Donald Trump

By Robert Lipsyte | – ( Tomdispatch.com ) – Overwhelmed by the intertwined plagues of Covid-19 and Trumpism, sports didn’t stand a chance in 2020. No wonder I’m weirded out by the strange, metaphorical moments of that last disastrous year and the first days of this one. To mention just three among so many: Dr. […]

Bill of Rights

Yes, Speech can Incite Violence: What Decades of Research Show about Trump’s Impeachment Trial

The Conversation

By Kurt Braddock | – Senators, acting in the impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump that begins on Feb. 9, will soon have to decide whether to convict the former president for inciting a deadly, violent insurrection at the Capitol building on Jan. 6. A majority of House members, including 10 Republicans, took the […]

Authoritarianism

Trump’s Coup and Burma’s Coup: What they have in Common

Reese Erlich

The Asian country’s military overthrew its government over baseless claims of voter fraud. Sound familiar? ( 48hills.org) – This week, military officers in Myanmar (formerly Burma) overthrew that nation’s democratically elected government after the party it preferred lost the parliamentary elections. The military claimed voter fraud without presenting any proof. It tried to fill the […]

Congress

After Years of Outrage Politics, RepubliQans have surrendered to the Neo-Nazi Conspiracy Theorists

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – From Sarah Palin’s alarmist and mendacious charge of death panels in the Affordable Health Act to Benghazi, where the smarmy Mike Pompeo tried to hang a terrorist attack around the neck of secretary of state Hillary Clinton (who was not in charge of military or intelligence decisions), the brand of […]

Constitution

Conservatives worked for Decades to build an Imperial Presidency, and it Gave them Trump and now Biden

Juan Cole

By Tom Engelhardt | – ( Tomdispatch.com) – Joe Biden’s got a problem — and so do I. And so, in fact, do we. At 76 years old, you’d think I’d experienced it all when it comes to this country and its presidencies. Or most of it, anyway. I’ve been around since Franklin D. Roosevelt […]

Donald Trump

“This Is War”: Inside the Secret Chat Where Far-Right Extremists Devised Their Post-Capitol Plans

ProPublica

by Logan Jaffe and Jack Gillum | – ( ProPublica ) – When the FBI arrested Edward “Jake” Lang on Jan. 16 for his alleged role in the U.S. Capitol attack, court documents show agents had followed a seemingly straightforward trail from his public social media to collect evidence. “THIS IS ME,” Lang wrote over […]

Authoritarianism

Trump was forced out, but he left a Legacy of Threats and Intimidation toward Elected Public Servants

The Conversation

By Shelley Inglis | – As the impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump approaches, federal officials are investigating threats to attack or kill members of Congress. This comes in the wake of the Capitol riot, when a mob stormed the building where members of the House and Senate were preparing to certify the presidential […]

China

That Time when America was a Superpower before Trump surrendered to China

Alfred W. McCoy

( Tomdispatch.com ) – After four years of Donald Trump’s fitful tenure, America is awakening from a long, troubled sleep to discover, like the fictional character Rip Van Winkle, that the world it once knew has changed beyond all recognition. In that classic American tale by Washington Irving published in 1819, an amiable but shiftless […]

Arab Spring

Failures of Democracy in America and the Arab Spring

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Today is ten years since Egyptian youth gathered in Tahrir Square in downtown Cairo demanding the resignation of Egypt’s brutal and corrupt Interior Minister, Habib Adly. Even those who called for the rally were surprised by the thousands of youth and workers that showed up, on Egypt’s Police Day, and […]