World

(King Salman above, second to right of Trump) Associated Press News “DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Saudi Arabia on Tuesday beheaded 37 Saudi citizens, most of them minority Shiites, in a mass execution across the country for alleged terrorism-related crimes. It also publicly pinned the executed body and severed head of a convicted Sunni extremist to a pole as a warning to others. The executions were likely to stoke further regional and sectarian tensions between rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran. Saudi dissident Ali Al-Ahmed, who runs the Gulf Institute in Washington, identified 34 of those executed as Shiites based on the names announced by the Interior Ministry. “This is the largest mass execution of Shiites in the kingdom’s history,” he said…. …King Salman ratified by royal decree Tuesday’s mass execution and that of 2016. The king, who has empowered his son Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, has asserted a bolder and more decisive leadership style than previous monarchs since ascending to the throne in 2015.” Among those put to death was this young soccer player… …who had been slated to attend Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo. Detroit Free Press “Mujtaba al-Sweikat was 17 when he was detained at King Fahd International Airport in 2012. Earlier that year, Al-Sweikat allegedly attended a pro-democracy rally in the midst of the Arab Spring, which led to his arrest. He was intending to visit Western Michigan, where he had been accepted as a student, the university confirmed to the Free Press in 2017… …Sweikat was charged with armed disobedience against the king, as well as attacking,shooting and injuring security forces, civilians and passersby. He was also accused of destroying public property, causing chaos and disrupting the peace, by participating in a terrorist cell, to make and deliver Molotov cocktails.       During his time in custody, Sweikat was severely beaten all over his body, including the soles of his feet, and convicted on the basis of a confession extracted through torture, according to Reprieve, an international human rights group that has offices in New York and London and operates with partners around the world. After his arrest, he was not allowed to contact anybody for three days, and his family were not allowed to visit him for three months, during which time he was kept in solitary confinement, according to Reprieve.” Trump, Kushner and the State Department should immediately disassociate the U.S. from this barbaric regime and impose stiff sanctions on Saudi Arabia. But they won’t, as long as there is a possibility of extracting another dollar from them for Trump/KushnerCo. and using them as leverage in drumpf’s jihad against President Obama’s (in Trump’s words) “bad Iran deal.” They will issue a tepid condemnation, at most, and business will continue as usual. Just one more cost of having a sociopath in the Oval Office. (This post was created exclusively for PolitiZoom by Dino Durrati) Please follow me on Twitter @durrati  

Just as Jared Kushner answered questions about the close ties between the White House and Saudi Arabia in New York on Tuesday, the Middle Eastern kingdom beheaded 37 people in its largest mass execution...

With the Trump administration moving ahead Monday with punishing new sanctions against Iran with the goal of completely halting the country's oil exports, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo reportedly joked about a secret White...

The contrast between the French government's and upper class's response to Monday's fire at Notre Dame and ongoing inaction to combat income inequality, was a primary driver of mass protests in Paris on Saturday. The...

I’m sorry if this article comes off as just a wee incoherent, but I can literally feel the IQ points dripping out of my ears and nose as I try to digest what I just saw and heard. In yet another somber, serious, and yes, vaguely ridiculous pronouncement, Secretary of State Mike Pomapdour Pompeo stood behind a podium, and announced that the UA government will now allow Cuban refugees and their descendants to sure foreign companies operating businesses in Cuba for “damages.” A little historical perspective here. Upon completion of his communist revolution in Cuba in 1959, one of the first things that Fidel Castro did was to “nationalize” pretty much everything in Cuba but air, and that option was explored. Prosperous land owners and businessmen found their land and businesses being summarily seized, with little or no compensation. Foreign companies started, or rather continued doing business in Cuba, but now through the Cuban government. This left refugees who fled Cuba’s oppression feeling like they were left holding the shit end of the stick. In 1996, the Helns-Burton Act passed congress and was signed into law. One of the provisions of the law, but not a popular one, allowed Cuban refugees living in the United States to sue foreign companies doing or operating businesses in Cuba for compensation. Realizing the nightmare scenario that this set up between the US and its European allies, like Canada, Great Britain and France, every President since Bill Clinton has “suspended” that provision of the law from being used. But not anymore Donnie Dipshit has just lifted the suspension, making it possible for the first time for expat Cubans and their descendants to sue foreign companies doing business with Cuba. And like all things Trumpian, he’s doing it for the stupidest reason imaginable. He’s doing it in an effort to spank the Cuban government for their continuing support of the Maduro government in Venezuela. The lifting of this suspension may in fact have a negative impact in Cuba, but if so, it will be purely ancillary. The real impact will be on companies and entities in Canada and the European Union who operate businesses in or do business with Cuba. And they are already mickle displeased with the news. Both Canada and the EU have announced that they are ready to proceed wth economic sanctions against the US if Trump doesn’t restore the suspension, like soonest. Look, we just wandered our way out of a stupid tariff pissing contest with the EU over cars, and Canad over imported steel. If European companies start getting sued, it is going to start costing them huge legal fees to defend themselves in court, even before any possible judgements against them. If it hits them, dues are going to have to be paid, and we all know who Canada and the UE are going to look at to pick up the tab. And once they impose tariffs on the US in retaliation, it’ll be up to you and I to pay the higher costs to cover Trump’s foreign policy bar tab. Look, full disclosure here. I had to do a quick Google search for basic background on the Cuba nationalization mess, and the Helms-Burton Act of 1996, just so I could understand what I was talking about. But I’m just a lousy blogger,and if I make […]

President Donald Trump decided late Tuesday to continue America's complicity in the world's worst humanitarian crisis by vetoing the historic Yemen War Powers resolution. "Donald Trump's veto today is reckless and shameful," Stephen Miles, director...

As Notre Dame Cathedral burned on Monday and real presidents extended their heartfelt condolences, Donald Trump, the actual president of the United States, tweeted this: https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1117844987293487104 Must act quickly, huh? Thanks for that, Poindexter, because the...

The world watched and mourned as the iconic, beloved Notre Dame Cathedral in central Paris nearly burned to the ground after surviving more than eight centuries and several wars. After it had survived all...

The state of Kentucky is getting a new aluminum mill built, the first in 40 years. That’s the good news. The bad news is that Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, Paul Manafort’s crony, is one of the financiers, to the tune of $200Mil. Deripaska’s company, Rusal, is the world’s second largest producer of raw aluminum. Since Mitch McConnell stopped the Democrats from reimposing sanctions on Deripaska, one could reasonably infer that the aluminum mill is McConnell’s payoff. PoliticusUSA: In January, McConnell barely was able to stop a Democratic effort to reimpose the sanctions on Deripaska that Trump had rolled back. Mitch McConnell kept the sanctions from being reimposed and now he is getting his payoff. This is one of the easier forms of Russia/Republican corruption that one will ever see. McConnell enabled the Russian attack on US democracy in 2016 by refusing to stand with Obama in denouncing Russian efforts to manipulate the presidential election. It isn’t just Donald Trump. The Russians have bought themselves a political party, and the Senate Majority Leader is getting rewarded for his loyalty to mother Russia. This is a sobering development. Trump is alienating our allies and ruining trade, on the one hand, and the country is getting more in bed with Russian money, on the other. This is yet another gobsmacking revelation of GOP/Russian relations. Forget about the elephant in the room, it’s changed it’s logo. The GOP should symbolize itself with a Russian bear, preferably one holding a smoking gun. That would be some truth in advertising on the GOP’s part, and quite refreshing.

As a New Yorker, I take Sept. 11 personally. I’ll never forget that I was travelling to work by train, going through a tunnel from Manhattan to New Jersey (I taught at Monmouth University at...