barack obama

As a Marxist, I’m not very interested in the psychology of the powerful. I don’t think it matters much, and it tends to be pretty uniform and predictable anyway: self-overestimation, self-justification, moral rationalizations for every horrendous decision made, brutal callousness to human suffering beneath (at best) a veneer of concern, energies directed to machinations for increased power, cowardly accommodation to the path of least political resistance, a collective insularity of the golden-boy culture gilded with sycophants, etc.

Two months ago, the American Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) launched a hit reboot of the sitcom series Roseanne.
The series received remarkably wide acclaim, and the admittedly crass comedienne Roseanne Barr aroused quite a bit of attention by portraying herself on this program as a Trump supporter.
Yesterday, the network canceled their own hit program. Why? Because Roseanne tweeted a slur directed at former President Obama’s prima adviser, Valerie Jarrett.

From the Archive: Memorial Day should be a time of sober reflection on war’s horrible costs, not a moment to glorify war. But many politicians and pundits can’t resist the opportunity, as Ray McGovern explains in this updated commentary from May…Read more →

At Russia’s ‘Second Capital’ of St. Petersburg, leaders from several nations and economic organizations called for an ‘economy of trust’. The theme was aimed at combatting the selfish protectionist measures that have been emanating from various nations in Europe and, most notably, America, the latter of which has been levying tariffs both targeted and global in their scope, as well as economic sanctions, in an attempt to restore the heights of its glory days, when its economy represented half of the world’s GDP, in order to ‘Make America Great Again’.

The Duran – News in Review – Episode 11.
Alex Christoforou with Alexander Mercouris discuss how the FBI used one-time CIA operative Stefan Halper in 2016 as an informant to spy on Trump officials, and why the Trump White House has, to date, failed to launch an in depth and comprehensive investigation into the SPYGATE scandal.
Is POTUS Trump in control of his DOJ?
Why has an investigation into so many crimes against a US President not been investigated?
Where is Jeff Sessions in all of this?

Alex Christoforou with Alexander Mercouris discuss how the FBI, under James Comey, reportedly used one-time CIA operative Stefan Halper in 2016 as an informant to spy on Trump officials.
How high does the scandal go?
Was Barack Obama in the know all along, as US intelligence agencies spied an Trump’s presidential campaign in an effort to ensure Hillary Clinton was elected US President.
And when Hillary lost, Plan B, now known as “Trump-Russia” collusion, was launched in an brazen attempt to delegitimize and destroy President Trump.

It may not be an exaggeration to say that the fate of civilization is up to Americans to sort out how they want to interact with the rest of the world, argues Inder Comar in this commentary. By Inder Comar…Read more →

EU Council President Donald Tusk said to the EU Commission head, Jean-Claude Juncker, “You said that the problem with Iran, in the past, and maybe today and tomorrow, is unpredictability. I think the real geopolitical problem is when you have not an unpredictable opponent, the problem is when your closest friend is unpredictable. It’s not a joke, this is the essence of our problem today on the other side of the Atlantic.”

First, John Bolton again opened his big mouth referring to ‘the Libya model’, where a nation that denuclearized experienced a US backed regime change that has left the nation a failed state ever since, right when Washington is supposedly attempting to broker a denuclearization deal with a country that Trump has been threatening to bomb, as well as get a peace settlement established.

The gaping chasm between reality and unreality is exemplified by recent contrasting statements about journalism from two veteran reporters. On the one side we have Jeremy Bowen, the BBC’s Middle East editor, who enjoys a public image of principled honesty and a supposedly fierce commitment to news balance and impartiality.