Outside the Beltway

The world is starting to denounce the crackdown in Syria, but the reaction seems unlikely to go much beyond strongly worded statements.

Workers picketing a Chicago Hyatt hotel yesterday got an unpleasant surprise: Heat lamps.

Do people who take advantage of tax breaks get a “government benefit”?

The Supreme Court struck down a ban on the sale of violent video games to children, a victory for the First Amendment and parental authority.

When everyone can record video at any time and post it for all the world to see, is there such a thing as privacy anymore?

A summary of the status of the “Arab Spring” uprisings with links to news coverage and commentary.

Once again, an American President thinks he can bring peace to the Middle East.

Superman will renounce his American citizenship!

A major law firm has withdrawn from defending DOMA in Court, and a public controversy has erupted.

Events in Syria, and the world’s response to them, are revealing the moral bankruptcy of the justification for the war in Libya.

Terry Jones may sue the City of Dearborn for its prior restraint actions against him. And he should.

One can almost hear the pitter-patter of American boots in the distance.

Francis Fukuyama: “In the developed world, we take the existence of government so much for granted that we sometimes forget how difficult it was to create.”

Defense Secretary Gates hinted this week that the U.S. would stay in Iraq if the Iraqis wanted. It doesn’t seem like they do.

The only people responsible for the murders in Afghanistan are the people who committed them, but the demagogues like Terry Jones deserve condemnation as well.

Todays’ horrific attack on the UN complex in Mazar-i Sharif may well the the Tet Offensive of Afghanistan: a relatively minor event that permanently changed the American public’s view of the war.

Senator Joe Lieberman said today that we should intervene in Syria using the same rationale we did for Libya. Because, you know, what’s the big deal about a fourth war?

The antiwar movement has been strangely silent despite the fact that U.S. foreign policy hasn’t really changed that much since Barack Obama became President.

Regardless of one’s preferences in terms of endgame in Wisconsin, democracy will win out.

Wisconsin Republicans stripped state employees of collective bargaining rights without the Democratic senators who fled the state to prevent a quorum.

The funny thing is that the quorum-busting in WI is more like a filibuster ought to be: a true delaying tactic that eventually has to give way to a democratic outcome.

An update on Tunisia.