ANDRE VLTCHEK—They are China’s worst nightmare. They are unleashing religious fundamentalism and foreign-sponsored militant nationalism and separatism. They are potentially the greatest obstacle and danger to President’s Xi Jinping’s marvelous BRI (Belt and Road Initiative). Both the West and Turkey are glorifying them; the most extremist of Uyghurs. They are financing and arming them. They are labelling them as victims. Uyghurs are now a new ‘secret weapon’, to be used against Beijing’s determined march forward, towards socialism with Chinese characteristics.

JEFF J. BROWN—I feel sorry for Hongkongers, but it is hard not to smile at the irony of the West doing such a wonderful job of exposing its phony version of “freedom and democracy” for what it is: global capitalism only serving the 1% elites, at the expense of the suffering 99%. I have a feeling it is going to get much worse, before it hits bottom. The CIA has unlimited drug-arms black money to keep pushing it to the hilt.

ERIC ZUESSE—The ACLU wouldn’t be able to get the huge amounts of donations that they get from liberal billionaires and their corporations, unless it excluded the basic political issue, of the super-rich versus everyone else, and so it does this: it avoids this issue — which is what makes it be a liberal organization, instead of a progressive organization (which, by its very nature, focuses on precisely issues of economic class, such as imperialism).

OLLIE RICHARDSON—Essentially, everything of value has been sucked dry by the American imperialistic project known as the “EU”. The middle class has been demolished and replaced by a working class living on credit. The youth are being robbed of their future, and pensioners are being robbed of their legacy. The Macron regime’s ethos is simple: work more; be paid less. Starve infrastructure, but make timely investments into personal offshores. Privatise everything in the interests of pals, present it as “reforms”. In general, it’s a classic neoliberal hit job

MoA—The ships’ arrest today is another consequence of Trump’s idiotic anti-Iran policies which the British minions seem to support. The U.S. tries to build some military escort service for ships in the Strait of Hormuz. But no other country wants to join:

ERIC LONDON—The Democratic Party is a party of reaction, based on an alliance of the military-intelligence apparatus, Wall Street, and the affluent, identity-obsessed upper middle class. Its differences with Trump have always been tactical in character. The Democrats’ chief concern is that Trump is undermining the key strategic imperatives of American imperialism—particularly in relation to Russia—and that his unpredictable and erratic behavior will destabilize domestic politics, stoke popular opposition, and further endanger their foreign policy goals. When it comes to cutting taxes, lowering interest rates and increasing military spending, the Democrats and Trump agree. Both support Trump’s oft-repeated threat that “America will never be a socialist country.”

TONY CARTALUCCI—So-called “professional journalists” have categorically failed to provide even the most basic information regarding the background and development of this latest breakthrough, giving Novartis a head-start in extorting the public the villain’s sum of nearly half a million dollars for a therapy already paid for by taxpayers and charity.

PATRICE GREANVILLE—Capitalism has always drowned and faltered on its unjust social relations. The outrageously lopsided way it distributes income, the product of society, continually augmented by advances in technology, is a contradiction that has no economic answers because it is really a question of power, a question of politics. The constant elimination of jobs by automation, and their hemorrhage toward cheap-labor zones cannot be “cured” by job training programs or even better education for all (as Clinton cabinet member Robert Reich, the main evangelist for this pseudo-solution, still preaches).

DAVID W PEAR—Threats such as “all options are on the table”, economic sanctions, seizing oil tankers on the high seas, and naval blockades are violations of international law. They are all acts of a war of aggression. The Nuremburg Tribunal defined wars of aggression to be the worst of war crimes, because it leads to all the other war crimes. These are properly regarded—and classified—as capital offences. Distinguished US jurists took a major role in formulating and enacting these principles.

Lee correctly reminds us that the presstitutes are loathe to have a broader conversation on the role of police in American society.  How many people even know what Eric’s “crime” was before being taken down by a bunch of moronic goons?  Or that the US leads the world by several magnitudes in the numbers of civilians killed by police every year with total impunity? Certainly there’s something wrong here, but, as Lee points out, the ruling class is not enthusiastic about restraining its attack dogs, its fist to contain the average working stiff.

As time rolls on it becomes ever more clear that the stablishment is doing everything possible to sabotage Sanders. Their support for Warren elicits suspicion in Jimmy Dore’s team—and us. But of course we have never taken Warren seriously as an anti-establishmentarian, and still very much distrust Sanders, albeit we recognise he might be able to shake things a bit with a vigorous campaign.

KEVIN REED—There is no doubt that international public access to this kind of independent reporting is of great concern to the military-intelligence state behind the persecution of Assange and Manning. It is the exposure of these important facts that is behind the ongoing online censorship of socialist and oppositional websites that has been identified by the World Socialist Web Site going back to the spring and summer of 2017.

MoA—Putin now confirms that Skripal was indeed willing to come back to Russia. Oliver Stone thinks Skripal wanted to present something to the press. If Skripal had publicly said that he made up and wrote the Steele dossier, the anti-Trump/anti-Russia campaign by the Clinton ‘resistance’ would have been over. The whole Mueller investigation nonsense would never have happened.