Outside the Beltway

A knowledgeable observer has a dim forecast.

The first person to be quarantined under the new policy announced by New York and New Jersey is raising concerns about the way she was treated, and whether the policy is even the right idea.

Remember the border crisis? Yea, it’s not much of a crisis these days.

While the world pays attention to Syria and Iraq, Yemen is once against lurching into chaos.

Self-described socialist Bernie Sanders is contemplating an independent run for the presidency.

Alabamians like to exclaim, “Thank God for Mississippi.” Perhaps it’s time for that slogan to cross the Pond.

Fairly or not, the President has created the impression that he is not a good leader, and there’s not much he can do about it at this point.

Rick Perry is sending 1,000 members of the Texas National Guard to the border to do nothing.

That ball is in your court, Congress.

The number of uninsured Americans has declined since the Obamacare mandate went into effect.

Coming across as uncaring doesn’t help advance your political arguments.

Hillary Clinton does not come across well when she tries to play the empathy card.

TNR makes the worst possible case for a proposition that’s almost certainly right.

A new job for the Congressman recently filed by his own constituents?

Twenty-five years after his seminal “End of History” article, Francis Fukuyama reflects on its legacy.

Today’s foreign-policy disputes rarely consider the way America’s response to one crisis might affect another.

Shutting down rational debate one meme at a time.

A legal setback for Voter ID laws in Wisconsin.

Republicans attack an attorney for doing his job. So much for that whole “constitutional conservative” thing, I guess.

Predicting the end of the DPRK is a fool’s errand.

Time to have some sympathy for those poor penny-pinching Congressmen and Senators? Hardly.

Some thoughts and links about the ongoing turmoil in Venezuela.

A CBO report on the Affordable Care Act is getting a polarized reading.

Ta-Nehisi Coates explores his complicated reaction to the first African-American president.

Two experts debate the topic, demonstrating how little we really know.

A GOP Senate Candidate in Georgia attempts to back track, and runs off the rails in the process.

Does your kid qualify for subsidized lunch? One candidate for Senate in Georgia wants to put them to work.

Not surprisingly, Time’s editors chose Pope Francis as Person Of The Year. However, Edward Snowden arguably would have been the better choice.

The most important leader to come out of Africa in the 20th Century, and perhaps in all of history, has died.

Conservatives have their own Kennedy myth to compete with the myth of Camelot.

A Pentagon Equal Opportunity training manual points out the obvious.

The Richmond Times-Dispatch has endorsed “none of the above” for governor of Virginia.

Walter Russell Mead explains why a well intentioned, carefully crafted and consistently pursued grand strategy failed.

A negligible price hike of hamburgers might enable fast food outlets to pay their workers much better.

The high cost of raising children is making it difficult for many Americans to have multiple children.

President Obama has once again weighed in on the Trayvon Martin case in a personal manner.

The return of a really bad idea.

Yes, it ended slavery. But at a huge cost.

As if the region didn’t have enough problems.

President Obama delivered another powerful speech on race.

The economics of higher education is increasing the gap between rich and poor.

A new GOP would make it very difficult to get a good read on the state of the nation’s economy.

Think Progress continues a silly meme: “12 programs that Congress cares less about than averting flight delays.”

The Iraq War did significant damage to the legacy of the Republican Party.