More Countries Rejecting Leftist Economic Policies 

“First, it was Italy. Then came Finland and Greece. Spain could be next,” says Suzanne Lynch, writing for Politico. “Across Europe, governments are shifting right. In some places, far-right leaders are taking power. In others, more traditional center-right parties are allying with the right-wing fringes once considered untouchable.”

It is hard to deny. In the last year alone, conservatives and even far-right political groups came to power in a surprising number of elections.

Here are two of the most recent upsets…

The Netherlands Swings Back Toward the Center Right 

Geert Wilders 

Geert Wilders has been the victim of numerous death threats and has had to move between safe houses for nearly two decades. In 2009, the British government denied him entry, citing a threat to “community harmony and therefore public security.” And yet, somehow, it looks like he’ll soon be the next Prime Minister of the Netherlands.

Three links to help you better understand him. Click here and here and here.

Javier Milei [

A Big Surprising Win in Argentina for Javier Milei, a Self-Described “Anarcho Capitalist” 

In the last several days, Argentinians have been talking about almost nothing but the surprise victory of president-elect Javier Milei, an outspoken, sort-of Libertarian, on Nov. 19. Click here.

Argentina, as you probably know, has had some severe economic challenges in the past several years, as inflation has skyrocketed, making most Argentinians less able to pay for the necessities of life.

We asked our partner in Argentina for his thoughts:

“Yes, this is… a great ‘revolution’ for Argentina to have a Libertarian president. [Our country was] heading towards Venezuela and, magically, this guy appeared, won the election, and now he wants to redirect the economy towards Singapore! It’s totally crazy. If it were a movie, I wouldn’t believe it….

“The transition is going to be very complicated. We expect more inflation and loss of the value of the peso in the short term. But in the medium term, if things go well, inflation would have to disappear and we would have to either have a strong currency or use the dollar directly. But we need around six months to one year to see results.

“In the meantime, there is a risk that he will not be able to implement the reforms, because politicians and the unions will play against him. And if that happens, we will be back to square one.”

Teaching: Why Experience Matters

Bill Browder in Moscow 

Bill Browder is an extremely successful entrepreneur that made his fortune in Russia and wrote a good book about it – Red Notice. (You can read my review of it here.)

TS sent me this clip of him addressing a class of Russian Studies majors at Oxford. Pay attention to the content of his statements, especially when he is answering questions. These are thoughts that have been developed and defined by experience. They are not the sort of pronouncements made by pundits whose knowledge of their subject matter comes from secondary sources.

Also note the way he responds to some of the comments and questions that could be dismissed as naïve. Note the humility of his phrasing and the generosity of his willingness to respect his students’ preexisting ideas and impressions.

Then ask yourself: How common is this today in academia? How often do college and graduate students have the opportunity to learn from people that have (what they like to call) “lived experience” in the subject matter they teach?

Getting a degree in a good private college in the US will put a student in serious debt. Like $100,000 to $200,000. Wouldn’t you feel better about spending that kind of money if you knew you were getting this level of wisdom?

Click here.

Hamas vs. Israeli Killing: Is There a Moral Equivalence?

I was going to write an argument on the moral equivalency of the Muslim killings versus the Israeli killings in the current conflict, a topic that’s been debated daily on the Internet since Hamas attacked and slaughtered Israeli citizens on Oct. 7.

I was going to say that, whereas I agree with something one of my colleagues wrote (“The grief a Palestine mother feels over the murder of her child is no greater or less than the grief that an Israeli mother feels about the murder of her child”), one cannot reasonably argue that the purposeful beheading of an infant in front of its mother is morally equivalent to the death of a child killed by an Israeli rocket that hits a nearby “military target” of some kind, even if the Israeli commander that gave the go-ahead to bomb that building knew that some number of non-combatants, including children, would be killed as “collateral damage.”

Further, I was going to posit that there is a difference (an important difference) between the morality of an individual’s actions and the morality of the actions of an organized group.

One of the differences is that organized groups often have beliefs, principles, and codes of conduct that are definitively stated in declarations, constitutions, mission statements, and the like. Using this moral compass, I don’t see any moral equivalency between Hamas’s position in this war and that of the State of Israel because Hamas’s stated belief is that Jews are, by the nature of their infidelity, sub-human. And that a good and virtuous Hamas Muslim is one that murders Jews in a holy effort to vanquish Israel and rid the world of Jews.

I was going to say that self-defense is as close as one can get to a “human right” that virtually every state, and even every religion, agrees on. That principle justifies Israeli’s retaliation for the attack, but it doesn’t give Israeli carte blanche to eradicate not just every Hamas soldier but every Palestinian man, woman, and child living in Gaza. And although there have been some reactionaries on social media taking that stance, the State of Israel has not. Quite the contrary. It is making a public effort (if only for its own sake) to try to reduce the “collateral damage” done to Palestinian non-combatants.

And finally, I was going to recount a few things I witnessed when I was living in Africa that made me understand, in a way I will never forget, that there is a great range in terms of human decency between some cultures and others. That at one end of that range there are cultures one could fairly describe as civilized, and at the other end cultures that can be justly described as barbaric.

That was going to be the thrust of my argument. But just before getting to it, I read the following essay in the WSJ about what Dostoevsky might say. It provides yet another layer of ethical complication in trying figure out what is or is not morally justified behavior in war.

Click here.

Where Do You Stand on America’s Involvement in the Israeli/Hamas War?

Republican lawmakers are largely united on aiding Israel, but divided over whether to help Ukraine, while Democrats largely agree on assisting Ukraine but are torn on supporting Israel. In this WSJ report, White House reporter Sabrina Siddiqui reviews the range of opinions on both sides of the aisle, as well as reports on results of polls asking the opinion of US voters. Click here.

More food for thought…

Here are several good essays from The Free Press that shed light on the moral and tactical complications of our involvement.

Here’s a think piece I found on Dan Gardner’s blog that cautions us against the urge to label those whose opinions on Hamas are starkly different from ours.

And here’s yet another view from one of my favorite independently minded Communists, Freddie deBoer.

“Did You Write That?” 

The Mysterious Math of Illegal Immigration

The COVID Pandemic Was Bad? You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet!

Kate Bingham 

Were you freaked out by the COVID-19 warnings and mandates? Did you trust Dr. Fauci? Were you angered by all the “fake news” suggesting that the “facts” issued from the WHO and the CDC were without merit? Did you feel virtuous in doing everything you possibly could to protect yourself, your family, and even the entire nation?

Was all that a great deal of fun for you?

If so, you are going to like what Kate Bingham, the former chair of the UK Vaccine Taskforce, is saying.

According to The Long Shot, a book she wrote about her experience fighting COVID 19, as well as interviews she’s given to promote the book, COVID-19 is small potatoes compared to the next pandemic that will soon be at your doorstep. I’m talking about “Disease X.” (I didn’t make that up.) It’s the name of a virus that she and others of her ilk (including Bill Gates) predict will break out in the near future. A virus 100 times worse than COVID-19.

“Imagine a virus as infectious as measles with the fatality rate of Ebola [67%],” she says. “Somewhere in the world, it’s replicating, and sooner or later, somebody will start feeling sick.”

Read more about it here.

Conspiracy Update: The Election Fixing Plan Is in Full Swing

I almost can’t believe they’ve made this move so blatantly and so soon.

I’m talking about the Biden administration’s recent announcement that it was going to grant “temporary legal status” to hundreds of thousands of “undocumented” Venezuelans that have entered the US since Biden and Harris opened the borders in 2020.

The purpose, they say, is to make these people “eligible to work.” Huh? What has that got to do with anything? Illegal immigrants have no problem finding work in the US, so long as they are willing to work as unskilled laborers. And even if finding work was a problem, what’s the rationale behind giving 300,000 to 400,000 Venezuelans work permits but not the other +/- 7 million undocumented immigrants that crossed our southern border during the same period. What’s wrong with Argentinians? Or Salvadorans? Or Haitians. Or Iranians, for that matter?

It makes no sense.

Unless you subscribe to the theory I’ve been pushing since they opened the border so widely: This isn’t about kids in cages. Nor is it about people legitimately seeking asylum. (At best, that represents less than 5% of those that cross the border.) This is about a plan hatched before Biden was elected to flush in 10+ million, mostly poorly educated, mostly Latin Americans into the US, make them legal, and get them voting during the 2024 election.

Click here.