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Index of (BMcC[18-11-46-503]) New York Times Reader Comments

"Patriots imprison truth tellers for 'aiding the enemy'.^[1] The sword is mightier than the pen." (BMcC[18-11-46-503])

Documentation for a potential claim for political asylum?

My earliest recorded message here against TV Commando Z's war is from 28 April (2022), here. It was only then that I decided to start logging this stuff to show I really did it, but, "scout's honor", I started before then, just can't prove it.^[2] Also: I submit many User Comments to The New York Times where I never get confirmation my comment got posted, i.e., or at least I hypothesize: where my message is not printed due to contravening the Biden-NYT party line (see here).

Messages are reproduced verbatim, including typographical errors. Paragraph formatting lost, and header lines editted to fit this website. I have confirmed that every message on this page got into the public space on the indicated media.

Twitter tweets & more

¶ Tweet (57 views) [+2022.06.17] 
@bmccedd
Please, Mr. Zelensky, stop this war! Stop subjecting your people to death and destruction. Negotiate a modus vivendi with Mr. Putin, for a peaceful, prosperous, NEUTRAL Ukraine. The war is threatening to escalate into World War I all over again but with nuclear weapons this time.

¶ I-24 (Israel 24 hour Internet news) +2022.06.19
Russia putting world in danger of famine, EU warns
Brad McCormick1 hours ago
Why does everybody keep blaming Mr. Putin for everything in Ukraine? Mr.Zelensky was planning this war since 2019 because he does not want Ukraine to be NEUTRAL. Had Mr. Z worked with the U.S. and Russia for a peaceful, prosperous NEUTRAL Ukraine, everybody could have had it good instead of this horrific war. Mr. Putin is apparntly reacting brutally, but he is reacting. We need to address the root cause not just the very painful symptom: Mr. Zelensky need to do the right thing and make Ukraine peaceful and NEUTRAL

¶ Do you think people should want to go into the office, even some of the time? Share your answer in the comments to help other Fairygodboss members! Bradford McCormick
06/17/22 at 8:48AM EDT
There was one thing I missed from the office with WFH [Work From Home]. Exactly one thing: When the vending machine restock guy came around he discarded snack packs whose use-by date had passed. He did not object to me foraging in the trash can for free expired Doritos! Working from home I no longer envied Japanese WWII kamikaze pilots who only had to make their commute once.^[4] Nobody can have everything in this life.
3 upvotes

¶ Report: Biden to meet with Netanyahu during Israel visit
i24NEWS June 25, 2022 at 02:04 PM
latest revision June 26, 2022 at 10:30 AM
Comments
Brad McCormick. June 25, 2022 at 03:16 PM
I apologize: Another thought about America's Head of State meeting with Mr. Natanyahu: Is Mr. Netanyahu the Head of State of Israel? If not, why is Mr Biden meeting with him??^[5]
Brad McCormick. June 25, 2022 at 03:08 PM
Why is America's President Biden going to meet with Mr. Netanyahu? I am ignorant but I thought Mr. Netauyahu is under criminal investigation. If yes, won't this tend to add legitimacy to a man who may not be honorable? I am sure Mr. Netanyahu will like that. But should Mr. Biden be doing things that may influence legal proceedings that are in progress in favor of a person who may not be innocent?

¶ Israel heads towards snap election, Lapid poised to be PM
i24NEWS Brad McCormick
7 hours ago [+2022.06.29]
Respectfully, I see Mr. Netanyahu in Israel as one of a number of political figures who are putting self before service these days, most notably America's Donald Trump, and including Britain's Boris Johnson who stood up in Parliament and, reminscent of America's Richard Nixon's famous "I am not a crook": declared: "I am fit to goverh". Ian Blackford stood up and said: "A fish rots from the head". Why can't these people do the right thing and return peacefully to private life?

¶ Israel shuts down Ukraine field hospital
i24NEWS Brad McCormick
10 hours ago [+2022.07.08?]
I am in USA. "You folks" in Israel are doing the right thing: helping the victims of this terrible entirely unnecessay war where Mr. Putin and Mr. Zelensky are just uselessly creating casualties instead of manning up and duking it out between themselves at the conference table. Mr. Biden should have given American aid to your field hospital, not to Mr. Zelensky.

¶ US intelligence: Iran preparing drones for Russia in Ukraine
i24NEWS Brad McCormick
July 12, 2022 at 06:19 AM
For Mr. Biden, everything Mr. Putin does does wrong and everything Mr. Zelensky does is right. He conveniently forgets the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis where the roles were reversed and Ameria's President Kennedy threatened war with the Soviet Union if they didn't get their missiles out of Cuba. America started this mess by not respecting Russia's red line: NATO in Ukraine was an existential threat.

¶ Tweet (48 views) [+2022.07.20] 
Bradford Robert McCormick
@bradfor37418373
If Mr. Zelensky was not sending men out to die, there would be no need to save the wounded. That selfish little man needs to shape up and (1) effect an in-place cease-fire and (2) negotiate with Mr. Putin for a peaceful, prosperous NEUTRAL repeat: NEUTRAL Ukraine!
3:46 AM · Jul 15, 2022

¶ Tweet (38 views) [+2022.07.21] 
bradford mccormick
@bmccedd
Everybody needs to read Prof. John Mearsheimer's essay March 19 in The Economist. It explains the sad backstory which neither America's government nor Mr. Zelensky is sharing with the American people. And even if you don't care about truth, do you care if this war starts WW III?
7:51 AM · Jul 17, 2022
1 Retweet  1 Like

¶ Israel issues travel warning for Ukraine
i24NEWS Brad McCormick
July 26, 2022 at 10:32 AM
Why would anyone go to Ukraine these days? Pictures of the devastation in the Donbas look like "The cities on the plain" in the Bible, and for good reason: Mr. Zelensky's heart never showed hospitality to his heighbor to the East. Mr. Zelensky planned his war since at leat 2019 (one of his chief aides confirmed this). If I was there and had the good fortune to be able to get out, I would have remembered Lot's wife.

¶ Tweet (32 views) [+2022.08.21] 
Bradford Robert McCormick
@Bradfor37418373
Ukraine's President Zelensky is using this as more PR to get more weapons for his selfish war which he started by pressing for Ukraine in NATO which is a Russian RED LINE. He can solve the problem by declaring an in-place cease fire for his forces and negotiating NEUTRALITY.
reply 0  retweet 0  like 0

¶ Your Comment on Truss Takes a Bold Economic Gamble. Will It Sink Her Government?
The New York Times <comments@nytimes.com>
Wed, Sep 28, 2:00 PM (13 hours ago) [+2022.09.28]
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
Madam Prime Minister, why are you so mean-spirited, hateful and selfish? What is your reason for giving the British economy a taste of the Shock Capitalism which, when pplied full force th the Remains of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s gave us Vladimir Putin today? Why do you take the firs tavailable opportunity to further immiserate the working people of Great Britain? What is your problem, Madam Prime Minister? Tell us in plain words why you are what you seem to be and what next you plan to do to us?
12 Recommend

¶ Your Comment on Forget Free Coffee. What Matters Is if Workers Feel Returning Is Worth It.
The New York Times <comments@nytimes.com>
4:26 PM (5 minutes ago) [+2022.10.31]
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
I never liked the office" but I hadto put up with it. The commuting was a total waste: I envied Japanese kamikaze pilots who only had to make their commute once. Once in the office it was so much easier for people to annoy me. Do double arm amputees get a pass from having to attend "all-hands" meetings? There was one thing I liked. When the vending machine restock guy came around to restock the snack machine, he discarded snacks past their eat-by date in a garbage can. He did not object to me foraging in the trash for: FREE EXPIRED DORITOS Yum!
13 Recommend

¶ Your Comment on The Pandemic Generation Goes to College. It Has Not Been Easy. See: here.
The New York Times <comments@nytimes.com>
Nov 1, 2022, 1:27 PM (13 hours ago) [+2022.11.01]
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
The title of this article with its "It Has Not Been Easy" recalls tor me the most terrifying thing I ever read about education, which had the exact same phrase in its title. People might want to go back and read it: The New York Times, 27 August 2021, "New York's Private Schools Tackle White Privilege. It Has Not Been Easy.", by Michael Powell

¶ Your Comment on As Ukraine Bears Down, Life Worsens in Occupied Areas (active hyperlink in NYT website)
The New York Times <comments@nytimes.com>
1:48 PM (12 minutes ago) [+2022.11.08]
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
None of this horror would be happening if Mr. Zelensky would stop holding all of us hostage to his selfish war to get Ukraine into NATO, which is an "existnetial threat" to Russia, just like Soviet missiles in Cuba was an existential threat to the United States in 1962. (America's President Kennedy threatened the USSR with nuclear war to pressure them to take their missiles out.) Mr. Zelensky needs to stop his war and make Ukraine NEUTRAL, for the sake of all humanity, to avoid further suffering in his own country, and to avert the risk of nuclear apocalypse putting an end to all human and higher animal life on earth. Mr. Zelensky needs to stop his and and netogiate with Russia for security on their western border. He and his military mastermind Mr. Alexey Aresovich planned this war since 2019. Mr. Arestovich gave an interview in 2019 detailing and predicting it all: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xNHmHpERH8
Reply  3 Recommend [As to be expected, there were 2 fierce objections to this posting from the other side]

¶ Your Comment on This Is What Victory for Ukraine Looks Like
The New York Times <comments@nytimes.com>
1:00 PM (29 minutes ago) [+2022.11.09]
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
What to say about Ukraine? I feel like I am a passenger in a car where the driver, Mr. Joe Biden, is headed straight for a solid concrete wall. He has the pedal to the metal and there is no way I can rest his foot off the gas much less put my foot on the brake and I can't escape from the car because it is already going over 60 mph and will soon break 100. I am sickened by what is happening because Idon't buy the propaganda. I study the thought of scholars such as Columbia Univ Prof. Jeffrey Sachs. You can too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrFPocqaE78 So I will end wiht some words not mine but with which I concur: "I shall think of the sorrow of my children, and of the sorrow of my grandchildren for their children, in this harsh new world," Professor Freud wrote, "and I will leave the world with relief thinking of all that will have been spared me." (Sophie Freud, New York Times obituary, Sam Roberts, Published June 3, 2022, Updated June 6, 2022)
Reply  2 Recommend

¶ Your Comment on Can a National Museum Rebuild Its Collection Without Colonialism?
The New York Times <comments@nytimes.com>
10:22 AM (5 hours ago) [+2022.11.12]
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
It is long past time to consign all ethnicities, not just those of preliterate tribes, but also our own, including but not limited to Corporate Capitalism, The American Dream, Hasidism and Wokism, to ethnographic museums, and for all persons to beome liberally educated citizens of the whole world, not partisans for any partisan persuasion. Time to free everyone from all religious, political and other "beliefs" including such fetishisms as fashion. "All social customs are shared hallucinoses aka social psychoses." (Wilfred Bion) "Take every stement I make as a question not as an assertion." (Niels Bohr; everybody, starting with parents and school teachers needs to do this) It's time not just for each person's life to matter but for each person to creatively shape his (her, other's form of daily life creatively self-accountbly, picking and choosing morsels that taaste good to him from the universal semiotic smorgasbord of all mankind's beliefs and customs throughout history, and adding his own dishes to it.

¶ Your Comment on Classified Documents Found in Trump Search of Storage Site
The New York Times <comments@nytimes.com>
Dec 7, 2022, 4:28 PM (8 hours ago)
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
Mr. Trump continues to play cat and mouse with us. Note the date on the following quote from The New York Times: 'NYT OpEd piece (12Jun20) observes: "Somehow, even at this late date, there are professional commentators who have not grasped the full malignancy of this president."' That's 2 and 1/2 years old, everybody. The big quesetion is not what's bad about Mr. Trump, and we may stil wonder if Dr. Putin "has something on him", etc. The big question is how America got to a state where he could get away with it and what are we we doing about OUR problem? America needs to look in the mirror and stop pussyfooting around. "We have met the enemy and he is us." (Pogo)
Reply  14 Recommend

¶ Your Comment on 'Cuba Is Depopulating': Largest Exodus Yet Threatens Country's Future
The New York Times <comments@nytimes.com>
Dec 10, 2022, 9:11 PM (5 hours ago)
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
American can't read plain English. The Times doesn' t even hide it: "The pandemic and tougher U.S. sanctions have decimated Cuba's economy, prompting the biggest migration since Fidel Castro rose to power....President Biden... has been slow to act for fear of angering the Cuban diaspora." And so on. "Communism" (actually, the Castro regime – there has never been a communist country yet on earth and the U.S. with advanced industrial robots could become the first one if wa wanted to) – The Castro regime has not failed in Cuba: We have strangled the Cuban economy snd immiserated the Cuban people. Let's pour in billions of dollars foreign aid to the Castro government and see if anything chnages to improve the lives of the Cuban people. Dare we? There it is, in black and white, in The New York Times. Tolle, lege!
Reply  28 Recommend

¶ Your Comment on Major Fusion Energy Breakthrough to Be Announced by Scientists
The New York Times <comments@nytimes.com>
Dec 12, 2022, 3:47 PM (8 hours ago)
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
Why not repeat the old question: If we can put a man on the moon (or achieve nuclear fusion), why cannot we provide for the basic human needs of all our country's citizens? Food, shelter, medical care.... These thing are not rocket (or particle physics) science.
Reply  4 Recommend

¶ Your Comment on Can My Apartment Building Really Ban Overnight Guests?
The New York Times <comments@nytimes.com>
Dec 20, 2022, 3:20 PM (11 hours ago) [+2022.12.20]
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
Where there's a system there's a way to work it. AirBuB reminds me of something eles which probably nobody except insurance compay actuaries thinks about: Your insurance rate for life insurance is partly determined on the assumption that a certain number of people will default on their premiums. This is not something the company tries to encourage; it just happens. But then came along companies that buy up people's life insturance poicies, making sure to pay the premiums and the policies never default. This raises the company's liabilities due to a condition that never existed when the rates were determined. Obviously a far bigger scan is crypto currencies where, as your OpEd writer and nobel laureate in economics Paul Krugman says has no oher use than money laundering. Honest decent persons just want to live in peace. If they have an apartment and they have a friend why not let them stay overnite or even for a couple weeks when you're off some place else. They're not hurting anybody. But the AirBnB carpetbaggers have found a way to seduce people into this new undergraound hotel market, and some people are just greedy while others are having a hard time making ends meet with the high Zelensky excise tax on everything these days, so they go for AirBnB too. Where there's a system there's a way to work it and somebody who is very clever and works very hard to exploit it to make a buck for themslves. Carpetbaggers at the front desk.
7 Recommend

¶ Your Comment on A New Chat Bot Is a 'Code Red' for Google's Search Business (See also: here.)
The New York Times <comments@nytimes.com>
11:09 AM (11 hours ago) [+2022.12.21]
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
I went itto the techie future and it almost killed me; no computer needed. My virtual reality experiment: I was driving up a 6 lane superhighway early one August afternoon in clear bright sunlight at about 65 miles per hour in my clunky Toyota Corolla DX, with no other cars on the road. I decided to look intently at the little image in the car's rear view mirror – no high tech apparatus. I really really really really intently focused all my attention on that little image! It was entirely convincing. That "little" image became my whole experienced reality: I was driving where I had been, not where the automobile was going. Fortunately I "snapped out of it" in time to avoid becoming a one car crash in the ditch on the right side of the road. (It was a very good place to have conducted this experiment, because there was a police barracks, a teaching hospital, and both Christian and Jewish cemeteries nearby, just in case.) You may try to repeat my virtual reality experiment at your own risk; I strongly advise you against doing so. I assure you: It worked. (Of course it will not work if you don't "give in to it", just like a video game won't work if you just look at the pixels as what some computer programmer coded up with branching instructions depending on what inputs you enter.) Moral of this story: VIRTUAL REALITY CAN KILL YOU. Forewarned is forearmed.
Reply  2 Recommend

¶ Your Comment on For Zelensky, a Celebration of Resilience and a Sales Pitch for Support
The New York Times <comments@nytimes.com>
2:05 PM (2 hours ago) [+2022.12.22]
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
The title of Mary Trump's book about her brother Donald is also apt for Mr. Zelensky: "Too much and never enough." He can never get anough weapons for his war which has long since caused too much damage to his own people and to the world economy, and which impends nuclear apocalypse but nobody seems to care about that except for now 1000 clerics of various faiths who have come out for peace but the Biden administration is deaf. Everybody should listen to Mr. Zelensky's military mastermind, Mr. Alexy Zrestovich's 2019 interview in which he spelled out the plan for this war: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xNHmHpERH8 The Amerian government refuses to acknowledge that tthe root of this mess is that we reneged on out promise in the 1990s to Russia to not push NATO east of Germany Nobody notices the exact analogy between Russia's reaction to NATO in Ukraine and the United Staes' reaction to Soviet missiles in Cuba in 1962. We threatened the Soviet Union with nuclear war if they did not remove those missiles and they did remove them. Mr .Biden had not removed NATO from Ukraine. Ukraine needs to be peaceful and NEUTRAL. Both us and the Rusians need to get together to rebuild that sad country back better as a peacefu buffer between and friendly to both Russia an the West. Mr.Biden is acting like Captain Ahab in Moby Dick, chasing Moby Dick Putin. When Ahab and Moby finally met, Moby sank Ahab's ship.
Reply  20 Recommend

¶ Your Comment on Russian City Mourns Its Lost Soldiers, but Doesn't Resent Putin's War
The New York Times <comments@nytimes.com>
4:16 PM (25 minutes ago) [+2022.12.27]
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
All the people are victims: Russian, Kiev Ukrainian, separatist Ukrainian and maybe soon enough Americans too. The only reason the people fight each other is their governments: the middle aging males in power who fight with each other by the proxy of their people. All the soldiers should throw down their arms and embrace each other as brothers and drink vodka together and their governments and the big officers just get lost. Recently I saw an article of stray Ukrainian cats providing companionship to Ukrainian soldiers at the front. The soldiers feed and love the cats and the cats love the soldiers. The cats are apolitical. They like anybody who feeds and cares for them. I hope the cats are providing companionship to separatist and Russian soldiers too. Pope Francis said early in the war: "Tragic scenarios are being reenacted, and once more reciprocal extortionate demands made by a few potentates are stifling the voice of a humanity that cries out for peace." The potentates (Mr. Biden, Mr. Zelensky and Dr. Putin) need to learn from the cats. Meow!

¶ Your Comment on The Cuban Missile Crisis and Its Relevance Today
The New York Times <comments@nytimes.com>
Jan 3, 2023, 10:55 PM (1 hour ago) [ +2023.01.03]
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York Why has America not learned from the Cuban missile crisis and got our NATO out of Ukraine? The one time Mr. Biden spoke about it he got it backwards because he refuses to acknowledge Russia's right to not have its enemy on its Western border like us back in 1962 with the Soviet missiles. He also refuses to ackniwledge we promised Russia in the 1990s to not push NATO east of Germany and we have not kept our word. The people of Ukraine and the world economy are being held hostage to this game of nuclear chicken between Mr. Biden and Dr. Putin with Mr. Zelensky making hay while the sun shines.. Here I repeat what Pope Francis said about this mess near the start of the 24 February extension of the long simmering war between Kiev an the ethnically Russian Ukrainian people: "The world is at war. For me, today, World War III has been declared. This is something that should give us pause for thought.... "We have to move away from the normal pattern of 'Little Red Riding Hood': Little Red Riding Hood was good and the wolf was the bad guy. Here there are no metaphysical good guys and bad guys, in an abstract sense. Something global is emerging, with elements that are very much intertwined.... "Tragic scenarios are being reenacted, and once more reciprocal extortionate demands made by a few potentates are stifling the voice of a humanity that cries out for peace."

¶ Your Comment on F.D.A. Approves New Treatment for Early Alzheimer's
The New York Times <comments@nytimes.com>
Jan 6, 2023, 3:52 PM (16 hours ago)
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
Of couse we should hope for progress fighting this horrible disease. But think of all the minds that never get a chance to develop because of a combination of lack of education (not just training, but study of the arts and sciences and enjoyment of their products such as poetry and fine handcrafts), and people having to waste the best days of their live doing jobs that at best do nothing to help their minds and even dull them down. This is a far bigger problem than Alzheimers which mostly concerrns persons in their declining years after they either had or were denied a full life. And isn't there some indication that persons who spend their prime years engaged in intellectually challinging activity do better in old age than those whose minds wer limited to the routine social customs of daily life? The solutions to lack of opportunities for persons to fully develop their minds in the first place, long before they decline are much less technologically difficult, albeit maybe even more socially so, because they will not produce big profits for any MegaPharmaCorp. Good teachers. Maeaningful jobs. Even just learning to eat leisured meals in intelligent converstation with good friends, not gulping one kind of Big Macs, if one earns enough, likely in the other kind of Big Macs.
Reply  19 Recommend

¶ Your Comment on What Does It Mean to Provide 'Security Guarantees' to Ukraine?
The New York Times <comments@nytimes.com>
1:30 PM (15 minutes ago) [+2022.01.10]
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
What about security guarantees for Russia against Ukraine as effectively part of NATO even if not officially a member of it? That's why Russia went to war: Because we would not give them security guarantees againt their enemy, NATO, on their Western border. Make Ukraine NEUTRAL. Then get security guarangees from Russia that they will not attack a NEUTRAL Ukraine which will no longer be their enemy. Let us recall that NATO in Ukraine fo Russia itoday is what Soviet missiles in Cuba were for The United States in 1962: an existnetial threat. And our President Kennedy threatened the Soviet Union with nuclear war if they did not remove their missiles from Cuba. But the Soviet Union backed off before we had to go to war. We have not backed off before Russia had to go to war. The whole world desparately needs an end to the fighting in Ukraine (an in-place unconditional cease fire), and then to make that fractious coutry peaceful and NEUTRAL.
Reply  7 Recommend
Bradford McCormick | New YorkQuack!
@Richard Bullington Isn't it a matter of fact that Ukraine, unlike all the other former Warsaw Pact countries does NOT wholeheartedly want to be part of NATO? What about all the ethnically Russian people in the Donbas? They did not want NATO. Why has Kiev been fighting its own citizens if they all want to be NATO? Ukraine is a unique country: a big mess. Split the country and then let the pro-NATO part go to NATO. Wouldn't that be freedom and self-determination? As for that comedian in the gree t-shirt, without massive US military welfare he would have to do the right thing and make peace with his neighbor to the east. Ukraine is a sacrificial lamb for Mr. Biden to strangle Russia and overthrow its government. And Mr. Zelensky is making hay while the sun shines. He and Mr. Alexy Arestovich planned this war from 2019. He has a 15 room villa in Tuscany Italy wher he can go into permanent exile. When did NATO attack Russia? Never yet. When did the Soviet Union attack the USA from Cuba in 1962? Never.

¶ Your Comment on The Cuban Missile Crisis and Its Relevance Today
The New York Times <comments@nytimes.com>
7:13 AM (7 hours ago) [+2023.01.10]
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
"This time, the roles are reversed: Mr. Putin is seeking to enforce a red line by insisting he will use "all available means," including his nuclear arsenal, to defend the newly, unilaterally expanded borders of Mother Russia. President Biden has promised to support Ukraine's attempts to defend itself. " This is how the Cuban missile crisis is being misunderstood. Yes, the roles are reversed from 1962. Soviet Preimer Biden is defending Cuba'attempts to defend itself bo having Soviet missiles on its territory. This could havve been phrased differently: President Biden is refusing to remove his NATO from Russia'a border. Exactly the reverse that Mr. Khrushchev did remove his missiles from our (U.S.) border. The United Staes is the Aggressor in Ukraine in 2023, jsut like the Soviet Union as the aggressor n 1962. Until we acknowledge this basic fact, we will jsut keep piling up more orpses and destroying more of Ukraine. And is Mr. Zelensky fighting for freedom, when the reason the Russians launched their "special military operation" last February was to support the ethnically Russina "separatists" whom the Kiev regime has been repressing in a civil war since 2015. What freedom for the ethnically Russian Ukrainians? Also, the Zelensky regime has a lot of ultra-nationalist and even neo-Nazi elements in it, exactly the extent of which our media are not reporting.

¶ Your Comment on Hunter Biden's Tangled Tale Comes Front and Center
The New York Times <comments@nytimes.com>
8:57 AM (27 minutes ago) [+2023.01.12]
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
Our current president may be purer than Ivory soap, but that does not change the fact that his Ukraine policy is, for the most virtuous of reasons, causing a lot of people to be needlessly killed in Ukraine, cities and towns destroyed there with heavy artillery, and the world's economy to eah day suffer from this war which he is waging against Russias. And it is his war. The Kiev regime baited the bear (Russia) with its obsession to get into NATO. Russia responded with its "special military operation". But the whole thing would hav equickly ended had not our President taken it on as his pet project to pour endless massive military welfare into the Kiev regime. And this mess may yet end in thermonuclear apocalypse which will kill us all (for President Biden's virtuous reasons).... Our virtuous President refuses to acknowledge that NATO in Ukraine is like Sovier missiles in Cuba were for his Predecessor, Mr. John Kennedy, in 1962. President Kennedy threatened noclear war with the Soviet Union and they get their missils out. Mr .Biden did not got NATO out of Ukraine, so Dr. Putin did go to war. President Trump was leading Ameria to disaster for personsal gain. President Biden is leading America to disaster on that superhighway which is paved with good intentions.
Reply  10 Recommend

¶ Your Comment on Western Tanks Appear Headed to Ukraine, Breaking Another Taboo
The New York Times <comments@nytimes.com>
5:19 AM (5 minutes ago) [+2023.01.13]
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
We passed last August without it becoming a repeat of August 1914. Are we goung to succeed this year? Escalation just breeds counter-escalation unless one side or the other gives up or collapses. So why not, like US CJCS General Mark Milley urged, negotiate now? And even if our side does somehow manage to "win" by wnatver measure of winning, that will have not made what we did right, just that we had the power to enforce our will on the other side. In the 1990s we promised Russia we would not push NATO east of Germany. We reneged on our word. For those who say we are fighting for freedom in Ukraine, what freedom for the ethnically Russian Ukrainians – the so-called "separatists" – against whom the Kiev regime has been fighting a repressive war since at least 2015 and to whose aid the Russian "special military operation" came? What freedom? Pope Francis: "The world is at war. For me, today, World War III has been declared. This is something that should give us pause for thought.... "We have to move away from the normal pattern of 'Little Red Riding Hood': Little Red Riding Hood was good and the wolf was the bad guy. Here there are no metaphysical good guys and bad guys, in an abstract sense. Something global is emerging, with elements that are very much intertwined.... "Tragic scenarios are being reenacted, and once more reciprocal extortionate demands made by a few potentates are stifling the voice of a humanity that cries out for peace."
Reply  8 Recommend

¶ Your Comment on Special Counsel Inquiry Leaves Biden and Garland in Awkward Spots
The New York Times <comments@nytimes.com>
12:43 PM (1 hour ago) [+2023.01.13]
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
It is hard to imagine malicious intent in Mr. Biden somehow failing to notice some classified documents, because he seems to have no malizious intents about anything. He seems sometimes to be absent-minded or absent mind about more important things than a few loose documents. Item: the Ukraine situation. He seems to be determined to be entirely ignorant of the history of this mess, in stubbornly pursuing his virtuous Captain Ahab agenda to get evil Moby Dick Putin. The was a political commentary picture of Mr. Biden, May 19, in the New York Times website in conjunction with an Oped piece: "The War in Ukraine May Be Impossible to Stop. And the U.S. Deserves Much of the Blame". (aka: "U.S. Helps Prolong Ukraine War, +2022.05.04) Christopher Caldwell The picture shows Mr. Biden walking with his head down, entangled in large snakelike arrows in the colors of thet Ukraine flag: A man in over his head in a job that's too big for him.
Reply  2 Recommend

¶ Your Comment on For Families and Detainees in Russian-Occupied Areas, a Grim Wait
The New York Times <comments@nytimes.com>
12:22 PM (23 minutes ago) [+2023.01.15]
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
We here have little idea what is really going on in Ukraine. Scott Ritter has pointed out that few reporters actually go into the battle zones but just take handouts in Kiev, and otherwise they are managed by the government. He said that last time a reporter could jsut go and ask to join any old bunch of soldiers on the fly was Vietnam. So we get reports that the Kiev sids is winning and we get reports that the Russians are winning. I don't think we can trust any of it. But isn't the one thing we can trust that perons are getting killed and property destroyed and that this mess is impacting the world economy, especially "developing nations"? CJCS Chairman general Mark Milley has said he doubts much progress will be made on the battlefield in this stalemate war of attrition which seems only to be piling up corpses, pulverizing buildings and risking atomic war. So wouldn't it make sense to negotiate a rational solution to this mess, which started with a lot of the Ukrainian citizens being pro-Russian, not pro Kiev. Unlike the other old Warsaw pact countries, Ukraine did not and could not have a unanimous "color revolution". "A good compromise is when both parties are dissatisfied" (Larry David, "Curb Your Enthusiasm") Without massive U.S. military welfare, the Kiev regime would long ago have had to negotiate. It's long past time that everybody got a resolutoin they can tolerate including the Donbass "separatists" whom some say have been subject to genocide by Kiev.
Reply  5 Recommend

¶ Your Comment on Pentagon Sends U.S. Arms Stored in Israel to Ukraine
The New York Times <comments@nytimes.com>
8:46 AM (48 minutes ago) [+2023.01.18]
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
The more arms we give to Mr. Zelensky, the longer this brutal and unnecessary war will go on. He needs to be motivated to negotiate. And the word "negotiate" does not mean to discuss how the other side will effect unconditional suicide: It means to deal with the underlying causesof the situation, especially the right of the ethnically Russian Unrainians in the Donbas to not be subjected to persecution and also for Russia to have security on its Western border. The solution, as many, including Dr Henry Kissinger, have said, is for Ukraine to be NEUTRAL. Ukraine needs to become a threat to nobody, a friend to all, and at peace with itself. Giving Mr. Zelensky more arms will just continue the stalemated escalation toward thermonuclear apocalypse which, when we succeed in getting there, will kill everybody. Mr. Zelenky can start with an unconditional in-place cease fire today.
Reply  7 Recommend (Caveat: Are these 7 "recommends" agreements or are they votes by persons who antipodally disagree with me who espouse the Zelensky/Biden interpretation of the situation?)

¶ Your Comment on 68 Days of Silence: Why the White House Stayed Mum on Classified Documents
The New York Times <comments@nytimes.com>
11:16 AM (15 minutes ago) [+2023.01.20]
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Bradford McCormick | New York
"Bad news does not get better with age" (Former Philadelphia Police Comissioner, name lost) Mr. Biden in general seems to be in over his head in a job which is beyond his capabilities. The Times, on May 19, ran an OpEd piece about the Ukraine war ("The War in Ukraine May Be Impossible to Stop. And the U.S. Deserves Much of the Blame", Christopher Caldwell) with a picture of Mr. Biden that seems dispositive: It showed him walking with his head down, entangled in large snake-like arrows in the colors of the Ukraine flag. He doesn't understand the foreign policy issues but instead of calling in an expert like Dr. Kissinger, he doubles down on his preconceptions. Here he probably wonders about the document controversy why this happened to him. He needs to call in experts: not the kids in his administration but "old timers". The ship of state is being steered by a man who is lost and doesn't have the good sense to ask for help, perhaps because he chafed at having been President Obama's errand boy and imagining he deserved better.
Reply  11 Recommend

¶ NATO chief warns Ukraine war could last 'for years'
i24NEWS Brad McCormick
Jan 22, 2023
Also: Messrs Zelensky and Biden will do anything to advance their side of the Ukraine dispute. I seem to recall that early in the war it wsa reported her ein I-24 News that Mr. Zelensky tried to get Isreael to give him weapons by saying that if Israel did not give him weapons it was being like the prople who did not fight Adolf Hitler. This did not go over well with some members of the Knesset and he did not try that trick again. But he'll try anything else he can think of to get more weapons.
Brad McCormickFILLWE
Jan 22, 2023
Wagner Group sounds from what we here in the West hear from the Zelensky side like it is a group of bad actors. But what about he AZOV Batallion and others on the Kiev side? When Mr. Zelensky was asked point blank if there were neo-Nazis in his government, the camera showed him trying to look away and finally he said: "It is what it is." So let's be fair: Let's find all the criminals in the Kiev regime and put sanctions against them too. We hear that the Kiev regime's war against its own ethnically Russian citizens in the Donbas has been genocide. Let's have "the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth." – all the way back to when the United Staes promised Russia in the 1990s to not push NATO east of Germany. Pope Francis: ""'Little Red Riding Hood': Little Red Riding Hood was good and the wolf was the bad guy. Here there are no metaphysical good guys and bad guys, in an abstract sense. Something global is emerging, with elements that are very much intertwined."

¶ Your Comment on Can Germany Be a Great Military Power Again?
The New York Times <comments@nytimes.com>
12:37 PM (2 hours ago) [+2023.01.24]
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
Everybody is getting ever more bellicose. that's what happens once a war starts. Everybody keeps escalating and more and more people get killed. Instead of tanks, Ukraine needs a cease-fire. And if Mr. Zelensky complains that that woulg give the Russians an advvanage since they currently hold parts of the Donbas, it's his own fault for not negotiating peace before February 24 last. Human beings are getting killed. The war continues to spread like a cancer. First it will grow into a major European land war, World War I all over again. Then the nukes will be used and all human and higher animal life on earth may be exterminated. Pope Francis: "The world is at war. For me, today, World War III has been declared. This is something that should give us pause for thought.... "We have to move away from the normal pattern of 'Little Red Riding Hood': Little Red Riding Hood was good and the wolf was the bad guy. Here there are no metaphysical good guys and bad guys, in an abstract sense. Something global is emerging, with elements that are very much intertwined.... "Tragic scenarios are being reenacted, and once more reciprocal extortionate demands made by a few potentates are stifling the voice of a humanity that cries out for peace." All the boys need to put away their toys and grow up and prevent a disaster from mushroom [cloud]ing into the end of civilization. It's not too late yet to save humanity and to save the people, both pro-West and ethnically Russian of Ukraine.
Reply  1 Recommend

¶ Your Comment on Kylie Jenner's Lion-Head Outfit Stuns at Schiaparelli Show
The New York Times <comments@nytimes.com>
Jan 24, 2023, 5:03 PM (7 hours ago)
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
Let's see: The earth is burning up. Ukraine is being reduced to rubble. Secret government documents are turning up all over the place. Self-driving Teslas are a secret experiment for the drivers to discover the flaws in the computer by doing harmless things that cause the cars to crash (surprise!). Kim Jong Un is testing ICBMs. The Taliban are returning Afghanistan's women to purdah. What else is going wrong and we are having silly fashion shows? But as to lion's heads, I happened to turn on th Cartoon Network for a couple minutes a couple days ago jsut to see how stupid the television is and I saw the cutest thing. It looked like this dog was being chased by a much bigger dog. the dog was yellow. So he wrapped himself around a little kitty cat's neck so the little cat looked like a lion with its huge mane and that frightened the big bully dog away. The yellow dog then uncoiled himself from around the cat's neck and both the cat and the dog went their merry ways. So, my friends, there you have a really cool lion costume. Mondo pazzo (1966).
Reply  18 Recommend

¶ Your Comment on 'Very Dangerous People': Russia's Convict Fighters Are Heading Home
The New York Times <comments@nytimes.com>
10:24 AM (3 hours ago) [+2023.01.30]
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
Our news loves to report everything that's wrong in Russia. But will we be so enthusiastic about reporting the same things on our side? We are all enthusiastic about young men tying to avoid military conscription in Russia, and rightly so because each person's life is valuable: it's the only thing he, she or other has. But will we be equally enthusiastic about young men avoiding military conscription if we reinstate it here in the USA? And no young men tried to avoid Kiev conscription in the Ukraine? People need to rise above their partisan positions to see the situation from both sides and work not to gain victory for one side or the other which means defeat for the other side or theirs, but to find solutions which integrate the best of all sides and discard the rest. "A good compromise is when both parties are dissatisfied" (Larry David, "Curb Your Enthusiasm") "A liberal is a man too broad-minded to take his own side in a quarrel." (Robert Frost, cited by Barak Obama) Isn't that what education should be about: overcoming all prejudices, including one's own? Not irrational enthusiam and even flag-waving? All known cultures have in one way or another depersonalized as well as personalized, so that no human culture has been worth preerving the way it was – although all have been worth improving. (Dr. Walter Ong SJ, "Fighting for life", p. 201)
Reply  8 Recommend (40 recommended a reply to my posting vehemently emphasizing that Putin "depends on lies and inhuman brutalization" and is destroying Ukraine and ruining Russia, and "Ukraine is fighting for survival", and that: "These are the two sides to understand." ~ See: here)

¶ Your Comment on Russia Sidesteps Western Punishments, With Help From Friends
The New York Times <comments@nytimes.com>
1:26 PM (1 hour ago) [+2023.01.31]
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
What's the problem? The Zelensky regime is getting help from its friends. Why shouldn't the other side get help from their friends? They believe their cause is right just like we believe we are right. Russia feels threatened by NATO encirclement and chronic efforts by The United States to destroy its ceconomy. Mr. Zelensky wants to crush the resistence of his ethnically Russian fellow Ukrainians who do not like having been repressed by the Kiev government since at lesat 2015. Each side believes it is right and is trying to win. What is needed, obviously, is an end to the slaughter, and mutually respectful negitiations among all concerned parties to address the reqirements of each and if they don't like each other to at least come to a modus vivendi, such as The United States had with the Soviet Union: A Cold War not a hot war. "A good compromise is when both parties are dissatisfied" (Larry David, "Curb Your Enthusiasm") There is no indication Russia wants to conquer Ukraine. But they do want security on the ir Western border and freedom for the ethnically Russian Ukrainians. Russia would never have gone to war or annexed any territory had we seriously addressed the "existential threat" posed by Mr. zelensky's determination to NATO Ukraine, not let Ukraine be neutral.. We fail to appreciate that NATO in Ukraine is for Russia like Soviet missiles in Cuba were for us in 1962. Mr. Khrushchev removed his missiles and averted nuclear war. We need to remove out NATO.
Reply  33 Recommend
Positively A pro-Z>
4th Street  Jan. 31
@Bradford McCormick:
Not if Putin's so-called friends are in the US. At least near me.
Reply  3 Recommended
Your comment has been approved!Won one!
Bradford McCormick | New York &mbsp;[+2023.01.31]
@John Ondespot Neither can Russia trust us. We promised in the 1990s to not push NATO east of Germany. We have gone back on our word. Then there is the mess about the Minsk agreements which, whether or not the Russian side would have adhered to them, our side was just using to buy time to further prop up the Kiev regime. There is more than enough blame to go around on bioth sides of this disgraceful mess. One voice rings true, Pope Francis: "Tragic scenarios are being reenacted, and once more reciprocal extortionate demands made by a few potentates are stifling the voice of a humanity that cries out for peace."
Reply  3 Recommend

¶ Your Comment on U.S. to Boost Military Role in the Philippines in Push to Counter China
The New York Times <comments@nytimes.com>
12:45 PM (3 hours ago) [+2021.02.02]
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
Is Mr. Biden itching for a second major war before his terma in office runs out? It certainly did not help the situation when over Chinese pleas that he not do it, he sent or at least endorsed Ms. Pelosi going over the the disputed island on a PR junket and metaphorically mooning Mr. Xi. Mr. Biden seems to feel the first recourse in dealing with America's adversaries is to go to war with them, but, as CJCS General Milley admonished VP Pense, the world is full of bad actors but the United States cannot go to war with all of them. Mr. Biden seems to like to wave the flag and to have no understanding of realpolitik. I haven't even heard him asking Dr. Henry Kissinger for advice, much less calling University of Chicago Professor John Mearsheiner into the White House to educate him. But he listens to a comedian in Ukraine who endlessly whines about needing more weapns to not have to negotiate with his neighbor to the East. Mr. Biden seems to have an Ahab complex: He is pursuing Moby Dick Putin (and next Moby Dick II Xi) with his Zelensky (next with the hard line nationalists in Taiwan?) harpoon. When Ahab finally met Moby, Moby sank his ship. It is interesting that Mr. Biden is obsessed with countries that are basically of symbolic interest to the United Staes while their status represents "existential threats" to our adversaries. Mr. Biden does not like the idea of a multi-polar world, but much of the world does not like a unipolar United States. He smiles.
Reply  8 Recommend
Raymond MasleckPro-Z
Trail, B.C9m ago [+2021.02.02]
@Bradford McCormick
"But (Biden) listens to a comedian in Ukraine who endlessly whines about needing more weapons to not have to negotiate with his neighbor to the East." Easy for you to say that Zalensky should negotiate the surrender of his country with kill-crazy maniacs.

¶ Your Comment on Soaring Death Toll Gives Grim Insight Into Russian Tactics
The New York Times <comments@nytimes.com>
2:05 AM (2 hours ago) [+2023.02.03]
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
These figures may or may not be correct. But even if "Russia" is suffering massive troops losses in Ukarine, the "grim" facts may be that the United States is still fighting The Red Army and yesterday was the 80th anniversary of the victory at Stalingrad in World War II. World War II was famously won on Amerifan arms [technology] and Russian bodies [corpses]. Nobody can beat The Red Army in heavy artillery seige warfare. But we might indeed be able to defeat a new "Russian" army composed of young Americanized men who would rather be watching Britney Griner on the television than dying for Mother Russia on the plains of Ukraine wheretheir grandfathers died fighting the original Nazis. Pope Francis: Tragic scenarios are being reenacted, and once more reciprocal extortionate demands made by a few potentates are stifling the voice of a humanity that cries out for peace.
Reply  7 Recommend

¶ Your Comment on Pentagon Says It Detected a Chinese Spy Balloon Hovering Over Montana
The New York Times <comments@nytimes.com>
11:28 AM (24 minutes ago) [+2023.02.03]
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
This is all nonsense. The Biden administration is worried that if they shoot it down it might hurt somebody on the ground? They are undersriting massive devastation and killing in Ukraine each day, so that cannot be a real concern. Also, this thing is clearly over U.S. airspace, so the only propaganda use for it is to keep it up there and complain about it. If it was over disputed airspace they might shoot it down to try to craete a new Gulf of Tonkin event to justify launching war against Mr. Xi's China. If's an enemy weapon over undisputed American airspace. Give it a wating to leave and if it does not do so, shoot it down and get on with negotiating peace with Mr. Xi.
Reply  4 Recommend

¶ Your Comment on Furor Over Chinese Spy Balloon Leads to a Diplomatic Crisis
The New York Times <comments@nytimes.com>
7:32 AM (13 minutes ago) [+2023.02.04]
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
@Marty in Minnesota I think Mr .Biden is looking to stir up trouble here. The Gulf of Tonkin redux? What would be really "cool" and show America's technological superiority would be if we could snare the balloon and bring it down to earth intact and send it to Fort Dietrich or Area 51 or some other place and study it and then exhiblt it like the Soviet Union exhibited Gary Powers and the U-2. Then they could tell everybody of it wa a WMD or a a weather balloon or what it was. A bag of hot air? Of course I am asking about the balloon, not our Commander in Chief here.
Marty in Minnesota (Posting to which the above is my reply)!
Edina MN7h ago
A high altitude balloon wandering aimlessly over the middle of the US with no relationship to any specific target is not likely to have any military significance. I am sure China has surveillance satellites like we do and most every one else seems to have. These are much more effective than an unguided balloon in gathering data. Whatever the reason for the balloon's presence I do not see why people are getting so upset about it. It is an embarrasement for China but should not be a diplomatic catastrophe.
37 Recommend (i.e.: recommend Marty in Minnesota's posting)

¶ Your Comment on Downing of Chinese Spy Balloon Ends Chapter in a Diplomatic Crisis
The New York Times <comments@nytimes.com>
7:55 AM (4 minutes ago) [+2023.02.05]
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
"That time and place came at 2:39 p.m., Pentagon officials said, some six miles off the coast of South Carolina." Good to hear it wa shot down over American airspace not over international waters. Gary Powers and his U-2 were shot down May 1, 1960 over Soviet Union airspace What's good for the goose is good for the gander. Now let us get on with negotiating lasting peace with the so-called People's Republic of China (PRC), which, of course, is "communist" in name only. Just capitalist superpower competing with us for market share. Cold War not hot war, now and forever! Until we all come to our senses and join hands and "God's whole will will be done when all mankind is one".
16 Recommend

¶ Your Comment on Zelensky's Party Says It Will Move to Replace Defense Minister
The New York Times <comments@nytimes.com>
10:31 AM (7 minutes ago) [+2023.02.06]
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
This maybe the cucial momen when the Zelensky regime finally implodes. Mr .Biden's massive military welfare could only keep the patient on life support so long. Bakhmut may be the key. If the Russians capture it may be a decisive victory. (a mini Stalingrad redux?) The Russians are not trying to conquer Ukraine. But they do want security on their Western border and freedom for the ethnically Russian Ukrainians in the south and east of the country. Dr. Putin have had enough of this war and be willing to pay the price whatever it takes to finish it off now. But there is another thing here. A couple weeks ago Mr. Zelensky had a falling out with his brilliant (and also soulness) military mastermind Alexey Arestovich who to my undertanding it the brains behind the green t-shirt: the person who cooked up this war. Why did Mr .Zelensky not bring him back in to be Defense Minister? If I was Mr .Zelensky I would long ago have negotiated neutrality for my country (maybe he tried back last Msrch but Mr. Johnson made him an offer he couldn't refuse?). But if I was going to continue the war, Mr. Arestovish appears to be not just brilliant but also incorruptible: He would tell Mr. Zelensky what he doesn't want to hear and maybe that's why he wasn't picked here? Pope Francis: "Tragic scenarios are being reenacted, and once more reciprocal extortionate demands made by a few potentates are stifling the voice of a humanity that cries out for peace."
Reply  2 Recommend

¶ Your Comment on China's Balloon Dispute Aims Attention at Xi's Leadership
The New York Times <comments@nytimes.com>
12:48 PM (7 minutes ago) [+2023.02.06]
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
This balloon thing has ballooned all out of proportion. They obviously intended it to be seen here in the U.S. Perhaps they were sending us an insult like we sent Mrs. Pelosi to Taiwan to insult them. Both sides need to grow up and stop bickering and posturing. We need to face the reality that Taiwan is part of China, like it or not and if we are concerned about freedom, encourage anyone on the island who does not want to live in Mr. Xi's China (which is not communist, just a capitalist superpowr competing with us that has less interest in so-called human rights) – we need to welcome any dissenters to live safely here in the land of the free and the home of the brave Silicon Valley oligarchs. Taiwan is not worth gong to nucler war over. But if we weren't trying to stir the pot it had been simmering for decades and maybe it would continue to if we let sleeping dragons (and Winnie the Pooh) lie. Ms. Pelosi's PR stunt was far worse a provocation than that balloon, which was no threat to America's sovereignty, jusst maybe a threst to Mr. Biden's flag-waving chauvinism. Mr. Biden needs to learn Realpolitik 101, starting with seriously working out Ukraine neutrality with Dr. Putin lest that mess "get out of control" and end up in an exchange of thermonuclear bombs. Our Russia policy is based on a gamble that Dr. Putin won't do it. Luck is not a sound basis for superpower foreign policy. Mr. Biden's speeches resemble that balloon: they are full of hot air.
Reply  17 Recommend (Several incensed responses)
cjg!
601489h ago
@Bradford McCormick
I am sure Dr(??) Putin is very pleased with your message. I reject it all. The Chinese balloon incident is concerning. Ms. Pelosi was reiterating our long-standing support for Taiwan's sovereignty. And Joe Biden's speeches sound like they are coming from a 79 year old man in charge. Far better in charge than Xi Jinping apparently.

¶ Your Comment on Your Comment on Outnumbered and Worn Out, Ukrainians in East Brace for Russian Assault
The New York Times <comments@nytimes.com>
3:56 AM (55 minutes ago) [+2023.02.07]

Bradford McCormick | New York
If only we would stop this war: declare an uncondiional in-place cease fire and negotiate with Dr. Putin, all this suffering which just piles more corpses and wounded persons and devastation up each new day would end. Russia does not want to conquer Ukraine, only to have security for its western border and freedom for the ethnically Russign Ukrainians. The Kiev regime could keep the rest of the country. Pope Francis: The world is at war. For me, today, World War III has been declared. This is something that should give us pause for thought.... We have to move away from the normal pattern of 'Little Red Riding Hood': Little Red Riding Hood was good and the wolf was the bad guy. Here there are no metaphysical good guys and bad guys, in an abstract sense. Something global is emerging, with elements that are very much intertwined.... Tragic scenarios are being reenacted, and once more reciprocal extortionate demands made by a few potentates are stifling the voice of a humanity that cries out for peace.
Reply  12 Recommend (Responses include: "Ukraine was never a threat to ethnically Russian Ukrainians, as you claim. Your pro-Russian rhetoric is obvious and your claims are false", "Russia can end this war by stopping the invasion of a sovereign country. Russian can stop bombing hospitals and apartment buildings", "Dr. Putin? WHY should Ukranians cede one single inch of their country to Russia? Would you say the same if a other country was invading America? Just give them California and give peace a chance, right? WRONG." →
But also this eloquent summary of the problem: here^[6])

¶ Your Comment on Sanctions Against Russia Ignore the Economic Challenges Facing Ukraine
The New York Times <comments@nytimes.com> Feb 9, 2023, 10:41 PM (1 hour ago) &$91;+2023.02.09]
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
If the Kiev regime had made Ukraine neutral and given autonomy to its ethnically Russian citizens in the Donbas etc., then there would never have been any war and all aid could have gone to building (not rebuilding) the country. But would such aid have been forthcoming if it would have designated to improve the lives of the Ukrainian people not remove Russia as a possible competitor in the global economy? Back in 2000, Dr. Putin wanted to join NATO. He wanted to be our friend. But our neocons did not like that idea: They lust for a unipolar world where the United States tells everybody else what to do. They never learned to respect others. "W"'s declaration in 2008 that Ukrains and Georgia would become part of NATO set us on the road to the shameful mess we've got today which may yet go forward to nuclear apocalypse. But since it is better dead than red (even though ther have been no reds for 30 years) the extinceion of human and higher animal life on earth will have been worth it. Pope Francis: "Tragic scenarios are being reenacted, and once more reciprocal extortionate demands made by a few potentates are stifling the voice of a humanity that cries out for peace."
2 Recommend

¶ Your Comment on Pentagon Shot Down Object Over Alaska, U.S. Officials Say
The New York Times <comments@nytimes.com>
4:09 PM (7 hours ago) [+2023.10.10]
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
We have got to calm down. Thre is a big fanger of war with China judt like Russia. Somebody recently pointed out tha teverybody in the present governmeny was born after the end of th Cold War or not long before. these people DO NOT TAKE WAR SERIOUSLY! Let's have another one. Oh what fun! During the Cold War the officlals took war seriously: some had fought in World War II or Korea or Vietnam, and they had lived theough the atmospheric h-bomb tests. They took war and nuclear weapons seriously. If China sends thousand balloons, so what? Shoot them down but don'w make a big tink about it. Mr. Biden wants to ge tthe merian people all stirred up againt China so wewill send our young men to die in Taiwan.. Mr. Biden's last option in a conflict is to negotiate. And anyone who thinks he respects our citizens in uniform should go on Youtube and watch what he did to Major Scott Ritter in the SenatedIraq hearings. He should ahve been censured for what he did to Major Ritter.
The comment you are looking for is currently unavailable. (+2023.02.10 00:12ET)

¶ Your Comment on Men Need Purpose More Than 'Respect'
The New York Times <comments@nytimes.com>
5:46 AM (41 minutes ago) [+2023.02.13]
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
Absolutely! Respect makes spectators feel their lives are worthwhile by feeling others' lives are worthwhile. Purpose makes the person themself feel their own life is worthwhile. It's like like the non-combatants crying for their heros on the battlefield. Their tears the dead heroes, and, a fortiori, the wounded, no good, but make the people who sent them to suffer and die feel good about it. We need support for the living and not mourning for the dead, who e either nowhere or in some place we can not affect.There is an excellent book by a miitary historian who served 2 decades as an intelligence officer which every person who wants to wave aflag should read: "No More Heroes: Madness and Psychiatry in War" (Hill nd Wang, 1987)
2 Recommend

¶ Your Comment on One Year Into War, Putin Is Crafting the Russia He Craves
The New York Times <comments@nytimes.com>
11:55 AM (2 hours ago) [+2023.02.19]
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
Think about it: Our effort to overthrow the Russiasn government has resulted in less freedom for the Russian people. They had more dissident voices, etc. BEFORE 24 February last year when Dr. Putin finally decided that we absolutely were not going to negotiate a resolution to the situation. Had we instead negotiated neutrality and peace for Ukraine, none of the slaugher, refugees, devastation and damage to the world's economy would have happened and the Russian people would hvave had it freer, too. As Pope Francis said early after 24 February: "The world is at war. For me, today, World War III has been declared. This is something that should give us pause for thought.... "We have to move away from the normal pattern of 'Little Red Riding Hood': Little Red Riding Hood was good and the wolf was the bad guy. Here there are no metaphysical good guys and bad guys, in an abstract sense. Something global is emerging, with elements that are very much intertwined.... "Tragic scenarios are being reenacted, and once more reciprocal extortionate demands made by a few potentates are stifling the voice of a humanity that cries out for peace." Whoever "wins", the people have long ince lost.
5 Recommend
7 REPLIES!
AnnaT commented 12 hours ago
coasttocoast  12h ago
Pretty rich to blame "us" for Putin's unstoppable drive to "restore" Russian "greatness." With whom would we have negotiated peace in Ukraine, Putin? This is entirely on him.
!!!19 Recommend ....

¶ Your Comment on Biden Visits Kyiv, Ukraine's Embattled Capital, as Air-Raid Siren Sounds
The New York Times <comments@nytimes.com>
11:57 AM (40 minutes ago) [+2023.02.20]
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
Support for Mr. Biden's war policy is not unanimous and Mr. Biden needs to address the criticisms from emient scholars including University and Chicago distinguished professor and West Point graduate, John Mearsheimer, and Columbia University professor Jeffrey Sachs. Mr. Biden needs to show us why the arguments made by these experts to end the war and to negotiate coexistence with Russia are wrong, or else he needs to change his policy to be in line with the historical reality. We also now also know from then Israeli Prime Minister Bennett that he had worked out an agreement between Mr. Zelensky and Dr, Putin to end the war at the end of last March, which he himself has said we and Great Britain killed, so the whole war since then has been due to Mr. Biden's policy. Reason needs to prevail and partisan human suffering needs to end. Pope Francis: "Tragic scenarios are being reenacted, and once more reciprocal extortionate demands made by a few potentates are stifling the voice of a humanity that cries out for peace."
Reply  9 Recommend

¶ Your Comment on Russian Troops Know How Little They Mean to Putin
The New York Times <comments@nytimes.com>
11:09 AM (1 hour ago) [+2023.02.22]
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
Some sources say Russia's military is "broken" or otherwise dailing. Other sources, including Col. (ret.) Douglas Macgregor and former weapons inspector Scott Ritter feel the Rissian military is doing well. Here on the other side of the world, how can a lay person be sure of anything, especially since it is clear that Mr. Zelensky is a master propagandist and Mr. Biden shows no indication of contextual awareness of the history of the situation? Major Ritter points out that the last time reporters were free to hitch a ride with any old soldiers was Vietnam, and we get almost no information from inside the Russian occupied territory. Etcetera and so torth. Why can't we just agree to stop the slaughter by an immediate unconditional in-place cease fire and then sort out everything when no more human beings ar being killed? I understand Mr. Zelensky h=owns a lolvely 15 room villa in Tuscany Italy which would be a fine place to hold pesce talks. I also am sure experts including Univ. of Chicago distinguished service Prof and West Point Grad John Mearsheimer and Columbia Univ Prof Jeffrey Sachs would be happy to consult with Mr. Biden and his adminisration to help being them up to speed on the historical context to most intelligently be able to negotiate. Tragic scenarios are being reenacted, and once more reciprocal extortionate demands made by a few potentates are stifling the voice of a humanity that cries out for peace. (Pope Francis)
Reply  4 Recommend

¶ Your Comment on Whirring Into Action in Ukraine's Skies
The New York Times <comments@nytimes.com>
10:21 AM (2 hours ago) [+2023.03.05]
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
All this heroism is to no point: all the continuation of this wretched war can accomplich is more human casualties end economic harm each new day. For Russia, preventing Ukraine from becoming part of NATO is like keeping Soviet missiles out of Cuba was for the U.S. in 1962: an existential threat so serious that our President Kennedy threatened nuclear war against the Soviet Union if they did not withdraw their missiles from Cuba. Mr. Khrushchev did the sensible thing and removed his missils from Cuba. We need to do the sensible thing today and remove our NATO from Ukraine. So Russia will not stop the war until they can get security guarantees for their Western border. But Mr.Zelensky will not stop the war until he gets every last Russian out of Ukraine including the Crimea. This is only going to happen if the government of Russia is overthrown, which is one of our President's objectives in continuing this war, the other being to weaken Russia generally. So it's the irresistable force meeting the immovable object. But only if Mr. Biden keeps supplying massive military welfare to the Kiev regime to let it continue its hopeless fight – hopeless except fo the "hope" that by cotinued escalation the war will lead to nuclear apocalypse and an end to all human and higher-animal life on earth. All sorts of people all around the world are urging an end ot the war and negotiating peace by making Ukraine neutral. The Biden administration continues to deny they exist.
Reply  3 Recommend [Two comments: "Putin does not want a neutral Ukraine, he wants it to be a part of Russia. This is obvious from the Crimea annexation. He wants to restore the former Soviet Union.... Even if Russia were to win, it would not be able to occupy Ukraine for long. It would be in a constant state of war from freedom fighters. Eventually, like they and the US both did in Afghanistan, when losses become to great you up and leave. Ukraine is not a regime, it is a democratic republic and it deserves the right to remain that way. 22 Recommend" And: "Russia has no right to invade Ukraine. Ukraine is a sovereign state, and its 1991 borders are universally recognized. Russia itself even guaranteed those borders. Putin's desire to seize Ukraine and obliterate Ukrainian national identity underscores why Ukraine wants to join NATO. NATO has expanded for a simple reason: Russia's neighbors rightly fear Russian aggression.... If we give Ukraine the tools it needs to repel Russia's malignant and unprovoked invasion, Ukraine will finish the job—and the world will be safer. 3 Recommend"]

¶ Your Comment on Intelligence Suggests Pro-Ukrainian Group Sabotaged Pipelines, U.S. Officials Say
The New York Times <comments@nytimes.com>
8:21 AM (8 hours ago) [+2023.03.08]
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
Trust that and you might as well trust whatever the Kremlin says about the pipeline sabotage. Both sides are fighting a war and one of their most important weapons is propaganda. Each side will lie to gain psychological advantage with their own people and the enemy's populace too. However! We do know that President Biden early on explicitly stated that if Russia went to war then the United States would render them inopeative and he coyly went on to say he was not telling the details. That may be false too. But then we would have two conflicting lies from our own government. What does it matter? The United Staes refuses to stop this barbaric and entirely unnecessary war, and not just "negotiate" with Russia but even at this late date change our policy and become allies with them for the good of all humanity and the future of the earth.
7 Recommend

¶ Your Comment on Macron, Risking Backlash, Pushes Through Law Raising Retirement Age
The New York Times <comments@nytimes.com>
10:51 AM (1 hour ago) [+2023.03.17]
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
"Let them eat cake" (Emmanuel Macron, 2023)
Reply  4 Recommend

¶ Your Comment on From Rockets to Ball Bearings, Pentagon Struggles to Feed War Machine
The New York Times <comments@nytimes.com>
1:36 PM (39 minutes ago) [+2023.03.24]
Your comment has been approved! Was this item subsequently censored:"The comment you are looking for is currently unavailable."?
Bradford McCormick | New York
All the problems will stop of we stop the war and do what should have been done from the get-go: Make Ukraine a neutral country, at peace and friendly to both Russia and The West, and no longer a threat to Russia. Russia is fighting like the United States would have fought had The Soviet Union doubled down on stationing missiles in Cuba in 1962. President Kennedy threatened nuclear war if they did not remove their missiles from Cuba and Mr. Khrushchev did the rational thing and removed the missiles. We need to do the rational thing and remove NATO from Ukraine. The suffering this war is causing is horrendous. It is wrecking everything and may escalate to nuclear armageddon and the end of human and higher animal life on earth. For what? So the Zelensky tv production crew in Kiev can have NATO? The Ukrainian people can only benefit from peace. The world economy can only benefit from an end to this potlatch. The ethnically Russian people in the Donbas need to be free from oppression by the anti-Russian regima in Kiev since 2014. Russia may have started the current invasion, but the Kiev war against its own people in the Donbas had been going on since 2014. Russia was were provoked by the existential threat of NATO in Ukraine, like those Soviet missiles in Cuba threatened us. The Kiev regime planned this war in 2019. Mr. Zelensky's military advisor, Mr. Alexey Arestovich gave a tell-all interview in 2019 you can lisen to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xNHmHpERH8

¶ Your Comment on Netanyahu Delays Bid to Overhaul Israel's Judiciary as Protests Rage
The New York Times <comments@nytimes.com>
5:27 AM (5 hours ago) [+2023.02.28]
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
So Mr. Netanyahoo(spelling intended) said he was "delaying" his judicial changes and wants dialog? "Dialog" to cool down the passions of the people who oppose his plan, not to address the substance. And sure, he'll "delay" doing what he intends to do. What's a few weeks delay in changing the country forever?
Reply  3 Recommend

¶ Your Comment on A Chinese Ambassador's Comments on Ex-Soviet States Draw Ire
The New York Times <comments@nytimes.com>
10:35 AM (1 hour ago) [+2023.04.24]
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
This is like last year our President Biden said: "For God's sake, this man [President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin] cannot remain in power." Both ourselves and China must always act with mature responsible statesmenship, not make dangerous incendiary provocations. Both ourselves and China are nuclear powers. We must not incite war with each other lest we end all human and higher animal life on earth in an exchange of hydrogen bombs.
Reply  9 Recommend (see also)

¶ Your Comment on The Curious Conservative Case Against Defending Ukraine
The New York Times <comments@nytimes.com>
11:29 AM (1 hour ago) [+2023.05.03]
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
Why didn't this article include Col. Douglas Macgregor who was a high official in the Trump administration (I forget his title), who is a staunch conservative and a very strong critic of the Biden adminstration's foreign policy and the Neoconservatives in general. He advocates a negotiated settlement of the Ukraine war, making that sad country neutral and, America abandoning the neo-conservative unipolar world agenda in favor of the reality of a multi-polar world in which the United States lives in peace as a peer with Russia and China. His analyses are based on extensive at least putative evidence. Also, educated opposition to this war comes from all sides, from Col. Macgregor and Dr. Jordan Peterson on the right to Noam Chomsky on the left with West Point graduate and distinguished University of Chicago prodessor John Mearsheimer in the middle. These persons study the documents in he public record, dating back to when the U.S. promised Mr.Gorbachev in 1991 to not take NATO east of Germany. Just because bad people breathe earth's air does not make breathing bad. Just because bad persons support a position does not make the position bad. Unfortiunaely, today, good persons supporting the Zelensky propaganda does not make that good. Sapere audi! (Dare to know)
Reply  5 Recommend

¶ Your Comment on Kremlin Blasts Were Real. The Rest Is Hazy, Maybe Intentionally.
The New York Times <comments@nytimes.com>
3:17 PM (2 hours ago) [+2023.05.04]
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
Soebody needs to pull the plug on Mr. Zelensky. He made a grieous mistaka a year ago in not signnig the end of this isane war which both he and the Russians had worked out under the ediationg of then Isael Prime Minister Bennett. This wsa has gone on far too li=ong and the risk of nuclear armageddon keep increasing. We need an in place unconditional cease fire immediatel and Ukraine needs to be come neutral and at peace with both The West and its neighbor to the East. Somebody needs to be the adult in the room and stop the boys from playing with their toys. Real human persons are dying and real property being destroyed and the world's economies severely impacted. Mr. Biden needs to turn of the military welfare spigot to Kiev. Mr. Zelensky has nothing to lose so he is a threate to all humanity.
Reply  8 Recommend

¶ Article: 'We Have No Days Off': The Nonstop Work of Ukrainian Air Defenses
Bradford McCormick
New York
2m ago [+2023.05.01]
[I snatched this directly from the website since I did not check the "inform me when posted" checkbox. Mea culpa!]
If Mr. Zelensky would declare an in-place unconditional ceasefire and start negotiating peace with the Russians all this slaughter and destruction woud end.
It's a war and people get killed, including innocent civilians. Example: The atomic bomb we dropped on Hiroshima Japan 6 Sugust 1945.
Back in early 2022, Pope Francis wisely and empathically urged:
"The world is at war. For me, today, World War III has been declared. This is something that should give us pause for thought....
"We have to move away from the normal pattern of 'Little Red Riding Hood': Little Red Riding Hood was good and the wolf was the bad guy. Here there are no metaphysical good guys and bad guys, in an abstract sense. Something global is emerging, with elements that are very much intertwined...
. "Tragic scenarios are being reenacted, and once more reciprocal extortionate demands made by a few potentates are stifling the voice of a humanity that cries out for peace.
Reply  7 Recommend

¶ Your Comment on The Tale the West Tells Itself About Ukraine
The New York Times
Jun 16, 2023, 7:50 PM (5 hours ago) [+2023.06.16]
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
Once people accept that the situation is complex there is hope. Let me repeat Pope Francis's plea from back in Spring 2022: "The world is at war. For me, today, World War III has been declared. This is something that should give us pause for thought.... "We have to move away from the normal pattern of 'Little Red Riding Hood': Little Red Riding Hood was good and the wolf was the bad guy. Here there are no metaphysical good guys and bad guys, in an abstract sense. Something global is emerging, with elements that are very much intertwined.... "Tragic scenarios are being reenacted, and once more reciprocal extortionate demands made by a few potentates are stifling the voice of a humanity that cries out for peace."
Recommend Share Flag
1 REPLY PJR commented 3 hours ago [+2023.06.16]
Did the Pope share a solution short of surrender and giving massive parts of Ukraine to Vladimir Putin?
3 Recommend Share

¶ Your Comment on Jury Acquits Deputy Who Failed to Confront Parkland Gunman [I do not generally write about "safe" topics like mass murders in elementary schools. But I replied to this one to test if The New York Times would still print ANYHTING I subbmitted]
The New York Times
5:09 PM (5 hours ago) [+2023.06.29]
Your comment has been approved!
. Bradford McCormick | New York
This is not goin gto go down well. "He's not there sure to make sure that their bellies are full and that they are hydrated properly," Mark Eiglarsh, his defense lawyer, told jurors on Monday, calling the caregiver argument "ludicrous." THIS is ludicrous. I guess a mother who dies trying to protect her child from being shot and killed or something else like that is NOT being a caregiver? If he got off on a technicality of the definition of whatthe word "caregiver" denoted, we need to change the dictionary, or maybe add a term to the legal code.
Reply  5 Recommend

¶ Your Comment on What Is War to a Grieving Child?
The New York Times
Jul 18, 2023, 3:12 PM (12 hours ago) [+2023.07.18?]
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
If Mr .Zelenshy will declare a cease-fire and responsibly negotiate with Russia all these horrors will end.
8 Recommend  Share  Flag
4 REPLIES
@Bradford McCormick
This is Putin's war!
14 Recommend  Share  Flag
@Bradford McCormick
How about if Putin declares a ceasefire?
4 Recommend  Share  Flag
@Bradford McCormick
What evidence do you have for that? Instead you should have said "if Putin withdraws from Ukraine all these horrors will end".
6 Recommend  Share  Flag
@Bradford McCormick
"If Putin will declare a cease-fire and responsibly negotiate with Ukraine all these horrors will end."
Fixed that for you.
You're welcome.
1 Recommend  Share  Flag

¶ Your Comment on As Russia Steps Up Attacks on Grain Ports, U.S. Warns of Possible Ruse
The New York Times
9:02 AM (2 hours ago) [+2023.07.21]
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
This mess will keep getting horrider and horrider until we face the reality that NATO in Ukraine is for Russia like Soviet missiles in Cuba were for us in 1962: the brightest of red lines. Our President Kennedy thretened nuclear war with The Soviet Union if they did not reove their missiles from Cuba. They removed their missiles and nuclear wr was averted. We need to remove our NATO from Ukraine today. Ukraine needs to become neutral: friendly to both the West and to Russia and a threat to nobod, like Austria. Then the Ukrainian peopl can live in peace and prosperity. Also the Kiev government needs to stop repressing its ethnically Russian fellow citizens. Until that hoped for day, this humanitarian disaster willkeep getting worser and worser until maybe the nukes are launched and then it willbe game over for human and higher animal life on our sad planet. Pope Francis: "We have to move away from the normal pattern of 'Little Red Riding Hood': Little Red Riding Hood was good and the wolf was the bad guy. Here there are no metaphysical good guys and bad guys, in an abstract sense. Something global is emerging, with elements that are very much intertwined.... "Tragic scenarios are being reenacted, and once more reciprocal extortionate demands made by a few potentates are stifling the voice of a humanity that cries out for peace."
5 Recommend  Share

¶ Your Comment on In Belarus, the Protests Were Three Years Ago. The Crackdown Is Never-Ending
The New York Times
10:08 AM (2 hours ago) [+2023.07.23]
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
As an American born in 1946 who in my youth eperienced little freedom, including being coerced alternating Saurdays to submit to being haircutted which traumatized and disgusted me, and not being told Idid not have to pledge allagiance to the flag in school, I sometimes wonder what all the to-do about "crackdowns on dissent" on the bad side(sic) of the Iron Curtain means. In the 1980s, I found a magiserial essay on human freedom written by of all people, a Polish, i.e., behind the Iron Curtain, sociologist (it's free on the Internet today): Individuality and Society (Jan Szczepanski, UNESCO, "Impact of science on society", 31(4), 1981, 461-466) I have also learned that there is or at least was a couple years ago a lively scholarly community studying Edmund Husserl's philosophy in "communist" repressive(sic) China. So I wonder how much ot the "repression" in these countries where I w told it was worde than being dead to be, was people who over here would be arrested or at least be tracked by the FBI, and not serious scholars seeking disinterested truth? nd tofay, of coures, instead of Joe McCarth's witch hunts, we have people being "cancelled". No government, including our own, likes "troublemakers". What repression of whom and why?
[No comments or recommends]

¶ Your Comment on How Big Is the Legacy Boost at Elite Colleges?
The New York Times
10:47 AM (2 hours ago) [+2023.07.27]
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
I went to Yale (1964) and was not legacy. I came from a 2nd rate "prep" school where 3 of ut applied to Harvard: I was sacademically #1, and #2 also applied. (He went to MIT.) But a 3rd student also applied to Harvard. He had mediocre academics and apparently little interest in learning, and I do not think he was legacy, but he had A+ lacrosse. He was the only one of us Harvard accepted. It paid off for Harvard .In his junior year he did the almost impossible. No, he did not win a Nobal Prize. He beat Princeton in lacrosse for the irst time in 43 years! What does this hav eto do with, to borrow a phrase from The University of Chicago: "the life of the mind"? Party schools I guess are fine for jocks. but I think an elite institution such as Harvard should not be admitting students on muscular coordination. I never set foot in the Yale bowl. I did take courses from an important philosophy professor whi was also a gentle human being, John Wild. Today when I hear about athletic problems at Northwestern Univerity, i recall that Dr. Wild once taught philosophy there and among other achieement sestablished the university's presse's series in continental philosophy. I would urge that serious institutions of learning should admit syudent on only one criterion: intellectual potential, and provide "affirmative action" to all who could benefit irregardless of secondary characteristics. As the old United Negreo College Fund slogan went: "a mind is a terrible thing to waste."
Reply  4 Recommend

¶ Your Comment on Christian Nationalists Can't Wait for This School in Oklahoma to Open
10:01 AM (35 minutes ago) [+2023.08.01]
The New York Times
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
Oklahoma law stipulates that charter schools are public schools and "shall be nonsectarian in" their "programs, admission policies, employment practices and all other operations." But late last year, the state's attorney general at the time, John O'Connor, issued an advisory opinion requested by the executive director of the charter school board, in which he concluded that those restrictions most likely violated the First Amendment's free exercise clause. OK. How would my kid fare if he or she or other was like myself: (1) not just atheist but anti-theist (I argue the Abrahamic deity is a mentally ill criminal), (2) strongly opposed to competitive athletics and locker room same gender public nudity, but also (3) strongly favoring young persons erotically ejoying their bodies? Would my kid have freedom of speech in these free speech institutions? Now: When I was in school back in the 1950s and 60s, I did not even have the freedom to keep the natural hair on my head but was coerced to be haircutted ecah other week. I did have religious freedom in a school run by The Episcopal Chiurch, however, because they did not care about spirituality but worshipped graven images: Varsity lacrosse and tackle footall team shiny plated trophy cups. I became an atheist there but nobody cared about that. In my yearbook entry it reads: "He oppsed the cult of school spirit." I strongly support the 1st amendment to the U.S. Constitution, including for students in "a place called school".
Reply  10 Recommend

¶ Your Comment on I Gave Up and Went on a Trip With Several Thousand of My Closest Friends
The New York Times
10:54 AM (3 hours ago) [2023.08.01]
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
We are amusing ourselves to death? These cruise ships produce greehouse gases, or don't they? We are cruising while earth burns (U.N. Sec'y Gen'l Guterres: "global boiling"). I have a proposal which few will like. Putting aside issues of celibacy, there were some very enlightened things about Medieval monasticism. One watchword was: "peregrinatio in stabilitate": to go on a pilgrimage you do not need to leave the chair you are currently sitting on. And this was before Bell Telephone Co. urged you to "let your fingers do the walking in the Yellow Pages", not to mention the Internet where every person has most of the whole world on their computer screen. Of course the computer will not substitute for everything: eating a leisurely meal with a few good friends, gentle intimacy, a loving pet.... But how much greenhouse gases does the wisdom of The Preacher in the biblical Book of Ecclesiastes generate (irrespective of whether you believe in an Abrahamic religion)? Finally, the objects of daily living can be sources of esthetic delectation, and again, minimize production of greenhouse gase. I would probaly never drink coffee if I had to put up with disposable styrofoam cups. For 30 yeasrs, I have used one coffee cup made by a master potter that could be in a museum and will last many hundreds of years unless somebody drops it and can't glue it back together like some national treasure broken but patched tea bowls in Japanese museums. Fun is throwaway. Connoisseurship endures.
Reply  12 Recommend

¶ Your Comment on Jailed Russian Opposition Leader Navalny Receives a New 19-Year Sentence [See also]
The New York Times
1:25 PM (1 hour ago) [+2023.08.04]
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
It is very sad that Mr. Navalny had to go harm himself by running back to Russia after we in The West her saved him from dying presumably by having been poisoned by President Putin. Mr. Navalny could have stayed here in the West and carried on his fight for freedom in safety, But tno, he rushed back to certain reimprisonment. Was he trying to get sympathy from bleeding hearts here in the West to feel so sorry for him that we would overthrow the Russian goverment, risking thermoluclear armageddon that could kill eveybody? Mr. Navalny sought this prison term. He chose it. One can only hope he enjoys having got what he wanted. It's very sad.
Reply  3 Recommend
2 REPLIES
FdV 
London | Aug 4
@Bradford McCormick It's called moral courage - a concept which is alien to so many people in the modern era who are more concerned with their material well-being. And it's not only Russians.
Reply  34 Recommend
FdV 
London | 4h ago [+2023.08.05]
@Bradford McCormick You can sit comfortably in your home or wherever in New York and judge this man on an open forum because other people in your own country have made similar sacrifices for you and the people around you. Be grateful.
Reply  Recommend
+2023.08.06+01:52: "The comment you are looking for is currently unavailable."

¶ Your Comment on Putin's Forever War
The New York Times
11:19 AM (2 hours ago) [+2023.08.07;
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
"Putin" dos not want any war with anybody. But he finally had enough of us ignoring Russia's interests. We lied to Russis in the early 1990s when we promised to not push NATO "ine inch east of Germany". Putin said: "We were weak.. You made the mistake of taking advantage of us. We made the mistake of trusting you." We kept pushnig NATO on Russia's western border, and arming Ukraine, like Soviet missiles in Cuba in 1962 were for us. President Kennedy threatened The Soviet Union with nuclear war and they removed their missiles. Also, the Kiev regime has consistently mistreated their own ethnically Russian citizens. What Putin wants is a multipolar world in which we respect Russia and Russia will respect us. His last attempt to get our attention was his peace plan 17 December 2021. We ignored it. So he launched his "spacial military operation" as a last resort, 24 February 2022. Whether one agrees with it or not, that's what happened. Whether Putin made a good decision or not should be a topic for informed discussion. Is there still a chance to talk it out and end the risk of this conflict escalating to thermonuclear apocalypse? The future of human and higher animal life on earth is at stake. And let us not forget that if we succeed in "cornering" Russia and winning the current war: Putin's formative childhood experience was being cornered by a big rat. He beat the rat by slamming a door on it. He has thremonuclear weapons this time.
8  Recommend [No comments pro or con due to "The comments section is closed. To submit a letter to the editor for publication, write to letters@nytimes.com."]

¶ Your Comment on Zelensky Called Him a Criminal. Now Ukraine Calls Him for Guns and Ammo.
The New York Times
10:20 AM (37 minutes ago) [+2023.08.13]
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
The story seems to be changing. The green t-shirt schtick is starting to wear thin. The emperor's new clothes seem going out of style. Why not everybody reset back to a New York Times feature OpEd piece in May 2022: The War in Ukraine May Be Impossible to Stop. And the U.S. Deserves Much of the Blame. (aka: "U.S. Helps Prolong Ukraine War, +2022.05.04) Christopher Caldwell, May 31, 2022: Mr. Kissinger is on the same page as Mr. Guaino [on a certain point]. "To make concessions to Russia would be submitting to aggression," Mr. Guaino warned. "To make none would be submitting to insanity."....
5 Recommend

¶ Your Comment on Ukraine's Forces and Firepower Are Misallocated, U.S. Officials Say
The New York Times
3:56 PM (7 minutes ago) [+2023.08.22]
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
It seems different persons with differing perspecties and perhaps differnt sources of information are having differing opinons about the progress of the war. One thing is certain, however: many men are being severely injured and dying who would live in health if Mr. Zelensky declared an unconditional in-place cease fire and started negotiations to bring peace to this sad and divided land. Pope Francis: "The world is at war. For me, today, World War III has been declared. This is something that should give us pause for thought.... "We have to move away from the normal pattern of 'Little Red Riding Hood': Little Red Riding Hood was good and the wolf was the bad guy. Here there are no metaphysical good guys and bad guys, in an abstract sense. Something global is emerging, with elements that are very much intertwined.... "Tragic scenarios are being reenacted, and once more reciprocal extortionate demands made by a few potentates are stifling the voice of a humanity that cries out for peace."
Reply  6 Recommend Share Flag
1 REPLY
François 
France
commented 9 hours ago [+2023.08.22]
@Bradford McCormick Russia invaded Ukraine. Not Zelensky, not NATO: Russia. Yet you put the onus on the victim. Guess you are the kind to punish your kid if they get bullied.
Reply  2 Recommend

¶ Your Comment on Rule No. 1 in Putin's Russia: Defy Him at Your Peril
The New York Times
10:15 AM (1 hour ago) [+2023.08.25]
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
"Putin" has become the cat to kick for everytihng that is wrong in this very sad part of our world. We do not talk about our promise in the early 1990s to not push NATO east of Germany. We do not talk about our Ambassador to Russia in 2008, William J. Burns's stark warning: "Nyet Means Nyet", that Russia would never toerate Ukraine in NATO, because Ukraine in NATO is for them an existential threat like Soviet missiles in Cuba in 1962 were for us. There is an interesting Video on Youtube: "How the United Staes created Vladimir Putin": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X7Ng75e5gQ Dr. Jordan Peterson has observed tha it is very easy for people to get themselves into situations for which there is no good solution. It's time to face reality and workl with Russia to end this mess in which we are all enmeshed and need to somehow get up and out of it. Pope Francis: "The world is at war. For me, today, World War III has been declared. This is something that should give us pause for thought.... "We have to move away from the normal pattern of 'Little Red Riding Hood': Little Red Riding Hood was good and the wolf was the bad guy. Here there are no metaphysical good guys and bad guys, in an abstract sense. Something global is emerging, with elements that are very much intertwined.... "Tragic scenarios are being reenacted, and once more reciprocal extortionate demands made by a few potentates are stifling the voice of a humanity that cries out for peace."
2 Recommend

¶ Your Comment on Not Everything We Call Cancer Should Be Called Cancer
The New York Times
8:16 AM (1 hour ago) [+2023.08.30]
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
I have long had a vision of a high-technology future in which with all the pollutants we produce, everybody would have one or more cancers all the time, which would be held in check by ever more effective treatments. It would be like war: an escalatory dialectic between offense and defense. Everybody would be having chemo all the time. Most would live into their 80s in good enough "health" to continue to work, mow their lawns, go on cruises, etc. Maybe barber shops and hairdressers would do IV's too (barbers used to do minor surgery).. I got this idea because I had a friend who was a nuclear medicine researcher who had even founded the department in a major university and wrote the textbook.
Reply  3 Recommend

¶ Your Comment on White House Strategy on Impeachment: Fight Politics With Politics
The New York Times
11:39 AM (1 hour ago) [+2023.0914]
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
Mr. Biden needs to to recuse himself from involvement in any matter in which anyone in his family has an interest. That needs to start with two sensitive countries in which we know his son Hunter has had business dealings: China and Ukraine.
Reply  7 Recommend  Share  Flag
4 REPLIES
Jason 98144 commented 2 hours ago
Seattle 2h ago
@Bradford McCormick yeah that would be a brilliant move. Since we are basically fighting a war with Russia in one and China world love to start a war with us.
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....
Bradford McCormick [Did I screw up here? I meant to reply to Jason 98144's reply to me. I expected my reply to be indented under his reply to me but it has appeared at the same level of indentation as his not "under" it? See documentation: here.]
New York 33m ago
@Jason 98144 Respectfully, if I understand your posting I agree: Mr. Biden fighting a war wirh Russia and he would like to start one with China, too.
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¶ Your Comment on Hunter Biden Indicted on Gun Charges
Sep 14, 2023, 3:37 PM (11 hours ago)
The New York Times
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Bradford McCormick | New York
In a war, if you stick your head up out of your trench, you should expect it to get shot at. President Biden should expect that since he wants to be an importent public figure, his life will be closely examined and any weak spots attacked by his political opponents. If he had remained a private citizen and never sought public attention, likely his private dealings with his apparetly wayward son would never have been bothered with by anybody. He's getting what he should expect, ust like anybody who wants to be a high-profile public figure. This mess is a tragedy for The United States of America, to defend which, if I am correct, Mr. Biden took an oath of office to defend and protect from ALL enemies foreign and domestic. He needs to suspend his family loyalties and personal feelings whenever he acts as President of The United States and not as a private citizen. To borrow a phrase of his from the old Senate Iraq hearings, Mr. Biden needs to come to his milk.
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¶ Your Comment on In Risky Hunt for Secrets, U.S. and China Expand Global Spy Operations
Sun, Sep 17, 9:26 AM (2 days ago)
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Bradford McCormick | New York
Why are we upset with the PRC spying on us? We spy on everybody, too. If the Chinese steal any secrets from us that wopul not say anything bad about them. It would say something bad about us: That we were not doing due diligence. Every citizen's second job in every country is: "If you see something, say something." The bosses need to keep their office doors and their minds open and earn their paychecks.
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¶ Your Comment on The Most Interesting Element of the Hunter Biden Indictment
Sep 17, 2023, 12:11 PM (3 days ago) The New York Times
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Bradford McCormick | New York
Maybe I am wrong but I see Hunter Biden's indictments as similar to what has been done to Mr. Trump on the other side of the political fence: Many persons, albeit almost always different ones, want both Presidents out of office and for very good reasons. But somehow nobody has been able to get them out for the right reasons. So in desperation they try legal tricks. If the legal tricks work, good may be done but at the price of further angering the other side which feels their man has been persecuted "for political reasons", which he probably has been. If these two Presidents would each have been removed from office for what they have done that has angered so many people and not on legal tricks, then we would not have so much resentment which is poisoning our country. Now, or course, both of them could have done the right thing and resigned for the good of the republic, perhaps like Mr. Nixon did, but neither of them is man enough to do that, is he?
2 Recommend  Share [Fervent disagreements, including: "Hunter Biden's actions, which may be criminal, do not rise to the level of anything the Trumps have done. Not even close. And if Hunter is found to be legitimately guilty, then he should be appropriately punished. No where in any of this is Joe Biden. period"]

¶ Your Comment on Hong Kong Says It Calls the Shots, Not Beijing. Investors Are Wary.
The New York Times
12:59 PM (2 hours ago) [+2023.09.21]
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Bradford McCormick | New York
I am not an expert. But it seems that anyone who thinks Hong Kong's economy is independent of Beijing as a foolish as anyone who thinks the Amerian economy is independent of the Biden administration (or whichever one is next). Every nation puts its national interest first as its govenment perceives that inerest to be and eveything else must serve it. But that said, we know that Beijing very much wants to do business with the world, including The United States. So if Washington does not get in the way, we should be able to reliably able to do business with and in China. Just like if Washington does not get in the way, the Chinese should be able to do business in and with us. A big question is whether Washington wants to do business or instead to further a hegemonic economic policy. Maybe the same can be said for the PRC, too? If yes, both governments need to get together and sincerely negotiate a modus vivendi, putting aside adventurous objectives of "hardliners" such as to be found in every government. What Pope Francis said about Ukraine applies everywhere: "Tragic scenarios are being reenacted, and once more reciprocal extortionate demands made by a few potentates are stifling the voice of a humanity that cries out for peace."
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¶ Your Comment on Mammals' Time on Earth Is Half Over, Scientists Predict
The New York Times
8:29 AM (1 hour ago) [+2023.09.26]
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Bradford McCormick | New York
I once knew a man who was a nucler mdeicine researcher, big time. I am scientifically ignorant but I have an imagination: I imagined a radical future for the human species: Earth's atmosphere etcetera would be badly polluted etcetera. Everybody would have mutliple cancers all the time. But medical science would continually be finding new treatments for the cancers. So everybody would go around with IV hookups but otherwise living to rigorous old age maybe in their 90s or longer. Man is no longer just a mammal. Man is increasingly part techo, so the demise of the mammals may only be a partial demise of human life on earth. Is this something to look forward to or just to look ahead to?
1 Recommend

¶ Your Comment on Who's Gaining Ground in Ukraine? This Year, No One.
The New York Times
12:28 PM (1 hour ago) [+2023.09.28]
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Bradford McCormick | New York
So we are finally accepting that this war is not winnable (except if one wishes to call escallation to thermonuclear apocalypee "winning"). It's time for us to admit that Russia is not going away and they feel they do not want NATO on their Western border, just like we did not want Soviet missiles in Cuba in 1962. We do not need to like Russia to live and let live with them. Ukraine is a divided country: the ethnically Russian people in the East and the pro West people in the West. The Kiev regime since 2014 has been trying to repress the people in the East. A cease fire might make Ukraine into a new Korea. Making Ukraine neutral will bring peace for everybody and if the current people in power in Kiev need to move aside for the good of all, that is a small price for the Ukrainina people to livie in peace and the harm this mess is doing to everybody to end. "A good compromise is when both parties are dissatisfied" (Larry David, "Curb Your Enthusiasm") Everybody involved in this mess needs to grow up.
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¶ Your Comment on House Is Paralyzed, With No Speaker After McCarthy Ouster
The New York Times
7:53 AM (2 hours ago) [+2023.10.04]
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Bradford McCormick | New York
Isn't it obvious who should replace Mr. McCarthy? The only problem is that he can't fill ***every*** post in the whole Federal buweaucracy hmself since he's only one person; Alfred E. Neuman!
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¶ Your Comment on When Russia Is a Neighbor, Self-Defense Is Everyone's Concern
The New York Times
11:17 AM (4 hours ago) [+2023.10.04]
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Bradford McCormick | New York
Nobody listens to University of Chicago distinguished service Professor of International relationa and West Point graduate who served on active duty in the U.S. Air Force, John Meansheimer. He says that when you have a 400 pouond goriilla for a neighbor, you should play nice with them. Russia has not caused Finland any trouble for a very long time. But now that Finland is NATO, they are well advised to arm against the threat they now pose to their neighbor to the East.
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¶ Your Comment on Opposition to Ukraine Aid Becomes a Litmus Test for the Right
The New York Times
12:10 AM (2 hours ago) [+2023.10.05]
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Bradford McCormick | New York
If "the right" is against further aid to the Kiev regime they are doing what persons such as Columbia University Prof. Jeffrey Sachs urge is a good thing but almost surely for wrong reasons. If we were winning they would be all for more military support to fight communism (even though the USSR expired 30 years ago). This war has brought out the worst in people, with almost everybody unquestioningly following Mr. Zelensky like The Pied Piper. On the other side, those who argue that the war is bad come from all across the political spectrum. Rarely would Dr. Jordan Peterson and Prof. Noam Chomsky be on the same side of a controversial issue. Any port in a storm. Anything that stops more Ukrainians from dying, stops this war from further wrecking the economy, and ends the threat of thermonuclerar apocalypse is a godsend. Pope Francis: "The world is at war. For me, today, World War III has been declared. This is something that should give us pause for thought.... "We have to move away from the normal pattern of 'Little Red Riding Hood': Little Red Riding Hood was good and the wolf was the bad guy. Here there are no metaphysical good guys and bad guys, in an abstract sense. Something global is emerging, with elements that are very much intertwined (unless you are on the Zelenky side, apparently) "Tragic scenarios are being reenacted, and once more reciprocal extortionate demands made by a few potentates are stifling the voice of a humanity that cries out for peace."
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1 REPLY
pat
CA  42m ago
Perpetual surrender is a very bad plan.
Reply  2 Recommend

¶ Your Comment on How Israel's Feared Security Services Failed to Stop Hamas's Attack
The New York Times
5:01 AM (23 minutes ago) [+2023.10.12]
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
The problems that are the root cause of this mess are too "sensitive" for anybody to rationally discuss because they have the status of pre-judices, i.e., judgents before rational examination, and taoos, i.e., "something bad will happen" if they are exposed to rational light. But reality makes no jjudgments and for it nothing is off limits. I once knew a man who was almost totally blind. who owned and piloted a motorboat. Sounds frightening doesn't it? But it was not at all frightening because he had a friend who had earned his total trust and who had two very good eyes, so he saw every potential danger and warned the man well in advance to avoid impending trouble. The reason this all worked was that the blind man started from the premise, which does not seem to apply to the present historical situation, that he could not see.
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¶ Your Comment on 'I Had Been Exploited:' Takeaways From Britney Spears's Memoir
The New York Times
2:20 AM (3 hours ago) [+2023.10.19]
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Bradford McCormick | New York
Ms. Spears' case is apparently a poster child for one kind of exploitive parents. My guess is that if Ms. Spears was a plain Jane who maybe worked as a school teacher of even supermarket clerk, her "daddy" would not hav e gone to such trouble "on her behalf", i.e., his own. But Ms. Spears is just a celebrity, and as the ancient Greek philosopher Xenophanes urged, these people should not be paid because hey do nothing to contribute to the material wellbeing and enlightenment of the city: they just provide entertainment for the masses. There was once an American Express credit card ad where a CELEBRITY walks into a 6-star hotel and is exremely disappointed because nobody kowtows to him. The desk clerk just desultorily asks: "Who?" When he takes out his AmEx card, the clerk immediately jumps to attention to provide superior personalized service to the card holder. Brittany Who? Let's focus on real issues, such as global overheating (euphemistically called "global warming") and all the ongoing wars. Brittany Who?
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Jacket of 
Providence 3h ago
@Bradford McCormick "let's focus on real issues..." so under your thinking, because there is climate change, political upheaval and two major wars, the New York Times should not discuss, wrote about it cover anything else. Bye to the food page, to movie reviews, to sports, literature and obviously music and Britney Spears. Yeah, sounds like a wonderful life.
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¶ Your Comment on How a Campaign of Extremist Violence Is Pushing the West Bank to the Brink
The New York Times
Nov 2, 2023, 11:54 AM (18 hours ago)
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Bradford McCormick | New York
I never could undertand "the settlers" who even here in pro-Israel USA were often referred to by: "illegal settlements". It seemed they were looking for trouble: intentionally trying to provoke the Palestineans. I would compare them to the Islamists in France. They spoil things for all the decent people. But what does it matter who is right and who is wrong, if only the violance will end and everybody in what has always been not exactly felicitously called "The Holy Land" can live together in mutual tolerance even if they do not like each other? Joke of the day among so mush sadness: A Yale history professor gave a lecture some time ago about Christopher Columbus. Remember that dude? Well, ond ot the reasons Mr. Columbus sailed West was in hope of completing the encirclement of Jerusalem from the East to conquer it for Christendom. Talk about foreign policy, yes?
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¶ Your Comment on More Than 400 U.S. Officials Sign Letter Protesting Biden's Israel Policy (See also: here)
The New York Times
1:18 PM (15 minutes ago) [+2023.11.14]
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Bradford McCormick | New York
This mess is so contentious and unnecessary. It's time for Mr Netanyahu to sincerely apologize to the Palestineans for how Israel has treated them for a very long time, including perhaps especially the sometimes violently antagonistic and provocative "settlers". It's time for him to ask the Palestineans' forgiveness and to humaly invite them to join together as equals with Israel for a resolution that both sides will be able to live with even thugh they do not like each other. The past, including the Balfour Declaration, cannot be undone but the future can be better. Both sides need to cool down their hotheads. Revenge never accomplishes anything except more destruction. Everyone will sit under their own vine and under their own fig tree, and no one will make them afraid, for the Lord Almighty has spoken. (Micah 4:4) Let's get on with it, eveybody!
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¶ Your Comment on Antisemitic and Anti-Muslim Hate Speech Surges Across the Internet
The New York Times
Wed, Nov 15, 12:47 PM (16 hours ago) [+2023.11.15]
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Bradford McCormick | New York
There may be a way for Israel to beat Hamas that the Israelis or at least Mr. Netanyahu and the "settlers" and others who know who they are and what their aims are, probably would have no interest in hearing. It comes form USAF Colonel John R. Boyd, the father of the F-16, Fighting Falcon. I heard him speak back around 1986, in the aftermath of Vietnam: "The way to win a guerilla war is to offer the people a better life than the guerillas offer them." -- better in THEIR opinion not just yours.
5 Recommend  Share [One respondent: "Israel tried that. It doesn't work with religious fanatics who believe in an afterlife better than anything imaginable in the real world." 15 Recommend]

¶ Your Comment on What's Left When a Long War Suddenly Ends
The New York Times
Nov 17, 2023, 11:59 AM (12 hours ago) Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
Human beings are not plants. They do not have "roots". They have minds, and in their minds are thoughts, and those thoughts can take the form of various kinds of ancestor worship. "Nationalism: seeing the future as the past" (Prof. Samuel Moyn) if you are being oppressed in the present because of your secondary characteristics that is very bad because you are suffering. But nothing can be done about your ancestors. they are either nowhere or else some place too far away for anybody in this world to affect. W need persons to become more educated to find reasons to live for a future of creation in the arts and sciences, not plotting how to get revenge for what is been done and gone. Ethnic prejudices can always lead persons to want to destroy things. Instead build something. Build better housing. Build community centers. Not waste energy on coffins or "memorials" which will do nobody any good. Instead of honoring dead heroes, honor the living by making sure they do not have to die for any other than unpreventable and incurable natural causes. There are penty of real enemies to fight: Global overheating, infections diseases, cancer, poverty.... But we should not be causing each other suffering. Human beings, unlike rees, do not have roots. But they/we have minds. As the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein said: the ether was filled with electromagnetic waves but all was dark until man opened his seeing eye and there was light. Let no person snuff out light.
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¶ Your Comment on Biden to Skip U.N. Climate Summit, White House Official Says
The New York Times
12:08 PM (6 hours ago) [+2023.11.27]
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Bradford McCormick | New York
I guess Mr. Biden is not going to the Climate Summit because he does not want to face the criticism he would base about America's Ukraine policy.

¶ Your Comment on Hamas and Israel Extend Cease-Fire for 2 Days, Qatar Says
The New York Times
Tue, Nov 28, 8:09 AM (1 day ago) [+2023.11.28]
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
I, for one, hope the current ceasefire becomes permanent and the struggle moves from the battlefirled to the negotiating table. Let the principals on all sides duke it out like adults in fighting words, not by sending soldiers and civilians as proxies to premature deaths. I knew the great psychiatrist Silvano Arieti, who had lived through the Holocaust. When, unknown to me, he was dying of leukemia, he told me: "While there is life ther is hope"
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jackie commented November 28
jackie  Canton, NY  Nov. 28
@Bradford McCormick Hamas only knows how to "talk" with its weapons and tunnels. They will never change, which is why Israel needs to eradicate them.
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¶ Your Comment on Your Comment on Henry Kissinger Is Dead at 100; Shaped Nation's Cold War History
The New York Times
4:41 AM (41 minutes ago) [+2023.11.30]
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
Dr. Kissinger was realist. He evaluated the inernational situation in terms of what was possible. In a New York Times OpEd piece "The War in Ukraine May Be Impossible to Stop. And the U.S. Deserves Much of the Blame." (aka: "U.S. Helps Prolong Ukraine War", +2022.05.04) Christopher Caldwell, May 31, 2022, it was noed: Mr. Kissinger is on the same page as Mr. Guaino [on a certain point]. "To make concessions to Russia would be submitting to aggression," Mr. Guaino warned. "To make none would be submitting to insanity."....
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¶ Your Comment on Henry Kissinger Is Dead at 100; Shaped the Nation's Cold War History
The New York Times
12:03 PM (34 minutes ago) [+2023.11.30]
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
"What we did not understand at the beginning of the war in Vietnam," he went on, "is how hard it is to end these civil wars, and how hard it is to get a conclusive agreement in which everyone shares the objective." (Henry Kissinger) Sound familiar today?
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¶ Your Comment on Israel Knew Hamas's Attack Plan More Than a Year Ago
The New York Times
Thu, Nov 30, 11:25 PM (2 hours ago)
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
This is all very interesting. The current war -- I call such things: "messes" -- in Israel / Palestine is raising, and very publicly, all manner of contentious opinions and The New York TImes is reporting information that is not always favorable to the Israeli side. On the other hand, the Ukraine conflict, which is surely far less "emotional" for Americans, has seen an almost total blackout on informations not favorable to the Kiev side of the conflict in the mainstream media and public opinion. In my simplemindedness, knowing how passionate many Americans are about Israel, I would have expected a news blackout on anything evven remotely unflattering to Israel but Woodward and Bernstein and Pentagon Papers level exposure of what goes on in Ukraine. Objectively, both these conflicts appear to have been easily avoidable, and both are horrific. I will end with a quote from the TImes's obituary on 2022 of Sigmund Freud's last surviving grandchild: "I shall think of the sorrow of my children, and of the sorrow of my grandchildren for their children, in this harsh new world," Professor Freud wrote, "and I will leave the world with relief thinking of all that will have been spared me." (Sophie Freud, New York Times obituary, Sam Roberts, Published June 3, 2022, Updated June 6, 2022)
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¶ Your Comment on U.S. and Ukraine Search for a New Strategy After Failed Counteroffensive
The New York Times
11:18 AM (9 minutes ago) [+2023.12.12]
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
As Mr. Biden himself said in Spring 2022, the aim of the present war was to weaken Russia with the hope of Vladimir Putin being removed from office. He killed a settlement of the war at the end of March 2022, brokered by then Israel OM Naftali Bennett, which both Putin and Mr.Zelensky were ready to sign, by seducing Mr. Zelensky with a promise of unlimited aid to beat the invaders. It did'not work. As persons like Prof. Noam Chomsky werw saying from the beginning, the result was going to be reducing Ukraine to rubble. Hundreds of thousands dead, massive destruction of property and severe damage to the world economy. It's long past time for Mr. Zelensky to live up to his televisio role as "servant of the people" and negotiate peace and prosperity, yes, without NATO, for his country. Nobody has anything to lose by ending this mess except for him and the carpetbaggers in Kiev. A neutral Ukraine built back better by Russia and the West joining together in mutual respect, would set a model for other fractious places on this sad planet.
Reply  3 Recommend  Share [This posting showed up on the NYT website 11:35ET +2023.12.12]

¶ Your Comment on Make a New Year's Resolution to Fight Trump
The New York Times
9:08 AM (1 minute ago) Q+2023.12.19]
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
If the choice is going to be between Biden and Trump in 2024 I am glad I am old. If there was no foreign policy, Mr.Biden would be an easy choie because his domestic policies are or oe less benign even if not inspired, whereas a reelected Mr. Trump portends to run a scorched earth vengeanceocracy for his personal gain. Heel hath no fury like The Donald spurned (denied reelection in 2020). Bur Mr. Biden has already wrecked Ukraine with his Moby Dick war against Vladimir Putin and he seems intent on provoking major war with "China". Mr .Trump may at least not trigger a World War III which may end all human and higher-animal life on earth. The good news is, and I quote from last summer's New York Times obituary of Prof. Sophie Freud, Sigmnd Freud's last surviving grandchild: "I shall think of the sorrow of my children, and of the sorrow of my grandchildren for their children, in this harsh new world," Professor Freud wrote, "and I will leave the world with relief thinking of all that will have been spared me." (Sophie Freud, New York Times obituary, Sam Roberts, Published June 3, 2022, Updated June 6, 2022)

¶ Your Comment on A World Leader on Ukraine, the U.S. Is Now Isolated Over Gaza
The New York Times
9:37 AM (24 minutes ago) [+2023.12.23]
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
Where is the U.S. a world leader on Ukraine? It is very well docmented that we killed an end to the war at the end of March 2022. Then Israel Prime Minister Naftali Bennett who brokered the agreement personally stated this is what happened. The agreeement would have left Ukraine territorially intact. the main thing that Russia asked for was that Ukraine be neutral not NATO. What has happened since and what it the Kiev regime likely to get now? And then there is China where Ms. Pelosi went to Taiwan and insulted the government of the Proples Republic (PRC) after they had specifically asked that we not do this. Back to Ukraine, everybody should read the following featured OpEd piece from this nestpaper from May 2022: "The War in Ukraine May Be Impossible to Stop. And the U.S. Deserves Much of the Blame". (aka: "U.S. Helps Prolong Ukraine War", +2022.05.04) Christopher Caldwell, May 31, 2022 -- Or even just look a tthe picture of Mr. Biden with his head bowed down, entangled in snakelike arrows in the colors of the Ukraine flag.
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¶ Your Comment on How the Russian Government Silences Wartime Dissent
The New York Times
3:33 PM (1 hour ago) [+2023.12.29]
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
What's new here? Many countries silence wartime dissent. Bertrand Russell was imprisoned [in England] for his dissent against World War I. According to The Guardian, he was given a six-month sentence for his subversive anti-war campaigning, which he served when the war ended.... Eugene Debs, a socialist and labor leader was sentenced to 10 years in prison under the Sedition Act of 1918 [in USA] for his anti-war speeches (Bing AI) There's plenty of censorsip in Zelenskia as well as in Putainia today. When the Russians do something "bad" we jump up and down like chimpanzees for a banana about it, because we don't like them. But probably the Russians do the same about us. People believe Gott mit uns applies on every side. Let us all rise above partisanship to become universal mediators of all conflicts. To borrow from a phrase from our President with a slight modification: May God bless ALL persons, and may God protect ALL troops.
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¶ Your Comment on To Avoid New York Rules, Hundreds of Migrants Dropped Off in New Jersey
The New York Times
5:34 AM (29 minutes ago) [+2024.01.02]
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
These red state governors trying to dump their problems on blue states are showing their true colors: spiteful resentment. On the other hand, Mr .Biden is not showing leadership. Unlike Mr. Trump who once hid from reality in the White House bunker, Mr. Biden has escaped from reality altogether. I copied down verbatim his reelection campaign ad text: "Whatever you are able to chip in, even if it's just a buck or two will have a huge impact on our campaign. This may be our hardest fight yet." How can a beggar help the homeless?
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¶ Your Comment on Attacks Heighten Fears of a Wider War for the Middle East and U.S.
The New York Times
10:53 AM (50 minutes ago) [+2023.01.04]
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
The United States needs to get its act together. We keep getting involved in partisan squabbles all the time instead of settling them. We are the big guy on the block. We should be the adult in the room. All the boys keep playing with their toys. We need to grow up- and stop them not join in the fun. The earth is overheating, overpopulating and there are nukes everywhere and what else is a potential showstopper problem? It's long past time for us --U.S. -- to seize the moment and lead the world in peace and prosperity and political neutrality. Every side of every conflict contributed to it. We should be disentangling it al. There was a feature OpEd picture here in this newspaper, back in May 2022 which I keep on my wall and it does not give me hope: https://static01.nyt.com/images/2022/05/19/opinion/19mission-web/19mission-web-jumbo-v2.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp
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¶ Your Comment on Can $500 Million Save This Glacier?
The New York Times
9:39 AM (3 hours ago) [+2024.01.09]
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
$500 million is not much and why not give it a try? It would hardly be noticed in the many billions of dollars we spend on weapons to prosecute unnecessary wars that kill people and surely also produce more greenhouse gases too. As the old Pogo cartoon had it: We have met the enemy and the enemy is us.
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¶ Your Comment on China Told Women to Have Babies, but Its Population Shrank Again
The New York Times
9:37 AM (1 hour ago) [+2024.01.17]
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
All counries, especially nationalistic and autocratic ones but democracies too, follow Univ. of Chicago Prrof. John Mearsheimer's rule: security through population. Be the Biggest Bully on the block. Women are munitions factories. If I was a woman, I woud feel ike a certain lady who once write a Letter to the Editor of this newspaper: I expect to be skewered on a stick for posting this comment, but here it goes. I never wanted children for a lot of reasons, never had them, and never regretted my decision for one minute and I'm decades past menopause. When I was a teenager, I saw my mother's pendulous breasts, flabby belly and my grandmother's prolapsed uterus, quickly figured out the reason, and decided I wanted no part of that. Humans are in no danger of dying out. There will always be women who, for some unfathomable reason, lust after the idea of getting pregnant and giving birth – I'm just not one of them. And if humanity doesn't succeed in doing self in, within a few decades the artificial womb will have been perfected, and articles like this one will be a historical curiosity and a moot point. (Letter to the Editor, NYT, "Opinion: After Birth: How Motherhood Changed My Relationship With My Body", +2019.01.19)
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¶ Your Comment on Germany, Once a Powerhouse, Is at an Economic 'Standstill'
The New York Times
3:49 PM (29 minutes ago) [+2024.01.18]
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
They / we asked for this by cutting off the oxygen supply: cheap Russiian gas. They /we are fighting in Ukraine: shooting ourselves in the foot.
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1 REPLY
Jürgen commented 8 hours ago
Berlin Germany  8h ago
We shot ourselves in the foot by not supporting and arming Ukraine after 2014. Or actually even before that year as Russian aggression was to be expected. Now we have to contain the consequences of our inaction. To continue with inaction would lead us directly into an explosion of crises, ending in WW III.
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¶ Your Comment on Military Plane Crashes in Russia, Killing All Onboard, Moscow Says
The New York Times
Wed, Jan 24, 12:10 PM (14 hours ago) [+2024.01.24]
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
This is all so sad. It could have stopped in late March 2022 but the U.S. and Great Britain convinced Mr. Zelensky to not sign a peace treaty and continue the war with a promise of unlimited support. It all started in 2014 with the installation of an anti-Russian government in Kiev supported by the U.S which waged an "Anti Terrorist Operation" against ethnically Russian Ukrainians in the Donbas. NATO in Ukraine today is like Soviet missiles in Cuba were for us in 1962: a red line that would not be tolerated to be crossed. Mr. Zelensky needs to face reality, as even our former Chief of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, urged in December 2022, and negotiate with Russia to end this humanitarian disaster.
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¶ Your Comment on Israel Tries to Rebut Genocide Charge by Declassifying Cabinet Decisions
5:52 AM (42 minutes ago) [+2024.01.25]
Your comment has been approved!
Bradford McCormick | New York
Who knows what these released documents mean, if they are real and what else we do not know? And if behind the scenes the Israel government was putting humanitarianism first, why the public inflammatory discourse and where are the results? It sounds like he said she said. The civilian toll of this war has been unquestionable. Whoever is right and whoever is wrong, the deaths and suffering need to stop. Then everybody needs to get together to figure out the best possible resolution that will keep peace for the long term. "A good compromise is when both parties are dissatisfied" (Larry David, "Curb Your Enthusiasm") This may be a very good case for that.
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¶ Your Comment on Details Emerge on U.N. Workers Accused of Aiding Hamas Raid
The New York Times
8:24 AM (3 hours ago) [+2024.01.29]
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Bradford McCormick | New York
If these individual UNRWA workers are guilty of acts of violence and/or abetting them, obviously they need to be removed from their jobs and tried in criminal court for their crimes. But there are thousands of UNRWA workers and I presume most of them are doing their best to help the Palestinians who have for a long time suffered and now are suffering even worse. If a worker were so say something like that the suffering of the Palestinians was unjust and he wished he could do more to help them but he could only do what he could do, or that he had seen settlers or Israeli soldiers commit crimes against Palestinians and had reported them, that should be respected speech and his criticisms taken seriously by Israel and the world. Any crime by anybody against anybody needs to be prevented and if not then punished. But These few bad actors should not be used as inflammatory propaganda b zealots against all the good work of UNRWA which is desperately needed. 2 Recommend  Share

¶ Your Comment on Mix-Up Preceded Deadly Drone Strike in Jordan, U.S. Officials Say
The New York Times
Jan 30, 2024, 9:19 AM (16 hours ago)
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Bradford McCormick | New York
The source of this mess is Israel's long standing failure to come to a peaceful coexistence with the Palestinian people which led to the October 7th Hamas attack and Israelis ham fisted response which latter has enraged everybody in the Mideast. We are not going to win by applying overwhelming military force to sppress social problems. As for this particular attack, it shows that by applying a low cost technology: brainpower, militias and other rag tag entities can often beat Goliath (the U.S.). They figured they would fly in their drone while we were off guard to let in one of ours. That kind of advanced military strategy does not require Lawrence Livermore Lab level of funding, does it? I'd say somebody on our side did not do due diligence in designing our drone setup, did they? We need to "attack" the root causes of these disputes which are not technological and also make our technological means be intelligent not just "advanced".

¶ Your Comment on China and the U.S. Are Talking, but Their Détente Has Limits
The New York Times
9:51 AM (26 minutes ago) [+2024.02.01]
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Bradford McCormick | New York
The flow of fentanyl from China into The United States? Surely we do now want any of that terrible stuff coming in to harm our people. But let's remember how over a century ago we and especially Great Britain worked very hard to pour opium INTO China. Any wonder The Chinese Government does not love us?

¶ Your Comment on Biden Vows to Retaliate After Strike Against American Forces in Jordan
The New York Times
Jan 29, 2024, 10:48 AM (8 days ago)
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Bradford McCormick | New York
Mr. Biden needs to do everything possible to cool down all the conflicts that are popping up. He does not seem to see statesmanship as the first option for dealing with the world. Everywhere we seem to we getting deeper and deeper into other people's problems. There are probably rogue bad actors all over the place but we shouldn't react to provocation. Some people get all hotheaded and want to defend "honor" which is a recipe for more harm getting done. We need to negotiate with Russia to settle the mess in Ukraine. The Gaza situation may be on the verge a at least temporary improvement if we can get the temporary cease fire. It's time for a time out, in both domestic and foreign policy. If this all becomes a political "chain reaction" and goes critical like a nuclear reactor out of control it's going to blow up and it will be too late. Let the next war wait for "manana" (the tomorrow that somehow never comes).
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¶ Your Comment on U.S. Strike in Baghdad Kills Iranian-Backed Militia Commander
The New York Times
9:43 AM (21 minutes ago) [+2024.02.07]
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Bradford McCormick | New York
Instead of escalating attacks on all the bad actors in the region who attack us like Lilliputians attacking Gulliver, we need to escalate the diplomatic efforts to end the fighting in Israel/Palestine which is their excuse for attacking us. If we want to have military forces in the region they should not be provoking trouble like our bases in Syria which are illegal. Instead let us deploy our military might to prevent either side from attacking the other: Pull the two fighters apart and send them to their respective corners. Put together and lead a United Nations peacekeeping force in the MidEast. If the Israelis and Palestinians cannot live together in peace by their own initiative, then maybe we can force them to do so. But not applying our force to one side or the other. And in today's world, "escalation" has a particular meaning which everybody needs to take seriously: Escalation can lead to hydrogen bombs being thrown at each other by the nuclear-armed nations. And that will at a minimum cause enormous devastation and casualties (do you want to die from radiation poisoning?) or even end human and higher animal life on this planet. Everybody needs to cool off, starting with the Biggest Kid on the block: The united States of America.

¶ Your Comment on Putin Calls on U.S. to 'Negotiate' on Ukraine in Tucker Carlson Interview
The New York Times
12:45 PM (1 hour ago) [+2024.02.09]
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Bradford McCormick | New York
It was a remarkable interview. Putin went over all the things The West has done to bring us to the presntt situation, and he emphasized how from the beginning he wanted to work with us not be our enemy: "We are are bourgeois as you are. We are a market economy. There is no Communist Party power. Let's negotiate." He repeated how we had promised to not push NATO east of Germany, which is part of the root of this mess. Another part is that we never wanted to work with Russia after 1990 to live together in mutual respect. Everything is on the table except for a Ukraine that is Russia's enemy. He detailed the agreement that had been worked out at the end of March 2022 in Istanbul which would have ended the war then, and he even said we should go back and look at it again. This mess does not need to go on. Russia wants to negotiae to resolve the issues and come to a mutually acceptable solution. They have no aspirations for "expansionism" into other countries. What is not acceptable to them is NATO threatening their Western border, like in 1962 Soviet missiles threatening us in Cuba was not acceptible to us. The Soviets removed their missiles an the Cold War continued without bloodshed. Let's remove out NATO from Ukraine and everybody in the region have peace.
Reply  12 Recommend  Share   [Two negative replies, one being: "Seriously? I laugh."]
The New York Times Feb 9, 2024, 12:45 PM (9 days ago)
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Bradford McCormick | New York
@brant12 Mr. Tucker is a "Tokyo Rose". All this interview did wa sgo over the history nd the solution which are presented by persons like Columbia Univversity distinguished Professor Jeffrey Sachs and Universiyt of Chicago distinguished Prodfessor John Mearsheimer. Hotheads are deaf to history: They just want to "Beat Russia!" Mr. Zelensky is a great cheer leader for this Boy Scout level flag-waving ideology.
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¶ Your Comment on Trump Is Losing It
The New York Times
Tue, Feb 13, 11:03 AM (14 hours ago)
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Bradford McCormick | New York
It seems both Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden give grave concern for America's foreign policy. Mr. Biden refuses to face facts in Ukraine and negotiate an end to the hostilities that respects Russia's security needs. NATO in Ukraine today is for Russia like Soviet missiles in Cuba were for us in 1962: an existential threat. Ukraine needs to be neutral and then there will be peace in Europe. With Israel, Mr. Biden abets Mr. Netanyahu's war against the Palestinians. But a lot of people here are calling that out as wrong, unlike Ukraine. And then there is Mr. Biden's provocative China policy. None of this is rational. It all threatens to escalate to World War III. We live in a multi-polar world. But Mr. Trump who is "off the rails". If he gets back in office it will be a vengeanceocracy against any and everybody who has ever displeased him. Mr. Trump's recent statements about NATO are nonsense. Russia is not going to attack anybody: They were going to settle the Ukraine conflict at the end of March 2022 in an agreement with Mr. Zelensky brokered by then Israel PM Naftali Bennett and that war would have ended, but the U.S. and Great Britain killed the agreement, to continue the war to weaken Russia. Mr. Trump in the White House is "unthinkable", i.e., we probably cannot imagine all the harm he will do. We citizens seem stuck between two bad choices. If only the Biden team would come to its senses about foreign policy we would have a hopeful choice.
2 Recommend  Share [5 disagreeing replies, including: "Russia's security needs have nothing to do with attacking Ukraine. It wasn't Russia that attacked. It was one man, Vladimir Putin. Russia's adventures at the expense of thousands of innocent lies in Ukraine are nothing but an assuage of the grandiose visions of lost empire held by a leader who occupies an alternate reality. 13 Recommend"]

¶ Your Comment on What Feckless Americans Can Learn From Navalny's Bravery [See also]
The New York Times
1:06 AM (1 hour ago) [+2024.02.17]
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Bradford McCormick | New York
Yes, Mr. Navalny was very brave. But the chose this sad fate . After he was poisoned, we in The West saved him from certain death. At the earliest possible moment during his recovery, he chose to go back to Russia. He could instead have lived here in the West and worked in exile for his vision of a better Russia. Mr. Navalny could still be working today for what he believed in, had he stayed here instead of going back where it was certain he would be imprisoned.
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¶ Your Comment on Unpredictable Strongman? Two Years Into War, Putin Embraces the Image.
The New York Times
11:24 AM (4 hours ago) [+2024.02.23]
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Bradford McCormick | New York
We in The West do not like Russia's current government. But it is what it is and it's not going anywhere. The situation is not as simple as propaganda says it it: Russia's "special military operation" was not "unprovoked aggression". It was a response to our making Ukraine an anti-Russian threat on Russia's Western border. Everybody needs to learn the history of this mess, starting that we promised Russia in the early 1990s to not push NATO "one inch east of Germany". A NATO Ukraine is for Russia today like Soviet missiles in Cuba were for us in 1962: an intolerable, existential threat. Messrs. Zelensky and Putin, facilitated by then Israel PM Naftali Bennett had negotiated an end to the war in March 2022, but we and Great Britain quashed it. The war could have ended then with Ukraine's borders intact. The change would have been that Ukraine would be neutral in NATO, a buffer between Russia and The West. We need to accept realities and negotiate a new security architecture for Europe with Russia that will assure them of the safety of their Western border. Russia is not interested in aggression against Europe or us. They want to do business with us and especially with Europe. Cheap Russian natural gas fueled Western Europe's prosperity. "We are now as bourgeois as you. We are a market economy. There is no Communist Party power. Let's negotiate."
NYT: "The comment you are looking for is currently unavailable."

¶ Your Comment on Hard Lessons Make for Hard Choices 2 Years Into the War in Ukraine
The New York Times
Sat, Feb 24, 12:37 PM (4 days ago)
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Bradford McCormick | New York
I would urge everyone to go back and read the New York Times feature OpEd piece from May 2022: The War in Ukraine May Be Impossible to Stop. And the U.S. Deserves Much of the Blame. (aka: "U.S. Helps Prolong Ukraine War", +2022.05.04) Christopher Caldwell, May 31, 2022: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/31/opinion/us-ukraine-putin-war.html It's as timely today as it was then. Nothing has changed except for many thousands of Ukrainians being wounded and killed and much of the eastern part of the country being reduced to rubble. and a lot of impact on the world economy. Also as long as this war goes on, the risk of escalation to nuclear apocalypse that could end all human and higher animal life on earth remains.
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¶ Your Comment on The 2020 Election Is Back
The New York Times
9:14 AM (10 minutes ago) [+2024.03.06]
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Bradford McCormick | New York
Mr. Biden is also running a "poor me" campaign. A few months ago, he ran ads where he actually said: "Whatever you are able to chip in, even if it's just a buck or two will have a huge impact on our campaign. This may be our hardest fight yet." That's pathetic, and also patronizing. Then there are Mr. Biden's wars. His Captain Ahab obsession with Moby Dick Putin risks sinking The Ship of State (in the book, when Ahab finally met Moby, Moby did sink his ship). But Mr. Biden's dis-spirited messaging makes me feel our country is sinking even without any wars. "Whatever you are able to chip in, even if it's just a buck or two will have a huge impact on our campaign. This may be our hardest fight yet." Mr. Trump's messages are appalling, but they do energize his base. The Democrats need a new JFK.
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¶ Your Comment on 5 Takeaways From the State of the Union
The New York Times
4:18 AM (4 hours ago) [+2024.03.08]
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Bradford McCormick | New York
Mr. Trump's saying that if NATO members did not pay their fair share Putin could do with them whatever he wants is surely the most outrageous thing any U.S. president has ever said (and it distracts attention from the real issues of the Ukraine mess). It shows that Mr. Trump thinks of government as just another business deal, and he himself as THE DEALMAKER. Mr. Biden does not want to negotiate with our adversaries. Mr. Trump fancies he's the winning bid. What a mess.
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¶ Your Comment on U.S. to Send $300 Million in Weapons to Ukraine Under Makeshift Plan
The New York Times
Tue, Mar 12, 2:14 PM (1 day ago)
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Bradford McCormick | New York
Why do we keep extending the suffering? More casualties of this war which Kiev cannot win? All that is necessary is to go back to the substance of the peace plan that Messrs. Zelensky and Putin had negotiated with the help of then Israeli M Naftali Bennett in March 2022: Make Ukraine neutral not NATO. Then all this mess can end and peace return to this sad land which has suffered so ling in this misadventure.
43 Recommend  Share  [Several very strongly critical replies, incl.: «the "peace plan Zelensky and Putin (they aren't French, BTW) had negotiated" is a figment of your imagination»]

¶ Your Comment on Russians Know Putin Will Be Re-Elected, but Many Worry What Comes Next
The New York Times
Sun, Mar 17, 1:40 PM (15 hours ago) [+2024.03.17]
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Bradford McCormick | New York
We are making ourselves hysterical about bogeyman Putin when everything we know about Russia is that he is not an aggressive imperialist but a Russian nationalist. Back in he early 2000's he wanted Russia to join NATO. Ever since, he has been telling us that a NATO armed Ukraine on Russia's Western border is the reddest of red lines, like Soviet missiles in Cuba were for the United States in 1962. Putin has even said it would be OK for Ukraine to join the EU, just not NATO. Russia does not want a military threat on its Western border, just like we did not want a Soviet threat in Cuba. Russia wants to do business with us an with us and Europe, not fight us. We need to stop fighting Russia. We may not like Putin's autocratic government, but most Russians like it well enough. "We are now as bourgeois as you. We are a market economy. There is no Communist Party power. Let's negotiate." (Vladimir Putin) Recall, that in March 2022, Zelensky and Putin had negotiated an end to the war with the help of then Israel PM Naftali Bennett, but we and the British killed it. It would have kept Ukraine's pre-Feb 2022 borders but made Ukraine neutral not NATO. Let's get back to negotiations and prosperity doing business with Russia. Germany, for one, is suffering due to loss of cheap Russian natural gas which fueled its industry.
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¶ Your Comment on In Hong Kong, China's Grip Can Feel Like 'Death by a Thousand Cuts'
The New York Times
2:51 AM (29 minutes ago) [+2024.03.20]
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Bradford McCormick | New York
"Some of the hottest restaurants, spas and shopping malls that local residents are flocking to are across the border, in the mainland Chinese city of Shenzhen." "As Hong Kong's leaders embrace China's top-down political culture, many believe the city's dynamism and vitality are slipping away." How to square the mainland government crushing Hong Kong's vitality with Hong Kong people going to the mainland to find vitality? ff Mr. Lee does not like what is happening in Hong Kong, my suggestion would be for him to listen to his own voice: "I will have to leave". He still has the freedom to leave; he should not press his luck. How much of all this is "democracy" and how much of it is unregulated capitalist opportunism?
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¶ Your Comment on A New Issue Flares in the 2024 Race: Campus Protests
The New York Times
Fri, May 3, 9:12 AM (1 day ago) [+2024.05.03]
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Bradford McCormick | New York
President Bien has provoked this by his carte blanche support for the Netanyahu government in Israel. The Biden administration has taken a historically unrealistic hard line on Ukraine, Israel and China instead of negotiating ways for the United States to live together as peers in a multipolar world along with countries whose governments we do not like. Make peace, respecting the vital interests of each of these countries, none of which is at war with us or with Western Europe nor, threatening to. Then if they would attack us we would have the whole world supporting us to defeat their aggression..
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¶ Israel shuts down Ukraine field hospital
i24NEWS
Brad McCormick  Dec 06, 2023
I'm not going to "take sides" here, but I-24 publishes some highly controversial reader opinions. I think Israel with its bombing of Gaza is digging itself into a hole as the idiom goes and may end up with the exact opposite of what it wants to achiee: the end of the State of Israel in a big war from all the countries which, however rightly or wrongly, are increasingly incensed over what they are seeing Israel do, again irrespective of motives or justifications. It looks like terrible PR for Israel and there are a lot of Arabs who get insensed about things and they include not just "terrorists" with shoulder fired anti-tank rockets at most, but Iran. Remeber the Iran Iraq war of 1980-89. Does Israel want to get on the wrong end of a repeat of that? But isn't what I've said here obvious to everybody? I wish everybody could live in peace even if they don't like each other.
Reply  Likes: 1  Dislikes: 11
Brad McCormick  Dec 07, 2023
I am saddened. I thought I wrote something in no way unfavorable to Israel. I thought I was only stating "the optics": Be careful to not end up being "dead right", i.e., right but also dead.. Be careful to not destroy yourself trying to get justice for yourself. But even sadder, I ended with something that makes very good sense to me: Shouldn't the goal be for the Israelis and Palestineans to live in peace, somehow, even if they do not like each other? How can anybody be against that aspiration execpt somebody so "hellbent" (telling idiom!) on vengeance against people they don't like that they will throw away their own future? 11 to 1, the responses read.
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¶ Biden 'heartbroken' that American believed kidnapped by Hamas is dead
i24NEWS
Brad McCormick  Dec 25, 2023
Mr. Biden's heart is easily broken. His attanied emotional level is perhaps that of a 10 years old child. He killed a negotiated settlement to the Ukraine war at the end of March 2022 which had been brokered by then Israel Prime Minister Naftali Bennett. This action by him has resulted in the entirely unnecessary deaths of well over 100,000 persons, most of them Ukrainians. He also poiusly says: "May God bless America and may God protect our troops." What about all God's other children and the brave fighting men, women and others of other nations, including ones he does not like? There is a word for Mr. Biden's broken heart: Sob story. And he's getting even more pathetic. His 2024 campaign reelection ads don't say "Vote for me because I will do such and such wonderful things for you!" but rather: Hey buddy can you spare dime to help me compete what I'm trying to do. Boo! Hoo!

+2024.05.06 v839
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