With a consensus now more or less formed that the Obamacare implementation faces serious challenges, pundits are increasingly pivoting towards discussing solutions, both short and long term. Short term, there’s increasing bipartisan support for delaying the penalty for not complying with the individual mandate, under the logic that you can’t punish someone for not getting […]

Tuesday was a big day for Russian-Chinese relations. The two countries signed deals to build refineries, coordinate efforts to explore Siberia’s oil and gas reserves, and send Russian liquified natural gas (LNG) and oil China’s way. Reuters reports: Medvedev hailed Rosneft’s outline agreement to pump 200,000 barrels per day of crude oil over 10 years […]

For Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, son of the late Benazir Bhutto and ex-President Asif Ali Zardari, his future really was determined before he was born—as is the case with dynastic politics. But few people knew that future would come so soon: Bilawal has just officially announced his entry in Pakistani politics. He didn’t waste any time. In […]

Here’s some great news for college students: tuition increases at public universities have slowed for the second year in a row, increasing at the lowest rate since the mid-1970s. Earlier this year we reported that tuition hikes were slowing down at private institutions; public schools are evidently following suit.This is somewhat encouraging news, but it […]

In an op-ed for the WSJ, AI board member William Galston uses “Jacksonianism”, an old WRM idea, to explain one of the most interesting phenomena in American politics today: The Tea Party: More than a decade ago, before the post-9/11 national fervor set in, Walter Russell Mead published an insightful essay on the persistent “Jacksonian tradition” […]

The Tablet is the British Catholic periodical that is very useful in keeping informed about developments in the Roman world. On October 5, 2013 [paywalled], it published three seemingly unrelated items which, at least in my mind, raised again the interesting question about what will happen next under the pontificate of Francis I.In the years following […]

How did we get where we are on Syria? With Assad surging on the battlefield, with moderates increasingly eclipsed by al-Qaeda radicals within rebel ranks, and with an ill-specified peace plan continually failing to take shape, the New York Times provides a sobering and damning account of the White House’s decision-making process over the past few […]

America’s energy-related carbon emissions dropped 3.8 percent in 2012 to their lowest level in 18 years. Emissions were down even while the American economy grew; it was the largest drop ever recorded in a non-recession year. The Energy Information Administration reports: Although GDP increased by 2.8 percent in 20121, energy consumption fell by 2.4 percent (2.4 quadrillion […]

A new report on Obamacare in Missouri confirms that the law’s problems are about much more than technical glitches. When pressed, supporters of the ACA have tended to characterize the law as a simple tradeoff: some people have to pay higher premiums, but we’re all getting higher quality health care in return (which they define as […]

After a three-year delay, Turkey will resume membership negotiations with the EU in November. BBC reports: The EU had first agreed to relaunch negotiations in June, but postponed the talks after members criticised Turkey’s crackdown on anti-government protests….But it recognised that Turkey had introduced judicial reforms. It also praised the announcement last month by Prime Minister Recep […]