Month: December 2015

I am very sorry to convey the sad news that long-time Antiwar.com contributor Jim Rissman has died. He was 68.

Jim was an early booster and research assistant for Antiwar.com, way back before 9/11/2001. Before we had a paid staff, Jim sent daily news research and links that helped me to update the site every day. Jim continued his daily news research for many years, with a few gaps to take care of his failing health. His work continued to assist us until just a few weeks ago. In addition, Jim wrote a number of articles for Antiwar.com.

Jim was one of the people who helped make Antiwar.com the valuable tool that it is. I thanked him on many occasions, but not nearly enough. I wish I could thank him in person right now. I will miss him, and I am sure that many others will as well. He was a sweet and dedicated man.

Following is the Obituary written by Jim’s sister, Leah:

James Louis Rissman died sooner than we expected, peacefully in his sleep at his home in Verona, Wisconsin (near Madison), on Dec. 13, 2015. He was 68 years old.

Jim was born March 25, 1947, in Chicago to Jack and Bernice (Caplan) Rissman and emerged – bloodied but unbowed – from a childhood marked by baseball when it was warm and basketball when it was not. He was a Little League shortstop in the suburbs and spent many an afternoon at in the stands at Wrigley and/or listening to the Cubs on the radio. He announced his own APBA baseball games in his room at night, his dice and APBA baseball cards arranged in a diamond on his bed, to the delight of kid sister "Bug." And all the while the turmoil of his "real" home life raged outside the firmly shut door.

Continue reading “Jim Rissman, RIP”

It appears that the NSA (“or someone”) hacked into the code of a popular firewall and planted a password in there that would allow them access as needed.

That means the NSA (“or someone”) would be able to bypass the security features of a network and do what they wanted inside. This is basically an act of sabotage. Given that American organizations as well as foreign ones use these same firewalls, and that the planted password could be discovered by others outside the NSA, the act made vulnerable a multitude of innocent, untargeted systems.

Juniper Networks makes a popular line of enterprise firewalls whose operating system is called Screen OS. The company raised alarm bells with an advisory announcing that they’d discovered “unauthorized code” in some versions of Screen OS, a strange occurrence that hinted that a security agency had managed to tamper with the product before it shipped. One possible route would be for any such agency to have its own people inside the company, acting under cover.

Continue reading “Your Business Been Hacked? Thanks NSA!”

Last week in Moscow, US Secretary of State John Kerry said it was not US policy that Assad must be overthrown in Syria. Days later in his end-of-year press conference President Obama said, once again, Assad must go. Is President Obama not in control of his own administration, as a recent Seymour Hersh article has suggested? Whatever the case, US policy toward Syria seems completely incomprehensible. Do they know what they are doing? Those are the questions we have on today’s Liberty Report:

Reprinted from The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity.

Every Christmas sees one toy emerge as the most-wanted, gotta have gift – remember Tickle Me Elmo, and Beanie Babies from years past? Well, 2015’s big hit has emerged: The Iraq-Syria LEGO Playset.

The set retails for three trillion dollars, though the price may have doubled by the time this is published. Included in the standard set are enough LEGOS to build replicas of Mosul and Fallujah, allowing a child to refight those battles over and over. Figures include Sunni militias, Islamic State fighters, Shia militias, one figure representing the actual Iraqi Army, American special forces with and without boots, Iranians, Kurds, Turks, Russians, Syrians (moderate and radical, though they cannot be told apart), British, French and Italian troops, shady Saudi financiers and Hezbollah soldiers.

Continue reading “This Year’s Hottest Toy: Iraq-Syria LEGO Playset”

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In a GOP debate otherwise marked by constant calls for more bombs, more boots on the ground, more invasions, and even punching Russian President Vladimir Putin in the nose, one exchange stood out as the sad epitaph for an America whose moral compass has gone completely off.

Neoconservative talk show host Hugh Hewitt was trying to gage the candidates’ willingness to fight endless wars, and he must have sensed that retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, as one who has saved the lives of so many, might be weak on the war question. Could Carson kill as ruthlessly as the others, Hewitt demanded to know.

Here is the exchange:

HEWITT: Dr. Carson…… you mentioned in your opening remarks that you’re a pediatric neurologist surgeon…

CARSON: Neurosurgeon.

HEWITT: Neurosurgeon. And people admire and respect and are inspired by your life story, your kindness, your evangelical core support. We’re talking about ruthless things tonight – carpet bombing, toughness, war. And people wonder, could you do that? Could you order air strikes that would kill innocent children by not the scores, but the hundreds and the thousands? Could you wage war as a commander-in-chief?

This horrific suggestion passed by as completely normal. As if it is the normal job of an American president to slaughter thousands of innocent children.

Continue reading “Hugh Hewitt’s Demonic Visions”