Author: John V. Walsh

“Only Donald Trump (among the Presidential candidates) has said anything meaningful and critical of U.S. foreign policy.” No, that is not Reince Priebus, chair of the RNC, speaking up in favor of the presumptive Republican nominee. It is Stephen F. Cohen, Emeritus Professor of Russian History at Princeton and NYU, a contributing editor for The Nation, that most liberal of political journals. Cohen tells us here that: “Trump’s questions are fundamental and urgent, but instead of engaging them, his opponents (including President Obama) and the media dismiss the issues he raises about foreign policy as ignorant and dangerous. Some even charge that his … Continue reading →

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The headline reads, “The Rapid Rise of a Research Nation:  China’s economic boom is mirrored by its similarly meteoric rise in high quality science.”  This was not a headline in People’s Daily or China Daily but in the most prestigious of Western scientific publications, Nature. The 38 pages, which follow that headline in a special Supplement to the journal Nature, tell us that China is now second in the world in high quality science publications and growing fast.  This certainly contradicts the Western, dare I say racist, stereotype of the hardworking, but unimaginative, Asian drudge, dutifully churning out mounds of … Continue reading →

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The New York Times vendetta against Donald Trump continues with its latest theme that The Donald is “vulgar.”  This highly newsworthy charge recently made it to the front page with the headline, “With a Slur for Ted Cruz, Donald Trump Further Splits Voters.”  The Times tells us that the slur involved a “vulgar word.” How this “splits voters” is not made clear – but never mind. Not until paragraph ten, after a boring slog through nine paragraphs of gratuitous anti-Trump invective do the two intrepid reporters required to track down this momentous story inform us what the “”vulgar word” is, … Continue reading →

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Hillary Clinton “won” the Iowa caucuses, in part because of 6 coin tosses all of which she won!  Six precincts, at least, ended up with a dead tie between the two candidates. The tie was broken and a winner declared based on a coin toss in each case. What are the odds of one of two candidates winning all six coin tosses if the outcomes are random, that is, if the tosses are fair, unbiased and with honest coins? The calculation is so simple that a schoolboy or schoolgirl can do it.  The formula is simply 1/2 raised to the … Continue reading →

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Good evening. I have purchased this television time tonight on every available media outlet here in Iowa, just days in advance of the 2016 caucuses.  I address you, because the choice you make in a few days time could well determine whether we live in peace or go to war, possibly nuclear war.  The very survival of humanity could hang in the balance.  And it hinges on whether you vote for me or for my principal opponent, Hillary Rodham Clinton.  Let us be blunt, she has never seen a war she did not like.  And looking at the wars of … Continue reading →

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“The Martian” is a very expensive piece of Hollywood trash, in short an international blockbuster.   But it has one revealing and interesting brief segment.  For those fortunate enough to have missed the movie, it recounts the survival and rescue of an American astronaut abandoned by accident on a mission to Mars.  It is an altogether predictable story of Yankee ingenuity and derring-do with nary a trace of the character development or the superb photography of its predecessor and inspiration, “Gravity. “ As the rescue operation proceeds the Americans find themselves short a rocket booster.  The obvious source for the needed … Continue reading →

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Who is the arch racist, Hillary or Trump?  To answer that, let us ask another question, a simple one.  Which is worse: to denigrate some members of a group or religion or race – or to kill them by the millions?  And maim more millions and displace even more millions?  Which is more “racist”?  With that in mind, who is the arch racist, Hillary or The Donald? Do the liberals who criticize Trump, but not Hillary, as racist forget the slogan of the anti-Vietnam War movement, “Stop the Racist Bombing.” And which causes more blowback, more revenge attacks by the … Continue reading →

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The following abruptly appeared on our TV screen, apparently due to a fissure in the spacetime continuum. ‘’ Host: Good evening ladies and gentleman.  Welcome to the first presidential debate of 2016 between the Republican nominee, Donald Trump, and the Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton.  Instead of reporters as questioners, each candidate chose a “second” who will pose questions to both candidates.  The “seconds” are Jesse Ventura for Mr. Trump and Samantha Power, for Ms. Clinton.  Now let us all introduce ourselves.  Ms. Power, please go first. Power.  Good evening.  At the outset I must say quite frankly that I can hardly … Continue reading →

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By now we have heard chapter and verse, repeatedly so, on the failure of Bernie Sanders to take an antiwar position, much less a stance against U.S. Empire.    (Yes, Bernie, there is an Empire.) Paul Street is a leader in the genre with well-documented dissections of Sanders’s flaws on every front and David Swanson provides the latest addition. The Pro-Empire Candidate. We have heard Sanders’s defense of the Israeli atrocities in the bombing of Gaza, his call for Saudi Arabia to do even more killing and his concern about Putin for – well, being Putin and Russian.  Thus Bernie is … Continue reading →

Dear President Xi, On September 3, your country is hosting a commemoration of the end of World War II on the 70th Anniversary of the day recognized as its termination in the Asia-Pacific.  You have invited both me and President Abe of Japan.  We both have chosen to refuse – just as we refused to attend the earlier commemoration of the defeat of Fascism in Moscow last Spring. As you very well know, Jinping, if I may use your given name, this makes the United States look pretty mean spirited.   And to put it plainly, your cooking up these events … Continue reading →

“We have to make sure America writes the rules of the global economy and we should do it today while our economy is in a position of global strength.  If we don’t write the rules for trade around the world, guess what, China will. And they’ll write those rules in a way that gives Chinese workers and Chinese businesses the upper hand.” Barack Obama on the Trans-Pacific Partnership in a Speech at Nike Factory in Oregon, May 8, 2015 Those very few words of Obama’s, his most widely circulated PR effort to garner support for the TPP (Trans Pacific Partnership) … Continue reading →

If all of us rolled down our car windows at 5 pm on weekdays, we would hear a single great voice booming out across the land as if God himself were thundering from the heavens.  In reality it would be countless car radios beaming out in unison “All Things Considered,” sometimes known as “Small Things Considered,” so stunted is its coverage of the news.  Such jokes abound, “Boring Edition” at morning commute time, with the whole operation labeled “National Propaganda Radio” or “National Pentagon Radio.”  My contribution: “National Pablum Radio.” But NPR is no joking matter; it reaches over 20 … Continue reading →

This video should go viral.  It is from the Israeli media. Watch, laugh – and cry. (If you have trouble seeing it, note the following.  First the picture on page one is also a video.  You have to click on it after it loads which takes a few seconds. Then be sure the sound is on.  There is an English sound track. AND finally there is a 20 second commercial with no English that precedes the great video itself – at least when I open it on my computer. I do not know how to skip it.   These features are all … Continue reading →

“We’re going in!”  The Envoy’s voice had the sting of a cold wind cutting across the taiga.   Ratta. Tatta Tat.  The plane out of Ramstein was pelted with a bararage of fire as it descended into Tuzla Air Base in Bosnia.  Ratta Tatta Tat.  One piece of shrapnel pierced the window next to the Envoy’s seat.  She was calm.  “We can’t make it ma’am.  There’s even heavier fire below.”  “That was an order, Major Fenton.”  She was even cooler than her voice in the midst of the panic around her.  “I’m going up front.”  Bursting into the cockpit she took … Continue reading →

To understand the attack on Charlie Hebdo in Paris last week, we need only invert George W. Bush’s 2005 mantra*, thus: “They will continue to attack us over here so long as we slaughter them by the millions over there.” In a word, this is one more instance of blowback, as Ron Paul tells us in his perceptive essay, “Lessons From Paris.” Among other things Paul points out: “The two Paris shooters had reportedly spent the summer in Syria fighting with the rebels seeking to overthrow Syrian President Assad. …But France and the United States have spent nearly four years … Continue reading →