish businesses that engage in a boycott aimed at Israel.

With four weeks to go until Election Day, Donald Trump and the Republicans are continuing to stoke the divisions laid bare by the Kavanaugh nomination.

President Trump’s second speech to the General Assembly of the United Nations wasn’t much better than the first, but it it did get the world laughing at us.

The Trump Administration is inviting Vladimir Putin to Washington, D.C. for a second summit in the fall. What could possibly go wrong?

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

There should be no question about a request to interview a former US Ambassador.

The Polish Government has amended a controversial law that sought to punish people for discussing the role that some Poles played in the Holocaust.

A towering figure gone much too soon.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces what could be a scandal that will quickly push him out of office.

Another unilateral withdrawal from an international institution.

South Korea’s President is saying that Kim Jong Un has renewed his supposed commitment to ‘denuclearization,’ but it isn’t at all clear what that means.

A Federal Judge in Virginia has handed a significant legal victory to a student who sued their school district because they were barred form using the bathroom of the gender they identify with.

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.

The new President of the National Rifle Association has a new theory to explain mass shootings, but there’s no basis for believing it’s accurate.

The Leader of the Free World is, sadly, enabling atrocities.

Celebrations and a deadly day in the Middle East.

President Trump’s decision to violate the terms of the nuclear deal with Iran could be a turning point in relations between the United States and its most important allies, and not in a good way.

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

The new Secretary of State is an improvement over the worst Secretary of State in history.

Israeli Prime Minister gave a speech yesterday designed to undermine the nuclear deal with Iran. The evidence was unconvincing, but the speech was really only aimed at an audience of one.

The Supreme Court heard oral argument in the challenge to President Trump’s Muslim Travel Ban. It didn’t appear to go well for the challengers.

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.

The United States has several options in Syria. None of them are good and one of them would be disastrous.

A response to one of the most deadly chemical attacks in the Syrian civil war has come, probably from Israel. What’s next?

Argumentation without the intent to persuade is masturbation, not journalism.

The Atlantic fired one of their few conservative voices for saying women who have abortions should be hanged. Was this beyond the pale?

President Trump seems intent on walking away from the nuclear deal with Iran. If he does, he’ll be handing a gift to Iran and harming American national interests significantly.

In selecting John Bolton as his National Security Adviser, Donald Trump has signaled to the world that he’s likely to take action that will only serve to make the world a more dangerous place.

The President’s new attempt to ban transgender Americans from serving in the military is as legally defective as the original ban was.

The President issued an incredibly confusing order that contradicts the advice of his generals and is probably illegal.

From Europe to the Middle East, to Asia, America’s allies are concerned about what the selection of John Bolton as National Security Adviser means going forward. They should be, and so should every American.

Americans actings as agents for Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have been working hard to manipulate the President.