US politics

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Revised Those ratings that castigate Afghanistan and some other poor countries as hopelessly “corrupt” always imply that the United States is not corrupt. This year’s report from Transparency International puts the US on a par with Austria, which is ridiculous. All kinds of people from politicians […]

African-Americans

Thousands of US Citizens Jailed Over Debts as Small as US$28

Juan Cole

TeleSur | – – One in three Americans has been reported to a private collection agency with the majority of cases affecting Latin American and African-American communities. The United States, where the streets are paved with gold and US$28 can send a young single mother or an 80-year-old grandmother to jail for a week or […]

Donald Trump

Trump’s $700 Bn. Bag of Goodies for the Military-Industrial Complex

contributors

By Danny Sjursen | ( Tomdispatch.com ) | – – Think of it as the chicken-or-the-egg question for the ages: Do very real threats to the United States inadvertently benefit the military-industrial complex or does the national security state, by its very nature, conjure up inflated threats to feed that defense machine? Back in 2008, […]

Africa

Why Black Panther’s Wakanda Is the Black Utopia We’ve Been Waiting For

contributors

By Ingrid LaFleur | ( Yes! Magazine) | – – Before the film was released, the nation of Wakanda was taking shape in our minds. Ingrid LaFleur posted Feb 07, 2018 “When I wondered if imagination could be necessary for the revolution and transformation, you said yes, you said our dreams and visions matter, they […]

Featured

Mass Shootings and Gang Murders have unrestricted Semi-Automatic Weapons in Common

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Revised Can anything be done about the phenomenon of “mass shootings?” These killings have plagued the US for decades. The problem is getting substantially worse over time. The first time I published a version of this column, in 2012, only 88 people were killed in mass […]

Pentagon

Ending America’s Disastrous Role in Syria

contributors

By Jeffrey D. Sachs | ( Project Syndicate) | – – America’s official narrative has sought to conceal the scale and calamitous consequences of US efforts to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. That is understandable, because US efforts are in blatant violation of international law, which bars UN member states from supporting military action to […]

Campaign Finance

New Survey Finding: Trump Likely owed his 2016 victory to ‘fake news’

contributors

By Richard Gunther, Erik C. Nisbet and Paul Beck | (The Conversation) | – – Could “fake news” have helped determine the outcome of the 2016 presidential election? Social media users and intensely partisan news broadcasts disseminated a massive number of messages during the campaign. Many of these messages demonized candidates and seriously distorted the […]

African-Americans

Worse than Russian Hack: GOP Voter Suppression planned in 20 States

contributors

By Jen Herrick | ( Otherwords.org) This year, at least 20 states are considering laws that would make it harder to vote. When President Trump created the “Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity” last spring — and put notorious vote suppressor Kris Kobach at the helm — voting rights advocates had decades of good reasons […]

Democracy

Russian campaign Interference looks like ISIL in Polarizing Techniques

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The Mueller inquiry into Russian interference in the 2016 election campaign has now brought indictments against specific Russian individuals and organizations, including the crony of Vladimir Putin, Yevgeny Prigozhin, known as “Putin’s chef” because the Russian president throws his business large numbers of high level government […]