A nearly two-year Dutch investigation into the 2014 downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine has concluded, and please consider sitting down before you proceed, that Russia and its rebel proxies did the deed. This is...not surprising, though it's nice to finally have some investigative findings backing up the accusation: "Based on the … Continue reading MH17 investigation points finger at Russia

If you're looking for commentary on last night's debate, I don't have much for you. To any right-minded human being Donald Trump looked like a heavy-breathing, interrupting, gibberish-spewing moron--seriously, you try to figure out what this means--and that, of course, means that Trump's base probably thinks he kicked ass. Trump's problem is that, while there … Continue reading The punch not thrown

As expected, once-and-would-be-future Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has opted to heed the Supreme Leader's "advice" and steer clear of next year's presidential election: Iran's hard-line former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tuesday he won't run in next year's presidential election, ending weeks of speculation after the country's supreme leader discouraged his candidacy. Ahmadinejad could have posed … Continue reading And it’s settled then

It's only taken five years, but the rest of the world seems to have had an epiphany about Syria: As the bombs continue to fall on Aleppo, a new reality is descending on Syria: the long-held belief that the conflict there will only end with a political solution might not hold true. Russia now says the conflict is … Continue reading Better late than never, I guess

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose hypothetical "political comeback" has been one of the more interesting stories in the run up to next year's Iranian presidential election, had a whole lot of cold water dumped on his plans today: Ayatollah Khamenei made the statement about Mr. Ahmadinejad during a lecture for seminary students at his office. He was … Continue reading Who’s left to run against Rouhani?

Many people are wondering what time the debate is tonight. In fact, people regularly come up to me and say, "Derek, you're obviously very intelligent, so intelligent, and handsome! Can you tell us what time the debate is tonight, because the losers in the mainstream media"--and they're just the worst, aren't they? vile, wretched human … Continue reading DEBATE 2016: Time, channels, and more

I know it's Friday night so I'm shouting into the void, but I spent last week and much of this week covering the aborted--well, that's not totally fair; "aborted" suggests that it had a shot of actually coming to fruition at some point--ceasefire in Syria, and now that it's all over but the literal shouting … Continue reading A bad end to a bad week