One wonders what would have happened for Cain if he made jokes about lynching black people who make no effort to work…but then later, much later, he said ‘awwwwww, that was a joke, and America needs to get a sense of humor.’ Unfortunately, Cain himself is becoming not a leader, but is seen as a reason to laugh as he blunders along trying to find his way into a presidential nomination. He had...

What is at the root of what’s wrong with our economy and our civil society? Weaving the issue of the U.S. death penalty into the global financial crisis, columnist Guido Rossi of Italy’s Il Sole 24 Ore is unequivocal: our system of ‘financial capitalism’ has slowly but surely eaten away at the fabric of society, which demands protecting the rights of not only the powerful and well-connected,...

Call it propaganda or call it delusion, but Tehran is crowing about not only predicting Occupy Wall Street and allied groups, but says it considers itself primarily responsible for all the unrest – Eastern and Western – since the Arab Spring began. So could it be that the protests which began in New York on September 17 and have now spread across the developed world reflect a yearning to reject...

NATO’s Interference in Libya Led to more Civilian Casualties by Roni Druken 6 months ago civilian struggle erupted in Syria and Libya. While so far, western countries were not able to pass any serious resolution about Syria’s civil oppression, Libya is a different story. Concern for Libya’s oil reserves led NATO to launch military mission against Libya. Of course it was never described this...

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Is Steve Jobs and the success he engendered the perfect demonstration of how far off track the global financial system has gotten? According to columnist León Bendesky of Mexico’s La Jornada, innovation and creating new products that consitute progress requires the availablity of credit, an element of buisiness that banks have rejected in favor of sophisticated financial instruments that generate little...

Has Washington concocted a tale of Iranian terror in order to, a) divert the anger of the American people over the behavior of government leaders and financial officials, b) ruin Iran’s reputation among neighboring states, particularly with Saudi Arabia, c) divert the Arab Spring from following the example of the Iranian Revolution and, d) help Israel out of its current isolation? According to this news...

What is it about mainland China that prevents the emergence of innovators like Steve Jobs? While in the West it seems obvious that a lack of free speech, free expression and free association puts China at a disadvantage, this editorial from Hong Kong’s Wen Wei Po shows that Beijing still has a way to go before it accepts that in order to unleash the creative power of its people, it will have to loosen...

Vice President Joe Biden says that “nothing is off the table” in the U.S. response to the Iranian plot: video platformvideo managementvideo solutionsvideo player Here’s some of the ABC News website report on the interview: Vice President Joe Biden said today that “nothing has been taken off the table” when it comes to the U.S. response to an alleged plot by Iran to assassinate the...

The fallouts of the alleged Iranian attempt to kill the Saudi ambassador in Washington will heighten Middle East tensions, even as pressure grows on Israelis and Palestinians to sit again at the peace table. If the allegations turn out to be true, the Saudi’s will put intense pressure on the Obama administration for exemplary and swift action. The risk is that the White House might, against its better judgment,...

The clearest voice for sanity in the GOP race has gone all in for tonight’s New Hampshire debate with a foreign-policy speech that actually makes sense. But will sanity sell? “We still have remnants of a top-heavy, post-cold war infrastructure,” Jon Huntsman says. “It needs to be transformed to reflect the 21st Century world and the growing asymmetric threats we face.” The former ambassador to China...

As has been apparent from previous posts (here and here), I support the Obama administration’s decision to take out American-born, terrorist-turned, traitor Anwar al-Awlaki before he could do any more harm to America and Americans. My opinion was reinforced when I read that al-Qaeda—the same gang of terrorists that massacred more than 3,000 innocent American men, women and children; the same organization...

Are local forces ready to take control in Afghanistan? Troubling questions are raised by a UN report, The Christian Science Monitor reports: Half of all detainees in Afghan intelligence service custody have been tortured, according to a new United Nations report that raises grave concerns about the Afghan security force personnel that the United States and its NATO partners are meant to be training and supervising. In...

The killing of American-born, al-Qaeda-affiliated, terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki has sparked anger among civil liberties groups and has set-off a lively and legitimate debate in our country. In response to an article decrying the killing of American born al-Qaeda affiliated terrorist Al-Awlaki, I disputed the contention that the killing of the terrorist was Unconstitutional, illegal or amoral, or that it represented...

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NATO’s apparent victory in Libya, led by France and Britain with full US support, unveils a defining moment for NATO cooperation to protect civilians from massacre by a tyrant. But it is not one that the Obama administration can welcome without reserve. It seriously eroded American influence by causing China to join Russia, which Beijing leaders distrust and despise, in casting a veto in the UN Security Council....

Blame Wall Street, Not China, for Job Losses by Jan Ting As the recession continues, the hunt for a scapegoat intensifies. No one in Washington wants to hold Wall Street accountable for its mega-profits from unregulated credit default swaps, packaged subprime liar loans, and incompetent credit ratings. Despite the resulting housing, banking and market collapse, and continuing foreclosure crisis, it’s still...

The Occupy Wall Street Protests are moving north. Under the banner “Occupy Toronto,” protesters are due to take to the streets on October 15th. It’s easy to dismiss these folks — as many have — as simply lazy kids with nothing better to do. But, as Tom Walkom writes in the Toronto Star, that would not be wise: While the aims of the Wall Streeters remain distressingly vague,...

Is the way America administers the death penalty about exacting justice, or just winning the next election? And does it live up to the ideals Americans say they hold dear? For France’s Le Nouvel Observateur, Sandrine Ageorges-Skinner, one of the world’s most tireless anti-death penalty campaigners, outlines the mind-numbing injustice of how execution is imposed in the United States. And she knows...

Way too many times have I cringed when the religious right uses the Bible to justify evil and prejudice in our lives. Way too many times have I been infuriated when the political right has used the Constitution to support and justify acts of war, torture and rampant violations of civil rights. Way too many times have I been incensed when the Bush administration used Office of Legal Council (OLC) memoranda,...

Is the American left and center-left finally feeling its oats? As the protests on Wall Street spread across the country, the world is taking notice . For Germany’s Die Welt, columnist Ansgar Graw writes that Americans who hardly know the meaning of thw word ‘demonstration’ have taken to the streets, and no one, least of all the protesters, knows where it will all lead. For Die Welt, Ansgar...

The contest for the GOP presidential nomination is like one of those grade-school elocution contests, in which the winner was always the kid who declaimed the best, without the least idea of what he or she was talking about. Herman Cain is spouting nonsense, but he does it with enough verbal dexterity to keep pundits busy pointing out that none of it makes sense while Tea Party voters lap it up. Rick Perry,...

France is playing ketchup. The food police are out in force in France in the form of the French government which is banning ketchup from schools. Students can put it on one bet-you-can-guess-which-one side dish but in general its now taboo. Why? It seems more of an attempt to protect French culture from those evil, pernicious, foreign cultural gastronomic invasions (read that U-n-i-t-e-d S-t-a-t-e-s’...

As uncomfortable is it may make people in the United States – and especially in Mexico – this editorial from Spain’s La Vanguardia warns that with 30 percent of Mexico already in the hands of drug cartels, there may be no way other to take a President Perry up on his offer if Mexico is to avoid becoming a failed state. The La Vanguardia editorial says in part: Mexico City Mayor Marcelino...