By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Trump’s cabinet has no Latinos, the first time that minority, which comprises 18 percent of Americans, is absent for twenty-five years. Trump famously accused Mexican-Americans of being the worst people, including in their ranks rapists and drug dealers and having been deliberately sent across the border […]
Archives for January 2017
Is Trump the Shock America needs to Transition to Social Democracy?
David Graham Sweet | (Informed Comment) | – – Here on the “Left Coast” there’s much anguish & foreboding over the results of our recent election, and talk of “resistance.” I’m anguished too, but if you’ll forgive me, less pessimistic than ever about the future of our country. Here’s why. It’s not that the new […]
How Much is a Palestinian Life Worth? Disappointment at Azaria Sentence
By Ilaria Grasso Macola | (GlobalVoices.org) | – – On January 4, 2017, Elor Azaria, an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldier, was convicted of manslaughter by the Israeli military court. Azaria, now 20 years old, was found guilty of killing Abed al-Fattah al-Sharif, a 21-year-old Palestinian man, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank city of Hebron […]
Will Donald Trump bring back torture? Can Foreign leaders stop him?
By Vincent Charles Keating | (The Conversation) | – – There can be no doubt that the swearing in of Donald Trump on January 20 will usher in a new era for the United States. But the president-elect’s open support for torture and waterboarding could mean his inauguration also marks a return to what President […]
All Dutch Electric Trains are Wind-Powered & other Advances Trump’s US will Miss out On
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Although Donald Trump has complained about America’s failing airports, bridges and roads and expressed admiration for those of Dubai, his opposition to green energy will deprive Americans of efficient, clean new vehicles and buildings that would have saved them billions of dollars, created hundreds of thousands […]
Along with pardoning Manning, Obama should have repealed 1917 Espionage Act
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – In a daring and bold move that showed his profound humanitarian side, President Obama has commuted the 35-year sentence of Chelsea Manning, a transgender woman and former military intelligence analyst who in 2010 leaked hundreds of thousands of State Department cables and also some Iraq and […]
Will Americans go along with Authoritarian Trumpism?
By Thomas Pepinsky | (TeleSur) | – – Everyday life in the modern authoritarian regime is boring and tolerable. Malaysia is a country that I know well, and whose political system I have studied closely for 15 years. It is also a country whose political liberalization I have long awaited. Malaysia has a multiparty parliamentary […]
Palestinian Parliamentarians say Israeli Legislation aims to annex West Bank
Ma’an News Agency | – – BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — The Israeli parliament, the Knesset, passed a controversial bill on Tuesday that would allow verdicts from military court proceedings in the occupied West Bank to be submitted as evidence in Israeli civilian courts, a move which critics claim is another step aiming to illegally annex the […]
Screwed?: 4 Top International Crises we have to depend on Trump to Resolve
By Michael T. Klare | ( Tomdispatch.com) | – – Within months of taking office, President Donald Trump is likely to face one or more major international crises, possibly entailing a risk of nuclear escalation. Not since the end of the Cold War has a new chief executive been confronted with as many potential flashpoints […]