Egyptian President Morsi backtracked on a decree he issued two weeks ago that gave him extraordinary powers and sparked a political crisis when protestors labeled Morsi a dictator and attacked the presidential palace. Those protestors are still defiant, despite Morsi’s capitulation, the Washington Post reports: The decree, which Morsi had said was necessary to move […]

After a decade of non-stop yammering about America’s inevitable and already far-advanced decline, the chattering classes (even in Europe and China) are beginning to reconsider. As the FT‘s Philip Stephens points out, the US is in pretty good shape if you look at its long-term outlook: The big reason for optimism is structural rather than cyclical. […]

Climate negotiators at the most recent conference on global warming were unable to reduce expectations fast enough to match the collapse of their agenda. As the NYT reports, they concluded the 18th Conference of the Parties by committing “to more ambitious — but unspecified — actions to reduce emissions of climate-altering gases.”The only real winners here […]

Earlier this week, West Point experienced a rare public controversy over religion. After unexpectedly dropping out only five months prior to graduation, former cadet Blake Page posted a lengthy essay at the Huffington Post explaining his decision, complaining of systematic discrimination and bigotry towards nonreligious cadets. Among his complaints are allegations of repeated harassment at the hands […]

Catalonia’s push for independence from Spain received some unexpected help this week: the Spanish minister of education proposed an attack on the system of Catalan-only instruction in core courses in the school curriculum. The FT reports: Under the current “immersion” programme used in Catalonia, all core subjects are taught in Catalan. Primary schoolchildren study Spanish for three […]

The European Central Bank has yet again cut its growth forecast for the Eurozone in 2013. Only three months ago the ECB told us growth would measure at least be a 0.5 percent—a meager rate of growth, to be sure, but still growth and not shrinkage. Under the new forecast, however, the Eurozone is expected […]

Are we witnessing the death of Obama’s “reset” policy? On Thursday the Senate passed the Magnitsky Act by an overwhelming majority. If Obama signs the bill, as most believe he will, sanctions will be placed on all Russian officials believed to be involved with the torture of Sergei Magnitsky. Naturally, this is unlikely to go over […]

In September we saw warnings that Syria’s Kurds could be drawn into the civil war if the conflict continued to drag on. These warnings are now coming true, as the New York Times reports that Kurds are getting more directly involved in fighting on the ground in Syria: Like the sectarian battles in Iraq after the American invasion, the […]

President Obama seems intent on riding his high speed rail idea to the end of the line. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood reaffirmed the Obama administration’s commitment to its marqee infrastructure project at a House Transportation Committee hearing Thursday. The Washington Post reports: Undaunted by the looming fiscal crisis, the Obama administration said Thursday that it […]

Here at Via Meadia we’ve been following America’s energy revolution with great interest, but the MSM isn’t doing enough to cover some of the political fallout. The shale gas bonanza has pitted President Obama’s economic instincts against his need to appeal to his environmentalist base. In an excellent new piece at the Daily Beast, Joel Kotkin […]