US politics

Southwest Harbor, Maine (Special to Informed Comment) – Imagine that as a member of Congress you are a strong advocate of urban public transit facilities. You have succeeded in prying from Congress funding for construction and maintenance of systems throughout midsized cities once almost exclusively dependent on the private auto for their transportation needs. You […]

African-Americans

How racism in US health system hinders care and costs lives of African Americans

The Conversation

By Tamika C.B. Zapolski | – As the COVID-19 pandemic swept across the U.S., the virus hit African Americans disproportionately hard. African Americans are still contracting the illness – and dying from it – at rates twice as high as would be expected based on their share of the population. In Michigan, African Americans are […]

Authoritarianism

For “Safety and Happiness:” On the 4th of July, we Need a Declaration of Independence from Donald Trump

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The founding generation of Americans was deeply concerned with well-being. The Declaration of Independence says that if a government won’t provide it, it is time “to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to […]

Donald Trump

In the U.S., the Second Wave of the Pandemic Is Already Here

John Feffer

(Foreign Policy in Focus) – If the United States had quick-thinking and efficient leadership, the pandemic would have infected about 100,000 people and killed only a couple thousand. That’s the experience of South Korea, times seven to account for the difference in population. If the United States had overwhelmed but reasonably sensible leadership, the coronavirus […]

Climate Crisis

Baghdad Bob on the Potomac: Trump’s Hoaxes, from “Disappearing” Covid-19 to Climate to Russiagate

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Authoritarian regimes breed lies like rotting meat breeds maggots, and as Trump marches the United States into an imperial presidency beyond accountability, his rate of lying has become astronomical. If I just read ten a day, it would take me five and a half years just to read all 20,000 […]

Afghanistan

What do Russians make of the charge Moscow offered Taliban Bounties on US Troops?

Nikola Mikovic

Russian officials deny the New York times claims that Moscow offered bounties to members of the Taliban movement for killing US soldiers, while the Kremlin-friendly analysts believe that the such “fake news” were fabricated in order to weaken the US President Donald Trump, as well as to serve as a pretext for more anti-Russia sanctions. […]

BDS

Federal Court Allows American Studies Association Boycott of Israel to Stand: Victory for BDS

contributors

( American Studies Association) – In a unanimous ruling, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has affirmed the district court’s dismissal of the lawsuit filed against the American Studies Association (ASA), its executive director, and eight former ASA officers or committee members: Lisa Duggan, J. Kēhaulani Kauanui, Sunaina […]

Donald Trump

Trump at Mt. Rushmore and other Rogues’ Galleries in an America in Ruins

Tomdispatch

By Lawrence Weschler | – The news that President Trump is planning to stage a “massive fireworks display” before a sizeable crowd on Independence Day eve at the Mount Rushmore National Memorial (notwithstanding the prospect of both wildfires in the tinder-dry surroundings and the further spread of Covid-19) has left me mulling over once again […]

Donald Trump

What Blocked Netanyahu from Beginning Planned Theft of Swathes of Palestinian West Bank on July 1?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu failed to begin the theft of substantial swathes of the Palestinian West Bank on July 1, as he had once pledged, according to UPI. The reasons for the hold up are a little murky, but here are some considerations. 1. Peter Beaumont and Rosie Scammell […]