US politics

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The US plans to send another 500 troops to Iraq to help with the massive Mosul campaign, which will involve the Iraqi army and its allies, the Kurdistan paramilitary Peshmerga, hard line Shiite militias, and Sunni Arab tribal levies. US troops will not engage in war-fighting […]

Arms Sales

America’s New Reality: Mad Bombers, Merchants of Death, & Lawmaking Harlots

contributors

By Tom Engelhardt | ( Tomdispatch.com ) | – – Recently, sorting through a pile of old children’s books, I came across a volume, That Makes Me Mad!, which brought back memories. Written by Steve Kroll, a long-dead friend, it focused on the eternally frustrating everyday adventures of Nina, a little girl whose life regularly […]

Environmentalism

Native American Rights and Health versus Pipeline Cowboys

contributors

By Chip Ward | ( Tomdispatch.com ) | – – Americans who don’t live in the West may think that the historic clash of Native Americans and pioneering settlers is long past because the Indians were, after all, defeated and now drive cars, watch television, and shop at Walmart. Not so. That classic American narrative […]

Arab Americans

Mr. Robot’s Rami Malek: First Minority Awardee for Best Actor in a Drama in 18 Years

contributors

TeleSur | – – It took nearly two decades, but the the first [minority] actor to win an Emmy for the role of Best Actor in a Drama has just been named. Egyptian-American Rami Malek swooped the award Sunday night, for his demiurgic role as Elliott Alderson in the drama-thriller television series, Mr. Robot. Malek […]

Domestic Terrorism

Dear Generation Z: So sorry for bequeathing to you terrorism hysteria and all those Wars

contributors

By Peter Van Buren | ( Tomdispatch.com) | – – I recently sent my last kid off for her senior year of college. There are rituals to such moments, and because dad-confessions are not among them, I just carried boxes and kept quiet. But what I really wanted to say to her — rather than […]

Far Right

Trump’s Behavior like Male Chimp Dominance Ritual: Jane Goodall

contributors

TeleSur | – – Chimpanzees throw rocks and cans at their rivals as “dominance rituals,” Goodall said, which in many ways reminds her of Donald Trump. While different in looks, U.S. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and chimpanzees may have a lot in common, famed anthropologist Jane Goodall said, as many of his behaviors and […]

Climate Change

Is the Native American pipeline resistance in N. Dakota about climate justice?

contributors

By Kyle Powys Whyte | (The Conversation) | – – Over the past months, hundreds of indigenous persons and their allies have gathered near the crossing of the Missouri and Cannon Ball rivers in the ancestral territories of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe. Using nonviolent means, their goal is to stop the building of the […]

Guns

Trump: Disarm Sec. Clinton’s bodyguards: & “let’s see what happens to her.”

contributors

CNN | (Video News Report) | – – “During a Miami rally, Donald Trump wondered aloud what would happen to Hillary Clinton should her Secret Service detail be disarmed, saying “take their guns away, let’s see what happens to her.” CNN: “Trump: Take guns from Clinton security, see what happens”

Authoritarianism

“This Parrot is no More”: The 2016 Presidential Election did not Take Place

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) The French sociologist and philosopher Jean Baudrillard wrote a book in 1991 entitled The Gulf War did not Take Place . In the same way, the 2016 presidential election did not take place. Baudrillard did not mean to say, of course, that no war was prosecuted by the US […]