Europe
September 15, 2020 — Scott Johnson
A reader kindly forwarded the September 8 Viral Issue Crucial Update posted on YouTube by Ivor Cummins. I have found the video both entertaining and instructive. Indeed, even though I have lost my sense of humor on the subject, I found Cummins’s understated contrarian take on the epidemic hugely entertaining. Focusing on COVID-19 in Europe, Cummins places the relevant data “in context,” as they say. I asked my friend and
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September 14, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
Some are touting Sweden as a success story, relatively speaking, when it comes to dealing with the Wuhan coronavirus. For example, this story in the British press claims that “Sweden got the last laugh on coronavirus.” Unfortunately, Sweden’s high number of per capita fatalities attributed to the virus is no laughing matter. Per capita fatalities number 578 per one million people. That’s comparable to the U.S., the UK, and Italy,
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September 9, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
The Trump administration has helped broker a deal between Serbia and Kosovo, two former arch-enemies that were part of the former Yugoslavia. The agreement is receiving scant attention from the mainstream media for reasons I’ll address below. However, it’s an important deal — more so, I think, than the agreement between Israel and the UAE, which mostly ratified existing realities. The main significance of the Serbia-Kosovo agreement is its potential
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July 28, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
Not everywhere in Europe. Germany, Italy, and the UK seem to doing fine right now. However, it’s a different story in Spain, France, and Belgium. Let’s start with Spain. Throughout June, reported new cases were about 500 per day. Daily deaths attributed to the virus were practically nil, if one believes the data. (The numbers cited herein come from Worldometer.) Now, in late July, reported new cases are about 2,000
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May 20, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
The Wuhan coronavirus is waning in Europe. A month ago, new reported cases in Italy were running at about 3,500 per day, down from a peak of around 6,000. Now, they are averaging around 800. A month ago, Italy was averaging around 500 reported deaths from the virus per day, down from a peak of more than 800. Now, the daily average is around 150. Moreover, the number of reported
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April 6, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
Italy is reporting some progress in its fight against the Wuhan coronrvirus, and yesterday (April 5), Spain had its best day in a while. However, in Germany, the UK, and France, the daily numbers are getting worse. Yesterday, Italy reported 525 deaths from the virus. A week ago, the daily death rate was around 800. As I have previously reported, the number of new reported cases seems to have leveled
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January 21, 2020 — John Hinderaker
As Scott wrote earlier today, President Trump is in Davos, Switzerland, for a meeting of…whom, exactly? The Western world’s elites, I guess. Scott quoted the section of Trump’s speech that rejected the environmental catastrophism that we have all put up with for decades. News accounts have focused mostly on Trump’s supposed duel with a Swedish teenager, but that was a small portion of his speech, which was rather brilliant and
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January 21, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
The Washington Post reports that Norway’s prime minister has lost her parliamentary majority because one of the parties in her coalition withdrew in protest over the repatriation of a suspected ISIS member from a Syrian camp. The Prime Minister, Erna Solberg of the Conservative Party, says she will try to govern with a minority coalition. The party in question is the Progress Party which the Post describes as “right wing.”
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January 7, 2020 — Steven Hayward
Ask a climatista who is the leader in climate action in Europe and you’re likely to get a word salad about Germany’s energiewende (“energy revolution”), which has seen the Fourth Reich spend something like $1 trillion Euros on “green” energy over the last 25 years. Worth mentioning in passing that when I visited Germany on an energy junket as a guest of the German government in 2008, every expert we
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November 20, 2019 — Steven Hayward
Let’s take in a few headlines from the last few days, starting with the New York Times: COPENHAGEN — More than 60 years of hassle-free travel from Sweden to Denmark has ended after the Danish authorities, struggling to quell a wave of bombings blamed on Swedish gangs, introduced passport checks for the first time since the 1950s. The measures put in place on Tuesday are temporary and will be applied
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September 3, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
I don’t mind that French president Emmanuel Macron met with Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif last month, although it did bother me that the meeting occurred while the G-7 summit was in progress and President Trump was still in France. But what really aggravates me is the warm reception Zarif received in Europe from various public figures. Mina Bai of the Gatestone Institute has the details. In Sweden: After
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August 17, 2019 — Steven Hayward
It is amusing to watch the reaction to Trump floating the idea of the U.S. buying Greenland. It’s not like we have never done such a thing before (i.e., Louisiana, Alaska), and while there were arguably constitutional defects with those acquisitions (especially Louisiana), just watch as Trump-hating liberals who ordinarily say our Constitution should be as “flexible” as Gumby and as “alive” as a mold suddenly become strict constructionists again.
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June 13, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
During an interview last year, President Trump and Tucker Carlson had this exchange: CARLSON: Membership in NATO obligates the members to defend any other member who has been attacked. So let’s say Montenegro, which joined last year, is attacked: Why should my son go to Montenegro to defend it from attack? Why is that? TRUMP: I understand what you’re saying. . .but that’s the way it was set up. .
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May 26, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
The Washington Post reports that “Europeans [have] dealt a blow to the continent’s traditional center-left and center-right politicians in elections for the European Parliament. . .depriving them of a majority for the first time.” It was a high-turnout election, with the highest participation level in 25 years. The Post says that voters used the elections to “take a shot at the parties that have steered Europe’s consensus-driven policies for decades.”
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May 25, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
Anne Applebaum of the Washington Post is probably the leading American defender of “the Europe of Brussels,” the antithesis of “the Europe of Nations.” She’s also one of President Trump’s harshest critics. That makes sense. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks the truth when he says that “President Trump has helped put the world back on track to a nation-first trajectory.” In her latest column, Applebaum describes a lunch meeting
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May 24, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
John Fonte is probably the leading American critic of what he calls “the Europe of Brussels.” Thus, his is a voice worth listening to in connection with the European parliamentary elections now being held. John discusses what’s at stake in these elections in an article for “American Greatness” called “The Virtues of Patriotism.” The election, says John, represents a “war of ideas between the ‘Europe of Nations’ and the ‘Europe
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May 23, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
Voting in the European Parliament elections begins today. It will continue into the weekend. As I understand it, different countries vote on different days. The “populist” parties are expected to make their best-ever showing. I wrote about this development here. In that post, I suggested that if the populists make the gains they are expected to, they will fall far short of making up a majority in Parliament, but will
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