Volume 271 | No. 4

Were the Saudis Shielded from Blame?

Dear Editor, The planners of the September 2001 terrorist attack using hijacked airplanes were likely those who carried out the attack. This group of men, mostly from Saudi Arabia, were capable and had plenty of reasons to harbor hostility against the United States Government. The idea for the attack was conceived by four friends who met in Hamburg, Germany and had lived previously in Egypt, Lebanon, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. These men were comfortable living in a country similar to the United States of America, they were familiar with air travel, and they had experienced the oppression and violence that the U.S. backed monarchies …

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Censorship as Foreign Policy

by Richard M. Balzano State Department policy planners, White House speechwriters, and much of Congress enjoy an unusual workplace protection: federal buildings are equipped with an Irony Suppression System, referred to internally as the Irony Dome. OSHA has never acknowledged the hazard, but whatever they’re pumping through federal ventilation systems has rendered government officials clinically incapable of detecting irony. Thus, the U.S. lectures the world on democracy and press freedom, condemning censorship abroad while normalizing it at home, sanitized by national security-speak, albeit of an increasingly low-IQ nature. The targets are hardly random: journalists challenging American and Israeli foreign policy repeatedly encounter this machinery. Irony …

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It’s Election Time Again

by W.D. Ehrhart So here we are just days before the midterm election, and the anticipation is almost palpable. Last weekend, my wife and I went to a No Thrones No Crowns No Kings rally in our neighborhood, and the prevailing sentiment was clearly that a Big Blue Wave is about to sweep the Democrats into control of both the House and the Senate as well as making huge gains at the state level. I can’t help remembering that the prevailing sentiment in 2016 among Democratic voters and the political pundits was that Hillary Clinton was a shoo-in. How could she lose to a clownish …

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It’s the Psychosis, Stupid

When this paper hits the street, less than 100 hours will remain of the most psychotic political campaign in U.S. history. This would be good news, if only we had some assurance—hell, we’d settle for a hope—that the election on November 3rd might have a curative effect. Nothing will be cured, though, on November 4th, or even on January 3rd, when the winners of the House and Senate races will, one likes to think, take their oaths of office. Naturally, things being as they have been lately, we must take into consideration the possibility that some of the actual winners of the elections will be …

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Volume 271, No. 4

Once again, thanks in large part to our small team of dedicated volunteers, thousands of copies of our conveniently-sized paper—small enough to pocket and pass on to another reader—are now available, for free, here in Portsmouth and environs. If you click here, our latest issue—the whole thing—in digital form, will appear more or less miraculously on the glassy face of whatever gadget into which you’re now peering.