Republican Party

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) The Trump organization was indicted by a New York grand jury on Wednesday and the indictment is unsealed today, according to Shayna Jacobs, Josh Dawsey, David A. Fahrenthold and Jonathan O’Connell at WaPo. The Trump Org.’s CFO, Allen Weisselberg, was also indicted. Trump himself is not named, but the trial could […]

Far Right

Gaslighting the Pentagon: Tucker Carlson, who called Iraqis ‘Monkeys,’ Poses as anti-Racist in defending White Supremacy from “Pig” Gen. Milley

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Fox white nationalist (there, I’ve been redundant and repeated myself) Tucker Carlson once called Iraqis “semiliterate primitive monkeys,” managing to be racist, anti-Arab and Islamophobic all at once. Now Carlson is posing as an anti-racist. Funny thing, though. He isn’t out there apologizing for his racism against Iraqis. Then there […]

censorship

Sounds Like Fascism: Florida’s DeSantis to Collect Political Views of Professors to defund “Hotbeds of stale Ideology”

Common Dreams

By Julia Conley, staff writer | – ( Commondreams.org) – Democratic lawmakers and educators nationwide are expressing alarm over legislation signed this week by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis which is ostensibly aimed at ensuring college students and educators in the state feel permitted to express a variety of political views—and which critics say could end […]

Donald Trump

In Siccing Justice Dept. on Jimmy Kimmel and SNL, Trump Channeled worst Mideast Dictators

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Bassem Youssef was Egypt’s most famous comedian in the 2000s and until 2014. His weekly half-hour satire, “The Program,” skewered the government of president-for-life Hosni Mubarak in the run-up to the 2011 youth revolt. Mubarak was thin-skinned but did allow some comedians and pundits to blow off steam. He did, […]

Donald Trump

Twilight of the Pandemic? Bracing for a Surge of Trumpism or . . .

John Feffer

(Tomdispatch.com ) – I went to a birthday party recently. The celebrants greeted each other with hugs on the patio. After an outdoor barbeque dinner, we stood shoulder to shoulder around the island in the kitchen, eating cake from small paper plates. We sang “Happy Birthday.” Ordinarily, an event like that wouldn’t be worth noting, […]

Authoritarianism

Jim Crow and “Lost Cause” 2.0: Trump’s Big Lie and GOP Plot to Suppress the Vote

Dan Dinello

Chicago (Special to Informed Comment) – Big Lie propaganda, that the 2020 election was stolen, rewrites history and fuels the current Republican war on democracy. Similarly, Confederate Lost Cause propaganda incited a wave of anti-democratic laws and rewrote the history of the Civil War by asserting that slavery did not cause the War and that […]

Barack Obama

Top Ways Israel’s Netanyahu Torpedoed Mideast Peace and Harmed Israel and America

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – A step was taken by his rivals toward unseating long-serving Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Wednesday when opposition parties all along the political spectrum from left to right formed a coalition of national unity. Ironically, that coalition only reached a majority in parliament by accepting for the first time […]

Authoritarianism

Flynn calls for Myanmar-Style Military Junta in U.S. – If he were Black, Brown or Muslim he’d be in Guantánamo

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Donie O’Sullivan at CNN reports that disgraced former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn called for a military coup, like the one in Myanmar, in the United States. He was speaking at a conference in Dallas on Saturday attended by QAnon and Big Lie election conspiracy theorists. O’Sullivan reports that a […]

Congress

Mitch McConnell, Shepherd of Shame: Taking Names for a New, Deeper Circle of Hades

H. Scott Prosterman

Mitch McConnell will go down in history as one of the most destructive men in American History. If obstructing all the positive legislation and court nominations of President Barack Obama wasn’t enough; if enabling all the horrors and cruelties of President Donald Trump wasn’t enough; if brazenly changing Senate rules to undermine . . . […]