Republican Party

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Ember energy consultancy reports that in the first half of 2025, the world put in 380 gigawatts of new solar capacity. That compares to 232 gigs in the first half of 2024, for a 64% increase. By the end of June, 2022, the world had only installed 90 new […]

Donald Trump

Trump’s Immigrant Gulags: A Bonanza For Private Prison Corporations

F. Douglas Stephenson

Gainesville, Fl. (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – When it comes to for-profit, private corporate incarceration of immigrants, making lots of money is like drinking salt water, the more they drink, the thirstier they get. Roman proverbs say that the more money a rich man has, the more driven and addicted he becomes to accumulating […]

Authoritarianism

Thugs R Us: How MAGA Uses Violence to Consolidate Power

Andrea Mazzarino

( Tomdispatch.com ) – President Trump, his cabinet, and those who have profited from his rise seem to revel in public displays of cruelty. Take former Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) head Elon Musk, holding a chainsaw at a televised event to celebrate the firing of civil servants. Or Trump’s White House sharing a video […]

Afghanistan

How Musk / DOGE falsely accused an Afghan Refugee and Ruined his and his Family’s Lives

ProPublica

By Avi Asher-Schapiro and Christopher Bing | – DOGE staffers exposed a sensitive U.S.-funded Afghanistan program and falsely suggested a contractor was involved in an off-books mission. ( ProPublica ) – It was early morning on April 1 when Mohammad Halimi, a 53-year-old exiled Afghan scholar, got a panicked message from his son. Halimi’s name […]

Donald Trump

Cartoonish Trump is making America a Caricature, and I should Know

Tom Engelhardt

( Tomdispatch.com ) – Sometimes I dream — in the sense of a nightmare — about bringing my parents back to this all too strange world of ours to tell them about… yes, of course, Donald J. Trump. They died long before The Apprentice even made it onto TV early in this century, so — […]

Donald Trump

From Gaza to Trump, Some of us Saw this Coming

Rebecca Gordon

( Tomdispatch.com ) – I spent the summer of 1965 arguing about the Vietnam War. I was 13, and my interlocutor was my 18-year-old camp counselor in Vermont. She was headed for U.C. Berkeley in the fall, where she would, as she later described it, “major in history and minor in rioting.” Meanwhile, I was […]

Academic Freedom

California Strikes Back: Trump Poked the Golden Bear

H. Scott Prosterman

Oakland, Ca. (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – California Governor Gavin Newsom assumed the mantle of national leadership when he announced California’s “Election Rigging Response Act.” This is in direct response to convicted felon Donald Trump, who called up Texas Governor Greg Abbott and told him to “get him five more seats in the House.” […]

Donald Trump

“I Have a Nightmare:” How Trump Is Spitting on the Grave of Martin Luther King Jr.

Clarence Lusane

( Tomdispatch.com ) – On January 20th, Donald Trump returned to the Oval Office with — at least in his mind — an aura of invincibility. A fully compliant Congress was controlled by Republicans who were, in turn, controlled by him. Conservative justices, three of whom he had appointed, dominated the Supreme Court. The defeated […]

Authoritarianism

New data shows No Kings was One of the largest Days of Protest in US history

Waging Nonviolence

The historic number of No Kings Day protesters and their expansive geographic spread are signs of a growing and durable pro-democracy movement. Erica Chenoweth, Soha Hammam, Jeremy Pressman, and Christopher Wiley Shay ( Waging Nonviolence ) – No Kings Day on June 14 was one of the largest single days of protest in United States […]