Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – A revolt of the Democratic Party grassroots has forestalled Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s plan to hold a vote on a resolution implicitly slamming Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) for her Tweets complaining about being pressured to pledge allegiance to Israel or else be considered unpatriotic. Although Rep. Omar has been unfairly […]
Corbyn Calls for Britain to Freeze Arms Sales to Israel after UN charges War Crimes
LONDON (Ma’an) — Jeremy Corbyn, head of the British Labor Party, over the weekend, called for the British government to freeze arms sales to Israel and to condemn it for the killing of Palestinians. Corbyn’s remarks came after a United Nations report, which found that Israeli security forces may have committed war crimes killing scores […]
New Historicism: A Manifesto for Writing the History of the Qur’an
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – In borrowing the term “the New Historicism” from literary studies, I do not mean to take over all its theses. Rather, I am making an analogy. Just as Stephen Greenblatt came to require a historical context for studies of Shakespeare, rebelling against the contextless New Criticism at Yale in the […]
Spain’s Socialists aim for 75% Renewables in Ten Years (at 40% Today)
Spain is already getting 40% of its electricity from renewables, but its Socialist government hopes to nearly double that proportion in a little over a decade. Spain’s Socialist prime minister Pedro Sanchez and his cabinet have approved a draft proposal to get t 74% of the country’s electricity from renewables by 2030, a little over […]
As News of Khashoggi “Kebab” at Saudi Consulate Emerges, GOP Senators Condemn Trump Admin Briefing as Substanceless
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Patricia Zengerle of Reuters reports that even Republican members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee came away deeply disappointed with the briefing on the Khashoggi murder by low-level Trump administration officials from the Treasury Department and the State Department. The murder on October 2 at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul […]
Israel Lobbies slam Ilhan Omar even as they Try to Bankrupt small Leftist Arkansas Paper over Israel Boycott
First-term Congresswoman Ilhan Omar refuses to back down on her criticism of the Washington Establishment for demanding that representatives “pledge allegiance” to Israel or risk being smeared as un-American. But she is right. The Israel lobbies that direct campaign money to representatives and senators insist that Israeli policy of imposing Jim Crow discrimination on Palestinians […]
Is Costa Rica’s ambitious Decarbonization Program a Model for the US Green New Deal?
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Last week, Costa Rica’s president, Carlos Alvarado, announced one of the more ambitious plans for a transition of a country to Net Carbon Zero proposed anywhere in the world. While many countries have made strides toward reducing their carbon dioxide production from electricity generation, Costa Rica is now addressing transportation, […]
Vile Racism in W. Va. GOP: Rep. Ilhan Omar likened to al-Qaeda & LGBTQ Folks to KKK
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Republicans in the West Virginia state legislature held a “GOP takes the Rotunda” event at the state capitol on Friday. As part of this event they hung a poster of the 9/11 al-Qaeda attacks on the Twin Towers, labeled “Never Forget– You said.” Below it they placed a picture of […]
Netanyahu to be Indicted on Bribery, Fraud, Press Tampering: Israeli AG
Israeli Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit has announced that he will indict Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu on bribery and fraud charges. I think it should be underlined that two of the charges have to do with tampering with press coverage of the prime minister, which is to say, tampering with the Fourth Estate, one of […]
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