US politics

By Nick Turse | (Tomdispatch.com) | – – You can find them in dusty, sunbaked badlands, moist tropical forests, and the salty spray of third-world littorals. Standing in judgement, buffeted by the rotor wash of a helicopter or sweltering beneath the relentless desert sun, they instruct, yell, and cajole as skinnier men playact under their […]

Pentagon

Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, PTSD and the Psychology of War

contributors

By Arnold Oliver | (Informed Comment) | – – More than five years ago a soldier named Bowe Bergdahl left his U.S. Army unit in Afghanistan. He was captured, imprisoned in brutal conditions for five years, and finally released in a prisoner exchange in 2014. The Army is now considering whether he should be court-martialed […]

Arab Americans

A First: New York City Schools close for Muslim Holy Day

contributors

Deena Takruri | (Aj+ video report) “New York City public-school students will get the day off this Thursday, Sept. 24, for the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha. Summer-school students will also get off for Eid al-Fitr starting next year. Is this a signal of change in the public’s perception of Islam?” AJ+: “School’s Out For […]

Bill of Rights

A Majority of Iowa Republicans unsure Islam should be Legal, but Support Kim Davis

contributors

Cenk Uygur and John Iadarola | (The Young Turks Video) | – – “We hear a lot about religious freedom from conservatives these days, but what do they actually mean when they use that term? A new poll out of Iowa sheds some light… Cenk Uygur and John Iadarola (Think Tank), hosts of the The […]

Christianity

Top Signs Pope Francis is an Honest Conservative

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The positioning of Jorge Bergoglio, Pope Francis, as a “liberal” or “progressive” in American politics is incorrect and indeed a little bizarre. The Pope is a conservative. In fact, he has railed against “adolescent progressivism” and against secularism, which he calls “the devil.” Pope Francis opposes […]

Christians

Why the Pope and America won’t leave each Other Unchanged

contributors

By Massimo Faggioli | (The Conversation) | – – The papal trip to the United States that Francis will begin on September 22 is the most difficult of his pontificate so far. This is because of what I call the pope’s “American problem” – a cultural and ideological distance between the more socially minded Jesuit […]

Elections

Dark Money Surge: Conservatives Buoyed by Historic Flood of Contributions

contributors

By Sarah Lazare, staff writer | ( Commondreams.org) – – A new report from Center for Responsive Politics finds single-candidate groups have spent $16.2 million total so far—- over 55 times levels seen in 2012—- and conservatives disproportionately benefit. Political spending by outside groups seeking to the influence the 2016 presidential election is already dramatically […]

Featured

Has the GOP given up on winning the Presidency? Carson, Trump on Muslims, Latinos

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Ben Carson’s and Donald Trump’s comments about Muslims over the weekend again showed the GOP as the party of exclusion, not inclusion (though to be fair Sen. Lindsey Graham and Gov. Chris Christie had the intestinal fortitude to denounce those comments, unlike the rest of the […]

National Security State

Putting Pacifists on a No-Fly List is a way of Disciplining us All

contributors

By Rebecca Gordon | (Tomdispatch.com) | – – It was August 2002. My partner Jan Adams and I were just beginning our annual pilgrimage to Massachusetts to visit my father and stepmother. At the check-in line at San Francisco International Airport, we handed over our driver’s licenses and waited for the airline ticket agent to […]