CAPITALIST SICKNESS

RENEE PARSONS—The question remains whether any amount of ‘reform’ can make the FISA Court acceptable from a Constitutional perspective or whether continued existence of the Court is necessary given its unabashed record of facilitating near-unanimous approvals to conduct surveillance, in other words, the Court is needed for the mindless approval of surveillance applications to create the false impression for a gullible public that there is an independent Constitutionally-valid process at work.

MoA—The U.S. is likely to already have a significant number of cases but a lack of testing capacity has made any realistic estimate impossible. Chinese scientists had published the genome sequence of the virus on January 12 and, based on it, developed test kits within a few days. The U.S. Center of Disease Control and Prevention also developed a test kit but had problems with its first version and its wider distribution. More than a month later it is still not ready for the foreseeable need.

PHILIP GIRALDI—The Times article was written by David Sanger, the paper’s venerable national security correspondent. He is reliably wedded to Establishment views of the Russian threat, as is his newspaper, and strikes rock bottom in his assessment when he cites none other than “Victoria Nuland, who in a long diplomatic career had served both Republican and Democratic administrations, and had her phone calls intercepted and broadcast by Russian intelligence services.”

At his Greek villa, McCreadie is incensed at the presence of a group of refugees camped on a nearby public beach: “Can’t they find refuge somewhere out of view?” He tries to have them removed by police. This interrupts a scene in which his thoroughly vapid daughter—being filmed for a reality television show on the rich and beautiful—hands out food to the refugees for the camera before snatching it back and insisting they look more pleased to receive it.

For the current government of President Sebastián Piñera, the plebiscite is the ideal opportunity to neutralize the serious crisis that the country has been experiencing since last October, which has so far left more than 30 people dead and thousands injured.

If the plebiscite is approved, the election of the constituents will be held in October. The new Constitution, which must be drafted in a maximum of one year, will be ratified in another plebiscite, this one with a compulsory vote.