US politics

(Special to Informed Comment) – Trump’s coup may have failed, but the scars to democracy won’t heal for generations. In a fitting end to his four years in power, he took to Twitter to reject the election’s results. “We are up BIG, but they are trying to STEAL the Election,” he exclaimed, casting doubt over […]

Climate Crisis

The Fall of the American Empire on a Failing Planet

Tom Engelhardt

(Tomdispatch.com ) – We’re now living in an age of opacity, as Rudy Giuliani pointed out in a courtroom recently. Here was the exchange: “‘In the plaintiffs’ counties, they were denied the opportunity to have an unobstructed observation and ensure opacity,’ Giuliani said. ‘I’m not quite sure I know what opacity means. It probably means […]

Democracy

Biden vows Turkey’s Autocrat Erdogan must “Pay a Price” for attacks on Critics, Syrian Kurds

Middle East Monitor

By Ahmet Alioglu | – ( Middle East Monitor) – One of the leading assistants of Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, and a founder of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party), resigned last week from the government’s high advisory council citing disagreements and discontent over judicial practices. Bulent Arinc called for a comprehensive reassessment […]

CIA

Israeli Official: “World should thank Israel” for murdering Iranian Scientist; CIA’s Brennan: “Act of state-sponsored terrorism”

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – An unnamed Israeli official told the New York Times on Sunday, “the world should thank Israel” for killing Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh. I don’t guess I’m thanking Israel for committing a flagrant act of terrorism. If Israel can murder a scientist in Iran, what is to stop it from […]

Bill of Rights

How did Conservatives successfully smear “Liberal” (Respect for Liberty and Rights of Others) as Mule Word?

Bahman Fozouni

Sacramento (Special to Informed Comment) – The 2020 elections are over, but once again it proved that Liberal-bashing remains a favorite pastime of the Republican party and conservative politicians. Verbal assault on “liberal” politicians and the media, “liberalism,” and the root-word “liberal” by the political right (and occasionally by the hard left) has remained a […]

Democratic Party

Lesson of Biden victory for Republicans: There aren’t enough poorly educated White People to win with a Politics of Racial Grievance Any More

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Now that the judges have laughed Trump’s challenges and conspiracy theories out of court, it is time to consider further why Biden won. The long and the short of it is that educated whites, including white men, joined African-Americans, a majority of Hispanics and urban people in general against Trump. […]

Donald Trump

From Salmonella to Workers’ Injuries: Trump Races to Weaken Environmental and Worker Protections on Way Out

ProPublica

By Isaac Arnsdorf ( ProPublica) – Six days after President Donald Trump lost his bid for reelection, the U.S. Department of Agriculture notified food safety groups that it was proposing a regulatory change to speed up chicken factory processing lines, a change that would allow companies to sell more birds. An earlier USDA effort had […]

Debt

The Pentagon couldn’t Protect us from the Pandemic: Will Biden dare Cut its Budget?

Tomdispatch

By William D. Hartung and Mandy Smithberger | – ( Tomdispatch.com ) – Now that Joe Biden is slated to take office as the 46th president of the United States, advice on how he should address a wide range of daunting problems is flooding in. Nowhere is there more at stake than when it comes […]

Democratic Party

Republicans have become the Party of Zombies and Loss at Polls won’t stop them from Coming for Biden

John Feffer

( Foreign Policy in Focus) – How else would you describe Americans who deny a pandemic that’s killed 250,000 people and the election that repudiated Trump? The 2017 film Bushwick begins like a lot of zombie flicks. An unsuspecting couple is walking through a subway station in the working-class neighborhood of Bushwick in Brooklyn. The […]