Europe
March 25, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
G. Mennen “Soapy” Williams was the liberal governor of Michigan throughout the 1950s. In 1961, President Kennedy named him Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs. It seemed like a good fit for Williams, a longtime civil rights advocate. Williams generated controversy in his new job by declaring: “What we want for the Africans is what they want for themselves.” The press translated this as: “Africa for the Africans.” The
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January 26, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
I wrote here about the controversy over what to call the Balkan nation just north of Greece. The dispute has raged for decades — the northern neighbor calling itself “Macedonia” and Greece objecting to the use of that name, which has strong associations with Alexander the Great and his father, Phillip of Macedonia. Finally, a compromise was reached whereby the northern neighbor would be “North Macedonia.” It would make concessions
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January 21, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
There’s a longstanding controversy over what to call the Balkan nation just north of Greece. It calls itself Macedonia. However, Greece, which also includes a chunk of what historically was called Macedonia, has objected to assigning that name to another country, and a Slavic one at that. The dispute came to the fore following the breakup of Yugoslavia, of which “Macedonia” had been a part. An interim agreement in the
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October 16, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
The mainstream media has criticized President Trump’s reaction to reports that Saudi Arabia is responsible for the disappearance and probable death of Jamal Khashoggi. Trump has said he is waiting for more facts, clearly an appropriate position to take. He has also said that if the Saudis are responsible for killing Khashoggi the U.S. response will be “severe punishment.” From the media’s perspective, this statement seems unobjectionable. At the same
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October 2, 2018 — John Hinderaker
The battle between the people and insatiable self-proclaimed elites that rages here in the U.S. is, in some respects, uncannily duplicated in Europe. So this righteous rant by Mick Hume at Spiked resonates with American readers. A few newspapers, mostly tabloids like Britain’s Sun, have had the temerity to stand up to the EU’s power grab. Worse, many millions of Europeans agree with them. What is the solution? “Smart regulation.”
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July 11, 2018 — John Hinderaker
Get out the fainting couches! President Trump is in Europe, and once again he is saying the unsayable. The occasion is the NATO summit that began today in Brussels. Trump fired an opening salvo that included two themes, as reported by Bloomberg. The first is that Germany, in particular, undermines the alliance’s defenses against Russia by being too dependent on Russian natural gas: “It’s very sad when Germany makes a
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July 11, 2018 — Scott Johnson
The President of the European Council is one Donald Tusk. Tusk previously served as Prime Minister of Poland from 2007 to 2014 and was a co-founder and chairman of the Civic Platform political party. I concede that I don’t know much about him. I thought yesterday that he was entirely out of line with his comment on the resignation of Boris Johnson as Foreign Minister in the cabinet of British
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July 9, 2018 — Steven Hayward
German Chancellor Angela Merkel is hanging on by her fingernails in Germany right now, as the backlash against migrants reached a critical mass in recent weeks. The cabinet minister who confronted Merkel and forced immigration concessions, Horst Seehofer of the “conservative” CSU party based chiefly in Bavaria, has seen his own poll ratings collapse in the aftermath of the political crisis. But this is just as likely to be the
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July 1, 2018 — Steven Hayward
Forget, for the moment, our long-running “Civil War on the Left” series. That civil war is essentially over, and the radical “progressive” left has won. Notice how fast the left and the media is rushing to embrace their shiny new object, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the young (and presumably wise) Latina who knocked off the incumbent number four-ranked Democratic House member Joseph Crowley (who, admittedly, I had never heard of before last
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June 10, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
President Trump has urged that Russia be readmitted to what is now the G-7. He stated: Something happened a while ago where Russia is no longer in. I think it would be good to have Russia back in. Whatever was it that happened “a while ago” that caused Russia to be kicked out of the G-7? I remember. Russia annexed Crimea. How long a while ago did Russia do that?
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May 30, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
Hungary, under Prime Minister Viktor Orban, has become the bete noir of the American and European intellectual left. Its “illiberal democracy” (Orban is in office because two-thirds of Hungary’s electorate backed him) is the logical extension, they say, of the dangerous right-wing populism of Donald Trump, the Brexit movement, and so forth. “Populist” though it may be, Orban’s Hungary is arguably the safest place in Europe for Jews (100,000 of
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May 29, 2018 — Steven Hayward
I thought I was suitably harsh about the magnitude and meaning of the Italian crisis in my post last night, but then I read the Wall Street Journal‘s editorial about it this morning: The President has now handed the populists more evidence that the elites don’t trust the Italian people. Mr. Mattarella has asked former International Monetary Fund official Carlo Cottarelli to form a government, but he’s unlikely to win
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May 28, 2018 — Steven Hayward
The media and the left (but I repeat myself) are in a tizzy that democracy in America is in imminent risk of being snuffed out, because Trump is at least Mussolini, if not Hitler. This is plainly ridiculous. As has been pointed out, Hitler would have gotten The Wall built and repealed Obamacare. Still, the Washington Post trumpets their self-regarding slogan, “Democracy Dies in Darkness,” while there is a flood
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May 20, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
The Washington Post reports that European leaders are vexed with President Trump. Sorely vexed. Our European partners feel that Trump “delight[s] in smashing transatlantic bonds.” The situation is so dire that, according to Josef Janning of the European Council on Foreign Relations, the post-World War ties that provided the basis for Western strength and peace for 70-plus years are probably gone forever. The end of the Trump presidency won’t restore
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May 17, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
There are a number of ways. Here’s one: If people living in the country want to be on a government’s enemies list, the government is not authoritarian. No one within the jurisdiction of an authoritarian government wants to be on its enemies list. Being on such a list isn’t healthy. One can easily end up in jail, go missing, or even be assassinated. Under non-authoritarian governments, being on an enemies
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March 6, 2018 — Steven Hayward
Italy is known for severe earthquakes from time to time, and as Paul noted yesterday, Italy’s voters just delivered an 8.0 magnitude political earthquake. As the dust settles, it is clear this was no mere minor swing in the vote. Henry Olsen (our podcast guest last week discussing populism in Europe) notes today: Italy had every reason to change course. Its economy has been stagnant for years. Neither centre-right nor
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March 5, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
“Italians registered their dismay with the European political establishment on Sunday, handing a majority of votes in a national election to hard-right and populist forces that ran a campaign fueled by anti-immigrant anger. The election. . .was widely seen as a bellwether of the strength of populists on the continent and how far they might advance into the mainstream. The answer was far, very far.” So reports the New York
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