Voter suppression

(TeleSur) – Georgia’s voting laws have come under scrutiny in the hotly contested race for governor. Georgia officials have expunged 107,000 people from voter registration rolls, an APM Report investigation finds. The state’s electoral board has purged an estimated 107,000 voters from the system, largely for not voting. Georgia’s “use it or lose it” law […]

Campaign Finance

New Survey Finding: Trump Likely owed his 2016 victory to ‘fake news’

contributors

Democratic defectors to Trump believed Hillary was ill or sold weapons to ISIS

African-Americans

Worse than Russian Hack: GOP Voter Suppression planned in 20 States

contributors

By Jen Herrick | ( Otherwords.org) This year, at least 20 states are considering laws that would make it harder to vote. When President Trump created the “Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity” last spring — and put notorious vote suppressor Kris Kobach at the helm — voting rights advocates had decades of good reasons […]

Campaign Finance

Gerrymandering is about Race even when it seems just “Partisan”

Juan Cole

By Olga Pierce and Kate Rabinowitz | ( ProPublica) | – – The Wisconsin case before the Supreme Court claims to be about partisanship. But race is a factor in this case and many others nationwide. The Wisconsin voting rights case before the Supreme Court has been cast as the definitive test of whether partisan […]

Donald Trump

Putin offers Comey Asylum, likens him to Snowden

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – BBC Monitoring translates the remarks of Russian President Vladimir Putin broadcast on Rosiyya 1 TV on Thursday. He responded to the remarks last week of former FBI director James Comey in his testimony before the senate, deploring Comey’s assertion, without offering any proof, of Russian interference […]

Arms Sales

First, the Soviets Collapsed: Is it America’s Turn Now?

contributors

By William J. Astore | ( Tomdispatch.com) | – – Jump into your time machine and let me transport you back to another age. It’s May 2001 and the Atlantic Monthly has just arrived in the mail. I’m tantalized by the cover article. “Russia is finished,” the magazine announces. The subtitle minces no words: “The […]

African-Americans

Even Conservative SCOTUS can’t Stomach N Carolina Voter Suppression

Juan Cole

by Andrea Germanos, staff writer | Commondreams.org | – – North Carolina’s Voter ID Law Meets ‘Its Much-Deserved Demise’ Decision by U.S. Supreme Court not to review appeals court decision on 2013 law affords ‘a huge victory against sham voter ID laws’ The Supreme Court’s decision today, said Dale Ho, director of the ACLU’s Voting […]

Civil Rights

Sen. Elizabeth Warren silenced on Floor for Reading King Letter re: Sessions

contributors

CNN International | (Video News Report with text Appendix) In an extremely rare rebuke, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren was cut off while speaking on the Senate floor. She had been reading a 1986 letter by Coretta Scott King critical of Jeff Sessions, now President Donald J. Trump’s nominee for attorney general, who was then a […]

Constitution

Reflections by a Middle Easterner on the Electoral College as a Remnant of Elite Tribalism

Juan Cole

By Hsain Ilahiane | (Informed Comment) | – – The Founding Fathers wrote the electoral college in the United States Constitution. In late summer 2004, I became a naturalized United States citizen in Des Moines, Iowa. The following November election day, with my voting card in hand, sure-footed and full of excitement, I walked over […]