70 years ago I rolled up my sleeves alongside the Russians and together we turned the Nazis from the most terrifying killing machine the world had ever known into Colonel Klink and Sergeant Schultz. The Soviets sacrificed more lives in that conflict than anyone. Wikipedia puts “total Soviet population losses due the war (sic) at 26.6 million.” The US has got nothing close to that in our collective memory. So while we were curling up with our situation comedies and blithely forgetting how we ended that conflict, the Ruskies were firmly caught in the crazy-making historical remnants of that nightmare.
I recently came across a piece by the mother of Israeli soldiers, Paula R. Stern, whose blog is called “A Soldier’s Mother.” People can say what they want about Israel, but there’s nothing like hearing about it from the inside. So rather than me talk this time, I thought I’d let her tell it in her own words. Here’s an excerpt from her story: What’s it actually like in Israel?
Israel is a country like no other. It is a country of joy, in a place where all others would think there should be none. It is a country of miracles, of unbelievable awe. It is a country built and sustained on faith – the deep kind that simply fills you with the knowledge that this land is yours and all is right with the world so long as you can awaken here each morning, go to sleep here all night and know your children will do the same.
Larry Klayman Says NSA Faked His Emails
In this article:
http://www.wnd.com/2013/12/stunning-revelation-from-man-who-sued-nsa/
the guy who fought city hall and won, Larry Klayman, pictured above, says that the NSA was sending fake emails on his behalf. Here’s why I doubt it. It’s an insanely strong accusation to make, and if it were true, I would imagine Klayman would open up access to a trusted third party who could review the log files. Emails are pretty hard to utterly delete. There’s records all along the way. A traceroute has so many hops, and it’s all searchable. Who is his email provider? Anyway, if true, not a one comment toss off, not from a guy whose career is literally making a federal case about everything. I love his quote about King George reading our email and catching us before we could revolt, but that’s the point isn’t it? You’re a terrorist until you win.
Complete transcript of the Filibuster Editorial I wrote for the San Francisco Chronicle. It ran in the Thanksgiving Sunday edition.
After years of threats, the Senate finally “went nuclear” last month. Republicans will no longer be able to insist on a supermajority to approve certain judicial candidates. The immediate goal is to make it more possible to get judges approved. There are currently 93 vacancies in the federal judiciary alone. More than 10 percent of the entire federal judicial system is vacant. Not to mention that this Congress is the least productive in history, with the ratio of bills passed to bills introduced dropping to below 10 percent for the first time. So this rule change is a step in the right direction.