Republican Party

Trump may want out of Afghanistan, but this so-called “Peace Deal” with Taliban isn’t Likely to Succeed

By Madhav Joshi | – After 18 months of negotiations, the U.S. and the Taliban signed a peace deal on Feb. 29. It is expected that the deal will provide a plan for a comprehensive Afghan peace process. The deal addresses the security of foreign troops; the Taliban’s commitments to sever ties with terrorist organizations; […]

Donald Trump

Rudy Giuliani’s sinister Foreign Policy Coup on Behalf of the World’s Shadiest Customers

Bob Dreyfuss

(Tomdispatch.com) – Imagine, just for the sake of argument, that the president of the United States was an arrogant, information-challenged, would-be autocrat with a soft spot for authoritarian leaders from China, Russia, and North Korea to Egypt (“my favorite dictator”), Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. And then, suppose that very president, while hollowing out the State […]

Corruption

Can’t we All get a Presidential Pardon from Life Imprisonment in the Trump Penal Colony?

Tom Engelhardt

(Tomdispatch.com) – Here’s the truth of it: I’d like a presidential pardon. Really, I would. And I think I deserve it more than Michael Milken or Rod Blagojevich or — because it’s obviously heading our way — Roger Stone (not to speak of Michael Flynn and Paul Manafort). Unlike the rest of them, I genuinely […]

Donald Trump

Trump Spending $1.2 Trillion a year on War, with Nothing to Show for It

Tomdispatch

By Mandy Smithberger | – Hold on to your helmets! It’s true the White House is reporting that its proposed new Pentagon budget is only $740.5 billion, a relatively small increase from the previous year’s staggering number. In reality, however, when you also include war and security costs buried in the budgets of other agencies, […]

China

Maybe Try Friendship? Hatred and Enmity are bad Politics for America and a World in Crisis

Richard Penaskovic

We live in an era where animosity and even rage are the norm in the political arena. Both Democrats and Republicans are deeply divided in Congress so that little can be done legislatively. Correspondingly, millions of families are often split down the middle in terms of their political views with relatives divided among Democrats, Republicans […]

Donald Trump

How Democracy Ends: Not With a Bang But With a Whimper

Karen J. Greenberg

By Karen J. Greenberg | – (Tomdispatch.com) – In this fast-paced century, rife with technological innovation, we’ve grown accustomed to the impermanence of things. Whatever is here now will likely someday vanish, possibly sooner than we imagine. Movies and music that once played on our VCRs and stereos have given way to infinite choices in […]

Donald Trump

Anti-Science and Opportunistic: Trump and Iran’s Ayatollahs both Play down Coronavirus

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Christine Romans at CNN wonders if Trump’s news conference on Wednesday evening on the Covid-19 coronavirus was his “Mission Accomplished” moment. After he invaded Iraq in the spring of 2003, George W. Bush gave a triumphant speech that May about how war was now good for humankind beneath a banner […]

Donald Trump

Trump’s so-called Mideast ‘peace plan’ dispossesses Palestinians

The Conversation

By Rachad Antonius | – Nothing is further from a peace effort than the plan that Israel and the Donald Trump administration have concocted for Palestine. Previous American administrations have all been pro-Israel, and they’ve made every effort to circumvent international law. But previous U.S. administrations have never formally challenged international law, and they considered […]

Donald Trump

The Trumps don’t have a Right to the Taj Mahal

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Trumps visited the Taj Mahal during their trip to India. They didn’t have a right to do so. The building is properly the mausoleum of Mumtaz Mahall, literally “Queen Mumtaz” in Mughal Persian. It was constructed of white marble in Agra between 1631 and 1648 by the Mughal emperor […]