US EXCEPTIONALISM

G H ELIASON—In the spring of 2014, following Ukraine’s coup of indecency, the first 3 billion dollars of US aid disappeared into a fund called Grandma’s Cookie Recipes and was never seen again. This was about the time coup activist Arseny Yatzenyuk and Peter Poroshenko’s wealth spiked. This level of corruption has been the norm for the last 5 years in Ukraine.At the expense of the world, the Ukrainians have spent the last one hundred years trying to invent themselves.

CAITLIN JOHNSTONE—Clear-eyed leftists got Russiagate right while everyone else got it wrong because they were the only group ideologically positioned to do so. People defending Trump on the right were doing so out of blind partisan loyalty while ignoring out of necessity what has long been the single most damning piece of evidence against Russiagate: the fact that Trump has been advancing insanely aggressive escalations against Russia and its allies, thereby showing him to be at least as much of a neocon-coddling establishment crony as his predecessors. Those advancing the narrative from the Democratic Party-aligned “center” are far too eager for any excuse to bust Trump and far too trusting of the same mass media outlets which lied us into the Iraq war. This leaves only the true left to see things with lucidity, and only the most lucid among them saw it.

PAUL STREET—And it is complete historical bullshit.  John McCain was a war criminal who happened to get shot down while trying to kill Vietnamese human beings who had the audacity to fight for national independence and social justice in their Third World nation during the 1960s. 

PETER KOENIG—John Bolton has been known since the Bush Administration and even earlier as a ruthless character that finds hardly a match among the many ruthless politicians the US has in stock. So, they let him loose, because his pathological psychopathic behavior is intimidating to many countries.First you bring down countries by intimidation, once that has been achieved, it is easier to put other coercive measures in place, like more sanctions, as in the case of Iran – and finally, if nothing works, they threaten and demonstrate US / NATO military intervention by putting the weapons at a country’s doorstep. Like in the case of Russia. However, I doubt very much that the US really intends to intervene militarily in Russia and Iran – or in Venezuela for that matter. There is too much at risk. Washington knows that the Russian modern missiles – that can fly at speeds in excess of 20 Mach – and the S-400 missile defense systems, are far superior to anything the US has in store.In addition to a big-mouth, Bolton is a very good sable-rattler.

KEVIN REED—Manning’s motion also exposes the fact that federal prosecutors are using the grand jury mechanism in a wholly unconstitutional manner. They write, “Furthermore, it is possible that this subpoena represents an effort on the part of the FBI or another investigative agency in collaboration with government prosecutors to compel by grand jury process testimony that would otherwise be inaccessible.”