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Juan Cole

Featured
Everyday War Crimes:  Israeli PM Netanyahu Gets COVID Vaccine, Squatters get Vaccine, but Not Occupied Palestinians

Everyday War Crimes: Israeli PM Netanyahu Gets COVID Vaccine, Squatters get Vaccine, but Not Occupied Palestinians

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu received a coronavirus shot on Saturday. He has pledged that the 9 million Israelis will be vaccinated in a matter of months. Inside Israel, Netanyahu was widely thought to have mishandled the pandemic, and it hurt his popularity as the country goes yet again to […]

Democratic Party
How will Biden's Middle East -- and Iran -- be different from Trump's?

How will Biden’s Middle East — and Iran — be different from Trump’s?

Juan Cole

By Tony Walker | – Canberra policymakers will be conducting a root-and-branch reassessment of Australia’s foreign policy following Donald Trump’s defeat in the US presidential election and ahead of an incoming Democrat administration. Top of the list of items for review will be a leaden-footed China policy. Chinese trade reprisals for perceived Australian slights are […]

Denialism
Pence, who backed Muslim visa Ban, gets Vaccine invented by Muslim Immigrants

Pence, who backed Muslim visa Ban, gets Vaccine invented by Muslim Immigrants

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Defeated vice president Mike Pence got the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine on Friday. Here is why he is a hypocrite. Pence served for four years in the Trump administration, which initiated a visa ban against Muslims. Although he had in 2015 called any such ban “unconstitutional,” he folded when Trump insisted on […]

Colonialism
Biden Pick, Native American Deb Haaland to head Dept. that once Vowed to "Civilize or Exterminate" her People

Biden Pick, Native American Deb Haaland to head Dept. that once Vowed to “Civilize or Exterminate” her People

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Rep. Deb Haaland (D-NM) will be president-elect Joe Biden’s nominee to head the Department of the Interior. She is the first Native American to head the department, and her appointment is full of ironies. The Department, formed in 1849, includes the Bureau of Indian Affairs and has a long history […]

Climate Crisis
Solar just made Banks write off a $1 bn. Australian Coal Plant as Worthless; What's in Your Retirement Portfolio?

Solar just made Banks write off a $1 bn. Australian Coal Plant as Worthless; What’s in Your Retirement Portfolio?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Daniel Mercer at the Australian Broadcasting Company reports that the newest coal-fired power plant in the country, the 10-year-old, nearly $1 bn. USD Bluewater facility, has been written off as worthless by its investors. Southwestern Australia has so much cheap solar energy that the coal plant’s prospects cratered, especially once […]

Batteries
Greening America:  Can Biden's new Team of Buttigieg and Granholm save us from the Climate Crisis?

Greening America: Can Biden’s new Team of Buttigieg and Granholm save us from the Climate Crisis?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Washington Post is reporting that Joe Biden will make Pete Buttigieg his secretary of transportation and Jennifer Granholm his secretary of energy. This is very good news for climate policy. Energy is perhaps the most important portfolio in the Biden cabinet, since it is key to greening America and […]

Democratic Party
Iran's Pres. Rouhani to Biden:  We will Fulfill our Nuclear Obligations on Day One if you Return to 2015 Deal

Iran’s Pres. Rouhani to Biden: We will Fulfill our Nuclear Obligations on Day One if you Return to 2015 Deal

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Iranian president Hassan Rouhani was asked Tuesday in an interview with a state-owned news outlet under what conditions Iran would return to the 2015 nuclear deal with the 5 permanent members of the UN Security Council (P5), including the U.S., plus Germany (+1) He replied, “A thing we are saying […]

Donald Trump
Pandemic Failure, Vaccine Success Indict American Monopoly Capitalism

Pandemic Failure, Vaccine Success Indict American Monopoly Capitalism

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The contrast between the unprecedented failure of the United States to deal successfully with the coronavirus pandemic, and the success of pharmaceutical companies in coming up with effective vaccines in record time is bittersweet. The reason for the difference is that no one could make any money on mitigating the […]

Featured
No, Joseph Epstein, Doctors aren't only Physicians, and Jill Biden earned her Title:  Use It

No, Joseph Epstein, Doctors aren’t only Physicians, and Jill Biden earned her Title: Use It

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Essayist and writer Joseph Epstein took a shot at incoming First Lady Jill Biden at the Wall Street Journal on Saturday. In his op ed, the former editor of The American Scholar urged her to stop having herself referred to as “Dr. Jill Biden” on the grounds, he said, that […]

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