US politics

By Nick Engelfried | ( Waging Nonviolence) – When President Biden rescinded a crucial permit for the Keystone XL pipeline last week, it marked the culmination of one of the longest, highest-profile campaigns in the North American climate movement. The opposition to Keystone XL included large environmental organizations, grassroots climate activist networks, Nebraska farmers, Texas […]

Donald Trump

Can the Super Bowl end the Toxic season of Trumpism in Sports?

Juan Cole

By Robert Lipsyte | – ( Tomdispatch.com ) – Overwhelmed by the intertwined plagues of Covid-19 and Trumpism, sports didn’t stand a chance in 2020. No wonder I’m weirded out by the strange, metaphorical moments of that last disastrous year and the first days of this one. To mention just three among so many: Dr. […]

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 […]

Authoritarianism

Trump’s Coup and Burma’s Coup: What they have in Common

Reese Erlich

The Asian country’s military overthrew its government over baseless claims of voter fraud. Sound familiar? ( 48hills.org) – This week, military officers in Myanmar (formerly Burma) overthrew that nation’s democratically elected government after the party it preferred lost the parliamentary elections. The military claimed voter fraud without presenting any proof. It tried to fill the […]

National Security State

America’s Global Empire is now Costing us our own Well-Being

Medea Benjamin and Nicholas J.S. Davies

( Code Pink) – In 2004, journalist Ron Susskind quoted a Bush White House advisor, reportedly Karl Rove, as boasting, “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality.” He dismissed Susskind’s assumption that public policy must be rooted in “the reality-based community.” “We’re history’s actors,” the advisor told him, “…and […]

Featured

Republicans in Congress engage in hateful Islamophobia to defend their Islamophobe, Greene

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – In attempting to defend Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Republican Far Right (a.k.a. the Republican Party) has actually just taken her own as a role. They are performing Greene. Rep. Brian Babin (R-TX) introduced a bill to strip Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) of her seat on the Foreign Affairs committee. Omar, […]

China

Biden’s Top Foreign Policy Challenge: Avoiding a Cold War with China

Conn M. Hallinan

Taiwan and the South China Sea are the likeliest points of conflict — but conflict is not an option. ( Foreign Policy in Focus) – President Joe Biden’s administration faces a host of difficult problems, but in foreign policy its thorniest will be its relations with the People’s Republic of China. How the new administration […]

Iran

Washington and Tehran: Who will make the first move?

Oraib AlRantawi

( Middle East Monitor) – From the outside, the heated debate between Tehran and Washington seems as though it could be summarised by the question: Which side will make the first move? Tehran wants Washington, which was responsible for violating its obligations and inflicting heavy losses on Iran, to start by lifting all additional sanctions […]

Congress

After Years of Outrage Politics, RepubliQans have surrendered to the Neo-Nazi Conspiracy Theorists

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – From Sarah Palin’s alarmist and mendacious charge of death panels in the Affordable Health Act to Benghazi, where the smarmy Mike Pompeo tried to hang a terrorist attack around the neck of secretary of state Hillary Clinton (who was not in charge of military or intelligence decisions), the brand of […]