Léon Cornelissen
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Léon Cornelissen
@leonmwc.bsky.social
Economist, rambler, cinephile, Wagnerite, chess aficionado
Reposted by Léon Cornelissen
Bravo!
De ambtenaren naar Noord, nu de NZ-lijn uitstekend functioneert en op de plek aan het Waterlooplein éindelijk dat Wagnertheater dat Berlage ontwierp. Naam: 'De Pierre Audi Opera'. Amsterdam verdient naast de Beurs die latere parel van Berlages architectuur.
February 1, 2026 at 11:11 AM
Reposted by Léon Cornelissen
Night follows day. The north star always shines. The mountains do not move. And the new Dutch government is fiscally conservative and opposed to Eurobonds

www.telegraaf.nl/politiek/eer...
Eerste details akkoord D66, VVD en CDA uitgelekt: geen eurobonds en begrotingstekort maximaal 2 procent
De eerste details over het coalitieakkoord dat D66, VVD en CDA hebben gesloten, lekken uit. Ingewijden melden aan De Telegraaf dat het stuk de titel ’Aan de slag’ heeft gekregen.
www.telegraaf.nl
January 29, 2026 at 7:56 AM
Reposted by Léon Cornelissen
The Netherlands is back at stage 1 of the cycle:

New populist party created -> gets saturation media coverage implying they’re very fresh and clever -> party wins lots of votes -> it becomes clear that party is not in fact fresh and clever but weird and incompetent -> party implodes

And repeat
Net als gisteravond Markuszower bij @pauwendewit.bsky.social het podium kreeg, krijgen nu twee andere extreemrechtse ex-pvv-ers dat bij #Eva. Yes, we helpen weer een nieuwe enge partij de peilingen in!

Zoals G. Orwell schreef: grootste gevaar voor democratie is luie journalistiek.

Hopeloos dit..
January 22, 2026 at 7:12 AM
“Responsibility for the catastrophe overtaking America now rests with his enablers — people who have to know that he’s a sick man but continue to support his depredations.”

open.substack.com/pub/paulkrug...
It’s Sundowning in America
A presidential mind is a dangerous thing to lose
open.substack.com
January 20, 2026 at 12:18 PM
“Young people are drifting towards simpler hobbies such as chess or its Japanese counterpart, shogi”…huh, simpler??!

economist.com/asia/2026/01...
Why Go is going nowhere
Three masters, one game, zero consensus
economist.com
January 20, 2026 at 7:43 AM
“Reasonable people can also differ when it comes to how much better it would be to have JD Vance in charge”

www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trump...
Trump’s Insane New Threat Leaves No Doubt: It’s Time for the 25th Amendment
There is no longer any denying the president is unable to carry out the demands of his office.
www.thedailybeast.com
January 19, 2026 at 1:58 PM
“…the idea that ‘Europe’ has ‘leverage’ over the US because of its holdings of US Treasuries and other American financial assets is implausible.”

www.ft.com/content/beea...
Could Europe really leverage its $12.6tn pile of US assets?
NIIPing an outlandish idea in the bud
www.ft.com
January 19, 2026 at 1:49 PM
Twenty-fifth amendment moment…but will that be an improvement?
mad king moment

from the PBS Newshour correspondent
January 19, 2026 at 10:01 AM
“The past year involved what many of the continent’s decision makers now admit resembled cognitive dissonance: arguing that European capitals needed to tolerate Trump’s attacks on them as allies in order to keep him as an ally.”

www.ft.com/content/d13b...
‘It’s about trust’: Donald Trump’s fresh tariff threats push Europe to harden its stance
Aggressive US rhetoric over Greenland demands a change in strategy by the EU and UK, officials say
www.ft.com
January 18, 2026 at 8:03 PM
Reposted by Léon Cornelissen
6
"We never pay any-one Dane-geld,
No matter how trifling the cost;
For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
And the nation that plays it is lost!"
January 18, 2026 at 12:48 PM
De Gaulle was already insufferable
De Gaulle would be absolutely insufferable if he could see what was happening today.
January 18, 2026 at 11:16 AM
Reposted by Léon Cornelissen
In sum, Europe has little to lose in hitting back hard. The hope here is Europe hits back hard and prompts Trump to deescalate, just as he has done on China. Thus by escalating Europe is also creating a pathway to deescalate this crisis.
January 18, 2026 at 3:04 AM
Reposted by Léon Cornelissen
Europe is acting to deter us.

On the one hand, this is totally ridiculous and huge waste of resources, time, and energy. On the other hand, it may save the NATO alliance... so 🤷‍♂️
The tripwire force is finally here... But instead of being in Ukraine to deter Russia, it is within NATO territory to deter one NATO ally from violating another NATO ally's sovereignty.

The world turned upside down.
Europe is deploying a tripwire in case of U.S. attack. Crazy times.
January 14, 2026 at 5:38 PM
Reposted by Léon Cornelissen
Édouard Louis, great French writer of a white working-class family saga, who grew up gay in a poor far-right-voting village, tells me how he escaped, and later helped his mum to do the same. About white working-class memoirs and Cinderella @financialtimes.com as.ft.com/r/cd31555e-9...
French writer Édouard Louis: ‘Family is a rotten structure. It produces its own violence’
[FREE TO READ] The gay author shocked France with stories of working-class poverty and homophobia. He talks to Simon Kuper about the misogyny his mother endured and why escape is his defining theme
as.ft.com
January 14, 2026 at 3:52 PM
“South Korea, Germany, Australia, Poland and even Canada are all debating to one degree or another whether to go nuclear.

Were Trump to annex Greenland, Canada would weigh it seriously.”

www.ft.com/content/331e...
How to de-risk from America
There is no precedent of a dominant power abandoning its primacy, as Trump is doing
www.ft.com
January 13, 2026 at 7:33 PM
LOL
No, he doesn't
He does know that the Pilgrims arrived 405 years ago
doesn't he...
January 10, 2026 at 12:47 PM
“Want waarom laten de NS reizigers met valse hoop naar het station komen, met de belofte dat ‘over twee uur’ alles weer rijdt, terwijl dat op dat moment totaal onzeker of zelfs onhaalbaar is?”

www.trouw.nl/opinie/opini...
Opinie: Waarom laten de NS treinreizigers met valse hoop naar het station komen?
De chaos door sneeuw zegt veel over de staat van onze spoorwegen, ziet Freek Bos, directeur van reizigersvereniging Rover. Wees daarover eerlijk tegenover reizigers.
www.trouw.nl
January 8, 2026 at 10:20 AM
“Denemarken is te klein en gooit de grenzen dicht, Frankrijk is voor de Duitsers een gedwongen huwelijk en de Polen eisen herstelbetalingen vanwege de Tweede Wereldoorlog.

Nederland wordt node gemist, we kunnen snel weer in de oude rol groeien.”

www.parool.nl/wereld/neder...
Nederland verwaarloost vriendschap met Duitsland: ‘Kabinet was vooral met zichzelf bezig’
De warme relatie met Duitsland is de laatste anderhalf jaar bekoeld als gevolg van gerommel in Den Haag, economische missers en desinteresse van Nederlandse zijde. Maar het is nog niet te laat, vinden...
www.parool.nl
January 7, 2026 at 12:45 PM
LOL “President Trump’s statement that they will ‘run’ Venezuela while referencing ongoing talks with the Venezuelan government does not alone qualify the snatch-and-extract mission to capture Maduro as an invasion.”

www.theguardian.com/world/2026/j...
Gambling platform Polymarket not paying bets on US invasion of Venezuela
Gamblers who placed wagers totalling $10.5m angered after capture of Nicolás Maduro deemed not to qualify
www.theguardian.com
January 7, 2026 at 12:21 PM
„Russia has mortgaged its economy, harried Finland and Sweden into joining NATO, subordinated itself to China and scythed through a generation of young men.

And for what?“

www.economist.com/the-world-ah...
Vladimir Putin has no plan for winning in Ukraine
Fighting in Ukraine will grind on in 2026. Vladimir Putin will continue to throw away Russian lives pointlessly, but sooner or later a reckoning is coming
www.economist.com
January 7, 2026 at 9:48 AM
Compartmentalization?
It's just a very odd newscycle when Europeans are working alongside America to offer security guarantees in Ukraine while also wondering if America is going to invade Greenland. The whole thing makes no sense.
January 6, 2026 at 5:52 PM
Reposted by Léon Cornelissen
Mstyslav Tsjernov komt na zijn Oscarwinnende '20 Days in Mariupol' met een verslag van de Russisch-Oekraïense uitputtingsoorlog. '2000 Meters to Andriivka' volgt een drie maanden durend kruipoffensief naar het gehucht Andriivka.
‘2000 meters to Andriivka’ volgt het Oekraïense tegenoffensief van nachtmerrieachtig dichtbij
Documentaire: Mstyslav Tsjernov komt na zijn Oscarwinnende ’20 Days in Mariupol’ met nog een bijna hallucinant verslag van de Russisch-Oekraïense uitputtingsoorlog. ‘2000 Meters to Andriivka’ volgt een drie maanden durend kruipoffensief naar het gehucht Andriivka.
www.nrc.nl
January 6, 2026 at 5:32 PM
Reposted by Léon Cornelissen
🇭🇺🇸🇰 The new year breathes fresh life into an established fact that doing anything related to politics and law in CEE without a degree in history or an adjacent field is extremely difficult.
🪧Hundreds protested at Slovakia’s embassy in Budapest against a new Slovak law penalizing denial or questioning of the Beneš Decrees—post-WWII rules used to strip Hungarians and Germans of their rights and properties. Opposition leader Péter Magyar even vowed to expel the Slovak ambassador.
January 6, 2026 at 9:01 AM