Politics and Leadership (2015)

© 2016 Peter Free

 

George Stephanopoulos’ 20 December 2015 Interview of Donald Trump — Illustrated American Media’s Propagandizing Function — Glaring Bias and Intellectual Dishonesty Concealed as Inquiry (21 December 2015)

 

 

The United States Will Resume Buying Russian Rocket Engines — so as to Launch American Military Satellites — How Stupid Is that for Our National Security? (17 December 2015)

 

 

Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s over the Top Irony — about the San Bernardino Shootings (07 December 2015)

 

 

President Obama’s Arrogance toward the Russian Federation — Is Likely to Force an Unnecessary Military Confrontation — You Have to Wonder whether the Man Possesses a Shred of Common Sense(26 November 2015)

 

 

Robert Kuttner’s Insightful Comment about American Fascism (25 November 2015)

 

 

Plutocrat Silly-Smart Hillary (20 November 2015)

 

 

Waa Waa Senator Cruz Laughably Tried to Put a Tough Guy Edge on Anti-Terrorism’s Cry Baby Demagoguery (19 November 2015)

 

 

Prominent Republicans Are Promoting a Jackass America which Christ and Lady Liberty Would Reject with Contempt (17 November 2015)

 

 

Senator Ted Cruz Immediately Jumped on the Crusades War Wagon — after the 13 November 2015 Paris Terror Attacks — Indicating How Unfit He Is for any Job that Requires a Combination of Effective Strategic Sense and Emotional Balance (14 November 2015)

 

 

Jeb Bush Keeps Tripping over His Ponderous Mediocrity — Attacking Senator Rubio’s Voting Record without Foreseeing the Senator’s Obvious Response — Is Slow-Witted Jeb Someone We Would Want as President? (29 October 2015)

 

 

Does the Pressure of Political Campaigning Justify Foolishly Timed Statements? — Like Hillary Clinton’s Suggestion that We Establish a Syrian “No Fly” Zone with the Russians already in the Air There (16 October 2015)

 

 

A Mistake Was Made — in Blowing Up Doctors without Borders — General John Campbell Reportedly Said — Evidently Implying that Mistaken Collateral Damage Cannot Be a War Crime — and Inadvertently Demonstrating the Near Impossibility of Exercising Effective Accountability in War (07 October 2015)

 

 

The Duplicitous Trans-Pacific Partnership — More Jobs Lost, More Money Stolen — and Even More Control Given to the Robber Baron Elite (06 October 2015)

 

 

After the United States Apparently Blew Up 22 People in a Hospital — Secretary of Defense Ash Carter Implied that — Collateral Damage Is too Difficult to Track until We Forget about It (05 October 2015)

 

Philip Giraldi’s Juxtaposition of a Handful of News Stories — Tells Us the Reasons — for the United States’ Carefree Slide into History’s Landfill (30 September 2015)

 

 

VW Joins GM in Having Done Evil for Profit — Will the US Justice Department again Make Itself Immorally Complicit? (22 September 2015)

 

 

The CIA’s Denial of Torture Wrongdoing Rises to Laughable Hot Air Balloon Heights — with an Apparently Out of Control Government Like This, Who Needs Stalinists? (15 September 2015)

 

 

Denali — Semantic Cultural Justice — Predictably Opposed by Some Prominent Members of the Republican Party’s Band of Bigots (01 September 2015)

 

 

The Painful Joke that Is the US Congress — Going after Litigation Financing — while Accepting the Gargantuan Overflow of Quasi-Bribery that Citizens United Permitted (28 August 2015)

 

 

North Dakota Police Are Now Allowed to Fly Drones — Carrying Bean Bag Cannons, Tasers and Tear Gas — apparently because Drone Manufactures Need Profits — My Observation about Frittering Freedom away (27 August 2015)

 

 

Pew Research Center’s Distorted Overview — of a Recent “Russia versus US” Global Reputation Opinion Poll — Represents a Heads Up for “Wannabe” Strategists (25 August 2015)

 

 

Abolish School Teachers' Lounges? — Supposedly Reasonable Ohio Governor John Kasich Spouted this Anti-Union BS in a Joke — which Makes One Wonder How Our Republican 2016 Presidential Candidates Dress Themselves without Assistance (20 August 2015)

 

 

Sweden and the United Kingdom Should Be Embarrassed — the Julian Assange BS (14 August 2015)

 

 

My German Landlord Told Me that — a Nation Cannot Afford to Have an Idiot Like Donald Trump — and His Fellow Buffoons — Represent Its Face — and an Added Comment about the Arguably American Id (13 August 2015)

 

 

Peter Van Buren’s Essay about Guantanamo Prisoner Tariq Ba Odah — Shows Us an Excellent Example of Hannah Arendt’s “Banality of Evil” (12 August 2015)

 

 

Humanitarian Comic Jon Stewart Handed off His Baton with Two Memorable Reminders, Humbly Delivered (08 August 2015)

 

 

Mikhail Gorbachev Agrees that Nukes “Gotta” Go — and More Provocatively — that US Militarism Is the Biggest Obstacle to Achieving that Desirable Step (07 August 2015)

 

 

Former President Jimmy Carter Recently Acknowledged that the United States Is an Oligarchy — but the Mainstream Media Ignored His Statement — Collaterally Proving His Point (03 August 2015)

 

 

President Obama’s Imperious Hypocrisy in Africa Ruffled Some Feathers (31 July 2015)

 

 

Unbelievably Stupid American Policy Makers Are at It again — This Time Selling Anti-ISIS Kurds Out(30 July 2015)

 

 

Christian G. Appy, American Reckoning: The Vietnam War and Our National Identity — a Mini Book Review (28 July 2015)

 

 

Buffoons and Bumbleheads — After Reveling in Donald Trump’s Id-ish Revelation of the Republican Party’s Core Values — I Admit a Corresponding Sad Chuckle at Democrat Hillary Clinton — Being Caught Out for Her Arrogantly Displayed Lack of Political Foresight (24 July 2015)

 

 

We Humans Do Love the Cycle of Violence — Take Israel’s New Rock Thrower as Terrorist Law (23 July 2015)

 

I Derive Cynical Enjoyment — from Donald Trump’s Temporary Drivership of the Republican Party’s Buffoon Bus — a Colorful Cartoon of the Mindlessness of American Politics (22 July 2015)

 

 

Novelist Susan Abulhawa Saw Something True that Everyone Else Missed — “Merkel and the Palestinian Girl” — and My Larger Point that Our Actions and Omissions Have Consequences that We Intentionally Avoid Holding Ourselves Accountable for (21 July 2015)

 

 

Chris Hedges’ Take on Corporatism Is Accurate — Now What to Do? (14 July 2015)

 

 

Germany’s Characteristic Rigidity May Be on the Verge of Making the European Union Unattractive to Nations of Dissimilar Mind — Deutschland’s Treatment of Greece as a Prime Example (13 July 2015)

 

 

 

Jeb Bush May Be Doing a Good Job of Fostering Bush Dynasty Revulsion among Sensible People — the Resemblance to His Incompetent Brother and Out of Touch Dad Is Striking (10 July 2015)

 

 

Three Telling Paragraphs of Neocon Idiocy — if This Illogic Made Americans Look any More Foolish, We Would Have to Mercy Kill Ourselves (09 July 2015)

 

 

Sharks ‘n Terrorists Gonna Kill Us! — Fraidy Cats — Orwellian Government — and D-Day Beaches (07 July 2015)

 

The New York Times and the Washington Post — Missed the Point about the Senate’s Decision to Fast Track the Trans Pacific Partnership — Why Care about Workers, when Camouflage and Political Legacies Are More Fun to Force Feed? (25 June 2015)

 

 

Professor Chris Lebron Recently Asked the Only Pertinent Racial Question — Malcolm X Answered It(23 June 2015)

 

 

Twisted Souls, Guns Out the Wazoo, and an Apparently Murder-Loving Society — from Germany, My American Culture Looks beyond Nuts (20 June 2015)

 

 

Andrew Bacevich’s Essay — “Washington in Wonderland” — Synopsizes Our Policy Madness in Iraq — but His Diagnosis May Mask the True Psychic Culprits — Profit and Insider Advancement (19 June 2015)

 

 

One Sign of Stupidity Is the Inability to Learn No Matter How Graphic the Lesson — A Comment about William Astore’s Excellent Summation of American Militarism’s Predicament (15 June 2015)

 

 

When the Goal Is War Profits — No Amount of Deadly Silliness Appears to Be too Much — Repeating the Tiresomely Futile Training Mission in Iraq (11 June 2015)

 

 

The Editors of the Los Angeles Times Think that It Is a Good Idea to Prosecute American Whistleblowers Like Edward Snowden — Talk about Sheep Worthy of Totalitarian Takeover (09 June 2015)

 

 

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell Implied that Republicans Are Not Happy — unless They Are Wrecking the Founders’ System (05 June 2015)

 

 

Republican Party Leadership Is Filled with Genuinely Nasty People — Take the Revealing Depth of Ted Cruz’s Comment about Vice President Biden (04 June 2015)

 

 

The Irony of the United States’ Prosecution of FIFA’s Money Grubbers — Is Inadvertently Summed in a Quote from Attorney General Loretta Lynch (02 June 2015)

 

 

Regarding the Clintons’ Never-Ending Ability to Completely Screw Things Up — Hillary’s State Department Emails (21 May 2015)

 

 

In a Seemingly Universal Culture of Lies and Misdirection — How Can anyone Know whether Seymour Hersh’s Alleged Expose of Osama bin Ladens Execution Is Bogus? (20 May 2015)

 

 

Chris Hedge’s Essay — “Pathology of the Rich White Family” — Will Reward with a Defensible Slant on Truth — but You Will Need a Strong Stomach and an Open Mind to Get through It (18 May 2015)

 

 

Robert Scheer Gave Edward Snowden His Due — in a Few Words that Would Jolt Americans — Provided Anyone Were Paying More than a Branch-Sitting Monkey’s Attention (16 May 2015)

 

 

Paul Krugman’s Take on the Fraternity of Failure Is Justified (15 May 2015)

 

 

The Problem with Creeping Totalitarianism at the Core of American Government — Is Not that Its Minions Are Necessarily Evil People — It Is that the Minion-Keepers’ Paranoid Tunnel Vision Prevents Them from Understanding How Democracy Is Constitutionally Supposed to Work (11 May 2015)

 

 

Today Is the 70th Anniversary of the End of the European Component of World War II — My Comment on the Contrast between Repentant Germany and Morally Recalcitrant Japan — and the Implied Parable for the United States (08 May 2015)

 

 

Texas Governor Greg Abbot, Senator Ted Cruz, and the Jade Helm 15 Conspiracy — Republican Sub-Monkey People Arise (07 May 2015)

 

 

France Appears Ready to Join the United States — as another Example of Quavering Poodle People(06 May 2015)

 

 

Stephan Richter Sized Our Smallish President Correctly (05 May 2015)

 

 

A Truthful Paragraph from Ajamu Baraka — about the Right to Resist Oppression (30 April 2015)

 

 

The Immense Value of Robert Reich — Writing Understandably about Stomp-Down Capitalism’s Obvious Wrongs (28 April 2015)

 

 

Government Giving Authority a Bad Name — According to the Washington Post, the FBI Consistently Lied about Forensic Evidence (25 April 2015)

 

 

Did We Did Drone Murder You by Mistake? — Oops — Says the Commander-in-Chief (24 April 2015)

 

 

With American Democracy Functionally Dead — We Will Have to Settle for its Occasionally Humorous Theater — Senator Rand Paul Blasted Two Republican Blowhards with a Dose of Truth (22 April 2015)

 

 

Doug Bandow Posed the Core Question about Our American Brand of Warmongering (21 April 2015)

 

 

Is this Thoughtful Leadership? — The US Air Force Position on A-10s and F-35s (20 April 2015)

 

 

Reportedly, even US Central Command Thinks that Aspects of American Foreign Policy Are Self-Destructively Dumb (18 April 2015)

 

 

Morality Compartmentalized Makes Poor Spiritual Instruction — Pope Francis, the Armenian “Whatever” and Turkey (13 April 2015)

 

 

According to John Oliver — NSA Surveillance Does Not Matter to Americans — Unless They See Our Dick Pics — the Depressing Scope of Public Ignorance (07 April 2015)

 

 

The Twisted Stupidity of American Foreign and Military Policy — Is Seen in Iraq and Yemen (27 March 2015)

 

 

Plutocracy’s Chief Puppet Is Reportedly Trying to Slide the Job Killing Trans-Pacific Partnership Past Us — by Closing the Congressional Session(s) that Are Slated to Pass Judgment on It (24 March 2015)

 

 

Hillary Clinton’s Lack of Foresight May become a Problem for Her (16 March 2015)

 

 

Marsha Coleman-Adebayo and Kevin Berends Perfectly Explained Why We Reluctantly Tuned President Obama Out — When He Spoke on Selma’s Edmund Pettus Bridge — and Why Tragedy Stings (13 March 2015)

 

 

Chancellor Merkel’s Diplomatic Smarts with a Prickly Small Thing — Why Don’t We Have anyone Like that? (12 March 2015)

 

 

The United States Appears to Be Starting Dangerous Conflagrations wherever It Can — Does this Make Strategic Sense? (09 March 2015)

 

 

Attorney General Eric Holder’s Genius for Informative Public Speaking Was on Display Yesterday — Too Bad that He So Rarely Harnessed It to Democracy’s Ideals, when Expressed outside the Civil Rights Arena (05 March 2015)

 

 

What a Joke the National Security Argument Is — Former General David Petraeus Skated on Having Loose Lips because He Is “Da Man” (04 March 2015)

 

 

Jim Hightower Admirably Explained How Plutocrats and Judges Pickpocket Our Wallets (26 February 2015)

 

 

Edward Snowden Is apparently More Thoughtful than His Critics (25 February 2015)

 

 

Canadian Journalist Michael Petrou’s Portrait of German Chancellor Angela Merkel — Demonstrates Why I Respect Her More than any Other Leaders (24 February 2015)

 

 

Matt Taibbi Took Rudy Giuliani’s Crass Nastiness and Made Something Funny Out of It — and a Comment about Evolving Prejudice (23 February 2015)

 

 

Arguing about Who Loves America — without First Discussing How Sound Patriotism Would Manifest — with Regard to Choosing Wise Policies — Does Constantly Missing the Point Characterize the United States? (20 February 2015)

 

 

Jackassery Appears to Be Rudy Giuliani’s Strongest Suit — His Claim that President Obama Does Not Love the United States Overlooks the Obvious (19 February 2015)

 

 

By Selling Armed Drones to Allies — The United States Is again Doing What It Can to Create Deadly Tumult wherever It Goes (18 February 2015)

 

 

Are We Going to Wake Up with a Nuke in Our Soup? — Germany’s Markus Becker Points to What Should Be Obvious (13 February 2015)

 

 

The United States Is Provocatively Sending A-10 Thunderbolts to Germany — and 600 Paratroops to train Ukrainian Troops — Chancellor Angela Merkel is the Only Grownup Left (12 February 2015)

 

 

The FDA Evidently Colludes in Hiding Medical Industry Corruption in Clinical Trials — according to an Investigation by Charles Seife and His Students (10 February 2015)

 

 

When We Frame Geopolitical Issues in Mistaken Terms — We Guarantee that We Will Come Up with Unwise Solutions — Is the Ukraine Problem One of Russian Hegemony or Blatant Aggression? (09 February 2015)

 

 

US Recklessness May Backfire against the Russian Federation’s Aggression in Ukraine — History Hints that their Small Dog May Be Rabidly Tougher than Our Big One on its Home Turf (05 February 2015)

 

 

American Outrage over ISIS’ Burning of Jordanian Pilot — Lieutenant Muath al-Kasaesbeh — Reflects in Equal Measure Our Own Killing Hypocrisy (04 February 2015)

 

 

The Logistical Inertia of American Militarism Means that Our Foreign Meddling Will Not Go away (01 February 2015)

 

 

There Should Be a Larger Uproar over the DEA’s Plan to Surveil Us — Wherever We Drive — Gestapo America Rolls on (28 January 2015)

 

 

President Obama’s Soaring State of the Union Cynicism — Matches Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s — These Two Men Symbolize Our Narcissistically Destructive Age (22 January 2015)

 

 

Oxfam’s Global Wealth Report Indicates that 80 Percent of the Population Subsists on Only 5.5 Percent of the Planet’s Wealth — with 2016 Likely to See the Top One Percent of Richest People Owning More than Half (20 January 2015)

 

 

Laura Hillenbrand Unbroken (2010) — a Review — Mainly regarding the Book’s Relevance to Three of Today’s Issues (15 January 2015)

 

 

An Example of How Institutionalized Racial Discrimination Works — Texas and (Hair Braider) Isis Brantley (12 January 2015)

 

 

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s Absurdly Magical Inference — about the Source and Timing of Our Economic Recovery — Proves Alan Grayson’s Point about Tribe — and Mine about Influential Loons (10 January 2015)

 

 

Representative Alan Grayson Says Politically Incorrect Things that Are often True — His Latest Zinger about the Republican Tribe Made Me Smile — and my Sneaky Parallel to the Satire at Charlie Hebdo (09 January 2015)

 

 

A Probably Sadly Unteachable Moment — Recognizing the Emotional Identicality between Our Reaction to the Charlie Hebdo Terrorist Attack — and Islamic Reactions to Our Retaliatory Attacks on Them (08 January 2015)