Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Dan Primack and Russell Contreras at Axios survey the ways in which the anti-Semitic, white supremacist “replacement theory” is being mainstreamed in the Republican Party. I pointed out in April that Tucker Carlson’s “White Power Hour” on Fox (Joy Reid’s term) is full of contradictions on replacement theory, and that […]
Archives for September 2021
For the First time, Israeli Apartheid was Broached in Congress by Rashida Tlaib – and then the Racist Epithets rained Down
( Middle East Monitor) – [It is rare] for Israeli apartheid to be raised as a topic of discussion in the US Congress. In fact, I can’t recall that it has ever happened before, until last week. And the response in the US was even more ferocious, and particularly vindictive. It was also openly racist. […]
For Afghan Women, the Frightening Return of ‘Vice and Virtue’
By Heather Barr | – ( Foreign Policy in Focus ) – There is no better symbol for the disappearance of women’s rights in Afghanistan than the end of the Ministry of Women’s Affairs and the return of the Ministry for Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. When the Taliban on September 7 announced […]
Avoiding water bankruptcy in the Southwest: What the US and Iran can learn from each other
By Mojtaba Sadegh, Ali Mirchi, Amir AghaKouchak and Kaveh Madani | – The 2021 water year ends on Sept. 30, and it was another hot, dry year in the western U.S., with almost the entire region in drought. Reservoirs vital for farms, communities and hydropower have fallen to dangerous lows. The biggest blow came in […]
Generals on Afghanistan: Yes, Trump is Largely Responsible for Chaos
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Senate Hearing on the collapse of Afghanistan, at which the top US generals testified, underlined that actions taken by the Trump administration had a significant impact on undermining the Ashraf Ghani government and the Afghanistan National Army. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin admitted that, “The fact that the Afghan […]
End of Democracy in Tunisia: Unprecedented Confiscation of Power by the Presidency
( Joint Statement of Human Rights Watch et al.) – The promulgation on September 22, of Presidential Decree No. 117 implicitly abrogating the constitutional order in Tunisia is a first step towards authoritarianism. This turning point threatens the human rights and democratic aspirations of the Tunisian people. While recognizing the limits of the current political […]
How Sen. Joe Manchin’s support for natural gas could derail Biden’s US climate plan
By Michael Oppenheimer | – ( The Conversation) – President Joe Biden has a goal for all U.S. electricity to come from zero-carbon sources by 2035. To get there, he’s counting on Congress to approve an ambitious package of incentives and penalties designed to encourage utilities to clean up their power sources. That plan, part […]
Droning On: Assassins-in-Chief and Their Brood
( Tomdispatch.com ) – What a way to end a war! Apologies all around! We’re so damn sorry — or actually, maybe not! I’m thinking, of course, about CENTCOM commander General Kenneth F. McKenzie, Jr.’s belated apology for the drone assassination of seven children as the last act, or perhaps final war crime, in this […]
In Height of Hypocrisy, Nuclear-Armed Israeli PM Bennett slams Iran, which has no weapons or program, for “crossing all red Lines”
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Israeli newspaper Arab 48 reports that far-right Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, in his address to the U.N. General Assembly on Monday, ignored the Israeli-Palestinian struggle and focused instead on the issue of Iran. He alleged that the Iranian nuclear program had “surpassed all red lines,” asserting that Iran […]