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Julian Assange and the Mindszenty Case

Julian Assange and the Mindszenty Case

During World War II Cardinal Jozsef Mindszenty was a huge critic of fascism and wound up in prison. In Oct. 1945 he became head of the Church in Hungary and spoke out just as strongly against Communist oppression. He wound up back in prison for eight more years, including long periods of solitary confinement and endured other forms of torture. In 1949 he was sentenced to life in a show trial that generated worldwide condemnation.Two weeks after the trial began in early 1949, Pope Pius XII...

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The Texas Republican Party Now Supports Rolling Back Marijuana Prohibition. What’s Next?

The Texas Republican Party Now Supports Rolling Back Marijuana Prohibition. What’s Next?

Over the weekend, delegates at the Texas Republican Party’s statewide convention voted by wide margins in favor of several roll-backs of marijuana prohibition. With over 80 percent support, the delegates approved three state party platform planks calling, respectively, for decriminalizing possession of up to an ounce of marijuana, moving marijuana from Schedule 1 to Schedule 2 of the United States government’s Controlled Substances Act, and urging the Texas legislature to “pass legislation...

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Will the Real Donald Trump Please Stand Up?

Will the Real Donald Trump Please Stand Up?

I had coffee with a foreign friend a week ago. The subject of Donald Trump inevitably came up and my friend said that he was torn between describing Trump as a genius or as an idiot, but was inclined to lean towards genius. He explained that Trump was willy-nilly establishing a new world order that will succeed the institutionally exhausted post-World War 2 financial and political arrangements that more-or-less established US hegemony over the “free world.” The Bretton Woods agreement and the...

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Government Eyes Are Watching You: We Are All Prisoners of the Surveillance State

Government Eyes Are Watching You: We Are All Prisoners of the Surveillance State

“We’re run by the Pentagon, we're run by Madison Avenue, we're run by television, and as long as we accept those things and don't revolt we'll have to go along with the stream to the eventual avalanche.... As long as we go out and buy stuff, we're at their mercy… We all live in a little Village. Your Village may be different from other people's Villages, but we are all prisoners.”— Patrick McGoohan First broadcast in America 50 years ago, The Prisoner—a dystopian television series described as...

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Why Can’t We Sue the TSA For Assault?

Why Can’t We Sue the TSA For Assault?

When I was in Congress and had to regularly fly between DC and Texas, I was routinely subjected to invasive “pat-downs” (physical assaults) by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). One time, exasperated with the constant insults to my privacy and dignity, I asked a TSA agent if he was proud to assault innocent Americans for a living.I thought of this incident after learning that the TSA has been compiling a “troublesome passengers” list. The list includes those who have engaged in...

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Inspector General’s Report on FBI and Clinton’s Emails Shows Secrecy Threatens Democracy

Inspector General’s Report on FBI and Clinton’s Emails Shows Secrecy Threatens Democracy

The inspector general report on the FBI’s investigation of Hillary Clinton contained plenty of bombshells, including a promise by lead FBI investigator Peter Strzok that “we’ll stop” Donald Trump from becoming president. The report reveals how unjustified secrecy and squirrelly decisions helped ravage the credibility of both Clinton’s presidential campaign and the FBI. But few commentators are recognizing the vast peril to democracy posed by the sweeping prerogatives of federal agencies.The...

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US Officially Resumes Funding For The White Helmets In Syria

US Officially Resumes Funding For The White Helmets In Syria

Screenshots from a four-minute video documents that the US government has been lying about the White Helmets' role as mere "first responders". Above they are seen assisting al-Nusra Front (AQ in Syria) in an execution which the group later owned up to. In a somewhat surprising but not entirely unpredictable turn, President Trump has authorized new funding for the White Helmets which had previously been put on hold. A State Department press release puts the initial funding figure at $6.6...

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How to Get on a Jury

How to Get on a Jury

If you want to serve on a criminal jury, the most important rule is this: Say as little as possible, with your words, your body language, and your appearance.But why would you want to sit on a jury in the first place? Because in a criminal trial, if you can read and reason and resist being swayed by emotion, you will make a better juror than most of your fellow members of the community. A jury is the entity that acts as the voice of the community, and serving as a juror allows you to...

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A Politically Weaponized FBI is Nothing New, But Plenty Dangerous

A Politically Weaponized FBI is Nothing New, But Plenty Dangerous

The Justice Department Inspector General is expected to release on Thursday its report on alleged FBI misconduct during the 2016 presidential campaign. Trump supporters and opponents are already pre-spinning the report to vindicate or undercut the president. Unfortunately, the report will not consider fundamental question of whether the FBI’s vast power and secrecy is compatible with American democracy.According to some Republicans, the FBI’s noble history was tainted by its apparent...

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Rep. Ro Khanna Says Fellow Democrats Should Support Diplomacy with North Korea

Rep. Ro Khanna Says Fellow Democrats Should Support Diplomacy with North Korea

On Monday, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), joined by 14 fellow Democratic United States House of Representatives members, sent a letter to President Donald Trump supporting Trump pursuing diplomacy and “incremental progress” with North Korea. The letter also expresses concern about efforts toward peace being hindered by people — both Republican and Democrat, and both inside and outside the Trump administration — seeking “to scuttle progress by attempting to limit the parameters of the talks, including...

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Saudi-led Coalition Strikes Newly Built Doctors Without Borders Facility in Yemen

Saudi-led Coalition Strikes Newly Built Doctors Without Borders Facility in Yemen

A newly built cholera care center, run by Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in the town of Abs, has been hit by Saudi-led coalition planes in yet another airstrike on the medical charity’s facilities in war-ravaged Yemen.The attack has rendered the center “non-functional,” MSF said in a statement, with photos from the scene showing that the building’s roof and some of the walls were completely destroyed in the airstrike. Luckily, the bombing in the Hajjah governorate did not result in deaths or...

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Mueller Scrambles To Limit Evidence After Indicted Russians Actually Show Up In Court

Mueller Scrambles To Limit Evidence After Indicted Russians Actually Show Up In Court

Special Counsel Robert Mueller is scrambling to limit pretrial evidence handed over to a Russian company he indicted in February over alleged meddling in the 2016 U.S. election, according to Bloomberg.Mueller asked a Washington federal Judge for a protective order that would prevent the delivery of copious evidence to lawyers for Concord Management and Consulting, LLC, one of three Russian firms and 13 Russian nationals. The indictment accuses the firm of producing propaganda, pretending to be...

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Trump ‘War Games’ Announcement Shocks South Korea, US Military Forces

Trump ‘War Games’ Announcement Shocks South Korea, US Military Forces

In what was perhaps the most surprising announcement to emerge from today's Trump-Kim summit, president Trump agreed to suspend military exercises with South Korea in return for a commitment to denuclearisation from North Korea.As we reported earlier, Trump said the war games were expensive and “very provocative”, and yet stopping them has been called a "major concession", something the US has previously rejected as non-negotiable on the grounds that the exercises are a key element of its...

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Outcome of Assange Case Could Undermine the Rights of Millions

Outcome of Assange Case Could Undermine the Rights of Millions

As the sixth anniversary of his extended stay in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London approaches, WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange is faced with increasingly limited options. Barred from communicating with the outside world and from receiving most visitors, Assange’s only hope of avoiding extradition to the United States on trumped-up espionage charges comes down to the governments of the two countries of which he is a citizen: Australia and Ecuador.In an unexpected move last week, the...

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German Officials Admit ‘Still No Evidence’ From UK That Russia Poisoned Skripals

German Officials Admit ‘Still No Evidence’ From UK That Russia Poisoned Skripals

It seems notably fortuitous that the world is now distracted with the ongoing actions surrounding President Trump - whether in Quebec tweet-slamming PM Trudeau, or in Singapore ahead of his historic summit with North Korea's Kim Jong Un.We say "fortuitous" since it offers UK PM Theresa May some breathing room as her dramatic, quickly determined, and globally propagandized claims that Russia was the culprit for the poisoning of the Russian ex-agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter; remain...

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Why Can’t We Sue the TSA For Assault?

Trump/Kim Meeting Shows Value of Policy Over Politics

When President Reagan met with Mikhail Gorbachev in Reykjavik, Iceland, on October 11, 1987, it helped put into motion events that would dramatically change the global system. A line of communication was fully opened with an enemy of decades and substantive issues were on the table. Though the summit was initially reported as a failure, with the two sides unable to sign a final agreement, history now shows us that it was actually a great success that paved the way to the eventual end of the...

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Peace & Prosperity Blog

What if They Did it to Us?

Peter Hitchens writing at the Daily Mail poses a question that most supporters of interventionism -- be it of the liberal "humanitarian" variety or the imperialist variety --...

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