I grew up in Poland when it was in the Soviet Bloc. The regime was not as brutal. A few spectacular political killings happened. The murder of priest Jerzy Popiełuszko is the most known case. There were some suspicious cases of beating, some fatal, by unknown perpetrators. Most of the system’s opponents were harassed by being fired from their jobs or thrown out of the schools. Some of them made a big political issue out of their suffering. I was always advised not to become a martyr but to be effective. Looking back, I endured a lot of petty torment, but it was a fair price for the harm to the system I managed to do. I did not become a martyr. Alexei Navalny decided to be a martyr. We can only speculate how much he could achieve if he chose to be effective.

The U.S.-Mexico border is about 1950 miles long. Not all sections are suitable for easy trespassing, but most take place in a few locations in Texas, where the governor is the most ardent in stopping them. Would not it be easier to point these migrants to more hospitable California?

Even in the hostile terrain of Arizona and New Mexico, less troublesome crossings could be found.

With all the media talks about the border crisis, I still did not find reports explaining who pays to organize caravans and why they end up in places where the confrontations are the most spectacular.

It raises suspicions that if we knew more, our opinions could change.

The Soviet Union collapsed for internal reasons. As Russia was its central pillar, it was Russia’s failure. The situation in Poland was a catalyst. Besides talking, the U.S. and the West did nothing material that contributed to the fall of the Soviet Union. Poland and the Baltic states benefited the most from liberation from the Soviet yoke. Knowing Russia well, they feared that the rebound would come, and one day, Russia would try to get back what it lost with the fall of the Soviet Union. If NATO did not accept them, they would form a new military alliance in Europe with Poland and Ukraine at the center. Ergo, extending NATO eastward was the best for everyone. It preserved the very existence of NATO. It was the cheapest for Poland and the Baltic states. Russia was happy because it managed to keep Ukraine out of NATO and could claim that NATO’s expansion threatened Russia. It is clear to everyone except those Americans who could not see further than the end of their noses.

It is the title of a provoking article I found on Medium. Most comments to that article dismiss it as anti-Semitic because today’s readers like to be pleased, not intellectually challenged. BTW, the author is Jewish.

We have many dysfunctional nations; ergo, we can ask if all of them should have the right to exist. For example, Yugoslavia fell apart. Does entirely dysfunctional Columbia should have the right to exist? Then, when we look at Israelis’ inability to settle the real estate claims with the previous owners of their territory, we can see Israel as a nuisance, distorting worldwide peace and order.

And, maybe if Israelis knew that the world sees things that way, they would find a peaceful way of co-existing with Palestinians.

For the first 210 years of the Republic, American entrepreneurs had the right to hire whomever they pleased, irrespective of whether that new employee came from across the street, the ocean, or the other side of Rio Grande. That changed in 1986 when the government stepped in. Now, American employers can hire a foreigner only after obtaining a hard-to-get government permission.

We have laws limiting immigration because lazy Americans hope that with fewer immigrants, they can earn more when working less. It does not work that way in the global economy. Due to our immigration laws, many good, well-paying jobs emigrated, and  Americans are left with jobs that cannot go abroad, at Walmart and McDonald’s. Without immigrants coming, people who fear the competition of immigrants willing to work harder for less lose the most.

The very concept of our immigration laws is that instead of securing equal freedom to pursue happiness for all American citizens, the government guarantees happiness for less entrepreneurial citizens at the cost of limiting the freedoms of the most entrepreneurial among us. Is this constitutional? I doubt.

Days after the October 7 attack, an attentive observer would doubt that the Israeli intelligence service did not know about it coming. The New York Times put its fingers on it, and now we know Hamas called it the Jericho Wall operation, and Israelis had ongoing information about it for at least one year. The NYT is buying an official Israeli’s explanation that people who should act on that intelligence screwed it up. Jews are about 0.2% of the worldwide population, but they have collected 22% of all Nobel Prizes. Should we buy it that today’s government of Israel consists only of its dumbest citizens? If they screwed up as The NYT claims, should not they be fired en masse? Instead of being punished, they are now in charge of punishing Palestinians for their own faults. Something is not right here.

The media do not question Israel’s attempt to destroy Hamas by military force. It would have been done a long time ago if it were possible. The more Palestinians die in Gaza now, the more recruits Hamas will have. The more depriving conditions for Palestinians in Gaza will be, the more time they will have to make babies, who – time flies by fast – 20 years later will join the fight.

Israel lost against Hamas in the West Bank. More peaceful Palestinians there are systemically deprived of their land, their rights, and basic human dignity. If Israel allowed them to prosper, Hamas would have no support in Gaza.

The misery of Palestinians in the West Bank, in the eyes of Hamas, justified the barbarian attack on October 7. The ferocity of Israel’s response confirms Hamas’s contention that the Israelis are no better.

A question that the media avoid asking about the war in Israel: How could the best secret service in the world not detect such a tremendous accumulation of military hardware in Gaza? They intercepted military transfers in the past.

Also, they have a network of informers in Gaza. Thousands of Gaza residents were involved in preparations. Not all of them are fanatic terrorists. Even without getting paid, some might give a warning.

Media pundits elaborate on intelligence failures or errors in the Israeli defense tactics.  A reasonable person would not buy it. It is more likely that some in Israel knew what was coming and decided not to stop it before it happened.

Who will investigate that?

With the war in Ukraine still far from over, many ask if starting it was rational. Some experts claim it was. They reconstruct the possible logical thinking of the Russian political and military elite. They acknowledge that rational does not always mean good or moral. One of those experts is Professor John Mearsheimer, with whom I disagreed recently. This time, I have to agree: Putin’s rationality was that of a criminal who believed he could go unpunished.

Elon Musk complains that ADL accuses X of tolerating antisemitic posts. There always had been people who hate others who differ by appearance, religion, or views. But not always intolerance finds a welcoming audience. As a political writer of sharp opinions, I noticed increased hatred from people disagreeing with me. Hence, I believe that antisemitism might be on the rise, too. Behind that is the worsening economic situation of most Americans. Due to the collusion of the media and politics, Americans do not have sincere public discussions about their problems. Prognoses are gloomy. ADL acts as if they do not know that monsters wake up when the reason is asleep. Musk aspires to fix it through public debates on X. He cannot ignore the reality to succeed. Not liking the facts, ADL tries to undermine Musk’s efforts and, by that, supports spreading antisemitism.