Global
For decades the pretense has been maintained that there is some doubt as to whether the United States really promised Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev that if Germany reunited, then NATO would not expand eastward.
The case against Iraqing Iran includes the following points:
Threatening war is a violation of the U.N. Charter.
Waging war is a violation of the U.N. Charter and of the Kellogg-Briand Pact.
Waging war without Congress is a violation of the U.S. Constitution.
Have you seen Iraq lately?
Have you seen the entire region?
Have you seen Afghanistan? Libya? Syria? Yemen? Pakistan? Somalia?
War supporters said the U.S. urgently needed to attack Iran in 2007. It did not attack. The claims turned out to be lies. Even a National Intelligence Estimate in 2007 pushed back and admitted that Iran had no nuclear weapons program.
Having a nuclear weapons program is not a justification for war, legally, morally, or practically. The United States has nuclear weapons and no one would be justified in attacking the United States.
Let’s all take a moment to savor this great grass-roots U.S. Senate victory in Alabama of Democrat Doug Jones over alleged child molester Roy Moore. Let’s also celebrate the victory of the moderate Ralph Northam over the extremist Republican Ed Gillespie to be governor of Virginia, and a possible flip of the Virginia Legislature, with the influx of a strong contingent of progressive women.
Breathe deep. Stretch up your arms. Shout for joy.
OK?
Now let’s use all that great new energy to fend off Donald Trump’s twin assaults on net neutrality and our core economy.
Losing could leave us blind and impoverished. So don’t even think about it.
On net neutrality, the fight is ongoing and long-term.
On Trump’s tax scam, we have at best a few days.
A mass movement already is in place to save the internet.
Some say the world will end in Trump,
Some say in Pence.
From what I’ve heard out on the stump,
I hold with those who favor Trump;
For if he’s stopped they both might be.
If not, the chance may come too late
For Mr. Pence the throne to capture
And make our fate
His longed-for rapture.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: For those who want to see Sen. Franken remain in office at least until the Ethics Committee process has run its course, there’s a “We support Al Franken” petition at change.org with over 60,000 signatures as of December 8 – https://www.change.org/p/charles-schumer-we-support-al-franken
“. . . real security can only be shared . . .”
I call it news in a cage: the fact that the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons has been awarded this year’s Nobel Peace Prize.
In other words, how nice, but it has nothing to do with the real stuff going on across Planet Earth, like North Korea’s recent test of an ICBM that puts the entire U.S. in the range of its nukes, or the provocative war games Trump’s America has been playing on the Korean peninsula, or the quietly endless development of the “next generation” of nuclear weapons.
Or the imminent possibility of . . . uh, nuclear war.
Evian is not just a bottled water company. And the town of Évian-les-Baines in France on the south shore of Lake Geneva is not just a location for luxury hotels. It’s also the location where, in July 1938, the first international effort was ever made (or feigned) to alleviate a refugee crisis.
