Trump's bullshitting exposed again: he saw some published footage and claimed it was an imaginary secret briefing showing an imaginary ransoming of US hostages from Iran.

The US did return money to Iran after the nuclear deal: money that Iran had paid for US weapons that it never received.

Trump bullshits, not caring that it is unrelated to the truth, because he knows that his supporters will say, "What is truth?"

If the US had ransomed those hostages, who would be responsible? President Reagan. What President Carter did was send soldiers to free the hostages. The operation was unsuccessful, but at least he responded courageously.

Reagan certainly ransomed other hostages later, taken in Lebanon by allies of Iran. That's why I call him a traitor to his country.

Some argue that Reagan made a deal to get Iran to hold the hostages until after the election.

Don't throw the baby (detente with Russia) out with the dirty bathwater (Trump).

I disagree with the article's treatment of events in the Crimea. Putin used disguised Russian troops that were supposed to stay in their bases to conquer the Crimea, while pretending that they were not Russian troops. (He admitted the truth later.) Since Putin doesn't allow free and fair elections in Russia, we can't give any credence to the referendum he ran in the Crimea. It could be true that a majority of people in the Crimea before Putin's takeover would have preferred to be part of Russia, but a referendum run by Putin afterwards is no proof of that.

And this doesn't change the fact that Putin conquered it militarily.

AT&T charges customers more in exchange for making less use of their internet connection records. Comcast wants to do it, too.

Let's be clear what is at stake here: true privacy, in which the ISP does not check who the customer is talking with, will not be an option. All customers will be tracked for Big Brother.

Meanwhile, a Tor-based ISP is designed to protect customers from tracking and censorship.

Coca Cola Company has bought a monopoly of nonalcoholic drinks at the Olympic Games, so in the athletes' quarters all they have are Coca Cola products. Which means, no coffee.

Because of the world-wide boycott, I never use those Coca Cola Company products, including water, and I urge the athletes to reject them too. I hope that at least non-Coca-Cola-company safe water is available in their quarters.

A British woman was questioned by thugs because, in an airplane, she read a book called "Syria Speaks". Others in the UK have been imprisoned there for having the wrong book. Politicians claim this is meant to "protect" Britons from terrorism, but they are a bigger threat to Britons than terrorists are.