US politics

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – French President Emmanuel Macron declared independence of the United States and of China for Europe at the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, in the starkest “third way” bid for a French president since Charles De Gaulle withdrew from the military wing of NATO in 1965 and established France’s own nuclear […]

Far Right

How a GOP 6-3 Court will Set Individual and Privacy Rights back 50 Years

The Conversation

By Morgan Marietta | – If the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is replaced this year, the Supreme Court will become something the country has not seen since the justices became a dominant force in American cultural life after World War II: a decidedly conservative court. A court with a 6-3 conservative majority would be […]

Democratic Party

A House Divided: America’s new Civil Wars

Tomdispatch

By Andrea Mazzarino | – When it rains, pieces of glass, pottery, and metal rise through the mud in the hills surrounding my Maryland home. The other day, I walked outside barefoot to fetch one of my kid’s shoes and a pottery shard stabbed me in the heel. Nursing a minor infection, I wondered how […]

Corruption

Every Day is Memorial Day: The Trump Virus has killed as Many Americans as Died in Combat in the 4 Years of the Civil War

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Trump has helped kill 200,000 Americans. The US has 4% of the world’s population but about 21% of its deaths. Global deaths are nearing the grim milestone of 1 million. For the world’s sole superpower, the scientifically most advanced country in the world, to have met the test of the […]

Climate Crisis

Climate Trumpnado in the West: Fire and Fury Like the World Has Never Seen

Tom Engelhardt

( Tomdispatch.com) – It was August 2017 and Donald Trump had not yet warmed up to Kim Jong-un, North Korea’s portly dictator. In fact, in typical Trumpian fashion, he was pissed at the Korean leader and, no less typically, he lashed out verbally, threatening that country with a literal hell on Earth. As he put […]

Donald Trump

No, Iran is not near having a Nuke: Trump source tries Iraq Big Lie Playbook on Reuters, The Independent

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Trump administration is running the same scam on the public that George W. Bush & Co. ran on Iraq in 2002. Some creepy Trump swamp creature emerged to whisper anonymously in the ear of Reuters, which should be ashamed of acting as its stenographer: “The unnamed official told Reuters […]

Inequality

Stop Profiteering on Misery: Private Prisons must be ended Now

F. Douglas Stephenson

Gainesville, Florida (Special to Informed Comment) – Every state should follow California’s outstanding example by ending the obscene system of private prisons and privately-run immigration detention facilities. California will phase out the use of these for-profit, private detention facilities by 2028. The state prohibited renewing contracts or signing new contracts with a private prison company […]

African-Americans

Trump’s appeals to white anxiety are not ‘dog whistles’ – they’re racism

The Conversation

By Bethany Albertson | – President Donald Trump’s rhetoric is often referred to as “dog whistle politics.” In politician speak, a dog whistle is language that conveys a particular meaning to a group of potential supporters. The targeted group hears the “whistle” because of its shared cultural reference, but others cannot. In 2018, The Washington […]

Donald Trump

If McConnell Packs the Court on behalf of Minority Rule, Dems must Expand and Reform it

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell was asked what he would do if there was a vacancy on the Supreme Court in 2020. He smirked like a mischievous turtle, and said unhesitatingly, “We’ll fill it.” By “we” he meant not the American people but the unrepresentative Republicans in the Senate. Russell […]