The Unz Review:ㅤLate-Imperial Duplicities, by Patrick Lawrence

As I was saying to Diocletian over Prosecco just last week, it is hard to run an empire these days. You have to lie to people more or less incessantly to keep the troops minding the perimeter in supplies. No falsehood is too preposterous to gain the public’s acquiescence. At times you have to deceive even the Senate. “Ah, yes, the solons,” the old persecutor replied. “It is mere ceremony with them. You can keep

The Unz Review:ㅤOld Man Shouting, “The American Empire Is Doing Great!” But It Isn’t, by Patrick Lawrence

Democratic elites and the reporters who clerk for them were effusively approving of Joe Biden’s State of the Union speech last Thursday evening—not so much for what he said, which came nothing new, as for the demeanor of our enfeebled president. Never mind that Biden reduced an occasion intended to address all Americans as to the condition of their nation to a cheap stump speech. He avoided falling down for his hour at the podium

The Unz Review:ㅤThe CIA in Ukraine — the NY Times Gets a Guided Tour, by Patrick Lawrence

If you have paid attention to what various polls and officials in the U.S. and elsewhere in the West have been doing and saying about Ukraine lately, you know the look and sound of desperation. You would be desperate, too, if you were making a case for a war Ukrainians are on the brink of losing and will never, brink or back-from-the-brink, have any chance of winning. Atop this, you want people who know better