US politics

By Chuck Collins | – As part of the sanctions against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, the United States and its European partners are cracking down on Russian oligarchs. They’re freezing assets and tracking the yachts, private jets, and luxury real estate holdings of these Russian billionaires. “I say to the Russian oligarchs and […]

Climate Crisis

Plutocrats Fiddling as the World Burns with Global Heating and Nuclear Tensions

Tom Engelhardt

He’s our very own emperor from hell, an updated version of Nero who, in legend, burned down Rome on a whim, though ours prefers drowning Washington. Why, just the other day, Donald Trump — and you knew perfectly well who I meant — bent the ears of 250 top Republican donors for 84 minutes. Among […]

Donald Trump

Will the Ukraine War be the Nail in the Coffin for the Putin-Loving Alt-Right?

John Feffer

( Foreign Policy in Focus) – Most of the leaders of the alt-right are scrambling to distance themselves from Vladimir Putin. It might be too late. By John Feffer | March 16, 2022 Many figures on the new right sold their already discounted souls to Vladimir Putin over the last decade. Now, after the invasion […]

Donald Trump

Comrades in Crazy: Top 4 Putin Trolls in the Republican Party, starting with Tucker Carlson

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Vladimir Putin is admired on the American Right as no foreign leader has been since Adolf Hitler. Today’s counterparts of Charles Lindbergh and Father Coughlin are arguably more organized, and they have the advantage of prominent perches in both old and new media. 1. Tucker Carlson likes Putin in a […]

Bernie Sanders

Democrats in Congress Want Windfall Tax on Big Oil, Consumer Rebates, and cheap Green Energy

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) has introduced, and several other congressional Democrats have co-sponsored, a bill to curb big petroleum companies engaged in profiteering. Whitehouse said at his site, “We’ve seen this script before, and we cannot allow the fossil fuel industry to once again collect a massive windfall by taking […]

Russia

Why Apple, Disney, IKEA and hundreds of other Western companies are abandoning Russia with barely a shrug

The Conversation

By Douglas Schuler and Laura Marie Edinger-Schons | – Many companies in the U.S. and elsewhere have been quick to sever ties to Russia – going well beyond applying the sanctions ordered by their governments. IKEA, Nike and H&M are temporarily closing their Russian stores. Disney, Sony and Warner Bros. paused the release of new […]

Arab Spring

Ukraine: What the Libya War tells us about Why we Really don’t want a NATO No-Fly Zone

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Tracy Wilkinson at the Los Angeles Times writes about the no-fly zone proposed by President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and the flat refusal of the Pentagon to go in that direction. The clamor for a no-fly zone among some in Congress and in US civil society, however, displays a remarkable […]

Arab Americans

US Media (Rightly) focuses on Ukrainian Rights, but it Racializes Muslims deprived of those Same Rights

Assal Rad

(Special to Informed Comment) – Speaking about the significance of knowledge and its role in democracy, President John F. Kennedy once stated that only an “informed people will be a free people, that the ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all.” One of the most important institutions that informs public […]

China

Would a “Cold” War Be the Best News Around? Ukraine, Taiwan, and Other Flashpoints in a New Age of Geopolitics

Michael T. Klare

( Tomdispatch.com ) – Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been widely described as the beginning of a new cold war, much like the old one in both its cast of characters and ideological nature. “In the contest between democracy and autocracy, between sovereignty and subjugation, make no mistake — freedom will prevail,” President Biden asserted […]