Joe Biden

( Human Rights Watch ) – Last week, US President Joe Biden declared that the US knows “with certainty” that Tice has been held by the Syrian government. “I am calling on Syria to end this and help us bring him home,” Biden said in a statement. Tice, who was covering the conflict in Syria […]

Climate Crisis

Why Fightin’ Joe Biden may be the most Consequential President in Forty Years

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Joe Biden has been easy for the pundit class to write off. He isn’t, unlike Bill Clinton or Barack Obama, a great speechifier. He overcame his childhood stutter, but he still sometimes hesitates just as he gets to an applause line. He is still the little guy who got picked […]

Climate Crisis

Why Climate Activists Need to Celebrate the Inflation Reduction Act, a major Turning Point despite its Warts

Waging Nonviolence

By Daniel Hunter | – ( Waging Nonviolence) – Congress just passed a major $375 billion climate bill, and it will be signed by the president. Yet, when I texted long-standing colleagues in Sunrise Movement, climate justice groups, Sierra Club, local pipeline fights and elsewhere, I found the mood to be… ambivalent, cautious, and non-celebratory. […]

Featured

Irony Alert: Amateurish Iranian attempt to hit John Bolton may derail Nuclear Negotiations Bolton wanted Derailed

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – An attempt to hire a hit man to kill former National Security Adviser John Bolton by an alleged member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps was revealed by the Department of Justice at a delicate time in the negotiations to bring both the US and Iran back into compliance with […]

Batteries

The Great Pivot: Why Dem Green Energy IRA Will Steamroll Fossil Fuels and Help Save the Planet, Despite Manchin

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Democrats in the Senate Passed the Inflation Reduction Act on Sunday, with its nearly $370 billion in new spending on the green energy transition. The Democratic majority in the House of Representatives is such that the bill will certainly be passed into law at the end of this month […]

Climate Crisis

Sinema goes for Inflation Reduction Act as Princeton’s ZERO Labs deems it will boost Solar Energy 5-Fold

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) is reported to have signed on to the Schumer-Manchin energy bill, accurately termed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), on Thursday, after tinkering with a few of its revenue-raising features, writes Tony Romm at WaPo. A key piece of information in Romm’s report is that Sinema wants […]

Featured

Taken for a Ride: Saudi-led OPEC+ snubs Biden with tiny Oil Increase, Despite Arms Sales, Fist Bump

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – At its meeting in Vienna yesterday, the enlarged “+” version of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting States (OPEC+) decided to increase output by only 100,000 barrels per day, a vanishingly small amount that will have no impact on lowering gasoline prices and which does US President Joe Biden virtually no […]

al Qaeda in the Arabian Penisula

The End of the “Global War on Terror”: Biden takes out Ayman al-Zawahiri (1951-2022)

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – President Joe Biden announced on Monday evening that a CIA-operated drone had killed Ayman al-Zawahiri, the second leader of al-Qaeda after Usama Bin Laden, on Saturday while he stood on the balcony of a Taliban safe house in Kabul. He was allegedly hosted by the Haqqani clan, one of whose […]

Israel/ Palestine

Faced with Killing of American Journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, US Priority has been to Preserve Israel’s Impunity

Ramona Wadi

( Middle East Monitor) – The developments in the “investigation” into the targeted killing of Palestinian-American Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh point rather too obviously to the preservation of Israel’s ability to act with impunity. Matters went downhill in the aftermath of Abu Akleh’s killing when Israeli military spokesman Ran Kochav put forward an […]