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As we gear up for the most consequential elections in Poland since 1989, the situation on the ground after 8 years of the paranoid polarizing and no-holds-barred politics, forces all those concerned about the future, to ask where Poland is heading. On 14 October 2023, we must understand that POLEXIT is much more than a mere dispute over institutions, rule of law, judicial independence, etc. What is at stake now is incomparably greater. It is the defense of a certain way of life, values and belonging to a community of law and values, a civic Poland in Europe and Europe in civic Poland and finally of "Me and You" as part of Europe.

The FTX meltdown, "Operation Chokepoint 2.0," and a "crypto winter" have only strengthened the resolve of the enthusiasts Reason spoke with at the annual National Bitcoin Conference in Miami.

Plus: Abortion pill case, another fatal subway crime, China's Cultural Revolution, and more...

The ongoing rollback of Medicaid is a rare step to reverse the "ratcheting growth" of our social safety net.

Scott Lincicome


We often discuss how "Buy America" laws increase federal project costs by requiring pricier American‐​made materials, but from tiny Brookport, Illinois comes a humorous/​sad reminder that the protectionist law costs time and taxpayer money even when it's waived:
Brookport City Council approved an increase in the bid for the sewer project of $51,274.50 to Mid West Petroleum during its monthly meeting on Tuesday, July 11.
While the engineers were waiting for a waiver of the Build America, Buy America Act in Washington D.C., parts for the international pumps had increased in cost. The pumps chosen as the best equipment for the city's needs are not manufactured in the U.S., so a waiver was needed. The total awarded amount is now $1,760,424.50.
The approved construction loan for the sewer project passed last month was amended to add $714,000 because of construction overruns.

For more on Buy America laws (and why they should be repealed), check out my recent column on the subject.

With the approach of June's European Parliament elections, the grand coalition of the European People's Party (EPP), the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D), and Renew Europe faces a watershed moment. The EPP's recent ...

Der Staat unterstützt Dich finanziell beim Tanken. Das war zumindest der Plan des Tankrabatts der Bundesregierung. Steuersenkungen sollten zu sinkenden Preisen führen. Dieser Vorteil kam nur teilweise bei den VerbraucherInnen an. So wurde geschlussfolgert: "Das liegt doch an Preisabsprachen. Stärkt das Kartellamt!" Ist das sinnvoll? Als Reaktion auf steigende Ölpreise und den Unmut der BürgerInnen […]

The emerging culture war over the holiday is misguided. In reality, Juneteenth celebrates one of the greatest triumphs of America and its founding principles.

While the NYU Tulsa program will be relatively small to start, NYU will pilot a program that could promote viewpoint diversity for its undergraduates and may show critics of higher education that there remains real value in collegiate experiences.
The post NYU in Oklahoma? What a Great Idea appeared first on American Enterprise Institute - AEI.

 I spent part of last week in Kingston, which has been my Canadian home away from home.  It was far from my first KCIS, but the first one in a while thanks to the pandemic.  The Kingston Consortium on International Security is a product of a partnership between Queen's Centre for International and Defence Policy, NATO Defence College, the US Army War College's Strategic Studies Institute, and the Canadian Army. Thanks to Stéfanie von Hlatky, nearly all of these folks (not quite the Army) became CDSN partners with KCIS becoming part of the CDSN's efforts to build various bridges. These days, Stephanie Martel runs CIDP, and this was her first KCIS, and
she got a heap of assistance from Howard Coombs and the one consistent
actor in all of this-Maureen Bartram, who is CIDP's main staff person.KCIS was at a new location which had bulk candy!Each year, the partners pick a theme.  This year's was the unchanging nature of war with the Ukraine-Russia war hanging over most of the sessions, one way or another. Oh, and Clausewitz was cited a lot. The conference had a bunch of Canadian senior officers present, mostly army, and very few American officers, unlike the old days.  The panels focused on a variety of issues from human security to changes in hybrid warfare, to women, peace, and security in conflict zones, to a special panel of US AWC SSI folks zooming on to share their lessons from the Ukraine-Russia War, to technology and the new wars.  RAdm (ret) Patterson There were also some speeches with Q&A: Retired Rear Admiral Rebecca Patterson, now a Senator and guest on the Battle Rhythm podcast; Charlotte McGlade of the Canadian Red Cross; BG John Errington, Strategic Joint Staff, and CDS Wayne Eyre.  I was the moderator for the last one, so that is what I will discuss below.First, a caveat--people kept mentioning Chatham House Rule, so I am not sure what I can say.  The speeches are going to be streamed, but the Q&A was to be Chatham-ed.  Not sure how the moderated chat part of the talk is supposed to be discussed.  So, I will try to be vague, focusing mostly on my questions and less on Eyre's answers.  Not sure if that does the trick.  I will say that Eyre was engaging both before and after the talk, meeting with a variety of interested folks.  It is not my first chat with him as I first met him at a KCIS in 2019, that he was on the podcast in 2021, he contacted me about another BR podcast (he didn't recall that until I brought it up during our session), and we bumped into each other at a reception at the Korean Embassy in Ottawa. He knows me well enough that his Star Wars references in his talk (greatest teacher failure is) were aimed at me.So, I asked him:

mike fejes
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How is civil-military relations at
the top different than whatever you learned in your professional military
education? 

Which
barriers/challenges in recruitment/retention are the hardest to address?

How are you
thinking about the sustainability of the Latvia mission?

How do we know we
are making progress in culture change? 



What is the first thing you will tell your successor when
you hand things over? The civ-mil question led to Eyre discussing Eliot Cohen's book Supreme Command, which focuses on teh unequal dialogue between civilian leaders and the military--that both sides should be open and honest with each other, but that at the end of the day, after a decision is made by the civilians, it is the job of the military to carry on with the civilians' intent.  I am pretty sure his two immediate predecessors didn't read or heed this book.The recruitment/retention question led to some discussion of some of the successes, like allowing permanent citizens to join, and an acknowledgement that the traditional recruiting demo is getting smaller---white straight dudes like himself.  I don't want to misremember what Eyre said on culture change progress, but if I remember correctly, the sense of it was on whether retention improves, whether the folks in the force report that things are getting better.The successor question was most interesting as, well, Vance had reportedly tried to eliminate potential successors so that he could stay a long time, and that worked.  Eyre discussed how he is already training the cohort of possible replacements by giving them time with and exposure to folks like the Defence Minister, the Defence Committee, and the Prime Minister.  They will have far more experience with the key civilian actors (plus parliament) than Eyre had, as he famously had no handover--he just got a call to show up as Acting CDS and had to start doing the job immediately. And, yes, I had a good time while I was there.  The opening reception was a great chance to meet folks I had met at previous KCIS's and at other CDSN events as well as meet new folks. To the right are Aditi Malhotra, editor of Canadian Army Journal and a veteran of our Summer Institute, and Melissa Jennings, the CDSN Chief Operating Officer.  I got a chance to meet all kinds of interesting folks over the 2+ days. So, if you can get to a future KCIS, do so.  You learn a lot, you meet sharp people, and Kingston is lovely in the fall.  

Today, we present a guest post written by Jeffrey Frankel, Harpel Professor at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, and formerly a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers. A shorter version appeared at Project Syndicate. The author thanks Sohaib Nasim for research assistance. October 23, 2023 — Ten years ago this November, the 18th Central […]

A proposed EU regulation on methane emissions must be strengthened, not diluted, to address a planet on fire.

 

Hundreds
of millions of Indian citizens have begun to vote and they will keep doing it
for six weeks. Indian democratic elections are the most massive human
mobilizations in the world —more than any other election, war, pilgrimage,
migration movement, or world fair. There are more than one million polling
stations and even a team of elephants to carry voting machines to the Himalaya.
Unlike in many other democracies, electoral turnout in India is higher among
the poor than among the rich, among the less educated than among the graduates,
in the villages than in the cities. Since the last elections, five years ago,
women vote (a little) more than men.

The
success of democracy in India has dismissed the pessimistic auguries after the
independence and the first election in 1952. But India is not an isolated case.
Let's see the numbers. A little more than half of the world's population lives
in democracy. Let's consider that "rich" countries are those above the world
average per capita income (in purchasing power, around $ 18,000 per year), and
"poor" are those below that threshold. About half of the world population
living in democracy lives in relatively poor countries (including India, but
also Indonesia, South Africa, and others), while about half of the population
living in dictatorships lives in relatively rich countries (including China,
but also S. Arabia, Russia, and others).

Some
traditional sociologists have been puzzled by the India case because it does
not fit the classical doctrine that economic development must precede democracy:
from Seymour Lipset to Adam Przeworski, who has "repeatedly predict India as a
dictatorship" before 2030. Yet, India is not an exception or an anomaly. The
earliest modern democracies, such as Norway, Switzerland, the United Kingdom,
or the United States, had also enforced broad male suffrage for competitive
elections in the nineteenth century when they were fairly poor, as poor as
India was in the mid-twentieth century or as is now.

For
about forty years after independence, when the government was dominated by the
Indian National Congress party, initially led by Jawaharlal Nehru, the
centralized and closed Indian economy grew at an often-mocked annual rate of
1%. But since the early 1990s, when it has liberalized and opened to new
technologies and globalization, India has enjoyed significant benefits from
open trade and capital inflows. Against all expectations, the Indian per capita
income at purchasing power has multiplied by five in thirty years. Precisely
because India was late in adopting more sophisticated institutions and
policies, it has been able to adapt more readily to the global economy. In
contrast to developed countries with old technologies and onerous preexisting
social arrangements, India has not had to dismantle former industrial and
bureaucratic structures that might have obstructed innovation.

Consequently,
the Indian citizens declare to prefer democracy to an authoritarian regime in a
proportion of four to one. In the most recent international poll by the Pew
Research Center, 72% of Indian citizens declare to be satisfied with the way
democracy works in their country --only after Sweden and in contrast with, for
example, 33% in the United States. (Pew Research Center's Global Attitudes
& Trends, 2024).

The Congress
Party, always led by Nehru's descendants Gandhi family, and the current incumbent
People's Party (BJP) led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, have alternated in
government seven times. The electoral system is a copy of the colonial British
tradition of single-member districts by simple plurality rule, which permits a
party with less than 40% of votes to get an absolute majority of seats in the lower
chamber of parliament. Yet, while numerous minor parties run independently, the
two larger parties run in very broad electoral coalitions: in the current
election, the incumbent BJP has formed a National Democratic Alliance with 12 mostly
state-based or ethnic parties, while the opposition Congress is running in an
India National Development Inclusive Alliance (to fit the acronym INDIA) with
23 parties, including several on the far left. Their participation in federal
politics also works as a factor of Indian union.

After
the end of the Cold War, the old Indian foreign policy of "non-alignment" was
initially replaced with one of "strategic autonomy." India remains outside the
United Nations Security Council, despite having become a nuclear power, and
outside the Group of Seven despite being the fourth democratic economy in size.
Nevertheless, India has become more dynamic in supporting the democratization
of its neighboring countries in South Asia, which is still a poorly integrated
region. It is also the oldest and most stable democracy of the so-called BRICS
group, now enlarged to nine members, and it has recently increased its
relations and deals with the United States and the European Union in a world of
fluctuating international coalitions. From a global and historical perspective,
democracy in India is already one of the most remarkable contemporary achievements
of humankind.

 Also in Spanish and Catalan in La Vanguardia:https://www.lavanguardia.com/opinion/20240429/9605408/mayor-fiesta-democratica-mundo.html

Back in 2019, Uri Friedman wrote that we "find ourselves—as you will have heard in the corridors ...

Just published as part of the symposium on Media and Society After Technological Disruption, edited by Profs. Justin "Gus" Hurwitz & Kyle Langvardt.