By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Only one fighting force in Syria is practically speaking taking on Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) on the ground, and that is the Syrian Democratic Forces, the bulk of whose fighters are leftist Kurds of the “People’s Protection Units” (YPG). They are joined by some rural Arab clans […]
As Millions March for Climate, Stab in Back by EPA & NYT
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – An estimated 200,000 climate protesters rallied in Washington, D.C., on Saturday, braving record temperatures in the 90s, well above the average temperature for April 29 in the national capital. They were allowed to surround the White House from a distance. The protesters were pushing back against […]
On Day of Climate March, Remember advance of Solar globally
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The US public may have to march today for our government to recognize the dangers of climate change. But in the rest of the world many governments are placing a large wager on clean solar energy. The largest concentrated solar plant in the world is not […]
Climate March: How many more atomic bombs is Trump setting off in our Atmosphere?
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The People’s Climate March on Saturday will protest the Trump administration’s pro-Climate Change policies of increasing US carbon dioxide and methane emissions. Just how bad will it be? The US committed at Paris to reducing its emissions by 1/4 of 2005 levels by 2025. So far […]
Planet Ravagers: How Trump & GOP are like Aliens in “Independence Day”
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – “They’re like locusts. They’re moving from planet to planet, their entire civilization. Once they consume every natural resource, they move on.” — President Thomas Whitmore, “Independence Day” You expect the Republican Party, when it wins a national election, to pass some laws benefiting the business classes. […]
Trump Sanctuary Threat Quashed by Court – Is anything he does Constitutional?
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – US district judge William Orrick responded to a lawsuit by the county of San Francisco and by Santa Clara county against a Trump Executive Order conveyed to them by the Department of Justice, threatening to deny Federal funding to self-proclaimed sanctuary cities by striking down the […]
The Last time there was this much CO2 in the air, Florida was under Water
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii has reported that in April, for the first time in human history the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has exceeded 410 parts per million (ppm). Carbon dioxide (CO2) is a powerful greenhouse gas that prevents the sun’s heat […]
For First Time, a US President backs a Fascist France
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – While she is highly unlikely to win the run-off presidential election on May 7 against the Bill Clinton of France, Emmanuel Macron, Marine Le Pen managed to come in second in the first round on Sunday. She came ahead of the leaders of both major French […]
Trump’s Warmongering on Steroids: But who Supplied the Steroids
By Tom Engelhardt | ( Tomdispatch.com) | – – MOAB sounds more like an incestuous, war-torn biblical kingdom than the GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast, aka “the mother of all bombs.” Still, give Donald Trump credit. Only the really, really big bombs, whether North Korean nukes or those 21,600 pounds of MOAB, truly get his […]