Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Those observers asking whether Trump would get a bounce of sympathy from falling ill with COVID-19, the way Ronald Reagan saw his popularity soar after he was shot and had to be hospitalized, now have their answer. No. An October 2-3 opinion poll conducted by Yahoo and YouGov from Friday-Saturday, […]
The Republican Party is Sick: Top 4 Ways it is Making You and Yours Sick, too
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Republican Party is sick. That isn’t a putdown, it is just the truth. The chair of the Republican National Committee, Ronna McDaniel, is down with Covid-19, which she caught from hanging around with top Republican leaders. The head of the party, Donald Trump, is so ill he is in […]
Biggest Irony of 21st Century: Was GOP Elite sickened at Barrett fête while Plotting to end Americans’ Health Care?
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – In the twenty-first century’s biggest irony so far, last Saturday’s ceremony for the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court may have been a coronavirus superspreader event among the Republican Party elite. So suggests Oliver O’Connell at The Independent. It is an irony because that gathering was a […]
Trump, who mocked Joe Biden for wearing a Mask, gets Covid-19
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 […]
Arab World, Alarmed at US Debate Debacle, Worries about Military Coup and ‘Banana Republic’ on Potomac
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 […]
On how there are no “Infidels” in the Qur’an, and how Christians and Jews are never Called That
My new article is out in The Journal of the American Oriental Society about the meaning of the root k-f-r in the Qur’an, the Muslim scripture. We’ve all grown up hearing about the Qur’an’s condemnation of “infidels” or “unbelievers,” but I think that this is for the most part a mistranslation. I argue that the […]
Top 5 Most Horrible things Trump said in his Abnormal Debate
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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