It’s not new. The Soviets funded the Communist Party of Italy, the 2nd biggest postwar, for a long time. According to the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, four out of the 28 European countries do not have any restrictions on foreign donations to political parties. They are Belgium, Denmark, Italy and the Netherlands. …
Author Archives: Richard Fernandez
Macron won’t talk trade with US unless it embraces climate change
French President Emmanuel Macron has already staked out his position on talks: Europe should not negotiate a trade deal with a country that is not part of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate. CNN Macron says that unless Trump signs up, the USA will have a competitive advantage over Europe. Trump must ‘wake up’ before …
Continue reading “Macron won’t talk trade with US unless it embraces climate change”
Pelosi to nix trade deal with UK if it has a border with the EU
But it’s the French who want the border to come with Brexit, hence Pelosi is essentially saying the UK should stay in the EU. She added: ‘First of all it is very hard to pass a trade bill in the Congress of the United States, so it’s no given anyway. ‘But if there were any …
Continue reading “Pelosi to nix trade deal with UK if it has a border with the EU”
Australian court finds sacking of climate critic unlawful
A Federal Court judge has ruled James Cook University acted unlawfully when it sacked physics professor Peter Ridd after he publicly criticised the institution and one of its star scientists over claims about the global warming impact on the Great Barrier Reef … Judge Vasta found that a clause in the university’s enterprise agreement, which …
Continue reading “Australian court finds sacking of climate critic unlawful”
How bad could the OPM hack be?
The Jack Ryan novel, True Faith and Allegiance, is a fictionalized account of just how destructive the OPM hack could be. The power of data fusion is amazing, especially when deployed against clueless persons who don’t even know what they’ve lost, or those determined to minimize the extent of what they’ve lost to avoid embarrassment. …
Coming back from near death
Moving a university from curtailing free speech on campus to protecting it is a momentous task. It often requires years of effort from students, professors, administrators, and public policy organizations… Taylor said the most difficult obstacle to overcome was administrative inertia rather than hostility or active resistance to change. James Martin Center
Andy McCarthy asks why Assange charges make no sense
Despite a dearth of evidence that he was complicit in Moscow’s hacking, President Trump was forced by the Justice Department and the FBI, urged on by congressional Democrats, to endure a two-year investigation and to govern under a cloud of suspicion that he was an agent of the Kremlin. Now we have Assange, as to …
Continue reading “Andy McCarthy asks why Assange charges make no sense”
New at the Belmont Club
Why Washington’s trust systems need an upgrade in the global world.
What about medicare for all and the Green New Deal?
Economic growth won’t last as the U.S. labors under the burden of growing entitlement programs and weakness around the world, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan told CNBC. The long-time central bank chief repeated his warnings about the weight that Social Security, Medicare and other programs are having on what have been otherwise solid gains …
Continue reading “What about medicare for all and the Green New Deal?”
Conservative sprayed on campus by protesters who did not want to be offended
Opposition to conservative political commentator Michael Knowles on the University of Missouri-Kansas City campus required the intervention of law enforcement after a protester attempted to squirt Knowles with an unidentified white substance. The Young Americans Foundation invited Knowles to the Kansas City campus on Thursday, where he delivered a lecture titled “Men are Not Women.” …
Continue reading “Conservative sprayed on campus by protesters who did not want to be offended”
Is Huawei a “foreign power” or “agent of a foreign power”?
The long-running debate over the relationship of Huawei to the Chinese government took an interesting and unexpected turn last week, as the Justice Department disclosed (in the context of the prosecution of Huawei and its CFO for bank fraud and sanctions-busting) that it had obtained orders under Title I of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, …
Continue reading “Is Huawei a “foreign power” or “agent of a foreign power”?”
Sanctuary cities
The Trump administration pressured the Department of Homeland Security to release immigrants detained at the southern border into so-called sanctuary cities in part to retaliate against Democrats who oppose President Donald Trump’s plans for a border wall, a source familiar with the discussions told CNN on Thursday. CNN
The Assange mystery
Podesta, Hillary, Trump, Seth Rich. The timing of Mr. Assange’s actions fueled suspicions. His June 2016 interview announcing the impending release of Democratic emails came three days after a meeting at Trump Tower in New York between Russians and senior Trump campaign officials — a meeting set up on the promise that the Russians would …
The spreading stain of FARA
Mueller’s investigation sets off a chain reaction. Will it go critical? WASHINGTON — In an indictment that seized the attention of the capital’s K Street lobbying corridor, Gregory B. Craig, a White House counsel in the Obama administration, was charged on Thursday with lying to the Justice Department and concealing information about work he did …
Assange arrested as Ecuador lifts protection
Does he have an insurance data dump. A Doomsday process? Gentlemen start your servers. “The MPS [Metropolitan Police Service] had a duty to execute the warrant, on behalf of Westminster magistrates court, and was invited into the embassy by the ambassador, following the Ecuadorian government’s withdrawal of asylum.” Guardian It had to end this way …
Continue reading “Assange arrested as Ecuador lifts protection”
News you can use
Men with beads and long hair have smaller testicles, scientists claim. Men with longer hair and beards may have smaller testicles than those who struggle to grow facial hair, a study claims. It found that humans, and more than one hundred other primates, face an evolutionary dilemma when it comes to their genitals. Teams from …
The army of the damned
With the country’s economy in meltdown, an estimated 300,000 fortune hunters have descended on this mineral-rich jungle area to earn a living pulling gold-flecked earth from makeshift mines. Their picks and shovels are helping to prop up the leftist government of President Nicolas Maduro. Since 2016, his administration has purchased 17 tonnes of the metal …
Carbon taxes to be imposed directly from Brussels
BERLIN (AP) — The European Union’s executive branch is proposing that individual member countries drop their right to veto decisions on energy taxes, a move that could facilitate the introduction of a carbon tax across the whole bloc. The EU’s energy commissioner, Miguel Arias Cañete, said Tuesday that no longer requiring unanimous votes would allow …
Continue reading “Carbon taxes to be imposed directly from Brussels”
Spying
On Wednesday, Attorney General William Barr insisted that intelligence agencies under former President Barack Obama spied on the Trump campaign during the 2016 election. He did not declare that this spying was illegal, but the spying is unsettling regardless. “I think spying on a political campaign is a big deal. It’s a big deal,” Barr …
Venezuela gradually dying from entropy
As Central Bank slowly shuts down Most of the bank’s 2,000 employees were sent home when the lights went off in Caracas on March 25 — and haven’t been able to return since, said the people on condition of anonymity. The emergency group has been working from a library with the help of water tanks, …