U.S. President Trump Pressures the G7 to Release Oil Reserves

Is democracy more susceptible to being run by large corporations or to mob-rule? I contend that the police and military power of the U.S. eviscerates the risk of a mob of people making much headway against a government. That same power can be used by American governments to enforce policies that are in the financial interests of companies. In fact, some retail companies hire weaponized police employees to enforce not only municipal law (against shoplifting), but also company policies, as if they constituted law and therefore legitimate a police response rather than action by a security guard. To be sure, even security guards act sometimes as if they were police officers, and too many consumers fall for the presumptive ploy to intimidate. Security-guard companies even uniform their respective employees to look like police, even SWAT, officers, as if impersonating a police officer were not a crime. In terms of the American political economy, elected representatives of the American governments looked the other way in whether to invoke anti-trust law to break up large American companies even as gasoline and food prices soared—in the case of food, from 2020 when the pandemic enabled grocery stores to price-gouge, and in the case of gasoline, especially in 2026 when Iran was choking off the Strait of Hormuz. Those representatives as well as the media companies were silent on not only the need for market competition in consolidated industries, but also the excessive power of large corporations—even multi-national corporations, which are not loyal to any country—over elected representatives and their respective appointees. In too many cases, the companies being regulated actually write the law for Congressional committees—an obvious conflict of interest. Meanwhile, the American voters are typically titillated by superficial matters, essentially tricked, as if being oriented to symptoms were crucial to voting. The tricks can include ploys even by a sitting U.S. president to make the economy look better just before an election.

The full essay is at "U.S. President Trump Pressures the G7."

Misalignment of U.S. Fiscal Policy and the Federal Debt

In September, 2026, U.S. President Trump announced his intent to have the U.S. Government send $5000 to every American, which would cost that government about a trillion dollars, in the event that Trump’s Republican group retains control of the U.S. House and U.S. Senate in 2027 after the upcoming “midterm” election. The attempt to sway the electorates to vote for Republican federal representatives and senators paid no heed to the $40.2 trillion debt of the U.S. Government. Even characterizing the proposed payments as “dividends” ignored the fact that the money would have to be paid for, either by federal taxes, tariffs, or issuing more Treasury bonds (i.e., federal debt). It was not as if the payments would go out from money that the government already had. Such electioneering so misaligned from prudent fiscal policy amid such a high public debt raises the question of whether a government “of the People” can govern responsibly rather than merely in line with instant gratification.

The full essay is at "Misalignment of U.S. Fiscal Policy and the Federal Debt."

The U.S. Federal Debt Hits $40 Trillion

The U.S. GNP in 2025 had been $30.77 trillion (nominal). Even though that represents a real growth rate of 2.1 percent, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, the total dollar-amount of economic output of the bloc was almost $10 trillion lower than the total federal debt, and this does not count the respective debts of the member-states. In fiscal year 2025, the net-interest paid on the federal debt amounted to $970 billion, which translates into nearly 20 percent of the federal government’s revenue and exceeded the $917 billion in defense spending. The milestone of $40 trillion in federal debt, reached on August 19, 2026, can thus be put into perspective at the federal level of government. It is no wonder that Europeans had been raising concerns regarding the issuance of federal debt by which the E.U. could aid Ukraine militarily.

The full essay is at "The U.S. Federal Debt Hits $40 Trillion."

The E.U.: A Political Union

Strong’s The Antifederalist is a series of essays critical of the American federal system in which governmental sovereignty is “dual,” meaning that both the Union and the member-states have at least some such sovereignty that the other cannot abolish or override. Had more credence been paid to the arguments in that text, perhaps the state governments would have more power at the federal level to protect their retained sovereignty from federal encroachment. The drafting of the E.U. paid more heed to those arguments in terms of safeguarding state sovereignty by considerable direct involvement of state officials at the federal level. Even so, Euroskeptics have warned of a centralized state in the process, and the U.S. has furnished them with an actual instance of a nearly consolidated empire-scale federal system. The warnings may thus be valid even with the additional safeguards that the E.U. has but the U.S. lacks, at least as of 2026, but claims that the E.U. does not have a federal system and is not a political union of states ring hollow as they are utterly false. So too, but the way, is the mislabeling of the E.U. as a bloc. The E.U.’s parliament alone knocks out all three of these ideological claims.

The full essay is at "The E.U.: A Political Union."

The E.U. and U.S.: Equal Partners

In 2026, even though the U.S. had 50 member-states and the E.U. had only 27 states, both unions were large enough to constitute what in historical terms, with the European early-modern rather than (the smaller) medieval kingdoms in mind, empire-scale republics. As long as elected representatives hold office at the federal level in both political unions, both unions can be said to be republics (as well as containing republics—or, as Ken Wheare wrote in Federal Government, “wheels within a larger wheel”). Were either union to have only five or so states, the empire definition would not be satisfied. Also, that definition includes the requirement of cultural heterogeneity between (as distinct from within) the states. Being on the same (empire) scale is just one of several ways in which the two unions belong to the same political type. It was in this respect rather than based on the sheer number of states that Sophie Wilmes, vice-president of the European Parliament, said that the U.S. should not regard the E.U. as a little sister (i.e., a junior partner). I contend that she was correct.

The full essay is at "The E.U. and U.S."

Congressional Subpoenas: The Case of the Clintons

The rule of law is absolutely essential to a representative democracy being able to endure even as strong personalities in public office may seek to bend or even dismiss law for their own purposes. The notion that anyone subject to law gets a pass according to one’s own discretion and power is toxic to a republic being regarded as fair. Just as everyone has a right to due process in legal proceedings in the U.S., no one is above the law there. This applies to former presidents and secretaries of state, and thus to Bill and Hillary Clinton. Their written statement in refusing to recognize a Congressional subpoena as valid—a presumptuous stunt to be sure—reveals that they held the presumption of being able to decide whether a law to which they were subject was valid. This presumption could also be seen when Bill Clinton occupied the White House, for he deliberately lied under oath, “I did not have sexual relations with” Monika Lewinski even though she had performed oral sex with him in the Oval Office when she was a White House intern. My point is that the underlying pattern is clear with respect to a lack of regard for law itself (even though both Clintons went to Yale’s law school) and the presumption of setting oneself in the position of invalidating law to which one is subject. That Bill Clinton was no punished with incarceration in the 1990s was unfortunate even for him and his wife as they were not afforded the opportunity to learn a lesson.

The full essay is at "Congressional Subpoenas."

On University “Police Departments”: Accountability at Yale

Whereas in the E.U., universities do not have their own private police departments because the state governments hold the police power, the situation in the U.S. has devolved from such democratic accountability such that even small colleges (and even hospitals!) typically have their own “police departments.” This presents the unwitting American public with a potentially problem of conflict of interest: in disputes between a college or university administration, which is not democratically elected, and stakeholders, including students and the general public, the organizational police forces take orders from one side. This is especially problematic in cases, such as at Yale, in which the organizational police employees patrol off campus—off the university’s own “territory”—and arrest people who are unaffiliated with Yale and have not even been on the campus. Such a usurpation of the prerogative of the city of New Haven comes with the loss of democratic accountability.

The full essay is at "On University 'Police Departments'."

The E.U.: A Political Union

As if having elected representatives and political parties in the European Parliament were not enough evidence that the E.U. has been a political union all along, the distinctly political role of the E.U. with regard to Ukraine amid the Russian invasion renders the E.U. political not merely institutionally in regard to representative democracy, which is a political rather than an economic system. Also, that the European Commission has exclusive competency on trade does not eclipse the union’s distinctly political activity. That the E.U. agreed to move forward informally with Ukraine’s accession request even though the state of Hungary was formally vetoing the accession demonstrates a political function or role of the European Union.

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

Is Europe in Civilizational Decline?

Does the E.U. itself instantiate a decline in European civilization? So says a National Security Strategy for the United States released by the Trump administration in December, 2025. That report also claims that migration to Europe was in the process of causing European nations to face “civilizational erasure.” That is to say, the European nation-state was by the end of 2025 facing existential threats due to the E.U. and migration. The report also highlights the loss of democracy in Europe, due both to the E.U. usurping the governmental sovereignty of the states and the clamping down on voices on the right in Europe. I contend that the report contains a sufficient number of fallacies that it can reasonably be dismissed as bias ideology under the subterfuge of national security.

The full essay is at "Is Europe in Civilizational Decline?"

Wealth and Ethics in American Fiscal Policy

In a struggle between wealth and ethics, practically speaking the former tends overwhelmingly to win hands down, even if the form of government is at least nominally a representative democracy, but in fact an oligarchy or plutocracy. The influence of the moneyed interest both in the E.U. and U.S. is likely much stronger than most of the respective citizenries know. When the poorest of the poor are to be made worse off financially by cuts in certain government programs while defense contractor companies stand to get more, which tends to mean higher bonuses for executives (and campaign contributions for elected representatives), the skew toward the gilded and away from the most vulnerable economically can be viewed as an x-ray of sorts indicative of rule by wealth rather than by the People. U.S. President Trump’s fiscal budget enacted in 2025 is a case in point by which the questionable morality of the plutocracy or oligopoly form of government can be gleaned.

 

The full essay is at "Wealth and Ethics in American Fiscal Policy."

Texas Overreaching

With enough Democratic members of the Texas House of Representatives staying in Illinois and New York as of August 3, 2025 that the legislative chamber could not reach a quorum and thus be able to hold a vote on a Congressional redistricting plan that could gain the Republic Party five more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, Greg Abbot, who at the time was Texas’ head of state and head of the executive branch, was considering various options to bring the lawmakers back. That only one of those options was legal points to the importance of the rule of law being applied to government officials.

The full essay is at "Texas Overreaching."

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.

Political and Economic Elites

I submit that in virtually every political party, a distinction can be made between the “rank and file” and the political elite. Kamala Harris may have lost to Donald Trump in the 2024 U.S. federal-presidential race in part because Harris had not spoken out enough on economic issues amid soaring inflation on groceries and rents to gain traction with Democratic and Independent voters who had had enough of the “woke” ideological agenda, which includes, for example, moral pressure and even demands that people announce their “pronouns” before speaking. Although President Biden had initiated some anti-trust judicial action, the industry-oligopoly of meat producers, for example, was left untouched. So too were the mega-grocery-store chains. Kroger was later found to have spiked egg and milk prices above the increased costs with impunity, yet Harris did not suggest that the Sherman or Clayton anti-trust acts should be taken out of the garage for spin on the American judicial highways that connect the rank-and-file party-members to party elites mainly in New England, New York, and California. I contend that U.S. Senator Bernie Sander’s anti-oligopoly speeches in conservative Congressional districts gained such numbers in 2025 precisely because the Democratic Party’s elite had lost touch with the party’s “rank and file” voters on economic issues.[1]

The full essay is at "Political and Economic Elites."

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1. An oligopoly is an industry in which a few companies dominate. An oligopoly is between a monopoly and a competitive market. Prices on products can be higher than necessary, the surplus revenue going to profits. Sellers are price-takers rather than price-setters in a competitive market, whereas companies in an oligopolistic industry have sufficient market-power to set prices because consumers have few choices.

E.U. Statehood for Canada: Not So Fast

Even as the federal president of the U.S., Donald Trump, campaigned in 2024 in part on Canada becoming a member of the U.S., statehood in the E.U. was being discussed in 2025 on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Besides being perhaps a knee-jerk political reaction against Trump, the prospect of Canada becoming an E.U. state faced a few major hurdles—one of which being the E.U.’s Basic (aka constitutional) Law. Accordingly, working instead toward a closer trading relationship was a more realistic route.

The full essay is at "E.U. Statehood for Canada."

Democracy Breached: Georgia Unfit for E.U. Statehood

On December 14, 2024, Mikheil Kavelashvili became the president of Georgia, further cementing the Georgian Dream Party’s grip on power at the expense of the sovereign state’s accession as a semi-sovereign E.U. state. From the standpoint of representative democracy, what a contrast with the U.S. state of Georgia. The Georgian Dream Party implicitly conflated the qualitative difference between the U.S. and state-scale polities by misappropriating the term, Electoral College, which elects the U.S. President. There is a reason why that College does not apply at the state level, yet in its haste to consolidate power in 2017, the Georgian Dream Party replaced direct presidential elections with an Electoral College, which the party could control. Sure enough, Kavelashvili was the only candidate in 2024, and he got the votes of 224 of the 225 electors who were present for the vote.

The full essay is at "Democracy Breached."

Electing a U.S. President: What Is a Landslide?

A landslide electoral victory in representative democracy is typically limited to the criterion of the extent of the vote-spread between candidates for a given office. In regard to the U.S. presidency, the Electoral College presents an alternative criterion, especially as a significant difference in votes in the College may not be reflected in the popular vote. Although that vote is by member state, the totals from all of the states are typically used to assess whether a landslide has occurred and thus whether the winning candidate has a political mandate to implement campaign promises. Whether a landslide or not, winning an election legitimates a candidate implementing the platform on which a candidate has campaigned. So whether a candidate for U.S. president has a landslide has typically been over-emphasized by American journalists, as if not having a large spread in the popular vote—even if such a spread exists in the Electoral College vote (which is the vote that really matters in the election of a U.S. president)—means that the winner has no prerogative to enact one’s agenda. I contend that even under the assumption that an electoral landslide is important, there are alternative ways of assessing whether a landslide has occurred.

The full essay is at "Electing a U.S. President."

Journalism Goes Only So Far in Empire-Scale Democracy

A news story only goes so far; only so much “digging” is possible against a pressing deadline. Moreover, we humans are not particularly good at “connecting the dots” when they are far afield. Through natural selection in an environment in which humans were prey as well as hunters, we are still “hard-wired” to privilege the immediate. So it takes more than a bit of effort to counter this natural predilection in order to make a truly informed judgment that takes into account the relevant tributaries. One such judgment concerns the impact of U.S. President Joe Biden’s age on his fitness to serve a second term.

The full essay is at "Journalism Goes Only So Far."

Nominating and Electing the President of the E.U.'s Commission

Before the office of president of the European Commission can be elected by the European Parliament by a simple majority, the European Council must nominate a candidate. The nomination is by qualified majority vote, in that at least 55% of the states must be in favor and the combined population of the states voting yes must be at least 65% of the total population of the European Union. Were any state represented in the Council to have a veto (i.e., unanimity being required), the infeasibility alone of getting a candidate nominated would be astounding and prohibitive for the Union and especially its executive branch, the Commission. Just imagine if every sitting state governor in the U.S. meeting as the Senate (which represents the states) had to sign off on a candidate for that union’s executive-branch president before the House of Representatives (which represents citizens) could elect the candidate by a simple majority! From this comparison, we might wonder whether the European Council should be tasked with nominating two candidates, whom the representatives in the Parliament would then vote on in electing the president of Union’s executive branch. After all, there is more than one candidate when the U.S. House of Representatives votes (by member state!) to elect the president if no candidate receives a majority of the votes of the states’ electoral colleges. Indeed, the E.U. is not the only federal union in which states have a significant role in electing the head of the (federal) executive branch. I contend that the members of parliament should have a choice of more than one candidate when voting for the president of the E.U.’s executive branch. This is as of June, 2024, when the European Council was busy coming up with a nominee; being able to present two nominees to the Parliament would have made the Council’s job easier and the Parliament’s voting more democratic.

The full essay is at "Nominating the President of the Commission."

On the Role of Agribusiness in Global Warming

Agriculture is a major source of carbon and methane emissions, which in turn are responsible for the general trend of the warming of the planet’s atmosphere and oceans. In fact, agriculture emits more than all of the cars on the roads. 10 percent of the emissions carbon dioxide and methane in the U.S. come from the agricultural sector. Livestock is the biggest source of methane. Cows, for example, emit methane. Methane from a number or sources, including the thawing permafrost, accounted for 30 percent of global warming in 2023. As global population has grown exponentially since the early 1900s, herds of livestock at farms have expanded, at least in the U.S., due to the increasing demand.[1] We are biological animals, and we too must eat. More people means that more food is needed, and the agricultural lobby in the U.S. is not about to let the governments require every resident to become a vegetarian. Indeed, the economic and political power of the large agribusinesses in the U.S. have effectively staved off federal and state regulations regarding emissions. It comes down to population, capitalism, and plutocracy warping democracy.

The full essay is at "On the Role of Agribusiness in Global Warming."

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1. Georgina Gustin, “Climate Change and Agriculture,” Yale University, February 22, 2024.

We the People: Invigorating Popular Sovereignty by Referendi

A republic is characterized by the citizenry electing representatives, who in turn legislate (i.e., make law). As an alternative, the citizenry itself could vote directly on legislative proposals. The latter is called direct democracy. Ancient Athens, for example, practiced it. In the United States, the republic form is the prevalent form of government.  In spite of Wilson’s comment made in the constitutional convention that representation “is made necessary only because it is impossible for the people to act collectively,”[1] direct democracy has typically limited to an occasional “referendum” question even though more vital questions could be put to the body politic directly. 

The full essay is at "Invigorating Popular Sovereignty."

1,  James Madison, Notes in the Federal Convention of 1787. New York: Norton, 1987, p. 74.