Outside the Beltway

Rick Santorum’s stump speeches have becoming increasingly dark.

A Washington Post fact check calls this “true but false.”

How can we know what happens next in North Korea when we didn’t even know Kim Jong-il had died?

Just a reminder: Turkey is a NATO ally.

Despite our rather obvious problems, we’re in great shape compared to the rest of the developed world and, especially, to even our fairly recent ancestors.

President Obama’s surprise announcement Friday that all U.S. forces would leave Iraq in time to be home for the holidays has been roundly condemned. While there are real concerns about what happens next, there was no better alternative.

Is it time to just admit that the good old days are over?

With the advantage of hindsight, it’s clear that more creative strategies were needed. But they probably couldn’t have been passed.

It’s time to start being concerned about Europe.

Contrary to what Eugene Robinson and Paul Krugman argue today, compassion does not require one to support government social welfare programs.

A new poll shows that Americans are starting to look East.

Is America’s political system to blame for our current problems?

That a popular two-term governor of Utah is being rejected by likely Republican primary voters as insufficiently conservative shows just how extreme American politics has gotten.

The signs are not good.

Former Oregon governor and long-time US Senator Mark Hatfield has died.

Like the rest of us, financial analysts across the globe are trying to figure out what the U.S. debt downgrade means.

While it’s hard to argue with S&P’s political analysis, its economic judgment is a head-scratcher.

It isn’t just President Obama who should be worried about the economy next year.

Judging by the June jobs report, there’s no economic recovery coming in the near future.

A few Republicans have picked up on John McCain’s criticism of critics of the Libya mission as being “isolationist.”

For the first time since the end of World War II, the GOP is wrestling with two diametrically opposed visions of foreign affairs.

Is it reasonable to state that countries with less guns are more likely to become tyrannical than countries with more guns?

Contrary to what Senator McCain, seeking realism in military policy does not make one an isolationist.

My latest piece for The Atlantic, “Is the U.S.-European Relationship Really in Decline?” is posted.

Overfishing may mean a near term future in which there are no more fish in the sea.

After several months where it seemed like things were turning around, the May jobs report was depressingly bad.

We need to stop talking as if the Medicare debate is a question of the Ryan Plan v. the Status Quo.

A bizarre legal case from Italy.

A profile of George Mason economist and blogger Tyler Cowen offers this amusing description: “Cowen, 49, has round features, a hesitant posture, and an unconcerned haircut.”

“Our records indicate that your annual income for the 2011 taxable year was $2,170,000,000,000. You have requested a credit limit of $17,000,000,000,000. These figures exceed the American Public’s guidelines for credit issuance”

Business Week has a fascinating profile of Dietrich Mateschitz, whom they dub “Red Bull’s Billionaire Maniac.”

Santorum has an interesting theory about the decline of great powers.