Constitution

San Francisco ( Tomdispatch.com ) – Many of the folks I know are getting ready to play serious defense in 2017, and they’re not wrong. Before we take up our three-point stance on the national line of scrimmage, however, maybe we should ask ourselves not only what we’re fighting against, but what we’re fighting for. […]

Constitution

Reflections by a Middle Easterner on the Electoral College as a Remnant of Elite Tribalism

Juan Cole

By Hsain Ilahiane | (Informed Comment) | – – The Founding Fathers wrote the electoral college in the United States Constitution. In late summer 2004, I became a naturalized United States citizen in Des Moines, Iowa. The following November election day, with my voting card in hand, sure-footed and full of excitement, I walked over […]

Bill of Rights

Bruited Trump pick for Nat’l Intel shreds 4th Amendment, wants Total Surveillance

contributors

TeleSur | – – On Thursday multiple mainstream media outlets reported that U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has picked former Republican Senator Dan Coats, an outspoken advocate of illegal domestic surveillance programs, to be director of national intelligence. While yet to be formally announced, anonymous Trump transition team members told multiple outlets that the pick would […]

Bill of Rights

Top 5 Reasons Senate Dems should block all Trump Supreme Court Nominees, Forever

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – We don’t need a Trump-nominated supreme Court justice. We desperately don’t need such a person. And there is no reason to have one. The Democrats in the Senate should just filibuster any nomination for the next four years. Now, you may say that a president deserves […]

Bill of Rights

Can Trump be checked and balanced?

contributors

By Ulrike G. Theuerkauf | ( OpenDemocracy.net) | – – The US Presidential system has been much heralded as a prime example of horizontal accountability, but there is no guarantee how Donald Trump will be kept in check. The US presidential system has been much heralded for its system of checks and balances. But Trump’s victory has given […]

Bill of Rights

Will Trump Bring in a New Era of Surveillance and Torture?

contributors

TeleSur | – – Trump’s picks for important security positions look intent on rolling back civil liberties. While there are many questions about what U.S. President-elect Donald Trump will change once he officially takes office on Jan. 20, one of the biggest questions, and indeed concerns, is what a Trump administration will bring in terms […]

Bill of Rights

US: Trump’s Justice, CIA Picks Threaten Rights

contributors

Human Rights Watch | – – (Washington) – President-elect Donald Trump’s selection of Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions as United States attorney general reinforces fears that Trump’s administration will threaten human rights protections, Human Rights Watch said today. Sessions has said that he supports the use of torture and has expressed a range of views inimical […]

Bill of Rights

Have Americans joined Egyptians in losing right to Protest & to Privacy?

contributors

By Dhananjayan Sriskandarajah | (Inter Press Service) | – – LONDON (IPS) – Many US citizens may instinctively believe they still live in the land of the free, but a new global rights rating system shows the country is far less tolerant than they may think. The world’s first systematic review of how well countries […]

African-Americans

Federal Judge Puts End to “Insane” Voter Suppression in N. Carolina

contributors

By Jon Queally, staff writer | ( Commondreams.org ) | – – ‘Injunction will help make sure not a single voters’ voice is unlawfully taken away,’ says Rev. William Barber II of the NC NAACP. Granting hopeful reprieve to thousands of potentially disenfranchised voters ahead of Tuesday’s election, a federal judge late Friday issued an […]