It is past time for the U.S. government to be wrested out of the stranglehold of evangelical conservatives. The rights of women and the LGBTQ community especially cannot be held hostage to the retrograde visions of this politically powerful faction.
Source: Truthdig
Immigrants are the “enemy” in Donald Trump’s America. The president has made the arrest, detention and deportation of immigrants the centerpiece of his domestic policies, seeing it as an effective tool to whip up racial resentment among his base and preserve his power. Even though Trump has dramatically ratcheted up the immigration enforcement machine and racist anti-immigrant rhetoric, other U.S. presidents have engaged in the mistreatment and expulsion of immigrants for decades. Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, oversaw a record 2 million deportations during his presidency.
Source: Truthdig
The past few weeks have been hellish for Americans. With one assault after another on our Constitution and our rights, it has felt like an endless stream of slaps to the face and punches to the gut.
From the decision by Federal Communications Commission Chair Ajit Pai to end net neutrality to the unconscionable late-night vote Friday by Senate Republicans on a tax reform bill that had amendments scribbled in by hand to Donald Trump’s unprecedented undoing of national monument designationsin Utah to the Supreme Court’s Muslim ban-affirming order on Monday, it feels as though the entire nation is under attack all at once.
Source: Common Dreams
The longest war in modern U.S. history approaches its 16th anniversary Saturday, and so far there is no end in sight. The war in Afghanistan began in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C., with the promise of vengeance aimed at the Taliban, hosts of al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden. But that original justification—still as morally questionable now as it was then—has gotten lost amid the open-ended rhetoric of “fighting terrorism.”
Source: Truthdig
Is it true that atrocities in Africa garner little international attention because the victims are black?
The recent kidnapping of hundreds of Nigerian girls has generated empathy and outrage worldwide, undermining such a claim. The international shame and guilt over Rwanda’s genocide, despite coming too late, also proves that global concern for African lives is not negligible. Indeed the news media often cover stories like the hunt for Joseph Kony and his exploitation of child soldiers in Uganda, the killings in Darfur, Sudan, or the armed attack on a mall in Nairobi, Kenya.
Source: Foreign Policy in Focus
While President Barack Obama reviews his strategy on Afghanistan, a perfect moment to send a strong unified message to end the war is slipping through our fingers. Whether it’s because we seem to have bought into the lies about the goals of this war or because we mistakenly feel that a Democratic president is going to come to the right conclusion on his own, one thing is clear: There’s no debate within the Democratic Party or in the White House about whether to end the war. The only thing being debated is how to continue the war.
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