Constitution

By Farrah Hassen | – ( Otherwords.org ) – Growing up in the Southern California suburbs, government surveillance never worried me. But my Syrian-American parents were more cautious. They would often warn me against talking about politics over the phone — in case Big Brother was snooping. As a teenager, I dismissed their concerns. “Listen, […]

Civil Rights

The Empire’s New Clothes: The Veneer of Accountability Is Wearing Thin in Twenty-First-Century America

Karen J. Greenberg

( Tomdispatch.com ) – If you watched TV in the 1960s and 1970s as I did, you would undoubtedly have come away with the idea that this country’s courts, law enforcement agencies, and the laws they aimed to honor added up to a system in which justice was always served. In those years, for instance, […]

Bill of Rights

State Power will replace Roe Abortion right if leaked Alito opinion prevails in Supreme Court

The Conversation

By Morgan Marietta, UMass Lowell | – Draft opinions circulated among Supreme Court justices are meant to allow for deliberation and editing before a final version is released. They are not the last word, nor ready for public reaction. But on the evening of May 2, 2022, Politico published a bombshell: a leaked draft of […]

Authoritarianism

Trump knew of Capitol Breach when he Tweeted against Pence; had Conspired Criminally with Eastman: Jan 6 Committee

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The January 6 Select Committee in the House of Representatives showed its hand for the first time on Wednesday, alleging in a court filing that Donald J. Trump and attorney John Eastman formed a criminal conspiracy for the purpose of overthrowing the elected government of the United States. The Committee […]

Authoritarianism

The Disloyalty to the United States of Trump and the Republican National Committee

Scott Corey

Berkeley, Ca. (Special to Informed Comment) – On February 4, the Republican National Committee voted to censure two party members. The charge was that investigating the January 6 attack on Congress is, “persecuting individuals engaged in legitimate political discourse that had nothing to do with the attack.” RNC thereby asserts that only the rioters are […]

Arab Americans

Islamophobia and the Capitol Insurrection: How the FBI Ignored White Radicals While Spying 24/7 on Muslim Americans

Juan Cole

This is my new column at Tomdispatch.com . After you give it a read, do visit the link for the original to see Tom Engelhardt’s incisive introduction. ( Tomdispatch.com ) – Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson excused one of the leaders of the extremist Oath Keepers organization implicated in the January 6th insurrection by describing […]

Congress

“No Rights which the White Man was Bound to Respect” What SCOTUS once Ruled about a Black Woman, as Biden prepares to Nominate One

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Associate Justice Stephen Breyer announced on Wednesday that he would retire this summer at the end of the present term of the Supreme Court. Biden made a campaign promise to nominate an African-American woman to the court, and Democrats expect him to follow through. Arguably, Biden would not be president […]

Authoritarianism

Have Sinema and Manchin Tolled the death Knell of Free and Fair Elections for a Decade?

H. Scott Prosterman

Oakland, CA (Special to Informed Comment) – In this Brave New World of evolving lexicons, “gerrymandering,” a dirty word to begin with; has become a euphemism for “vote-rigging.” Lessons learned in high school Civics classes about the electoral and re-districting processes are now quaintly outdated, as Republican-dominated state houses do all they can to ensure […]

Bill of Rights

Gitmo’s Shameful Twentieth Anniversary

Foreign Policy in Focus

By Farrah Hassen | – ( Foreign Policy in Focus) – The U.S. prison at the Guantánamo Bay naval base reached its shameful 20th anniversary of operations on January 11 — with a legacy marked by the detention of nearly 800 Muslim men and boys, the majority of them held without charge or trial for […]