Economy

How should progressives stand on the issue of the second Covid relief bill being negotiated between Speaker Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Mnuchin? What can be said is that a generous relief package is badly needed and the case on its behalf is strengthened by an analysis of the first relief package. In terms of pure […]

China

China grows nearly 5%; Will historians look back at Trump’s disastrous Pandemic Response as the Moment Beijing Overtook the US?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Even if Trump loses, he can go on screwing up the country for two and a half months thereafter, and it will take years to undo the damage he has done. Pandemics are the sort of thing you want to nip in the bud. If you let them go to […]

Donald Trump

America is Complicit, as Yemen Spirals toward Mass Starvation

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Mark Lowcock of the United Nations gave an impassioned and apocalyptic speech on Thursday warning that 4 million Yemenis who had been receiving aid no longer are, because of a shortfall in donor contributions, and the country could be on the cusp of mass starvation. There already is widespread malnutrition […]

Campaign Finance

Election 2020 sees record $11 billion in campaign spending, mostly from a handful of super-rich donors

The Conversation

By Richard Briffault | – Total spending in the 2020 federal elections is projected to set a new record of almost US$11 billion by November. When adjusted for inflation, that’s over 50% higher than 2016 election spending. This year’s federal election spending – for the presidency, the Senate and the House of Representatives – is […]

Health Care

Can Trump’s Plan to Steal your Social Security, Medicare be Stopped?

F. Douglas Stephenson

Gainesville, Florida (Special to Informed Comment) – President Donald Trump, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and other Republicans promoting the backlash against the federal government seek to return to an earlier, supposedly golden era in American history. By privatizing Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid while further lowering taxes on the top 1 percent income bracket, […]

Donald Trump

Call for Fox Media News Monopoly to be Broken up: Rupert Murdoch an “arrogant cancer on … democracy” – Rudd

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd has called for the break up of his country’s media monopolies (almost all major media are owned by just two corporations). One of the two media monopolies he was slamming is Rupert Murdoch’s Newscorp. In its incarnation as Fox News, the same company has […]

Donald Trump

Biggest Irony of 21st Century: Was GOP Elite sickened at Barrett fête while Plotting to end Americans’ Health Care?

Juan Cole

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 […]

Climate Crisis

Top 5 Most Horrible things Trump said in his Abnormal Debate

Juan Cole

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 […]

Corruption

Did Trump Throw Kurds under the Bus for Turkey because of his Istanbul Revenue Stream?

Juan Cole

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 […]