Outside the Beltway

The GOP is going to have to come up with a lot more than just age if they end up facing off against Hillary Clinton in 2016.

Rather than asking whether it was “worth it,” the important historical question regarding the Civil War is whether it could have been avoided.

Edward Snowden has likely violated many laws, but, absent additional facts, treason is not one of them.

The infamous VA backlog is finally dwindling. Much of it was a function of good intentions.

As of today, John Dingell has been a Member of Congress for 20,997 days, a new record. That’s not something to celebrate.

Republicans have problems with the younger generation that they will need to fix if they’re going to succeed in the future.

The Federal Budget Deficit appears headed in the right direction, for now.

Homicide rates are on pace to be lower than they were at the start of the 20th Century.

My latest for The National Interest, “Kenneth Waltz’s Crucial Logic,” has posted.

Are civil liberties once again at risk in the wake of the bombing attack in Boston?

Once again, politics is dictating military policy.

The Boston Marathon bomber must be tried in a court of law.

The man who changed the way Americans viewed newspapers, just before newspapers themselves began getting pushed aside by technology, has died at the age of 89.

A bipartisan commission of elder statesmen confirms what we’ve known for years.

A new report confirms that the United States did engage in torture in the wake of the September 11th attacks.

Because sometimes poorly contructed observations can set a fellow to writing.

The odds for a party switch in the House of Representatives remain quite low.

A Federal Judge has stepped into a Culture War minefield, but that doesn’t mean he’s wrong.

Examining SECDEF’s call for radical overhaul of our defense structure against the fate of similar calls past.

Rand Paul’s filibuster has made him a darling among conservatives but it may not last.

A somewhat good jobs report for February, but still no sign that the jobs recession is ending any time soon.

An excellent essay by Adam Sternbergh “On the Enduring Appeal of ‘Die Hard.'”

John Karlin, an industrial psychologist for Bell Labs that you’ve probably never heard of, has died aged 94.

Andrew Bacevich bemoans the social impact of the all-volunteer force.

Is America’s focus on defense weakening the country?

The first seven men to be awarded the Medal of Honor for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan received it posthumously. Clinton Romesha will be the fourth in a row that’s lived to meet the president.

Bob Dole isn’t in the best of health but he nonetheless treked to the Capitol to pay his final respects to an old friend.

Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates is bemused that the generals who worked for him lived more lavish lifestyles than he did.

The conflict between Israel and Hamas appears to be heading in one unfortunate direction.

Once again, a natural disaster has caused a common economic fallacy re resurface.

President Obama seems to have given away the store when it comes to the defense sequestration cuts.

Like the men who came before him, Barack Obama has vastly increased the powers of his office. Someone should have asked him about that last night.

Once again, it seems necessary to debunk some commonly believed myths about polling.

America’s Protestants are dying off and being replaced by non-believers.

Mitt Romney is once again making completely false claims about the status of the United States Navy.