Bill of Rights

( Tomdispatch.com) – The Guantánamo conundrum never seems to end. Twelve years ago, I had other expectations. I envisioned a writing project that I had no doubt would be part of my future: an account of Guantánamo’s last 100 days. I expected to narrate in reverse, the episodes in a book I had just published, […]

Bill of Rights

Yes, Speech can Incite Violence: What Decades of Research Show about Trump’s Impeachment Trial

The Conversation

By Kurt Braddock | – Senators, acting in the impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump that begins on Feb. 9, will soon have to decide whether to convict the former president for inciting a deadly, violent insurrection at the Capitol building on Jan. 6. A majority of House members, including 10 Republicans, took the […]

Bill of Rights

The Trump Administration’s Final Push to Make It Easier for Religious Employers to Discriminate

ProPublica

By Lydia DePillis | – ( ProPublica ) – It was the hectic week before Thanksgiving, and Amrith Kaur — the legal director of an advocacy group called the Sikh Coalition — was not prepared for a surprise update from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that could have dramatic consequences for her clients. With little […]

Bill of Rights

Constitution in Danger? Michael Flynn Wants Trump to Declare Martial Law

Everett Wohlers

Boise, Idaho (Special to Informed Comment) – On Tuesday, December 1, Michael Flynn, the beneficiary of President Trump’s recent pardon, published a manifesto calling on President Trump to suspend the Constitution and declare martial law so that the military could organize and run a new election for President to void the recent election which was […]

Bill of Rights

Trump Presses Georgia to overturn Election, but he should Remember what happened when Algeria, Iran, Kyrgyzstan and the other Georgia did That

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Kristen Holmes and Victoria Stracqualursi at CNN report that Trump called up Georgia governor Brian Kemp and asked him to call a special session of the Republican-dominated state legislature and have them elect an alternative slate of electors for the Electoral College, so as to overturn the results of the […]

Bill of Rights

How Big Oil is Buying our Representatives to Criminalize Environmental Protests

Basav Sen

( Otherwords.org) – More communities are standing up to pipelines. The fossil fuel industry wants to make that a felony. By Basav Sen | December 2, 2020 A few years ago, massive protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline at Standing Rock changed the popular narrative about what climate activism looked like. The protests made clear […]

Bill of Rights

How did Conservatives successfully smear “Liberal” (Respect for Liberty and Rights of Others) as Mule Word?

Bahman Fozouni

Sacramento (Special to Informed Comment) – The 2020 elections are over, but once again it proved that Liberal-bashing remains a favorite pastime of the Republican party and conservative politicians. Verbal assault on “liberal” politicians and the media, “liberalism,” and the root-word “liberal” by the political right (and occasionally by the hard left) has remained a […]

Bill of Rights

Presidents are Paid Public Servants, Not Aristocrats above the Law: Lessons from Rousseau, Jefferson and Tang China

Martin Powers

Ann Arbor (Special to Informed Comment) – “Let the constitution of a government be what it will, if there is but one man in it exempt from the laws, all the other members must necessarily be at his discretion.” Perhaps we should thank Donald Trump for demonstrating the truth of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s insight. No sooner […]

BDS

Pompeo’s attempt to Penalize Boycotters of Israel aims to Strengthen White Nationalism and Roll back Civil Rights

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Carol Morello and Steve Hendrix at the Washington Post report that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited Israeli squatters on Palestinian land in the West Bank on Thursday (well, that is my characterization, they didn’t put it that way). In a bid to please his evangelical constituency and potential Jewish […]