I have mainly heard this tired lie used by Putin, and more generally in Russian discourse. See also “Russia doesn’t start wars, but it ends them.” For example the famous version from Russia’s 2014 seizure of Crimea: 1/3

Show runner: guys, he can either be descended from King David through his father, or he can be the immaculately conceived son of God. I don’t even care anymore, just pick one

The line was supposedly that working-class Americans had been screwed over by liberals who spent their taxes on defending Europe and regime change in the Mideast, and MAGA would instead use that money to benefit Americans?

This story is a front-line version of “Dead Souls”: a savage and corrupt economy of blood for rubles. “Soldiers describe the front lines as a marketplace where everything has a price: drones, medals, home leave and life itself.” economist.com/europe/2026/...

Hegseth just fired the Army Chief Gen Randy George. Immediately. Gen George the most competent and experienced combat leaders I have ever encountered. Courage. Integrity. Takes care of soldiers. A government of gangsters.

Why the Army Chief of Staff got fired: "George recently asked to meet with Hegseth to discuss Hegseth's blocking of promotions for some Army officers, which seemed to focus on women and Black men, but Hegseth refused to meet or discuss his decisions, according to two additional U.S. officials."

KAL's cartoon in The Economist this week

Americans act super macho until they try to eat European licorice

🔥 Farage roasted by 🇺🇸 Rep Jamie Raskin “How he shows his face in public after Brexit debacle is beyond …Isn’t that considered a disaster in history? I cannot imagine a society that produced some of greatest writers, poets and musicians… falling for a free speech imposter and charlatan like that.”

I wrote this week about the possibility that Viktor Orban, the political genius who synthesized populist nationalism and competitive authoritarianism into the perfect 21st-century system of autocratic control, might actually lose Hungary's election on April 12. 1/2 www.economist.com/briefing/202...

It would be catastrophically unwise for the rest of NATO to treat the US as a meaningful collective security partner while the Trump administration is in office. It's a nightmare scenario for Europe but it's where we are, as Europeans have increasingly recognised.

Trump has the highest disapproval of all time on inflation, higher than Biden, higher than Carter. Inflation is currently 2.4%. Look, I don't feel bad for Trump. But we are experiencing a complete breakdown of the political information system.

This is my favorite climate change chart. Japanese monks, aristocrats, and emperors kept meticulous records of cherry blossom festivals for 1,200 years and accidentally built the world's longest climate dataset.

Wagner turned antisemitic because his music was deeply Jewish and he couldn’t stand it open.spotify.com/track/6314ze...

Happy Passover everyone!

Critics: Rooster is lots of fun, about as challenging as a warm-- Me: ROOSTER IS A WORK OF UNIMPEACHABLE GENIUS

Get rich to acquire political power, use political power to get rich. What is this “integrity” of which you speak giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/... Pete Hegseth’s broker looked to buy defence fund before Iran attack

Thinking you’re apolitical is like thinking you “don’t have an accent”—it just means you haven’t thought about it very much.

I may be an idiot but I don’t understand why “inflation in 2025” is not just CPI on 31/12/2025 vs CPI on 31/12/2024. I understand people calculate the avg of the rate in each month in 2025 but I don’t understand why anyone would want that stat rather than the simple total increase in prices.

What kind of sick country would turn against immigrants who have followed all the rules?

Cards: detected

Did you know that Comrade Stalin was also the world’s greatest brain surgeon

Wat vinden wij van de slogan “Laat ons godverdomme onze werk doen” voor het kabinet in de volgende provinciale verkiezingen

Writing on Hungary, distilling the main lesson: there are a lot of fellow citizens whose opinions on crucial issues you think are utter garbage, but who you will have to cooperate with in order to keep your country a democracy. Without which having opinions on issues becomes pointless.

The killingly apposite Vietnam analogy, drawn by @rogermcshane.bsky.social. "Some around the Pentagon have reportedly begun calling [Hegseth] 'Dumb McNamara'"

💥Not how one wants to be featured in the @nytimes.com, but I’m glad a US audience sees what’s happening in this small country’s wild election campaign. As with other Orbán-related news, here's my warning to US colleagues: Orbán's actions still serve as a blueprint for Trump/MAGA.

This is a huge loss for Dutch journalism.

The Dutch Labor and GreenLeft parties had already fused for the past election. Now they’ve picked a new name: Progressive Netherlands (PRO). The word “left” barely appears in their “start document”. www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2026/...

Is it really exculpatory to say that the fake quotes and bogus anecdotes in your book were not ChatGPT, you wrote them yourself

Realism vs. Reality

America has thrown away its role and will never have an empire

Short piece from me on the SPD's electoral disaster and its leader's decent reform pitch yesterday.

Or possibly Tagine: Trump again gives Iran new extension www.nytimes.com/live/2026/03...

Even the Hungarians are saying it

La photo immortalise l'échappée belle de trois soldats ukrainiens d'une position dans le secteur de Kostyantinivka. Ils y sont restés pendant 224 jours, sous le feu et les assauts ennemis, ravitaillés par drones. Ce n'est qu'hier qu'ils ont enfin eu l'occasion de s'en échapper.

www.ft.com/content/c4c1... We must not underestimate the peril for democracy

Just went to a Tisza rally of thousands in Hódmezővásárhely, a town of 45,000 near the Serbian border. Peter Magyar’s fourth rally that day. It’s a swing district: current MP is Janos Lazar, the Fidesz transport minister, but the mayor is Peter Marki-Zay, the oppo PM candidate in 2022.

This By Invitation by Ulrike Malmendier is great. Europe’s choice: Grow, or become a vassal economist.com/by-invitatio... from The Economist

If you think the con men will successfully talk the rubes into buying at inflated prices, the smart move is to buy as well since you expect prices to rise. The problem is the existential angst about whether you are thus one of the rubes. But introspection was only invented 400 yrs ago, so

LOVED READING THIS 🧵

In the saga of Amsterdam student real estate, my son and a friend had found an apartment as of April, but the owner just canceled after a lawyer told them the city’s student-contract category is only available to 2 students both moving in from outside Amsterdam. Owner will probably sell instead.

Important interview (many of Kövesi's comments could be applied to the rule of law field) Europe’s chief prosecutor told Euractiv "the most exhausting and wearing part of her job was fighting the EU’s institutional tendency to soften, delay, and bureaucratise the fight against fraud and corruption"

President Trump has a habit of initiating conflict, escalating it wildly, then - when things spin out of control - backing down with nothing gained. That's what happened with Iran over the past weekend and with China in April 2025. The art of the non-deal... robinjbrooks.substack.com/p/is-this-wh...

Could it be the reason young men are having so much trouble dating is that they all have mustaches

BREAKING: Just five minutes before Trump's announcement to halt the attacks on Iran, massive trades hit the market. $1.5 billion in S&P 500 (ES) futures was bought while $192 million in oil (CL) futures was sold. These orders were 4–6x larger than anything else. They made huge gains. Unusual.

BROWDER: Lifting sanctions on Russia and Iran makes no sense. I’m a financial specialist — I’ve never seen anything so senseless. Two evil regimes, Russia and Iran, are now getting more money for their oil. Something must be going on behind the scenes. Somebody’s benefiting.

Reporting is like running. If you haven't done it for a while it takes a whole mental shift to get back into it. Then once you're into it you feel like you could just keep going forever.

The election in Slovenia is presented as a setback for Robert Golob who barely came first and will have a hard time forming a coalition, but relative to expectations, after populist-right Janez Jansa had led in polls for ages, it looks like a win. Black Cube scandal took a toll

This is really extremely far away from Ukraine

An American kestrel perches on an "IMPORTANT BIRD AREA" sign in the Montrose Beach Dunes.