US politics

DeSantis’ Legacy Lives on in Unconstitutional Bills Banning Free Expression, Campus Palestine Groups

By Diane Rado ( Florida Phoenix ) – From threatening students’ free speech on college campuses to making it easier for powerful people to sue for defamation, lawmakers have been filing bills in 2024 that are bad, according to Florida’s First Amendment Foundation. The foundation is tracking the proposals and fighting back, hoping to get […]

Houthi

Why US strikes will only embolden the Houthis, not stop their Attacks on Ships in the Red Sea

The Conversation

By Sarah G. Phillips, University of Sydney | – As the Houthi militant group in Yemen ramps up its attacks on vessels in the Red Sea – ostensibly in response to what it calls Israel’s “genocidal crimes” in Gaza – the US and UK have responded with multiple military strikes in the last week. The […]

Donald Trump

Trump 2.0: Re-Breaking America in his Image

Andrea Mazzarino

( Tomdispatch.com ) – Count on one thing: Donald Trump, who seems to gain Republican support with every new indictment, is not going away. He’s managed to capitalize on his 2020 election loss, using his failed insurrection, a stream of violent threats and verbal attacks against political opponents and journalists, and the disinformation machine of […]

Far Right

Our World-Historical Turning Point – Kairos – is Now, and Everything Depends on the Youths

Liz Theoharis

( Tomdispatch.com) – “All Americans owe them a debt for — if nothing else — releasing the idealism locked so long inside a nation that has not recently tasted the drama of a social upheaval. And for making us look on the young people of the country with a new respect.” That’s how Howard Zinn […]

Donald Trump

America’s Theater of the Absurd Election: Trump, Fascism, Reality and . . . the Rhinoceros

Dan Dinello

Chicago (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – In 1968, the Youth International Party nominated a pig named Pigasus for president; in 2024, the Republican Party will likely nominate a Traitor named Trump for president, a dumber and more corrupt candidate than Pigasus. The Youth International Party — the anarchic, counter-culture Yippies — nominated the pig […]

Houthi

US Officials Care More about Protecting Oil Tankers than Palestinians

Foreign Policy in Focus

By Edward Hunt | – ( Foreign Policy in Focus ) – While Israel continues its military offensive in Gaza, the United States is directing a major military operation in the Red Sea, where U.S. warships are maintaining a persistent presence to protect shipping lanes. With its recently launched Operation Prosperity Guardian, the United States […]

Anti-intellectualism

Zionism, Anti-Palestinianism, and the Fall of Harvard’s Claudine Gay

Charles Hirschkind

Berkeley, CA (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – Much of the media conversation about the recent resignation of Harvard’s president, Claudine Gay, has (rightfully) framed her abrupt removal in the context of the current right-wing assault on liberal education and, particularly, its targeting of the policies and practices designed to promote racial equality on US […]

Debt

The Military-Industrial Complex Is the Winner (Not You) – Overspending on the Pentagon Is Stealing Our Future

William D. Hartung

( Tomdispatch.com ) – 2023 was a year marked by devastating conflicts from Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine to Hamas’s horrific terror attacks on Israel, from that country’s indiscriminate mass slaughter in Gaza to a devastating civil war in Sudan. And there’s a distinct risk of even worse to come this year. Still, there was one […]

Bill of Rights

Academic Freedom Violations at Indiana U against Professor Abdelkader Sinno and artist Samia Halaby

Committee on Academic Freedom

Committee on Academic Freedom | Middle East Studies Association of North America | – Abdelkader Sinno Indiana University Samia Halaby Rahul Shrivastav, Provost and Executive Vice President provost@indiana.edu Rick Van Kooten, Executive Dean, College of Arts and Sciences rvankoot@indiana.edu . . . Dear Provost Shrivastav and colleagues: We write on behalf of the […]