Category Archives: Commentary

On January 11, the Israeli Lod District Court ruled against a Palestinian film-maker, Mahmoud Bakri, ordering him to pay hefty compensation to an Israeli soldier who was accused, along with the Israeli military, of carrying out war crimes in April 2002, in the Palestinian Jenin refugee camp located in the northern occupied West Bank. Continue reading →

No doubt about it: the coup d’état was successful. Continue reading →

The temporary seizure of the U.S. Capitol by far-right supporters of Donald Trump should serve as the political death knell for the libertarian ideological base of “Trumpism.” Every day around the globe, legislators convene to deliberate over the passage of bills designed to improve the lot of the people who sent them there. These legislatures exist at the national, supranational, state, provincial, municipal, tribal, and island level. They have names like Chamber of Deputies, Diet, Senate, House of Commons, House of Representatives, National Assembly, Duma, Council of State, House of Keys, and House of Lords. Continue reading →

Our shredded nation slowly breathes again as the unelected orange menace leaves us at last. If you somehow feel your mood lightening and your state of mind improving, here’s why: This twice-impeached viral dung heap who needlessly killed 400k-plus Americans, along with 13 federal prisoners he outright murdered at the last minute, is actually on his way out. Continue reading →

The worse the political and economic crisis becomes, the more lethargic the US left behaves—as if generations of collaboration with corporate Democrats has sucked the life out of the left. Continue reading →

We did it. We took control of the Senate from Mitch McConnell. Even so, Republicans may still be able to block key parts of Joe Biden’s agenda. But there are plenty of critical policies he can and must enact without them. Continue reading →

The English expression “the calm before the storm” is defined as “a period of quiet that comes before a time of activity, excitement, violence, etc.” but in Washington there was no calm before the violent storm that swept through it on January 6, after the president of the United States had declared to a crowd of demonstrators near the White House that “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol. And we’re gonna cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women. And we’re probably not going to be cheering, so much for some of them, because you’ll never take back our country with weakness, you have to show strength and you have to be strong.” Continue reading →

In 11 hours and 48 minutes from midnight, Donald J. Trump will no longer be president of the United States. Continue reading →

At inauguration time, journalist I. F. Stone wrote, incoming presidents “make us the dupes of our hopes.” That insight is worth pondering as Joe Biden ascends to the presidency. After four years of the real-life Trump nightmare, hope is overdue—but it’s hazardous. Continue reading →

In classical dramas, tragic figures are driven to their doom by some inexorable flaw in their character. Continue reading →

A nation more seriously divided than in the 1960s when movements against war and racism pulled families and communities apart and drove some to drugs, drink, and worse, approaches a greater and more threatening social dissolution. When more than 74 million people can be reduced to “white supremacists” by alleged liberals with the same ease that past supposed conservatives were led to see a communist fiend behind every supporter of unity among people we are indeed in a time of all American hate crimes, thought crimes and worse. Those labels are being flung about by one or another bunch of hateful bigots, loving humanitarians or usually, both. Continue reading →

Few will find it surprising that the incoming Biden administration looks, in both form and function, a lot like the Obama administration of 2009-2017. After all, Joe Biden served as Barack Obama’s vice-president for those eight years. His staff and cabinet appointments comprise a veritable Who’s Who of Obama holdovers and members of Biden’s own political circle, built over decades in the Senate and White House. Continue reading →

People of the U.S. often fail to notice the methods their own government uses to do what amounts to brainwashing them. The book “Manufacturing Consent” by Edward S. Hermann and Noam Chomsky details how U.S. corporate-controlled mainstream media outlets (today that includes mainstream TV “news” networks, most mainstream magazines, newspapers, etc.) act as propagandists. Another excellent source on U. S. media propaganda is Michael Parenti’s book, “Inventing Reality.” Continue reading →

In an interview with the British newspaper The Times, in 2015, former US Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, vehemently denied that exporting democracy to Iraq was the main motive behind the US invasion of that Arab country 12 years earlier. Continue reading →

A few weeks ago, I was contemplating writing a piece for right about now suggesting that as a symbolic gesture and public service, one of Joe Biden’s first orders should be to tear down much of that ugly hurricane fencing around the White House and the surrounding neighborhood. After four years of corruption and skullduggery, as an emblem of a renewed openness and transparency, let the public see their new elected leader’s home and office without all the barriers. Continue reading →

I keep hearing that Joe Biden will govern from the “center.” He has no choice, they say, because he’ll have razor-thin majorities in Congress and the Republican party has moved to the right. Continue reading →

As I write this, the Capitol Hill riot of January 6 is enjoying its extended 15 minutes of fame, complete with straight-faced comparisons to December 7, 1941 and September 11, 2001. Continue reading →

Texas Congressman Joaquin Castro, a graduate of Harvard Law School, asked his colleagues: “If inciting a deadly insurrection is not enough to get a president impeached, then what is?” Ten Republicans voted for impeachment, but 197 House Republicans disagreed. Trump incited the crowd in person on the Mall. He lied to his supporters saying, “I’ll be with you” on the march to the Capitol. Trump then refused to call the crowd back when it turned into a mob that violently stormed into the Capitol. Trump scurried back to the White House to gleefully watch on TV his “special people” rampage through the Congress with destructive intent. Continue reading →

Donald Trump won’t be around forever. But the political crises his attacks on democracy have caused will outlive his one-term presidency. Continue reading →

The United States began as a glint in the eyes of an English mob of oddballs, dissenters, and criminals let loose on what they considered virgin territory. Once secure in their new digs, they administered rough justice to the original Americans and any colonist who fell afoul of community rules. Eventually, casting aside their imperial British overlords, the rabble achieved a measure of respectability by creating an independent state. Continue reading →

At least partially under the radar Monday was a move by a newly elected member of the House that has opened the door to use of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution to remove from office two top instigators of the fascist insurrection at the Capitol last week. Continue reading →

This holiday season, struggling families and businesses came close to getting a lump of coal from Congress. Only just before Christmas, as critical relief programs were about to expire, did lawmakers manage to pass a $900 billion aid package. Continue reading →

It’s intense right now. Damn intense. Especially in America. Continue reading →

There needs to be soul searching and truth-telling about invasions, interventions, coups and sanctions that are far more destructive than the Trump lovers could ever be. Continue reading →

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible,” President John F. Kennedy said in a 1962 speech, “will make violent revolution inevitable.” Continue reading →

What’s wrong with people? Has the savagery, selfishness, and raw, animal hatred within the human species finally come out of the darkness to devour our society? Continue reading →

WASHINGTON—Donald Trump’s terrorists managed to do something on January 6 that Adolf Hitler could have only dreamed of: enabling the full display of Nazi symbols on and inside the U.S. Capitol Building. Having failed in their attempt to overthrow the Legislative branch of the U.S. government in a partially-armed insurrection, Trump and his supporters must pay a heavy price, with the death penalty being offered as one option. Continue reading →

Despite the many crimes Donald Trump regularly committed over four years, it took his blatant incitement of the mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, to put him on the road to prison. (See: Letter to vice President Mike Pence Re: Invocation of Amendment 25). What transpired on Wednesday in the shadows of the Washington Monument was a pure violent street crime that resulted in five fatalities, property smashed and damaged, and many assaults by hundreds of rioters who broke into or were allowed into the Capitol. Continue reading →

The USA became an empire November of 1956, when British Prime Minister MacMillan, bogged down in a Suez Crisis from which he could not emerge victorious, sent a telegram to President Eisenhower containing only three words, “Over to you.” Continue reading →

2020 will go down in history as the year that terminated the American-sponsored ‘peace process’. While 2021 will not reverse the monumental change in the US attitude and objectives in Palestine, Israel and the Middle East, the new year presents Palestinians with the opportunity to think outside the American box. Continue reading →