Transnational Bodies

Justice Alito Warns of Danger to Free Speech and Religious Liberty

November 16, 2020

In his address at the virtually held Federalist Society’s Annual National Lawyers Convention, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito refers to the Covid crisis as « a constitutional stress test », warning of dangers to free speech and religious liberty.
U.S.M.C. to Focus on Anti-Submarine Warfare

November 09, 2020

General David Berger, the Commandant of the United States Marine Corps, lays out new plans for combat operations to focus on anti-submarine warfare as Chinese and Russian undersea warfare capabilities continue to improve.
Sweden Increases Defense Spending in Face of "Russian Aggression"

November 09, 2020

According to Swedish Defense Minister Peter Hultqvist, “Russian aggression" has destabilized the region, leading to the highest surge in Sweden's defense spending since the 1950s: a $3 billion injection that will raise troop levels from 60,000 to 90,000 by 2025.
The U.S. Officially Exits Paris Climate Accord

November 04, 2020

Following through on a 2017 promise made by President Donald Trump, the United States has formally exited the Paris Agreement, making the U.S. the only country of 197 signatories to have withdrawn from the 2015 agreement.
As China’s Surveillance System Grows so does the Backlash

November 04, 2020

This week, Hangzhou, a city in eastern China that's home to Chinese tech giant Alibaba, published a draft law that would ban property managers from deploying facial recognition cameras in residential compounds without permission from local residents, evidencing growing citizen concern of the technological intrusion that has grown in China over the last ten years by 1,900%.
The Federalist: Dreher’s Live Not By Lies Warns Of The New Totalitarianism

November 03, 2020

In his latest book, Live Not by Lies, Rod Dreher warns that Western liberal democracies are living in a post-Christian society and are swiftly sliding down a slippery slope into a “soft totalitarianism” by which “data harvesting and manipulation can and will be used by woke capitalists and social justice ideologues in institutional authority to impose control.”
Stanley Kurtz: Trump Establishes 1776 Commission

November 03, 2020

Writing in National Review Online, Stanley Kurtz supports President Trump's signing of an “Executive Order Establishing the President’s Advisory 1776 Commission” which focuses efforts to foster patriotic education and calls on local communities to reassert control over the curriculum.
Kramp-Karrenbauer: Europe still Needs the U.S.

November 03, 2020

Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, Germany’s defense minister, writes in Politico that no matter who wins the U.S. Presidential election, there is a strategic need for strong transatlantic cooperation for both Europe and the United States of America to defend western values, keep peace and defend liberty.
Francis: Courts Block Ukraine’s Reforms

November 03, 2020

Diane Francis, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center, explains that Volodymyr Zelensky and his party, who won Ukraine’s presidential and parliamentary elections in 2019 largely on the promises to eradicate corruption, have had their reforms blocked by the 20 members of the High Council of Justice, some of whom have been charged with corruption.
SISI: Freedom of Expression "stops' When Muslims Offended

November 02, 2020

Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi stated that freedom of expression should stop if it offends Muslims Following the display of images in France of the Prophet Mohammad which Muslims see as blasphemous.