One score and 7 years ago, a man from Arkansas, brought forth on SCOTUS, a new kind of Associate Justice, inspired by Opera, conceived in Liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men and women are created equal. Now we are engaged in a kind of Political Civil War, testing whether this nation or [...]
The great well-known Italian fāqīh (scholar) of Islam and philosophy professor Massimo Campanini (MC) has passed away on the dawn of Friday, October 9, 2020, at his home in Lombardi, Milano (Italy) in the presence of Donatella, his wife; he left one son. He was 65 and recently has been battling neurodegenerative (Parkinson) disease. The [...]
Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation would not have happened if more than two Republican Senators had earlier stood up against the rush to confirm a new Supreme Court justice in the blazing heat of a highly contentious election and in a climate suggesting the basest of partisan motivations. Had Republican Senate ranks contained more true [...]
In October 2001, the U.S. invaded Afghanistan to avenge the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and remove the Taliban government that had harbored the attacks’ mastermind, Osama bin Laden. Since then, the Taliban have been fighting the U.S. to free their homeland from occupation. For nearly 20 years, the U.S. narrative of “national [...]
“Hic Sunt Dracones” – the Hunt-Lenox Globe, 1504 “Friction is the difference between war on paper, and war as it actually is.” – Carl von Clausewitz, On War Once again, on October 9, 2020, with immodest displays of tangible hardware, North Korea mocked Donald Trump’s lingering expectations of “denuclearization.” Here, in Pyongyang, President Kim Jong [...]
The U.S. Supreme Court has emerged as a significant election issue for the first time in more than fifty years. The death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett has riveted the nation’s attention on the Court in a way that rarely if ever has occurred during a presidential campaign. [...]
Is Nancy Pelosi, as Speaker of the House of Representatives, properly and constitutionally second in line for the presidency? The question has urgent new relevance in light of President Donald Trump becoming sick with Coronavirus and the spread of COVID infections at the top levels of the administration. If a double vacancy occurred due to [...]
In the present confirmation hearings, I would like someone to ask Judge Barrett a question left unanswered by Justice Scalia, her mentor: 1. What influence does the fact that many of the founders and framers were slave owners have on your originalist views? And then I would like to ask a follow-up: 2. What is [...]
As the armed forces of Armenia and Azerbaijan, in the Nagorno-Karabakh region of the Caucasus, slug it out over a decades-long dispute about a piece of ground, one is reminded that conflict, once again, has become dirty and lawless at many levels. Civilians have become targets, protective symbols of the Geneva Conventions, such as the [...]
“The goal is to dominate the street.” – US President Donald J. Trump, June 1, 2020 There are disturbing connections. Before openly embracing the “Proud Boys” during his first debate with Democrat opponent Joe Biden, Donald J. Trump praised the value of “good genes” in Minnesota. Though such a seemingly “positive” evocation might not normally [...]
