Monday, September 21, 2020

Bullsh@ttin' Bill still golden at NYT

 I look forward to my Sunday Star. Not only is it half the price of a Saturday Globe and Mail, it comes with a dollop of big-league journalism in the form of The New York Times International Weekly at no extra charge! I especially look forward to their Opinion and Commentary section, just to see how many fresh ways they can come up with to tell us that their president is a despicable a-hole.

The highlight yesterday was Bret Stephens' recycled op-ed from Sept. 5, "US should pass a Navalny Act." This would be an upgrade of the Browder-driven Magnitsky Act, and would serve as a response to the alleged poisoning of Alexei Navalny. As you recall, that's where Putin's minions gave Navalny's tea a spritz of the deadly nerve agent Novichok. Then, when the deadly poison failed, they shipped Navalny to Germany for treatment.

I'll reserve judgement on the plausibility of that scenario, but confess I am inclined to think that if Putin really wanted him dead, he would be. Stephens has no such reservations, and reveals that he personally came up with the idea of a Navalny Act, and that when he ran it by Bill Browder, "... he jumped at the possibilities."

I'll bet he did! While it's not acknowledged in North American media, Browder's star has been in decline elsewhere. Here's Denmark's Berlingske on Browder. Here's an insight into Browder's recent brouhaha with Germany's Der Spiegel. 

European journalism clearly holds itself to a higher standard than does The New York Times.



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