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Aug 24, 2024 | 
thepilot.com | Michael Smith |Michaël Smith
From 1966 until his death in 1976, Communist leader Mao Zedong orchestrated the Great Cultural Revolution. Students — the “Red Guard” — were unleashed on the elderly and intelligentsia to get their thinking in line with the new “revolutionary spirit.” Those who failed to get the spirit to buy the party line were packed off to labor camps. Americans have been and are enduring a pernicious, far more insidious revolution.
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Jun 1, 2024 | 
thepilot.com | Michael Smith |Michaël Smith
“There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest,” said Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel. On July 17, 1998, 124 countries signed a treaty in Rome. The objective was to hold people accountable for “crimes against humanity, war crimes, the crime of aggression, and genocide.”kAm~?=J D6G6? 4@F?EC:6D 5:5 ?@E D:8?] %96 &?:E65 $E2E6D D:8?65[ E96?
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Apr 29, 2024 | 
countercurrents.org | Darren Byler |Simon FRASER |Concerned academics |Michael Smith |Michaël Smith
We, the undersigned, stand in solidarity with members of the Columbia University community demanding that the University divest from Israel’s US-backed genocide in Gaza and the West Bank. We write to announce our initiation of an academic and cultural boycott of Columbia University and Barnard College. Israel has undertaken a systematic campaign to destroy the Palestinian education system.
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Mar 9, 2024 | 
thepilot.com | Michael Smith |Michaël Smith
Death. Existential philosophers like Sartre and Heidegger say death is a black hole — nothingness. Religious folks say there’s an afterlife. Agnostics hedge their bets, being good, just in case. Greek philosopher Epicurus claimed not to fear death. “Why should I fear death? If I am, death is not. If death is, I am not.” Says Mark Twain: “Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain.”kAmp>6C:42?D AC676C E@ 2G@:5 562E9] x?
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Jan 23, 2024 | 
thepilot.com | Michael Smith |Michaël Smith
If you’re obese, Mayo Clinic says you have an excellent chance of developing “heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, gallbladder disease, liver problems, osteoarthritis, and cancer of the uterus, cervix, ovaries, breasts, colon, rectum, esophagus, pancreas, kidneys or prostate; and to acquire COVID-19.”National Library of Medicine studies show that annual deaths from obesity (now 325,000) are overtaking tobacco usage (400,000) as the leading cause of preventable death in America.
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Dec 26, 2023 | 
thepilot.com | Michael Smith |Michaël Smith
On Oct 20, the White House wrote to House Speaker Pro Tem Patrick McHenry. The letter requested a $106 billion “supplemental ‘package’” to finance our war proxy, Ukraine; further bankroll Israel, which may be heavy into war crimes; and protect Taiwan from China if necessary. The last paragraph of the letter asked that the money be provided without Congressional approval, to fund “emergencies.” Normally, such a request would still be published in the Federal Register. kAmqFE 3FC:65 @?
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Nov 28, 2023 | 
thepilot.com | Michael Smith |Michaël Smith
Can you remember when the U.S. wasn’t at war or invading somebody’s country? Almost from the get-go, settlers moved westward under the banner of “manifest destiny,” exterminating natives as they went. Harvard professor Stephen Walt says that, by the late 19th century, only 238,000 of an estimated 5 million Indigenous people remained. Some died from diseases that settlers brought, but many were shot.
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Oct 17, 2023 | 
thepilot.com | Michael Smith |Michaël Smith
In the next presidential election, might we vote for someone who could end up running this country from a jail cell, or from a nursing home? Democratic strategist Hank Sheinkopf thought about it. Speaking about the economy, immigration and waning support for Ukraine, Sheinkopf said, “If the election was held tomorrow, Trump would win.”kAmp?@E96C s6>@4C2E:4 DEC2E68:DE E@=5 k2 9C67lQ9EEAi^^%96w:==]4@>Qm%96w:==]4@>k^2m[ 2?@?J>@FD=J[ E92E U=5BF@j2?J@?6 H9@ 5@6D?UCDBF@jE E9:?< %CF>A 42? H:? :?
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Oct 7, 2023 | 
thepilot.com | Michael Smith |Michaël Smith
On July 26, 2023, President Joe Biden dismissed the House Oversight and Accountability Committee’s investigation of his son Hunter Biden. In an interview with the PBS NewsHour, the president said, “(The) public’s not going to pay attention to that. If the only thing they can do is make up things about my family, it’s not going to go very far.”It went very far. On Sept. 12, then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy announced an impeachment inquiry against President Biden.
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Sep 16, 2023 | 
thepilot.com | Michael Smith |Michaël Smith
Are you ever curious about whether politicians know what they’re doing when they send “kids” to war? U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, for example, never saw a war he wasn’t eager for kids to fight, though most aren’t old enough to buy cigarettes. So, what are Graham’s military credentials?
