Constitution

By Abigail Fielding-Smith and Crofton Black | (The Bureau of Investigative Journalism) | – – The overstretched US military has hired hundreds of private sector contractors in the heart of its drone operations to analyse top secret video feeds and help track high value terror targets, an investigation has found. Contracts unearthed by the Bureau […]

Arab Americans

Michigan Town Fears ISIL Summer Camp In Their Backyard

contributors

John Iadarola, Hannah Cranston, Jimmy Dore | (The Young Turks Video) | – – “A Michigan town has blocked one of their Muslim residents from building a summer camp, for fear that it will become an ISIS training camp. The man wanted to build the camp for his son and daughter to bring their scout […]

Constitution

That Time Ronald Reagan opened Iran and Illegally sold Khomeini Weapons

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The Reagan administration in the 1980s was buffeted by two policy drives toward Iran. On the one hand, Reagan ally Saudi Arabia supported Iraq, which illegally launched a war on the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1980 in order to steal its oil-rich Khuzistan Province. Reagan […]

African-Americans

South Carolina removes the Physical Flag: Can it remove the Spiritual Illness of Racial Discrimination?

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The South Carolina legislature has voted to remove the Confederate flag from the grounds of the statehouse. It was put there in 1961 as a show of defiance against the Civil Rights movement, i.e. against the demand that the system of legally-imposed segregation of African-Americans cease. […]

Barack Obama

Ghosts of King George III: Top 5 Things that threaten American Independence Today

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The things that irked the residents of the Thirteen Colonies about British rule have reemerged from other quarters to threaten American democracy. The colonists minded being ruled arbitrarily by British-appointed officials, some of them corrupt. They minded not being represented in parliament even though that body […]

Civil Rights

Your Fourth of July and My Fourth of July

Juan Cole

Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Revised for the 2010s: Your Fourth of July is invasions and wars. My Fourth of July is the pure sunbeam of peace. Yours is the Confederate flag and nostalgia for the hierarchies of slavery. Mine is ‘all men are created equal.’ Yours is kowtowing to billionaires in […]

African-Americans

Bernie Sanders’ 10,000-person crowd in Madison biggest of any Candidate so Far

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The Democratic Party’s left wing is fed up and isn’t going to take it any more. Americans in opinion polling overwhelmingly favor the positions of Bernie Sanders on most political and social issues. But gerrymandering, big money in politics, and voter suppression have produced presidents who […]

Archaeology

No, GOP, biblical Marriage was not between one man and one woman

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The freak-out by the Republican presidential candidates over the Supreme Court decision on same-sex marriage provokes me to revise and reprise the points below. Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee have formally pledged: “We will not honor any decision by the Supreme Court which will force us […]

Constitution

As Love wins out at Supreme Court, did Justices in Minority encourage States, Fundamentalists to Defy Ruling?

contributors

By Danielle Weatherby, Timothy Holbrook and Robert A. Schapiro | (The Conversation) | – – Editor’s note: Today the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that marriage is a legal right – striking down same-sex marriage bans in 14 states and ordering states to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states. Marriage is a fundamental right Today’s […]