US politics

When the Republican Party was reduced to its bare minimum of support in 2008, as the American people finally rebelled against the Bush/ Rove dismantling of the economy and wasteful adventurism abroad, it was left with representatives from the Southern states. That election revealed that at its core, the GOP is now a party of […]

US politics

Shutdown Anthem: Boehner & Bachmann “We Can’t Stop” (SNL Miley Cyrus spoof video)

Juan Cole

Miley Cyrus and Taran Killam on Saturday Night Live this weekend as Michele Bachmann and John Boehner in a spoof of the government shutdown to the tune of Cyrus’s summer hit “We can’t Stop” (2013): Warning: the behavior spoofed in this video is often shocking and offensive.

Afghanistan

Top Ten Things Ted Cruz did to the NSA and other Security Agencies that Edward Snowden Couldn’t

Juan Cole

Edward Snowden’s revelations about the excesses of the National Security Agency have so far had no effect whatsoever on actual practices. But Ted Cruz’s conspiracy to shut down the American government as a bargaining ploy in his quest to stop the working poor from being able to see a doctor has been much more effective […]

Israel

On how American Jews are Mostly the Opposite of Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyahu

Juan Cole

A huge Pew Charitable Truest telephone poll of American Jews confirms many of the things learned by previous religious polls conducted by Barry Kosmin and colleagues under the rubric of the American Religious Identification Survey. What is striking is how dissimilar the mainstream of Jewish Americans is to the ruling Likud Party in Israel, headed […]

Iran

Would Israel’s Netanyahu really Drag US into war with Iran?

Juan Cole

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu pledged at the United Nations on Tuesday to attack Iran himself if Washington won’t do it, and in order to stop what he characterized as an Iranian nuclear weapons program: But the fact is that a solo Israel-on-Iran military attack would not remain solo. If Israeli jets managed to reach […]

US politics

Ted Cruz and America’s Super-Rich say “Let them eat Cake”

Juan Cole

The anecdote goes that Marie Antoinette, the queen of France, inquired as to why the crowds were in the street demonstrating in 1789. She was informed that they had no bread to eat. She is said to have replied, “Why, then, let them eat cake!” However apocryphal the anecdote, it is pregnant with wisdom. In […]

US politics

Ghoul’s Glossary: Shutdown

Juan Cole

Shutdown: n. A maneuver whereby persons elected and paid by the public to do little but pass budgets refuse to do so unless they are permitted to prevent poor children from seeing a doctor. Compromise: v. To Comply. The president, reelected by a comfortable margin, and the Senate, with a Democratic majority, must do what […]

US politics

You Can have Obamacare, or You can have Cruzcare (Jamiol Cartoon)

Juan Cole

Courtesy Jamiol’s world

Afghanistan

Dear President Obama: Some American Exceptionalism is nothing to be Proud Of (Engelhardt)

Juan Cole

Tom Engelhardt writes at Tomdispatch.com “But when, with modest effort and risk, we can stop children from being gassed to death, and thereby make our own children safer over the long run, I believe we should act. That’s what makes America different. That’s what makes us exceptional. With humility, but with resolve, let us never […]