Outside the Beltway

Congress is considering a bill that would establish a commission to examine the issue of reparations for slavery.;

South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg laid out his foreign policy platform in a speech this week. It’s certainly an improvement over the current President.

Amusing results, and a history lesson, in a new poll

Earlier this week, SpaceX deployed the first 60 satellites in a network that could result in Internet access from virtually anywhere in the world.

Taiwan has become the first nation in Asia to legally recognize same-sex marriage.

We segregate men and women in sports for good reason. How we do that is complicated.

His passing is a sad reminder of another era of the Republican Party.

Taking Joe Biden’s bait, President Trump once again defended his response to the racist rally in Charlottesville two years ago..

Sunday’s attacks in Sri Lanka make it clear that the claim that ISIS has been defeated are nowhere close to being true.

ISIS is claiming responsibility for Sunday’s attacks in Sri Lanka, a strong sign that the claims by the Trump Administration that it had largely defeated the group were not true.

Pledges from wealthy men to help rebuild Notre Dame cathedral after a devastating fire is generating backlash.

Despite the obvious connection with the university’s namesake, the word does have other connotations.

The response to the latest outbreak of the Ebola Virus has both succeeded and failed in several response.

President Trump has selected Kelly Knight Craft, the current Ambassador to Canada, to serve as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.

Two months after being named, Heather Nauert withdrew her name as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations due to a ‘Nannygate’ problem.

Now that the election is over, President Trump and his sycophants in the right-wing media seem to have completely forgotten about the “invading” “caravan” of Central American asylum seekers.

In addition to being mandated by the Constitution, birthright citizenship goes to the core of what it means to be an American.

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

A significant advance for LGBT rights in the world’s most populous democracy.

President Trump is alienating our allies and making friends with dictators, and the world is responding as you might expect they would.

Kofi Annan, who served as Secretary-General of the United Nations at the dawn of the “War On Terror,” has died at the age of 80.

One year after Charlottesville, it’s clear that President Trump still doesn’t understand what happened there, or that he just doesn’t care.

On the eve of the NATO Summit, President Trump continues to engage in tactics that seem to serve no purpose other than to undermine America’s most important and successful alliance.

The situation isn’t as awful as portrayed by the AP—but it’s still pretty bad.

An Ebola outbreak that started last month in Central Africa appears to be contained. You can thank an aggressive vaccination campaign for that.

In a ruling that largely relies on the authority granted by Congress to the President to regulate immigration on national security grounds, the Supreme Court has upheld the final version of the Administration’s travel ban.

Echoing the Obama Administration, the Trump Administration is arguing that it did not need Congressional authorization to attack Syria earlier this year.

New York attorney Aaron Schlossberg found himself on the receiving end of an Internet firestorm this week. His case raises some interesting questions about Internet vigilantism.

The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo has reached a major urban center.

Celebrations and a deadly day in the Middle East.

61 percent of Americans have a favorable impression of a man who left office a failed president.

Ebola is making a reappearance in Central Africa.. Will the world be better prepared this time?

Whether Don Blankenship wins or loses in West Virginia, his success is yet another example of how Donald Trump has changed the GOP for the worse.

The United States is apparently looking to Libya as a guide for upcoming talks with North Korea. The DPRK most likely sees the fate of that nation and its leader as a warning.

Top positions in the State Department are vacant, and there’s only one person to blame for that.

Without Congressional authorization, any attack on Syria would be illegal, but don’t expect Congress to do anything about it.

Controversies involving Jimmy Kimmel and “The Simpsons” highlight a perennial question.

A well-meaning journalist brushes off critiques by experts in the field. He owes it to his readers to keep learning.

The Nigerian terrorist group has released an unknown number of the 110 girls kidnapped from a boarding school last month.

One of the supposed “adults” in the Trump administration has no class.

While the nature of Rex Tillerson’s firing as Secretary of State was shocking in its abruptness, taken in context with the rocky nature of his tenure it was hardly surprising.

Nine years later, at least one member of the Norwegian Nobel Committee is admitting what seemed at the time a rather obvious fact.

Next up: Pompeo

Service members deployed to Algeria, Burundi, Cameroon, Chad, Congo, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Libya, Mali, Niger, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, Tunisia, and Uganda qualify.

Under Nelson Mandela’s leadership, the country made a smooth transition from apartheid. Now it’s going the way of Zimbabwe.

John Bolton is leading a cry for preemptive war against North Korea.

President Trump appeared to change positions on several gun control ideas, but he probably doesn’t mean it.

China’s Xi Jinping solidified his hold on power well into the next decade over the weekend.

Some thoughts on the biggest Marvel blockbuster yet. [Modest spoilers]

President Trump has announced a new round of sanctions against North Korea, but they are unlikely to work given the unrealistic nature of the Administration’s current policy toward North Korea.