Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Trump is insisting that schools must open normally in the fall or he will cut their funding. About 10 percent of US K-12 education funding comes from the Federal government but most of it is paid for by local taxes. The Federal portion is allotted by Congress and Trump doesn’t […]
How Trump lost Iran to China: 25-Year ‘Lion-Dragon Deal’ makes Iran part of One Belt, One Road
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The 2015 nuclear deal signed by the permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany with Iran had the potential to bring Iran into the world community economically and politically. Iran at one point intended to buy 80 Boeing civilian airliners, creating jobs in Seattle. A country with extensive […]
UN Special Rapporteur: US Drone Strike killing Iranian Gen. Soleimani was Unlawful
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Agnes Callamard, the United Nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, has concluded in a new report that the Trump administration’s killing of Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani at Baghdad International Airport on January 3 was unlawful. Callamard has the responsibility to report on killings by drone. Anna Germoni […]
Coal and Covid: Trump Facilitates both in a backward US as Europe makes strides against Both
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The US management of the Covid-19 crisis has been horrible compared to Europe, as the famous chart makes clear. I don’t know if the bar-goers actually know how to read a chart, but that line going up is the US and that is bad, and the line hugging the bottom […]
Was February ’20 Peak Oil Demand? Petroleum might never Recover From Covid-19 and EVs
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Julien Mieville at AFP asks the big question: Has global demand for petroleum peaked? The meme of “peak oil” once referred to the notion that production would at some point peak and then fall, driving prices sky high, but that theory developed before the fracking revolution and was never very […]
When will Palestine have its Declaration of Independence?
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Americans’ commemoration of the Fourth of July in 2020 was often a bit subdued, depending on where in the country you were, given the pandemic and its economic consequences. The subject of the celebration, however, was the foundation of a democratic republic that aspired to be made up of free […]
For “Safety and Happiness:” On the 4th of July, we Need a Declaration of Independence from Donald Trump
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The founding generation of Americans was deeply concerned with well-being. The Declaration of Independence says that if a government won’t provide it, it is time “to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to […]
Baghdad Bob on the Potomac: Trump’s Hoaxes, from “Disappearing” Covid-19 to Climate to Russiagate
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Authoritarian regimes breed lies like rotting meat breeds maggots, and as Trump marches the United States into an imperial presidency beyond accountability, his rate of lying has become astronomical. If I just read ten a day, it would take me five and a half years just to read all 20,000 […]
What Blocked Netanyahu from Beginning Planned Theft of Swathes of Palestinian West Bank on July 1?
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu failed to begin the theft of substantial swathes of the Palestinian West Bank on July 1, as he had once pledged, according to UPI. The reasons for the hold up are a little murky, but here are some considerations. 1. Peter Beaumont and Rosie Scammell […]
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