For the first time in its long history as an American territory, Puerto Rico has voted to join the union. Naturally, it’s not a done deal. The measure was non-binding, and although both presidential candidates stated that they would be in favor of statehood for the island should residents support it, statehood would still have […]

Because of an unlikely alignment of the Chinese and American political calendars, both countries are going through leadership changes in the space of a few weeks. But the two transitions look wildly different. Consider the tight restrictions on life in Beijing these past few weeks: Kitchen knives and pencil sharpeners reportedly have been pulled from store shelves. […]

Via Meadia has long believed that, while President Obama doesn’t want to go to war with Iran over its nuclear program, he would take military action as a last resort.A new report from Iran’s intelligence ministry, widely reprinted in the Iranian press, suggests that Iranians are starting to take this possibility seriously. The Washington Post has the […]

Blue governance scored a victory on Tuesday in California, where voters came out in support of a large tax hike, but in Michigan, unions suffered a big defeat. Proposal Two, which would have written the right for collective bargaining by public-sector unions into the state constitution, was roundly defeated by 58 percent of voters. This […]

California, once a staunch Republican state, flipped to the Democrats in 1992 largely due to demographic changes. Twenty years later, Democrats have won two-thirds majorities in both houses of the state legislature: Liberal Democrats in California were already talking about new oil severance taxes, higher taxes on commercial real estate and the end of tax […]

Vietnam’s economy is quietly humming along. It has become a haven for manufacturing all around, and technology exports have become its largest source of export revenue, soaring by a staggering 91 percent in the first ten months of this year.The most important reason for this shift is one we’ve been noting for a long time: […]

Over the next few days, Via Meadia will be keeping track of the most significant ballot initiatives that passed or were defeated on Tuesday. One of the biggest was in California, where voters endorsed, by a margin of 54-46 percent, a $6 billion tax hike proposed by Governor Jerry Brown. The revenue will ostensibly be used to pay […]

The Telegraph reports: Syrian opposition groups were due to convene in the Qatari capital Doha on Thursday to appoint a new and supposedly more representative leadership. But on the eve of the conference three of the dissident bodies included in the US-backed initiative refused to attend, diplomats and opposition figures told the Daily Telegraph. “There […]

While New York City picked up the pieces following Hurricane Sandy last week, we argued that the hurricane laid bare the true failure of blue governance: The endless tinkering with bureaucratic regulations distracts the government from the large, important functions it needs to focus on. And we aren’t alone in this assessment. A new WSJ piece by William […]

The Indian Ocean will become the “heart” of Australian strategic planning, said Defense Minister Stephen Smith at the Asia-Pacific Chiefs of Defence Force Conference in Sydney yesterday. Smith also met Indian defense officials, proclaiming that India and Australia will jointly lead the development of a maritime security architecture in the Indian Ocean.Meanwhile, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper […]