IMPERIAL APOLOGISTS & COLLABOS

KJ NOH—Why did the good judge see fit to make a mockery of Canada’s own laws and sovereignty, and subjugate Canada to US extraterritoriality? Why did she contort herself to support the blatant illegality of US sanctions? Does she realize she has set her country barreling down the wrong lane of history?

It’s not known if Justice Holmes asked for the clerk to bring her a basin of maple syrup to wash her hands after she passed judgment. But it would have been understandable for such a corrupt, consequential, and deeply catastrophic judgment.   

PEPE ESCOBAR—As the Exceptional Empire gets ready to brave a destructive – and self-destructive – new cycle, with dire, unforeseen consequences bound to reverberate across the world, now more than ever it is absolutely essential to go back to the imperial roots.

The task is fully accomplished by Tomorrow, the World: The Birth of U.S. Global Supremacy , by Stephen Wertheim, Deputy Director of Research and Policy at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and a research scholar at the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University.

THE ISTER—In 2003, Khodorkovsky was criminally prosecuted by Putin for tax evasion and fraud for which he ended up serving 10 years in prison. His protege Leonid Nevzlin was convicted of ordering multiple contract murders on Khodorkovsky’s behalf, and sentenced to life imprisonment in absentia. Associate Platon Lebedev was also convicted and imprisoned. This wave of prosecution sent a message and gave Putin a strong position, which was used to negotiate a “grand bargain” with the remaining oligarchs: they retained most of their existing assets in return for alignment with Putin’s vertical rule of Russia. The era of financial gangsterism from the 1990s was over.

BBC News correspondent Orla Guerin got more than she bargained for when her questioning of President Aliyev about the supposed lack of media freedom in his country ended up with him grilling her on Julian Assange’s imprisonment. Guerin’s interview with Aliyev on Monday took an unexpected turn when the journalist alleged that the Azerbaijani people lacked access to non-state-sanctioned media and could not enjoy their human rights to the fullest, As evidence, she cited “many independent sources,” but did not name them. 

PATRICE GREANVILLE—Since the the good old days are here again with Biden, the deep state media is wasting no time to ratchet up its “Chinagate” angle, just in case Biden should forget to go full hawk on Beijing (which is not likely to happen, judging from his record and the pool of war criminals he will be selecting from for his foreign policy cabinet). Observe how in this promo mail, FRONTLINE, which once upon a time came up with some acceptable instances of journalism, is now, in the era of Russiagate, and Trump derangement, another victim of the all-enveloping media degeneracy in the service of an equally degenerate empire. Word for word, this promo is a textbook example of Cold War propaganda at its vilest. The intent to demonize Beijing is clear, yet I’m sure this despicable program will fool millions, as it was designed to do. In the annals of filth, the American propaganda system has no peers when it comes to effective, sanctimonious disinformation, the favorite pose of consummate hypocrites.