(Tomdispatch.com ) – This seems like a strange moment to be writing about “the deep state” with the country entering a new phase of open and obvious aboveground chaos and instability. Just as we had gotten used to the fact that the president is, in effect, under congressional indictment, just as we had settled into […]
White Anxiety and Imperial Christianity: The GOP Pathologies that Twin them with Trump
(Tomdispatch.com ) – On the Thursday of the second week of the House Intelligence Committee’s impeachment hearings, former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara had a special guest on his weekly podcast, Carl Bernstein. It was Bernstein, with fellow Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward, whose reporting broke open the story of how the Committee to Re-elect the […]
Extorting Ukraine is Bad Enough: But Trump Has Done Much Worse
By Rebecca Gordon | – ( Tomdispatch.com) – Recently a friend who follows the news a bit less obsessively than I do said, “I thought George W. Bush was bad, but it seems like Donald Trump is even worse. What do you think?” “Well,” I replied, “in terms of causing death and destruction, I suspect […]
Trump’s Plan to Pardon War Criminals is Outrageous, but the Higher-Ups were Never even Charged
By Rebecca Gordon | – (Tomdispatch.com) – Memorial Day has come and gone and President Trump did not issue his pardons after all. There was substantial evidence that he was planning to use the yearly moment honoring the country’s war dead to grant executive clemency to several U.S. soldiers and at least one military contractor. […]
How the Mideast Officer Corps and Trump derailed the Arab Spring– and Hope
( Tomdispatch.com ) – “Al-Shebab,” said my student Jerry early in the fall 2010 semester. “We’re calling our small group al-Shebab. It means ‘The Youth.’” From his name alone, I wouldn’t have guessed his background, but he was proud of his family’s Egyptian roots and had convinced his classmates to give their group an Arabic […]
The Exceptionalism of the Warmongers: John Bolton and Mike Pompeo Defy the International Criminal Court
In its rejection of the court, Trump is turning his back on the international law the United States helped establish at Nuremberg
A Well-Regulated Militia in the Hands of an Out-of-Control President: Is Nat’l Guard his Toy?
(Tomdispatch.com) – A young friend is seriously considering joining her state’s National Guard. She’s a world-class athlete, but also a working-class woman from a rural background competing in a rich person’s sport. Between seasons, she works for a local farm and auctioneer to put together the money for equipment and travel. Each season, raising the […]
Trump’s Republic of Lies: Once to every nation comes the moment to decide
Pilate responds with his show-stopping query: “What is truth?”
Life at Trump Speed: Mental Whiplash and Forgotten Outrages
San Francisco (Tomdispatch.com) – I took my first hit of speed in 1970 during my freshman year in college. That little white pill — Dexedrine — was a revelation. It made whatever I was doing absolutely fascinating. Amphetamine sharpened my focus and banished all appetites except a hunger for knowledge. I spent that entire night […]