Juan Cole

(courtesy Stacey (twitter.com/flipflops).

Some 24 persons have been killed in clashes between protesters and government security forces in Tunisia. The government has closed schools and universities “indefinitely” as a way of demobilizing youthful protesters. The Arabic press is reporting that Tunisia has called the US ambassador on the mat, and has called back its own ambassador in Washington, […]

Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and other far right-wing demagogues have been quick to defend themselves from the charge of fostering a climate of poisonous political hatred in the United States, in the aftermath of the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Gifford and the killing of Federal Judge John Roll, along with the injuring or killing of […]

Sarah Palin’s aides are claiming that the crosshairs marking the targeted Democratic candidates (including Gabrielle Giffords) on her infamous poster (scroll down) were not crosshairs but a ‘surveyor’s symbol.’ But Palin called the symbols ‘bull’s eyes’ in a tweet, so the surveyor symbol business is just b.s.: (Courtesy this Flikr site). Actually, Palin has a […]

Jared Lee Loughner, the alleged assassin of Federal judge John M. Roll and five others and attempted assassin of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), was clearly mentally unstable. But the political themes of his instability were those of the American far Right. Loughner was acting politically even if he is not all there. He is said […]

The US Department of Justice has subpoenaed from Twitter the private emails of former Wikileaks activist Birgitt Jonsdottir, now a member of Iceland’s parliament. She tweeted, “USA government wants to know about all my tweets and more since november 1st 2009. Do they realize I am a member of parliament in Iceland?” If Twitter complies […]