US politics

By Clark D. Cunningham | – As Congress moves toward a possible formal impeachment of President Donald Trump, they should consider words spoken at the Constitutional Convention, when the Founders explained that impeachment was intended to have many important purposes, not just removing a president from office. A critical debate took place on July 20, […]

Pentagon

Bestselling Pentagon Fiction: Beware of Defense Secretaries Pledging Reform

William D. Hartung

Co-author: Mandy Smithberger | – (Tomdispatch.com) – For the Pentagon, happy days are here again (if they ever left). With a budget totaling more than $1.4 trillion for the next two years, the department is riding high, even as it attempts to set the stage for yet more spending increases in the years to come. […]

Constitution

Witness Intimidation: Unbalanced Trump Seeks Whistleblower sources, hints Execution for Espionage

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Trump, being unbalanced, has never dealt well with criticism. In the face of credible charges of impeachable offenses in his July conversation with Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky, Trump is unraveling. Eli Stokols at the LA Times reports that an attendee at a Trump event in New York for his UN […]

Congress

Annals of Impeachment: From Nixon’s “Smoking Gun” Tape to Trump Zelensky Summary

Juan Cole

On August 5, 1974, Nixon was forced by the Supreme Court to release the smoking gun tape in which he and his chief of staff H. R. Haldemann had a conversation, in the course of which Nixon could be heard acknowledging his knowledge of the burglary of the Democratic National Committee office files in the […]

Donald Trump

For Trump, Regime Change Begins at Home

John Feffer

(Foreign Policy in Focus) – Trump has been enlisting foreign leaders in his fight against the U.S. state. Is impeachment a moral necessity or political trap? A month after he won the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump gave a speech in North Carolina where he declared that “we will stop racing to topple foreign regimes […]

Displaced and Refugees

US Move Puts More Asylum Seekers at Risk: Expanded ‘Remain in Mexico’ Program Undermines Due Process

Human Rights Watch

( Human Rights Watch) – (Ciudad Juarez, Mexico) –The Trump administration has drastically expanded its “Remain in Mexico” program while undercutting the rights of asylum seekers at the United States southern border, Human Rights Watch said today. Under the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) – known as the “Remain in Mexico” program – asylum seekers in […]

Democratic Party

Finally, an Impeachment Inquiry: Pelosi on “Nationalist” Trump’s “betrayal of our National Security”

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Nancy Pelosi finally caved to pressure to open an impeachment inquiry into Trump, after he admitted to having pressured the Ukraine government to investigate his Democratic rival Joe Biden. Biden is clearly furious over the whole thing, and as a pillar of the Democratic establishment and former president of the […]

Immigration

The Problem with Policing US Borders is that they Extend throughout the Planet

Tomdispatch

By Todd Miller | – (Tomdispatch.com) – The driver of the passenger van pulled onto the shoulder of the road, looked back, and said, “There’s an immigration checkpoint up ahead. Does everyone have their papers?” We were just north of the Guatemalan border, outside the town of Ciudad Hidalgo in the Mexican state of Chiapas. […]

Democratic Party

Ukraine Scandal shows the Squad was Right about Impeaching Trump, & they’re Telling the Dems so

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (D-Mi) was widely castigated for saying, virtually as soon as she was elected, that it was necessary to impeach Trump (she used a colorful epithet in doing so, which some observers said made a bad impression, even though rich old white guys speak like that all the […]