US politics

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The United States has crossed the threshold of 700,000 Americans dead from COVID-19 according to data from Johns Hopkins University. Some 43 million Americans have contracted the deadly disease, which can have long-term health consequences. In contrast, the 1918 influenza epidemic killed 675,000 Americans. While this is the absolute number […]

Corporations

Big Money’s War on Biden’s Popular Build Back Better Plan

OtherWords

By Sondra Youdelman | – ( Otherwords.org ) – Right now, corporations and the ultra-rich are spending millions to derail President Biden’s Build Back Better plan. Behind the scenes, they’re hard at work to keep our elected officials from helping our country recover from the pandemic. Poll after poll tells us that Biden’s plan is […]

Campaign Finance

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema angers Progressives, draws support of 40% of Republicans

Cronkite News Arizona PBS

By Diannie Chavez and Brenda Rivas | – ( Cronkite News ) – WASHINGTON – Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema’s refusal to back the Biden administration’s $3.5 trillion social and clean-energy spending package has made her a target for Democrats – and possibly “the most powerful person in Washington right now,” one analyst said. It’s not […]

Afghanistan

Bearing witness in Afghanistan — a conversation with Kathy Kelly on ending war and listening to its victims

Waging Nonviolence

( Waging Noviolence ) – This week, Michael Nagler and Stephanie Van Hook talk to Kathy Kelly, life-long nonviolence activist, co-founder of Voices for Creative Nonviolence and co-coordinator of the Ban Killer Drones Campaign. She discusses her extensive experience in and thoughts about Afghanistan. American intervention, she believes, was — and indeed, continues to be […]

Afghanistan

“A Horrible Mistake”: Recovering from America’s Imperial Delusions

Andrew J. Bacevich

( Tomdispatch.com) – The bad news stemming from the ill-planned and ill-managed U.S. evacuation of the Afghan capital just kept coming in. The Washington Post put it this way in blowing the whistle on the culminating disaster: “U.S. military admits ‘horrible mistake’ in Kabul drone strike that killed 10 Afghans.” Following the August 26th terrorist […]

Asian-Americans

Top 5 Things Wrong with the Mainstreamed Racist Republican “Replacement Theory”

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Dan Primack and Russell Contreras at Axios survey the ways in which the anti-Semitic, white supremacist “replacement theory” is being mainstreamed in the Republican Party. I pointed out in April that Tucker Carlson’s “White Power Hour” on Fox (Joy Reid’s term) is full of contradictions on replacement theory, and that […]

Arab Americans

For the First time, Israeli Apartheid was Broached in Congress by Rashida Tlaib – and then the Racist Epithets rained Down

Asa Winstanley

( Middle East Monitor) – [It is rare] for Israeli apartheid to be raised as a topic of discussion in the US Congress. In fact, I can’t recall that it has ever happened before, until last week. And the response in the US was even more ferocious, and particularly vindictive. It was also openly racist. […]

Climate Crisis

Avoiding water bankruptcy in the Southwest: What the US and Iran can learn from each other

The Conversation

By Mojtaba Sadegh, Ali Mirchi, Amir AghaKouchak and Kaveh Madani | – The 2021 water year ends on Sept. 30, and it was another hot, dry year in the western U.S., with almost the entire region in drought. Reservoirs vital for farms, communities and hydropower have fallen to dangerous lows. The biggest blow came in […]

Afghanistan

Generals on Afghanistan: Yes, Trump is Largely Responsible for Chaos

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Senate Hearing on the collapse of Afghanistan, at which the top US generals testified, underlined that actions taken by the Trump administration had a significant impact on undermining the Ashraf Ghani government and the Afghanistan National Army. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin admitted that, “The fact that the Afghan […]