US politics

When You Lift from the Bottom, Everyone Rises: Have We Entered America’s Third Era of Reconstruction?

( Tomdispatch.com) – West Virginia, a state first established in defiance of slavery, has recently become ground zero in the fight for voting rights. In an early June op-ed in the Charleston Gazette-Mail, Democratic Senator Joe Manchin vowed to maintain the Senate filibuster, while opposing the For the People Act, a bill to expand voting […]

African-Americans

Jim Crow was Never Dead, but the Black Church can Lead the Way in Banishing Voter Suppression

OtherWords

By Rev. Susan K. Smith and Rev. Levon C. Manzie | ( Otherwords.org) – We suspected it for years, and now we know it: Jim Crow was never dead. You might even say he was too mean to die. We know this because in too many places, the forces of racism are raging as laws […]

Immigration

Central American Migrants: They’re Here Because We Were There

John Buell

Southwest Harbor, Maine (Special to Informed Comment) – Democrats claim to defend an honest rendition of US history, one that will be attentive to the injustices inflicted by slavery and racism. Unfortunately, however, that honesty stops at the water’s edge. While the president prepared for and conducted a widely- covered summit that among other things […]

Antisemitism

5 ways to push antisemites and the Alt-Right out of the Palestinian solidarity movement

Waging Nonviolence

By Shane Burley | – With support for Palestinian freedom hitting a new level, intentional strategies are needed to stop white nationalists looking to hijack the movement. ( Waging Nonviolence ) – As Israel resumes its bombing of Gaza, and settlers attack Palestinians on both sides of the Green Line — the boundary between what […]

Militarization

The other Big Lie undermining Democracy: Why our Recent Wars Began, and how Badly they were Bungled

William J. Astore

( Tomdispatch.com) – Americans may already be lying themselves out of what little remains of their democracy. The big lie uniting and motivating today’s Republicans is, of course, that Donald Trump, not Joe Biden, won the 2020 presidential election. Other big lies in our recent past include the notion that climate change is nothing but […]

China

Is Putin’s Positive View of the Biden Summit a sign he is Souring on his China Alliance?

Nikola Mikovic

Belgrade (Special to Informed Comment) – The results of the historic summit between the US President Joe Biden and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, held in Switzerland on June 16, will be felt for some time. Officially, the two leaders discussed Syria, Libya, Iran, Afghanistan, Ukraine, hacking and “strategic stability”, but what they agreed during […]

Joe Biden

Could Putin woo Turkey from Biden and NATO?

Nikola Mikovic

Belgrade (Special to Informed Comment) – The Turks seem to be weary of the alliance with the United States. Although it is still a NATO member, and has the second largest army in the organization, Turkey is strengthening military, political and economic ties with the US “major geopolitical rival” – Russia. According to a recent […]

US politics

Is America’s Big Problem Really overly generous Unemployment Benefits?

John Buell

Ending enhanced unemployment benefits has become the signature economic agenda for the GOP, a party with little else to promote. Unfortunately the largely low- key response of the President on this issue has been disappointing. The failure to mount a vigorous defense of these benefits is bad ethics, bad policy, and bad politics. As for […]

Climate Crisis

We Don’t Need Another Oil Pipeline

Sonali Kolhatkar

By Sonali Kolhatkar | – ( Otherwords.org ) – A decades-old pipeline called Line 3, run by the Canadian company Enbridge, is in the midst of a controversial upgrade. That has sparked fierce resistance from Indigenous communities living along the route. Line 3 is being replaced to transport nearly 800,000 barrels of dirty tar sands […]