Constitution

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – 1. The Fourth of July celebrates a revolutionary event. January 6 was a counter-revolutionary event. Why do I say this? The chief feature of the Declaration of Independence was not that it announced an insurrection (or rather confirmed one already announced by some 90 councils and other local bodies). Insurrections […]

Bill of Rights

The Declaration of Independence wasn’t really complaining about King George, and 5 other surprising facts for July Fourth

The Conversation

By Woody Holton | – Editor’s note: Americans may think they know a lot about the Declaration of Independence, but many of those ideas are elitist and wrong, as historian Woody Holton explains. His forthcoming book “Liberty is Sweet: The Hidden History of the American Revolution” shows how independence and the Revolutionary War were influenced […]

African-Americans

If we truly honored Juneteenth, we would end the exception in the 13th amendment

Waging Nonviolence

By Emma Jordan-Simpson | – (Waging Nonviolence ) – In my inbox this morning from a major nonprofit organization that should have known better was a Juneteenth celebratory greeting: “We proudly celebrate Juneteenth, the day slavery finally came to an end throughout the South — historically a monumental feat for American history and now a […]

al-Qaeda

Can Guantánamo Ever Be Shut Down? Dealing with the Forever Prison of America’s Forever Wars

Karen J. Greenberg

( Tomdispatch.com) – The Guantánamo conundrum never seems to end. Twelve years ago, I had other expectations. I envisioned a writing project that I had no doubt would be part of my future: an account of Guantánamo’s last 100 days. I expected to narrate in reverse, the episodes in a book I had just published, […]

Bill of Rights

Yes, Speech can Incite Violence: What Decades of Research Show about Trump’s Impeachment Trial

The Conversation

By Kurt Braddock | – Senators, acting in the impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump that begins on Feb. 9, will soon have to decide whether to convict the former president for inciting a deadly, violent insurrection at the Capitol building on Jan. 6. A majority of House members, including 10 Republicans, took the […]

Constitution

Conservatives worked for Decades to build an Imperial Presidency, and it Gave them Trump and now Biden

Juan Cole

By Tom Engelhardt | – ( Tomdispatch.com) – Joe Biden’s got a problem — and so do I. And so, in fact, do we. At 76 years old, you’d think I’d experienced it all when it comes to this country and its presidencies. Or most of it, anyway. I’ve been around since Franklin D. Roosevelt […]

Constitution

How Trump’s language shifted in the weeks leading up to the Capitol riot: Linguists can Tell

The Conversation

By Roger J. Kreuz and Leah Cathryn Windsor | – On Jan. 6, the world witnessed how language can incite violence. One after another, a series of speakers at the “Save America” rally at the Ellipse in Washington redoubled the messages of anger and outrage. This rhetoric culminated with a directive by the president to […]

Constitution

Is impeaching President Trump ‘pointless revenge’? Not if it sends a message to future presidents

The Conversation

By Michael Blake | – A House majority, including 10 Republicans, voted on Jan. 13 to impeach President Trump for “incitement of insurrection.” The vote will initiate a trial in the Senate – but that trial will likely not be finished before Trump’s term of office comes to an end on Jan. 20. There is […]

Congress

McConnell Cynically used the Trump-Monster to get Tax Cuts and SCOTUS, Now Dropping him like a Squeezed Orange

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – In Chapter 7 of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, the enormously wealthy Jay Gatsby becomes concerned about word getting out that he is having an affair with Daisy, who is married to Tom, and abruptly stops having the big parties he had been throwing, to which assorted society flotsam […]