Outside the Beltway

With less than three weeks to go before voting starts, the Republican candidates for President clashed in their most contentious debate so far.

President Obama’s final State Of The Union Address was largely a recognition of the fact that his time on the world stage is quickly coming to an end.

Donald Trump is out with his first television ad, and it’s about what you’d expect.

The anti-Muslim rhetoric Donald Trump has been using on the campaign trail has shown up in a recruitment video for an al Qaeda off-shoot group.

If you were looking for evidence that the race for the Democratic nomination is basically over, you need look no further than last night’s Democratic Debate.

The Fifth Republican Debate, and the last of 2015, was marked by expected clashes between the candidates, and one that never happened.

Heading into another Presidential debate, a new poll shows that Republicans are very receptive to Donald Trump’s proposal to ban Muslim immigration to the U.S.

Every public school in Los Angeles, which covers over 600,000 students, plus teachers and staff, has been closed for the day in the wake of unspecified threats.

Some analysts are already suggesting that Russia’s two month old intervention in Syria is becoming a quagmire. That seems to be a premature judgment, but it’s not accomplishing much more than anything the West is doing.

The Director of the F.B.i. told Congress today that the San Bernardino shooters were apparently radicalized much earlier than previously believed.

Donald Trump’s plan to exclude Muslims from the United States is provoking condemnation, and confusion, around the world.

As we deal with the fall out from the attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, we need remember the years after September 11th, 2001 and avoid holding an entire religion responsible for the actions of fanatics.

For an Oval Office address delivered on a Sunday night, President Obama’s speech last night sounded more like a statement read from the podium in the press room.

NATO is extending full membership to the tiny nation of Montenegro, and there doesn’t seem to be a good reason why they’re doing it.

The attack in San Bernardino has seemingly left the Administration’s anti-terror strategy in disarray, so the President is addressing the nation tonight to say, well, something I guess.

The German Parliament has approved expansion of the nation’s involvement in the campaign against ISIS, but that doesn’t make the current campaign any less incoherent.

The probability that the shootings in San Bernardino were at least inspired by ISIS and/or other Jihadist terror networks is increasing.

Yesterday, the British Parliament debated the expansion of that nation’s military strikes against ISIS. For more than a year, our cowardly Congress has failed to even hold one debate or vote on America’s role in that conflict.

The British Parliament has approved expansion of that countries airstrikes into Syria, but it’s unclear just how much of an impact that will have on the ground.

The latest national poll of the Republican race shows Trump continuing to lead, Ben Carson fading, and Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio rising while the rest of the field is stagnant or sinking.

France’s President has spent the week trying to forge and agreement on an anti-ISIS policy, but the two nations that matter the most also disagree the most.

Tensions between Russia and Turkey remain high in the wake of yesterday’s incident, but there are some signs that things are starting to cool down.

Hillary Clinton’s recently announced policies toward the ISIS fight are as incoherent and misguided as President Obama’s and those of her Republican opponents.

A potentially big complication in an already complicated situation.

A new poll taken in the wake of the Paris attacks finds Americans increasingly fearful of ISIS attacks in the U.S., opposed to the admission of Syrian refugees, and not very confident in President Obama’s ability to deal with the ISIS threat.

Disturbing reports over the weekend that American leaders may not be getting the kind of unbiased intelligence analysis about ISIS that they need to make decisions.

In the news from the campaign trail and in the polls, there are clear signs that Ben Carson’s days as a top contender in the GOP Presidential race are coming to an end.

Even as the focus of the Presidential race shifts to national security, Donald Trump continues to lead the race.

The United States and Europe are giving everything the perpetrators of the Paris attacks hoped for.

Another European capital is on edge over fears of a terror attack.

John Kasich wants the United States Government to create an agency to spread ‘so-called ‘Judeo-Christian values.’

With little actual debate and despite Paul Ryan’s promise of a return to ‘regular order,’ the House has passed a hastily drafted bill in response to the largely fear-based response to Syrian refugees in the wake of the Paris attacks.

A collection of material that tries to separate the facts of the U.S. Syrian refugee screen process from the fear, myth, paranoia, and xenophobia.

French officials have confirmed that Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the man believed to be the plotter of last Friday’s attacks in Paris, was killed in a police raid early Wednesday morning. This doesn’t mean authorities in France or elsewhere in Europe are any less concerned about future attacks, though.

Remarks by a Democratic politician in Virginia regarding the Administration’s Syrian refugee program have brought up disturbing reminders of a shameful time in American history.

Not surprisingly, a new poll shows that most Americans are at the very least skeptical about the Administration’s plans regarding Syrian refugees.

Even the people hired to advice Ben Carson on foreign policy seem to recognize that he is clueless on the subject, and has no apparent desire to educate himself.

Republicans insist that uttering the words “Radical Islamic Terrorism” is somehow important in the fight against ISIS and other terror networks, but it is entirely unclear what doing so would accomplish.

In the wake of the attacks in Paris, some people have argued that American solidarity with France, in contrast to seeming disregard for tragedy elsewhere, is something we should feel bad about. That argument is ridiculous.

Violence leads to irrational policy responses. Who does that help?

Syrian refugees have quickly become political footballs in the United States in the wake of the Paris attacks, and it’s become an exceedingly shameful display of pandering and fearmongering by a group of largely Republican politicians.

Confirming speculation that had already been all but confirmed, we now know that it was a bomb that brought down a Russian passenger jet on October 31st.

In the wake of the attacks in Paris, there’s a strong impulse to do “something,” but that doesn’t mean we should do something utterly foolish. And a no-fly zone would be utterly foolish.

France launched its first attacks against ISIS even as the investigation into Friday’s attacks continues, but it’s not clear that the retaliation really accomplished anything.

The initial responses of the Republican candidates for President to the attacks in Paris are about what you’d expect, but it’s far too early to tell what impact the events of the weekend will have on the race for President here in the United States.