Crime

By Nancy Costello | – Free speech advocates have long believed that suing a news organization threatens free speech. Democracy needs a press to be free to report, without fear or favor, the facts as it sees them. But recent legal actions against news organizations indicate that the First Amendment provides sufficient free speech protection, […]

Authoritarianism

Tragedies, Farces and Trump’s Coup d’état: The History of an Idea

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Amy Gardner at the Washington Post got the scoop. In an hour-long telephone call to Georgia officials, including the the secretary of state, Trump browbeat them and hinted around that he could arrange jail time for them or foment unrest or spoil the January 5 senatorial run-off unless they found […]

Corruption

Could Trump go to Jail for Payoff to Porn Star Stormy Daniels?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The New York County (or Manhattan) District Attorney, Cyrus Vance, Jr., has been scrutinizing Donald Trump’s illegalities for some years now, but appears to have been reluctant to lodge charges while Trump was president. The Barr Department of Justice maintains that a sitting president cannot be indicted, though such a […]

Authoritarianism

The Mobster-in-Chief: Will the November Election Be Decided in the Streets?

John Feffer

( Tomdispatch.com ) – The white mobs didn’t care whom they killed as long as the victims were Black. They murdered people in public with guns and rocks. They set fire to houses and slaughtered families trying to escape the flames. In East St. Louis in July 1917, white vigilantes lynched Blacks with impunity. It […]

Corruption

Did Trump Throw Kurds under the Bus for Turkey because of his Istanbul Revenue Stream?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The New York Times reported, in the scoop of the decade, that Trump has $420 million in loans and other obligations coming due in the next four years, and that most of his core businesses hemorrhage money, so that he has no way to pay them back. In the past […]

Banking

ODNI Blamed Syrian Banks, but Did the West’s Deutsche Bank Facilitate ISIL Finances in Mosul?

Middle East Monitor

By Hala Nouhad Nasreddine | – ( Middle East Monitor) The Islamic State’s infamous rule over vast areas of Iraq during 2014 and 2016 not only led to a humanitarian crisis, but also left the country’s economy depleted. Its expansion in Iraq, marked by its control over vast areas of the country, most notably capturing […]

Crime

Wagging the Dog: As Trump and Iran square off on Venezuela Oil Shipments, will US Go full Pirate of the Gulf?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Trita Parsi writing at Responsible Statecraft wonders if the Trump administration is planning to widen its piracy against Iranian vessels on the high seas as part of an October surprise. Trump had four Iranian oil tankers seized in August, alleging that they were heading for Venezuela. The problem? There is […]

Drugs

Isolation and Opioids During the Pandemic

Tomdispatch

By Mattea Kramer | – ( Tomdispatch.com) – In our new era of nearly unparalleled upheaval, as a pandemic ravages the bodies of some and the minds of nearly everyone, as the associated economic damage disposes of the livelihoods of many, and as even the promise of democracy fades, the people whose lives were already […]

Authoritarianism

Who is Murdering Iraq’s anti-corruption Youth Protesters?

Human Rights Watch

Human Rights Watch (Beirut) – Unidentified gunmen have since August 14, 2020, assassinated two protesters and wounded another four, all linked to a youth protest group with political aspirations in Basra, in southern Iraq, Human Rights Watch said today. They are the most recent victims of killings of hundreds of protesters in Baghdad and southern […]