By Brian Glyn Williams | – One common claim by President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign has been that his administration beat IS, or what’s formally known as the Islamic State terrorist group. It came up most recently in the vice presidential debate, when Mike Pence boasted, “We destroyed the ISIS caliphate. … You know when […]
Archives for October 2020
The United States of Paranoia — From the Salem Witch Hunt to Conspirator-in-Chief Donald Trump
By Steve Fraser | – ( Tomdispatch.com) – News is “faked”; elections are “rigged”; a “deep state” plots a “coup”; Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia died suspiciously in bed with a pillow over his face; aides of ex-president Barack Obama conspire to undermine foreign policy from a “war room”; Obama himself was a Muslim mole; […]
Amy Coney Barrett: You can’t actually be pro-life if you deny burning Fossil Fuels causes the Climate Emergency; Denialism is Mass Murder
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Amy Coney Barrett is a denialist when it comes to the human-caused climate emergency. Rachel Koning Beals at Marketwatch notes that when Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) asked her about this issue, she replied, “I’ve read about climate change. I’m certainly not a scientist. I would not say that I have […]
If it is Tuesday, this must be Occupied Palestine: Tourism in the Service of Israeli Colonialism
By Halah Ahmad | – ( Al-Shabakah) – Tourism has been critical to the Zionist enterprise since the first Zionists settled Palestine. Al-Shabaka policy analyst Halah Ahmad explores the role of tourism, and especially religious tourism, in propagating the Zionist and Israeli-state narratives, focusing on the damaging impacts of Israeli settlement tourism in illegally occupied […]
How Islamophobia drove the Reception of the poorly fact-checked ‘Caliphate’ Broadcast
By Fahad Ahmad | – On Sept. 25, the RCMP arrested Shehroze Chaudhry, a Muslim man, for allegedly fabricating his affiliation with the Islamic State group (ISIS). Chaudhry — popularly referred to by his supposed nom de guerre, Abu Huzayfah — had been the subject of numerous news stories since 2017. Most notably, in 2018, […]
Will Tunisia, the only Success of the Arab Spring, be Ruined by a Police Protection Bill?
By Rima Sghaier | – ( Global Voices ) – As the Tunisian parliament considers a controversial police protection bill, protests erupted in the city of Bardo to oppose it. On October 6 and 8, human rights groups and a youth-led citizen movement dubbed Hasebhom (translated as “hold them to account”) rallied outside the parliament […]
Khashoggi’s Ghost: World Resoundingly rejects Saudi membership on UN Human Rights Council
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Sulayman Hajj Ibrahim writes in the London pan-Arab daily al-Quds al-`Arabi [Arab Jerusalem] that Saudi Arabia’s bid to join the 47-member Human Rights Council of the United Nations was rejected resoundingly by the General Assembly. Human Rights Watch waged a campaign against allowing China and Saudi Arabia onto the council. […]
Election 2020 sees record $11 billion in campaign spending, mostly from a handful of super-rich donors
By Richard Briffault | – Total spending in the 2020 federal elections is projected to set a new record of almost US$11 billion by November. When adjusted for inflation, that’s over 50% higher than 2016 election spending. This year’s federal election spending – for the presidency, the Senate and the House of Representatives – is […]
Trump’s Art of the Arms Deal: Filling up the Volatile Middle East with High-Tech Weapons
( Tomdispatch.com) – The United States has the dubious distinction of being the world’s leading arms dealer. It dominates the global trade in a historic fashion and nowhere is that domination more complete than in the endlessly war-torn Middle East. There, believe it or not, the U.S. controls nearly half the arms market. From Yemen […]
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