Crime

By Joaquin Sapien and Joshua Kaplan | – The Insurrection The Effort to Overturn the Election ( ProPublica) – As much as $3 million may have been raised to support the Jan. 6 rally in Washington, D.C., that preceded the attack on the Capitol, according to interviews and documents reviewed by ProPublica, with some money […]

Banking

Make them Pay Up: Pandora Leaks show that the Super-Rich rob Public of $200 bn a year in lost Tax Revenues

John Feffer

( Foreign Policy in Focus ) – The rich have always flaunted their wealth. It was rarely good enough to enjoy financial success, you had to be conspicuous about it. They build enormous homes for everyone to gawk at. They throw lavish parties. They commission paintings, statues, biographies. They endow institutions so that their names […]

Crime

More guns, pandemic stress and a police legitimacy crisis created perfect conditions for homicide spike in 2020

The Conversation

By Justin Nix | – Homicides in the U.S. spiked by almost 30% in 2020. That was the main takeaway from figures released on Sept. 27, 2021, by the FBI that showed almost uniform increases across America in the murder rate. The fact that big cities, small cities, suburbs and rural areas – in both […]

Afghanistan

Afghanistan should be Last U.S. War of Empire, Corruption and Poverty

Medea Benjamin and Nicholas J.S. Davies

( Code Pink) – Americans have been shocked by videos of thousands of Afghans risking their lives to flee the Taliban’s return to power in their country – and then by an Islamic State suicide bombing and ensuing massacre by U.S. forces that together killed at least 170 people, including 13 U.S. troops. Even as […]

Authoritarianism

Top 6 Things Trump should be Indicted for aside from Cheating on Taxes

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) The Trump organization was indicted by a New York grand jury on Wednesday and the indictment is unsealed today, according to Shayna Jacobs, Josh Dawsey, David A. Fahrenthold and Jonathan O’Connell at WaPo. The Trump Org.’s CFO, Allen Weisselberg, was also indicted. Trump himself is not named, but the trial could […]

Corruption

Could Dominion and Smartmatic take down Fox News for Libel and Reckless Disregard for the Truth?

The Conversation

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 […]