Congress

By: Ken Coleman – ( Michigan Advance ) – During a Wednesday news conference in Detroit, U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Detroit) joined reproductive rights advocates and called for major reforms to the judiciary amid growing concern about ethics issues involving the U.S. Supreme Court. Tlaib called for reforming the high court through law […]

Congress

U.S. Senate in bipartisan Vote repeals decades-old Iraq War Authorizations, But Marco Rubio voted ‘No’

Florida Phoenix

By: Jennifer Shutt – ( Florida Phoenix) – WASHINGTON — U.S. senators revoked their approval for the Gulf and Iraq wars on Wednesday, taking a broadly bipartisan vote to repeal the Authorizations for Use of Military Force that have stayed on the books years after the two wars ended. The 66-30 vote sends the measure […]

Arms Sales

Congress Has Been Captured by the Arms Industry: And We’re Paying the Price (and What a Price It Is!)

William D. Hartung

( Tomdispatch.com ) – On March 13th, the Pentagon rolled out its proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2024. The results were — or at least should have been — stunning, even by the standards of a department that’s used to getting what it wants when it wants it. The new Pentagon budget would come in […]

Congress

A Highway to Peace or a Highway to Hell? The Vast Power of the Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex

William J. Astore

( Tomdispatch.com) – In April 1953, newly elected President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a retired five-star Army general who had led the landings on D-Day in France in June 1944, gave his most powerful speech. It would become known as his “Cross of Iron” address. In it, Ike warned of the cost humanity would pay if Cold […]

Arms Sales

Merger Mania in the Military-Industrial Complex: Tackling Pentagon Waste Means Battling the Big Weapons Makers and Asking More of Congress

Tomdispatch

By Julia Gledhill and William D. Hartung | – ( Tomdispatch.com ) – It’s early in the new Congress, but lawmakers are already hotly debating spending and debt levels. As they do so, they risk losing track of an important issue hiding in plain sight: massive Pentagon waste. At least in theory, combating such excess […]

African-Americans

Rep. Ilhan Omar makes her Move into the Mainstream

Minnesota Reformer

By Doug Rossinow | – ( Minnesota Reformer) – Only six months ago, U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar’s future looked cloudy, her political base shaken. She had barely fended off a primary challenge. Her political judgments appeared questionable. Her critics appeared to have grown in number. Now House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and his Republican allies have […]

African-Americans

Faustian Bargain: On pretext of Israel, Republicans oust Ilhan Omar from Committee to please White Nationalist Base

H. Scott Prosterman

Oakland, Ca. (Special to Informed Comment) – Congressional Republicans are more interested in grandstanding than governance, and political persecution rather than functional democracy. The banishment of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) from her assignment on the Foreign Affairs Committee by Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) illustrates how Republican candidates and office holders try to outdo each other with […]

Congress

What the criminal referral of Trump means – a constitutional law expert explains the Jan. 6 committee action

The Conversation

Margaret M. Russell, Santa Clara University | – After 18 months investigating, the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the United States Capitol held its final public meeting on Dec. 19, 2022. The panel recommended that the U.S. Department of Justice bring criminal charges against former President Donald Trump for his […]

Congress

Tlaib calls out “Progressive except on Israel,” and Wasserman Schultz inadvertently makes Her Point for Her

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Ursula Perano at the Daily Beast reports on the controversy among the Progressive Democratic Caucus in Congress over remarks on Wednesday by Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI). She attacked the syndrome of “progressive except on Israel” within her caucus and observed at an online seminar, “that among progressives, it has become […]