John F Kennedy

Which foreign-policy commencement address stands as the most consequential? Many would choose John F. Kennedy’s “A Strategy of Peace,” delivered to the graduating class of American University on June 10, 1963.

That spring morning, President John F. Kennedy came to American University in Washington, D.C., to deliver a commencement address intended to alter the course of history. Speaking from a podium bearing the presidential seal, he called for an end to the nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union and for the start of a new era of peace among nations.

It failed miserably.

Although the speech was downplayed or dismissed on Capitol Hill and by the American press, and soon largely forgotten at home, it drew praise abroad from leading foreign policy figures and major news outlets.

The Coumbus Dispatch called it “an appeasement cue.” Congressional response was mixed; Barry Goldwater criticized JFK for adopting a “soft stance” on the Soviet Union. UK’s Manchester Guardian called it “one of the great state papers of American history,” while Premier Khrushchev later described it as “the best speech by any President since Roosevelt.”

As JFK hoped, it resonated with Soviet Chairman Nikita Khrushchev. It asked Americans to rethink U.S. relations with the Soviet Union and to support finding ways for the two countries to co-exist peacefully.

Special Counsel to the President and author of the address, Theodore Sorensen later wrote, “The signal the Soviet Chairman had awaited was loud and clear and it was received by the Russian people as well as their leaders. The full text was published in the Soviet press. Still more striking was the fact that it was read as well as heard throughout the USSR.”

An American University initiative, Remembering JFK at AU, states:

“With the specter of the Cuban Missile Crisis still hanging heavy over the nation, Kennedy’s speech brought hope that a real and lasting peace could be achieved. During the nearly 27-minute address, Kennedy called for the development of a test ban treaty, pledging that the United States would suspend nuclear tests in the atmosphere so long as other nations did the same. Kennedy also encouraged a respect and understanding of the Soviet Union, unfathomable just months before the speech. It was a watershed moment in the history of U.S.-Soviet relations.

Kennedy’s speech, written by long-time advisor Ted Sorensen, was unprecedented in its dovish pursuit of peace. Few presidents before him ever spoke so artfully and passionately about the need to work toward unequivocal amity.”

History has proven when JFK stepped away from the podium, he was effectively a dead man walking. The peace agenda he pursued - not merely peace in our time but peace for all time - was never going to fly with the military-intelligence establishment. Less than six months later Kennedy was dead, and so was his vision.

That year, during his last trip to Germany, JFK addressed the Bonn press, stating the European alliance was founded to deter a new war. “When Pandora opened her box and the troubles flew out,” he told a German press conference, “all that was left in was Hope. In this case, if we have nuclear diffusion throughout the world, we may even lose hope.”

In a grim coincidence, ICAN reported this week that the nine nuclear-armed states spent nearly $119 billion—$3,768 per second—on their nuclear arsenals. Its report, Premeditated: Nuclear Weapons Spending in 2025, found that combined spending by China, France, India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States rose 19% from the previous year. As the world again approaches the brink—amid geopolitical tensions even more complex than those of the Cold War—all nuclear-armed states now have weapons systems expected to remain in operation until at least 2050.

That is, if humanity lasts that long.

In this 29-minute documentary, former RAND Corporation nuclear planner and The Doomsday Machine author Daniel Ellsberg delivers a stark warning about the global threat of nuclear weapons and argues that humanity must reduce the immediate risk of nuclear winter and total annihilation.

Ellsberg’s opening commentary alone should be enough to shake us awake.

You can’t have a large nuclear war of the kind we’ve prepared for and spent trillions of dollars preparing for where the victims in that war would be limited to the adversaries or to any particular group of adversaries.

Words do not exist in human language to describe that sort of decision or that sort of machinery. There is no possibility to limit damage any more than there is a possibility to win nuclear war.

A threat and a readiness and a preparation and a rehearsal of causing nuclear winter and destroying most large life on Earth. That is insane and you have to call it a kind of ordinary insanity because it’s so widely shared.

What can we do now, what must change? How should we respond to today’s largely self-inflicted polycrisis?

In 2023, NY City Emergency Management released a public service announcement to inform New Yorkers of steps to survive a nuclear attack: get inside, stay inside, and stay tuned. While this 90-sec spot is funnier than recent SNL skits, it is no more useful than the 1951 Drop and Cover’s Bert the Turtle cartoon. Then as now, most Americans didn’t realize both campaigns were meant to sanitize the use of nuclear weapons and foster complacency for a new or ongoing status quo by shaping and controlling public perceptions of US war-making.

Many of us are waking each day - if we sleep at all - to potential nuclear flashpoints, conflicts within a thousand miles of each other, with consequences largely ignored by corporate media. For everyone else, the status quo remains contained and easy to ignore. National media narratives and disinformation often leave little room to confront or even acknowledge the existential danger of nuclear war.

Author Annie Jacobson’s narrative non-fiction, Nuclear War: A Scenario, details the time-line and rapid descent of humanity within minutes of a first strike by an unknown adversary - in UN Secretary-General Guterres’s words “one misunderstanding, one miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation." Jacobson recently described the aftermath online.

In 1985, Stanford professor Martin Hellman wrote On the Inevitability and Prevention of Nuclear War,

Few people understand the full magnitude of the threat. Even fewer understand that new technology, new politicians, or new laws, by themselves, will not remove the threat. Those who do understand are desperately needed to speak out clearly, forcefully, and in a spirit of goodwill. Only then will an environment be created in which the required societal change can begin. And only then will we ensure a meaningful future for the generations to come.

In 2023, shortly before his death, Daniel Ellsberg spoke with Hellman, his friend of more than 40 years. During this Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists interview, Ellsberg spoke of his father and a remark he made to him about a nation with a nuclear arsenal and the capability of ending life on Earth. At that time, oddly enough, Ellsberg insisted nuclear-deterrent capable arsenals would make it more likely to avoid such a cataclysm.

“Yes, but there is a moral cost to having this capability at all. It’s not just a matter of a risk and a cost of blowing the world up. There is a moral cost in telling yourself and teaching your children that there are circumstances that would justify killing everything and therefore that would justify having this capability.”

In his harrowing 2017 memoir, The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner, Daniel Ellsberg echoed his father’s sentiment. Summing up the preparations for nuclear war. Daniel wrote:

No policies in human history have more deserved to be recognized as immoral, or insane. The story of how this calamitous predicament came about, and how and why it has persisted for over half a century is a chronicle of human madness. Whether Americans, Russians and other humans can rise to the challenge of reversing these policies and eliminating the danger of near-term extinction caused by their own inventions and proclivities remains to be seen. I choose to join with others in acting as if that is still possible.

As fighting intensifies in Russia and Ukraine and civilian casualties mount, and as explosions hit Tehran during renewed Israeli attacks on Iran, I’m finding it increasingly more challenging to share Daniel Ellsberg’s underlying optimism. Still, I choose to act as if a global normalcy can be restored and near-term extinction avoided. With the time we may have left, do I have a choice?

Nearly half of Americans expect a nuclear war within a decade. Can anyone blame them?

The documentary premier panel members, which included director Judith Ehrlich and Patricia Ellsberg, shared valuable insight following the documentary screening. View the Q & A here.

Addendum

June 10, 2026

According to new research released today by ICAN, in 2025, the nine nuclear-armed states spent $16.8 billion (19%) more on their nuclear arsenals than the year before, a total of $119 billion, or $3,768 per second on nuclear weapons.

Well, get in line. Most of the country can’t stand this Neo-Caligula, but he’s not an aberration. Caitlin Johnstone writes, “Donald Trump is a US president who is doing US president things.”

US presidents consistently murder people with unforgivable acts of mass military violence, mistreat immigrants and marginalized communities, and promote tyranny for the benefit of corrupting special interests in defense of the US empire and the capitalist status quo. That’s what their job is. If they weren’t willing to do these things, they wouldn’t get the job.

If we want to believe the inflated numbers provided by the organizers, a national aggregate confirmed by no one and laundered through media outlets everywhere, eight million people showed up rather than feel irrelevant. Where were they when Tyrant Trump’s predecessor bailed out the banks, arrested whistleblowers, or droned civilians, even US citizens, in or out of battlefield zones, back when the peace movement slipped into a coma?

The aerial shots of the No Kings protests were impressive. Why do you suppose the streets are not flooded with antiwar protesters today?

This might be a good time for No Kings and Indivisible organizers to marshal their partisan resources for a genuine, sustained antiwar resistance before US troops are forced to assault an impregnable Hormuz kill zone in another illegal war of choice.

Maybe, until the vast partisan divide that has existed since the Obama years is narrowed and Liberal (whatever that is now), Dem, GOP, and MAGA start resisting the national pro-war, neoliberal agenda together, demanding real change, the U.S. will continue to accelerate in its downward spiral of imperial collapse on steroids.

So far, No Kings I, II, and III have been mostly enormous Trump rant-fests, promoted and funded by oligarchs like George Soros and the Walton family. Do you think if Netanyahu apologists like ‘I am a Zionist’ Biden or AIPAC Kamala were occupying the White House waging war on Iran, providing more arms for Israel or Ukraine, arresting, deporting or detaining pro-Palestinian protestors, expanding mass surveillance on U.S. citizens and more, that Open Society or 50501 would sponsor or promote one more No Kings pep rally?

That’s what I thought.

Don’t get me wrong. I support enormous street demonstrations. Solidarity can be invigorating. I’ve participated in my share, on my own dime, for decades. As a member of Military Families Speak Out and Veterans For Peace I demanded with others an end to the bloodshed in Iraq and elsewhere with not a single oligarch sponsoring our efforts, or a politician - aside from Dennis Kucinich, of course - acknowledging our existence. Most of us knew why we were there, unlike several No Kings participants I spoke with between harangues. The rest learned a few things they never would have been exposed to on CNN or MSNBC (now MS Now) or reading NYT; including valuable antiwar strategies to energize others at home.

We’re all angry, devastated emotionally, but clearly partisan, anti-Trump hate-fests every six months are not the answer. During the Bush/Cheney years, with a son in Iraq, I was livid. My hate meter red-lined hourly for W and Rumsfeld, but no more or less than for Trump and Dumb McNamara.

But hate is not a strategy, and a rant is not a weapon for change.

Written in 1966 by Stephen Sills, For What It’s Worth remains a powerful anthem of the Vietnam era's social dynamics. While it is often viewed as an anti-war song, its true meaning lies in its commentary on the societal tensions of the 1960s, particularly the conflict between youth culture and authority. With fewer inflatable flamingos and more zip ties and tear gas in the streets, it could be more relevant today.

A sell-out crowd of 12s at Lumen Field welcomed their victorious team, marking a raucous start to a downtown parade with more than a million fans, far surpassing 2014 estimates of the team’s only other Super Bowl victory.

Not even diehards expected a finish like this. According to KIRO’s Seattle Sports magazine last fall,

The national outlook for the 2025 Seattle Seahawks is, well, not particularly optimistic.

Most preseason power rankings have the Seahawks in the lower half of the NFL, hovering somewhere between the high teens and low 20s. Most win-loss projections slot them around 8-9 or 9-8.

But when you really dive into this Seahawks team, that doesn’t really seem to add up. While it’s surely possible the Hawks end up being a sub-.500 team, there’s much more reason to believe Mike Macdonald’s crew will take another step forward and reach 11 or maybe even 12 wins this fall.

Well, you can’t win them all.

Seventeen wins later, including a decisive Super Bowl win last Saturday over the New England Patriots - on rival San Francisco 49er’s home field in Santa Clara, California - with most national sports pundits waiting until today before jumping on the Hawk bandwagon, the Seahawks ignored the noise and took care of business. Head coach Mike MacDonald, said it best,

“We. Did. Not. Care.'“

It’s also worth noting, since the New England Patriots beat the Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl XLIX back in 2015, the Patriots are winless against the Seahawks, at 0 and 4.

Linebacker Ernest Jones IV might have said it even better in at the start of today’s celebrating at Lumen Field. And you won’t see this R-rated, bleep-free clip on ESPN or NBC.

We just LOVE this f*cking team!

Back in the day, way back, it was common to welcome new air traffic control trainees with welcoming words of encouragement before they engaged in months of stressful on the job training. Common among them was, “Who’d you piss off to get this job?” and to instill confidence, “Don’t buy a house.” The wash-out rate at my first ATC facility was well over 50 percent, so it made sense.

I’ve used it for decades to inspire confidence, or not.

Hours ago, while scouring independent news sources, I came upon this nugget in Moon of Alabama:

How Arms Control Went Out The Window

Today the last nuclear treaty between the the United States and the Russian Federation expired. It is the first time in 64 years that there will be no limits on each side’s nuclear forces.

The New START Treaty had been limiting the number of deployed strategic nuclear weapons and weapon carriers. Other nuclear related treaties like the Anti Ballistic Missile treaty, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and the Open Skies Treaty have previously been ended by various U.S. presidents.

Russia had offered and asked for prolonging the New START Treaty but the U.S. had, until today, not responded to that request.

Did I expect the Trump Administration neocons to acquiesce, or even mark February 6th on a calendar? Well, of course not.

Neither did Dmitri Medvedev.

Growing up during the Cold War was a bitch and the Cuban Missile Crisis was a vivid reality. Nevertheless, I never lost hope that nuclear powers could stave off nuclear Armageddon, that is until the United States unilaterally withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty in 2002.

So much for trust, with global reactions surprisingly muted despite the modernization of Russian and US nuclear arsenals, nuclear deterrence no longer compatible, and concepts like first strike and hypersonic now prominent components of the 21st century nuclear strategic lexicon.

The New START treaty, signed in 2010 by Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev, restricted each side to no more than 1,550 nuclear warheads on no more than 700 missiles and bombers — deployed and ready for use. It was originally supposed to expire in 2021 but was extended for five more years.

Remarkably, last September President Vladimir Putin said that Russia is ready to continue observing the central limits of the New START nuclear arms reduction treaty with the United States for one more year after it expires in 2026, adding it would be “a mistake” to “completely abandon the treaty’s legacy.”

To avoid provoking a further strategic arms race and to maintain an acceptable level of predictability and restraint, we believe it is reasonable at this turbulent stage to try to preserve the status quo established under New START.

As expected, there has been no response from Trump. Crickets. Until today.

I know it’s a reach, but according to Moon of Alabama sources, sideline Ukraine discussions in Abu Dhabi included US/Russian negotiations to prolong the parameters of New START.

President Trump’s envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner negotiated on New START with Russian officials on the sidelines of Ukraine talks in Abu Dhabi.

The treaty will still formally expire on Thursday, and the extension will not be legally formalized, a U.S. official said. “We agreed with Russia to operate in good faith and to start a discussion about ways it could be updated,” a U.S. official said.

Another source said the practical implications were that both sides would agree to observe the deal’s terms for at least six months, during which time negotiations on a potential new deal would take place.

I guess I should be somewhat enthused, living in the City of Subdued Excitement, after all.

But I’m still not buying a house.

At 11am this morning, millions will gather around the world, to ring bells 11 times slowly in solemn remembrance to mark the end of the war that would end all war, not only to honor the memory of those lost, but to pause and reflect on even the glimmer of a prospect for peace in someone’s lifetime.

Author Kurt Vonnegut wrote about what was left of this sentiment in Breakfast of Champions.

“All the people of all the nations which had fought in the First World War were silent during the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of Armistice Day, which was the eleventh day of the eleventh month. It was during that minute in nineteen hundred and eighteen, that millions upon millions of human beings stopped butchering one another. I have talked to old men who were on battlefields during that minute. They have told me in one way or another that the sudden silence was the Voice of God. So we still have among us some men who can remember when God spoke clearly to mankind.”

Well, obviously no one has been listening at all since my coming home from my own war in 1972. The Voice of God never registered with the occupying forces in Vietnam and more than 4 million had perished, for absolutely nothing. Now with the War on Terror having caused over 4.5 million deaths - and counting, the Post-911 Butcher’s Bill shows no sign of ever coming due.

After signing Veterans Day into law as a national holiday in 1954, President Eisenhower called on all Americans to “solemnly remember the sacrifices of all those who fought so valiantly, on the seas, in the air, and on foreign shores, to preserve our heritage of freedom, and let us reconsecrate ourselves to the task of promoting an enduring peace so that their efforts shall not have been in vain.” So, how’s that working?

While communities come together today to pay tribute to those who served—or more precisely, were used—many Americans will mark this somber occasion with a vicarious hope to reclaim Armistice Day , if only to reconnect with its once enduring legacy.

Britain’s youngest D-Day Veteran and founding member of Veterans for Peace UK, Jim Radford, sings “1916”, a Remembrance Day staple. Jim passed away from COVID a few years ago, but his spirit still inspires, touches, and educates to this day.”

It’s safe to say no one is sleeping easy nowadays with the world coming apart at the seams. We live in a dangerous world on the threshold of WWIII in Eastern Europe and Western Asia, fueled by a toxic national partisanship that has gripped the country since I was a kid. Even so, managing sleep cycles was never really a problem for me before the Twin Towers fell, six or seven never-ending wars ago. You know, before U.S. cities turned into Kent State dry runs, international law was more than a concept, and Cal Raleigh was drafted by the Seattle Mariners.

Luckily, for decades, baseball has always been my shelter from these storms. Compartmentalizing my own or the species’ demise each fall with an MLB off-ramp, first with Oakland’s Swinging A’s, and for what now seem like eons, the M’s, has been an essential pastime. And now, with another cognitively-challenged POTUS within arm’s reach of a nuclear football, bedtime edibles are becoming more and more tempting. If it wasn’t for the fact that our new rescued Border Collie nudges me awake in the middle of the night for a possible poop run, drifting off on a hemp cloud is tempting.

But then again, my Seattle Mariners — the only major league baseball team to have never appeared in the World Series — are in the American League Championship playoffs! Even so, drifting off to sleep will be just as difficult with a Cal Raleigh-led roster as it was in 1995 with Ken Griffey Jr and in 2001, after 116 wins, when hope ran out during similar runs.

Pre-game REM sleep this week will probably be at a premium, ever since Wednesday afternoon. The Mariners blew a lead to lose Game 4, forcing a dreaded elimination game with the Detroit Tigers, with this year’s likely Cy Young Award-winning pitcher Tarik Skubal on the mound. The M’s have beaten him three times this year, but baseball is a numbers game. Batting averages, on-base-percentages, slugging and a minutia of others that I couldn’t begin to explain, but what are the odds the Tiger’s ace loses his fourth start? Even in T-Mobile Park in front of 48,000 screaming fans.

Before we choked in Detroit, longtime M’s writer Nathan Bishop wrote:

Once the starters are out it’s a battle of attrition to the finish. Seattle’s bullpen is better than Detroit’s. Their lineup is significantly better than Detroit’s. Of course it’s still baseball. It’s the very dumbest game that has ever been devised and we are hell’s own damned for attaching our emotions to it. A loss on any given day is possible simply by the nature of the sport.

Nonetheless, wins and losses in the playoffs are pivotal, especially after the 24-year drought the M’s faithful endured. How long will it be before the Mariners get another shot at the World Series? Will we live that long?

Mariners statistician Alex Mayer did give hopeful fans every reason to hang tough until the last swing in Game 5:

Cal Raleigh this season became the second player in MLB history to hit exactly 60 home runs in a season. Babe Ruth, in 1927, was the first.

Both Raleigh and Ruth hit their 61st homer of the season, then, in a playoff game. Both of those 61st home runs came on October 7, in their final at bat, in a game in which their team scored eight runs and won.

And The Babe’s Yankees won the World Series that year, so get some sleep.

Addendum:

Tonight, the Seattle Mariners clinched a trip to Toronto and the American League Championship Series, defeating the Detroit Tigers 3-2 in a brutal 15-inning duel. Jorge Polanco laced a walk-off single with the bases loaded in the 15th, after pinch-hitting utilityman Leo Rivas tied the game in the seventh. Over 47,000 exhausted, playoff-starved fans at T-Mobile Park saw Seattle secure a trip to play the AL Eastern Division-winning Toronto Blue Jays for a shot at the World Series—their first since star centerfielder Julio Rodriguez was a toddler.

First pitch – Sunday, 5:08 Pacific.

My prediction — Mariners in 6.

Lt. Col. Anthony Aguilar, a retired US Army Green Beret who had taken a position as a subcontractor with UG Solutions, a private security company for aid distribution sites managed by the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), has publicly reported observations of alleged war crimes committed by the IDF. Ultimately, exposing GHF’s complicity with war crimes and the starving of Gazans created a backlash he had to have anticipated.

His “eyes wide open”, idealistic mission in May and June to feed Palestinians in Gaza devolved into a concerted effort at character assassination once he opened up on the blatant atrocities he witnessed. In an interview with France24’s Jessica Le Masurier last week, Aguilar could not have been more clear about the war crimes he witnessed.

“Palestinians are getting hurt,” Aguilar tells Le Masurier, recounting episodes in which he claims his fellow personnel were “utilizing nonlethal munitions and lethal munitions in unauthorized ways.” In one instance, he says he saw a contractor throw a stun grenade that detonated, its metal top hitting a woman’s head and rendering her motionless before she was wheeled away by a donkey cart. (France 24 and Mother Jones could not identify the woman or determine whether she was killed.)

In an incident on May 29, Aguilar says he witnessed two contractors firing rifles “in bursts” from vantage points around a GHF distribution site “into the crowd.” In video footage supplied by Aguilar, someone can be heard yelling, “I think you hit one.” Another shouts, “Hell yeah, boy!”

“There was catcalling and celebrating,” Aguilar says. “They were cheering.” (The video was previously reported by the Associated Press.)

Last week, Tucker Carlson published an interview with Aguilar, including an extensive follow-up today.

In response to his statements, his former employer has disputed Aguilar's accounts, characterizing them as false and Aguilar a “disgruntled contractor”; he addressed these rebuttals with Carlson, but GHF didn’t stop there. An allegation of domestic violence by Aguilar from years ago in North Carolina went viral on 𝕏, clearly to shut down the decorated former Green Beret’s war crime accusations.

Surprise, surprise. The smear machine cranked up and a media pile-on from Israel supporters was gaining traction, until podcast journalist Melissa Witte - a former wife of a Green Beret and former paralegal - took it on. Wife beater allegations that Aguilar had actually been arrested, prosecuted and indicted, were just not passing the smell test.

If successful, the ramifications would be considerable. Owning and using a firearm, obtaining a top secret security clearance, would be history. Moreover, a conviction of assaulting a woman would rule out Aguilar even getting hired in Hornet County, North Carolina, where Melissa Witte had worked, much less a job with a U.S. security contractor in a conflict zone.

In short order, however, Melissa observed that the zip code and indictment identification number were fraudulent, and that the address listed on the document was nonexistent.

Witte’s lawyer podcast co-host followed up by examining the docket and court database. Nothing. No conviction, no arrest, and Aguilar’s photograph was even pointed out by a court clerk to be a fake. An alcohol-related argument resulted in a domestic incident call to the sheriff’s office, providing enough information for bots to conjure up a clumsy, malicious smear.

Glenn Greenwald’s Systems Update interview with Melissa Witte is definitely worth a view. I noticed the System Update transcript wasn’t available today on Glenn’s Locals community site. While it might have been ambitious for a transcription app or even AI to complete one so soon, Melissa was delightful and thorough nonetheless, effectively unravelling this deep state attempt at character assassination.

Neocons are still trying to attack the substance of what Anthony Aguilar exposed. Challenging chaos and ground truth is tough enough with no reporters allowed in Gaza, but investigative alternative media pushed back. And none of them saw Melissa Witte coming.

Outperforming other late-night talk shows in the ratings and with a politically diverse audience - the all-important 25-54 demographic, Independents, Democrats, Republicans, even orphaned Progressives like me - Gutfeld! has consistently averaged more than 3 million viewers a night. While late night laughs were still limited, libertarian panelist, comedian and author, Kat Timpf, continued to win me over with her quick, satirical takes on most issues.

Returning to the show last week after a recent cancer scare and the birth of her son in January, Kat Timpf still lights up each episode, easily outshining her mostly MAGA-leaning co-panelists, but never more so than Tuesday night when she went off message, unapologetically calling for the United States to avoid another costly conflict in the Middle East, leaving the pro-Israel panelists either visibly surprised or scowling.

I don't see any reason for us to be involved. And the reason that Iran is bad is not a reason for us to get involved or that things would even get better if we did get involved. You look at Libya, you look at Afghanistan, you look at Iraq, you look at Syria. Didn't go so well for us.

The drumbeat for war was obviously getting personal for Kat. Recently married to Cameron Friscia, a former Army Ranger who served in Afghanistan, and now the mother of a four-month old baby boy, things were hitting too close to home.

I don't want anyone's son to have to go die for another country's war, including my own. Even though he's only four months old, based on our history in this region, it could very much still be a concern by the time that he turns 18. OK? And I know that people are saying we're just going to get in and get out. I don't see any reason to believe that.

The United States maintains a considerable military presence in the Middle East, with forces totaling more than 40,000 in more than a dozen countries and on ships throughout the region’s waters, all trip wires for escalation. A run-up to a possible war on Iran is part of a playbook Timpf’s seen before, like most of us.

It was just so sahweet to see this terse, Prime time narrative fissure on a neocon war propaganda operation like Fox News…laughs or no laughs.

Memorial Day weekend began for me with a late-night viewing of Currahee, the first episode of the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers. It always resonates, reflecting on how my father and I voluntarily underwent similar, usually demeaning military training and indoctrination to earn our commissions and aviator wings. My father enlisted in 1942 to defend the republic, in arguably our last good war. He is one of the fallen remembered today, dying in a B-47 aircraft crash in 1953.

A hometown hero by default, my father’s B-24 and B-29 Pacific War exploits from a steady stream of former crew members were staples for his young sons growing up in the 50s and 60s, when Memorial Day was special. Major Gene Marx was a hero to me, not a “fallen warrior”, despite the accolades showered on the dead and an unknown soldier at Arlington today by another sham Commander in Chief.

But memory is fragile, and valor, noted writer/composer Mark McInerney, can be distorted. “We often lionize the fallen because they can no longer speak. We drape the word hero across the dead—but sometimes we do it to silence the living.” This tactic could not have been more effective, with Congress abdicating its war powers responsibilities since Saigon’s fall and public apathy prevailing. Today, war tributes and memorials are now no more than shiny appeasements to unbloodied patriots or effective recruitment tools for endless conflicts.

Unlike my father and Easy Company, I never encountered a hero in Vietnam. While ultimate sacrifice in battle was widespread, no one fought for your or future generations’ precious liberties. We just wanted to make it home in one piece, a goal missed by more than a million service members since the founding of this war state.

The fragile thread connecting memory and meaning has been further frayed by the dissonance between honoring sacrifice and questioning its purpose. Memorial Day, once a solemn occasion steeped in reflection and collective gratitude, now often struggles to transcend superficial gestures. Its impact has waned since I was a boy dreaming of following in my father’s footsteps. Countless wreaths have been laid with meticulous care, but the quiet dignity of remembrance is increasingly overshadowed by a lack of introspection about the cost of war and the value of peace, and more.

McInerney might have said it best in a recent post:

Spend time with a combat veteran—someone who made it through the fire. Most won’t speak in myths. They’ll talk about absurdity. About confusion. About loss. About the impossible calculus of war. They’ll tell you what it means to carry the memory of the fallen—not just as an idea, but as something that lives inside them. Something that doesn’t let go.

To them, Memorial Day is more than a commemoration ending on the 24^th note of Taps, but a national commitment to honor the dead by avoiding at all costs the next and future wars.

Easy Company’s commanding officer Lieutenant Thomas Meehan got it half right when he remarked, “We know how to win wars. We must learn now to win peace...”

According to GovTrack, McGovern’s resolution is unlikely to be agreed to by the House Armed Services and Foreign Affairs committees. Despite its low chances, it remains a central piece of legislation for Back from the Brink, a US-based grassroots coalition of individuals, organizations and elected officials working together toward a world free of nuclear weapons and advocating for common sense nuclear weapons policies to secure a safer, more just future.

On April 22, with nuclear powers trigger-loaded for confrontation in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, La Connor, Washington became the first municipality in the state to join 86 other towns and cities in the U.S. to formally recognize the global nuclear threat and adopt a Back from the Brink resolution (read on page 36 of the April 22 Town Council Packet), endorsed and promoted by the local group No More Bombs.

La Conner, in Skagit (pronounced like “Magic”) County, has been a Nuclear Free Zone since 1985, so designated by ordinance at the height of the Nuclear Freeze Movement, thanks to a grassroots effort by Skagit Citizens for Nuclear Disarmament, with 62% voter approval.

The Back from the Brink initiative is a national campaign aimed at garnering public support for the 2017 Nobel Prize-winning UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. The campaign seeks to “effect a significant shift in the United States nuclear policy from reliance on nuclear deterrence to an understanding that true security necessitates the elimination of nuclear weapons.” Drawing inspiration from the 1984 nuclear freeze referendums conducted in Skagit and neighboring Whatcom (Bellingham) counties, the La Conner version of Brink is organized around a five-plank platform:

Renounce the “first use” of nuclear weapons, end POTUS's unchecked authority to launch them, remove US nuclear weapons from hair-trigger alert, cancel plans to spend over $1 trillion on the arsenal, and initiate new negotiations for eliminating nuclear arsenals globally, arguably the toughest plank of platform.

So, why aren't we having serious discussions? A recent poll shows over 40% of security experts in 60 countries believe a nuclear nation might use a weapon by 2035 if a multi-front war breaks out, yet WWIII is barely mentioned in headlines or Congress. Americans want to believe good things will happen if they stay optimistic about the future, and our military and leaders draw on a self-negating overconfidence.

The risks of nuclear annihilation should replace this misplaced optimism when maintaining nuclear arsenals, but it’s not coming close. Such existential cognitive bias could kill us all.

JFK tried to warn us in 1963:

Total war makes no sense in an age when great powers can maintain large and relatively invulnerable nuclear forces and refuse to surrender without resort to those forces. It makes no sense in an age when a single nuclear weapon contains almost ten times the explosive force delivered by all the allied air forces in the Second World War.

Today, as if on cue, an existential threat is emerging in the Indian subcontinent, with hundreds of nuclear weapons poised for conflict. In response to last week's Kashmir terror attack, India is considering striking Pakistan. Conversely, Islamabad’s threats are no longer empty, threatening first use if even conventional weapons are deployed by India. The impact of a limited exchange in this instance would be catastrophic.

Additionally, accidental launches and retaliations are more likely in the current nuclear age of digital technology. The timeline of nuclear incidents and miscalculations supports their inevitability. Sociologist and author James Rice once stated,

If nuclear war occurs, it will likely commence with ICBMs lifting off from America’s heartland and arching northward over the top of the planet in response to some hitch in the system that could not be deciphered quickly. Or they may be coming from the opposite direction. Regardless, if nuclear war occurs it will likely begin with a full-throated counterstrike in response to a first strike that only occurred digitally.

Despite the good news week from La Connor and its dedicated peace coalition, it may be premature to celebrate. However, sharing Back from the Brink goals for future generations' survival and encouraging other municipalities to grow spines and follow suit is just as important, more so now than ever.

Council member Mary Wohleb stated following the Town Council’s unanimous vote: “I just thought this was something we could do, a small little town, that we’re not going to put up with it. It’s empowering.”

And MaryLee Chamberlain, the council member who introduced the proposal, added: “It feels like putting into action a tremendous value we all have...for our humanity, our safety, and the hope of the world.”

In just 8 minutes, long-time NBC journalist and foreign correspondent Ayman Mohyeldin exposed the Israeli government and the IDF military for the monsters they are, complete with their deliberate attacks on schools, ambulances, hospitals and homes, including an unflinching report of an Israeli strike on the Al-Ahli Baptist hospital in Gaza City. On Palm Sunday, no less, his commentary was buried so deep in the news cycle, even AIPAC might have missed it. The slaughter of Palestinian civilians is now so common that it barely gets any media attention, but I was gobsmacked on Rumble.

Mohyeldin even closed his monologue with a dose of Hannah Arendt’s Banality of Evil to contextualize the normalization of the slaughter in Gaza, and it was a long-overdue mic drop:

The banality of evil is the idea that evil does not have the villainous appearances that we might think it does. Evil doesn’t have horns and a tail, rather evil is perpetuated when immoral principles become normalized over time, becomes commonplace, the norm, something that happens every day, slowly becoming acceptable…and ordinary people going about their everyday lives, becoming complicit actors in this system that is perpetuating this evil.

Well-played, Ayman.

Hannah Arendt had the “terrifyingly normal” Adolf Eichmann as her template but argued that systemic oppression and the gradual normalization of evil can occur at anytime, anywhere. How much longer corporate news can maintain a 21st century illusion of normalcy, cloaked in complacency and desensitization - with critical thinking no longer a part of the viewership equation - is up for debate. But the curtain has been drawn, thanks to alternative media.

Katie Halper adds:

Honestly, so much respect for Ayman for this segment…actually it’s infuriating and sad it’s so exceptional. These are stories that everyone should be showing.

While his op-ed framing and analysis was exceptional, according to Halper, it’s rarely, if ever expected from corporate news. However, “the content is expected from everyone…It’s the least that they could do.”

Now, if Ayman Mohyeldin is gainfully employed next weekend, I might be tuning in, or rather streaming. I gave up on cable news several wars ago.

,

Strap in, hang on. This could be one of those days.

For our house it began late last night, as we watched the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule undock from the International Space Station and head back to Earth with astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore. It was almost an afterthought in my NYT The Morning news bulletin:

Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, the NASA astronauts who have been stuck at the International Space Station for months, are headed back to Earth.

God forbid the paper of record give SpaceX due credit. The readers can find the mention if they keep scrolling. No need for The Times to get carried away because, you know, Elon Musk.

Splash down will take place at 2:47 PM Pacific. It will be streamed by billions.

If that wasn’t enough, at 11:42 AM Pacific the White House announced that Russia and the US will immediately begin negotiations in the Middle East to resolve the Ukraine conflict. Now that caught my attention. Now we will just have to see how the 90-minute Trump/Putin conversation to achieve a peaceful resolution to the Ukraine conflict. Both leaders have reportedly agreed on the need for a “lasting peace” and confirmed a 30-day mutual suspension of strikes on energy infrastructure.

The Kremlin released a promising summary of the discussion’s high-points:

Reaffirming his commitment to a peaceful resolution of the conflict, President Putin expressed readiness to work closely with American partners on a thorough and comprehensive settlement. He emphasized that any agreement must be sustainable and long-term, addressing the root causes of the crisis while considering Russia’s legitimate security interests.

Regarding President Trump’s initiative for a 30-day ceasefire, the Russian side highlighted key concerns, including effective monitoring of the ceasefire across the entire front line, halting forced mobilization in Ukraine, and stopping the rearmament of its military. Russia also noted serious risks due to Kiev’s history of undermining previous agreements and drew attention to terrorist attacks carried out by Ukrainian militants against civilians in the Kursk region.

It was emphasized that a crucial condition for preventing further escalation and working toward a political-diplomatic resolution is the complete cessation of foreign military aid and intelligence sharing with Ukraine.

In response to Trump’s recent request to ensure the safety of Ukrainian troops encircled in Kursk Region, Putin confirmed that Russia is guided by humanitarian considerations. He assured his counterpart that Ukrainian soldiers who surrender will be granted safety and treated in accordance with Russian laws and international humanitarian norms.

During the conversation, Trump proposed a mutual agreement between both sides to refrain from striking energy infrastructure for 30 days. Putin welcomed the initiative and immediately instructed the Russian military to comply.

Putin also responded constructively to Trump’s proposal regarding maritime security in the Black Sea, and both leaders agreed to initiate negotiations to further refine the details of such an arrangement.

Putin informed Trump that on March 19, Russia and Ukraine would conduct a prisoner exchange involving 175 detainees from each side. Additionally, as a goodwill gesture, Russia will transfer 23 severely wounded Ukrainian soldiers who are currently receiving medical treatment in Russian hospitals.

Both leaders reaffirmed their commitment to continuing efforts toward resolving the Ukraine conflict bilaterally, incorporating the proposals discussed. To facilitate this, Russian and American expert groups will be established.

Putin and Trump also discussed broader international issues, including the situation in the Middle East and the Red Sea region. They agreed to coordinate efforts to stabilize crisis areas and enhance cooperation on nuclear non-proliferation and global security, which, in turn, would improve the overall state of US-Russia relations. A positive example of such cooperation was their joint vote at the United Nations on a resolution regarding the Ukraine conflict.

Stay tuned for push back from corporate news and the Democratic wing of the War Party (House and Senate), because, you know, Trump.

If these breaking news items weren’t enough, 80,000 pages of “unredacted” JFK assassination files are going to be publicly released today. The U.S. Intelligence Community and several POTUS didn’t want to rush shedding light on what really happened 62 years ago or anything. The release will be overseen by a team led by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, whom Trump named as playing a key role in the process.

"People have been waiting for decades for this," Trump said at the John F. Kennedy Center of the Performing Arts. “We have a tremendous amount of paper. You've got a lot of reading. I don't believe we're going to redact anything.”

Of course, if the many American “conspiracy” nuts out there actually think these files have not been thoroughly scrubbed by now, I’ve got a single magic bullet to sell you.

David Talbot told all in his incredible The Devil’s Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA (the 21st century favorite of the “Resistance” liberals), and the Rise of America's Secret Government, and like John Lennon told us when I was a kid, “A Conspiracy of Silence speaks louder than words.” It’s about time government transparency wins out.

Stay tuned.

Addendum to “Not Your Ordinary Day“

NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 Splashes Down Off Coast of Florida

The SpaceX Dragon Freedom spacecraft is seen after it splashed down in the Gulf of America, off the coast of Tallahassee, Florida, at 5:57 p.m. EDT, returning Crew-9 to Earth.

NASA

By chance, on the 5th anniversary week of the World Health Organization’s declaration of COVID-19 as a global pandemic, I decided to veg out - even at the risk of not moving for two hours - with a favorite Steven Soderbergh movie, Contagion. The last time I streamed this 2011 thriller was in 2021, armed with facts and figures from recent reads, Apollo’s Arrow by Nicholas A. Christakis and The Great Influenza by John M. Barry.

I thought I had all the answers back then, and couldn’t help but notice the prescient similarities then between this Soderbergh’s zoonotic version and the Operation Warp Speed race for a vaccine, eventual mRNA harms notwithstanding. As it turned out, so many of us didn’t have a clue what the jab had in store for us, then or now. Surprisingly, or maybe not so surprisingly, the multigenerational effects of lab leaks, gain of function research and fraudulent Big Pharma efficacy claims rarely see the light of day outside their protective corporate news bubbles.

Nevertheless, make some popcorn and watch or re-watch Contagion, for free on Tubi. Enjoy - if that’s the right word - the uncanny similarities. It’s all there: “My body, my choice!”… social distancing (10 feet!)…”Wash your hands!”…”Don’t touch your face!”…Lonely dying…”Where’s your mask?”…lock-downs, and more. Imagine a Contagion prequel with an all-star cast from an advance copy of a 2020 rewrite, complete with with the speed of science, mandates, paranoia and all.

OK. Let me get this straight. Our prospective Nobel Peace Prize laureate Trump and his neocon peace negotiation team are touting successful peace talks in Saudi Arabia and are presenting its Jeddah US/Ukranian proposal in Moscow, seeking Putin’s approval.

"Today we made an offer that the Ukrainians have accepted, which is to enter into a ceasefire and into immediate negotiations," Rubio told reporters after the talks in Jeddah.

"We'll take this offer now to the Russians and we hope they'll say yes to peace. The ball is now in their court."

"If they say no then we'll unfortunately know what the impediment is to peace here," Rubio said of Russia, which launched a “full-scale” invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

At the same presser Secretary of State Marco Rubio and National Security Advisor Mike Waltz announced the resumption of military aid and intelligence sharing with Kyiv. What could possibly go wrong, and what part of Putin’s unwavering insistence of a long-term peace don’t we understand?

A 30-day pause to hostilities may be more of a pipe dream than our crack diplomats could ever understand. Notwithstanding this news cycle’s Russophobic narrative, Vladimir Putin does support an end to the hostilities in Ukraine. but insists a potential ceasefire will be a first step to enduring peace.

Speaking during a bilateral meeting with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko Putin noted “We agree with the proposals to cease hostilities. But… this cessation must be such that it would lead to long-term peace and eliminate the initial causes of this crisis.”

But why in hell would Putin trust American diplomatic overtures after three years of financial allocations, now pushing $300 billion; blatant logistical support of long-range ATACM missile strikes on the Russian homeland; and the thwarted Minsk 1 and Minsk 2 peace proposals, but most notably the 2022 Istanbul peace talks, where both Russia and Ukraine were set to make major concessions until Western leaders gave way to weakening Russia, even Russian balkanization, over high-level diplomacy, dialogue and peace.

Why a nuclear confrontation didn’t break out during the Biden years I will never know. Living on the brink became as routine as Strangelove.

So where does leave the rest of us, Americans sick as shit about endless war, and relying exclusively on feckless U.S. diplomats unable to find Kursk or Donbass on a map on a bet?

Putin was clear today about the nuances of any ceasefire to the carnage:

If we stop fighting for 30 days, what does it mean? That everyone who is there will leave without a fight? We should let them go after they committed mass crimes against civilians? Or will the Ukrainian leadership order them to lay down their arms. Simply surrender. How will this work? It is not clear.

How will other issues be resolved on all the lines of contact? This is almost 2,000 kilometers.

As you know, Russian troops are advancing almost along the entire front. And there are ongoing military operations to surround rather large groups of enemy forces.

These 30 days — how will they be used? To continue forced mobilization in Ukraine? To receive more arms supplies? To train newly mobilized units? Or will none of this happen?

Putin added these are all common sense, yet serious issues. Who will calling the shots during the pause in the hostilities in an area almost the size of Texas, and there will be violations.

Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the international affairs committee of the Federation Council, the upper house of Russia's parliament, said this week:

Russian troops are advancing, and so, dealings with Russia will be different. Any agreements (and we recognize the need for compromises) will come on our terms, not America’s. This isn’t just bravado; it’s an acknowledgment that real agreements are still being forged on the front lines – a fact Washington should understand.

Also political analyst Sergey Markov noted on Tuesday, “The West cannot really be trusted. Russia is advancing. A ceasefire always benefits those who are retreating.”

Good money says the Russo/Ukranian ceasefire negotiations in Moscow are caving, and the Trump golden age of common sense train left the station long before Jeddah.

It’s his war now.

UPDATE

11:31 PM Mar 13, 2025

Ukraine strikes Moscow with drone attack after Putin rejects ceasefire

The Telegraph

Ukraine attacked Moscow with drones overnight the morning after Vladimir Putin rejected a temporary ceasefire mediated by the US.

Russian air defences repelled four drones which were flying towards the capital, according to Sergei Sobyanin, the city’s mayor. Mr Sobyanin said there was little damage and no casualties.

However, footage showed the moment a drone smashed into the side of a residential building in Moscow.

It was the second time Moscow had been targeted in a drone attack this week, with Ukrainian drones smashing into residential buildings on Tuesday morning, hours before peace talks with US officials in Saudi Arabia.

The attacks are thought to be a show of strength by Ukraine, which has offered a temporary truce on long-range strikes to lay the ground for talks on ending the war permanently.

On Thursday, Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia “needed war” to continue. The Russian president suggested he was open to the “idea” of a ceasefire but only if it were on his own terms.

When comedian Dave Chappelle took the stage last weekend for Saturday Night Live I expected nothing short of brilliance, sure, racially irreverent, controversial, even politically incorrect, but also laugh out loud brilliant. An acquired taste for most centrists, for sure, while virtue signalling, woke interventionists squirm with each punch line.

An equal opportunity Richard Pryor/George Carlin hybrid, Chappelle has deliberately ambushed transphobia, antisemitism, whiteness, Blackness, rich, poor, you name it, but he is not mean spirited. His unfiltered Netflix swipes at cancel culture can be just as insensitive, yet unabashedly humorous, with a viewership in the millions. In short, I am not being mean-spirited either when I say he is funny as hell.

Despite a career laced with wide-ranging accolades and crafted controversies, Dave Chappelle misfired with his opening monologue on SNL by broad-brushing American expectations, then closing with an inaugural admonition for Donald J. Trump that raised eyebrows, my own included.

"The presidency is no place for petty people," adding, "So, Donald Trump, I know you watch the show. Man, remember, people, whether they voted for you or not, they are all counting on you. Whether they like you or not, they are all counting on you. The whole world is counting on you. People, whether they voted for you or not, they are all counting on you.”

Whether people voted for you or not? Whether they like you or not…they’re all counting on you? Really?

Come on, Dave, I can’t say as I like Trump or not. I just refuse to let him take up space in my head. But I do know, after the killing swath of Clinton, Bush, Obama, Trump 1.0 and Biden, with its collateral damage at home and abroad, too many of us have totally given up counting on any semblance of U.S. leadership. Too many illegal, unwanted wars - interventionist, proxy or otherwise - government censorship, mass surveillance, perpetual deference to Big Pharma, Wall Street and Pentagon profiteers, have all resulted in spiraling American expectations, my own included.

To wrap up, a well-meaning Chappelle then added:

"I mean this when I say this, good luck. Please, do better next time. Please, all of us, do better next time. Do not forget your humanity, and please have empathy for displaced people, whether they are in the Palisades or Palestine."

While not necessarily a mic drop, with the Santa Ana winds still stoking L.A. wildfires and IDF snipers still killing Palestinian children in Rafah, ceasefire or not, maybe Dave Chappelle should have read the room…and quit while he was ahead.

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I received an email from a dear friend 3 days ago that deserves a detailed followup. Writing, texting, I can handle. Talking about the emotional flux that Victoria, my anchor, and I have experienced this past week or two is another matter.

Checking in…

Hi Gene,

Well, 5 days into the new year ... what's in store for the rest of 2025?!

My reply, just before heading out to the Boundary Bay Veterinary Specialty Hospital:

Vic and I have been sidetracked with family issues. And then, about three weeks ago Cleo became sick.

It's always devastating when that happens to one of your "kids" and the investment in time, expenses and emotional ups and downs is mind-blowing. It should be coming to an end this week. Poor kid...she's at a specialty hospital in Surrey and we'll be heading back up there today to stay for either the sad, always inevitable conclusion, or the specialists figuring out what's going on. They're all over Cleo like a cheap suit.

I'm not optimistic, but I'm also a realist. Vic and I are going to have to make a call today or tomorrow after a discussion with an internist in the morning. We just have to leave her with some well-deserved dignity.

It's not our first rodeo, but Cleo is the sweetest "dog" we've ever parented. George Carlin was so right when he said dogs and cats are "little tragedies waiting to happen." But they're so worth the eventual heartbreak.

Anyway, thanks for checking in on me.

Like most of us, I had no idea what to expect in 2025. Then Cleo got sick and died Sunday, and now I couldn’t care less. After all, things have been going so well - LA ablaze, nuclear brinksmanship on multiple fronts, hate and discontent at home.

I thought I had everything figured out, until the two-edged sword struck again just after Christmas.

But let me start at the beginning.

In 2017, our Bordador Cleo bounded into our lives shortly after I saw her face on Rescued Hearts Northwest. As so often happens, she had worn out her welcome by growing up with her now teenage owner. Worse yet, we soon found out Cleo was afflicted with congenital polyarthritis, a deal breaker for adoption prospects, but she was irresistible and we were chumps.

Soon, a new 18-year-old mother and her boyfriend brought Cleo by our house. Along with a bag of Purina One, a stuffed elephant, a well-worn dog bed, and a prescription of Prednisone, she advised “If she has one of her episodes, just give her one of these…Oh, you didn’t know she was arthritic?”

Then they were gone, without a look back.

Fast forward three years. After hundreds of miles of trail hikes and neighborhood walks, trips to Mud Bay (immersed in attention from the staff), and riding shotgun with me on drives everywhere else, another “episode” insidiously emerged with a vengeance. Before we had a clue, masticatory muscle myositis (MMM) hit her in full force. Cleo’s jaws were frozen shut, no eating or chewing and excruciating pain.

The only treatment, an immune-suppressive dose of steroids - usually Prednisone - for weeks her only option. Her already compromised liver from her puppy years took another hit, but it worked. The tradeoff was a lifetime of elevated liver enzymes and a likely, though gradual loss of liver function - the Two-edged Sword. With every visit to her veterinarian, we dreaded the results of Cleo’s blood panels.

Despite this ominous, uncertain undercurrent, Cleo thrived and stole the heart of anyone who saw her infectious smile, and all she expected in return were her ears rubbed, the ears that woke us up with a Labrador wake-up wag each morning. Like most pup parents, we refused to believe her idyllic daily routines would end, but they did last week.

Two days after Christmas I noticed that Cleo could not open her mouth. Her jaws were immovable, almost completely shut, with an opening of less than an inch. Within an hour she was in Animal Emergency Care for pain relief and treatment, which we knew would include 8 CCs of Prednisolone twice a day for a month. After four days of stressful gagging, Cleo started shutting down. Constant vomiting of meals and stumbling in the backyard resulted in a referral to Boundary Bay Veterinary Specialty Hospital in Surrey, BC and a headlong, rainy drive north, and a fading hope the cure would not finish off our girl’s liver.

After Cleo’s admittance and an overnight start to what would need to be an absolutely heroic effort, we visited our fragile, heavily tubed and sedated girl. A flicker of hope glistened in her eyes when we entered the treatment room. Then she laid down to sleep for the last time. After gentle ear rubs and kisses we made the dreaded call, for her sake.

Finally, even after new positive tests that evening for hepatitis, kidney distress and pneumonia, not one veterinarian, at home or in BC, risked expressing an honest opinion of Cleo’s chances of survival. It was a call we would have to live with, but her look of relief when we entered the room sustained us. Thankfully the intern that administered the end-of-life IV bundle whispered to me while wiping a tear, “What you’re doing for Cleo is so kind.”

So, after a seven-year battle with the adverse effects of a common steroid, a medication effective for most pups, except that is for our immunocompromised Cleo, she still succeeded in going out on her own terms, with her parents kissing her goodbye and her dignity intact.

She was sound asleep before the Pentobarbital hit a vein, already dreaming of nice things and her next tomorrow.

With evidence-based claims at a premium, especially during a presidential transition, this Navy veteran and 2024 Green Party voter just had to make the time to rebut NW Citizen’s atypical hit piece, Gabbard and Hegseth: Why are they not Profoundly Ashamed?

And frankly, it would come as no surprise to my Lib friends that I would support Tulsi Gabbard’s DNI nomination. Not only do I find her more than qualified, but she might even shake up our hegemonic, interventionist foreign policy should she be confirmed. Of course I “wasted” my vote on Jill Stein, so what does this “Putin apologist” know…or is it “Assad apologist” now?

Gabbard first caught my attention in 2016 when she resigned as DNC Vice Chair to endorse Bernie Sanders, so I knew then she had spine. But when she remarked in 2019 that she kept her distinctive streak of white hair, after leaving Iraq and it had returned to its natural color, as a reminder of the price we all pay for the US’s endless wars, I was totally on board.

"It's a reminder, every single day of the cost of war of those we lost and my mission in life to seek peace and to fight for peace."

While I am not able to weigh in on Pete Hegseth’s qualifications to be sworn in even as a member of a school board, much less the DoD Secretary, I do consider myself uniquely qualified to write in support of Tulsi Gabbard’s nomination for Director of National Intelligence. After my more than 35 years in federal service, including a combat tour of Vietnam as an Airborne Electronic Warfare Officer and several years as a SCIF-bound TS/SCI FAA Emergency Services Watch Supervisor, I am hardly a layperson on the national security system and vetting process. If nearly 100 former national security officials are ‘alarmed’ at the prospect of Gabbard providing oversight for the intel community – ‘apoplectic’ might be more apt - she just might be the perfect outsider for the job.

In order to unravel another biased appraisal of Tulsi Gabbard, let’s briefly step outside the corporate media smear bubble, now obviously engulfing this local online news magazine.

First, dismissing Gabbard’s intel experience is a disservice. Although limited, her stints on the House Homeland Security and Armed Services Subcommittees on Intelligence, which has jurisdiction over Defense programs related to Military Intelligence and Counter-terrorism among its wide range of intelligence related responsibilities, including oversight of critical military activities in the areas of Special Operations Forces and Intelligence operations, were at least insightful primers.

Outspoken and resolute, Tulsi Gabbard’s healthy dose of skepticism has fed most of the conspiracy trolling that continue to dominate search engine analogs.

Predictably, Gabbard’s foreign policy stance has been a consistent source of unease for intel insiders and DC warmongering elites. Her controversial 2017 fact-finding meeting with Bashar al-Assad, during which she sought diplomatic solutions – God forbid - to the Syrian civil war, drew bipartisan criticism. Similarly, her call for neutrality in the Ukraine conflict, alongside her critique of NATO expansion, has led the intel community to question her alignment with U.S. strategic interests. During her fourth term Gabbard noted with concern that a CIA program "was directly and indirectly helping to equip and train and provide support to different armed groups, including those who are allied with and affiliated with al-Qaeda, to overthrow the Syrian government," leading to her Stop Arming Terrorist Act legislation in 2017, and just as controversial the No More Presidential Wars Act in 2018.

At the press conference with co-sponsor, the late antiwar Republican Walter Jones, Gabbard said the bill is necessary because “our country continues to remain in a state of perpetual war at a great cost to the American people and to the innocent civilians around the world who are affected by these wars, with no declaration of war by Congress and no say by the American people.”

Moreover, I look forward to a DNI Tulsi Gabbard prioritizing a deep-dive investigation into Homeland Security’s Quiet Skies program. This TSA surveillance overreach barely showed up on corporate news sites but was clearly an egregious act of political harassment and intimidation. I was subjected as well to this harassment myself as a board member of Veterans for Peace. Matt Taibbi and I wrote about her additional, unsolicited government intel experience on Substack here and here.

Gabbard’s healthy dose of skepticism has fed most of the conspiracy trolling that continue to dominate search engine analogs. The themes and hit pieces will vary if only to shut her the hell up, with or without a successful confirmation in January. Speaking with conviction, her non-consensus, anti-interventionist views will never result in a hosting gig on CNN, MSNBC or even PBS.

Former CIA analyst and Veterans For Peace Advisory Board Member Ray McGovern, having briefed her early in her career, gives her a shot at success in Consortium News.

President-elect Donald Trump’s selection of Tulsi Gabbard to be director of national intelligence (DNI) will cause shockwaves in and among the eighteen fiefdoms that now comprise the U.S. intelligence community.

Gabbard will be fighting an uphill battle if she tries to herd those eighteen cats into a cohesive whole and restore integrity to intelligence analysis…In short, the odds are against her. Whether she succeeds depends, first and foremost, on how strongly the president backs her. Unlike most former DNIs, she has already demonstrated uncommon courage, as well as smarts and political skill.

McGovern added that a major hurdle will be managing a large institution “populated with career bureaucrats all too accustomed to telling the ultimate boss, the president, what he wants to hear.”

Regrettably, Tulsi Gabbard’s now almost comically transparent national narrative vilifications are not going away anytime soon. They will be unleashed full tilt boogie this month and next and tribally parroted through the next election cycle. Plainly her national security narrative detractors are either willfully obtuse or sharing the same brain cell. According to Alexa Henning, a spokesperson for the Trump transition team,

These unfounded attacks are from the same geniuses who have blood on their hands from decades of faulty ‘intelligence,’ including the non-existent weapons of mass destruction.

And anyone engaged in antiwar or political dissent in opposition to the National Security State’s endless war narrative is going to somehow be similarly targeted. But ‘Profound Shame’ should never enter the discussion.

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Today, in the antiwar Veterans for Peace organizational Listserv, a member of Veterans For Peace surprisingly - or maybe not so surprisingly considering the fear-based tactics of both POTUS candidates - advocated for the Harris/Walz ticket in swing states.

As feckless and corporate as they usually are, they are still much better on women's rights, civil rights, anti-trust, voting rights, the environment and much else

There would be far fewer women success stories, and a far smaller black middle class were it not for the Dems.  

All of that could be lost.  

If you live in a swing state, I advise a vote for Harris/Walz; in a non-swing state knock yourself out voting for an alternative to the duopoly.

Most of us steer clear of electoral politics in deference to 501(c)(3) rules set forth by law regarding nonprofit election activity, but I just couldn’t let this go.

Hey Martin*,

How does a Veterans For Peace member "serve the cause of world peace" and work with others "to abolish war as an instrument of national policy," as mandated by our Statement of Purpose, yet deliberately cast a vote for anyone "who is pledged to help operate the [Empire's] slaughter machine, and ...not see any would-be operators of that machine as meaningfully different from any other," to quote Caitlin Johnstone in her Substack piece today? The candidate you recommend for swing-state voters, Kamala Harris, is a willful accomplice to the ongoing US/Israeli slaughter of hundreds of thousands in the Middle East and pledges to keep the killing going, wherever and however possible, with "the most lethal fighting force in the world." I could not help but respond to you in this thread after reading Caitlin's piece, which resonates with so many independent, uncompromisingly pro-peace voters, particularly this quote:

"Americans are the most propagandized population on this planet, and their propaganda indoctrination is at its most intensive during the quadrennial performance ritual known as the US presidential race. The whole thing is geared toward falsely exaggerating the differences between the two candidates while drawing emphasis away from the 99 percent of the issues on which they are indistinguishable from each other. And those 99 percent similarities happen to be on all the most murderous and tyrannical behaviors of the US government."

BTW, most of the electoral concerns you cited are easily dispelled, but I vote third party or independent rather than endorse a warmongering agenda from either legacy party campaign to safeguard my domestic comfort. And as far as VP Harris goes, it's a simple case of payback for me.

Finally, today marks the 62nd anniversary of the resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis, with Nikita Khruschev conceding the dismantling and removal of Soviet missiles from Cuba. Analysts like Peter Kornbluh conclude it owes its successful resolution to JFK's commitment to negotiate and find common ground in a dangerous nuclear world. Could any of us realistically consider either one of these doofuses, Trump or Harris, engaging with Khrushchev or the Joint Chiefs in the West Wing ExComm? With Curtis Lemay? McNamara, Bundy? We would have been starshine for decades by now.

Or in a similar global crisis today, with thousands of nuclear weapons on trigger alert, Putin, or Xi?

Finally, it will not matter which POTUS candidate is eventually inaugurated in January 2025. The hawkish Democratic foreign policy establishment, totally embraced by Joe Biden for more than fifty years, will still be running the show and calling the shots well after he has been packed off to assisted care. Barring a foreign policy catastrophe inflicting lasting damage to its core or leveraging for the demise of the Duopoly through the electoral process for a more diverse source of peaceful expertise and experience, it is likely to be a long haul.

So, strap in and brace for impact.

*Alias

Ballots are dropping on Friday. In three weeks US voters will decide who will be the next suitable two-party duopoly figurehead to pose behind Resolute for the next few years. And the way things are spiraling out of control, the Red and Blue team faithful are just going to have be satisfied with whatever semblance of an election they pull off. Soon, thankfully, no more ads, no more inane rhetoric and blatant pandering, with millions casting votes as if their ballots were relevant outside of the swing states.

Most of my friends - OK, I must include former friends, even progressive friends, and acquaintances - resent my pointing out this irrelevancy until their eyes bulge. Point in fact, my own state, Washington, is deep, deep blue electorally. The last Republican to carry Washington state in a presidential election was Ronald Reagan in 1984. When the ballots are tallied in 2024, all twelve electoral votes will go to VP Harris. It will not matter who we vote for.

Early last week, while stopping by a favorite coffee house, my favorite barista, while pulling an espresso and bagging one of her amazing lemon cardamon bear-claws to go, was clearly worried about the upcoming Presidential election. I should know better by now, but when I suggested the Stein/Ware ticket instead of settling for Harris/Walz. She went as semi-ballistic as she could in a coffee bar.

It went like this:

She: “Do that, and Trump might win. Can’t risk it. National abortion ban. I know Kamala Harris is an idiot, but Trump’s Hitler. National abortion ban!”

Me: “A national ban won’t happen. Not gonna happen. Too many political hurdles. Don’t worry about it. Harris supports the ongoing Gaza/Lebanon and wars in the Middle East and Ukraine.”

She: “I’ve got a friend in Idaho who might need an abortion!”

Me: “What’s that got to do with hundreds of thousands of dead Palestinians and Ukrainians that Biden and Harris still support killing?! You can vote your conscience. If everyone in Bellingham voted for Jill Stein, Harris would still carry the state!”

“That’s easy for you to say, you’re a white guy!”

I never learn. Every four years I step into vocal minefields like this. As expected, Republicans dig in. Democrats though - especially frightened Democrats - are always the worst. If there are more than a couple around, the name-calling salvos can get out of hand. But “White guy?” No argument here.

“The Republicans, they plan to gut the VA…strip social security.”

“The genocide in Gaza, I know. That’s a shame, but we can’t let Trump win,” is still a favorite, breathtaking dismissal of the suffering of others.

As usual, genocide rarely moves the needle.

Maybe you’re politically independent, and that’s more than 40% of eligible voters, and you still can’t decide which corporate whore or warmongering, genocidal enabler to support on November 5, there is still an opportunity to make a difference. And while there is still time, let me suggest.

Vote third party.

The two-party system has given us a debt crisis, food insecurity, homelessness, skyrocketing military spending, and more…a crippled, or more accurately rigged, electoral gift that just keeps on giving when voters reliably endorse every soaring casualty count, and Gaza’s already spearheading the next four years.

Why would the Duopoly ever end these wars, or the next, before we all go up in smoke?

Vote third party.

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This week in Substack Muhammad Jalal added,

The Biden-Harris administration has aided and abetted genocide. The argument they still deserve our vote is not only politically naïve but is also built upon a bed of lies. We must show courage in this election and vote for a third party. This is not only morally the correct position; it is the only way to build long-term political leverage.

This genocide was commissioned in Washington. The Biden-Harris administration gave it diplomatic cover, provided the weaponry, helped to subvert the narrative, ensured the world stayed silent and used a mixture of diplomatic sophistry and strong-arm tactics to keep shaky allies on side.

Both US legacy parties are accountable for decades of unlimited weaponry for the rogue, expansionist Israeli killing machine. Now they both pledge to continue the ongoing slaughter of countless Palestinian civilians. Trump could even be worse, but the Biden-Harris administration has aided and abetted genocide this year with more lethality than Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.

Journalist and geopolitical analyst Sami Hamdi, in a recent podcast conversation with Muhammad Jalal on The Thinking Muslim, emphatically rebuked frightened Americans,

You survived four years of Trump, you can survive again. 240,000 Palestinians did not survive four years of Biden. You survived Trump…Trump is going to be worse than Biden'. You walk to the ballot box, you walk over those bodies, piles and piles of bodies…you walk over all those corpses, go to the ballot box and vote for the one who did it to them.

To imply these monsters still deserve our votes is not only politically naïve but morally bankrupt. If either Trump or Harris is elected they will no doubt support Israel and more bloodshed. So don’t stay home. There should be a political cost to pay. Use the system like it mattered.

And while we’re talking VP Harris, we should be talking payback.

Vote Green.