On December 10, 2020, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey announced a $15 million donation for a policy pilot across several American cities. About seven months earlier, America’s economy had cratered amid the Covid pandemic, leaving behind a workforce desperate for funds. …
Will Biden be the next Carter?
On the face of it, Joseph Biden Jr and James Carter Jr ruled over two Americas, their terms separated by six administrations and more than four decades. Their futures, too, could not seem more divergent: today, as America’s 46th President …
Will America win from de-dollarisation?
The most important element in the debate over the utility of Western sanctions against Russia, is also the most ignored. The sanctions regime mostly comprises of restrictions that have been deployed before, such as export bans and the freezing of …
America’s empire is bankrupt
Let’s start with the basics. Roughly 5% of the human race currently live in the United States of America. That very small fraction of humanity, until quite recently, enjoyed about a third of the world’s energy resources and manufactured products …
The GOP is fighting the wrong culture war
The Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade’s guarantee of a right to abortion, marked the triumph of a decades-long conservative legal crusade. Close to a year later, however, and Dobbs has …
The media is spreading bad trans science
Do people with severe depression have a right to accurate information about antidepressants? I suspect most people would answer “yes”. There is a general understanding that individuals who suffer from medical conditions are in a vulnerable position, making them susceptible …
Does Europe need to split?
Emmanuel Macron’s call for Europe to reduce its dependency on the United States and develop its own “strategic autonomy” caused a transatlantic tantrum. The Atlanticist establishment, in the US as much as in Europe, responded in a typically unrestrained fashion …
The real scandal behind the Pentagon leak
A friend of mine landed himself in serious trouble after reading a Pentagon report on a plane: the passenger alongside him, another US Defense Department bureaucrat, reported him for reading a “classified” document in public. Yet like a great many …
The pantomime of pardoning witches
On the surface, there was nothing extraordinary about the lives of John and Joan Carrington. He was a carpenter in his late forties with a small estate, mostly eaten up by debts, in the town of Wethersfield in Connecticut. She …
Miami’s crypto dream lives on
When a charging bull statue was unveiled at a Miami cryptocurrency conference last April, it was supposed to be a futuristic homage to the Wall Street beast. which represents financial might. The unnerving tribute, based on Transformers robots and paid …
Joe Biden’s Irish fantasy
At the end of a winding country lane on the shores of Lough Allen in County Leitrim sits a beautiful little cemetery, seemingly all alone in the world. I discovered it while looking for the resting place of my grandad’s …
Private armies are making a killing
Last week, Russia claimed to have seized control of the city of Bakhmut after an eight-month battle with Ukrainian forces — the longest and bloodiest fight of the war so far. The assault, however, wasn’t led by the Russian Armed …
The naked persecution of Donald Trump
The legal system, though constituted under the rubric of Justice, can only be an agglomeration of human beings. That is, the foolish, the misguided, the self-interested, the careerist and the idealist — the same admixture found in you and me.…
Post-Trumpism could save America
Just as Elizabeth I would have been disheartened to learn that she had lived during the Age of Shakespeare, I am sure that no living US president, from Jimmy Carter to Joe Biden, wants to be a footnote to Donald …
The fall of America’s benevolent empire
Exactly 75 years ago, the foundation stone of the transatlantic relationship was laid. After the Marshall Plan was signed into law by President Harry S. Truman, the US would go on to send billions of dollars in economic assistance to …