Brexit has become a royal pain. Queen Elizabeth needs to step in and take a stand

Queen Elizabeth II may be the only person who can fix the Brexit mess. She has the power to wave her scepter and declare a solution. It’s a power that the royals have not exercised in years, but at 92 years old and with her nation riven, the Sovereign should step in and decide on the United Kingdom’s sovereignty.

Does she want to continue to cede some of her nation’s power to a mostly faceless European Union based in Brussels? Or should she pull up the island nation’s drawbridge, shut down its borders and add friction to the relatively free trade and capital flows that keep London’s coffers overflowing? What to do?

Dear Queen,

Here’s some advice from a mere commoner living in a former colony: If the current Brexitprocess and eventual vote do not provide a clear decision, shine up that crown, warm up your voice and take a stand. My presumptuousness ends there — I’m not going to advise you what Brexit direction you should take. That’s your burden. And your prerogative.

In fact, it is known as the “Royal Prerogative” READ MORE

Brexit: "Everything is on the table"

Hoover Institution fellow Marko Kounalakis discusses Brexit and notes everything is on the table. Kounalakis talks about what happens next, whether May's bet will payoff, and ultimately if there will be a soft Brexit. 

Unprecedented, unpredictable, dynamic realtime policy shift taking place in U.K. Parliament. Bottom line: "Everything is on the table."

Go to THIS LINK, my segment begins at 12:28

Merkel, and the rest of Europe, are through with Trump

Munich.

The very name conjures vastly different images and emotions depending on your age and where you live.

For the Greatest Generation, Munich immediately evokes memories of a spineless Western “appeasement” that sold out Czechoslovakia and fed Hitler’s insatiable appetite for power leading to World War II. Baby Boomers recall Munich as a terrorism turning point when cold-blooded Black September members murdered 11 Israeli athletes in the city’s 1972 Summer Olympic Games.

This past week, Munich may likely be remembered as the place where American allies finally gave up on President Trump, America’s leadership of the alliance of Western democracies and any U.S. security guarantees as credible.

Appeasement, murder, betrayal. Munich has had its pivotal historic moments, and this looks like one of them. READ MORE

Brexit aside, Poland and Italy are Europe’s latest troublemakers

Poland is free because of a pope, the Vatican and a European dream. Not that long ago, Soviet-dominated Warsaw created a spiritual alliance and common cause with a church-dominated Rome and its dream of an expansive pan-European political union.

That dream is now a nightmare that aligns the two Catholic-dominated nations of Poland and Italy, bound together in an anti-immigrant stance, an unholy alliance ready to take on Europe and cut it down to size.

This latest assault on the European Union comes on top of an uncertain and undefined Brexit brought on by a banger-eating British populace tired of Polish plumbers unclogging their water closets. Europe seems especially brittle right now with the political chaos surrounding Britain’s political schizophrenia and the unanswered Irish border wall question. Despite Brexit’s severe disruption, however, Poland and Italy are the European Union’s newest challenge for survival. READ MORE

Putin’s power, arrogance lead to costly Russian miscalculation that unites West

Vladimir Putin has spent years trying to divide the West by undermining elections, invading neighbors and aggressively using Russian oil and gas as a ham-handed bargaining tool. These concerted and clever efforts have suddenly, however, revealed the New Putin: Despite his best efforts and plans, he’s become a uniter, not a divider of the West.

Early 2018 had Putin heading towards a staggering, but not surprising, electoral victory against dead and disqualified opposition candidates. This dominance allowed Russia’s president to ride his eventual 76.6 percent final poll tally to a new level of cavalier confidence on the global stage. Political dominance at home and fawning support from President Trump gave him a delusional sense of invincibility. It led him to overreach and miscalculate.

Now, well over 20 Western countries have joined together to give Putin the one-finger salute for a U.K. chemical agent attack he is suspected of either directing or condoning. The targets in the assassination attempt in Salisbury were a former Russian spy, Sergei Skripal, and his daughter Yulia.  READ MORE