US politics

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – In a nearby place and very recently, Donald J. Trump, Rudy Giuliani, Rick Perry, Mick Mulvaney and Mike Pompeo among others hatched a plot against Joe Biden, whom they fingered as the likely Democratic standard bearer in 2020. The plot was to make sure Biden was smeared as a corrupt […]

Pentagon

You Mean we’re at War in Somalia? The Hidden Costs of U.S. Airstrikes

The Conversation

By Bryce W. Reeder | The US is an active participant in the war against Al-Shabaab in Somalia, efforts that have increased in the last few years under the Trump Administration. The strategy involves using airstrikes to assist Somali ground forces in recapturing territory controlled by Al-Shabaab. In addition, there have been attempts to take […]

Christianity

Rick Perry’s belief that Trump was chosen by God is shared by many in a fast-growing Christian movement

The Conversation

By Brad Christerson and Richard Flory | – In a recent interview with Fox News, Secretary of Energy Rick Perry stated that Donald Trump was chosen by God to be president. He said throughout history God had picked “imperfect people” such as King David or Solomon to lead their people. Perry is not alone. A […]

Banking

Is the Fed’s Agenda a Threat to Trump’s Reelection?

John Buell

(Special to Informed Comment) – President Trump recently reported on another one of those perfect conversations. Jerome Powell and he purportedly talked about interest rates and the importance of keeping them low to maintain a booming economy. Powell of course reported on no such conversation. In any case, however, the imagined conversation highlighted such issues […]

African-Americans

The Fate of the Nation depends on Dems Turning out the Black Womens’ Vote

Yes! Magazine

By Tasha Williams | – ( Yes! Magazine ) – Turnouts demonstrate that when we are effectively engaged, our work can make seemingly impossible victories possible. A volunteer checks off voters as they arrive at the Beulah Baptist Church polling station in Montgomery, Alabama, on Dec. 12, 2017. Tasha Williams posted Nov 21, 2019 Democratic […]

Afghanistan

Trump, who supports War Crimes, is losing War, and Wants to quit Afghanistan, Gaslights Troops in Kabul

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Trump showed up in Afghanistan, or rather on the US Bagram base in Afghanistan, on Thanksgiving, where he gave one of his typical Long Lies of a speech. Katie Bo Williams writes at Defense One that this year, 17 US troops have been killed and 124 wounded in action, the […]

Donald Trump

Trump and Israel’s Netanyahu: How the Far Right Subverts Democracy Globally

H. Scott Prosterman

San Francisco (Special to Informed Comment) – The trajectories and political fortunes of Israeli PM Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu and President Donald Trump are so closely aligned that there’s no irony it. They invested heavily in one another and may be experiencing parallel falls from “grace,” which was never a defining trait of either man. The […]

Donald Trump

Winter is Coming: Is Trump Impeaching us rather than the Other Way Around?

Tom Engelhardt

(Tomdispatch.com) – French king Louis XV reputedly said, “Après moi, le déluge.” (“After me, the flood.”) Whether that line was really his remains unclear, but not long after his death did come the French Revolution. We should be so lucky! Our all-American version of Louis XV, Donald I, is incapable, I suspect, of even imagining […]

Donald Trump

Iran and the US Come Closer: Ayatollah Rick Perry’s Evangelical Theology of Trump as God’s Chosen is just like Khamenei

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Jay Willis at GQ reports that Secretary of Energy Rick Perry said on Fox and Friends that Trump is God’s Chosen One. He said he told Trump, “If you’re a believing Christian, you understand God’s plan for the people who rule and judge over us on this planet and our […]