Plutocracy

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Today is ten years since Egyptian youth gathered in Tahrir Square in downtown Cairo demanding the resignation of Egypt’s brutal and corrupt Interior Minister, Habib Adly. Even those who called for the rally were surprised by the thousands of youth and workers that showed up, on Egypt’s Police Day, and […]

Donald Trump

The Other Capitol Mob: How the Billionaires funded the Insurrection

Jim Hightower

Much to the embarrassment of major corporations, their political donations were traced to the mayhem of January 6. ( Otherwords.org ) – You can’t poke into any issue in Congress without stumbling over sacks full of corporate campaign donations. The recent eruption of pro-Trump mob violence inside the U.S. Capitol exposed boodles of that special […]

Congress

McConnell Cynically used the Trump-Monster to get Tax Cuts and SCOTUS, Now Dropping him like a Squeezed Orange

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – In Chapter 7 of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, the enormously wealthy Jay Gatsby becomes concerned about word getting out that he is having an affair with Daisy, who is married to Tom, and abruptly stops having the big parties he had been throwing, to which assorted society flotsam […]

Banking

Letting the Markets go Wild while the People Go Down: A War of the Worlds

Tomdispatch

By Nomi Prins | – ( Tomdispatch.com ) – Sometimes things only make sense when seen through a magnifying lens. As it happens, I’m thinking about reality, the very American and global reality clearly repeating itself as 2021 begins. We all know, of course, that we’re living through a once-in-a-century-style pandemic; that millions of people […]

Donald Trump

Biden to invoke Defense Production Act for Vaccine manufacture. Trump? Playing Golf at Mar-a-Lago

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Will Feuer at CNBC reports that Joe Biden will invoke the Defense Production Act to ramp up the manufacture of more doses of the coronavirus vaccine. You may ask yourself, why has this not already been done? Trump said on December 9 that he “might” invoke the Korea War-era act, […]

Debt

Austerity Terrors: Congress Stimulus Package Finally Passes – but it is Too Little, Too Late

John Buell

Southwest Harbor, Maine (Special to Informed Comment) – 900 billion dollars is a big amount, Apparently one trillion is a whole order of magnitude greater. Or at least the number is so terrifying that politicians bend heaven and earth to avoid being connected with trillion dollar expenditures. And this allergic reaction is bipartisan. In the […]

Donald Trump

White House Partying like it is 2021, with a Covid 9/11 Death Toll Every Day

Tom Engelhardt

( Tomdispatch.com) – ‘Tis the season to be folly Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la Don(ald) we now our gay apparel, Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la!… It’s party time in the nation’s capital and the Christmas spirit reigns supreme, even if the Texas Republican Party does want to secede from the Union. I mean, who doesn’t? And hey, don’t you want to […]

Employment

Mitch McConnell Wants to Let Corporations Kill You

Thom Hartmann

( Otherwords.org ) – The Senate GOP leader’s refusal to pass COVID-19 aid without corporate immunity should be the scandal of the year. By Thom Hartmann | December 16, 2020 Probably the most under-reported story of the year has been how Mitch McConnell is holding Americans hostage in exchange for letting big corporations kill Americans […]

Donald Trump

Pandemic Failure, Vaccine Success Indict American Monopoly Capitalism

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The contrast between the unprecedented failure of the United States to deal successfully with the coronavirus pandemic, and the success of pharmaceutical companies in coming up with effective vaccines in record time is bittersweet. The reason for the difference is that no one could make any money on mitigating the […]