Bill Otis believes America must maintain draconian policies to be tough on crime. No wonder Trump picked him for a key administration post. By Matt Ford — Bill Otis doesn’t think too highly of the criminal justice reform movement in America today. Last year, the Georgetown University law professor told NPR that mandatory-minimum sentences were a “big success,” citing the drop-off in crime since the 1980s. In blog posts, he’s even more blunt: “Q:…
By Cliff DuRand, Truthout — Today in the US, as well as globally, we find ourselves in multiple reinforcing crises. There is a crisis of legitimacy in established institutions ranging from Congress, the presidency and the Supreme Court, to the media, the criminal legal system, organized religion, Wall Street banks and corporations. Along with this, there is a loss of belief in social mobility and fairness. The neoliberal ideology that has dominated…
By Randy Blazak — I spent most of 1989 in Florida, hanging out with a group of skinheads who hated “The Cosby Show.” The white supremacists I embedded with for…
By Earl Ofari Hutchinson — The headline stories on the recent Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll on Trump and racism were disturbingly misleading on a couple of counts….
How the Trump administration’s scheme to rig the census threatens American democracy By Eric H. Holder Jr., New Republic — In his first year in office, Donald Trump and his administration have launched a daunting number of direct and open attacks on long-respected American rights and freedoms—threatening immigrants, the media, health care, transgender rights in the military, and much else. But there have been other, indirect and behind-the-scenes attacks, too, which may be no less damaging to…
By Jason Easley — A White House aide leaked to the press that Trump’s real plan for 2018 is to exploit cultural issues to fire up Republican voters ahead of…
Michael Kimmel, one of the world’s foremost experts on masculinity, examines its role in men’s adherence to – and departure from – far-right movements By J Oliver Conroy — During…
“These changes threaten effective enforcement of civil rights laws and increase the likelihood that people will continue to face discriminatory access and pricing as they navigate their economic lives.” By Jake Johnson, Common Dreams — In a move immediately condemned as yet another “shameful” effort by the Trump administration to roll back civil rights and reward big banks, the White House reportedly “stripped” a key Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) office of the power to take…
Fake sympathy veils the plan to deport the Dreamers, the Illinois congressman says. By Jefferson Morley, AlterNet — In the annals of cynicism, President Trump’s declaration in Tuesday night’s State…
Trump’s SOTU was a forgettable, familiar litany. What’s new is the GOP’s brain-dead eagerness to do his bidding. By Heather Digby Parton — I waited for TV pundits to declare the “pivot” and proclaim Donald Trump to be our one true president after Tuesday night’s lengthy State of the Union address. But with the exception of Fox News State TV, most were less effusive than the last time he addressed…
By Earl Ofari Hutchinson — California congresswoman Maxine Waters minced no words when she flatly declared that she will not attend Trump’s State of the Union Address on January 30….