Democratic Party

Arabic Press: Saudi Arabia breaking off Talks with Israel out of Despair that Far Right Gov’t will make any concessions to Palestinians

Post-script: Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman denied this report 4 days after it appeared and maintained that the negotiations with Israel are continuing, with the two sides getting closer. Either the Israeli source was misinformed or was leaking to put pressure on the Crown Prince; if the latter it appears to have succeeded. Ann Arbor […]

Climate Crisis

Biden in Hanoi: Climate Change Exceeding 1.5° C. is more of an Existential Threat than even Nuclear War

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – As I pointed out on Sunday, the Big Oil and Big Coal countries in the G20 — Russia, Saudi Arabia, India and China — prevented the New Delhi summit’s joint communique from making any specific commitments to reduce carbon pollution. At his news conference in Hanoi, President Biden was pressed […]

Drone Warfare

The Rules of Engagement of Violent Islamophobia: 22 Years of Drone Warfare and No End in Sight

Tomdispatch

By Maha Hilal | – ( Tomdispatch.com ) – “I no longer love blue skies. In fact, I now prefer gray skies. The drones do not fly when the skies are gray.” That’s what a young Pakistani boy named Zubair told members of Congress at a hearing on drones in October 2013. That hearing was during […]

Climate Crisis

New Mexico Wind Farms: Largest Renewable Energy Infrastructure Project in US History, as High Density Line is Approved

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – About a year and a half ago, I wrote a piece on how New Mexico is set to become the Saudi Arabia of wind, which went viral. It described how four wind farms will have a capacity to generate 3.5 gigawatts of power, as much as four nuclear power plants. […]

Climate Crisis

Labor Day: Is Biden’s Green Energy IRA the most Pro-Worker Legislation in Decades?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Inflation Reduction Act, President Biden’s signature piece of legislation that was passed with no Republican support, contains $369 billion for the green energy transition. Since much of this funding leverages corporate and individual investments, its impact will be in the trillions of dollars. Given the dire climate crisis we […]

Climate Crisis

A Quarter of New Car Sales in California is now Electric: Take that, Russia, Iran and Saudi Arabia!

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The California Energy Commission reports that in the second quarter of this year, 25% of new vehicle registrations in that state were zero emissions electric cars. Moving rapidly to electric vehicles makes the US more secure geopolitically, since oil states such as Saudi Arabia and Russia can no longer use […]

Anti-intellectualism

Conspiracy-Spewing, Anti-Vaxxer Democrat Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Gets a MAGA Boost to Weaken Biden

Dan Dinello

Chicago (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – The right’s thinly veiled crusade to elevate Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.–an exemplar of through-the-Black-Mirror politics — culminated last week with his alternative-reality testimony at a GOP-instigated congressional hearing. He was welcomed by Republicans to the House “weaponization” subcommittee to drive their fabricated message of government […]

Democratic Party

Progressive Dem Caucus Chair Condemns Israel as a Racist State, says Palestinian Statehood increasingly “not Possible”

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Update: See Rep. Jayapal’s clarification below. Remarks Saturday by Rep. Pramila Jayapal may signal the end of the “liberal except on Palestine” ploy of most Congressional Democrats, who decry police brutality against US minorities but are perfectly all right with Israeli government repression of the Palestinians being kept stateless and […]

Antisemitism

When it Comes to Defining Antisemitism, it’s Official: the IHRA, which forbids Criticizing Israel, is no Longer the only Game in Town

Georgia Recorder

Joe Sterling ( Georgia Recorder ) – The battle over a controversial definition of antisemitism that forbids criticism of Israel has taken a new turn in Georgia and the rest of the country, thanks to the Biden administration. That’s good news for those of us who oppose giving that one definition the force of law. […]