Outside the Beltway

Add DHS to the list of Departments being run by interims.

The legendary figure was in charge of strategic forecasting at the Pentagon for decades.

The (Acting) Secretary of Defense has issued an unconstitutional order.

The office has been vacant for 81 days. President Trump has yet to nominate a replacement.

An odd bureaucratic reshuffling, seemingly out of the blue.

Once again, President Trump gets taken for a sucker by the North Koreans.

Reason’s Nick Gillespie makes an interesting case but I don’t buy it.

After two years of spitting in their faces, President Trump is finding it hard to get America’s European allies to come to his aid.

Rather than pulling completely out of Syria the United States will be leaving behind a token force of about 200 troops. This is a mistake.

Now that women are allowed into all combat roles, the rationale for excluding them from Selective Service has evaporated.

The House of Representatives has begin the process of challenging the President’s recent declaration of a ‘national emergency’ at the southern border.

President Trump will get his Space force, but it won’t exactly be what he wanted when he first proposed that idea.

The lawsuits against President Trump’s “national emergency” have begun. Except more.

President Trump’s impending decision to declare a national emergency to get funding for his border wall will quickly face serious legal challenges. It may be more vulnerable than the White House suspects.

In a rare display of assertiveness in the foreign policy arena, the House voted yesterday to bar U.S. assistance in Saudi Arabia’s genocidal war on Yemen.

When it comes to the shutdown and border wall showdown that started back in December, Donald Trump is the biggest loser.

If all goes well, the bill to avert another shutdown should become law today.

It’s reasonable and just to adjust our outrage based on the context of the time when incidents occurred.

The President’s second State of the Union began and ended with calls for unity. In between, it was filled with the divisive partisanship that has marked his Presidency.

The American withdrawal from the I.N.F. Treaty gives Vladimir Putin exactly what he wants.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has warned the President against using a national emergency to fund his border wall.

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.

President Trump is claiming that he could use authority to declare a “national emergency” to build his wall even if Congress doesn’t authorize it.

Former Senator and Denocratic Presidential candidate Jim Webb is reportedly being considered for Defense Secretary.

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

President Trump announced today that James Mattis would be out as Secretary of Defense by the end of the year.

The Pentagon is being ordered to draw up plans to withdraw roughly one-half of the American forces remaining in Afghanistan. It’s about time.

In what clearly appears to be a rebuke of the President, Defense Secretary James Mattis is retiring as Secretary of Defense.

The Trump Administration is reportedly preparing to withdraw the small contingent of American troops from Syria. If it actually happens, this would be a good move.

In a small, but meaningful, step, the Senate has rebuked the Administration’s policies toward the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

American troops have been in Afghanistan for seventeen years now, it’s time to bring them all home.

An effort by the Federal Government to prosecute Wikileaks founder Julian Assange raises serious First Amendment issues.

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.

A filing in an unrelated case has apparently revealed the existence of a sealed indictment against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.

Amazon has reportedly decided to split its second headquarters between an already urbanized area of Northern Virginia and the outer boroughs of New York City.

As the midterm campaign draws to a close, Donald Trump is returning to the message of xenophobia and fear that dominated his Presidential campaign.

President Trump wants to send more troops than we have in Syria and Iraq combined to the border to deal with a non-existent threat.

President Trump is preparing to scrap a thirty-year-old treaty that marked the beginning of the end of the Cold War. It would be a foolish mistake.

The Trump Administration is preparing a policy change that will essentially define transgender Americans out of existence.

President Trump is choosing money and moral cowardice over human life in his response to the disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi.

American involvement in the genocidal Saudi war on Yemen is getting more complicated. This is a bad idea.

Fifty years ago, a young college student who would become one of the most influential women in Washington was sexually assaulted by a Senator. She didn’t come forward with her story for more than fifty years, and the reasons why strike close to what we’ve been talking about for three weeks now.

Reports about tension between Defense Secretary James Mattis and President Trump are becoming louder, and it’s being suggested that Mattis could be out of office after the midterms.

In the past, President Trump has threatened to shut down the government if the doesn’t get what he wants in the budget. The latest budget deal effectively dares him to do it.

Just how far should White House staffers and civil servants go in protecting the public from an erratic president?

A new book by legendary Washington reporter Bob Woodward appears to contain explosive revelations about the President and the operation of the White House.

Through our so-called allies in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, the United States is helping to destroy Yemen. It’s time for our support for that war to come to an end.

The American public is not sold on the idea of a ‘Space Force.’

Donald Trump’s vanity-seeking military parade has been postponed amid reports that the estimated cost has increased dramatically.

A Federal Judge in Washington State has, at least temporarily, blocked the release of files that would allow anyone to make a 3-D printed gun. The First Amendment seems to clearly indicate that this ruling is wrong.