BY SUSAN ESTRICH Defenders of Mohamed Osman Mohamud are already arguing to the press that he was set up and in court that he was entrapped. Every state recognizes a defense that argues a defendant was “entrapped,” but most of them define it narrowly, as do the federal courts. The debate in entrapment law has […]

BY ALEXANDER COCKBURN “What do the next two years hold?” I asked in my column in The Nation, right after the Nov. 2 elections. “Already there are desperate urgings from progressives for Obama to hold the line. Already there are the omens of a steady stream of concessions by Obama to the right. There’s hardly […]

BY FROMA HARROP The recently leaked diplomatic cables reveal both Arab and Israeli horror at a nuclear Iran. Last year, Israel’s defense minister, Ehud Barak, evidently told the American ambassador that the world had 18 months or less to keep Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, warning “any military solution would result in unacceptable collateral damage.” […]

BY JOE CONASON Nuclear weapons treaties are like currency exchange rates – always vitally important to the national interest but often stunningly dull, not to say impenetrable. Yet Washington has suddenly been jolted awake by Republican threats to stall if not kill the Obama Administration’s New START treaty. The irony is that by doing so, […]

BY FROMA HARROP Most Americans dislike class-warfare talk aimed at rich people. It does not follow that they don’t want the wealthiest among us to pay more taxes. Polls show they do. That puts Democrats in the mainstream on such matters. But Democrats still need a sophisticated way to discuss this, one that does not […]