Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Americans were horrified to hear that Trump wanted to have US forces at the US-Mexico border to charge migrants with bayonets or shoot them in the legs. Michael D. Shear and Julie Hirschfeld Davis at the New York Times reported that Trump wanted US forces to fire on migrants as […]
Trump’s Ukraine Ask was Criminal; but it Was SCOTUS’ Citizens United that Invited Foreign Interference in US Elections
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Trump is accused of soliciting the help of a foreign government to dig dirt on, essentially to do opposition research for him, on his Democratic rival, Joe Biden. It should be underlined, though, that the possibilities for foreign interference in US elections is a much bigger phenomenon than simply this […]
Pompeo, Complicit in Ukraine Call, hides behind the State Department he Persecuted in Benghazi Conspiracy Theory
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, a Kansas oil man in the back pocket of Koch Industries and a mealy-mouthed convert to High Trumpism, issued a shot across the bow of Congress on Tuesday. He sent a letter, which he also tweeted, in which he tried to take cover behind the […]
On Khashoggi Murder Anniversary: Trump’s other Dangerous Conversations besides Ukraine, with Saudi Bin Salman
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – CNN reports that, in addition to Trump’s Ukraine conversation last July, the transcripts of his telephone calls with Saudi crown prince Mohammed Bin Salman and Russian president Vladimir Putin were also stored in a super highly classified server. The implication is that his staff heard him commit crimes in the […]
Saudis Riposted to drive Houthis from Najran, after Defeat of Saudi-Backed Yemeni Nationalists
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The details of the alleged Houthi operation against Saudi Arabia are still murky, and Saudi Arabia has so far declined to provide its side of the story. Al Jazeera Arabic on Sunday rounded up the details provided by the Houthis and by its Yemeni sources. First of all, Al Jazeera […]
Yemen’s Houthis Say they Invaded Saudi Arabia, Captured Thousands of Troops in Najran
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Update 9/30: The Houthi military operation appears to have been against Saudi-backed nationalist bases in the far north of Yemen, and the POWs taken seem to be mostly Yemeni nationalists, along with some Saudi officers and troops. There may have been Houthi infiltration of Najran and Jizan as well, but […]
The First Inscriptional Evidence for the Wife of the Prophet Muhammad, Aisha
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Saudi archeologist Muhammad al-Maghthawi has published a photograph of an inscription in the vicinity of Medina that seems to be the first to mention the Prophet’s third wife, `A`isha. It seems to date from the first century of the Muslim era (A. H.), and is probably from the late […]
The Qur’an, the Prophet, and a Forgotten History – Juan Cole in conversation with Hamza Yusuf
From the podcast of the journal Renovatio: Journal of Zaytuna College. Juan Cole’s Muhammad: Prophet of Peace Amid the Clash of Empires (2018) retells the history of the prophetic period in seventh-century Arabia through the context of a brutal war between the Iranian Sassanian Empire and the Roman Empire in the Near East. In this […]
World’s Largest offshore Windfarm to power 1 mn British Homes & other Good Climate News
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Hanna Ziady at CNN Business reports that just next year, in 2020, the world’s largest offshore wind farm will open 75 miles off the eastern, Yorkshire coast of Britain. Hornsea I alone will power 1 million homes. Britain, with a population of 66 million, has 27 million households. It has […]
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