After days of placing hostile blame for the downing of the Malaysian airliner on Russia, the White House permitted US intelligence officials to tell reporters that there is no evidence of the Russian government’s involvement. Continue reading
I opened the latest issue (July 25, 2014) of THE WEEK and read a blurb in “It wasn’t all bad” about six-year-old Emily Heaton who asked her father if she could be a princess. Jeremiah Heaton “began scouring the globe for terra nullius, land unclaimed by any nation”—and found it. Heaton is one accommodating dad. He made a flag and secured the territory—an area of African desert between Egypt and Sudan. It’s now the Kingdom of North Sudan and Emily is its princess. Heaton’s “seeking official recognition from neighboring countries and the UN.” Continue reading
It had to happen! The blame game on that horrendous airline incident, Malaysian Flight MH17, has reached the expected loud monotone of pointing fault, lock, stock and barrel at Russia . . . and, more specifically, to that villain ex-KGB Slav, Vladimir Putin. Continue reading
Imagine the official presentation of a worldview concocted by conspiracy theorists and an assortment of cranks and grumpy people. Conjure a document written by scribes possessed of poison pens soaked in the inkpots of Ayn Rand and the Brothers Grimm, caught in the grip of a dark dystopian fantasy of dragons and specters, in which everyone’s wrong but thee and me and we’re not sure of thee. Continue reading
The chaos created by United States interventions is never ending and every act of aggression brings the world closer to mass conflict. As is always the case with its interference, the American effort to destabilize Russia has created unforeseen and dangerous consequences. Just as support for jihadists complicated the imperial project in Syria and Iraq, the United States’ instigated war between Russia and Ukraine has spiraled out of the West’s control. Continue reading
On the 13th day of Israel’s so-called Operation Protective Edge, stories of entire families collectively pulverized, women and children keenly targeted by Israeli soldiers saturate the media. Until now, 430 Palestinians have been killed, mostly women and children, and 18 Israel soldiers been killed at the hands of the Resistance. In Shejaiya, elders, mothers and children scrambled for cover as shells mercilessly rained down, stealing the souls of countless innocents. Continue reading
In his speech to the nation Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledged yesterday that the war on Gaza is a battle for the existence of the Jewish State. Netanyahu is correct. And Israel cannot win this battle; it cannot even define what a victory might entail. Surely the battle is not about the tunnels or the militants’ underground operation, the tunnels are just weapons of resistance rather than the resistance itself. The Hamas and Gaza militants lured Israel into a battle zone in which it could never succeed and Hamas set the conditions, chose the ground and has written the terms required to conclude this cycle of violence. Continue reading
It doesn’t take many brain cells to figure out that the TSA, institutionally and individually, holds us in contempt. In their eyes, we’re all potential terrorists. Also peons who have to be put in their place. Never mind that we pay their salaries, every penny of their $8-billion-a-year budget, and that they are supposed to facilitate flying, not impede it. Continue reading
The problems of humanity have reached such an apex that it is now critical for governments to implement the principle of sharing within and between every single country. It is critical on several counts: firstly, to release the joy and creativity that is inherent in every human being but widely suppressed through economic hardship and social breakdown, with levels of depression throughout the world now reaching epidemic proportions. Secondly, it is critical in a literal sense for the millions of men, women and children who live without adequate means for survival, and who are needlessly dying from poverty and disease with each passing day. Furthermore, it is vital that we integrate the principle of sharing into inter-governmental policies if we are to stand a chance of averting environmental catastrophe, for the necessary time for transforming our societies is fast running out. The world itself is sick and in a state of emergency, for which only sharing can provide the necessary healing and remedy. But on all these counts we are left in a quandary, because the crucial missing factor is a collective understanding that sharing is verily the solution to our problems, and our last remaining hope. Without an all-embracing public awareness that sharing is the only way out, it is impossible that this neglected principle can be implemented into world affairs. Continue reading
Why hasn’t Washington joined Russian President Putin in calling for an objective, non-politicized international investigation by experts of the case of the Malaysian jetliner? Continue reading
Call it what you will—taxes, penalties, fees, fines, regulations, tariffs, tickets, permits, surcharges, tolls, asset forfeitures, foreclosures, etc.—but the only word that truly describes the constant bilking of the American taxpayer by the government and its corporate partners is theft. Continue reading
Visiting the FDR Library and Museum is like journeying to a place where time has stopped and a world much different from the one we now inhabit exists. I hadn’t been to the FDR Presidential Library in several years and eagerly anticipated seeing the newly renovated museum at the library. Here there are no disappointments. FDR’s New Deal and progressive/left politics jump out from every nook and cranny of the exhibit, and the interactive displays of his presidency are so well done that they immediately catch museum goers’ attention and interest. Continue reading
Washington’s propaganda machine is in such high gear that we are in danger of losing the facts that we do have. Continue reading
The root of the carnage in Gaza is Israel’s occupation, colony expansion, blockade of the Strip and reticence to get serious about peace, so it’s little wonder that Hamas refuses to accept a ceasefire based on the ‘peace for peace’ 2012 model. Its demands include a complete lifting of Israel’s siege on the Strip, the reopening of the Rafah crossing to Egypt 24/7 and a reconstruction plan for Gaza. Continue reading
Evidently, not much has changed in our foreign policy since Gonzi (former Prime Minister of Malta) took us into the Libyan war! However, rest assured that the people would judge you all when they awake! Continue reading
At a lunch with some “old friends,” we were talking about our adult children and one of my friends, Vincent Amato, a corpulent fellow with a thick graying beard and longish hair, a wonderful sense of humor and love of history—mentioned that his son had become brutish as some kind of social worker. The son credited that to the fact that Vincent divorced his son’s mother and step-mother. I added that I have a daughter with an MSM from Fordham University and her mother and I were divorced. My other friend Frank Tolopko summed up the situation by saying, “wouldn’t it be funny if the world turned out to be all keepers and patients?” I said,“ It would be a psychological welfare state. We’re almost there.” Continue reading
The most heartbreaking thing is to view Ukrainian refugees on Russia Today (RT.com), children, parents, men, women, crying, still trying to fathom how and why they lost their homes, loved ones, and future. And in addition to this, have seen the Malaysian Flight MH17 with 298 people on board fall out of the air, apparently over the Ukraine. Continue reading
The unilateral US sanctions announced by Obama on July 16 blocking Russian weapons and energy companies access to US bank loans demonstrate Washington’s impotence. The rest of the world, including America’s two largest business organizations, turned their backs on Obama. The US Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers placed ads in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post protesting US sanctions. NAM said that the manufacturer’s association is “disappointed that the US is extending sanctions in increasingly unilateral ways that will undermine US commercial engagement.” Bloomberg reported that “meeting in Brussels, leaders of the European Union refused to match the US measures.” Continue reading
Ah, I love waking up to stories like this! It’s like living in absurdist theater, only the people running the theater are too stupid to see it for what it is. Continue reading
I’m certain that the title of this piece will cause some readers discomfort and anger. That’s good. It’s time for some discomfort. For too long, we have looked the other way in our unconditional support of Israel. Too many support Israel unconditionally, not because they’re right and not because their actions are justified but because they are Jews. Continue reading
There’s a lot to love about America and its people: their pioneering spirit, their entrepreneurship, their ability to think outside the box, their passion for the arts, etc. Increasingly, however, as time goes by, I find the things I don’t like about living in a nation that has long since ceased to be a sanctuary for freedom are beginning to outnumber the things I love. Continue reading
It’s pretty common these days to have your resumé/curriculum vitae publicly available on a website. Most people use LinkedIn, which I can’t abide (it plunders your private email account, sends invitations without your knowledge to everybody under the sun to “link” to you, pretends to get you jobs, and other things not worth going into), so I use a site called Brand Yourself instead. Continue reading
Don’t tag Edward Snowden as someone he does not want to be; for he is neither a hero, nor a traitor. He is, or should be, a proud citizen of an evolving hopeful world who has earned such citizenship not by right of birth, ethnic background or bloodlines, or by loyalty oath, but by a selfless personal contribution to the building of a positive, more humane world . . . where privacy and individual freedoms take precedence over the sad spectacle we are becoming in the United States: an electorate-collective of mindless consumerists, a Borg-like serving a warmongering, corporate power-elite. Continue reading
This article is an epiphany stimulated by Michael Adzema’s Funny God Facebook Post, January 14, 2014. Continue reading
As the Israeli Cabinet announced early yesterday that it accepted the Egyptian cease-fire offer, Palestinian freedom fighters in Gaza continued firing rockets targeting the whole of Israel. Continue reading
I’ve just seen a photograph of the sweetest tiny girl, a Palestinian child little more than a baby, hugging her dead father. I’ve watched televised footage of a distraught father clinging to his young daughter who’s missing half her head, screaming “Please wake up. I’ve brought you a toy.” There are so many children in Gaza now without mothers and fathers, and so many parents grieving the loss of their kids. Continue reading
For a very good reason, this year my girlfriend, Pat, and I were in London for the Fourth of July. The British feigned indifference to the anniversary of our breakaway, like disappointed parents choosing not to mention the unruly prodigal who dropped out, left home and, in spite of their warnings, did okay. Continue reading
Remember the film “Jaws”? Remember how the whole town was affected by the presence of the predatory Great White? Well, all we working stiffs out there in America are just as terrorized by the multitude of sharks that run this country. We have the corporate sharks and their political ‘Two Party, One Party ‘shark allies who run our government. Either way, if you work for someone else or have a small mom and pop business . . . you are meat for these economic predators! Continue reading
I can’t even walk in the quiet of Riverside Park and sit on a bench with my wife without seeing a field of roided soccer players running about as if it were The World Cup games. We came to the park to catch the sunset-henge flashing its orange-gold brilliance in a beautiful sky over the Hudson River. Too soon the dusk descended like the dark night of merciless Israeli attacks on Gaza, presumably for Hamas shelling. Continue reading
There’s a photograph circulating in cyberspace of an official from the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), talking to Gaza’s Hamas chief, Esmail Haniyah, superimposed with imaginary bubbled conversation that says it all. “We have formed a unity government, the world is supporting us and turning against Israel and the IMF [International Monetary Fund] is funding us. What should we do next,” the PNA official asks? “We should kill three innocent teenagers to wreck our own government and allow Israel to bomb the crap out of us,” Haniyah answers. Continue reading
The number of children attempting to cross the Mexican border into the United States has risen dramatically in the last five years: In fiscal year 2009 (October 1, 2009-September 30, 2010) about 6,000 unaccompanied minors were detained near the border. The US Department of Homeland Security estimates for the fiscal year 2014 the detention of as many as 74,000 unaccompanied minors. Continue reading
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Co-chair of 9/11 Commission backtracks on skepticism
Posted on July 28, 2014 by Wayne Madsen
(WMR)—Former 9/11 Commission Co-chair Lee Hamilton, a one-time chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, backtracked on his previously-pronounced skepticism about the fabrications and evasion faced by his commission in pursuit of the truth about the 9/11 attack. Continue reading →