BIG SERGE—Many western nations have advised their citizens to leave Russia immediately, suggesting they are worried about escalation (this coincides with Ukraine’s unhinged claim that Russia may be about to use nuclear weapons). For the time being, I expect Russian escalation to remain confined to Ukraine itself, likely coinciding with the deployment of additional Russian ground forces. If Russia feels compelled to undertake an out of theater escalation, targeting American satellites, digital infrastructure, or forces in Syria remain the most likely option.

Jackson Hinkle comments on the latest developments in Ukraine, especially how the battle for Ukraine (and what it implies) has now changed dramatically with the recent Russian mobilisation and referenda, the latter returning to Russia four important oblasts in Eastern and Southern Ukraine. It’s worth noting that Putin’s latest speech celebrating the restoration of these lands to Russia also made history by its frank language, forthrightly acusing the West of bad faith, hypocrisy, appalling disloyalty, and vast criminality, including acts of terror such as the blowing up of the Nordstream pipelines, which may sink the EU economies and penalise EU populations. Putin also attacked and rejected in forceful terms the West’s “identity” values implicit in its “Woke philosopy”, which the US seeks to impose by force and coercion.

An outspoken and well-informed discussion of breaking news affecting the Ukraine War and the rest of the world.

GILBERT DOCTOROW—A couple of weeks before Vladimir Putin announced his ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine, he met in the Kremlin with Germany’s chancellor Olaf Scholz. At their joint press conference following the meeting, Putin mentioned in passing that Ukraine is controlled today by neo-Nazis. This remark was famously ridiculed by Scholz as “laughable,” thereby earning for him the Kremlin’s utter contempt. German-Russian relations have undergone a sharp deterioration ever since, with Germany gradually stepping up its supplies of cutting-edge lethal weaponry to Kiev and Russia, in its internal political discussions, placing Germany alongside the United States and Britain as de facto ‘co-belligerents’ which may be subjected to Russian missile attacks if the war escalates further.

MONA ISSA—It’s the twenty-first century. Corporations have armies. With as little as a few ID papers and almost no governmental regulation, you can take up state-of-the-art arms and be sent to a war that’s not your war, not your battle, and kill people whose names you can barely pronounce. The trade offer? You receive some $10,000 a week. That’s $40,000 a month. That’s more than 30x the American minimum wage for some honest work. You need not read some Veronica Roth, because we’re already living in a dystopian novel. 

MONA ISSA—The popular support for the law was reiterated in a 2014 national poll which collected data from all provinces across the country, holding the question of whether they agree that the mandatory hijab should be implemented on Iranian women even if they do not agree with it. Around 19% of the population completely agreed, 35% simply agreed, and 25% were neutral. In 2021, Iranian deputy speaker of the parliament Ali Motahhari suggested another referendum on the veil be conducted when protests again were on the rise, exhibiting the democratic values which the state holds, as opposed to what the West paints the country to be – a clerical wasteland dictatorship.

Who benefits? That’s the question discussed by this impressive trio, in the wake of a wanton act of terror, doubtless a historical turning point in the global clash between the “Collective West”, led by the Anglo-Americans, and Russia and her allies, including China.

P. GREANVILLE—Oliver is of course right. The judicial system is broken, it reflects the larger society with its myriad unfixable flaws, inequalities and pervasive corruption. And TV, until recently the most potent medium to control the masses (now equaled but not surpassed by social media), has always been in the business of selling us lies and conformity with the status quo. A big part of that job is to sell the public the notion that the repressive agencies are impartial, “class blind”, or on their side; or that they are benign, or, at worst, just incompetent but never evil. In that sense, Law & Order is part of a large roster of shows dedicated to burnishing the US capitalist “security” machine.

JIMMY DORE SHOW—On Tuesday it was revealed that the Nord Stream 1 & 2 pipelines that carry liquefied natural gas under Northern Europe’s Baltic Sea had been sabotaged, rendering them inoperable, possibly permanently. And almost as quickly the finger-pointing began, with many in the West alleging that Russia had intentionally damaged its own pipeline while others claimed that a more logical explanation would pin the blame on the U.S., likely acting to eliminate any possibility that European countries will revert to relying on Russia as a source of gas. Jimmy and his panel of The Dive’s Jackson Hinkle and America’s comedian Kurt Metzger discuss the competing theories and possible motives behind the Nordstream attacks.

Col. RICHARD BLACK—Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, and Clinton all approached nuclear confrontation with utmost caution. But the Obama administration changed course when it recklessly overthrew the Ukrainian government in 2014 and flooded Ukraine with weapons aimed at Russia. It did so knowing that it was threatening Russia’s most vital national interest: the defense of its territory against nuclear aggression.