Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Anyone who knows the history of abuse in the Congress’s prerogative of subpoenaing witnesses and holding people in contempt for declining to testify is a little uneasy about the vote today to refer far-right gadfly Steve Bannon to the Department of Justice on charges of contempt of Congress. Mary Clare […]
BBC: Leaks Show Saudis Pressuring UN to Downplay Danger of Fossil Fuels as UN Warns G20 is putting $300 bn into Sector
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – A new United Nations-sponsored report finds that governments continue to sponsor the extraction of so much coal, oil and gas for human consumption that we cannot possibly, at this rate, hope to keep global heating to an extra 2.7° F. (1.5° C.) beyond per-industrial levels. At the same time, the […]
How Sen. Manchin just Positioned Chinese Firms to dominate the Green Energy Markets of the 21st Century, Leaving the US in the Dust
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Coal baron Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia has succeeded in blocking the part of President Biden’s Build Back Better bill that would have moved the U.S. electricity grid quickly to green energy. This development is very bad news for the earth, since human beings burning coal, petroleum and natural […]
“A Certain Hope Died:” How the White nationalist Republican Party used up Colin Powell, then Spit Him Out
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Colin Powell died on Monday, not long after his rival inside the Bush administration, Donald Rumsfeld. Both of them tore down the post-World War II order that the framers of the United Nations had erected (among them, Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower), which aimed at criminalizing aggressive warfare. Despite his […]
Will Israel’s Muslim Fundamentalists help Pass Marijuana Bill?
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Jack Khoury and Noa Shpigel report at Haaretz that the Israeli government is advancing a marijuana bill that may gain the support of the United Arab List, a Muslim fundamentalist party that forms part of the 8-party coalition underpinning the government of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett. Although Mansour Abbas, the […]
Sordid Advantage: America can’t avert Climate Hellhole because Manchin, Sinema are Corporate Hired Mercenaries
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – American journalists like to personalize stories and create horse races empty of real content. That is why most Americans don’t know what is in the Democratic Build Back Better Bill backed by President Joe Biden– the substance has not been reported on. That bill was originally budgeted at $350 billion […]
Band of 30 militant Israeli Squatters attack Palestinian Farmers, Steal Olive Harvest in continued Sabotage that has seen 1 mn Olive Trees destroyed by Israelis since 1967
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – On Friday, some thirty militant Israeli squatters on Palestinian land in the West Bank attacked Palestinian farmers harvesting olives from their orchards at Salfit. At the same time the Israeli occupation army blocked other farmers from reaching their olive orchards near the large squatter settlement of Ariel, built on land […]
Is Sec. of State Antony Blinken as bad as Mike Pompeo? Silent on Israeli theft of Palestinian Land, Promoting Phony Abraham Accords
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Secretary of State Antony Blinken is shaping up to be as much of a disaster as secretary of state as Mike Pompeo. He appears to have nothing to say about Israel’s outrageous new plans to steal more Palestinian land and to further divide Palestinians into Bantustans as was done by […]
A Yemen Catastrophe that America helped Make (Pearson Inst. Video with Juan Cole)
Pearson Institute Panel on Catastrophe in Yemen from October 13, with Juan Cole among the panelists. Pearson Institute: Yemen in Neglect My (much more expert-on-Yemen than I) colleagues in this panel: Afrah Nasser is Yemen Researcher, Human Rights Watch. Shadi Abu Sneida is a humanitarian working with UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Yemen. Stacy […]