Outside the Beltway

John Kerry’s Washington Post op-ed supports U. S. leadership in establishing a no-fly zone in Libya.

We’re heading towards a future of higher food prices and more hunger.

While there are doubtless flaws with the journalistic values and culture of the New Media, we too often contrast today with a Golden Age of Media that never existed.

The top ranks of the military are whiter and decidedly more male than the country as a whole. Should that change?

Former French president Jacques Chirac is being tried on corruption charges stemming from misconduct as mayor of Paris.

Pfc. Bradley Manning faces twenty-two new charges, including one that could put him before a firing squad, but investigators still can’t prove any direct links between him and Wikileaks.

Intervening to “help” the Libyan revolt is very tempting, but it’s a temptation we ought to resist.

The Supreme Court rules that “offensiveness” does not trump the First Amendment. And they’re right.

It’s not the size of your government that counts — it’s what you do with it that matters.

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.

Is Saudi Arabia the next domino to fall in the Middle East? The Royal family is hoping that money will be enough to make sure that doesn’t happen.

Did a unit in Afghanistan engage in an IO operation against U. S. senators?

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.

Calls are coming from both sides of the aisle for the U.S. to do “something” about the situation in Libya. It would be better if we didn’t get involved.

Prominent commentators on the Left and Right are amused by an outrageous assault on CBS reporter Lara Logan.

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

We need to remember who actually sets the budget and, further, who is ultimtately responsible for the behavior of politicians.

Ezra Klein dubs the Federal government “an insurance conglomerate protected by a large, standing army.”

Ron Paul has won the CPAC straw poll for a second straight year. But YAF has voted him off its board over his opposition to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

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

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

Thirty years after the hostages were freed from captivity in Iran, the United States still hasn’t figured out how to deal with the Islamic Republic.

Time for midterms.

Inevitably, the Nazis made an appearance during yesterday’s debate over health care reform in the House. It’s time for it to stop, or at least time for the rest of us to stop taking seriously anyone who resorts to such arguments.

While the violence is down in Iraq, it’s not gone.

The Stuxnet virus that has set back the Iranian nuclear weapons program by several years at least appears to have originated as a joint project between the United States and Israel.

Bipartisan seating at the State Of The Union is a pointless act of political theater. Then again, so is the State Of The Union Address itself.

While our politics are seldom violent, our violence is often politicized.

Orly Taitz, Queen of the Birthers, loses in court (again).

Moqtada al-Sadr is back in Iraq, and it’s a good thing we’re on our way out.

The American military personnel system works against keeping the best and brightest officers in the service.

Andrew Sullivan makes a rather bizarre charge offhandedly: “Who among the neocons would have thought that one of George W. Bush’s final legacies would be bringing pogroms, bombings and genocide to Christians in his new zone of freedom?”