At Via Meadia we’ve been following the critical story of President Obama’s currently troubled relationship with the African-American portion of his base for some time.  Today Politico has a useful and comprehensive look at the situation.The President’s problem is a simple one: in the absence of an overall economic recovery, how can he keep enthusiasm […]

Christine Lagarde, the new IMF chief, is doing now what should have been done long ago: urging Europe’s governments to help its banks shore up their capital base to offset losses on their holdings of bad bonds from troubled European countries.  European banks, partly because misguided (and politically influenced) bank regulations favored government bonds, hold […]

A Pew poll out today shows an interesting trend in the attitudes of American Muslims toward various aspects of American society. The Washington Post has the story, and below are a few highlights: 43 percent of American Muslims view US counterterrorism efforts as sincere, up from 26 percent in 2007. Since 2007, more American Muslims […]

Today is the first day of the new school year at Via Meadia; I am heading tonight from the stately Mead manor in glamorous and giant-rat free Queens for whatever Tropical Storm Irene spared of the rustic Mead hideaway in the rolling hunt country of Dutchess County.  The grand strategy and American foreign policy courses […]

Some good news for Chinese miners and their families today is also good news about the growing importance of public opinion in that technically Communist country.From the VOA: Rescuers have pulled 22 Chinese coal miners from a flooded underground pit in north China where they were trapped for a week.Chinese news media reported the miners […]

The government of India announced this week that it “agreed in principle” to the anti-corruption plan put forward by Anna Hazare, a modern-day civil disobedience campaigner in the mode of Mahatma Gandhi.  Hazare’s  twelve-day fast gripped the imagination of everyone in India who follows politics and was the culmination of weeks of demonstrations against corruption […]

Prime Minister Erdogan announced yesterday that Turkey would reimburse religious minorities whose property was confiscated, destroyed or sold by the government since 1936. It is an important gesture by the Turkish government, which still has a long journey to make before coming to terms with minorities and Turkey’s turbulent history. The New York Times has […]

With Rick Perry the frontrunner for the Republican nomination, Democrats have been eager to paint the Texas governor as the second coming of his gubernatorial predecessor, George W. Bush. That is an attractive option for Dem strategists — but it is very unlikely to work. An insightful Washington Post piece describes how Perry has for […]

Want to get paid to do nothing? Go work for the US Postal Service. According to a new report and subsequent story in the Washington Post, in the first six months of 2011, the USPS paid $4.3 million in compensation to workers on “standby time” – work hours where, due to low mail volume, employees […]

Confused about national debt: how much we owe and to whom?  Try this short and clear John Steele Gordon’s piece in the WSJ today.Gordon writes: The total national debt of the United States is the sum of all federal bills, notes and bonds that have been issued by the Treasury and not yet redeemed. The […]