Outside the Beltway

The Republican Governor of Missouri is resigning amid growing accusations related to an extramarital affair, blackmail, and sexual assault.

South Korea’s President is saying that Kim Jong Un has renewed his supposed commitment to ‘denuclearization,’ but it isn’t at all clear what that means.

Conservatives claim to support freedom of speech and freedom of expression, but they’ve utterly failed that test when it comes to their reaction to players who peacefully and respectfully kneel during the National Anthem.

Seemingly out of the blue, the June 12th summit between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has been canceled by the United States.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivered a bombastic speech on Iran yesterday that reveals just how empty and dangerous the Trump Administration’s policy toward Iran actually is.

Not surprisingly, the North Koreans are pushing back against American efforts to force them into a corner on denuclearization.

It was never going to be as easy as the administration thought.

The Leader of the Free World is, sadly, enabling atrocities.

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

Does the administration know what it is doing?

Another data point demonstrating that a distinguished military career doesn’t preclude being an awful human being or a crackpot.

The date and location of the meeting between President Trump and Kim Jong Un has been set, but there’s as much chance of failure as their is hope for success.

Israeli Prime Minister gave a speech yesterday designed to undermine the nuclear deal with Iran. The evidence was unconvincing, but the speech was really only aimed at an audience of one.

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.

Is everyone critical of President Trump by definition on the Left?

President Trump may be looking to push Chief of Staff John Kelly aside by giving him a next to impossible job.

The meeting between Kim Jong-Un and Moon Jae-In was historic, but many questions and caveats remain.

French President Emmanuel Macron predicts, correctly, that President Trump will pull out of the nuclear deal with Iran for the worst possible reasons. This will be a disaster for America’s national interests.

For better or worse, Mike Pompeo will be confirmed as the 70th Secretary of State by the end of this week.

An essay from earlier in the year by Jacob T. Levy underscores some of the points I recently tried to make about democratic norms in the current era.

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Tammy Duckworth recently became the first sitting Senator to give birth. Thanks to a rule change, she’ll be allowed to bring her baby on the floor of the Senate if she needs to.

Barbara Bush, only the second woman in history to be the wife and mother of a U.S. President, has died at the age of 92.

The next time you sign a credit card receipt could be the last.

The United States can’t do any good in Syria, but we can do a lot of bad.

Out of the blue, President Trump plans to pardon Dick Cheney’s former Chief of Staff, but the move seems to have more to do with James Comey than it does Scooter Libby.

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

Once again, President Trump’s foreign policy tweeting is causing problems.

President Trump took to Twitter this morning and decided poke a stick in the eye of the Russian bear.

The United States has several options in Syria. None of them are good and one of them would be disastrous.

The FBI committed gross malfeasance in building a case against the widow of Omar Mateen. She nonetheless bears significant blame for 53 deaths.

President Trump is talking about pulling American troops out of Syria, but his own White House is contradicting him.

The woman who lost the 2016 election is apparently not going to go away.

Descriptions of Robby Jackson as “Trump’s personal physician” mischaracterize his qualifications for the job.

From Europe to the Middle East, to Asia, America’s allies are concerned about what the selection of John Bolton as National Security Adviser means going forward. They should be, and so should every American.

The nominations of Mike Pompeo and Gina Haspel could be in trouble in the Senate.

Rex Tillerson was an awful Secretary of State who simply had to go, It’s quite possible his successor will be an even greater disaster.

By threatening to withdraw from the nuclear deal with Iran, Donald Trump is making it far less likely that any upcoming talks with North Korea will succeed.

North Korea’s Dear Leader has baited the President of the United States into a trap.

The legal distinction between “personal capacity” and “official capacity” makes no sense for senior presidential appointees.

South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham says war against North Korea would be worth it. Ignoring the fact that it would result in casualties unlike anything America has seen since the Vietnam War.

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

We form stereotypes about generational cohorts when they’re very young and then freeze them.

With the Winter Olympics over, the next step on the Korean Peninsula is utterly unclear.

The octogenarian failed to get her party’s endorsement for a sixth term.

Continuing a long-standard tradition, the Trump Administration claims it doesn’t need to get legal authorization to keep American troops in Syria.

Phil Carter makes an interesting argument but he’s ultimately mistaken.

Why does the U.S. continue to pursue the seemingly impossible goal of denuclearization with regard to North Korea? In part, it’s because we’re still locked into thirty-year-old rhetoric.

Republicans spent the eight years of Obama Administration railing against fiscal irresponsibility. Now that they have power, they’re the ones being fiscally irresponsible.

A Federal Judge In Kansas has blocked enforcement of a state law barring anyone who does business with the state from engaging in a boycott of Israel.