IDIOTIZED PUBLICS

ANDRE VLTCHEK-The United States occupies and antagonizes countries and then it punishes them when they try to protect themselves. Israel does the same. And so, do Indonesia, India, and NATO as a block. Turkey is turning into a maniac. Iran, Venezuela and others are screaming, brutalized for absolutely no reason by sanctions and embargoes. Russia is being constantly smeared, just for helping injured nations, in the Middle East, Africa and Latin America. I watch all this and I wonder: how much further can all this go? Is all this banditry and idiocy going to go on from now on, and forever accepted as a normalcy?

ALAN MACLEOD—In 2016, Georgia Governor Nathan Deal signed a law requiring any person or organization entering into a contract with the state worth at least $1,000 sign an oath promising that they would not oppose the Israeli government in any fashion. CAIR has reason to believe they could overturn the law its Georgia Executive Director, Edward Ahmed Mitchell, called “blatantly and hilariously unconstitutional.”

BEN NORTON—This is far from the first time that Trump has made such threats against civilians. During his presidential campaign in 2015, the Republican leader vowed to kill the family members of militants. “The other thing with the terrorists is you have to take out their families, when you get these terrorists, you have to take out their families,” Trump repeated.

ERIC ZUESSE—Russia’s strategy has always been to delay World War III until all other means of pacifying America’s ravenous aristocracy have become exhausted — which hasn’t happened yet.

THE SAKER—The Iranians are far most sophisticated players than the mostly clueless US Americans.  So the first thing I would suggest is that the Iranians are unlikely to do something the US is expecting them to do.  Either they will do something totally different, or they will act much later, once the US lowers its guard (as it always does after declaring “victory”).