Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Chris Cillizza at CNN quotes the interchange between Erin Burnett and Ken Cuccinelli, acting director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services, over a new policy that might prevent immigrants who accepted public assistance from ever getting a Green Card and beginning the process of becoming citizens. “BURNETT: I just played […]
Saudi Woman dissident Refuses to Make Video exonerating Saudi State from Torture Charges
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The family of jailed Saudi dissident and women’s rights activist Loujain Hathloul has announced that the Saudi authorities offered to release her if she would record a video statement saying that she had not been tortured while in government custody. Her sisters say that she refused the offer, and they […]
Trump’s Conspiracy Theories Hide the Real Plot, of Corporations against our Health
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Trump came to power in part because of weird conspiracy theories about Hillary Clinton, and he is still at it. This pollution of our information system with ridiculous charges against the Clintons, or the Obamas, or any number of other bĂȘtes noires, is a form of misdirection, a technique used […]
Trump-Saudi War on Yemen Collapsing as Southern Separatists Take Aden
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Yemen, a country of 28 million and one of the poorest in the world, had already become a byword for misery over the course of the last four years of war. Now, believe it or not, things have abruptly worsened. The strategic port of Aden has fallen to southern separatists, […]
Valhalla Awaits! After White Terrorism at Oslo Mosque, what if Trump spoke about Supremacists the Way he does Islam?
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – A young Norwegian man wearing body armor and carrying two shotguns and a handgun attacked the Al-Noor Mosque in a tony suburb of Oslo on Saturday. Only 3 people were in the building for afternoon prayers. On Monday, 1,000 congregants are expected, to celebrate Eid al-Adha, the feast of sacrifice […]
Humanity hasn’t experienced a Month as Hot as July in all the Time since Millard Fillmore was President
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – July was the hottest month ever recorded, i.e. the hottest since about 1850 when scientific records began being kept around the world using modern thermometers. So writes Chelsea Harvey at Climate Wire via The Scientific American. July was more than 1 degree Fahrenheit warmer than the late 20th century average. […]
Next: The Climate Crisis is Coming for Your Food
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The sources of the climate emergency are often framed with regard to electricity generation and transportation, while the impact of global heating through burning of fossil fuels is of discussed with regard to extreme weather and sea level rise. The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has just issued A […]
White al-Qaeda, Trump and Economic Terrorism against El Paso
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Trump’s visit to El Paso on Wednesday was unwelcome to most of its residents. They understood that his anti-Latino rhetoric and talk of “infestation,” “crime” and “invasion” had inspired the white terrorist who massacred them, and they are inconsolable in the grief for the 22 dead among them, as are […]
Immigrants aren’t “Invaders:” They’re Who will Pay your Social Security
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Australian-American Rupert Murdoch’s white nationalist TV channel, Fox Cable News, is doubling down on the anti-immigrant memes that drove the El Paso shooter, with empty suit Brian Kilmeade and provocateur Laura Ingraham insisting that immigration is invasion. They appear to be conspiring at provoking a race war, more or less […]