Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – CNN reports that the Trump administration has turned against a UN Security Council resolution calling for a Yemen ceasefire and is now blocking it. The five permanent members of the UNSC have the ability to veto resolutions, so US hostility to it is fatal for the measure. Annual Informed Comment […]
We can Break Saudi Arabia’s Hold over the US by Driving Electric Cars
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Trump has openly and consistently given Saudi control of oil prices as the reason for which he doesn’t want to sanction Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman for having dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi murdered and then dismembered. Trump is, as usual, wildly exaggerating. Saudi Arabia produces perhaps 11% of the […]
India Doubles Iran Oil Imports: Are Trump’s Sanctions Cratering?
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – India’s imports of petroleum from Iran in October doubled in value terms to $1.42 billion in October, year over year. Likewise, during the first 8 months of 2018, the value of India’s oil imports from Iran was double that of the same period in 2017. Even in volume terms, imports […]
3 Charts: What Trump doesn’t Want you to Know about the Climate Emergency
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Trump administration dropped the 1,000-page second volume of a congressionally-mandated study of the impact of the climate crisis on the United States late on Friday of Thanksgiving weekend in order to bury it. This sort of move is designed to make sure the report is not headline news on […]
CIA has Recording of Saudi Crown Prince planning Hit on Khashoggi: Turkish ‘Hurriyet’
The other shoe has dropped in the scandal of the assassination of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, which was almost certainly ordered by crown prince Mohammed Bin Salman. Ironically enough, the shoe dropped with a thud in Turkey itself. Columnist Abdulkadir Selvi at the Hürriyet [Liberty] newspaper alleges that […]
On Thanksgiving, We must confront our Climate Emergency as the Pilgrims did Theirs
Revised for 2018 By Juan Cole | — The popular story about Thanksgiving is an environmental parable that we would do well to remember today. It was a harvest festival in 1621, participated in by the 50 (out of 100) survivors at Plymouth Plantation and 90 Native Americans. Some of these latter, such as Squanto, […]
Top five ways Trump put America Last with Whitewash of Saudi Prince
Trump’s statement on his policy toward Saudi Arabia in the wake of the murder in Istanbul of dissident Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi brought a profound shame on the United States that will, as FDR put it, live in infamy. Trump began by saying he was putting America first, but that was the last thing […]
Israel Seeks to undermine US 1st Amendment, Will Sue Airbnb over Delisting WB Squatter Apts
Airbnb, the giant online apartment rental site will delist 200 apartments of Israeli squatters on the Palestinian West Bank. The company has long been criticized for violating international law by dealing with the illegal colonists. Israel occupied the Palestinian West Bank and Gaza in 1967, and has introduced Apartheid rule there, keeping the Palestinians stateless. […]
On How Everything Sam Harris Says about Islam is Wrong (1)
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Sam Harris’s error-ridden and bigoted “The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and the Future of Religion” (Norton, 2005) singles out Islam for special opprobrium. Although Harris lambastes politicians of the Religious Right for having no special knowledge or credentials, the fact is that he himself has no credentials to write […]
© 2026 All Rights Reserved