Outside the Beltway

Experts are casting doubt on North Korea’s claim that it tested a thermonuclear device earlier this week.

The North Koreans claim to have made a major advance in their nuclear weapons program, but there are many reasons to be skeptical.

North Korea’s mercurial leader now claims to have thermonuclear weapons, but analysts are saying this is likely braggadocios nonsense.

In a new book, former President George H.W. Bush is highly critical of two of his son’s closest advisers in the White House.

Any discussion of the Iran deal has to be about realistic alternatives, not fantasies.

Depending on who you listen to, it’s either peace in our time or an epic catastrophe.

It’s easier for an American citizen to go to Iran or North Korea than it is for them to go to Cuba, That’s insane.

North Korea now claims it has miniaturized nuclear warheads sufficienctly so that they can be placed on missiles. They also say they can launch missiles from submarines.

North Korea’s mercurial leader has apparently executed yet another high ranking official.

Chinese analysts are telling their American counterparts that North Korea’s nuclear arsenal is far more sophisticated than previously believed.

Senate Republicans have done more harm to the goal of stopping Iran from developing nuclear weapons than they have done good.

Amateurish? Condescending? Yes. Treasonous? No.

Reversing a previous decision, Sony will allow The Interview to be screened in a small number of theaters.

There are again reports of Chinese frustration with the Kim regime in North Korea, but change is unlikely to happen in the DPRK until Beijing is ready to let it happen.

There’s not a whole lot the United States can do to respond effectively and proportionally to North Korea’s hacking attack against Sony.

President Obama believes the North Korean attack on Sony was “an act of cyber vandalism” rather than “an act of war.”

President Obama criticized Sony for backing down, and said that the U.S. would respond to North Korea’s cyber attack “at a place and time we choose,”

The U.S. Government has formally charged North Korea with responsibility for the hacking attack on Sony. How to respond to that attack is a more complicated question.

With major theater chains having pulled out, Sony bowed to the inevitable, but now there appears to be proof that a foreign power is behind the Sony hacking attacks and threats of violence.

Hackers who have divulged embarrassing secrets from deep within Sony Pictures are now threatening violence if a film about a plot to kill Kim Jong Un is released.

Sony is warning the press not to publish material leaked by hackers, but it doesn’t have much of a legal leg to stand on.

Thinking about that the state, law, violence, and the Garner incident (and contributing to the tl;dr phenomenon).

Good news for two released Americans, but no clue what’s motivating North Korea’s latest actions.

The mystery continues.

Once again, there’s speculation that something is up in the world’s most closed society.

George Will has come under criticism for pointing out what seems to be an undeniable fact.

There’s little evidence for the conservative contention that the President has damaged America’s position in the world.

The latest chapter in an all too familiar story.

Two news items yesterday advanced in some small measure the protection of journalists from having to reveal sources under Court Order.

The last known case of smallpox happened in 1977. Is it time to destroy the virus?

China sends a message to Kim Jong Un.

Predicting the end of the DPRK is a fool’s errand.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney’s choices in home decor raise an interesting question.