By Ryan Knappenberger | – ( Cronkite News) – WASHINGTON – Then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions knew the Trump administration’s “zero-tolerance” immigration policy would separate families at the border but moved ahead with it anyway, a Justice Department official told lawmakers this week. Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz told the House Oversight and Reform Committee […]
Archives for February 2021
America’s Transition Away from Democracy and the World’s Wave of De-Democratization
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The twentieth century was in the eyes of some observers an uneven but steady march to democracy. Those who study transitions from authoritarian governments to democracy have defined a successful transition as characterized by two elections in a row, where all parties agree on the rules of the game, and […]
America after Trump must Confront MLK’s ‘Giant Triplets of Racism, Extreme Materialism, and Militarism’
By Andrew Bacevich | – ( Tomdispatch.com) – When Martin Luther King preached his famous sermon “Beyond Vietnam” at Riverside Church in New York City in April 1967, I don’t recall giving his words a second thought. Although at the time I was just up the Hudson River attending West Point, his call for a […]
Saudi Arabia releases Women’s Rights Activist Loujain al-Hathloul but Bans her Travel
(Beirut) – Saudi authorities released from prison the prominent women’s rights activist Loujain al-Hathloul on February 10, 2021, Human Rights Watch said today. However, she is banned from travel and has a suspended sentence, which allows the authorities to return her to prison at any time for any perceived criminal activity. In late December 2020, […]
Public option in Biden plan could change the face of US health care
By Michael Williams | – President Joe Biden issued 10 executive orders to fight COVID-19 on his first day in office on Jan. 20, 2021. Among those orders: Speed up vaccine production, expand testing, support the safe reopening of schools and reduce racial and ethnic disparities in care and treatment. As a physician and health […]
Top 5 Reasons for Biden to snub Israel’s Netanyahu, whom he still hasn’t Called
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Danny Danon, Israel’s former ambassador to the United Nations, impatiently tweeted a list of all the foreign leaders that President Joe Biden has already called in his one month in office, and suggesting it was time he called Binyamin Netanyahu. Biden is close to the Israel lobbies and had been […]
Not just a US Domestic Threat: Beating Back the Far Right Globally
It’s time to resurrect a global anti-fascist consensus to name, shame, and throw these guys out of the game. ( Foreign Policy in Focus) – After four years of shock, confusion, and paralysis, the United States is finally taking action against the far right. Perhaps most dramatic has been the deplatforming of Donald Trump: the […]
Saudi Arabia: Can America’s Favorite Police State ever Change?
( Middle East Monitor ) – The phone call to the family lasted just one minute. It came 23 months after aid worker Abdulrahman Al-Sadhan had been arrested at the offices of the Red Crescent in Riyadh, where he worked co-ordinating rescue operations and emergency relief. He was held incommunicado despite numerous efforts by the […]
Mideast Regimes met the Arab Spring youth with Iron Fists and Sectarianization, but anti-Corruption Protests Continue
Simon Mabon | – As the popular refrain of “ash-shab yurid isqat an-nizam” rang out across the Middle East in the early months of 2011, the nature of political life and relations between rulers and ruled began to fragment. The chant – which roughly translates as “the people want the fall of the regime” – […]