Outside the Beltway

Now that gays will be allowed to serve openly in the military, the command will have some new issues to address.

One of the most active American diplomats of the past twenty-five years has passed away.

Despite the Defense Department releasing its study showing that the effects of allowing gays to serve openly would be minimal, Senator John McCain isn’t convinced.

President Obama’s plan to free federal employee pay is getting praised by Republicans but is wildly unpopular among progressive activists.

President Obama proposes freezing federal civilian salaries for the next two years, saving billions in anticipated spending.

New details are out about the upcoming Defense Department report on repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.

One of the last arguments against allowing gay men and women to serve openly in the military — that active duty military would be unable to serve alongside them — appears to have no empirical support.

The military surge in Afghanistan appears to be having little impact on the Taliban.

In what is being described as the largest leak of secret documents in U.S. history, Wikileaks has made public more than 400,000 documents related to the seven year long Iraq War.

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates acknowledged in a newly released letter that the Wikileaks Afghan War document dump wasn’t as damaging as the Pentagon initially claimed. So what was the uproar all about?

The effort to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell suffered a setback in the Senate today that likely delays any further moves on the issue until after the midterm elections.

One Republican analyst thinks that President Obama could learn a few leadership lessons from Vito and Michael Corleone. In order to do that, though, the President would need to stop acting like the weakest of the Corleone brothers.

Robert Gates has been a reluctant Secretary of Defense but his impact at the Pentagon has been tremendous.

Glenn Greenwald asks, “Why won’t the Pentagon help WikiLeaks redact documents?” For the same reason we don’t negotiate with terrorists.

As many American soldiers have died in Afghanistan under Obama as under Bush.

Robert Gates says he wants to retire next year, but will the call of duty cause him to stay longer ?

A special tax rate for millionaires wouldn’t raise much additional revenue but it would make journalists feel better.

The Pentagon can not account for 95 percent of the Iraq oil revenue from 2004 to 2007.

Where did Alvin Greene get the $ 10,000 for his Senate filing fee ? He got from you, Mr. and Mrs. Taxpayer !

It’s going to be much harder for reporters to get access to the military thanks to new rules announced last night by the Pentagon.

Is there a double standard in play when generals criticize Democratic versus Republican presidents?