( Tomdispatch.com ) – “Look, folks, the air quality is in the red zone today. The EPA says that means people with lung or heart issues should avoid prolonged activity outdoors.” That was J.R. de Vera, one of two directors of UNITE-HERE!’s independent expenditure campaign to elect Biden and Harris in Reno, Nevada. UNITE-HERE! is […]
Archives for October 2020
Did Trump blackmail Sudan into Recognizing Israel by offering to remove Khartoum from Terror List?
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Sudan’s Prime Minister Abdulla Hamdok announced Monday that the US had agreed to remove his country from the list of international supporters of terrorism, paving the way for Sudan to rejoin the international community and attract desperately needed international investment. Sudan’s revolutionary government has moved to ensure human and civil […]
Israelis have Destroyed 1 mn Palestinian Olive Trees; this Month, they’re at it Again
Belfast (Special to Informed Comment) – In the village of Jaba in Bethlehem district this month, Israeli squatter settlers chopped down and destroyed 300 olive trees. October is the olive harvest month in Palestine. This emblem of peace, however, is under attack by illegal extremist Israeli squatter settlers who carry out their attacks under the […]
In the Midst of an Epochal American Eviction Crisis, Can we Wait for Congressional Talks?
How should progressives stand on the issue of the second Covid relief bill being negotiated between Speaker Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Mnuchin? What can be said is that a generous relief package is badly needed and the case on its behalf is strengthened by an analysis of the first relief package. In terms of pure […]
Is the Rising Generation of Unchurched Secularists pointing to a post-Trump Progressive America?
Someday, the coronavirus tragedy will be gone, wiped out by scientific vaccines. And Donald Trump will be just an unpleasant memory, an absurd reminder of what can happen when bigotry contaminates democracy. This part of the 21st century will be remembered chiefly, I predict, as the era when supernatural religion died among intelligent western people. […]
China grows nearly 5%; Will historians look back at Trump’s disastrous Pandemic Response as the Moment Beijing Overtook the US?
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Even if Trump loses, he can go on screwing up the country for two and a half months thereafter, and it will take years to undo the damage he has done. Pandemics are the sort of thing you want to nip in the bud. If you let them go to […]
With UN Embargo on Arms Sales to Iran Lapsing, Will Russia take on US to reap Bonanza?
Belgrade (Special to Informed Comment) – As of today, the 2007 UN Security Council embargo on conventional arms shipments to Iran expired. At least from the point of view of international law, Iran can now purchase powerful and advanced weapons such as the Russian S-400 anti-aircraft system, or the Su-30 fighter jet. Still, although Iranian […]
Trump’s Body Count in Historical Perspective: Hundreds of Thousands of Deaths on his Hands
Alexandria, Va. (Special to Informed Comment) – Many presidential biographies are somewhere between pseudo profound and pure fluff, arguing presidents be judged by Hollywood-like silliness like “presidential bearing” and “leadership qualities.” In 2014, I wrote Presidents’ Body Counts, my book arguing presidents be judged based on their human rights records. How many lived or died […]
Can America escape the cave of Trump’s Quirky Isolationism?
( Tomdispatch.com ) – The so-called Age of Trump is also an age of instantly forgotten bestselling books, especially ones purporting to provide the inside scoop on what goes on within Donald Trump’s haphazard and continuously shifting orbit. With metronomic regularity, such gossipy volumes appear, make a splash, and almost as quickly vanish, leaving a […]