The Post-Partisan Emporium

  A Storied Russian Muckraker On Oil, Iran, Ukraine, and More Known for fearless journalism in the Yeltsin years, Leonid Krutakov resurfaces with an epic history of the oil business, at a time when war over energy has never been more relevant. Matt Taibbi Russian oil in the Phillipines this week In Moscow in July 1997, reporter Leonid Krutakov had a scoop. Anatoly Chubais, the Harvard-educated privatization boss and right hand of Boris Yeltsin, had been given a $3 million loan from Stolichny Bank just before that same bank — controlled by an intimidating “businessman” named Alexander Smolensky — won an auction for a state-owned agricultural property, Agroprombank. It was a great story, but Krutakov had to make an epic journey to print it. First fired from Chubais-friendly  Komsomolskaya Pravda,  he was rejected by  Moskovsky Komsomolets,  then appealed to the legendary editor of  Top Secret , Artem Borovik, before that magazine, too, turned him down. Finall...

  Trump's Second Term: Foreign Policy Eric Striker Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign revived his 2016 outsider crusade against the Washington’s military adventures. In his latest run, the president-elect struck a remarkably sober tone on the many conflicts that have erupted in the last few years — which Jewish think-tanks  calmly dismiss  as baseless vote-getting — though he provided scant details on how he would approach Ukraine and the Middle East. The realities of America’s current geopolitical predicament were muffled under his questionable mantra that “no new wars” were prosecuted when he was in office. Buffing Trump’s everything-to-everyone shtick were a series of former left-wing anti-war influencers, such as Jimmy Dore, Dave Smith, and Tulsi Gabbard, who have in recent years hitched themselves to the MAGA wagon, citing the movements supposed non-interventionism as their reason. Perhaps Trump’s most audacious deception was his campaign’s outreach to the Arab community, ...