International

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 […]

Democratic Party

A House Divided: America’s new Civil Wars

Tomdispatch

By Andrea Mazzarino | – When it rains, pieces of glass, pottery, and metal rise through the mud in the hills surrounding my Maryland home. The other day, I walked outside barefoot to fetch one of my kid’s shoes and a pottery shard stabbed me in the heel. Nursing a minor infection, I wondered how […]

Corruption

Every Day is Memorial Day: The Trump Virus has killed as Many Americans as Died in Combat in the 4 Years of the Civil War

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Trump has helped kill 200,000 Americans. The US has 4% of the world’s population but about 21% of its deaths. Global deaths are nearing the grim milestone of 1 million. For the world’s sole superpower, the scientifically most advanced country in the world, to have met the test of the […]

Banking

ODNI Blamed Syrian Banks, but Did the West’s Deutsche Bank Facilitate ISIL Finances in Mosul?

Middle East Monitor

By Hala Nouhad Nasreddine | – ( Middle East Monitor) The Islamic State’s infamous rule over vast areas of Iraq during 2014 and 2016 not only led to a humanitarian crisis, but also left the country’s economy depleted. Its expansion in Iraq, marked by its control over vast areas of the country, most notably capturing […]

Climate Change

Germany’s Crypto-Neo-Nazi AfD Party calls for end to all climate action efforts

Benjamin Wehrmann

( Clean Energy Wire ) – The right-wing nationalist AfD party has called for an end to all major climate action efforts Germany has committed itself to and wants to abandon both the Paris Climate Agreement and the European Green Deal. One year before the general election in autumn 2021, the party that holds 12.6 […]

Crime

Wagging the Dog: As Trump and Iran square off on Venezuela Oil Shipments, will US Go full Pirate of the Gulf?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Trita Parsi writing at Responsible Statecraft wonders if the Trump administration is planning to widen its piracy against Iranian vessels on the high seas as part of an October surprise. Trump had four Iranian oil tankers seized in August, alleging that they were heading for Venezuela. The problem? There is […]

Drugs

Isolation and Opioids During the Pandemic

Tomdispatch

By Mattea Kramer | – ( Tomdispatch.com) – In our new era of nearly unparalleled upheaval, as a pandemic ravages the bodies of some and the minds of nearly everyone, as the associated economic damage disposes of the livelihoods of many, and as even the promise of democracy fades, the people whose lives were already […]

Authoritarianism

Who is Murdering Iraq’s anti-corruption Youth Protesters?

Human Rights Watch

Human Rights Watch (Beirut) – Unidentified gunmen have since August 14, 2020, assassinated two protesters and wounded another four, all linked to a youth protest group with political aspirations in Basra, in southern Iraq, Human Rights Watch said today. They are the most recent victims of killings of hundreds of protesters in Baghdad and southern […]

Far Right

Israel: Tens of Thousands Protest Netanyahu as Momentum Grows and Gov’t Faces Collapse

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Israeli-Palestinian newspaper Arab48 reports that tens of thousands of protesters came out against Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Saturday, in what has become a weekly ritual for the past three months that has grown larger and larger. The rallies disproved the allegation of pro-Netanyahu pundits that the recognition […]