Outside the Beltway

The US Supreme Court declined to stay the execution of a child raping murderer over a technical violation of a treaty.

Danger Room’s Spencer Ackerman reports on an alleged secret CIA interrogation facility somewhere in the former Soviet Union.

Barack Obama’s leadership style may be his undoing.

Contrary to what Senator McCain, seeking realism in military policy does not make one an isolationist.

The race for the GOP nomination is taking shape.

An ex-CIA agent says that someone in the Bush White House tried to use the agency to “discredit” Iraq War critic Juan Cole.

It was a good day in Court for opponents of the Affordable Care Act.

Rand Paul has borrowed a bad idea from the 2008 Presidential campaign.

Marc Thiessen claims Khalid Sheikh Mohammad mocked the CIA interrogators who waterboarded him.

John McCain thoroughly dismantles the argument that Osama bin Laden’s capture vindicates the use of so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques.”

For the first time, a majority of Republicans support creation of a third political party. Does it really mean anything?

The defense of torture as an extreme measure for extraordinary circumstances has evolved.tortu

The debate over “enhanced interrogations” has been renewed by the bin Laden mission, but whether it “worked” or not isn’t the question.

A study shows that most national columnists and talking heads are about as accurate as a coin flip.

Rush Limbaugh heaps praise on President Obama for the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

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

Once again, President Obama has ignored Candidate Obama’s promises to reign in the Presidential powers assumed by George W. Bush.

The Obama Administration is resisting efforts to expand Fourth Amendment protections to services like Gmail. That’s unfortunate.

The Obama Administration has given up on the idea of trying the September 11th suspects in a civilian court. Considering how much that trial would have perverted the justice system, that’s a good thing.

President Obama says he acted in Libya to avert an imminent genocide, but there’s no evidence that any such thing was about to occur.

Ten days after sending American forces into kinetic military action in Libya, President Obama addressed the nation to explain “what we’ve done, what we plan to do, and why this matters to us.”

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.

So much for not getting invaded…

With minor exceptions, all of the potential candidates for the GOP nomination in 2012 seem to have accepted the idea that defense spending, and the Bush-era interventionist foreign policy, are off the table when it comes time to talk spending cuts.

While the prestige outlets of the halcyon days of the last millennium still hold some cachet for those of us old enough to remember that era, they mean next to nothing on the Web.

Nine years into a war that seems to be without end, it’s time to declare victory and go home.

It’s a Republican meme that President Obama has “apologized” for America repeatedly. The one problem with the meme is that there aren’t any facts to support it.

Is Jon Stewart a useful idiot?

Global poverty has plummeted in recent years.

It turns out the Iraq War was indeed based, in part at least, on a lie.

The Obama Justice Department says it can look at phone records without warrants or judicial oversight.

The media are wildly exaggerating the heckling at a gathering of conservatives.

President Obama’s approval numbers have dropped 9 points since the Egypt crisis broke out.

The US has limited influence over events in Egypt–something that recent history should underscore (although not everyone appears to understand this fact).

The Obama administration’s slow and cautious response to Egypt’s protest was frustrating. And correct.

The GOP is facing a battle between its fiscal conservatism and i’s military adventurism.