Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Ashton Nichols at The Dallas Morning News reports that ExxonMobil lost over $1 billion in the second quarter, up from a $600 million lost in the first. Year on year, its revenues are down 33% for the first half of this year. It has been forced to close down half […]
How Trump broke America: Economy plummets historic 33%, Covid Deaths at 1500/ day, and 40 mn could lose Homes
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Trump’s refusal last winter to pull out all the stops to mount an effective national coronavirus response has broken the legs of America. On Wednesday, over 1500 coronavirus deaths were reported nationwide, a tally not seen since May. Over 150,000 Americans have died of the disease, and the prospect is […]
US Bases in Qatar, UAE go on Alert as Iran Fires Ballistic Missiles at Mock-up of US Aircraft Carrier
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Sepahnews quotes Brigadier Amir Ali Hajizadeh, commander of the Aerospace Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), as saying that his unit was able to launch ballistic missiles from bunkers the depths of the earth for the first time in world history. (He did not explain what he meant […]
3 Dead as Iraqi Crowds Protest Electricity Outages in 124° Heat; Have US and Climate Crisis left Iraq Unviable?
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – On Tuesday, the temperature in Baghdad hit 124° F. (51.2°). Just for perspective, the all-time highest temperature recorded for Asia was in Kuwait five years ago, at 129° F. Scientists consider an average temperature of 95° the highest consistent with habitability. Since these temperatures and higher will become more and […]
Is Netanyahu Wagging the Dog with Claims of Hezbollah Clashes (Which Hezbollah doesn’t Know about)?
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu has been virtually besieged in his prime ministerial mansion on Balfour Street in Jerusalem by protesters for weeks, as the rallies against his mismanagement of the economy and the pandemic have grown ever larger, spreading to Tel Aviv and other cities. It is the largest […]
Coronavirus Protests against “Corrupt” Netanyahu Rock Israel, as cases per capita outstrip Brazil
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, in office continuously since 2009, is facing a perfect storm. His trial on corruption charges is ongoing. The unemployment rate is 20 percent, and Israel has slightly more cases of the novel coronavirus per capita than Brazil (one of the countries with the worst record […]
The World War in Libya: Russo-Turkish, Turko-Egyptian Conflicts Recall Multi-Polar 19th Century
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Libya has become a multipolar battleground unusual in the era since 1946. The UN-recognized General National Assembly (GNA) government in Tripoli is ranged against the forces of Benghazi-based Gen. Khalifa Haftar. Haftar is supported by the Russian Federation, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and diplomatically, France. The GNA is supported […]
First the Nat’l Security State Surged Baghdad, now it is Surging Portland and Seattle
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – USA Today’s headline went, “Mayors see broken trust, political agenda in Trump’s surge of federal officers to US cities.” Surge? For those of us old enough to remember George W. Bush’s Iraq War, the use of the word “surge” to describe Federal agents sent into Democratic cities to break heads […]
Rep. Ocasio-Cortez: Republican Ted Yoho authorized all Men to call all Women F*cking B*tches
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – It all started when Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) remarked at a virtual Town Hall last week regarding the recent increase in violent crime in New York, ““Do we think this has to do with the fact that there’s record unemployment in the United States right now? The fact that people […]
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