Outside the Beltway

The costs of more than a decade of war are far higher than many ever thought, and we’re still paying the price for the fiscal irresponsibility of the Bush Administration while they were being fought.

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.

The fate of Cuba policy in Congress is far from certain, but what is certain is that following through on President Obama’s historic and necessary changes will face resistance.

An American freed from captivity, and potentially huge changes in America’s diplomatic and trade relationship with Cuba.

The Court holds that Federal Law does not require employees to be paid for the time waiting to get through mandatory security screening.

A dark and regrettable time in American history is finally seeing the light of day.

Texas has joined with 16 other states in a lawsuit against the Obama Administration over the President’s executive action on immigration. At first glance, it doesn’t appear to have much legal merit.

Ben Carson is not a serious candidate for President, but he’s likely to get a lot of support from the GOP’s Tea Party wing.

The Obama Administration took some fire yesterday for recent Ambassadorial Appointments, but the President’s record has been consistent with those of his recent predecessors.

The Food & Drug Administration’s new regulations requiring calorie and other information on menus in restaurants and elsewhere won’t work, could limit consumer choice, and may not be Constitutional.

Today is a day for turkey and football, not a day for politics.

The House of Representatives has filed its lawsuit against the President. As expected, it doesn’t amount to much.

Our supposed Syrian allies seem to have a different idea of who the enemy in Syria actually is.

The shocking has become routine. We’re no safer because of it.

The House Intelligence Committee has concluded that the conspiracy theories regarding the 9/11/2012 attack in Benghazi are not supported by the evidence. That’s unlikely to change anyone’s mind, though.

You thought the American combat role in Afghanistan would end on December 31st? Think again.

The Office of Legal Counsel told the president Wednesday he couldn’t do what he did on Thursday.

On substance, the President’s immigration actions aren’t very objectionable. How he is implementing them, though, is problematic and seems needlessly confrontational.

The idea that the U.S. does not negotiate with terrorists is simply not historically accurate, so should we be reconsidering the policy of not negotiating with ISIS for the release of Western hostages?

An adviser close to Hillary Clinton is talking about expanding the Electoral College map in 2016, but even without such an expansion the GOP faces an uphill battle.

If the President now believes he can act unilaterally on immigration reform, why did he spend the last five years saying that he couldn’t?

Approval of the Keystone XL pipeline will likely pass the Senate today, and will eventually go forward despite an expected Presidential veto. But, Mary Landrieu’s political career is still dead.

Another round of election losses is leading Democrats to contemplate the direction they should take going forward.

Republicans don’t really have many options if the President pulls the trigger on immigration reform via executive action.

Post-election polling shows that the majority of Americans want the new GOP majority in Congress to work together with the President. Republican voters have a very different view.

Much like the disease itself, Ebola panic seems to have disappeared as the midterm elections become ever more distant in the rear view mirror.

The GOP’s big wins last week seem to be just guaranteeing that this year’s battle between the Tea Party and the “establishment” will continue.

Republicans performed better among Latino voters this year than they did in 2012, but that doesn’t mean they’ve solved their problems.

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

Somewhat surprisingly, the Supreme Court has accepted the appeal of a case that could completely gut the financial structure of the Affordable Care Act.

Big victories for advocates of marijuana legalization.

The Supreme Court will decide if Congress can override American foreign policy when it comes to declaring who has dominion over Jerusalem.

A pair of accidents has led some to wonder if we are at the end of commercial ventures in space. Clearly, we are not.

Kentucky Senator Rand Paul continues to challenge Republican orthodoxy on foreign policy, and that’s a good thing.

We’ve handed off operations in Helmand Province to the Afghanistan army.

It’s been three months, but there’s been no action on the lawsuit that the House of Representatives said it was filing against President Obama.

Law enforcement remains unhappy about the recent changes that will make it harder to break into a locked smartphone.

We’ve become aware of failures in how we’ve handled the Ebola situation. The response is to figure out what went wrong and do our best to fix it, not to panic.

Sometimes, being evasive in answering a question just makes a politician look silly. This is one of those times.

A massacre is about to unfold “a stone’s throw” from Turkey’s border.

Combining politics, an incessantly sensationalist news cycle, and a virus that scares a lot of people can’t end well.

It has nothing to do with winning, but it does have a lot to do with the foreign policy debate inside the Republican Party.

In the current situation, speaking out forcefully as some are demanding can only do more harm than good.

Speaker Boehner wants to delay a vote on the ISIS war until January, but any such debate will be meaningless because Congress has already abdicated responsibility.