Why Release the Torture Report Now

A young man was tortured in Chicago this week. It wasn’t an act of the Chicago police. It was live streamed on Facebook. And the President of the United States declared it an horrific hate crime.

The President did not advise “looking forward” rather than enforcing the law. Nor did he hold open the possibility that the crime might have served some higher purpose. In fact, he didn’t excuse the crime in any way that might help recommend it for imitation by others.

Yet this same president has read more

Why Release the Torture Report Now Read More »

Yes, Positivity, Pangloss, Partisanship, Propaganda, and Populism

Eight years ago Yes! Magazine published a political platform of progressive policies, along with polling showing strong majority support for each proposal. Now, eight years later, we can show almost total failure to advance any of the proposals, most of which were focused on the U.S. federal government.

Where there have been any small successes, they have mostly come at the state or local level or outside the United States. New York State just took a step toward free college and Washington State read more

Yes, Positivity, Pangloss, Partisanship, Propaganda, and Populism Read More »

Fantasies About Russia Could Doom Opposition to Trump

To many Democrats for whom killing a million people in Iraq just didn’t rise to the level of an impeachable offense, and who considered Obama’s bombing of eight nations and the creation of the drone murder program to be praiseworthy, Trump will be impeachable on Day 1.

Indeed Trump should be impeached on Day 1, but the same Democrats who found the one nominee who could lose to Trump will find the one argument for impeachment that can explode in their own faces. Here’s read more

Fantasies About Russia Could Doom Opposition to Trump Read More »

Russians, By Fling — To the tune of "Russians" by Sting

In Liberal America, there’s a growing feeling of hysteria

Conditioned to accept whatever’s claimed

As long as it’s Donald and the Russians blamed

Mr. Putin says he’ll be friends with you

I don’t subscribe to this point of view

It would be such an ignorant thing to do

If the Russians hate their children too

How can I risk my little boy with Oppenheimer’s deadly toy

There is no monopoly in common sense

On either side of all the missile defense

read more

Russians, By Fling — To the tune of "Russians" by Sting Read More »

ACLU & CAIR Use Cville Spokesman to Claim War on Iraq Was for Bill of Rights

Are you old enough to remember when liberal groups openly admitted that the war on Iraq was illegal and fraudulent, based on oil and profit and sadism?

Well, can you recall when the proponents of the war claimed it was a defense against nonexistent ties to terrorists and nonexistent weapons?

Even if you’ve wiped those memories, let me assure you, NOBODY ever claimed that attacking and destroying Iraq was necessary to protect civil liberties in the United States (which have been seriously eroded read more

ACLU & CAIR Use Cville Spokesman to Claim War on Iraq Was for Bill of Rights Read More »

Va State Senator Creigh Deeds Says He Has No Intention of Supporting Any Muslim Registry

I emailed my Virginia state senator Creigh Deeds:  
As a constituent I urge you to join state legislators and governors from around the United States and issue a public statement opposing a Muslim registry and mass deportations. Please let me know that you have done so. Thank you.
He wrote back:  

read more

Va State Senator Creigh Deeds Says He Has No Intention of Supporting Any Muslim Registry Read More »

Challenge to Prime Minister Abe’s Militarism Makes Big News Outside the U.S. Media

An open letter to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe from 53 scholars and activists on the occasion of his visit to Hawaii has received no notice in the U.S. media, but the following attention in Japan, China, and Korea:

Tokyo Shimbun ran the full text in its December 28th edition (Page 2).  Also:

Asahi Shimbun

Asahi’s English version

Mainichi Shimbun

Sankei Shimbun

Huffington Post (Japanese version)

Nikkan Gendai

Shimbun Akahata

CCTV News (English)

People’s Daily Japanese version

People’s read more

Challenge to Prime Minister Abe’s Militarism Makes Big News Outside the U.S. Media Read More »

To Weapons Dealers, Laws Are Decorative Holiday Ornaments

You might be forgiven for imagining that laws are serious things. When you violate them, you can be locked in a cage for decades. That’s not true for big-time weapons dealers like the U.S. government.

Two years after the creation of the Arms Trade Treaty, the news is that it’s failing in Yemen. I’m hard pressed to see why it isn’t, thus far, failing everywhere. The weapons dealers keep dealing weapons by the tens of billions of dollars exactly as if nothing has changed.

Here (courtesy of read more

To Weapons Dealers, Laws Are Decorative Holiday Ornaments Read More »