( Tomdispatch.com ) – I’ve written a fair number of pieces for TomDispatch, but this one is a bit different — some might even say strange — so Tom asked me to introduce it myself. By almost any measure, we Americans are living through trying times. As a nation, we are long accustomed to being […]
Archives for September 2020
Aztec Politics: Trump sacrificed 200K by Downplaying Covid-19 to save the Stock Market from Panic
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Bob Woodward’s new book of interviews with Trump and figures in his administration records how Trump told the reporter in mid-March that he plays down the coronavirus to avoid a panic. According to CNN, which obtained Woodward’s tapes, Trump said: “I wanted to always play it down. I still like […]
Fourth World: Or American Carnage from a Pandemic President
( Tomdispatch.com) – The year was 1991 and the United States was suddenly the globe’s lone superpower, its ultimate hyperpower, the last and greatest of its kind, the soon-to-be-indispensable nation. The only one left — alone, utterly alone and triumphant atop the world. Who could have asked for more? Or better? It had been a […]
Why are Americans abandoning Religion in Droves?
Charleston, W.Va. (Syndicated to Informed Comment) – Religion is fading more quickly in the United States than in any other nation, according to a forthcoming research book. Religion’s Sudden Decline: What’s Causing It and What Comes Next, by University of Michigan scholar Ronald Inglehart, is to be released in January by Oxford University Press. Writing […]
De-Privatize and Expand Medicaid, NOW!
Gainesville, Florida– (Special to Informed Comment) – The COVID-19 pandemic shows the urgent need for expansion of the Medicaid health insurance program. In too many states, political decisions by state legislators to deny health insurance to thousands of their citizens has resulted in an almost non-existent social and health safety net. Decisions in 2016/2017 by […]
Did the US War on Terror Displace 37 Million?
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Brown University Watson Institute Costs of War Project has put out a report concluding that the US-led “War on Terror” has displaced 37 million people. While there are parts of the report I agree with, some of the argument seems to me flawed. Let me explain why that is, […]
The Strange Case of Donald J. Trump: A Psychological Reckoning
Auburn, Al. (Special to Informed Comment) – In this article I review the The Strange Case of Donald J. Trump by Dan P. McAdams [click], published by Oxford University Press in 2020. McAdams is a pre-eminent expert in personality theory and the Henry Wade Rogers Professor of Psychology at Northwestern University who does research on […]
A Confederacy of Vigilantes: White Supremacists, including some Police, attack BLM Protesters, Prepare to Defend Trump’s Theft of the Presidency
Chicago (Special to Informed Comment) – “Be wary of paramilitaries. When the men with guns who have always claimed to be against the system start wearing uniforms and marching around with torches and pictures of a Leader, the end is nigh,” says Timothy Snyder in On Tyranny. “When the pro-leader paramilitary and the official police […]
Trump and Israel are only Winners of Serbia-Kosovo “Historic” Deal, As EU warns over Jerusalem
Belgrade (Special to Informed Comment) – Former wartime foes Serbia and Kosovo signed a deal on economic normalization that has very little to do with relations between Belgrade and Pristina, as its main beneficiaries are the United States and Israel rather than local populations in the Balkans. Under President Donald Trump auspices, Serbia’s President Aleksandar […]