Global
I stroke the unknown . . .
Bear with me as I finish my short walk. I was ambling through my neighborhood the other day, wielding a pair of walking sticks, “forcing myself,” you might say, to enjoy the beautiful afternoon but actually just plodding forward, in a hurry to get back to the house and be done with this bit of exercise.
But then, oh so briefly, I paused in my hurry-upness, took a deep breath and continued slowly, deliberately on my way. Suddenly I was no longer in a pointless hurry, but, my God, surprisingly awake and present in this beautiful moment of sky and grass and sidewalk concrete. I felt the air fill my lungs and revered every step I took, knowing that one of them — someday — would be my last.
BANGKOK, Thailand -- The Constitutional Court on Wednesday (Aug. 7) expelled from politics Thailand's most popular opposition politician Pita Limjaroenrat, plus 10 his executives, and dissolved their Move Forward Party (MFP) for repeatedly demanding the king's powerful legal protection against libel be weakened and "reformed."
U.S. Senator Ben Cardin (D-Md.), chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, warned this Buddhist-majority, U.S. military ally in Southeast Asia on Aug. 2:
“If the Move Forward Party is dissolved, this decision will effectively disenfranchise millions of voters who called for progressive change and democratic reform.
“This action threatens to undermine Thailand's commitment to democracy and human rights, shared values that have anchored our bilateral partnership for over 190 years,” Sen. Cardin said in a letter to Thai Foreign Minister Maris Sangiampongsa.
"I urge the Thai government to respect the will of its people and uphold the democratic values that have long been the foundation of our enduring alliance," Sen. Cardin wrote.
Trump had also asked for $65 billion to finance current war fighting, a bump of $5 billion; Congress approved $71 billion.
The National Defence Authorisation Act of 2018, which set the target budget for the Department of Defence at this high level, was approved by the Senate in a September 2017 vote of 89-9.
BANGKOK, Thailand -- U.S. Air Force Sgt. David Price, disguised in civilian clothes as a Lockheed employee, was operating a "classified CIA" mountaintop navigation beacon in Laos for U.S. planes bombing Communist North Vietnamese troops when he was killed in 1968, aged 26.
For the past 56 years, Sgt. Price was listed as "killed in action" and his remains lay unrecovered.
In June however the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced discovery of Sgt. Price's remains in the tropical jungle and jagged karst rocks at the small former CIA landing strip.
The remains of fallen U.S. troops are occasionally found and returned home from World War II battlefields and elsewhere, but the discovery of Americans who died in Laos during the Central Intelligence Agency's "secret war" is rare because its participants are still shrouded in confidential documents.
"More than 280 Americans are still unaccounted for in Laos, with some of them in a 'non-recoverable' category," the DPAA said.
Get ready for the quiet coup in November. Donald Trump’s dreams of overturning the vote count of 2020 can now come true in 2024, thanks to a new rule passed by the new, MAGA-controlled Georgia State Election Board.
Let me break this down. Four years ago, Trump called the Secretary of State of Georgia and demanded:
Any Way You Cut it, Any Poll You Read, Any Millennial You Talk to, Woman You Listen to, or Person of Color Who Trusts You — Everyone Already Knows the Historic Shift That Has Taken Place.
From Abortion to Climate, from Guns to Gays, from Free College to Free Palestine, from Pot to Pre-K. Pro-Union. Pro-Peace. Pro-Paid Family Leave. Anti-Alito, Anti-Wall Street, Anti-Rent Hike You’re Ordered to Pay. Dammit It’s Time — Give all Women the E. R. A.!
America Is Now a Liberal Nation — all of the above is what the majority of us believe, no matter what Trump or the pundits say.
Over the past 45 years, I have been active on the streets and on the
internet for our people struggle for return and self-determination in the
face of a most brutal and merciless colonial regime. I read thousands of
books and wrote a few myself. I read tens of thousands of research and
analytical papers (and wrote hundreds myself). The problem of our country
can actually be described very briefly. Its solution (remedies) can also be
described briefly. Implementing the solution would be doable and is the
only way to avoid a catastrophic world war.
So briefly, we have 15 million indigenous Palestinians, over 8 million of
us are intentionally made refugees or displaced people (and that number
increases daily). So far over 250,000 Palestinians were killed or perished
prematurely thanks to genocidal policies since 1948. A million were injured
and another million imprisoned since 1948. The perpetrator Jews fell under
the spell of an idea called Zionism that tries to convince people that
Jewishness is a nationality (Constantinian Judaism as called by Marc Ellis)
and thus that Jews as a collective not only have a right to this ancient