US politics

( Counterpunch ) – Controversy about Charles Austin Beard began in 1913 when he published An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States. He turned thirty-nine that year. Until then, his books had appeared to widespread praise within the profession and to the benign neglect of the general reading public. A highly successful […]

Arms Sales

Merger Mania in the Military-Industrial Complex: Tackling Pentagon Waste Means Battling the Big Weapons Makers and Asking More of Congress

Tomdispatch

By Julia Gledhill and William D. Hartung | – ( Tomdispatch.com ) – It’s early in the new Congress, but lawmakers are already hotly debating spending and debt levels. As they do so, they risk losing track of an important issue hiding in plain sight: massive Pentagon waste. At least in theory, combating such excess […]

African-Americans

Rep. Ilhan Omar makes her Move into the Mainstream

Minnesota Reformer

By Doug Rossinow | – ( Minnesota Reformer) – Only six months ago, U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar’s future looked cloudy, her political base shaken. She had barely fended off a primary challenge. Her political judgments appeared questionable. Her critics appeared to have grown in number. Now House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and his Republican allies have […]

Joe Biden

Biden is Right: You Shouldn’t Pay a Higher Tax Rate than Billionaires

OtherWords

By Rebekah Entralgo | – ( Otherwords.org ) – In his third State of the Union address, President Joe Biden renewed his call for a billionaire minimum income tax, demanding Congress take action on a broken tax system that rewards wealth over work. “Pass my proposal for a billionaire minimum tax,” Biden proclaimed. “Because no […]

Democratic Party

What the Pundits Get Wrong about Biden and SOTU: People are Confident in his Policies even if they Don’t Think He is Charismatic

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The State of the Union address contained no surprises. Joe Biden’s policies are by now a known quantity. It is remarkable, however, how much progress he made in implementing them in the first two years of his presidency. Those who saw the Republican Party become the party of “no” under […]

Iran

Suspected Israeli Drone Strike In Iran Part Of New ‘Containment Strategy’

Golnaz Esfandiari

( RFE/ RL ) – A suspected Israeli drone strike hit an Iranian military facility in Isfahan on January 28, in an attack that is part of a new effort to contain Tehran, analysts said. Protracted efforts to revive the 2015 nuclear accord between Iran and world powers have floundered. In the absence of a […]

Climate Crisis

Edwards Air Force Base Near LA to host Largest Solar-plus-storage Project in the World

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Edwards Air Force Base in Kern County, California, near Los Angeles and San Bernardino, is now home to the largest solar power array on any Air Force base in the country, as of this past week. Indeed, with a goal of “1,118 MW of solar photovoltaic (PV) and 2,165 megawatts […]

African-Americans

Faustian Bargain: On pretext of Israel, Republicans oust Ilhan Omar from Committee to please White Nationalist Base

H. Scott Prosterman

Oakland, Ca. (Special to Informed Comment) – Congressional Republicans are more interested in grandstanding than governance, and political persecution rather than functional democracy. The banishment of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) from her assignment on the Foreign Affairs Committee by Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) illustrates how Republican candidates and office holders try to outdo each other with […]

Republican Party

The Nightmare of Republican Voter Suppression

Tomdispatch

By Clarence Lusane | – ( Tomdispatch.com ) – The fundamental right to vote has been a core value of Black politics since the colonial era — and so has the effort to suppress that vote right up to the present moment. In fact, the history of the suppression of Black voters is a first-rate […]