Outside the Beltway

Mission creep.

Not surprisingly, a law passed in the wake of the September 11th attacks has been used mostly for things that have nothing to do with terrorism.

Facing a tough re-election battle, Kansas Senator Pat Roberts is engaging in abject fearrmongering.

Yesterday’s apparent terrorist shooting in Ottawa reveals again a phenomenon that seems difficult if not impossible to stop in advance.

The TSA is up to its usual shenanigans.

The plan won’t achieve achieve its stated goals.

The Global War on Terror isn’t over after all.

Dan Froomkin says Obama is as bad as Bush, if not worse.

AV Club produces an impressive overview of the entire Trek franchise.

Back to the Ten Commandments and Alabama politics.

Dispelling a rising myth,

Viet Xuan Luong pins on a brigadier general’s star today, becoming the first Vietnamese-American officer to achieve that rank.

The C.I.A. has admitted spying on Senate investigators.

The Israeli public if overwhelmingly behind the war in Gaza, and that means it will probably continue for awhile.

Hopes for a temporary respite in the Gaza conflict faded away today.

The next phase of Israel’s attack on Hamas has begun.

Things look to be going from bad to worse in Gaza.

Is ISIS’s reach about to exceed its grasp?

Is ISIS about to make the situation in the Levant even worse?

It’s sure beginning to look like a civil war in Iraq, albeit a rather one sided one at the moment.

Things only seem to be getting worse in Iraq.

Mostly because of politics, the hopes of some and fears of others will never be realized.

The Obama White House rejected Republican criticism of the deal that led to the release of the only American Prisoner Of War from the Afghanistan War.

The President’s second speech to the Corps of Cadets is a vast improvement over the first.

An imperfect timetable, but better than nothing.

Congressman Walter Jones beat back a primary challenge from a former Bush aide who attacked him over his foreign policy views.

An award for breaking a campaign promise.

A new set of emails is reviving the old partisan arguments about the attack in Benghazi.

So, this happened.

Republicans attack an attorney for doing his job. So much for that whole “constitutional conservative” thing, I guess.

Thanks to Edward Snowden, the Washington Post and the Guardian are Pulitzer Prize winners.

Americans are skeptical about getting involved in the Ukraine crisis. This isn’t a surprise.

Staff Sergeant William Guarnere, made famous by the “Band of Brothers” miniseries, has died aged 90.

One in ten Army helicopter pilot is a woman, yet men account for 97% of injuries in helicopter accidents.

Just when it became safe to keep your shoes and tablets on, a new threat to the friendly skies has emerged: toothpaste.

Former SecDef Robert Gates is among those who believes that the Iraq War unduly diverted attention from fighting the War On Terror.

.Many have tried to justify N.S.A. data mining on the theory that it could have prevented 9/11. Is that true?

The beginnings of a populist challenge to Hillary Clinton in 2016?

Does a determination that NSA data collection practices are likely unconstitutional mean that Edward Snowden’s actions were, in some sense, justified?

A potentially big legal setback for a big National Security Agency program.

David Brooks thinks that the problem with American Government is that the Presidency isn’t strong enough.

Apparently, the security at Tuesday’s memorial for Nelson Mandela was so lax as to be nearly non-existent.

Well, that didn’t take long.