US politics

By Nicholas Tampio | After the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, a commission formed to figure out why the attacks occurred. One of the culprits, according to the commission’s 9/11 report, was “lack of imagination.” With few exceptions, the report stated, government officials could not imagine that Osama bin Laden and his affiliates, hidden in […]

Donald Trump

Pompeo, Complicit in Ukraine Call, hides behind the State Department he Persecuted in Benghazi Conspiracy Theory

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, a Kansas oil man in the back pocket of Koch Industries and a mealy-mouthed convert to High Trumpism, issued a shot across the bow of Congress on Tuesday. He sent a letter, which he also tweeted, in which he tried to take cover behind the […]

censorship

On Khashoggi Murder Anniversary: Trump’s other Dangerous Conversations besides Ukraine, with Saudi Bin Salman

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – CNN reports that, in addition to Trump’s Ukraine conversation last July, the transcripts of his telephone calls with Saudi crown prince Mohammed Bin Salman and Russian president Vladimir Putin were also stored in a super highly classified server. The implication is that his staff heard him commit crimes in the […]

CIA

Trump isn’t the First: the Government has often Persecuted Whistleblowers

The Conversation

By Jennifer M. Pacella | – When President Donald Trump likened a whistleblower’s White House sources to spies and made a lightly veiled reference to execution, he highlighted a longstanding peril facing those who come forward to alert the public to governmental wrongdoing. Blowing the whistle carries major risks. BlueSkyImage/Shutterstock.com In many instances, whistleblowers find […]

Constitution

Impeach Trump for his Crimes against the People, not just Against the Bidens & Dems

Peter Certo

(Afterwords.org) – Democrats need to take Trump’s crimes against people and the planet as seriously as those against Joe Biden. “Has Trump finally gone too far?” There’s a headline you’ve seen a thousand times. At last, Speaker Nancy Pelosi says he has. A whistleblower says Trump withheld foreign aid to Ukraine to pressure the country’s […]

Constitution

Spies and the White House have a history of running wild without congressional oversight

The Conversation

By Charles Tiefer | – At the heart of the current crisis over President Donald Trump’s dealings with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is an intelligence whistleblower whose information has finally made it into public view. The whistleblower’s complaint about Trump’s interaction with Zelenskiy was initially withheld from the House Intelligence Committee, something which the committee […]

Constitution

Trump’s Ukraine Plotting Has Been Happening in Plain Sight. So Why Didn’t We See It?

ProPublica

It’s not just that there’s a lot to pay attention to.

Constitution

Founders: Removal from office is not the only purpose of impeachment

The Conversation

By Clark D. Cunningham | – As Congress moves toward a possible formal impeachment of President Donald Trump, they should consider words spoken at the Constitutional Convention, when the Founders explained that impeachment was intended to have many important purposes, not just removing a president from office. A critical debate took place on July 20, […]

Pentagon

Bestselling Pentagon Fiction: Beware of Defense Secretaries Pledging Reform

William D. Hartung

Co-author: Mandy Smithberger | – (Tomdispatch.com) – For the Pentagon, happy days are here again (if they ever left). With a budget totaling more than $1.4 trillion for the next two years, the department is riding high, even as it attempts to set the stage for yet more spending increases in the years to come. […]