When Rachel Maddow finished a 26-minute monologue that spanned two segments on her MSNBC program last Thursday night, her grave tones indicated that she thought she’d just delivered a whale of a story. But actually it was more like minnow -- and a specious one at that.

Convoluted and labored, Maddow’s narrative tried to make major hay out of a report from Moscow that a high-ranking Russian intelligence official had been dragged out of a meeting, arrested and charged with treason. Weirdly, Maddow kept presenting that barebones story as verification that Russia’s President Vladimir Putin had directly ordered the hacking and release of Democratic campaign emails in order to get Donald Trump elected president.

It was a free-associating performance worthy of Glenn Beck at a whiteboard. Maddow swirled together an array of facts, possible facts, dubious assertions and pure speculation to arrive at conclusions that were based on little more than her zeal to portray Trump as a tool of the Kremlin. Even when sober, Joe McCarthy never did it better.

ow Donald Trump is a war criminal just like his predecessors. That didn’t take long. Over the inaugural weekend, while the president was obsessing about the size of his crowd, his government also let loose two drone strikes against defenseless Yemen, reportedly killing an estimated 10 people, some of whom could possibly have been terrorists about to strike somewhere in Yemen. Three of these people were on a motorcycle hit by one drone, the other seven were in a vehicle hit by the other drone.

The United States is not formally at war with Yemen but strikes the country with drones whenever it feels like it. The U.S. also maintains a naval blockade of Yemen, contributing to near-famine in the region’s poorest country, which has never been able to produce enough food to feed its 25 million people. And since March 2015, the U.S. has supported and participated in the undeclared, illegal war of aggression launched by Saudi Arabia and its allies with U.S. blessings.

“Numerous foreign-born individuals have been convicted or implicated in terrorism-related crimes since September 11, 2001.”

As Donald Trump sets out to “protect America,” I dedicate the words of his explosively controversial proclamation banning people from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States, to one of his supporters: Alexandre Bissonnette, the white nationalist Canadian who shot up a mosque in Quebec City a few days ago, murdering six people and injuring eight others.

Bissonnette is the latest native-born lost soul who figured out how to combine a simmering hatred for a preselected “enemy” with guns and ammo and set out to save the world. He won’t be the last. He’s part of a burgeoning North American tradition of mass murder that is fed by racism, war, fear and guns — a tradition the American government happily exploits but is clueless on how to address effectively.

The Committee, appointed by Norway's parliament,  that selects the Nobel Peace Prize Winners will also for 2017 have a good range of candidates that fulfill the intention of Alfred Nobel; the Nobel Peace Prize Watch has posted its list of  21candidates qualified to win in 2017 here:

President Trump has pushed forward with his campaign promise to build a wall to help decrease the continued influx of illegal immigrants who enter the USA from Mexico. There are many who oppose this wall being built for reasons that they feel are important. There are others who support this wall being built for reasons that they feel are just as important. But the main question that I have is who benefits from this wall being built or not built?  

Let’s start with the American who used to be able to support his or her family by working in skilled trade jobs. The men, of all races, were able to become plumbers, masons, landscapers, roofers, construction workers, cooks, auto mechanics and a host of other skilled labor jobs. The women, of all races, were able to provide for their families as housekeepers, cooks, seamstress, caregivers and more. And of course, for the African Americans, these jobs were at times in America, the only jobs they could get, educated or not to support their families.