Donald Trump

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – A massive ammonium nitrate explosion rocked Beirut’s port on Tuesday, sending up a mushroom cloud that reminded some of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, damaging buildings, blowing out windows, overturning cars, wounding over 3,000 people at least, and leaving dozens dead. Flying glass and debris were responsible for many of the injuries. […]

China

Trump’s Cold War China Policy is Isolating the U.S., Not China

Medea Benjamin and Nicholas J.S. Davies

( Codepink) – Tensions between the United States and China are rising as the U.S. election nears, with tit-for-tat consulate closures, new U.S. sanctions and no less than three U.S. aircraft carrier strike groups prowling the seas around China. But it is the United States that has initiated each new escalation in U.S.-China relations. China’s […]

Donald Trump

A Warning Signal for US? Corruption, Gov’t Gridlock, Pandemic, drive half a Million Lebanese Children into Hunger

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Lebanon, a small country of 4.7 million citizens and another 1.5 million Syrian refugees and 400,000 Palestinian refugees, is facing a perfect storm. Its corrupt political elite has permitted a near-collapse of a once-solid banking system. Government services are paralyzed and there are electricity outages. The country, which is a […]

Donald Trump

American Nervous Breakdown: Super-Spreader Trump and His Deranged Cult Infect Us All with their Toxic Lunacy

Dan Dinello

Chicago (Special to Informed Comment) – While the plague rages, the economy crashes, and millions of jobless Americans just lost unemployment benefits, President Trump and his slavish cult descend further into madness. Their mental aberrations are acted out as reactionary behavior that embraces racism, fascism, the confederacy, and a delusionary denial of the pandemic. As […]

African-Americans

The Suburban Vote: Why Trump threatened Detroit, America’s most Segregated City, with Federal Officers

Jamal Dillman-Hasso

Ann Arbor (Special to Informed Comment) – Donald Trump initially threatened to deploy federal agents in the city to clamp down on protests, though later tried to switch reasons in the hope that we already forgot. This is not aimed at rural voters, though—it is aimed at suburbs. Trump has long realized that by raising […]

Corruption

“I don’t take Responsibility:” US has the Worst Pandemic Response, but can Trump be held Accountable?

Karen J. Greenberg

( Tomdispatch.com ) – Whether you consider the appalling death toll or the equally unacceptable rising numbers of Covid-19 cases, the United States has one of the worst records worldwide when it comes to the pandemic. Nevertheless, the president has continued to behave just as he promised he would in March when there had been […]

Donald Trump

Iran’s Khamenei: Not going to help Trump get Reelected by Negotiating, and besides, America is Collapsing

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Iran’s clerical Leader, Ali Khamenei, knows that Trump’s reelection campaign is in big trouble. And, he thinks Trump wants a dramatic foreign policy breakthrough to impress the American voter. There aren’t many foreign policy breakthroughs to be had nowadays. Iran is one of the few. A Pew Research Center poll […]

Donald Trump

Trump’s Desperate, last-ditch Effort to Hike Tensions with Iran

Reese Erlich

( 48hills.org ) – During the past month, Iran has suffered a half-dozen explosions and fires at military and civilian sites. A bomb blew up near the Parchin missile base outside Tehran, Iran’s capital. Fires broke out at an electric power station and aboard seven ships in a southern port city. Iranian government authorities say […]

Donald Trump

How Trump broke America: Economy plummets historic 33%, Covid Deaths at 1500/ day, and 40 mn could lose Homes

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Trump’s refusal last winter to pull out all the stops to mount an effective national coronavirus response has broken the legs of America. On Wednesday, over 1500 coronavirus deaths were reported nationwide, a tally not seen since May. Over 150,000 Americans have died of the disease, and the prospect is […]