Constitution

By Farrah Hassen | – ( Foreign Policy in Focus) – The U.S. prison at the Guantánamo Bay naval base reached its shameful 20th anniversary of operations on January 11 — with a legacy marked by the detention of nearly 800 Muslim men and boys, the majority of them held without charge or trial for […]

Bill of Rights

Will the US ‘Combating Islamophobia Act’ signal a Change towards hate Crime in America?

Ramzy Baroud

( Middle East Monitor) – The result of a vote in the US House of Representatives on 14 December may signal a change in Washington’s approach to the social-political evil that is Islamophobia. However, we should not jump to hasty conclusions. Amazingly, Congress was nearly split on the vote. While 219 representatives voted in favour […]

Bill of Rights

Evangelical Politicians, using Israel as a Pretext, are Gutting the Constitution by Banning Boycotts

H. Scott Prosterman

Oakland, Ca. (Special to Informed Comment) – Israel has concluded a very unholy alliance with the American Evangelical Community, as support among progressive U.S. Jews for its settlement policies in the West Bank continues to wane. For this reason, in 2017, the Arkansas Senate passed Act 710, forbidding all “public entities from contracting with and […]

Authoritarianism

For First Time, US joins Brazil and India as “Backsliding Democracy”: GOP is making US a Third World Country

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Sweden’s International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance finds this year that the United States of America has joined the ranks of “backsliding democracies,” joining India, Brazil, Hungary, Poland and Slovenia. The IDEA institute notes, “Democratic backsliding, namely the sustained and deliberate process of subversion of basic democratic tenets by […]

Bill of Rights

Bannon Vote: Republicans once Voted to Hold Hollywood 10 in Contempt for Making Leftist Movies but won’t act on Far-Right Plot to Overthrow Gov’t

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Anyone who knows the history of abuse in the Congress’s prerogative of subpoenaing witnesses and holding people in contempt for declining to testify is a little uneasy about the vote today to refer far-right gadfly Steve Bannon to the Department of Justice on charges of contempt of Congress. Mary Clare […]

Congress

In Bid to Recapture Congress’ Power to Declare War, Key Senate Committee advances Repeal of Iraq War Authorizations

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Trish Turner at ABC News reports that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has voted to repeal the two Authorizations for Use of Military Force in Iraq passed in 1991 for the Gulf War and in 2002 for George W. Bush’s war on Iraq. I’m personally happy about this, since I […]

African-Americans

We Can Have the Filibuster or Democracy, But Not Both

Peter Certo

By Peter Certo | ( Otherwords.org) – The American political system is complicated, but fixing it doesn’t have to be. Voters of all stripes broadly agree on the kinds of changes they’d like to see. We need less money in politics. It should be easier to vote — early, in person, or by mail. And […]

BDS Occupied Territories

Israel is determined to Criminalize Boycott Movement, but Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream struck a blow for First Amendment

Ramzy Baroud

( Middle East Monitor) – Ben & Jerry’s decision to suspend its operations in the occupied Palestinian West Bank is an event that is proving critical to Palestinian efforts, which ultimately aim at holding Israel accountable for its military occupation, apartheid and war crimes. By responding to the Palestinian call for boycotting apartheid Israel, the […]

Bill of Rights

Torture, Wars of Aggression, Violations of Bill of Rights: Will there ever be accountability for America’s Orgy of War Crimes in the 21st Century

Karen J. Greenberg

( Tomdispatch.com) – America has an accountability problem. In fact, if the Covid-19 disaster, the January 6th Capitol attack, and the Trump years are any indication, the American lexicon has essentially dispensed with the term “accountability.” This should come as no surprise. After all, there’s nothing particularly new about this. In the Bush years, those […]