Donald Trump

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – I don’t approve of all the loud saber-rattling in Washington on Russia. For reasons I’ll explain below, I nevertheless don’t think Russia has a right to nibble at Ukrainian territory. Although I think Washington over-uses sanctions and in a broad-stroke way that inflicts a lot of harm on innocents, carefully […]

Authoritarianism

Have Sinema and Manchin Tolled the death Knell of Free and Fair Elections for a Decade?

H. Scott Prosterman

Oakland, CA (Special to Informed Comment) – In this Brave New World of evolving lexicons, “gerrymandering,” a dirty word to begin with; has become a euphemism for “vote-rigging.” Lessons learned in high school Civics classes about the electoral and re-districting processes are now quaintly outdated, as Republican-dominated state houses do all they can to ensure […]

Donald Trump

Biden’s First Year vs. Trump’s First Year: Are you Friggin’ Kidding me with this “Failed Presidency” Idiocy?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Republican outlets like Politico and Fox and the Wall Street Journal (the latter two echo chambers for reactionary Australian billionaire Rupert Murdoch) have been asking whether Biden’s is a failed presidency. The stupid gives me vertigo. After the lunacy Trump put the country through, even if Biden had had fewer […]

Authoritarianism

Facebook Hosted Surge of Misinformation and Insurrection Threats in Months Leading Up to Jan. 6 Attack, Records Show

ProPublica

By Craig Silverman, ProPublica, Craig Timberg, The Washington Post, Jeff Kao, ProPublica, and Jeremy B. Merrill, The Washington Post | – Co-published with The Washington Post The Insurrection The Effort to Overturn the Election ( ProPublica ) – Facebook groups swelled with at least 650,000 posts attacking the legitimacy of Joe Biden’s victory between Election […]

al-Qaeda

Bin Laden and Trump: Two Bookends to America’s Imperial Decline

Foreign Policy in Focus

By Walden Bello | – The end of 2021 and the beginning of a new year is a convenient time to take stock of the causes of America’s decline. This past year saw both Washington’s inglorious exit from Afghanistan after 20 years in the country that had served as the launching pad for its direct […]

Authoritarianism

Selling Out Democracy: Corporations are again Backing Pols who Tried to Overthrow President Biden

OtherWords

By Kyle Herrig | – ( Otherwords.org) – One year ago, the foundation of our democracy was jeopardized in a full-blown coup attempt by seditionists egged on by former president Donald Trump. People died. Confederate flags were waved inside the Capitol. People with zip ties and weapons were ready to do harm or even kill […]

Donald Trump

Jan. 6 Coup attempt became Republican Road Map: Whether democracy survives is up to us

John Feffer

( Otherwords.org ) – The defeat of Donald Trump in 2020 was supposed to put an end to America’s delusional national politics. The quashing of the January 6 insurrection — and the brief, near-unanimous revulsion among members of Trump’s party for that violence — provided some hope that the fever dream had passed. But the […]

Donald Trump

Capitol assault: the real reason Trump and the crowd almost killed US democracy

The Conversation

By Stephen Reicher, Alex Haslam, Evangelos Ntontis, and Klara Jurstakova | – It was the moment that could have brought US democracy to its knees. One year ago, around noon on January 6, 2021, Donald Trump gave the concluding speech to a “Stop the Steal” rally in Washington DC. Within an hour, protesters attacked and […]

Authoritarianism

In 1953, the Republican Party overthrew the Iranian Government; on 1/6/21 it used the Same Techniques against the elected President

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – On January 6, 2021, Trump attempted to make a coup and remain in power despite losing the election to Joe Biden. Although many American pundits speak of Trump’s action as unprecedented, actually the Washington elite has a long history of making or backing coups d’etat in other countries. One of […]