A statistic that unfortunately is sad but not surprising: the Urban Institute has found that just over 33,000 people holding doctorate degrees receive welfare in the form of food stamps or other aid. Many of those PhDs are adjunct professors making salaries so low that they qualify for food stamps, Medicaid and a number of other […]

“American Presidents have long been criticized for being too in thrall to the Jewish lobby. The American Jews influence US foreign policy and that explains Washington’s unwavering support for Israel.”Who made this statement this past week?(a) A disgruntled fringe neo-Nazi (b) Some poor soul ranting on their Facebook page (c) The BBCSadly, as you can […]

Embattled Syria aside, Algeria is the last of the secular Arab authoritarian governments still standing. Having weathered a bitter fight against an Islamist insurgence that saw 100,000 or more deaths, the Algerian authorities are tougher, better organized and, in some ways, more flexible than the despots who’ve fallen across the region in recent years.Now the […]

Via Meadia regulars know that we call out the New York Times from time to time for bad reportage and poor editorial judgment, but today the Times has a piece that reminds us of just how good this paper can be at its best.The piece is by Tim Arango, and it covers the developing struggle […]

The fallout from the collapse of the once-blue chip law firm of Dewey and LaBoeuf is spreading. The New York Times reports that life for the former one percenters at the top of the firm is about to get much, much worse: They are likely to lose the money they were required to invest in […]

Just when you thought things in Syria were as bad as they can get, they got worse. The apparent involvement of Al-Qaeda and/or its affiliates in the recent Damascus bombings will make international policy even less coherent as poisonously radical forces rear their heads in a worsening conflict.Adam Garfinkle offers a no-holds barred assessment of […]

David Weigel has a great piece on the Walker phenomenon over at Slate. As Weigel points out, Walker has built an extraordinary political following in the state, pulling together all the disparate elements in today’s Republican universe from tea party activists to megadonors. The result is a formidable political force that dominates the airwaves and […]

Via Meadia has remarked before on the close similarities between the Bush and Obama approaches to America’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen, and other aspects of the active defense of our nation. With only a couple exceptions, both administrations relied on similar tactics. A timeline from left-leaning ProPublica puts […]

The eurozone crisis has captivated audiences around the world, but it is recent economic data from China that should be capturing the attention of policymakers. Despite confident predictions from Wen Jiabao that the economy was heading for more growth, April figures across a range of sectors make for grim reading: industrial production is down, fixed-asset […]

In chaotic Greece, polls find that a majority of Greeks support keeping the currency, yet voters continue to support parties that oppose the bailout on which it depends. A last ditch effort to create a ‘government of national unity’ and stave off another round of elections offers little hope to resolve the policy issues before […]