Search Results for: 2017-07-26

I. Introduction Much of U.S. governance is held together by goodwill, unwritten norms, and the ideals that “that would never happen” and “no one would ever do that.” Every hope of continued reliance on these norms was “shattered” on January 6, 2021, when armed insurrectionists invaded the U.S. Capitol. Under the direction of the President, [...]

The UN announced Saturday that 50 countries have now ratified a treaty seeking to destroy all nuclear weapons and permanently ban their use—the minimum number required for the treaty to become law. The UN completed negotiations on the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons at its New York headquarters in July 2017. The treaty [...]

“The goal is to dominate the street.” – US President Donald J. Trump, June 1, 2020 There are disturbing connections. Before openly embracing the “Proud Boys” during his first debate with Democrat opponent Joe Biden, Donald J. Trump praised the value of “good genes” in Minnesota. Though such a seemingly “positive” evocation might not normally [...]

On July 29th, 2020, the Parliament of Turkey passed a controversial bill to regulate content posted on social media platforms, which will come into effect on October 1st, 2020. The bill is expected to have a chilling effect on the freedom of speech and expression within the country. Several human rights groups are viewing it [...]

Yesterday, the CEOs of Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Apple testified before the House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee in a hearing on “Online Platforms and Market Power.” As Congress takes up the question of market power in the tech sector, the time is ripe to consider the issue in our broader economy. For decades, corporations in a [...]

“The masses have followed the magicians again and again…Socrates and Plato were the first to take up the struggle against them in clear awareness of what was at stake.” – Karl Jaspers, Reason and Anti-Reason in our Time (1952) On absolutely all matters of existential survival, individual or collective, candor is indispensable. In connection with [...]

On Friday, June 26, 2020, the Supreme Court of the United States decided a Suspension Clause challenge to expedited immigration proceedings.  In the widely anticipated judgment, the Court determined that no habeas could be brought as the original habeas petitioner was not in fact asking for the habeas relief of release. In so many words, [...]

Over the past year, and increasingly in the last few months, the people of Hong Kong have taken to the streets as China has been on a spree of introducing draconian laws, targeting individual civil liberties and constantly threatening Hong Kong’s autonomy, with a new security law being the latest addition. China seeks to bypass [...]

1.  There’s something happening here; What it is ain’t exactly clear On Sunday, May 31, 2020, I posted on my Facebook that we should expect the repression to come soon. And almost like predictable clockwork, the repression started the next day. We can note the teargassing and flash grenading of peaceful demonstrators and international press [...]

For those inclined to question whether Donald Trump would actually be so brazen as to straight up take over the apparatus of U.S. foreign policy purely to boost his own reelection prospects, bear this in mind. We already know that Donald Trump is willing to hijack an entity organized to serve the public interest and [...]