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
Gas prices at the pump during the July 4th extended weekend were the highest they have been in six years. This, of course, has little to do with supply-and-demand economics. It has everything to do with supply-and-gouge profits. Continue reading
(WMR)—On July 9, before making his obligatory trip to Jerusalem to cover the latest uneven Israeli-Palestinian military confrontation where Israeli “revenge killings” of innocent Palestinians is state policy, CNN Washington Bureau Chief Wolf Blitzer had an all-too-expected comment as he was seeing Israeli war planes bomb a crowded building in Gaza. Blitzer’s comment was, “Wow! Look at that!” Continue reading
Alone among the governments in the world, Washington requires sovereign governments to follow Washington’s laws even when Washington’s laws contradict the laws of sovereign countries. Continue reading
Many Americans love to think that their country is the epitome of progress, democracy, and enlightenment. Millions of people will say that this is “the greatest country in the world.” These words are obviously born of ignorance and a belief in the superiority of the ultimate white settler state. Continue reading
With these words still hovering around his mouth, “We reject all cruel behavior”, Benjamin Netanyahu launched yet another attack with yet another movie title, Operation Protective Edge, on the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who live in a state of siege and oppression in the Gaza Strip. Continue reading
Jennifer Abel is a freelance writer who’s been an eloquent—and scathing—TSA critic for years. Continue reading
Reading the memo in which the U.S. government rationalizes the targeted killing of Anwar al-Awlaki is something akin to reading the melding of “Alice In Wonderland: and “1984.” Continue reading
As Iraq stands on the verge of a complete breakdown into mini sectarian states, former leading neoconservative and Iraq war advocate Richard Perle has chimed in on the situation on Newsmax TV. His statements in an interview given on Saturday were yet another testimony to the intellectual degeneration of a group that had once promised a ‘new Middle East,’ only to destabilize the region with violent consequences that continue to reverberate until this day. Continue reading
The case of a woman who was raped—repeatedly—by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers and by medical personnel at the University Medical Center of El Paso has been partially settled. Continue reading
Am I alone in having the uneasy feeling, while listening to Barack Obama’s speeches, that we are witnessing an actor playing the role of an American president and carefully reading the script he has been given? Continue reading
RSS
Guilt by insinuation
How American propaganda works
Posted on July 23, 2014 by Paul Craig Roberts
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 →