Dr. Drew Pinsky, one of America’s favorite TV doctors, recently appeared on FOX News and offered a very real psychological profile of the mental disease known as Trump Derangement Syndrome. TDS has…

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National Democrats are still reeling from their 2024 election loss as they have not found a way to effectively come up with a coherent vision for the country or counter President Trump, who currently enjoys a modest approval rating. The too-early polls show a wide-open race for the Democratic nomination, which is good news for Republicans in 2028, as Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, and Gavin Newsom are struggling to gauge enthusiasm. However, there is one California politician who is plotting a different way and generating excitement this summer: Congressman Ro Khanna (D-CA). Despite lacking national name recognition, the 48-year-old Congressman who represents California’s 17th district, notably Silicon Valley, is embarking on a media tour reminiscent of someone with presidential ambitions, as well as attending town halls in swing states and speaking candidly on foreign policy matters. One of the main differences between Khanna and AOC or Kamala Harris is his ability to work with Republicans and appeal specifically to the MAGA base. Unlike Kamala Harris, Ro Khanna is a genuine politician with a unique background. He was born in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, to legal immigrants from India and graduated from Yale Law School to become an intellectual property attorney before serving as an assistant secretary in the Department of Commerce under President Obama. His career in electoral politics began in 2014, when he challenged long-time incumbent Congressman Mike Honda for California’s 17th Congressional District and narrowly lost. However, he then ran against Honda again in 2016 and won. As a Congressman, Ro Khanna identifies as a “progressive capitalist” and is a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. He campaigned for Bernie Sanders in 2016 and co-chaired his 2020 presidential campaign. Despite his left-of-center politics, Khanna is a Silicon Valley Democrat and is well-versed in the tech industry, understanding the appeal of tech brothers on the right, such as Elon Musk and Peter Thiel. This approach has sometimes put him at odds with his party as he’s not afraid to call out Democrats when they are out of line. For instance, calling President Biden’s re-election campaign a “mistake” when an open primary would have been more suitable, given his advanced age, and criticizing minority leader Chuck Schumer for the position Democrats have put themselves in. The data indicate that Democrats lost in 2024 due to their lack of appeal and out-of-touch policy positions. Khanna believes Democrats should regain working-class voters and the best way to do that, he says, “We got to listen less to the sort of George Clooneys and Beyoncés and more to people in Lorraine and Johnstown and Milwaukee to build this party back.” One of the main differences between Khanna and AOC or Kamala Harris is his ability to work with Republicans and appeal specifically to the MAGA base. He’s against cancel culture and a prominent defender of free speech. The Twitter Files publication revealed his efforts to stop Twitter executives from censoring the New York Post’s coverage of the Hunter Biden laptop scandal, and he defended author J.K. Rowling when a San Francisco bookstore refused to sell her Harry Potter series due to her anti-transgender views. (RELATED: SF Book Banners Cast ‘Harry Potter’ Off the Shelves) In Congress, he’s worked with Congressman Thomas Massie of Kentucky to prevent the executive branch from using military force without congressional approval and even praised President Trump for wanting a peace deal with Iran and supporting aid in the Gaza Strip. Despite numerous disagreements with the President’s domestic agenda, he has found common ground by introducing legislation to nullify Trump’s executive order in law, aiming to lower prescription drug costs. As far as charm and political savviness go, Ro Khanna is not in the same league as Barack Obama or Bill Clinton. Still, he makes up for it by being a policy wonk for a middle-class economic agenda and is very well-spoken. Unlike most Democratic politicians, Khanna isn’t afraid to go on conservative media and defend his positions. His appeal to a broader audience has garnered the attention of conservative podcast host Megyn Kelly and Townhall columnist Kurt Schlichter, with whom Khanna has been a guest on both programs. His policy proposals, which focus on economic issues and working-class voters, set him apart from other Democratic politicians. Make no mistake; Ro Khanna is still a liberal Democrat congressman from California who is for abortion rights, tax increases for the wealthy, and the Green New Deal, as well as men in women’s sports. No conservative should vote for him under any circumstances. He’s not registering in any presidential polls, even in California, but he’s smart and shaping the Democrat Party to appeal to the same voters Trump and Vance did in 2024. The Democrat Party has no runaway frontrunner, and Khanna is preparing to take hold of that mantle. Republicans still have a deep bench of candidates, including JD Vance, Marco Rubio, Ron DeSantis, and Tom Cotton, and they will need to be prepared to counter his campaign message. The good news for Republicans is that 2028 is still a few years away, and they will remain the favorites to win as long as the country continues to perform well. In the meantime, Ro Khanna will need to work on eating corn dogs before the Iowa Caucus hits. READ MORE from Alex Adkins: Andor Is Star Wars at its Peak Wisconsin Is Now an Authoritarian State It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp (Especially If You’re Andrew Tate) The post %POSTLINK% appeared first on %BLOGLINK%.

A quiet crisis is consuming the world of literature, and no one seems to care. Male writers are vanishing — not by fluke or market whim, but by design, denial, and quiet cultural disdain. Fewer men are reading fiction, and fewer men are publishing novels. (RELATED: Male Novel Readers Are Not Fiction) Men are reading less because the literary world no longer offers them mirrors. This isn’t a lament for some patriarchal golden age, where men smoked pipes, quoted Hemingway, and felt vaguely superior just for owning hardcovers. It’s a warning. The decline of male engagement in literature isn’t just bad for men — it’s bad for culture. And if we don’t address it now, we risk losing something vital: not just voices, but a generation of men who no longer see reading — or writing — as something meant for them. Let’s deal with the facts first. Women dominate fiction readership by a mile. That’s been true for decades. But the gap is widening. Male fiction readership in the U.S. has dipped to just over 27 percent, according to a recent National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) report. Meanwhile, women write the majority of books, dominate publishing jobs, and, crucially, now account for the majority of literary agents — by a significant margin. In other words, there are fewer male literary agents — the gatekeepers — available to advocate for men’s work. If you think that doesn’t matter, you’ve never tried getting a book published. The agent isn’t just a middleman. They are the bouncer, the scout, the whisper in the editor’s ear. And when the agent class is overwhelmingly female, urban, progressive — and when the client wishlists emphasize gender, identity, diaspora, and “messy girl” narratives — well, don’t act surprised when rare, masculine writing struggles to find daylight. You want to write about war? Brotherhood? Male alienation? Good luck. Today, a manuscript featuring a confused young man trying to navigate modern masculinity is considered risky, potentially problematic, or worse — unmarketable. Never mind that millions of young men are starving for exactly that kind of story. This is a generation crying out for guidance, scanning the internet for someone — anyone — who seems to get it. But what they find instead is Andrew Tate in Aviators, barking clichés about Bugattis and “the matrix.” Imagine if, instead, they found literary giants offering them something deeper than hustle porn—something human. (RELATED: It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp (Especially If You’re Andrew Tate) Men are reading less because the literary world no longer offers them mirrors. And it’s not just novels. From fellowships to MFA programs to publishing internships, the male presence is fading. Open any announcement of literary grants or residencies: it’s a sea of “marginalized voices” — which, translated, often means anyone but white men. That’s not inclusion. That’s ideological curation masquerading as fairness. We’ve reached the point where aspiring male writers — unless they’re prepared to write like honorary members of the sensitivity committee — are leaving literature altogether. Some switch to Substack, some to podcasting, and some stop writing altogether. This matters. Because when you remove men from literature, you don’t just lose “white male stories.” You lose risk. You lose confrontation. You lose that unapologetic, unfiltered, contradictory energy that male writers, at their best, have always brought. You lose Hemingway. You lose Bukowski. You lose Palahniuk. (RELATED: Make America Literate Again) And the vacuum isn’t staying empty. Along with Tate types, it’s being filled by TikTok therapists, wellness influencers, and pathetic platitudes about “emotional labor.” That’s the new storytelling. The prose is clean. The stakes are gone. The chaos is edited out. Everything is quite literally run through a filter. The modern publishing world is terrified of discomfort, so it smothers everything in aestheticized trauma and curated moral clarity. It confuses narcissism with honesty and brands as genuine voices.  And that, frankly, is why male readers check out. They’re not fragile. They’re bored. They’re uninspired.  They want literature that punches, scrapes, grapples. That’s willing to offend. That doesn’t apologize for existing. And if publishers won’t give it to them, they’ll find it elsewhere. On Substack. On YouTube. In the margins. Or maybe, they won’t look at all. And then we lose something far bigger than market share — we lose the entire concept of the novel as a place to tell dangerous truths. This isn’t a call to completely swing the pendulum the other way. It’s a call to balance. If publishing can bend over backward for every emerging identity group, it can also carve out space for men who aren’t writing tepid trauma-core or gender-themed autofiction. Men who are simply telling stories — real, relatable stories. Because the alternative is already here: a generation of young men who don’t read, don’t write, and don’t believe literature has anything to say to them. And when that happens, don’t be surprised if they turn to louder voices. Cruder voices. Voices that tell them something, anything, even if it’s wrapped in rage, irony, or absolute nihilism. READ MORE from John Mac Ghlionn: Not Everyone Needs a Therapist. Some Just Need a Job. Digital Peeping Toms: The Perverts Building Your Dating Apps We Owe Brad Pitt an Apology. Seriously. The post %POSTLINK% appeared first on %BLOGLINK%.

Americans, on July 4th, celebrate the nation’s birthday, when the Continental Congress officially declared that the United States was no longer a British colony, but an independent country. It gained that independence, of course, during eight years of war and the signing of the Treaty of Paris on September 3, 1783. Eighty years after the Treaty of Paris, during another war, Union forces on July 4, 1863, accepted the surrender of a Confederate army at Vicksburg, Mississippi, thereby gaining complete control of the Mississippi River and effectively cutting the Confederacy in two. The previous day, Union forces at Gettysburg defeated Gen. Robert E. Lee’s invasion of the North. Gettysburg effectively ended the military threat to Washington, D.C., and other northern cities. Vicksburg set the stage for the Union’s ultimate victory in the Civil War. Its capture by Ulysses S. Grant’s army would mean Union control of the entire Mississippi River, which Lincoln called the “Father of Waters.” Vicksburg, historian David J. Eicher notes, was a naturally defensible position, located on a high bluff overlooking the Mississippi River’s east shore where the river “arced sharply eastward.” Its capture by Ulysses S. Grant’s army would mean Union control of the entire Mississippi River, which Lincoln called the “Father of Waters.” Gettysburg was a three-day ferocious battle. Vicksburg was a siege that lasted nearly two months from the middle of May to July 4, 1863. But the struggle to take Vicksburg began in the spring of 1862, after Union victories at Forts Henry and Donelson and Memphis in Tennessee, and New Orleans. Union General Ulysses S. Grant tried to take the Confederate stronghold by sea power in May-June 1862, by land from the north in December 1862, and by constructing a canal to divert the Mississippi River near Vicksburg in February-March 1863. All of those efforts failed to dislodge the Southerners from a place that President Abraham Lincoln believed was the “key” to winning the war. In late April 1863, Grant’s army crossed the Mississippi at Bruinsburg, clashed with Confederate forces at Jackson, the state capital, and engaged in battles at Champion Hill and Big Black River, resulting in Confederate forces under General John Pemberton retreating to defensive positions in fortifications at Vicksburg. Grant tried frontal assaults on Vicksburg between May 18 and May 22, but they, too, were unsuccessful. So Grant decided on a siege to take the city. Military historian T.A. Heathcote described the Confederate fortifications at Vicksburg as “earthworks spaced at roughly 200-yard intervals, each mounting artillery emplacements, strengthened with heavy timbers and protected by formidable ditches filled with stakes, wire entangelements and other obstacles … connected by lines of entrenchments and rifle-pits sited to cover the intervening ravines and command the routes into the city.” The defenses were oblong shaped running from Fort Hill located at the bend of the river north of the city to South Fort. Union forces included General William Tecumseh Sherman’s corps opposite the northern fortifications, General James McPherson’s corps along the center, and General John McClernand’s corps toward the south. Grant’s troops dug a series of trenches in zig-zag lines toward the Confederate positions, moving gradually closer as the days wore on. Heathcote notes that 75,000 troops and 220 guns made up the Union besieging force. Union warships also lobbed shells into the city. The bombardment caused much damage and suffering among Vicksburg’s residents. And both residents and Confederate troops suffered from a shortage of supplies, including food. Vicksburg’s starving population reportedly ate rats. Grant also had a mine dug under Confederate positions where soldiers placed more than 2,000 pounds of gunpowder. On June 25, the mine exploded, destroying a lightly manned Confederate redoubt. As the siege continued, Confederate fit-for-duty forces dwindled to about 11,000. Food was scarce. General Pemberton held a council of war on July 2 and decided to seek surrender terms. Grant demanded unconditional surrender but as later at Appomattox his terms were gracious, allowing Confederate soldiers to be paroled. On July 4, 1863, what was left of the Confederate garrison of Vicksburg marched out of the city. When Lincoln learned of the surrender at Vicksburg, he remarked: “The Father of Waters once more goes unvexed to the sea.” The Mississippi River from Minnesota to the Gulf belonged to the Union. READ MORE from Francis P. Sempa: The Largest, Deadliest Battle of the Civil War Occurred by Accident On Its Anniversary, Remember the Lessons of World War I The Mirage of Permanent Solutions in International Relations The post %POSTLINK% appeared first on %BLOGLINK%.

It was a brisk Tuesday afternoon when Danny Danon, Israel’s permanent representative to the United Nations, stepped into a Washington, D.C. conference room and fielded questions from reporters ahead of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s upcoming third trip to the United States, scheduled for Monday. Danon’s tone? Resolute and impatient with diplomatic euphemism, yet optimistic for the region. His target? Iran — plus the U.N., Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, European trade bureaucrats, and, occasionally, the complacency of the West. To a question about Israeli intelligence’s assessments of the U.S. strategic bombing of Iranian nuclear sites, Danon said: “We pushed them back. It’s too early to say by how much — whether a year or more — but we pushed them back.” He then added that the media tends to fixate on the nuclear aspect, suggesting that there is a point to be made about how Iran’s aim to ready “thousands of ballistic missiles” was comparable to a nuclear threat. In destroying sites relevant to these missiles, he assures the operation was incredibly successful. When asked how closely Israel cooperated with the U.S. leading up to the recent strikes, Danon replied: “We speak to our colleagues in DC all the time — before the attack, during the attack, and after the attack. I don’t think we got any commitments that they would join the effort [before Israel’s surprise strike earlier last month]. After we cleaned the area, it made it easier for the U.S. to send the B-2s and finish the job.” Note here that Danon suggests that the U.S. had not made commitments to join the military effort preceding Israel’s first attack, casting doubt on the claims that President Donald Trump’s administration’s initial calls for constraint were just a deception effort. The ambassador had choice words for Iran’s regional proxies as well. “The Houthis,” he warned, “were not much talked about a few years ago … What happened in Tehran will happen in Yemen.” Israel has “no interest” in tangling with the Yemeni militias, but it would, if forced. “I advise them not to test our resilience.” To a question about whether Israel would push for the US to use its bunker destroyers again, Danon provided no clear answers. Time will tell. When the subject turned to Gaza, Danon explained how dealing with that issue is far more complicated geopolitically, explaining that many of the European and Gulf actors that condemn Israel in Gaza, celebrate Israeli actions in Iran. “We don’t want to be there,” he said, flatly. “We don’t want to govern Gaza.” “The challenge is to govern Gaza without Hamas. Even when they are offered to leave — which they shouldn’t, they should die, go to prison — they don’t.” The ambassador also took aim at the U.N.’s failure to condemn Hamas’s October 7 attacks. “It is shameful,” he said. “The organization was created after the Holocaust … and yet it failed to pass a resolution condemning October 7.” As for the heavily criticized Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which some groups claim to be working directly with Israel in pursuit of military efforts, disguised as an aid delivery organization humanitarian aid into Gaza, Danon maintained Israel’s line: “We provide security [for the foundation], we do not control the entire area, we are involved in what happens inside the centers. We support the effort, we cooperate…” “Some colleagues in the U.N. Security Council are making ridiculous accusations … that GHF is weaponizing narcotics,” Danon continued, referring to accusations that GHF has dissolved opioids in some of the foods they deliver to Gazans. When Ireland’s recently announced trade restrictions on Israeli settlements and the EU’s general moodiness were brought up, Danon barely contained his exasperation. “The obsession over Israel,” he sighed, “is disturbing.” He did welcome, however, signs that snapback sanctions on Iran may be gaining favor again in Europe. In a rare moment of optimism, Danon predicted that more nations, including smaller ones, may soon join the Abraham Accords. “For 20 years we couldn’t speak about this,” he said. “Someone wanted to block it [Iran]. They succeeded. But soon, we’ll be right back where we were.” The notion that peace with the Arab world might resume even amid the Gaza war is, for Danon, not a contradiction. It is possible, especially when Iran is factored into the equation. Prime Minister Netanyahu is expected in Washington next week — a visit that will test the resilience of Israel–U.S. ties following a chaotic month of mixed messaging. Danon hinted at some of what’s on the agenda, including discussions over a ceasefire framework. “We are committed to ending the war and bringing the hostages back,” he said. But the ambassador was blunt about what won’t happen: Israel will not withdraw prematurely, not without hostages, not with Hamas in power. “We cannot move on,” he said. “We’re a peaceful country. But we still have the hostages.” READ MORE: Trump’s Iran Strikes Have Important Ramifications Trump’s Declawing of Iran Is Reshaping the Middle East Jimmy Carter’s Iran The post %POSTLINK% appeared first on %BLOGLINK%.

Since Donald Trump resumed the presidency in January, there has been a lot of talk about his bold, aggressive actions creating a constitutional crisis. Alas, those complaints ring hollow. They are decades too late, and most of those jabbering about such a crisis have themselves been chronic mutilators of the very Constitution they now suddenly pretend to care about. Let me be frank: I am a constitutional pessimist. Don’t get me wrong — I hold our Constitution in the highest regard; I revere it. It embodies the pinnacle of wisdom and enlightenment in a governing document. Nobody should blame the Constitution for our pathetic predicament of having a federal government that is $37 trillion in debt and leaders who can’t agree on an off-ramp for this fiscal insanity. For generations, too many Americans have lacked the moral integrity to honor the Constitution and abide by the limits on governmental mischief that it imposes. The fault is with “we the people,” not our Constitution. For generations, too many Americans have lacked the moral integrity to honor the Constitution and abide by the limits on governmental mischief that it imposes. The Constitution, as noble as it is, is not self-enforcing. It is simply a codification of principles and guidelines that are only as effective as American voters and politicians allow them to be. Years ago, I wrote that the Constitution had become more or less a dead letter due to the insidious notion that it is “a living, breathing document” that can accommodate every whim of avaricious special interests and craven politicians willing to sell themselves to the highest bidders. Among other evidence of the demise of the Constitution, I cited our acceptance of unconstitutional money; our rejection of the Tenth Amendment that was intended to keep the scope of government activity strictly limited; and the perversion of the “general welfare” clause, inverting its meaning from forbidding special interest politics to enshrining special interest politics as the new progressive modus operandi. Another problematic clause in the Constitution has been the commerce clause. One of the rationalizations that progressive Supreme Court justices used to justify Obamacare was that if a person does NOT buy a product, that affects interstate commerce. Translation: under this creative interpretation of the Constitution, everything is interstate commerce, and there is no limit to the federal government’s reach. Today, the Constitution is a hollowed-out husk. We honor it more in form than substance. The letter of the Constitution lingers — for example, we still elect a president every four years and members of Congress every two or six years. But the spirit, the soul, of the Constitution is long gone. One of our last constitutionally faithful presidents, Grover Cleveland, in a veto message, stated a great truth — a central pillar of our original constitutional order — when he wrote, “Though the people support the Government, the Government should not support the people.” Our Constitution was intended to protect the property rights of all citizens equally, without favor to the rich or the poor. Far from protecting the sacred right of property, today’s version of government systematically nullifies property rights, blithely taking property from some and giving it to others (in exchange for their votes and campaign contributions, of course). The everyday activity of the federal government is something that would be categorized as the crime of theft if practiced by private citizens. And now today we have people howling about an alleged constitutional crisis when Team Trump tries to claw back even the most egregious, nauseating examples of special interest profligacy. How ludicrous! If the Constitution had been consistently upheld over the decades, the spending some now want to cut never would have been allowed because such spending lies outside the short list of the constitutionally enumerated powers of the federal government. Indeed, if earlier generations of Americans had heeded the Constitution, there would be no Department of Agriculture, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, etc., etc. The Constitution does not say that a president can only expand the government’s scope, but not reduce it. Those who assert that it is unconstitutional for the president to cut spending have a blatant double standard: Why is it constitutional for a chief executive (like Biden) to order bureaucrats to take positive actions and issue more economic directives, but unconstitutional for another chief executive (at present, Trump) to order bureaucrats to cease and desist from actions that are wasteful or serve as a partisan piggybank? The Constitution does not say that a president can only expand the government’s scope, but not reduce it. This isn’t to imply that Trump is a great defender of the Constitution. For example, he totally defies the constitutional provision that setting the terms of international trade is the prerogative of Congress by threatening to massively discombobulate the global division of labor and myriad supply chains by unilaterally threatening to impose whatever tariff strikes his fancy on a particular day. While I understand that Trump feels he needs to act quickly and aggressively to succeed in shrinking even a small portion of the federal leviathan — a goal that I endorse — I worry that Trump may end up centralizing even more power in the presidency. Elements on the left today accuse Trump of being a wannabe dictator. As is so often the case with progressives, they project their own inner desires on their opponents. The real threat will be after Trump leaves office and a progressive ideologue occupies the White House. Picture the national debt finally triggering a financial cataclysm that shakes our republic to the core and precipitates an unprecedented national emergency. That would provide the expedient pretext for a progressive president to wield the newly expanded powers of the presidency in truly dictatorial ways. At that point, everyone will finally realize that our long-moribund Constitution is a dead letter and that the American experiment in freedom is over. I desperately hope that my analysis is wrong. Unless, however, there is a nationwide awakening — a constitutional revival — we Americans are going to have to go through some drastic post-constitutional upheavals. READ MORE from Mark Hendrikson: Skewed Reporting From Los Angeles Some Clarification About Tariffs The post %POSTLINK% appeared first on %BLOGLINK%.

Europe’s economy is buckling under the pressure of climate regulation. Now the European Commission has signaled it may gradually revise its targets. The industrial math in Germany is unforgiving. Electricity prices for industry are up to 300 percent higher than in the United States. Even France, with its nuclear-backed energy mix, faces double the industrial electricity costs compared to American competitors. The economic pain is reflected in the data. The Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) for the construction sector in the eurozone — an early indicator of economic sentiment — fell to 45.6 in May. The PMI for manufacturing dropped to 49.5 in June. Any figure below 50 signals contraction. The consequences are visible everywhere. Industry is pulling back, redirecting capital toward non-EU locations, leaving behind rusting industrial shells reminiscent of America’s Rust Belt. Unemployment is rising. Social tensions are becoming more visible and further intensified by uncontrolled poverty-driven migration. Unrealistic Targets The undeniable cause of this industrial exodus is the European Union’s climate targets. With an impenetrable web of regulations and a destructive CO₂ emissions trading scheme, Brussels aims to make the continent “climate neutral” by 2050 — that is, entirely CO₂-free. By 2040, it wants businesses and consumers to cut emissions by 90 percent compared to 1990 levels. Granted, if this course is followed, emissions in Europe will fall drastically in the coming decades, largely thanks to deindustrialization. Brussels will score a series of Pyrrhic victories. For context, between €30 and €90 billion in direct investment flows out of Germany every year. That’s a loud vote of no confidence in a policy detached from reality and tethered to an absolutist ideology incapable of processing criticism. The EU’s climate bureaucracy is playing with fire. A social crisis is brewing — its full scope still unimaginable. Desperate Signals Industry’s cries for help are at least reaching Brussels — but the gravity of the crisis is still not grasped. Today, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung published excerpts from a draft EU document that, for the first time, acknowledges economic distress. According to the draft, while the 90 percent reduction target for greenhouse gases by 2040 will remain, member states could offset up to three percent of that target via high-quality, U.N.-certified climate protection projects in non-EU countries starting in 2036. In theory, EU nations could channel development aid into forest protection or renewable energy projects abroad and count them toward domestic targets. Additionally, the EU is considering integrating long-term CO₂ removals — such as carbon capture and storage — into its emissions trading system, a move aligning with Germany’s preferences. But this plan isn’t finalized. The European Parliament and the Council must still approve it, and further revisions are likely, especially as several member states — particularly in Eastern Europe — push back against what they see as an unworkable agenda. Still No Touch of Reality With these minor concessions, the Commission is attempting to relieve some of the economic pressure. But how exactly investments in carbon projects in the subtropics are supposed to revive industrial job sites in Saxony or the Ruhr Valley remains Brussels’ secret. Criticism is also coming from top economists. Veronika Grimm, a member of Germany’s Council of Economic Experts, told the Süddeutsche Zeitung that technology development and international cooperation — not economic self-sabotage — are crucial in fighting climate change. She also cast doubt on whether Germany’s emissions reductions meaningfully affect the global climate. In truth, nothing is changing. Serious objections from national capitals are rare. The political fight revolves mostly around who gets what from the EU’s growing pile of subsidies. What Brussels is offering are cosmetic placebos designed to distract from the reality that it has quietly accepted the decline of Europe’s industrial core. But one thing is certain: bike paths in Paraguay and tree-planting in Ghana won’t save a single factory job in Bavaria. READ MORE from Thomas Kolbe: Milei’s Reform Agenda Is Bearing Fruit Battle for Free Speech: EU/Europe Deploys Its Artillery Carbon Tax and the Green Deal: The EU’s Climate Heist Is Underway The post %POSTLINK% appeared first on %BLOGLINK%.