US politics

TheRealNews: “Where’s the Outrage Over Spying on Muslim Civil Rights Leaders?”

Border Wars in the Homeland “Stop Stepping on the Pictures”

By Todd Miller Shena Gutierrez was already cuffed and in an inspection room in Nogales, Arizona, when the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agent grabbed her purse, opened it, and dumped its contents onto the floor right in front of her. There couldn’t be a sharper image of the Bill of Rights rollback we are […]

Economy

Wealth Gap Costing US in Growth (John Oliver)

contributors

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Wealth Gap (HBO)

Economy

What the West means by “stability” in the Middle East

contributors

By Victor Argo “For them, a stable country is a country with a strong government favorable to the United States”: When Western governments pompously talk about “stability in the Middle East”, the interest and the security of the people of the region are seldom on their minds, writes Victor Argo. Stability, stability, stability. Comments on […]

Economy

How its Iran Sanctions hurt US Economy: Cutting off your Nose to Spite Your Face

contributors

The National Iranian American Council There are very few studies measuring the cost of sanctions to the sanctioning countries. In the case of Iran, where unprecedented U.S. and international sanctions may soon be lifted as part of a deal over Iran’s disputed nuclear program, understanding the cost of the policy is particularly important since any […]

Featured

Rand Paul to Rick Perry: Why Send US Troops to an Iraq that Won’t Defend Self?

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole Texas Gov. Rick Perry, apparently considering another run for president (assuming he can remember to do it), attacked Rand Paul as an “isolationist,” calling him “blind” to the danger of international “terrorism” and pointing especially to the rise of the so-called Islamic State in northern Iraq. Perry said, “”That’s why it’s disheartening […]

Climate Change

Brad Pitt Foundation to Build Solar Homes for Native Americans

contributors

Native News Online reports that Brad Pitt’s Make it Right foundation will build solar-powered homes for Native Americans in Montana. —– Related video added by Juan Cole Native News Update

Bill of Rights

Helpless Giant: How Imperial US Elites Tied America Down All by Themselves

Tom Engelhardt

By Tom Engelhardt via Tomdispatch For America’s national security state, this is the age of impunity. Nothing it does — torture, kidnapping, assassination, illegal surveillance, you name it — will ever be brought to court. For none of its beyond-the-boundaries acts will anyone be held accountable. The only crimes that can now be committed in […]

US politics

Draft notices sent out 100 Years Late

contributors

By Cory Doctorow A US Selective Service database merge used two-digit years, and didn’t sanity-check its threatening notices to 19th century men who’d apparently failed to sign up for the draft by their 18th birthday. That’s how some 14,000 angry letters came to be sent to the last known residences of Pennsylvania men born in […]