ESSENTIAL

ALEKS—I think first there were considerations to intervene directly in Western Ukraine through Poland. Not to fight the Russians, but to secure territory. And I also think that President Putin made it crystal clear in one of his early speeches during the war that such actions would trigger lightning responses. Most likely he was talking about a hypersonic rain over Poland. These intentions died down ...

SPENGLER—Fertility doesn’t explain everything; both Russia and Ukraine had very low fertility when the 2015 Gallup Survey was taken, but relatively high willingness to fight. The Ukraine war engages a few hundred thousand combat troops on the same land where millions fought during World War II. When the Soviets recaptured Kharkov in 1943, they threw 1.2 million men at the city and lost 200,000 of ...

ERIC ZUESSE—The first fact that they hide is that though elections are a NECESSARY part of any democracy, elections throughout the U.S. empire are only for PR purposes, to fool the deceived public to think that an election is a SUFFICIENT condition in order to BE a democracy. That ridiculous lie is universal throughout the U.S. empire — despite its ludicrousness. For example: Did you ...

PEPE ESCOBAR—Michael Hudson once again has reminded everyone with a brain that the running NATO warmongering show has nothing to do with peaceful internationalism. It’s rather about “a unipolar U.S. military alliance leading toward military aggression and economic sanctions to isolate Russia and China. Or more to the point, to isolate European and other allies from its former trade and investment with Russia and China, ...

PAUL EDWARDS—What he can and must be blamed for is his long, disgraceful, and devious career as a phony, smarmy, glad-handing flack for Big Money as the Senator from MBNA, his vulgarly cynical two-faced record on race relations, his Chickenhawk cheerleading for every military crime and folly, his rah-rahing for our fubar debacles in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and finally, now, in his dotage, funding and ...

MAIN DESK—BIDEN'S BIG BOY SUMMIT—The roundtable discusses Biden's carefully scripted but underwhelming "Big Boy" press conference, which, to no one's surprise, turned out much more an electoral campaign speech—often mumbled—than a presidential presser, the whole concoction punctuated by hilarious gaffes that Biden's mental deterioration now make almost inevitable (like confusing Zelensky with Putin—of all people). In addition, guest Jeff Brown paints a comprehensive picture of ...