US politics

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The protagonist of the new Denis Villeneuve film, Dune, Paul Atreides, is a complex character, but he should be seen as an antihero, as the protagonist of a Greek tragedy with a fatal tragic flaw. The author of the 1965 novel on which the film is based, Frank Herbert, was […]

Congress

Why is Social Spending Controversial but Congress lavishes $7 trillion a Decade on Pentagon?

OtherWords

By Sister Karen M. Donahue | ( Otherwords.org) – Right now, the United States is locked in a contentious debate over the Build Back Better plan, which will make a significant difference in the lives of millions of individuals and families. Even though the provisions included in the plan — including universal child care, home […]

Far Right

Oath Keepers in the State House: How a Militia Movement Took Root in the Republican Mainstream

ProPublica

By Isaac Arnsdorf | – A membership roster for the Oath Keepers, a violent extremist group whose followers have been charged in the Jan. 6 insurrection, includes state lawmakers, congressional candidates, and local government and GOP officials. ( ProPublica) – North Carolina state representative Mike Clampitt swore an oath to uphold the Constitution after his […]

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 […]

Books

Citizen Pilgrim: Richard Falk’s Breakthrough against Israeli Apartheid toward Palestinians

Foreign Policy in Focus

A review of Public Intellectual: The Life of a Citizen Pilgrim, by Richard Falk. By Walden Bello | ( Foreign Policy in Focus) – Richard Falk is universally regarded as one of the top minds when it comes to international law. Yet his views are not only unwelcome in establishment circles, but even among many […]

Australia

Taking the World to the Brink: The Australia-UK-US Nuclear Sub Alliance against China

Tomdispatch

By David Vine | – ( Tomdispatch.com) – Before it’s too late, we need to ask ourselves a crucial question: Do we really — I mean truly — want a new Cold War with China? Because that’s just where the Biden administration is clearly taking us. If you need proof, check out last month’s announcement […]

Batteries

How Sen. Manchin just Positioned Chinese Firms to dominate the Green Energy Markets of the 21st Century, Leaving the US in the Dust

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Coal baron Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia has succeeded in blocking the part of President Biden’s Build Back Better bill that would have moved the U.S. electricity grid quickly to green energy. This development is very bad news for the earth, since human beings burning coal, petroleum and natural […]

African-Americans

“A Certain Hope Died:” How the White nationalist Republican Party used up Colin Powell, then Spit Him Out

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Colin Powell died on Monday, not long after his rival inside the Bush administration, Donald Rumsfeld. Both of them tore down the post-World War II order that the framers of the United Nations had erected (among them, Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower), which aimed at criminalizing aggressive warfare. Despite his […]

Antisemitism

Trivializing the Holocaust: Georgia GOP Senatorial Wannabe Herschel Walker Fumbles Backwards, Coached by Trump

H. Scott Prosterman

Oakland, CA. (Special to Informed Comment) – Maybe Republicans don’t know the historical significance of the swastika. Many don’t know the history of WWII. Thanks to former football great and Georgia Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker, the Republican Party’s open embrace of Fascism just got more visible and messier. Walker is running against Georgia Senator […]