US politics

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Despite US schools’ tendency to give students several years of American history, over and over again, most of us probably have only a foggy idea who Harriet Tubman, chosen to replace Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill, was. That she was an abolitionist and helped out […]

Far Right

What GOP New Yorkers just voted for: Torture, Syria Intervention, murder of innocents

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – In the wake of his big win in New York, I want to push back once more against the normalization of Trump as a legitimate presidential candidate, given his policy positions. Let us remember what the Republicans of New York voted for (there are hardly any […]

Bill of Rights

Jailed without trial for Life? Guantanamo’s Lawlessness may outlast the Obama Administration

contributors

By Karen J. Greenberg | (Tomdispatch.com) | – – Can you believe it? We’re in the last year of the presidency of the man who, on his first day in the Oval Office, swore that he would close Guantánamo, and yet it and everything it represents remains part of our all-American world. So many years […]

Displaced and Refugees

Who are the Syrian Refugees, really, and where are they? Hint: Mainly women and children, & not in the West

contributors

By Jeffrey H. Cohen | (The Conversation) | – – Editor’s note: This article is part of our collaboration with Point Taken, a new program from WGBH that will next air on Tuesday, April 19 on PBS and online at pbs.org. The show features fact-based debate on major issues of the day, without the shouting. […]

Barack Obama

6 Policies Obama wants Saudi Arabia to Change

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – After his critical comments in an interview in The Atlantic last month, Barack Obama’s visit to Saudi Arabia is going to be awkward, as DPA rightly says. The president accused the Gulf states of always trying to push the US into war for the accomplishment of […]

journalism

Then they took the “Info” out of Infotainment; Corporate ‘News’ Cashes in on Fascism

contributors

By Tom Engelhardt | ( Tomdispatch.com) | – – Think of the 2016 presidential campaign as the political equivalent of Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice. It’s loud; there are plenty of abusive special effects; the critics hate it, but the crowds turn out; a media company or three rake in the dough; and foreigners […]

Arab Americans

Arab-Americans, including ‘Watan’ Newspaper, Endorse Bernie Sanders

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Many Arab-Americans want the Jewish candidate to be president. The prominent Arabic-language newspaper for that community in Southern California, Watan (“A Nation”), has endorsed Bernie Sanders. This outcome is not as strange as it might appear. Arab-Americans (who include Christians and Muslims) had been split between […]

Nuclear weapons

Do Donald Trump’s ‘Terrifying’ Nuclear Threats endanger You?

contributors

By Michelle Bentley | (The Conversation) | – – Donald Trump has once again violated all mainstream thinking to advance a dangerous and deviant policy, this time on nuclear weapons. The wannabe Republican presidential nominee recently said the US needs a policy of “unpredictability”. This means the US would be able to use nuclear weapons […]

Bernie Sanders

Bernie Sanders at Vatican: Pope has played historical Role in trying to Create a new World Economy

contributors

Rome Reports in English | (Video News Report) | – – Rome Reports: “Bernie Sanders speaks at the Vatican”