Negotiating from Weakness: The Plight of the European Union

To go to much effort to construct an economy on the scale of an empire only to refer instead to the economies within such a union, whether the E.U. or U.S. is to pay excessive homage to an ideology that can be termed Euroskeptic and anti-federalist, respectively. To refer to economies in one union and the economy in the other is just one means by which an ideology can distort a person’s reasoning and perception without the person being conscious of the underlying logical inconsistency. Such an inconsistency is incurred not only in “having it both ways” in the E.U. being a common market even as the states are referred to as economies even though many share a currency and thus a central bank, but also in referring to the federal system as if it were a mere “bloc,” or “network.”  In all of these cases of ideological word-games, the E.U. itself is minimized and thus implicitly marginalized from within. With Russia invading Ukraine and Israel eviscerating the Muslim residents of Gaza, self-marginalization for ideological purposes is indeed costly. Even referring to the federal official who is in charge of foreign policy as a “high representative” is implicitly denigrating and thus counter-productive to the E.U. being able to stand up to Putin and even Netanyahu in 2025.

The full essay is at "Negotiating from Weakness."

E.U. President Von der Leyen Survives A No-Confidence Vote

Falling short of the two-thirds majority needed to pass on July 10, 2025, the no-confidence vote on President Von der Leyen of the Commission in the E.U.’s parliament mustered only 175 representatives in favor while 360 voted against the motion and 18 abstained. Although commentators discussed whether the president was weakened anyway, a more important matter relates to the politics of the vote as distinct from the Parliament’s institutional interests as they relate to the Commission and the European Council. I contend that the Parliament, which represents E.U. citizens, has a vital interest that is vital to the E.U. itself in maintaining a balance between the collective power of the representatives of the citizenry and the power the state governments at the federal level. Parties making deals with Von der Leyen on policy positions undercut the vote as a means of holding the Commission to maintaining that balance.

The full essay is at "E.U. President Von der Leyen Survives A No-Confidence Vote."

Russia Benefits from Flawed E.U. Federalism

In the E.U., the 27 state governments are able to wield a veto on most important policy proposals in the European Council. Expecting unanimity where not even consensus is enough is so utterly unrealistic at 27 that it may be time to reconsider whether the E.U. can afford such an easy (and tempting) means by which state governors can exploit the E.U. by essentially holding it hostage. To be sure, like the filibuster in the U.S. Senate, the veto in the European Council represents the residual sovereignty that states in both unions enjoy, but extortion for financial gain by means of threatening or exercising a veto in the European Council (and the committees of the Council of the E.U.) suggests that the continued use of a veto by state governments is too problematic to be continued. Residual sovereignty can find adequate representation by qualified majority voting, which is closer the threshold needed to maintain a filibuster in the U.S. Senate. That the E.U. state of Slovakia maintained its veto on a proposed number of federal sanctions against Russia on July 9, 2025 when the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Russia had violated international law in invading Ukraine is a good indication that the veto had outlived its usefulness and was being used by governors for sordid purposes by using the E.U. rather than strengthening it in foreign affairs.

The full essay is at "Russia Benefits from Flawed E.U. Federalism."

Elon Musk’s Controversial Politics: Beyond the Financials

As U.S. President Trump signed his “Big Beautiful Bill” into law on July 4, 2025, Elon Musk, shareholder and CEO of Tesla, announced that he would create a new political party (or “group” in European-speak). Musk opposed the projected trillions of dollars that the bill would add to the debt held by the U.S. federal government, though, as CEO of SpaceX, he was fine with cutting a trillion dollars from Medicaid, which provides health coverage to the poorest of the poor, and from food assistance while the defense budget was augmented. Musk’s proposed “America” group would likely draw support from Trump’s “MAGA” base, rather than from moderate Republicans and any Democrats. Whether Musk was more motivated by breaking up the political duopoly of the two major parties, or groups, to increase the practical options for voters or to split Trump’s support and punish the Republican party, such controversial political involvement by a major shareholder CEO is without doubt risky business. This is not to say that CEO’s should not be active politically apart from business strategy, for even business managers are citizens and thus may feel compelled to become active politically. This is to be lauded especially if the motive is out of duty to repair or otherwise improve a political system.

The full essay is at "Elon Musk's Controversial Politics."

A Fortunate Man

Religion plays a prominent role in the film, Lykke-Per, or A Fortunate Man (2018). On the surface, Peter Sidenius, a young engineer, must navigate around an old, entrenched government bureaucrat to secure approval for his ambitious renewable-energy project. The two men clash, which reflects more general tension that exists everywhere between progressives and conservatives regarding economic, social, religious, and political change. Although pride may be the ruin of Peter and his project, the role played by religion is much greater than pride manifesting as arrogance, if indeed it is arrogant to stand up to abuse of power, whether by a government bureaucrat or one’s own father.

The full essay is at "A Fortunate Man."

Climate Change in Europe: On the Culpability of the Media

A report by the E.U. Copernicus Climate-Change Service in 2024 contains the finding that “Europe is the continent with the fastest-rising temperatures on Earth, having warmed twice as fast as the global average since the 1980s.”[1] In spite of “fastest-rising” and “twice as fast” are alarming expressions, no such corresponding sense of urgency had translated into a political will capable of pushing through game-changing legislation and regulations in the European Union. The short-term financial interests of industry, cost-conscious consumers, workers not wanting to be laid off, and taxpayers would pale in comparison were a sense of emergency to take hold the domain of politics. “Weak” states (i.e., governments) that are not willing or even able to resist short-term political pressures from an electorate exacerbate the problem even in the midst of climate change, which scientists decades earlier had predicted would really begin to move the needle on air-temperatures globally in the 2020s (and just wait until the oceans become saturated with CO₂!). You ain’t seen nothin yet may be the mantra for the 2030s.

The full essay is at "Climate Change in Europe."

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1. David O’Sullivan, “Firefighters Battle Wildfires in Greece and Turkey, Prompting Evacuations and Emergency Response,” Euronews.com, July 4, 2025.

Putting a State in Charge of the E.U.

If only Ukraine could become the 51^st member-state of the U.S., rather than the 28^th state of the E.U., given the veto of Viktor Orban of the E.U. state of Hungary on the E.U. annexing Ukraine. Besides the inherent problems that come with relying so much on the principle of unanimity in the European Council and the Council of the E.U., mislabeling the prime minister of the state that chairs the legislative committees known collectively as the Council of the E.U. as the E.U. president not only marginalizes the federal officials, including President Von der Leyen, who, as the head of the E.U.’s executive branch, can rightfully be considered as the president of the European Union. In contrast, government officials of a state chairing legislative committees can hardly be said to collectively be the “presidency” of the European Union. Behind the promotion of this fallacy is the anti-federalist, or Euroskeptic, political ideology that misconstrues the E.U. as merely a network of intergovernmental relations between the states.

The full essay is at "Putting a State in Charge of the E.U."

Don't Look Up

The film, Don’t Look Up, is a most interesting film not only for how it relates science to political economy, but also in that images of wildlife—Nature, as it were—are interspersed throughout the movie, and it is Nature, rather than our circumscribed, petty, and yet economically successful species, that continues on after a large comet hits Earth and our species is wiped out. In fact, that impact-event in the movie cancels out the one that really happened 66 million years ago by returning dinosaurs to dominance. The last scene in the movie shows some of the political and economic elite waking up in their spaceship and landing on Earth more than 200,000 years in the future only to be eaten by dinosaurs that look "cute." two of those stupid people had been in charge both in the White House and in business before the comet hits, whereas the two principal astronomer-scientists who warn of the coming comet are repeatedly relegated and dismissed by the political and economic elite until the president realizes how she can use them politically—albeit just until the political winds turn again and comet-denial is more useful politically to the president. Does this sound familiar?  

The full essay is at "Don't Look Up."

E.U. Flag Day

Both the E.U. and U.S. have their respective flag days during the month of June—on the 29^th and 14^th, respectively. This isn’t the only thing that the flags have in common, and what sets both off from the flags of the states. I contend that these similarities and difference regarding political symbols can function as markers for what both unions are as complex polities of polities even as ideologies seek to obfuscate and dissimilate, even dismissing or ignoring the history of both unions. In other words, flags don’t lie; people do.

The full essay is at "E.U. Flag Day."

The U.S. Supreme Court Clipping Judicial Overreach

The separation of powers that characterizes governments in the United States assumes that each branch will act to further its own interests, given the salience of self-interest (and self-preservation) in human nature. It is assumed that the checks and balances between legislative, judicial, and executive branches will keep any one branch from dominating the other two, and, moreover, the government itself from becoming tyrannical at the expense of the liberty of the citizenry. It is not assumed or relied upon that a branch will prune itself without external pressure from one of the other branches. Yet the U.S. Supreme Court may have done so in ruling on June 27, 2025 to limit “the ability of lower-court judges to block executive branch policies nationwide.”[1] I contend that any real wing-clipping by 6 of the 9 justices is illusory rather than indicative of the federal judiciary unilaterally restricting itself.

The full essay is at "The U.S. Supreme Court." 

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1. Abbie Vansickle, “Justices Put Limit on Judges’ Power, In Win for Trump,” The New York Times, June 28, 2025.

Bill Moyers: Pastor, Politician, Journalist

In a world in which higher education is increasingly thought as preparation for a profession, being multidisciplinary in college and especially in graduate school is decreasingly sought and valued by students at universities in the United States. Unlike in the E.U., where it is more common for the professional schools to be separate from universities given the difference between training and education—skills and knowledge—American universities make it institutionally possible for a person to get a MBA and MPA after a BA in liberal arts or a BS in natural science, or, less commonly, to get a MBA degree and a MDiv degree after having studied in the liberal arts and sciences. The MBA and LLB or JD has been a more popular combination, and I spoke once with a MPA student at Harvard who already had a MBA from Notre Dame and was considering a degree in law. I think the benefits vocationally from being multidisciplinary in one’s formal higher education (i.e., college and graduate school) tend to kick in only after a few decades after one’s final graduation. Perhaps only in retrospect does the traces of such an education reveal themselves in a person’s work-life. I contend that the political aide, pastor, and journalist, Bill Moyers, is an excellent example of how a multidisciplinary education can enrich a person’s career, which is not likely to stay “inside the lines” of one particular industry. This is not a bad thing.

The full essay is at "Bill Moyers."

The E.U. Stance on Tariffs: Pressure from the States

After the U.S. took the decision to impose reciprocal and car tariffs on the E.U., it did not take long for several of the E.U. states to pressure the federal executive branch, the European Commission, to punch holes in the E.U.’s counter-tariffs so favored industries in the E.U. would not face higher prices on supplies from the United States. As in U.S. states, E.U. states have their own dominant industries, whose financial interests it is only natural for government to protect, as jobs translate into votes. But pressuring the E.U.’s federal government to carve out exceptions for imports desired by favored industries at the state level, such as automobiles in the E.U. state of Germany, would deny the E.U. the full benefit of a united front that federalism can provide against other countries. For maximum leverage in trade negotiations, unilaterally removing counter-tariffs is not wise; it is like a person intentionally tripping over himself while trying to get to the grocery store. Given the regional pressures, trade is rightfully one of the enumerated powers, or exclusive competencies, of the E.U. rather than a shared competency or a power retained by the states.

The full essay is at The E.U. Stance. "

The Summer Solstice: Astronomy Is Not Meteorology

It boggles the mind that the same meteorologists who know that June, July, and August days are counted when calculations are made on the average temperature for summer nonetheless broadcast the summer solstice that falls three weeks into June as the first day of summer. To do so in the context of weather forecasts is nothing short of intellectually dishonest. To an unfortunate extent, those meteorologists may simply be following the herd of tradition at the expense of thinking for oneself. The human brain is suited for much more than a herd-animal mentality.

The full essay is at "The Summer Solstice."

The E.U. on Anti-Trust Enforcement: The Case of Google

On June 19, 2025, when the European Court of Justice, the E.U.’s supreme court, received a nonbinding opinion from the advocate general, Juliane Kokott, recommending that Google’s appeal against an anti-trust fine of €4 billion be dismissed by the court. The E.U.’s executive branch, the Commission, had found in 2018 that the company had “used the dominance of its mobile Android operating system to throttle competition and reduce consumer choice.”[1] I contend that the company’s written statement in response can be characterized as “stone-deaf” or oblivious to the issue at hand. Such is not an effective way of managing threats in the environment of business. Moreover, the response itself illustrates why governmental action on anti-trust on behalf of market competition is valid and necessary. I contend that the invisible-hand mechanism of a restored competitive market is more reliable than depending on managerial intentions even if they are to be based on motivation that is social-engineered from fines.

The full essay is at "The E.U. on Anti-Trust Enforcement."

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1. “Google Hits Setback in Bid to Overturn Multibillion EU Antitrust Fine in Android Case,” APnews.com, June 19, 2025.

American Federalism and Equal Protection: Transsexual Children in Tennessee

On June 18, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a Tennessee law blocking transsexual children from being able to undergo puberty-blockers and gender-changing surgeries does not violate the Equal Protection clause of the U.S. Constitution. The court’s 6-3 opinion in U.S. v. Skrmetti was reported at the time to fall “largely along conservative-liberal lines.”[1] By this is mean ideological lines, both moral and political in nature. Such is grist for the mill for the broad judgment of an electorate, in what is otherwise known as popular sovereignty, which is superior to governmental sovereignty in a republic. Add in the fact that Tennessee is a member-state in a federal system in which the U.S. Supreme Court is on the federal level, and the broad judgment of the electorate takes on more significance to the extent that a federal system of an empire-scale union is in part supposed to take into account and protect interstate ideological differences that defy one-size-fits-all union-level policies. In other words, as cultural heterogeneity can be expected in going from state to state in an empire-scale union-of-states, efforts “from the top” to impose a single policy on every state do not allow the federation to breath. Political pressure could be expected to build over time if such a suffocating tendency eventuates, with the risk of dissolution increasing over time as if depreciation.

The full essay is at "American Federalism and Equal Protection."

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1. Josh Gerstein, “Supreme Court Upholds Tennessee’s Ban on Gender-Affirming Care for Minors,” Politico.com, June 18, 2025.