Conventional political wisdom holds that Obama’s reelection fate is bound up with the economy. If employment is up, he’s in good shape; if it remains stagnant, we may see some turnover on Pennsylvania Avenue. If this is true, the President should be cheered by the past few months’ employment numbers. December’s jobs report, which had […]

Via Meadia has been reporting for months on the paranoids who allege that behind Mitt Romney’s businesslike affect lies a nefarious plot to smuggle a Mormon theocracy into American government.  As we’ve seen before, even major, respectable papers like the Times are not immune to these fever dreams.And as one state after another votes in […]

In common usage blasphemy means words and actions which constitute an insult to God or other sacred entities. To the modern mind the term may seem obsolete, a leftover from primitive superstition. It is anything but obsolete to many people in the contemporary world.Toward the end of January two stories involving the issue of blasphemy […]

I will be spending much of today at West Point discussing US grand strategy with cadets and faculty, so posting is likely to be intermittent.  The next post-blue essay should be ready sometime this evening and there are a few other posts in the pipeline.

Here’s something we don’t see every day: the Times‘ op-ed page sticking it to the greens in a devastating piece by columnist Joe Nocera. Here at Via Meadia we’ve flagged the President’s decision to nix the Keystone XL pipeline as one of the most baffling and damaging decisions of his Administration, and now this viewpoint […]

The American diplomatic push in Asia continues as word spreads that the director of the CIA may soon visit Myanmar, the former Chinese ally that has been moving rapidly toward deep cooperation with the Pacific entente. On a recent visit to longtime US ally Thailand, General Petraeus is reported (by the New York Times) to […]

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is a dysfunctional monster leeching the life out of the regional economy with bad management, bloated costs, poor decision making and no clear sense of mission said a group of expensive consultants and experts.Everyone surprised by that finding, please raise your hands.New Jersey governor Chris Christie, […]

If you want to keep your country strapped for cash, here’s a simple formula: Debate ad infinitum the possible nationalization of the country’s largest industry.Discord in South Africa’s ruling African National Congress (ANC) has the party doing just that, resulting in stagnant government revenue and decreased private investor confidence. The industry at issue is South Africa’s stunningly […]

There’s good reason to question the logic behind the fight against the Taliban, which has the United States playing whack-a-mole—defeating insurgents in one area, only to have them pop up elsewhere. As one lieutenant described a single battle, so too goes the war: The sole escape for the insurgents was to ford the Helmand River and […]

[yframe url=’https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBfYl6QyPFQ’]In January 2009, a prominent political icon took to CNN to express moral outrage over the actions of a Middle Eastern government attacking civilians. It was a moving performance, filled with pathos and righteous anger: The numbers continuously and consistently increase…it’s not even day by day, it’s hour by hour. 824 people dead. Two […]