( Tomdispatch.com) – Think of it as a war system that’s been coming home for years. The murder of George Floyd has finally shone a spotlight on the need to defund local police departments and find alternatives that provide more genuine safety and security. The same sort of spotlight needs soon to be shone on […]
Archives for July 2020
UN Special Rapporteur: US Drone Strike killing Iranian Gen. Soleimani was Unlawful
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Agnes Callamard, the United Nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, has concluded in a new report that the Trump administration’s killing of Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani at Baghdad International Airport on January 3 was unlawful. Callamard has the responsibility to report on killings by drone. Anna Germoni […]
Trump has Quit on Us: The President is conducting a sit-down strike in his bedroom while the country burns
Chicago (Special to Informed Comment) – Over the past month, it has become painfully clear even to millions of people who voted for him in 2016 that Donald Trump is deeply uninterested in doing the job he was entrusted with. In the face of the worst crisis to confront human civilization in nearly a century, […]
Annexation was Always the Israeli Goal in the Palestinian West Bank
( Middle East Monitor ) – Wednesday, July 1, was meant to be the day on which the Israeli government officially annexed 30% of the occupied Palestinian West Bank and the Jordan Valley. This date, however, came and went and annexation was never actualized. “I don’t know if there will be a declaration of sovereignty […]
Gulf Arab Women were Finally making Progress, but will the Covid-19 Crash and Austerity set them Back?
By Humaira Hansrod | – Citizens of Saudi Arabia are having to get used to something that has long been an unpleasant fact of life in most parts of the world. On July 1, the kingdom tripled the VAT levied on consumer goods and services from 5% to 15%. There were reports of frantic stockpiling […]
Coal and Covid: Trump Facilitates both in a backward US as Europe makes strides against Both
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The US management of the Covid-19 crisis has been horrible compared to Europe, as the famous chart makes clear. I don’t know if the bar-goers actually know how to read a chart, but that line going up is the US and that is bad, and the line hugging the bottom […]
Maskless in the Red Death: The Pathology of Trump’s Racism is turning our Pandemic into Negligent Genocide
Chicago (Special to Informed Comment) – As Donald Trump sits idly by, the nation is experiencing both a catastrophic public health collapse that has brought international humiliation as well as a convulsive, impassioned protest movement that indicts police brutality and systemic racism. Trump’s negligent response to the pandemic — morally amounting to genocide — has […]
Amid the Covid-19 Recession, you can’t Afford the Bloated Pentagon Budget but Corporations Can
Southwest Harbor, Maine (Special to Informed Comment) – Imagine that as a member of Congress you are a strong advocate of urban public transit facilities. You have succeeded in prying from Congress funding for construction and maintenance of systems throughout midsized cities once almost exclusively dependent on the private auto for their transportation needs. You […]
Islam’s anti-racist message from the 7th century still resonates today
By Asma Afsaruddin | – One day, in Mecca, the Prophet Muhammad dropped a bombshell on his followers: He told them that all people are created equal. “All humans are descended from Adam and Eve,” said Muhammad in his last known public speech. “There is no superiority of an Arab over a non-Arab, or of […]