Bill of Rights

By Michael Gould-Wartofsky | – ( Tomdispatch.com ) – To residents of Memphis’s resource-poor, predominantly nonwhite neighborhoods, the Scorpions were easy to spot. The plainclothes patrols were known for driving their unmarked Dodge Chargers through the streets, often all too recklessly, sowing fear as they went, spitting venom from their windows, jumping out with guns […]

BDS

Challenging Israel-inspired Anti-Boycott Legislation in the US

Al-Shabaka

By Tariq Kenney-Shawa | – ( Al-Shabakah) – The Israeli regime’s defenders across the US are ramping up efforts to criminalize the constitutionally protected right to boycott. Beyond violating the rights of Palestine solidarity activists, this threatens to undermine the tenets of a healthy democracy. Al-Shabaka’s US Policy Fellow, Tariq Kenney-Shawa, examines this development and […]

Bill of Rights

Will America’s Forever Prison Finally Close on Biden’s Watch: The Fate of Guantánamo

Karen J. Greenberg

( Tomdispatch.com) – As of December 8, 2022, Guantánamo Bay detention facility — a prison offshore of American justice and built for those detained in this country’s never-ending Global War on Terror — has been open for nearly 21 years (or, to be precise, 7,627 days). Thirteen years ago, I published a book, The Least […]

Authoritarianism

The MAGA Golden Calf: The Christian Right’s dangerous Flirtation with Political Violence and Far-Right Extremism

Matthijs Kronemeijer

By Matthijs Kronemeijer | – Toronto (Special to Informed Comment) – The November edition of First Things, a magazine of the Christian Right, features a lengthy statement from a group of theologians called Evangelicals and Catholics Together. The church friend who spontaneously sent me a link indicated that the statement is about Christian citizenship and […]

Authoritarianism

From the College Debt Crisis to Poor Health Insurance, America’s Pathologies are Rooted in the Right Wing Crackdown of WW I and After

Tomdispatch

By Adam Hochschild | – ( Tomdispatch.com ) – Donald Trump has had the urge to crush many things, including the last election. So I must admit I found it eerily amusing that, when the FBI entered his estate at Mar-a-Lago recently, they did so under a warrant authorized by the Espionage Act of 1917. […]

Bill of Rights

From Veiling to Abortion, Iran’s Theocrats seek to Control Women’s Bodies, just as do U.S. Republican Theocrats

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – On Saturday, hard line Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi announced that his government would pull out the stops to crush the popular unrest sweeping the country that was sparked by the death in custody of Mahsa “Zhina” Amini, 22, a Kurdish young woman who was arrested by the morals police for […]

Bill of Rights

Biden comes out Swinging against Trumpian, MAGA GOP as Authoritarian, Violent

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – President Joe Biden came out swinging in Philadelphia in a rare Thursday evening prime time address, denouncing the “MAGA Republican Party” of Donald Trump while praising what he termed “mainstream” conservative Republicans. MAGA is the acronym for “Make America Great Again,” the fascist slogan that disgraced former president Donald Trump […]

Bill of Rights

The Real Cancel Culture: Anti-Palestinianism and the Crisis of American Free Speech

Middle East Monitor

By Nasim Ahmed | – ( Middle East Monitor ) – The firing of Palestinian American woman, Natalie Abulhawa, has sparked a debate over free-speech, “cancel-culture” and the ever-growing crackdown on pro-Palestinian activism. The 25-year-old athletic trainer was fired by a private girls school in Bryn Mawr over years-old social media posts criticising Israel. In […]

Bill of Rights

A ’22 Pink Wave for the Dems? What does Surprise Kansas Rejection of anti-Abortion Amendment Mean for the Country?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – In a startling development, Kansas voters rejected a ballot initiative on August 2 that would have specified in the state constitution that it does not protect the right to abortion. That would have allowed the heavily Republican-dominated state legislature to pass an abortion ban. It can’t do that now because […]