Year: 2016

After posting Friday’s column, “A Presidency from Hell?,” about the investigations a President Hillary Clinton would face, by afternoon it was clear I had understated the gravity of the situation. Networks exploded with news that FBI Director James Comey had informed Congress he was reopening the investigation into Clinton’s email scandal, which he had said...

The FBI bombshell is not necessarily a gamechanging event. The Clinton campaign, and its mainstream media extension, have weathered with surprising ease the fainting episode on September 11. In the next two days they will focus on: the possibility (they will claim likelihood) that Anthony Wener’s/Huma Abedin’s server does not contain any emails not known...

Should Donald Trump surge from behind to win, he would likely bring in with him both houses of Congress. Much of his agenda—tax cuts, deregulation, border security, deportation of criminals here illegally, repeal of Obamacare, appointing justices like Scalia, unleashing the energy industry—could be readily enacted. On new trade treaties with China and Mexico, Trump...

In his latest Sputnik Radio International interview Srdja Trifkovic discusses the Czech Republic government’s establishment of an information unit to counter what it says is pro-Russian, anti-Western and anti-NATO propaganda. “We want to get into every smartphone,” said Milan Chovanec, the Czech interior minister. Audio (unedited verbatim transcript) ST: It is strangely reminiscent of the...

by Edward Lozansky and Jim Jatras Perhaps one of the most used and abused political expressions in recent years has been that of “American exceptionalism.” Politicians and commentators routinely invoke it as high principle and accuse their opponents of insufficient devotion to it, or contrariwise blame it for all the ills of the world. For...

Alliances are transmission belts of war. So our Founding Fathers taught and the 20th century proved. When Britain, allied to France, declared war on Germany in 1914, America sat out, until our own ships were being sunk in 1917. When Britain, allied to France, declared war on Germany, Sept. 3, 1939, we stayed out until...

They are now sweeping up the confetti from the drive, whence Theresa May departed on her honeymoon. It is over. The Prime Minister is now encountering some of the more recalcitrant facts of life, which start with Heathrow. The Government has now announced its green light for Heathrow expansion, which will incur huge opposition from...

In March of 1916, a group of brave American pilots banded together to fight for the Allied cause as part of the French Air Force, over a year before America entered the war. They named their squadron the Lafayette Escadrille, in honor of the courageous French nobleman who did so much to help America gain...

Pressed by moderator Chris Wallace as to whether he would accept defeat should Hillary Clinton win the election, Donald Trump replied, “I will tell you at the time. I’ll keep you in suspense.” “That’s horrifying,” said Clinton, setting off a chain reaction on the post-debate panels with talking heads falling all over one another in...

The much-heralded offensive against ISIS in Mosul by the Iraqi army, Kurdish Peshmerga and Shiite militias may succeed in capturing Iraq’s second largest city. It is unlikely to result in the destruction of the Islamic State’s fighting capacity, however. It is even less likely to lead to the establishment of stable and permanent government control...

“Remember, it’s a rigged system. It’s a rigged election,” said Donald Trump in New Hampshire on Saturday. The stunned recoil in this city suggests this bunker buster went right down the chimney. As the French put it, “Il n’y a que la verite qui blesse.” It is only the truth that hurts. In what sense...

You’d think that after three and a half decades’ working in Pergamum-on-the-Potomac, not to mention over 17 years’ service with the U.S. Senate, one’s capacity to be scandalized would have been exhausted. But even this jaded observer can’t help being a bit shocked by the sheer sleaziness of the Obama Administration, Congressional leaders of both...

British statesman Enoch Powell began his most famous speech with this observation: “The supreme function of statesmanship is to provide against preventable evils.”  I thought of Powell’s cogent dictum often over the last week or so, as Rod Dreher (and others) have been loudly insisting that Trump’s moral failings prevent Christians from voting for him,...

Will Hillary Clinton clean out the nest of anti-Catholic bigots in her inner circle? Or is anti-Catholicism acceptable in her crowd? In a 2011 email on which Clinton campaign chief John Podesta was copied, John Halpin, a fellow at the Center for American Progress that Podesta founded, trashed Rupert Murdoch for raising his kids in...

In his latest RT interview (October 11) Srdja Trifkovic discusses the politics of distinction between war crimes and collateral damage. He says that atrocity management in Syria may be an introduction to intervention in the name of the “Responsibility to Protect,” a doctrine applied in accordance with the intervening power’s preconceived geopolitical and military objectives....

In view of the ongoing partisan MSM feeding frenzy over Donald Trump’s hot microphone comments about women, the question is raised over what constitutes impermissibly lewd thoughts, words, and actions. The following is a helpful guide: 1. LEWD. This means the way virtually all men sometimes think about women, with varying degrees of frequency; the...

As I sit down to write this, on the Sunday afternoon before the second presidential debate, the media feeding frenzy over remarks made by Donald Trump 11 years ago continues unabated.  The content of those remarks reminded me of one of the more interesting pieces I’ve read about the improbable rise of Trump, an article...

Two weeks of atrocity management over Aleppo indicate that the Deep State is still intent on intervening in Syria. Most Americans don’t want another Middle Eastern war, but if Hillary Clinton wins on November 8 it is looks increasingly likely that they will get it. Writing at Consortiumnews.com on October 5, Robert Parry warned that...

Denouncing Russian air strikes on Aleppo as “barbaric,” Mike Pence declared in Tuesday’s debate: “The provocations by Russia need to be met with American strength. … The United States of America should be prepared to use military force, to strike military targets of Bashar Assad regime.” John McCain went further: “The U.S. … must issue...

In taking that $915 million loss in 1995, and carrying it forward to shelter future income, Donald Trump did nothing wrong. By both his family and his business, he did everything right. In a famous 1947 dissent, Judge Learned Hand wrote: “[T]here is nothing sinister in so arranging one’s affairs as to keep taxes as...