US politics

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment)- – Washington is obsessed by the story put out by US intelligence agencies that Russia tried to interfere in the US presidential election. But for reasons of self-preservation, the blockbuster story just hitting the headlines that an Israeli operative was plotting to get up scandals to unseat British members […]

Donald Trump

Liberal Berlin Fights Fake Nazi anti-Muslim News by Bannon’s Breitbart

contributors

TeleSur | – – The “news” story portrayed a deliberate attack on a Dortmund church by a “mob” of Muslims. Far-right white nationalist website Breitbart has been criticized by German authorities and media for falsifying a story of a new year’s eve where a church was supposedly set on fire by a group of Muslims […]

Constitution

Reflections by a Middle Easterner on the Electoral College as a Remnant of Elite Tribalism

Juan Cole

By Hsain Ilahiane | (Informed Comment) | – – The Founding Fathers wrote the electoral college in the United States Constitution. In late summer 2004, I became a naturalized United States citizen in Des Moines, Iowa. The following November election day, with my voting card in hand, sure-footed and full of excitement, I walked over […]

Democratic Party

Those Times the NSA Hacked America’s Allies

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The hysteria about Russian hacking of the Democratic National Committee and the Republican National Committee servers and the phishing scam run on Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager, John Podesta, is short on evidence and high in self-righteousness. Much of the report issued Friday was old boilerplate about […]

Bill of Rights

Bruited Trump pick for Nat’l Intel shreds 4th Amendment, wants Total Surveillance

contributors

TeleSur | – – On Thursday multiple mainstream media outlets reported that U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has picked former Republican Senator Dan Coats, an outspoken advocate of illegal domestic surveillance programs, to be director of national intelligence. While yet to be formally announced, anonymous Trump transition team members told multiple outlets that the pick would […]

Donald Trump

Circus of Liars: How Trump & GOP are Twisted into Pretzels over Putin Hack

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Donald J. Trump has picked another fight with the elders of his own Republican Party, over whether Russia engaged in hacking aimed at influencing the US election. Trump has maintained that it is impossible to trace hacking attempts, that it isn’t clear who was behind them, […]

Donald Trump

Violence brought us Trump, but Nonviolent Protest will Stop Him

contributors

Kazu Haga | ( Waging Nonviolence ) What’s next? That is the big question facing this country after the election. And many people have been sharing their thoughts on that over social and traditional media, over dinner conversations, at the office and on the bus with complete strangers. And, as expected, people are all over […]

Bush

Top 4 Ways Bush even more Outrageously Dissed the Intelligence Community

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Philip Mudd, former deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency counter-terrorist center and FBI National Security Branch, has been on CNN maintaining that there was a big difference between how the intelligence agencies were treated by the Bush administration and how the PEOTUS is treating them. […]

Authoritarianism

Some Animals are Better: An American Version of the One-Party State

contributors

By Tom Engelhardt | ( Tomdispatch.com ) | – – Know thyself. It was what came to mind in the wake of Donald Trump’s victory and my own puzzling reaction to it. And while that familiar phrase just popped into my head, I had no idea it was so ancient, or Greek, or for that […]