“How do I see Election Day through Russian eyes? In Russia, we had a couple of elections in the 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union. At first, they were free and mostly fair. After Boris Yeltsin forced through a new constitution and invaded Chechnya, those elections were free but no longer fair. Anyone could run, and anyone could vote, but the playing field was tilted heavily in the government’s favor. Yet even this stunted democracy proved to be an aberration in Russian history. By the end of the decade, we fell back into our old habits. Every other freedom rests on the freedom to choose our leaders. That is why, in the early days of Vladimir’s Putin’s reign, I joined a broad-based opposition movement.” (11/03/26)
“Senegal’s National Assembly, which is dominated by the opposition, rejected a key budget bill Tuesday, a text that was seen as crucial to restoring public finances as the country finalises an IMF bailout. Senegal in September announced it had struck a $2.2-billion International Monetary Fund debt programme aimed at stabilising its public finances. But the IMF has yet to announce executive board approval and the bailout is subject to certain conditions. The country’s powerful Pastef party, which holds an overwhelming majority in parliament, has long made clear its rejection of the 2026 revised budget, which came before parliament Tuesday.” (11/03/26)
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Cláudia Ascensão Nunes
“On October 9, EU finance ministers reached a political agreement to move supervision of Europe’s largest cross-border trading venues and market infrastructure from national regulators to the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) in Paris. EU leaders want the package agreed by the end of the year. ‘Europe has the savings. Now it’s time to put them to work,’ said Ireland’s finance minister, Simon Harris, whose country holds the rotating Council presidency until the end of 2026. He meant the roughly €10 trillion that, according to the Council, European households keep in low-yield bank deposits. Brussels insists no one will be forced to move a single euro. Meanwhile, it is building an entire system to move that euro where it wants it to go. The plan raises a question about the legitimacy of a state that treats family savings as a resource it can exploit.” (11/03/26)
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Charles Hugh Smith
“The core dynamic of this era is the notion that controlling the narrative controls the world, as persuading the populace to believe something is true controls their convictions which then control their behaviors. Centralized powers discovered the potential for narrative control to control the world in the 20th century, as mass communications enabled centralized control of what is presented as true and important. Propaganda has an ugly tone, so now we say narrative control, which is of course a comically obvious propaganda technique. … But narrative control doesn’t actually control the world.” (11/03/26)
“Voting is only the beginning for those united against fascism. In fact, I expect our hardest days are still ahead—and we are going to need each other to get through them.” (11/03/26)
“NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory will re-enter our atmosphere around 3:30AM Eastern time tomorrow, November 4, according to the US Armed Forces’ predictions. The exact time could be different, as the prediction has an ‘uncertainty of 11 hours.’ But the 3,200-pound spacecraft is heading back to Earth for sure, 22 years after it launched and after the agency’s attempt to save it failed. … The agency ended Swift observatory’s operations in late October after it entered safe mode and prepared for re-entry.” (11/03/26)
“The philosophical throughline that intersects both justifying absolute support for Trump, and every Republican, and declaring absolute opposition to Trump, and every Republican, contains significant elements of civic decay and political discord, namely zero-sum political thinking and negative partisanship. Further, both perspectives are intellectually inconsistent, holding justifications for their positions that they only consider legitimate from their own perspectives and never from others. Both perspectives have suppressed the better angels of their nature in the name of the spirit of party.” (11/03/26)
