(Foreign Policy in Focus) – Trump has been enlisting foreign leaders in his fight against the U.S. state. Is impeachment a moral necessity or political trap? A month after he won the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump gave a speech in North Carolina where he declared that “we will stop racing to topple foreign regimes […]
Archives for September 2019
US Move Puts More Asylum Seekers at Risk: Expanded ‘Remain in Mexico’ Program Undermines Due Process
( Human Rights Watch) – (Ciudad Juarez, Mexico) –The Trump administration has drastically expanded its “Remain in Mexico” program while undercutting the rights of asylum seekers at the United States southern border, Human Rights Watch said today. Under the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) – known as the “Remain in Mexico” program – asylum seekers in […]
Universal ethical truths are at the core of Jewish High Holy Days
By Ronald W. Pies | – My most vivid adolescent memories of the Jewish High Holy Days are the painful rumbling of my empty stomach as I fasted on Yom Kippur, and the sharp blasts of the shofar – the ram’s horn – sounding from the synagogue pulpit. I was one of millions of Jews […]
Finally, an Impeachment Inquiry: Pelosi on “Nationalist” Trump’s “betrayal of our National Security”
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Nancy Pelosi finally caved to pressure to open an impeachment inquiry into Trump, after he admitted to having pressured the Ukraine government to investigate his Democratic rival Joe Biden. Biden is clearly furious over the whole thing, and as a pillar of the Democratic establishment and former president of the […]
Twitter shuts down ‘manipulative’ accounts in the Middle East
( Al-Bab.com ) – Twitter announced on Friday that it has closed down a series of accounts connected with the UAE, Egypt and Saudi Arabia as part of its effort to shed more light on “state-backed information operations”. Regarding the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, it said: “We have removed a network of 271 accounts […]
The Problem with Policing US Borders is that they Extend throughout the Planet
By Todd Miller | – (Tomdispatch.com) – The driver of the passenger van pulled onto the shoulder of the road, looked back, and said, “There’s an immigration checkpoint up ahead. Does everyone have their papers?” We were just north of the Guatemalan border, outside the town of Ciudad Hidalgo in the Mexican state of Chiapas. […]
What exactly Happens to Us if we make the Average World Temperature go up by 2.7° F., or (Oh No!) 3.6° F.?
By Rachel Warren | – Many numbers are bandied around in climate emergency discussions. Of them, 1.5°C [2.7° F.] is perhaps the most important. At the Paris Agreement in 2015, governments agreed to limit global warming to well below 2°C [3.6° F.] and to aim for 1.5°C. By 2018, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change […]
Greta Thunberg’s Generational J’accuse: It’s a Crime to Cause the Climate Crisis
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Greta Thunberg, in her speech to the United Nations General Assembly, let them have it.(See below.) Over a century ago, when authoritarian elements in the French officer corps trumped up a treason case against a Jewish officer, Alfred Dreyfus, novelist Émile Zola wrote an open letter to the president of […]
When Christians First Met Muslims (Emir-Stein Center Talk)
Michael Penn | Emir-Stein Center | Video Clip and Transcript | – If history matters, then getting right the history of the first encounters of the world’s two largest religions—Christianity and Islam—really matters. In this fascinating video, Prof. Michael Penn, the Teresa Hihn Moore Professor of Religious Studies at Stanford University, sheds light on the […]