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JIM KAVANAGH—The war in Syria continues; we cannot say it has ended until and unless every US soldier and piece of military hardware leave Syria. The residual military presence that the neocons have persuaded Trump to keep in Syria continues to deny the Syria government full control of its own sovereign territory and maintains redoubts from which the rump US and proxy forces threaten the Syrian government—economically for certain, and potentially militarily.

NINO PAGLICCIA—In the meantime another opposition figure came to the forefront with his mission to create enough political division, but the division may also be along the race line in the Bolivian society. After all Evo Morales has been the first indigenous president in Bolivia. This is a very significant factor in a region where the indigenous population has been decimated and oppressed for the last 500 years. Luis Fernando Camacho is a white wealthy lawyer from Santa Cruz who has accused Morales of being a “tyrant” and a “dictator”, not unlike Juan Guaidó in Venezuela.

CAITLIN JOHNSTONE—James Le Mesurier, the founder of the White Helmets, has died. He was found to have plummeted from a height to the street outside his home, and authorities are reportedly calling it a suicide. Le Mesurier has a history with British military intelligence and was fundamentally involved with an extremely shady narrative management operation geared toward manufacturing support for yet another imperialist military intervention in yet another Middle Eastern nation, so obviously any claims of suicide should be taken with a grain of salt no smaller than a Buick.

CJ HOPKINS—Chief among my leftist heresies, I haven’t insulted Trump nearly enough. I don’t believe he’s a “Russian asset” or the resurrection of Adolf Hitler. I believe he is the same narcissistic ass clown and self-absorbed con man he has always been. Much as I dislike the man, I’m not on board with the deep-state coup the Intelligence Community, the Democrats, and the rest of the neoliberal Resistance have been trying to stage since he won the election.

ERIC ZUESSE—The U.S. regime, clearly, wanted the land [of Crimea), not  the people who were living on it. The expectation, as soon as Ukraine was under U.S. control from the coup, had been that America would get the entirety of Ukraine, including Crimea; but, then, Russia’s Vladimir Putin stepped in and protected Crimeans who were clamoring to hold a referendum in order to express their collective will on this matter; and this referendum was held, on 16 March 2014, and it produced over 90% voting for Crimea to be a part of Russia, such as Crimea had been before Khrushchev transferred it to Ukraine.