During the Vietnam war, an American major said after the destruction of the Vietnamese village Ben Tre that “It became necessary to destroy the village in order to save it.” That macabre statement grimly captured the senselessness of war in general and the Vietnam conflict in particular, as the US laid waste to that country ostensibly to save it from Communism, but in reality for a complex of reasons that it was unwilling to explicitly acknowledge.

A similar statement can be applied to the way that the police in the US respond to calls that suggest that someone has suicidal thoughts. Police with guns drawn broke into the apartment of Chelsea Manning for what is called a “wellness check” after they received a call from someone that she had posted tweets that suggested suicidal thoughts. Fortunately for Manning, she was not at home (she was out of the country) or she might have been shot dead. Here is video footage from security cameras that show the police entering the apartment.

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The Democratic senator from New Jersey is one of the sleaziest members of the US Congress and that is saying something. He barely escaped going to jail on corruption charges because of a hung jury. Glenn Greenwald asks and answers the obvious question: How can such a sleazy politician get re-nominated with virtually n opposition?

In so many ways beyond the corruption and sleaze, Menendez is the classic representation of what the Democratic Party is at the national level. He first made it to the Senate when he was appointed by former Goldman Sachs CEO and then-Democratic New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine. Though he is a somewhat reliable Democratic vote on standard domestic debates, in the area where he has exerted the greatest influence as Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, he has been far to the right, especially recently, despite being from one of the country’s bluest states.

In 2006, he joined with the GOP and right-wing Democrats to enact the Bush/Cheney Military Commissions Act, which stripped War on Terror detainees of the right to judicial review (it was later struck down as unconstitutional). He is one of the Senate’s most extreme Iran hawks, having opposed Obama’s Iran Deal (as the party’s senior foreign policy Senator) and serving as one of the most vocal loyalists for a pro-regime-change Iranian cult that had been on the U.S. terrorist list (once it was removed from the list, money associated with the group began flowing aggressively to Mendenez).
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Most of all, the New Jersey Democrat is one of the most fanatical loyalists to the Israeli Government and AIPAC. He has been the honored guest of the American Friends of Likud, along with officials from the Netanyahu government. AIPAC supported him vocally during his corruption trial, and after his hung jury, he received what the JTA described as a “hero’s welcome” in March. Menendez was also one of the co-sponsors of a bill that would have made it a crime for companies to support a boycott of Israel, which the ACLU denounced as a severe threat to free speech.

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It used to be the case that once you got a job and were reasonably competent at it, you would get regular pay increases that at least kept pace with inflation. And if the economy expanded and your company’s profits improved, you might expect to share in the benefits and this enabled you to aspire to a more financially secure life.
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Roseanne Barr has been running through various excuses for the racist comments that not only got her show canceled, even her management company dropped her, and some of her co-stars and producers condemned her, though I did notice that John Goodman has been silent during all his.

First there was the old standby that what she said was just a joke. Then came the attempt to shift blame by saying that other people have said worse things. Why do people consider that a defense? However bad your words or actions, you can ALWAYS find someone who is worse so it is hardly worth saying.
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The US government, through its various agencies like the CIA, murders people on a regular basis. The government actually has what is known as a secret ‘kill list’ of people it seeks to murder. This should not be a surprise to anyone who has any idea of the history of US government actions. What may surprise people is how easy it is to get on the kill list and how hard it is to get off it once you are on because the criteria used are secret and amorphous.
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