Op-Ed

“Somebody ought to put a bullet in her skull. Back in the day, our forefathers would have put a bullet in her [expletive].”

These words, uttered by some lost soul, were directed at U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar earlier this year. He had called her office and talked to a staffer, calling the congresswoman a terrorist and spewing out his death threat on behalf of the fantasy Founding Fathers. He was later arrested.

Misneach (mish-nyuhkh) is an Irish word meaning something like bravery, courage, spirit.

The extremely rich Americans who are now frantically trying to figure out how to intervene in the Democratic presidential campaign make me wonder how different they are from the animated character who loved frolicking in money and kissing dollar bills while counting them. If Uncle Scrooge existed as a billionaire in human form today, it’s easy to picture him aligned with fellow plutocrats against the “threat” of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

The exceedingly wealthy are usually content to stay in the shadows while their combined financial leverage and media power keep top government officials more or less in line. But the grassroots strengths of the Warren and Sanders campaigns have jolted some key oligarchs into overt action.

“Everyone wants to play with the big boys, and the only way to become one of the big boys is to have nuclear toys.”

Attention Planet Earth! Attention Planet Earth! It is time to grow up.

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, speaks during a news conference at the U.S. Capitol on September 25, 2019 in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images)

A huge national spotlight is now on Adam Schiff, the member of Congress leading the impeachment inquiry. In his tenth term, Schiff is really going places. But where is he coming from?

This year, as chair of the House Intelligence Committee, he has relentlessly built a case against a horrendous president. For progressives eager to see Donald Trump impeached, Schiff is an enemy of their enemy. But whether he’s a friend is another matter.

Oh, how the simplistic certainty resonates.

Russsiagate, recently stoked by Hillary Clinton, comes saturated in ironies, which are usually media-invisible.

The Democrats’ winning-but-nonetheless-losing presidential candidate of 2016 loosed some pent-up fury at democracy the other day, as well as annoyance with those who challenge the sacred status quo of the American governing process, when she tried to re-marginalize Tulsi Gabbard and Jill Stein, along with the generic concept of, good Lord, third parties.

There was what might be described as an extraordinary amount of nonsense being promoted by last week’s media. Unfortunately, some of it was quite dangerous. Admiral William McRaven, who commanded the Navy Seals when Osama bin Laden was captured and killed and who has been riding that horse ever since, announced that if Donald Trump continues to fail to provide the type of leadership the country needs, he should be replaced by whatever means are necessary. The op-ed entitled “Our Republic is Under Attack by the President” with the subtitle “If President Trump doesn’t demonstrate the leadership that America needs, then it is time for a new person in the Oval Office” was featured in the New York Times, suggesting that the Gray Lady was providing its newspaper of record seal of approval for what might well be regarded as a call for a military coup.

ntrigued by the controversy that erupted over Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s speech before the American Association of Christian Counselors last week in Nashville — it was titled “Being a Christian Leader” and was eventually removed from the State Department website — I wound up reading the whole speech. And I actually found one paragraph that I liked.

I’ll get to that in a moment, but first, ta tum, the controversy:

Along with being where all blood goes, the heart is an enduring metaphor. As Bernie Sanders recovers from a heart attack, now might be a good time to consider some literal and symbolic meanings.

Bernie immediately used his heart trouble to advance a central mission. From the hospital, he tweeted: "I'm fortunate to have good healthcare and great doctors and nurses helping me to recover. None of us know when a medical emergency might affect us. And no one should fear going bankrupt if it occurs. Medicare for All!"

Italy Should Make Friends with the US Public and the World By Kicking Out the US Military

By David Swanson

In the late 1980s when I was a teenager and an exchange student in Bassano del Grappa I loved Italy for the same reasons. I found Italians on average to be friendly, kind, generous, loving, fun-loving, humble, self-critical, and intelligent. It was also very cool when I told other young people that I was from the US. Older people told me that the United States had saved Italy from Nazism.