International Politics and Economy

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Hadas Gold and Amir Tal report for CNN that the tenth major weekend of protest against the plans of the government of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to gut the judiciary grew to half a million people, with about 250,000 massing in the streets of Tel Aviv and a similar number […]

Authoritarianism

Iran: Unions and Civil Rights groups demand Democracy and social Justice

The Conversation

By Simin Fadaee, University of Manchester | – Forty-four years after Iranians rose up against their hated monarch in February 1979, a group of 20 organisations engaged in long-term social and economic struggles – including labour unions, teachers, women’s groups and youth and student movements – issued an ultimatum to the government of the Islamic […]

Far Right

Inside the “Private and Confidential” Conservative Group That Promises to “Crush Liberal Dominance”

ProPublica

by Andy Kroll and Andrea Bernstein, ProPublica, and Nick Surgey, Documented Co-published with Documented ( ProPublica ) – A few months ago, Leonard Leo laid out his next audacious project. Ever since the longtime Federalist Society leader helped create a conservative supermajority on the Supreme Court, and then received more than a billion dollars from […]

Democratic Party

Jimmy Carter’s Man in Sudan

John Goodman

Strasbourg, France (Special to Informed Comment) – I am not quite able to remember the first time I met President Carter, but I do remember when I first went to see him at his home in Plains. It was the fall of 2016 and I was thirty-six. I had been a mid-level staffer at The […]

Corruption

37 Israeli ‘Top Guns’ Boycott Training to Protest Gutting of Courts; Most El Al Pilots decline to fly PM to Italy

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Israeli Air Force, like its other armed forces, heavily depends on reservists. That was why Egypt was able to surprise Israel in the 1973 War, which they launched on the holy day of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, when reservists were with their families. The reservists are required […]

Far Right

You’re all Palestinians Now: How Harsh Apartheid Policing is being Turned on Israeli Protesters

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Israel’s Apartheid state, having honed its instruments of repression against its occupied Palestinians, whom it keeps stateless and without rights, is now turning those tools on the Israeli public itself. Yesterday, Friday, buses full of Israeli protesters attempted to head to Huwwara near Nablus in the Palestinian West Bank to […]

Authoritarianism

Silent no more: Criticism of the state’s inadequate earthquake response reaches football stadiums in Turkey

Arzu Geybullayeva

Fans also called for the ruling AKP government to resign Written byArzu Geybullayeva Screenshot from Besiktas football club’s official YouTube channel video of the stadium. ( Globalvoices.org ) – It was an unforgettable moment as fans of one of Turkey’s main football teams, Besiktas, started throwing thousands of plush bear toys onto the Vodafone […]

Authoritarianism

End the “Citizens United” Ruling with a “Democracy for All Amendment”

F. Douglas Stephenson

Gainesville, Fl. (Special to Informed Comment) – In the United States government has been privatized by the Citizens United ruling of the SCOTUS. Government is now really up for sale and auctioned off to the highest campaign contributors.The Supreme Court ‘Citizen’s United’ decision opened the floodgates for big money in our politics, allowing giant corporations […]

Authoritarianism

Are Western sanctions on Iran making a difference?

The Conversation

By Amin Saikal, The University of Western Australia | – (The Conversation) – The Iranian Islamic regime has been seriously challenged since the start of public protests last September. The government has sought to contain and suppress the protesters – even resorting to executions – but has been unable to stop them. There are continuing […]