NEWS: NATO's Stoltenberg Visits Pentagon, Meets With Austin to Discuss Alliance Future[_link]

— Department of Defense 🇺🇸 (@DeptofDefense) October 7, 2021

BREAKING NEWS:
The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize to Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov for their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace.#NobelPrize #NobelPeacePrize pic.twitter.com/KHeGG9YOTT

— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 8, 2021

Diary on Maria Ressa ...

Biggest Threat to Democracy Is Disinformation

Leaving the EU and UK biting the dust. As Hungary has a 15 year deal of sustainability, reliability at a reasonable cost. Two year delay of Nord Stream 2 as Europe and Germany live under the yoke of US Congress and the White House. German sovereignty a fiction?

Newspaper headlines: Warnings of a 'flu war' and 'new c-c-cold war' [_link]

— BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) October 7, 2021

Moscow's great new gas game: Russia will become a bigger player - but in a bigger market | Energy Post - July 17, 2014 |

... Seven days later Malaysia flight MH17 crashed in the Ukraine.

(*) Prof. Emeritus Oliver Boyd-Barrett, Ph.D

#Pologne | « La Pologne qui ne reconnaît plus la primauté du droit européen, c'est gravissime. » ⤵️⤵️@JJBourdin_RMC #BourdinDirect pic.twitter.com/rnJBFqUob2

— Clement Beaune (@CBeaune) October 8, 2021

Pologne : la remise en cause de la primauté du droit européen est « une attaque contre l'Union européenne », dénonce la France | Le Monde |

Oui: How to get rid of unwilling nations like Austria, Hungary and Poland.

I would rather write Hungary, Poland and Slovenia: these countries "strong men" are busy dismantling the legal and judiciary systems so that they cannot be voted out. This is not the case (yet?) in Austria, else S.Kurz would be well on his way to be chancellor for life.

The biggest danger to the EU is effectively the rise of illiberal regimes within the 27, and the extreme-right overall throughout the continent.

This is aggravated by the institutional weakness of the EU, requiring unanimity for many decisions, including taking serious protective measures against Hungary, Poland and Slovenia. Each EU member, including the smallest one, can veto and block most practical measures - yet another reasons not to add a number of feuding small Balkan states until this institutional issue is solved, if ever. (Disclosure: I'm a citizen of a "large" EU country - >60 millions)

As we could all see: Poland is covering for Hungary and vice-versa: this means the Article 7 is not getting anywhere.

Polexit talks are ludicrous: of course, the last thing Orbán and Kaczyński is to get out of the EU. Hungary & Poland are the largest net receivers in the EU budget. In practice, they plan to carve out their own private dictatorships within the EU, while being subsidized by the EU taxpayers for doing so; what's not to like?

Adding, that the PPE (Merkel led) has tolerated Orbán and his authoritarian practices way too long, making letting the problem grow even worse.

Ultimately, the EU may find some mechanisms to get around these limitations, but these might run afoul of the EU law, and the rule of law in the EU would end up damaged anyway. It will be a long and hard slog to get out of this, if we can make it.

BREAKING NEWS:
The 2021 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel has been awarded with one half to David Card and the other half jointly to Joshua D. Angrist and Guido W. Imbens.#NobelPrize pic.twitter.com/nkMjWai4Gn

— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 11, 2021

Canadian-born David Card among 3 winners of Nobel in economics | CBC News |

New @IMFNews research: Fossil fuel subsidies were $5.9 trillion in 2020, primarily reflecting undercharging for environmental costs. Efficient fuel pricing in 2025 will keep global warming to 1.5 degrees & prevent 0.9 million air pollution deaths. [_link]

— Gita Gopinath (@GitaGopinath) September 26, 2021

Be warned of the mighty Left and Antifa ... a decades long war of survival.

Bannon sets his eyes on Spain | ECFR - Oct. 24, 2018 |

Surprised to see US Republicans cozying up to the European far right? Don't be | The Guardian - Oct. 15, 2021 |

This weekend Texas senator Ted Cruz spoke about how "we all face the same challenges, including a bold and global left, that seeks to tear down cherished national and religious institutions". Nothing to see here, you might think - except that he was not addressing a local branch of the Republican party in Texas, or a conservative US media outlet. He was speaking on screen to an audience of thousands in Madrid, at a meeting of the Spanish far-right party Vox. It was one of many recent outreaches to the global far right by US rightwing figures, which seem to have increased since the ouster of Donald Trump.

Is the so-called "Populist International", so often foretold but never realized, finally taking shape? And will the US conservative movement play a leading role in it? Or is this more about domestic politics than global domination?

Unsurprisingly, given that the US conservative movement, like the Republican Party, covers a broad range of different shades of often far-right ideology, different people have spoken to different types of far-right groups. There are at least four major strands of far-right international networks in which US "conservatives" of all levels participate.

.... Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán. It was at the latter's invitation, at the bi-annual Budapest Demographic Summit in Budapest, that Mike Pence recently spoke, together with a broad variety of academics, church leaders and politicians from around the globe, including the French far-right maybe-presidential candidate Éric Zemmour.

Budapest has also been the new promised land for the second strand, the so-called "national conservatism" movement - the brainchild of the Israeli think-tanker Yoram Hazony.

Rise of Populism Based on Terror and Islamophobia