Outside the Beltway

Largely in reaction to revelations about N,S.A. surveillance, Germany has cut back on its intelligence cooperation with the United States.

Some observations about Stewart’s interview (and some digression from me–okay, a lot of digression by me).

President George W. Bush had a running battle with the CIA throughout his eight years in office. Now, they’ve given him an award.

Another tone deaf action from leading Republicans.

Ben Carson is inching closer to running for President, and he’s continuing to pander to the most extreme elements of the Republican Party.

President Obama will ask Congress to authorize a war he started six months ago.

Has the legislative branch abdicated its responsibility in US foreign policy?

Some are criticizing the President for not going to Paris for yesterday’s rally.

The men responsible for the Charlie Hebdo massacre are dead, but the problems for France, and the rest of Europe, may just be at the beginning.

Reversing a previous decision, Sony will allow The Interview to be screened in a small number of theaters.

In the wake of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on C.I.A. torture, some have suggested that eight years of Jack Bauer helped make torture more acceptable to the American public.

The U.S. Government has formally charged North Korea with responsibility for the hacking attack on Sony. How to respond to that attack is a more complicated question.

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.

Hackers who have divulged embarrassing secrets from deep within Sony Pictures are now threatening violence if a film about a plot to kill Kim Jong Un is released.

Was Man Haron Monis a terrorist, or just a lone nut who had latched on to the rhetoric of ISIS to justify his own delusions? In the end, it hardly matters.

Vice-President Cheney’s amoral defense of torture has come to define how most conservatives view the issue, and that’s a problem.

What now?

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.

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.

Would increasing the size of the House of Representatives be the cure for what ails Congress?

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

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.

America’s federal workforce is increasingly disenchanted.

Apparently, the buck doesn’t stop in the Oval Office these days.

The Khorasan Group is, functionally, al Qaeda. Or is it?

The TSA is up to its usual shenanigans.

The courts have been striking them down at a dizzying pace since June.

The Obama Administration’s legal justification for war against ISIS is laughably flimsy.

If the President is going to increase American involvement in the Middle East, he needs to address some fundamental questions first.

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

Americans have become deeply cynical about government. To some extent that is a good thing, but it’s reaching unhealthy levels.

Some words from the past, apparently uttered mere hours before the world changed forever.

LTG Michael Flynn says the United States is no safer after 13 years of war

A lot of Republicans dislike the President enough to think that he should be removed from office, but will that make impeachment more likely to happen?

The US intelligence community is gambling that it can be more efficient through a public-private partnership than going it alone.

There’s a new round of allegations about American spying on Germany.

My latest collaboration with Butch Bracknell, “Ahmed Abu Khattala and the Miranda-Rights Question,” has posted in The National Interest.

Public faith in government institutions is at all all time low.

My latest for The National Interest, “Neoconservatives, the Iraq Debate and Ad Hominem Attacks,” has posted.