Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif chastised the US for causing "catastrophes and crises" in the Middle East and vowed that Tehran's allies will stand with it against US sanctions, in a rare video response to US policies.

In the three-minute long video posted to YouTube on Tuesday, Zarif calls sanctions reimposed by the Trump administration on Monday "unlawful" and "fundamentally flawed."

The video was released less than a day after the formerly lifted sanctions were reinstated, targeting the country's banking, energy and transport sectors, and just hours after Iranian banks were suspended from accessing the global SWIFT financial messaging system.

Stephen F. Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at NYU and Princeton, and John Batchelor continue their (usually) weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War. (Previous installments, now in their fifth year, are at TheNation.com.)

Summarizing one of the themes in his new book, War with Russia? From Putin and Ukraine To Trump and Russiagate, Cohen argues that Russiagate allegations of Kremlin attempts to "undermine American democracy" may themselves erode confidence in those institutions...

Ever since Russiagate allegations began to appear more than two years ago, their core narrative has revolved around purported Kremlin attempts to "interfere" in the 2016 US presidential election on behalf of then-candidate Donald Trump. In recent months, a number of leading American media outlets have taken that argument even further, suggesting that Putin's Kremlin actually put Trump in the White House and now is similarly trying to affect the November 6 midterm elections, particularly House contests, on behalf of Trump and the Republican Party. According to a page-one New York Times "report," for example, Putin's agents "are engaging in an elaborate campaign of 'information warfare' to interfere with the American midterm elections."

Two recent rulings by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) demonstrate not only that it's a political and hypocritical organization. They also show the severe structural defects of human rights law in general.

On October 25, the ECHR found in favor of Austria and against a claimant, Frau S., who had been prosecuted for saying in 2008 that the Prophet Mohammed "was a pedophile" because he had married a six-year-old girl. The applicant had claimed that the criminal sentence she received violated her right to free speech, enshrined in Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The Court found against her and in favor of Austria, which had convicted her of inciting religious hatred.

On July 17, the same ECHR, by contrast, had found in favor of Russian applicants from the now famous 'Pussy Riot' band, and against the Russian state, which convicted them for having incited religious hatred by staging a performance of a 'punk prayer' in Moscow's Christ the Savior cathedral in 2012. This case was considered under three different articles of the European Convention on Human Rights but it made two judgements under the same Article 10 which the judges later said could not protect Frau S. In the Pussy Riot case, the court found that the girls' right to freedom of expression under Article 10 had been violated.

Editor's note: The following essay is Jordan B. Peterson's new foreword to the new edition of The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (Penguin, November 2018, 544 pages). Reproduced with the kind permission of the author.

From the speech delivered by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn to the Swedish Academy on the occasion of his acceptance of the Nobel Prize for Literature:

Once we have taken up the word, it is thereafter impossible to turn away: A writer is no detached judge of his countrymen and contemporaries; he is an accomplice to all the evil committed in his country or by his people. And if the tanks of his fatherland have bloodied the pavement of a foreign capital, then rust-colored stains have forever bespattered the writer's face. And if on some fateful night a trusting Friend is strangled in his sleep-then the palms of the writer bear the bruises from that rope. And if his youthful fellow citizens nonchalantly proclaim the advantages of debauchery over humble toil, if they abandon themselves to drugs, or seize hostages-then this stench too is mingled with the breath of the writer. Have we the insolence to declare that we do not answer for the evils of today's world?...

The simple act of an ordinary brave man is not to participate in lies, not to support false actions! His rule: Let that come into the world, let it even reign supreme-only not through me. But it is within the power of writers and artists to do much more: to defeat the lie! For in the struggle with lies art has always triumphed and shall always triumph! Visibly, irrefutably for all! Lies can prevail against much in this world, but never against art...

One word of truth shall outweigh the whole world.

* * *

The victory of the far-right Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, Latin America's most populous country and co-founder of the BRICS bloc, has understandably caused much fluttering in the dovecotes of leftists and liberals around the globe.

But what the Bolsonaro victory shows is not so much the strength of far-right ideas as the weakness of the left.

First, though, a word about fascism.

It has become in vogue for left wing people to brand everyone to the right of them 'a fascist'. This is not just wrong it is entirely self-defeating. As the famous 'Boy who cried Wolf' found out, it can end up with one being eaten when folks conclude that if everybody is a fascist then, for practical purposes, nobody is.

After a tumultuous week that included letter bombs, a swooning stock market, a caravan of migrants approaching the border, and a deadly mass shooting at a synagogue, the US finally sought out professional help.

Hello, Doctor. I am so grateful that you agreed to see me at this late hour. I am at my wit's end with the latest turn of events and could really use some consultation. Yes, I would be happy to recline myself on your fine couch, thank you.

Tell you about myself? Well, alright. My name is Uncle Sam and I manage a political entity known as the United States of America, perhaps you've heard of it. It's a sprawling democratic franchise that is home to some 325 million restless souls, each with their own endless desires and demands. They always want something! As for myself, I turned 242 years old in July, and I guess you could say I'm struggling with a mid-life crisis of sorts. Although my friends say I am sprightly for my age, ongoing events have taken a toll on this body and mind. And now with this maverick Donald Trump in the White House I haven't had a moment's rest in a long time. Why, I barely recognize my own country anymore!

Gab.com is an alternative social network, set up and launched in 2016. It's founder, Andrew Torba, stated he wanted to create a home for free speech, and counter what he perceived as "liberal bias" on other platforms, such as twitter and facebook.

Two days ago, their website was taken down. This was in response to being blocked by PayPal, and then having their server space taken away by their hosting service. Gab's founder posted this statement on their stripped-down website.

Why did this happen?

Because Robert Bowers, the alleged gunman at the synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh, had a gab account and posted some things about "the Jews" on it.

Is it right, or sensible to punish a platform for the (alleged) actions of ONE user out of 100,000s? And is that really what's going on?

Robert Bowers also had a Twitter account. And a Facebook page. Neither of these platforms has faced punishment, or censure, from any quarter.

A leaked memo from left-wing financier George Soros's Open Society Foundations argues that Europe's refugee crisis should be accepted as a "new normal," and that the refugee crisis means "new opportunities" for Soros' organization to influence immigration policies on a global scale.

OSF program officer Anna Crowley and program specialist Katin Rosin co-authored the May 12 memo, titled "Migration Governance and Enforcement Portfolio Review." The memo focuses on an OSF program called the International Migration Initiative, which aims to influence immigration policy.

The nine-page review makes three key points: OSF — which doles out millions to left-wing causes — has been successful at influencing global immigration policy; Europe's refugee crisis presents "new opportunities" for the organization to influence global immigration policy; and the refugee crisis is the "new normal."

In an interview with CNN's Christiane Amanpour on Tuesday, comedian Jon Stewart called out members of the media for taking President Trump's criticisms of them way too personally.

"You gotta make money too," Stewart said. "You've got electric bills, you've got food. This guy is, he's giving you all cash. The cash flow in the Trump era for these TV shows -"

Amanpour interrupted him, saying: "We the journalists, we, I think, believe our job is to navigate the truth and do the fact checking and all the rest of it."

"I think that journalists have taken it personally," he said. "They're personally wounded and offended by this man. He baits them. And they dive in."

Stewart went on to say that when Trump criticizes them, they make a big show of hitting him back.

There are few certainties in the Salisbury case, but one thing I am quite confident of is that Sergei and Yulia Skripal were not poisoned with a nerve agent of "high purity" on the door handle of 47 Christie Miller Road. I am also quite confident that Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey was not poisoned in this way either, and furthermore that his actions, and the subsequent actions of investigators, are the Achilles Heel of the whole explanation. I shall come onto that in due course, but first the Skripals.

There are simply too many things which, when added together, make the door handle explanation at the very least incredibly implausible, if not downright impossible:

Firstly, they did not die immediately, or thereabouts, which is what you would expect to have happened had they been contaminated by coming into contact with what was said to be a nerve agent of "high purity".

Secondly, they were fine for hours afterwards, so much so that they were able to drive to town, feed ducks, go for a meal, and then have a drink.

Thirdly, eye witness accounts of the couple on the bench suggest that they became seriously ill pretty much simultaneously. Certainly, there were no reports of one of the pair calling for help, or contacting the emergency services, which is what you would expect to have happened in the event of one becoming ill before the other.

Fourthly, during the duck feed, which took place just after the Skripals parked their car in Sainsbury's car park, and prior to their visit to Zizzis, Mr Skripal handed bread to some local boys, one of whom apparently ate a piece. I cannot think of a plausible explanation why this boy did not become ill if, as claimed, Mr Skripal's hands were contaminated at that time with a "military grade nerve agent".

Fifthly, either Mr Skripal or his daughter must have touched the parking machine at Sainsbury's car park, which was then touched by literally hundreds of people over the following days. Yet not one of these people were contaminated.

Sixthly, neither the door handle at Zizzis nor the door handle at The Mill were contaminated, despite the fact that either Mr Skripal or Yulia, or perhaps both, would have handled them when going into those venues.

In other words, in order to accept the door handle explanation, you need to ignore every one of these extremely improbable things. If it were someone on a website suggesting it, rather than The Metropolitan Police, you all know what they would be called and what they would be assumed to be wearing on their heads, don't you?