Outside the Beltway

Anthony Bourdain was a renowned chef, writer, television host, and storyteller. He also suffered from demons that ultimately caught up with him.

Echoing the Obama Administration, the Trump Administration is arguing that it did not need Congressional authorization to attack Syria earlier this year.

Just over a week after he called it off, President Trump announced this afternoon that the June 12th Summit in Singapore was back on.

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.

One day after canceling his summit meeting with Kim Jong Un, President Trump is suggesting it may be back on. Before it happens, though, there ought to be far more adequate preparation.

Seemingly out of the blue, the June 12th summit between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has been canceled by the United States.

Not surprisingly, the North Koreans are pushing back against American efforts to force them into a corner on denuclearization.

It was never going to be as easy as the administration thought.

Does the administration know what it is doing?

Mike Pence’s obsequiousness to his master knows no limits.

The United States is apparently looking to Libya as a guide for upcoming talks with North Korea. The DPRK most likely sees the fate of that nation and its leader as a warning.

The meeting between Kim Jong-Un and Moon Jae-In was historic, but many questions and caveats remain.

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

Despite facing headwinds in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Mike Pompeo will probably be confirmed as the next Secretary of State. That’s unfortunate.

The United States can’t do any good in Syria, but we can do a lot of bad.

Without Congressional authorization, any attack on Syria would be illegal, but don’t expect Congress to do anything about it.

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

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

By threatening to withdraw from the nuclear deal with Iran, Donald Trump is making it far less likely that any upcoming talks with North Korea will succeed.

Absent changes in policy, the nation’s most hallowed military cemetery will run out of space in two decades.

Service members deployed to Algeria, Burundi, Cameroon, Chad, Congo, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Libya, Mali, Niger, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, Tunisia, and Uganda qualify.

John Bolton is leading a cry for preemptive war against North Korea.

With the Winter Olympics over, the next step on the Korean Peninsula is utterly unclear.

Continuing a long-standard tradition, the Trump Administration claims it doesn’t need to get legal authorization to keep American troops in Syria.

Another day, another Court ruling against the Trump Administration.

Why does the U.S. continue to pursue the seemingly impossible goal of denuclearization with regard to North Korea? In part, it’s because we’re still locked into thirty-year-old rhetoric.

Expecting North Korea to agree to diplomatic talks that are aimed at getting rid of their nuclear weapons is asking for the impossible, and ensuring there will be no progress on the diplomatic front for the foreseeable future.

With the Administration set to commit the United States to a forever war in Syria, it’s time for Congress to act.

While everyone is paying attention to the government shutdown, the Trump Administration is preparing for a never-ending, unwise, and unauthorized military commitment in Syria.

The Supreme Court agreed to hear the Government’s appeal of the Trump Administration’s revised Muslim Travel Ban

Late yesterday, a panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling striking down the latest version of Trump’s Muslim Travel Ban.

The Supreme Court is allowing the latest version of Donald Trump’s Muslim Travel Ban to go into effect.

The ongoing destruction of the Department of State

On North Korea, there are two options, deterrence and war. And only one of those options makes sense.

America has become involved in conflicts around the world, largely without the knowledge of the American people or the consent of their representatives, and it doesn’t appear that’s going to end anytime soon.

The capital of the purported caliphate declared by ISIS has apparently fallen, but that doesn’t mean the end of ISIS. In fact, it may make the group more dangerous.

Two Federal Judges have issued orders blocking the latest version of President Trump’s Muslim Travel Ban.

The Trump Administration has issued a new travel ban to replace the temporary one that expired late last week, but it still suffers from most of the same defects as its initial efforts.

In a marked departure from previous American Presidents, Donald Trump delivered a highly belligerent speech to the U.N. General Assembly.

Once again, Congress is abdicating its Constitutional responsibilities.

More provocative action from North Korea, and another reminder that there are no easy answers to the problems represented by the Kim regime.

Things are getting far more complicated on the Korean Peninsula. Diplomacy isn’t working, and a military option would most likely lead to disaster.

On the special election for US Senate in Alabama

President Trump took to Twitter again this morning and promptly shot himself in the foot.

The Administration suffers another defeat in defense of its effort to ban Muslim immigrants.

A night of carnage and depravity in the United Kingdom.

The Russia investigation seems to be getting closer to the Oval Office.

After news of the appointment of a special counsel in the Russia investigation, Donald Trump’s persecution complex was on full display.