Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The reasons for which the Washington Establishment is appalled at Trump’s abrupt withdrawal of US special operations troops from northern Syria are not necessarily the right ones. Former special presidential envoy for combating ISIL Brett McGurk wrote, “Trump tonight after one call with a foreign leader provided a gift to […]
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Donald Trump
Trump Talks tough with Journalists but Lets Real Strongmen like Turkey’s Erdogan Walk all over Him
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Last week during the visit of the Finnish president, Trump acted out with a journalist, James Mason of Reuters who asked him a simple question. What exactly did Trump want from Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky during the notorious July telephone call? Trump did a bad de Niro impression, asking him, […]
Why Trump’s bad Nixon imitation may cost him the presidency
By Ken Hughes | – Whatever Donald Trump does, Richard Nixon usually did it first and better. Nixon got a foreign government’s help to win a presidential election over 50 years ago. Trump’s imitation of the master has proven far from perfect, and that may cost him the presidency. Trump’s first mistake was soliciting foreign […]
Trump, head of GOP, demands Chinese Communist Party Prosecute Businessman for Crime of Making Money
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – A particularly unperceptive and unfeeling wag came up with the bon mot defining a “socialist” as someone kept up at night by the fear that somewhere someone was making money. (Socialists are actually haunted by people working but not making money because the capitalist class is stiffing them). But by […]
Is Turkey planning an attack on Syrian Kurds?
ISTANBUL —The Turkish government plans to use Syrian refugees to displace the local Kurdish population in northern Syria. But so far, the scheme isn’t working so well. Last week, Turkish President Recep Tayep Erdoğan announced his intention to settle up to two million refugees now living in Turkey into northern Syria. “We aim to accelerate […]
Duke U. Faculty reply to Trump Dept of Ed. demand for Negative Teaching on Islam and Palestinians
Letter: 62 Duke faculty respond to Department of Education directive letter to the editor By Concerned Faculty October 3, 2019 | ( The Duke Chronicle) – We appreciate the recent statement on academic freedom from President Price and Provost Kornbluth following the US Department of Education’s investigation of the Duke-UNC Consortium for Middle East studies. […]
How the impeachment inquiry might affect Trump’s 2020 re-election chances
By Dennis Altman | – The next 13 months will see American politics completely dominated by the fate of Donald Trump. As the House of Representatives moves towards impeaching him, leading to a hearing which then moves to the Senate, the Democrats will be engaged in an increasingly bitter contest for the nomination to run […]
A Trumpian Future for our Kids: A Hot, Sweltering 1984
By Frida Berrigan | – ( Tomdispatch.com ) – Okay, I’ll admit it. Sometimes I can’t take the bad news. It’s too much. It’s so extra, as the kids like to say. When I hit that wall of hopelessness and anxiety so many of us have become familiar with, I take what I think of […]
Trump’s Ukraine Ask was Criminal; but it Was SCOTUS’ Citizens United that Invited Foreign Interference in US Elections
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Trump is accused of soliciting the help of a foreign government to dig dirt on, essentially to do opposition research for him, on his Democratic rival, Joe Biden. It should be underlined, though, that the possibilities for foreign interference in US elections is a much bigger phenomenon than simply this […]