Louisiana Republican Mike Johnson has been chosen as the new Speaker of the House of Representatives, ending the three-week drama. Representative Johnson has a reputation as a fiscal and social conservative. He has at times opposed funding the Ukraine war, suggesting he may be open to non-interventionist arguments or at least unwilling to give the military-industrial complex a blank check. However, he also supports giving Israel "whatever it needs" to defeat Hamas.Speaker Johnson has suggested...

Below is my column in The Messenger on the renewed effort of Special Counsel Jack Smith to gag former President Donald Trump. At the same time, Judge Arthur Engoron has repeatedly fined Trump for his public statements about the New York fraud case. Engoron declared this week “Anybody can run for president. I am going to protect my staff.” There is widespread support for barring attacks on court staff and Trump did attack the Court’s clerk in a prior posting. However, most of his comments have...

“Peace Dove” by Jose TrujilloWhen will we ever learn? As a member of the US Congress for 16 years, I gave over 500 speeches warning about the consequences of US wars against Afghanistan, the Balkans, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria. I spoke for the imperative of peace in the Middle East, on behalf of Israelis and the Palestinians alike. I met with leaders of many countries who were grappling to keep their nations out of conflict and I came to understand the role some in the US government have played...

It now appears certain the United States is concentrating a huge naval force in the eastern Mediterranean, Red, and Arabian seas. Several NATO nations are also sending warships to join this growing fleet. Unknown numbers of US and NATO submarines are also certainly lurking in these regions. There is already substantial US air power presence in the Persian Gulf region. Israel is clearly working in concert with the US/NATO in whatever is brewing. And make no mistake, something big IS brewing. It...

Russia’s Dy Foreign Minister & Special Envoy Mikhail Bogdanov (C) held talks with Iran’s Dy Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kani and Hamas’ head of International Relations Mousa Marzouk, Moscow, Oct. 26, 2023 The US President Joe Biden is convinced that one of the reasons why Hamas launched the attack on Israel was because of the announcement during the G20 Summit in New Delhi on the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor . But he also admitted that this reading was based purely on his...

Tom Friedman uttered his dire warning in the New York Times on Thursday last: I believe that if Israel rushes headlong into Gaza now [unilaterally] to destroy Hamas — it will be making a grave mistake that will be devastating for Israeli interests and American interests”. It could trigger a global conflagration and explode the entire pro-American alliance structure that the US has built…I am talking about the Camp David peace treaty, the Oslo peace accords, the Abraham Accords and the possible...

Can the president fight any war he wishes? Can Congress fund any war it chooses? Are there constitutional and legal requirements that must first be met before war is waged? Can the United States legally attack an ally? These questions should be critical to a public debate over the US military involvement in Ukraine and the Middle East. Sadly, there has been no great debate. The media are mouthing what the CIA is telling them, and only a few websites and podcasts -- my own, “Judging Freedom” on...

Joe Biden’s approach to international issues increasingly resembles George W. Bush’s disastrous foreign policy.  One key tendency in common is that both men view complex world affairs in dangerously simplistic terms as an existential struggle between good and evil.  In Bush’s case, the bitter fruit of that perspective became apparent with the seemingly endless armed crusades to impose western values in such alien settings as Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria.  In Biden’s case, that attitude...

We are approaching a reckoning.This is the point, as the poet W. B. Yeats warned, when things fall apart and anarchy is loosed upon the world.We have seen this convergence before in Hitler’s Germany, in Stalin’s Russia, in Mussolini’s Italy, and in Mao’s China: the rise of strongmen and demagogues, the ascendency of profit-driven politics over deep-seated principles, the warring nationalism that seeks to divide and conquer, the callous disregard for basic human rights and dignity, and the...

NewsGuard, a company which claims to rate media outlets' level of 'trustworthiness' and therefore has a meaningful influence over ad revenue, has been sued along with the Biden administration by Consortium News, which also named the Pentagon's Cyber Command for "contracting with NewsGuard to identify, report and abridge the speech of American media organizations that dissent from US official positions on foreign policy." According to the complaint, NewsGuard is "acting jointly or in concert...

President Joe Biden announced last week that the United States would be funding – and possibly fighting - three wars in three different parts of the world at the same time. It is an ambitious foreign policy for a president who doesn’t even seem to be able to express a coherent thought without the help of a teleprompter.Nearly every word of Biden’s speech was untrue, including the preposterous suggestion that “American leadership is what holds the world together. American alliances are what...

Below is my column in The Hill on the recent discovery of a $200,000 payment to Joe Biden from his brother James Biden. The investigation into the massive influence peddling operation of the Bidens has revealed a consistent pattern of corruption. Frank, James, and Hunter all were in financial distress at different points with few discernible skills or success to offer the market. What they had was access to Joe Biden and all three are accused of cashing in on that access. Few deny that the...

The prognosis of “war fatigue” on the part of the United States and its allies in the proxy war in Ukraine was greatly exaggerated. On the contrary, the war is acquiring a new swagger. The Biden Administration is riding a tiger and a dismount is fraught with the danger of being devoured by the beastly consequences of defeat in the war, which could only lead to the discredit of trans-atlanticism and the disintegration of NATO, and spell the doom for US’ global hegemony. Biden’s formal address...

Below is my column in The Hill on the imposition of a gag order on former President Donald Trump by US District Judge Tanya Chutkan. Despite my long-standing criticism of Trump’s personal attacks on judges and critics, this gag order should be curtailed or struck down on appeal. While the odds tend to favor the lower court in such orders, there is ample reason to object to the scope and language of the order. The ill-defined bar on criticizing the prosecution or witnesses (including one of...

On the morning of October 16, counter-terror police in Glasgow Airport detained journalist, whistleblower, human rights campaigner, and former British diplomat Craig Murray upon his return from Iceland. After grilling him intensively about his political beliefs, officers seized Murray’s phone and laptop.  Murray, a proud Scottish nationalist, flew back to Glasgow after several days in Reykjavik, where he attended a popular Palestine solidarity event, and also met with high-ranking...

Western media start to note how their politicians' unwavering support for Israel and Ukraine is diminishing their countries' global standing. At Naked Capitalism Yves Smith notes the devastating political effects of the Gaza bombing on Biden's foreign policies: Biden Gets Zelensky Treatment in Middle East as Israel Tries to Escalate The US, in a continued demonstration of the degree of enbubblement of what passes for its leadership, seems to believe it still has the force and soft power to be...