"Of course Titanic was suspended. They tweaked a legislator in Germany, a country that bans 'hate speech' without defining the term, and it's clear from the examples of Britain and France that the speech politicians hate most is that directed at them."
"Why were all members of Congress but the 22 on this committee kept in the dark about NSA and FBI lawlessness? Why didn't the committee reveal to Congress what it claims is too shocking to discuss publicly before Congress voted on surveillance expansion? Where is the outrage that this information was known to a few in the House and kept from the remainder of Congress while it ignorantly voted to assault the right to privacy? The new law places too much power in the hands of folks who even the drafters of it have now acknowledged are inherently unworthy of this trust."
"Trump hasn’t forfeited America’s global leadership. On the world stage, his is a new flavor of the same dish. America is still playing the futile role of global cop, still reigns as the only superpower with a globe-straddling military presence and is still picking fights in distant regions remote to US national-security interests. The fact that it is Donald Trump at the helm of all this is fooling observers into thinking more has changed than actually has."
"Barack Obama left office as the first two-termer in American history to have been at war every single day of his presidency. In his last year alone, U.S. forces dropped over 26,000 bombs on seven different countries. Trump blew past that tally nine months into his tenure. Indeed, this putatively 'isolationist' president has deepened entanglements on every battlefield Obama left him, ramping up airstrikes, kill-or-capture missions, and civilian casualties."
"From the United States’ point of view, the National Security Strategy document highlighted how China and Russia are trying to shape a new geopolitical environment in the region, which contrasts sharply from Washington’s aims and interests. It pointed out that while Russia is trying to advance its position as the leading political and military power broker, China is pushing ahead with a 'win, win' economic policy."
"While killing people with socialist policies might or might not be the aim of rulers in socialist countries, killing people is the aim of the U.S. government with its sanctions. The idea is that as people die from the sanctions, those who are still alive will have the incentive to rise up and oust the socialist regime from power. But of course, revolutions inevitably mean more death and destruction. U.S. officials don’t care. All they care about is regime change."
"Many of the heavily-armed activists who flocked to the scene feared that the FBI snipers had a license to kill the Bundys. Their reaction cannot be understood without considering a landmark 1990s case that continues to shape millions of Americans’ attitude towards Washington: the federal killings and coverups at Ruby Ridge."
"Just to be clear, the city attorney is arguing that a white jury was acting with racial prejudice when it ruled against police officers who killed a black man."
"In just one extraordinary year, Trump has destabilized the delicate duality that has long been the foundation for U.S. foreign policy: favoring war over diplomacy, the Pentagon over the State Department, and narrow national interest over international leadership. But in a globalizing world interconnected by trade, the Internet, and the rapid proliferation of nuclear-armed missiles, walls won’t work. There can be no Fortress America."
"One of the reasons that Americans are unable to draw the parallels between Great Britain and the United States is that the U.S. version of empire hasn’t followed the British model. Instead of converting foreign lands into colonies, the U.S. government has followed the Soviet Union’s model of empire that was established in Eastern Europe. It uses local proxies or 'puppets' to serve as agents for the U.S. government, just as the Soviets did in Eastern European countries. This has enabled the United States to maintain the façade of supporting 'independent' regimes in the countries it controls, which just happen to 'invite' the United States to maintain military bases in their countries."