2021

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Republican Party has had a lock on Texas politics for over two decades, and has reduced it to a failed state. Even Texans like Beto O’Rourke are making this observation. Millions are without electricity in the midst of one of the state’s worse winter storms ever. This massive failure […]

Houthi

Biden seeks peace in Yemen, but will the warring factions come on board?

Brian Whitaker

( Al-Bab.com) – The US State Department confirmed on Friday that it is revoking a last-minute decision by the Trump administration to designate Yemen’s Houthi movement as a terrorist organisation. The issue is not whether the Houthis deserve to be designated – their atrocities are well known – but Trump’s action, just days before leaving […]

Joe Biden

‘Indian Country’ is excited about the first Native American secretary of the interior – and the promise she has for addressing issues of importance to all Americans

The Conversation

By Traci Morris | – President Biden’s nomination of U.S. Rep. Deb Haaland of New Mexico to lead the Department of the Interior is historic on many levels. Haaland, an enrolled member of the Pueblo of Laguna, was one of the first Native American women elected to Congress, along with U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids of […]

Epidemics

Whose Rights Matter in Pandemic America? Not Those of Poor Americans, That’s For Sure

Liz Theoharis

By Liz Theoharis | – ( Tomdispatch.com ) – In June 1990, future South African President Nelson Mandela addressed a joint session of Congress only months after being released from 27 years in a South African apartheid prison. He reminded the political leadership of the United States that “to deny people their human rights is […]

Epidemics

Israel stops Palestinians of Gaza from getting 2K doses of Russian Coronavirus Vaccine

Juan Cole

Update. On Wednesday Feb. 17, Israel finally permitted 1,000 doses into Gaza, despite an earlier temptation to play politics with the pandemic. Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – According to AFP Arabic, Palestinian Minister of Health Dr. Mai Al-Kilah announced Monday that Israeli authorities halted a shipment of the Russian Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine sent to […]

Development

Yes we need the $1.9 Trillion Stimulus: Real Unemployment is 3 times what they’re telling us

John Buell

Southwest Harbor, Maine (Special to Informed Comment) – As Congress gets set to debate the Biden Pandemic relief package, one of the favorite Republican lines is the contention that an economic recovery is already well underway. Pouring more money into an accelerating economy is likely to induce seventies style inflation. It is time, they argue, […]

Iran

Is Biden risking new conflict with Iran by yielding to Dem Hawks and Neoconservatives?

Medea Benjamin and Nicholas J.S. Davies

( Code Pink) – As Congress still struggles to pass a COVID relief bill, the rest of the world is nervously reserving judgment on America’s new president and his foreign policy, after successive U.S. administrations have delivered unexpected and damaging shocks to the world and the international system. Cautious international optimism toward Biden is very […]

Far Right

“I Don’t Trust the People Above Me”: Riot Squad Cops Open Up About Disastrous Response to Capitol Insurrection

ProPublica

By Joaquin Sapien and Joshua Kaplan | – The Insurrection ( ProPublica) – The Effort to Overturn the Election The riot squad defending the embattled entrance to the west side of the U.S. Capitol was surrounded by violence. Rioters had clambered up the scaffolding by the stage erected for the inauguration of President Joseph Biden. […]

Climate Crisis

Michael E. Mann on The New Climate War and Biden’s Greening of America: Interview with Juan Cole