The Post-Partisan Emporium

  Democrats Respond to Trump’s Plea to Kill Police State FISA Act PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS The House Democrats, not the Republicans, Respond to Trump’s Plea to Kill the Unconstitutional FISA Act, while the Republicans Vote for the Police State Measure The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) was passed as a result of the public hysteria that was orchestrated in response to a non-existent “Muslim terrorist threat” that was spun off of 9/11, the only claimed Muslim terrorist act in the US, an event now understood as a neoconservative operation to create “the New Pearl Harbor” necessary for their wars in the Middle East against Israel’s enemies. The FISA Act was totally unconstitutional as it vitiated the US Constitution’s prohibitions against arrest and spying without warrants. The FISA Act is a police state measure and nothing else. That Americans, Congress, and the federal courts accepted it proves the absence of any commitment to freedom. In this pre-election fundraising season we h

  The Myth of Israel as ‘US Aircraft Carrier’ in Middle East If Israeli apartheid were to disappear, oil and trade would still flow from the Middle East towards the West, write Jean Bricmont and Diana Johnstone. By  Jean Bricmont  and  Diana Johnstone Special to Consortium News W hy does the United States give total support to Israel?  In answer, there is a common myth shared by both champions and radical critics of the Zionist state which needs to be dispelled.  The myth is that Israel is a major U.S. strategic asset, described as a sort of unsinkable American aircraft carrier vital to Washington’s interests in the Middle East.  The line of argument of those who share this myth is to show that the United States has economic and strategic interests in the oil-rich Middle East (which nobody denies) and to quote American (and, of course, Israeli) political figures who claim that Israel is the best or even the sole U.S. ally in the region. For example U.S. President Joe Biden has gone so