Constitution

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The US Supreme Court on Friday, by a 5-4 Republican Party majority, temporarily ruled to allow Trump to divert monies dedicated by Congress to the Defense Department budget to wall-building in the Southwest. If the court makes the ruling permanent, it will be attacking the principle of the “power of […]

Congress

Bipartisan House Vote Amends Pentagon Funding to forbid Trump to attack Iran

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Ed Kilgore at New York Magazine reports that the House of Representatives has passed the National Defense Authorization Act with a number of riders. One, which passed 251-170, was an amendment forbidding Trump to launch a war on Iran without explicit Congressional approval, except in a case of clear self-defense. […]

Bill of Rights

Your Fourth of July and My Fourth of July (in the Age of Trump)

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor | (Informed Comment) | – – Revised for the the Age of Trump: Your Fourth of July is tanks in the streets. My Fourth of July is James Madison’s warning, “A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty.” Your Fourth of July is unbathed refugee […]

Constitution

A Wroth Mueller Comes for Nancy Pelosi: Rashida Tlaib is Right

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Bob Mueller measures his words, but he is as Merriam Webster’s thesaurus has it, angered, apoplectic, ballistic, choleric, enraged, foaming, fuming, furious, hopping, horn-mad, hot, incensed, indignant, inflamed (also enflamed), infuriate, infuriated, irate, ireful, livid, mad, outraged, rabid, rankled, riled, riley, roiled, sore, steamed up, steaming, teed off, ticked, wrathful, […]

Constitution

Before Trump invoked Executive Privilege he Should have Remembered Nixon

The Conversation

Nixon’s own Justice Department could not find a single example in history of anyone invoking executive privilege in an impeachment inquiry

Bill of Rights

Why the Assange indictment is a Threat to the US First Amendment

The Conversation

The American government has traditionally abstained from charging publishers of classified information for the crime of publication

Constitution

Mueller thinks Trump Committed Obstruction: Why he Wrote to Barr and why Barr Lied

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment): Devlin Barrett and Matt Zapotosky at WaPo broke the story that Special Counsel Bob Mueller wrote a sharp letter to Attorney General William Barr to protest the 4-page summary Barr put out before releasing the Mueller report to the public. The letter was private but someone just leaked it to WaPo. […]

Bill of Rights

Landmark 1st Amendment Ruling striking down Texas Law Banning Israel Boycott won by CAIR

contributors

By Arsalan Bukhari | – WASHINGTON, D.C. (CAIR News Release) – The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization today welcomed this afternoon’s landmark victory in CAIR’s First Amendment lawsuit on behalf of Bahia Amawi, the Texas speech language pathologist who lost her job because she refused to […]

Bill of Rights

When it Comes to Actively Defending Religious Minorities, Trump is no George Washington; but he Should Be

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – If Trump were actually acting as a president, he could and would tamp down the terrifying spread of hatred against Muslims that has resulted in several mass murders at mosques in the English-speaking world in recent years. All he would have to do is come out and say that ordinary […]