US politics

By Nomi Prins with Craig Wilson | ( Tomdispatch.com ) | – – “Establishment: A group in a society exercising power and influence over matters of policy, opinion, or taste, and seen as resisting change.” — Oxford Dictionary Early on in his presidential bid, Donald Trump began touting his anti-establishment credentials. When it worked, he […]

Democratic Party

Clintonites in Democratic Party Back Settler Colonialism (Not a 1905 Headline)

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The Clinton loyalists debating the Democratic Party platform have defeated an amendment that would have called for an end to the Israeli Occupation of Palestine and condemned Israeli squatter settlements illegal. The Democratic Party, in other words, backs the principle of colonialism no less than if […]

prison reform

White House Admits Prison spending has grown 3x as fast as Education for Decades

contributors

TeleSur | – – U.S. state and local spending on prisons and jails grew at three times the rate of spending on schools over the last 33 years as the number of people behind bars ballooned under a spate of harsh sentencing laws, a government report released Thursday said. U.S. Secretary of Education John King […]

African-Americans

8,124 Murders by Firearm in US vs. 29 (144 equiv.) in UK

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Revised The United States continues to be peculiar in handing out powerful magazine-fed firearms to almost anyone who wants one and not requiring background checks on private purchases even if these are made at gun shows. 80% of civilian-owned firearms world-wide are in the US, and […]

Bush

The other Casualty of Iraq War: The Country’s Whole Health System

contributors

Ahmed Aber | (The Conversation) | – – Thirteen years ago, American and British troops launched Operation Iraqi Freedom. The Iraqis were promised freedom from tyranny, but the subsequent destruction of the Iraqi state apparatus as well as the cycle of violence that continues to this day destroyed the health system that cared for the […]

Foreign Policy

A new American Century or a Century of Wars and Refugees?

Juan Cole

By Tom Engelhardt | ( Tomdispatch.com ) | – – Vladimir Putin recently manned up and admitted it. The United States remains the planet’s sole superpower, as it has been since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. “America,” the Russian president said, “is a great power. Today, probably, the only superpower. We accept that.” Think […]

Iraq

The Iraq War Never Ended: An Interview with Anand Gopal

contributors

An Interview with Anand Gopal by Charles Davis | ( TeleSur) | – – The United States is winning the war on terror, just as it always has. The Islamic State group is “on the defensive,” Col. Steve Warren told reporters earlier this year. In Iraq, it has reportedly lost 40 percent of its territory […]

Democratic Party

H. Clinton and Ed Snowden: Some Animals are more Equal than others

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Hillary Clinton has repeatedly attacked Ed Snowden for being careless with government information. So it is ironic that she has been found guilty of being . . . careless with government information. She, of course, will suffer no consequences, since she is part of the ruling […]

Arab Americans

On Eid al-Fitr 2016: Muslim-Americans becoming Thread in the US Tapestry

contributors

By Abbas Barzegar | (The Conversation) | – – Ramadan, a month of intense prayer and fasting, has been especially trying for American Muslims this summer: Other than the heat, the small community has been grappling with the aftermath of the massacre in Orlando and the presumptive Republican Party candidate Donald Trump’s call to ban […]