FALSE DEMOCRACY

The last time a ‘Russiagate’ sceptic was allowed on MSNBC, the most liberal television network in the US, was in January 2017, just as Trump took office. ‘Russiagate’ has provoked a new Cold War. Moreover, the media’s obsession with Russia has shifted media attention yet further away from the Trump administration’s other, more dangerous, actions on issues such as climate change, abortion rights and corporate bailouts.

PHILIP A. FARRUGGIO—Most of the apathetic public have never been too concerned for what their government has done and is doing to the people of other nations. Go back to the disgraceful and immoral ( so called ) Vietnam War , whereupon Uncle Sam interceded in what was in essence a civil war between the Vietnamese people.

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, has fully embraced the demand by the US intelligence agencies that technology monopolies censor political speech on the internet. At a hearing Wednesday at the House Financial Services Committee, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called on Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to “take down lies.” “So you won’t take down lies or you will take down lies, it’s just a pretty simple yes or no?” Ocasio-Cortez demanded.

ERIC ZUESSE—What else can we call it when a publisher does what the New York Times did when it published the Pentagon Papers and was ruled by the Supreme Court in 1971 (New York Times Co. v. United States) to have been protected by the First Amendment, but the publisher this time has been kept for years in various types of imprisonment without trial, and by now has been so destroyed that, in this, his first court appearance to defend himself, he seems to have been drugged, but for whatever reason “When asked to give his name and date of birth, he struggled visibly over several seconds to recall both.” “It was a real struggle for him to articulate the words and focus his train of thought.” The event occurred on October 21st.

NORMAN SOLOMON—After many years of carefully refusing to launch a single campaign in support of brave whistleblowers who faced vicious prosecution during the Obama administration — including Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning, NSA whistleblowers Thomas Drake and Edward Snowden, and CIA whistleblowers John Kiriakou and Jeffrey Sterling — MoveOn.org has just cherrypicked a whistleblowing hero it can support. [Well you guessed it, they picked a whistleblower who is no whistleblower, but a CIA agent helping to launch a coup against Trump.—Ed)