US politics

By Aaron Scott | – ( Otherwords.org ) – I grew up in a church community that pitted people against each other and called it “Christianity.” As a pastor now myself, I know there’s another way. By Aaron Scott | June 1, 2022 I grew up in rural upstate New York, where life was difficult […]

Asian-Americans

How the Media Sugar-coats Anti-Chinese Racism

Martin Powers

Ann Arbor (Special to Informed Comment) – Recently the Brookings Institute held a panel on “The national security implications of anti-Asian racism.” Noting that Asian peoples worldwide tend to link U.S. China policy with anti-Asian violence, Brookings scholars explained how those policies can weaken U.S. influence abroad. But those views are not mainstream. In the […]

Authoritarianism

Elections: a Global Ranking rates US Weakest among Liberal Democracies

The Conversation

By Toby James, University of East Anglia; and Holly Ann Garnett, Royal Military College of Canada | – Defending democracy has suddenly become one of the central challenges of our age. The land war in Ukraine is widely considered a front line between autocratic rule and democratic freedom. The United States continues to absorb the […]

Arms Sales

The lasting Consequences of School Shootings on the Students who Survive Them

The Conversation

By Maya Rossin-Slater, Stanford University; Bokyung Kim, The University of Texas at Austin College of Liberal Arts; Hannes Schwandt, Northwestern University; Marika Cabral, The University of Texas at Austin College of Liberal Arts; and Molly Schnell, Northwestern University As the U.S. reels from another school shooting, much of the public discussion has centered on the […]

National Security State

Supreme Court Expands Government Secrecy Powers in Torture-Related Case

Foreign Policy in Focus

By Robert Pallitto | – (Foreign Policy in Focus ) – The U.S. government doesn’t want to acknowledge a Polish torture site that everyone knows about. By Robert Pallitto | May 31, 2022 The U.S. Supreme Court ruled recently on the government’s use of the state secrets doctrine in an opinion that will make it […]

Bashar al-Assad

On Memorial Day, let’s get the 900 US Troops out of Syria and away from any War with Russia or Iran

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Memorial Day or Decoration Day (referring to the decoration of the graves of soldiers killed in combat) began after the Civil War and has been commemorated since 1868. It is no wonder that the mourning began then. Historian J. David Hacker has estimated that 750,000 troops died in the war, […]

Featured

The other Gun Problem: Israeli Squatter-Settlers in Palestinian West Bank have Killed, Injured Dozens of Palestinians with Assault Weapons

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The United Nations office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says that 37 Palestinians have been murdered by Israeli squatter-settlers on Palestinian land since 2006. In 30 cases, the squatters shot down the Palestinians with live ammunition. Among those killed have been nine children, much like the ones killed in […]

Campaign Finance

A Republican Tried to Introduce a Commonsense Gun Law. Then the Gun Lobby Got Involved

ProPublica

By Megan O’Matz | – ( ProPublica ) – Cole Wist was a Republican state House member in Colorado with an A grade from the NRA. Then, in 2018, he supported a red flag law, sponsoring a bill to allow guns to be taken away — temporarily — from people who pose an immediate threat […]

Guns

6 Charts show key role Firearms Corporations play in America’s Gun Culture

The Conversation

By Michael Siegel, Tufts University | – Americans have blamed many culprits, from mental illness to inadequate security, for the tragic mass shootings that are occurring with increasing frequency in schools, offices and theaters across the U.S. The latest, which occurred on May 24, 2022, at a Texas elementary school and left at least 19 […]