By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Having Scott Pruitt as head of the Environmental Protection Agency is sort of like the plot of that Showtime thriller Dexter, where the police forensic technician trying to catch criminals is in his spare time a vigilante serial killer. Pruitt is Koch and ALEC. Pruitt actually […]
Syria: As 400 more Troops go in, What’s Trump’s Mission?
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The US had about 500 troops embedded with the People’s Protection Units (Kurdish acronym YPG) until this week, when another 400 were deployed, along with heavy artillery. It is rumored in the Arabic press that yet more troops, perhaps as many as 2000, will soon be […]
Is the Public turning on Trump over Russia Ties, Sessions’ Perjury?
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Americans have become deeply concerned about Russia. Some 75% of them see it as a very or moderately serious threat. This, according to an ORC/ CNN opinion poll. They are ranking it just after North Korea and Iran. This level of anxiety about Moscow is irrational, […]
Let them eat iPhones: Jason Chaffetz on Health Care & the Poor (Young Turks)
Cenk Uygur | (The Young Turks Video Clip) | – – TYT metadata: “Poor people don’t fund Jason Chaffetz’s campaigns, so they can take a long walk off a short pier. Cenk Uygur, host of The Young Turks, breaks it down. . . “Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) is proposing a quick fix for low-income Americans […]
What Syrian Refugees think of Trump’s Refugee Ban
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Reuters Arabic reports that a wave of anger swept the Syrian refugee camps of southern Lebanon Monday and Tuesday when they learned that Trump intends to ban Syrians and five other nationalities from coming to the US for at least 3 months and all refugee entries […]
Why Trump EO is Still a Racist Muslim Ban
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Whether or not the new Trump Executive Order banning visas for citizens of 6 Muslim-majority countries for a 90 day period and likewise excluding all refugees for six months stands up in the courts, it is still a piece of sordid bigotry. The rationale for the […]
Dirty, Hot, Deadly: The Real Trump Scandal is What He’s done to the Environment
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – I don’t think Trump creates Twitter scandals to deflect attention from his real scandals. I think his mind just works in an odd way. But the fact is that concentrating too much on the sound and fury issuing from Mar-a-Lago is counter-productive. Trump actually is changing […]
Trump covers Rockwell: Sometimes it Feels like, Obama’s Watching You
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Donald Trump is angry at his predecessor, former president Barack Obama, this weekend. He says he discovered (from the digital toilet paper ‘Breitbart,’ apparently) that a FISA court ordered a wire tap of Trump Tower in fall of 2016, and that it continued even though investigators […]
Oppression in the Land of the Free: A Muslim Leader Speaks Out
By Edu Montesanti | TeleSur | – – An interview with Hatem Abudayyeh, head of Chicago’s Arab American Action Network, on the rising criminalization of Arab and Muslim life in the US. In September of 2010, American federal agents in Chicago unjustifiably raided the Jefferson Park residence of Hatem Abudayyeh, Executive Director of Arab American […]