Am I wrong to wish the imaginary deep state would just get its soft coup over with? It’s been 115 days of nothing but melodrama. No one will ever be able to view any agency of the US government with anything but scorn. Trump has accomplished in four months what political dissidents haven’t been able to accomplish in over 200 years: expose the corruption of the US government.

Hard to measure which of these two characters is the most despicable: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi or Palestinian president ad infinitum Mahmoud Abbas.

During this visit by Abbas to India, Modi (who will be visiting Israel in July) said Indian support for a Palestinian bantustate is unwavering & that “The relationship between India & Palestine is built on the foundation of longstanding solidarity & friendship since the days of our own freedom struggle”.

President ad infinitum Abbas expressed appreciation for the absolutely worthless expression of solidarity, saying, “India is a friend. It has influence at the international level. India can play an important role in resolving the Palestine-Israel crisis”. As if that wasn’t groveling enough, Abbas condemned terrorism in all its forms.

In fact, for the past 25 years India & Israel have maintained extensive economic & military ties worth billions of dollars. Those military ties include Israeli weapons used against India’s own dissidents & against Kashmiris & a contract for Israel to train paramilitary forces in Kashmir in the kind of violent methods they use against Palestinians.

This is a lowlife betrayal of Palestinian Intifada by President ad infinitum Abbas & a slap in the face to Kashmiri Intifada. He hasn’t run for office in the West Bank since 2009 because odds are he’d be thrown out on his ass. His sole function has been to implement the Oslo Accords which are the terms for surrendering self-determination never agreed to by the Palestinian people.

Long live Palestinian & Kashmiri Intifada. End the occupations. Self-determination for Palestine & Kashmir.

(Photo by AFP)

President Erdogan sounds just like Pepe Le Pew. I wouldn’t point that out but he’s so corrupt.

The White House announced that Trump will travel next week to Saudi Arabia, Israel, & the Vatican “to unite Islam, Judaism, & Christianity in the common cause of fighting intolerance & radical extremism.”

Now if there’s any alliance that can do that, it’s Trump, Netanyahu, & our man king Salman.

Ready the barricades. Locate your nearest bomb shelter.

For how long has Glenn Greenwald been all blah blah blah about the imaginary deep state going to war against Trump? It was one silly article & interview after another.

Now he’s shocked, yes shocked that Trump fired Comey to thwart the Russia investigation. So it was Trump then that took out the imaginary deep state? Will Glenn, can Glenn start talking sense again?

It’s one thing for white supremacists to protest the removal of Confederate monuments; it’s appalling that progressives argue the monuments should be left as part of the historical record. It’s not just a bad case of talking through your hat but of systematic omissions & deceptions taught about American history in public schools. Trump’s misrepresentation of Andrew Jackson was probably a case of both flapping his ignorant jaw & promoting racism in America.

Historian James W. Loewen has written two popular histories on exactly these issues. One titled “Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong” (1995) about how Blacks, Native Americans, & Latinos are removed from US history, & “Lies Across America: What American Historic Sites Get Wrong” (1999) about the hundreds of Confederate monuments from the east to the west coast.

Loewen discusses how these statues & monuments were erected after the decisive defeat of Black Reconstruction, during the time known as the “Nadir of Race Relations” between 1890 & 1940–an era of eugenics, lynchings, apartheid in the US south (known as Jim Crow), segregation in the north. These Confederate monuments were put up all over the country to express triumphal white supremacy & are maintained today by Confederate organizations unreconciled to defeat in the Civil War.

These monuments are lies & have nothing to do with the historical record. They glorify the subordination & extermination of Native Americans; exclude completely the role of Latinos in the US west & southwest (cowboy culture & cattle ranching are completely derived from Mexican culture); glorify slavery & slave owners. They are an abomination.

This repugnant statue of Theodore Roosevelt, US president from 1901 to 1909, flanked in a subordinate position by a Native American & an American Black is in front of the American Museum of Natural History in NYC which was built in 1869. Natural history museums were intended as testaments to the triumph of white supremacy in the US & to colonialism overseas. They were bankrolled by the ruling elite to warehouse the artifacts of “primitive civilizations” defeated or exterminated by superior white culture. It’s entirely appropriate that Roosevelt represent that because of his monstrous role colonizing Latin & Central America.

It’s also entirely appropriate that these statues be destroyed across America so that the real history–including not just slavery, the extermination of Native Americans, & the defeat of Mexicans–but the contributions of Blacks, Latinos, & Native Americans can finally be acknowledged & taught in our schools.

(Photo of the statue by Joel Gordon)

“Trump administration says it has evidence Syrian authorities are burning bodies at Saydnaya prison near Damascus.”

What’s wrong with that headline?

Most importantly it means that if the US has satellite documentation of a crematorium to incinerate the bodies of tortured & murdered prisoners, it also has satellite documentation of Syrian & Russian bombing of civilians which it has not revealed, including of Syria’s April 4th sarin gas attack in Khan Sheikhoun & other instances of gas attacks. Withholding such documentation, which the US has done for 6 years, contributes to the confusions & obfuscations about the US role in Syria & to the destruction of the antiwar movement which is now full monty Assadist.

Such an exposure of Assad’s criminality should mean the romance between Assadists & Trump is over. It may encourage the folly of those Assad opponents who look to a US-imposed No Fly Zone in Syria. It may lead the credulous to believe there is a difference between Obama & Trump’s Syrian policies when Trump is too busy tweeting & covering his ass to be paying attention to Syria.

In responding to the report from the US State Department, Trump press secretary Sean Spicer said the “Assad regime has sunk to a new level of depravity”. Coming from a US president who is depraved, unhinged, probably a sociopath, & notorious as a pathological liar, such indignation doesn’t carry any weight. Spare us the melodrama.

Even though we know the revelation is true, to be credible the US will have to release all its satellite documentation of its conduct in Syria along with Syrian, Russian, Iranian, ISIS, & that of all foreign operatives & paramilitary forces. We need to know about the old levels of depravity as well as the new.

“Al-Qaida gang waits to board planes to US if Trump’s travel ban is overturned in court.”

–Tweeted by Free Syria Media Hub