Biden, in 1998, already advocated attacking Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein. He continued to advocate that in 2003 when he voted to support Dubya's invasion.

What I said in 2003: invading a country to remove a dictator is justified if (1) we are sure the people of that country want this sort of help, and (2) we can be confident the new government will be better than the existing one. I also said that I didn't believe either condition was true in Iraq.

The US government has been claiming for 12 years that Iran was chiefly responsible for arming Iraqis to fight the US army, with no evidence for it.

Iran has backed the Shi'ite militias in Iraq, but they were not the Iraqis that fought the US army. On the contrary, those who did so were Sunnis. They regarded Iran and its Shi'ite militias as the enemy.

Economist Thorsten Veblen, from 1890 to 1920, analyzed how the plutocrats dominated US politics in the first "golden age" of inequality and poverty. What he wrote illuminates this, the second such "golden age".

I just wish the author had not called this the "age of Trump". The conman wasn't the leader in creating today's inequality and poverty. What he did do was escalate the attack on the idea of seeking to know and state the truth. But he doesn't deserve to have us affix his name to the whole practice or to the age as a whole.

The superfluous bureaucracy of the US medical system costs $2000 per year per person.

Medicare for All would eliminate this. It would also save costs in other ways. As much as $8000 per year per person.

The will to war is so strong in Washington and Tehran that we cannot rely on them to keep stopping short.

*The thing about maximum pressure is that it normally causes things to explode.*

We can't expect the reckless US president to look for a way to de-escalate the conflict with Iran. But Congress can.

It would also be nice if Congress were to legislate that the US cannot refuse or delay visas to attend UN sessions, for foreign officials entitled to attend under the UN treaty.