Republican Party

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Donald Trump and first lady Melania have tested positive for the coronavirus and have gone into quarantine, the president said by Tweet on Thursday evening. Even before the positive test, Trump and his wife had initiated a “quarantine process” after counselor to the president Hope Hicks, 31, fell ill with […]

Addiction

Warped Speed: How Trump’s Push for a Quick and Dirty Covid Vaccine could Boomerang and Destroy Public Trust

Dan Dinello

Chicago (Special to Informed Comment) – Despite more than 205,000 dead and 7.2 million infected, including him, Trump mendaciously claims that the pandemic “affects virtually nobody” while falsely promising a Covid vaccine by Election Day. His anti-science re-election propaganda not only jeopardizes trust in a vaccine, but eradicates faith in the very public health institutions […]

Death Penalty

Two years after Khashoggi’s murder, why is Trump’s America still an accomplice to MBS’s crimes?

Medea Benjamin and Nicholas J.S. Davies

( Code Pink) – Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi was brutally murdered on October 2, 2018 by agents of Saudi Arabia’s despotic government, and the CIA concluded they killed him on direct orders from Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS). Eight Saudi men have been convicted of Khashoggi’s murder by a Saudi court in […]

Donald Trump

Trump’s Over-the-Top War Talk is a War Crime: ‘Systematic, Constant, Vicious, Remorseless’

William J. Astore

What pops into your head when you hear the number 1,000 in a political-military context? Having studied German military history, I immediately think of Adolf Hitler’s confident boast that his Third Reich would last a thousand years. In reality, of course, a devastating world war brought that Reich down in a mere 12 years. Only […]

Authoritarianism

Arab World, Alarmed at US Debate Debacle, Worries about Military Coup and ‘Banana Republic’ on Potomac

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Arabic press watched the Trump-Biden fiasco of a debate with alarm. The US is so involved in the Arab world that our elections are consequential for their lives. When we hear that Arabs are looking at America and thinking “this looks like a military coup waiting to happen,” we […]

Climate Crisis

Top 5 Most Horrible things Trump said in his Abnormal Debate

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The “debate” was an unfortunate and distasteful spectacle, largely because of Trump’s bullying and mendacious behavior. But let us resist the cable-tv temptation to focus only on personalities and the horse race to consider some actual policy issues. And the true horror lay in what Trump had to say about […]

Authoritarianism

The Mobster-in-Chief: Will the November Election Be Decided in the Streets?

John Feffer

( Tomdispatch.com ) – The white mobs didn’t care whom they killed as long as the victims were Black. They murdered people in public with guns and rocks. They set fire to houses and slaughtered families trying to escape the flames. In East St. Louis in July 1917, white vigilantes lynched Blacks with impunity. It […]

Corruption

Did Trump Throw Kurds under the Bus for Turkey because of his Istanbul Revenue Stream?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The New York Times reported, in the scoop of the decade, that Trump has $420 million in loans and other obligations coming due in the next four years, and that most of his core businesses hemorrhage money, so that he has no way to pay them back. In the past […]

Authoritarianism

10 things you need to know to stop a coup

Waging Nonviolence

(Waging Nonviolence) – We have a president who has openly said he might not respect the outcome of our election. We have to be ready if he claims victory before votes are counted, tries to stop counting, or refuses to accept a loss. Some days I feel confident it will happen. A poll showed over […]