US politics

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – In an attempt at a foreign policy speech in Youngstown, Ohio, on Monday, Donald Trump attempted to get back to his fearmongering roots by focusing on the threat of ISIL, which he depicted as a hydra-headed menace with tentacles in a range of Western countries including […]

Featured

Top 5 Ways Olympian Ibtihaj Muhammad is a Better American than Trump

Juan Cole

Ibtihaj Muhammad, the first American woman athlete to compete in the Olympics wearing the hijab or Muslim head-covering, is a fatal complication to Donald Trump’s Islamophobia. Opening Ceremonies! One of the best days of my life! #TeamUSA?? pic.twitter.com/nbV1kEWO9g — Ibtihaj Muhammad (@IbtihajMuhammad) August 6, 2016 Ms. Muhammad shared in a team bronze medal in the […]

Bashar al-Assad

Monsters to Destroy: Top 7 Reasons the US could not have forestalled Syrian Civil War

Juan Cole

by Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The interventionist temptation, muted since the Iraq imbroglio, is now returning. Sec. Clinton’s team are already talking about taking steps to remove Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad from office as soon as they get into the White House. An excellent and principled NYT columnist called the non-intervention […]

National Security State

If the Military had Permission to Speak Freely: They might rescue us from the Politicians’ Forever War

contributors

By William J. Astore | ( Tomdispatch.com) | – – The United States is now engaged in perpetual war with victory nowhere in sight. Iraq is chaotic and scarred. So, too, is Libya. Syria barely exists. After 15 years, “progress” in Afghanistan has proven eminently reversible as efforts to rollback recent Taliban gains continue to […]

Plutocracy

How labor’s decline opened door to billionaire Trump as ‘savior’ of American workers

contributors

By Raymond Hogler | (The Conversation) | – – Out of the economic maelstrom of the last decade, Donald Trump has emerged as the improbable, and self-proclaimed, champion of American workers. And that’s despite the fact that Trump has failed to articulate substantive policy positions regarding labor issues, other than generic railing against foreign competition […]

Featured

Trump threatens Sec. Clinton with Gun Nuts, imitates Tinpot 3rd World Regimes

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Donald Trump said Tuesday there was nothing that his supporters could do if Hillary Clinton won and got “to pick her judges.” Then he “thought” a moment and amended his pessimism: “Though the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know.” Former CIA director Michael […]

Republican Party

A Sucker is born Every Minute: Our Election From Hell

contributors

By Tom Engelhardt | ( Tomdispatch.com ) | – – Yep, it finally happened. In early May, after a long, long run, the elephants of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus were ushered into retirement in Florida where they will finish their days aiding cancer research. The Greatest Show on Earth was done […]

Japan

On 71st Anniversary of Hiroshima, the Fear of a Nuclear Trump

contributors

TeleSur | – – Donald Trump also recently asked a national security expert three times why, since the US has nuclear weapons, it can’t use them. Japan marked the 71st anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima on Saturday as its Prime Minister Shinzo Abe advocated for eliminating nuclear arms. “We must not have […]

Democratic Party

Democrats Are Still Divided on Israel, But Clinton Runs Way to the Right

contributors

By Naomi Dann | Foreign Policy in Focus | (Originally published in Lobelog) Some see Democratic VP pick Tim Kaine as a promising counterbalance to Clinton’s hawkishness. Following Debbie Wasserman-Schultz’s exit as chair of the Democratic Party after the release of emails revealing efforts to undermine Bernie Sanders’s campaign, political analyst Donna Brazile will take […]