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 […]
Archives for September 2020
War for Oil, again? Why are Russia and Turkey intervening in the Azerbaijan-Armenia Clashes?
Belgrade (Special to Informed Comment) – Clashes between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh threaten to destabilize the Caucasus. Turkey and Russia – the major foreign actors in this proxy conflict – are still not directly involved in bloodshed that erupted on September 27, although Ankara openly supports Baku by providing full […]
Democracy for the Arab World Now! Khashoggi’s Legacy is Launched
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Murdered Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi was killed by the Saudi government for working for democracy in the Middle East. His brainchild was Democracy for the Arab World Now or Dawn, which he envisaged as an organization that would bring together expatriate activists from the Arab world to put pressure […]
Will a Woman’s right to Choose end with Amy Coney Barrett on the Supreme Court?
By Prudence Flowers | – Last week, US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died of metastatic pancreatic cancer. Ginsburg’s “most fervent wish”, revealed by her granddaughter, was that she “not be replaced until a new president is installed”. Just eight days later, President Donald Trump has announced Amy Coney Barrett to fill Ginsburg’s newly […]
The Mobster-in-Chief: Will the November Election Be Decided in the Streets?
( 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 […]
Did Trump Throw Kurds under the Bus for Turkey because of his Istanbul Revenue Stream?
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 […]
Ginsburg Would Want Women to Fight, Not Despair
By Sophia Paslaski | – (Otherwords.org ) – The late justice dedicated her career to women and other marginalized Americans, and we owe her the same faith she had in us. By Sophia Paslaski | September 23, 2020 In August 1993, the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg took her seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. I […]
When politicians use hate speech, political violence increases
By James Piazza | – Politicians deepen existing divides when they use inflammatory language, such as hate speech, and this makes their societies more likely to experience political violence and terrorism. That’s the conclusion from a study I recently did on the connection between political rhetoric and actual violence. President Donald Trump is not the […]
10 things you need to know to stop a coup
(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 […]