Trump son-in-law and Middle East “peace negotiator” Jared Kushner was communicating with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) prior to and after the Saudis brutally murdered Washington-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi on October 2 at the Saudi consulate-general in Istanbul. Kushner and MBS reportedly used the WhatsApp encrypted messaging service. Continue reading
As Donald Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, wields ever greater power over U.S. foreign and defense policy, with Defense Secretary James Mattis due to be the next victim of Bolton’s “house cleaning,” the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is preparing Libya for a neocon-led “nation-building” operation. Although Trump has slashed funding for USAID, the agency has found the necessary budget to begin to prepare Libya’s local municipal councils for elections. Continue reading
The actual reason why Donald Trump praised neo-Nazis and Ku Klux Klan members who marched in the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, as “fine people” is that Trump actually believes in the global goals of the neo-Nazi and white supremacist cause. This is now seen in Trump’s support for the efforts of his erstwhile White House chief strategist, Steve Bannon, in creating an alliance and secretariat of far-right racist political parties in Europe and beyond. Bannon’s operation is called “The Movement.” Continue reading
Former president George W. Bush has been misinterpreted by many political observers as a “neo-moderate.” However, Bush’s phone calls to four wavering senators, in which he urged them to vote for Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court, belies the actual reason behind his support for Kavanaugh. Serving as White House Staff Secretary for Bush from 2003 to 2006, Kavanaugh was part and parcel of theft of Ohio’s 20 electoral votes to Bush in 2004, which ensured Bush’s re-election and denied the presidency to Democratic candidate John Kerry. Bush’s phone calls to Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) were supplemented with an invitation for her to visit the Bush family at their Kennebunkport, Maine estate. Bush also phoned Senators Jeff Flake (R-AZ), Joe Manchin (D-WV), and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK). Out of the three, only Murkowski voted against Kavanaugh’s confirmation. Continue reading
In what amounts to a clear violation of the United States-United Nations Treaty of 1947, the Trump administration is denying visas to same-sex domestic partners of UN diplomats and staff. The U.S. is also requiring UN personnel in same-sex partnerships to get married or face the cancellation of current U.S. visas for domestic partners. For foreign diplomats being assigned to the UN and hoping to obtain visas for their same-sex partners, the U.S. is requiring them to get married before issuing visas. However, some of those affected by the U.S. visa ban live in countries where same-sex or even opposite sex domestic partnerships are illegal. Continue reading
Donald Trump’s attempt to persuade members of the United Nations to comply with his “secondary sanctions” against Iran, scheduled for enactment by the United States on November 4, came up empty-handed. To varying degrees, member states, including the other four permanent members of the UN Security Council, rejected Trump’s attempt to apply extra-territorial jurisdiction over other nations’ trade and financial ties with Iran. Continue reading
Donald Trump’s and his far right-wing flank of war-mongering zealots in the US Congress are calling for former Secretary of State John Kerry to be criminally investigated for violating the arcane Logan Act of 1799. Enacted during a time when President John Adams—who rolled back much of the foreign policy independence of the United States in favor of Great Britain, its former colonizer—wanted to deal out harsh punishment to those like then-Vice President Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Dr. George Logan, a Philadelphia Quaker, who were negotiating peace with the post-French Revolution Directory in Paris. Adams dearly wanted to ally the United States with Britain in a war with France. In pursuit of criminal sanctions against pro-French politicians like Jefferson, Logan, and others, Adams and his pro-British clique, which included former President George Washington, enacted the Logan Act and the Alien and Sedition Acts. Continue reading
WMR has learned from knowledgeable intelligence sources that the Central Intelligence Agency and Department of State are losing valuable expertise as a result of a Trump administration-led purge of those with different views on the Middle East, Iran, North Korea, Latin America, and overall geopolitical issues. Continue reading
There are a variety of factors why 15-year old Christina Blasey did not report the alleged sexual assault by a 17-year old Brett Kavanaugh at a party in 1982. The freewheeling 1980s were not kind to those who were sexually harassed or assaulted. The decade was marked in the Washington, DC area by booze, drugs, and inappropriate behavior in the workplace. This was the environment, particularly insidious among the affluent teens of Georgetown Prep and University crowd, that Blasey found herself. Continue reading
It did not take long for Donald Trump to transform the US government into a mob operation, where administration officials use the threat of US travel bans, asset freezes and forfeitures, and punishing trade tariffs to bring other nations and their leaders to heel. Continue reading
Brett Kavanaugh, Donald Trump’s dubious nominee for the Supreme Court, not only faces questions about his views on a woman’s right to choose her own health decisions and his own questionable past treatment of women, but his elite high school. Georgetown Preparatory High School in North Bethesda, Maryland has been a hotbed for Roman Catholic sex abuse of minors. As a member of the Supreme Court, Kavanaugh would become the court’s fifth Catholic judge. His decisions on cases involving the cover-up of child sex abuse by religious organizations and politically powerful individuals could dictate for decades to come how the nation deals with the issue of sex abuse of minors. Continue reading
Donald Trump’s order to declassify cherry-picked classified documents, including the 2015 secret court order that authorized U.S. intelligence surveillance of Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, will enable Russian and other Eastern European and Eurasian organized crime syndicates to understand how they are targeted by the FBI, National Security Agency, and the CIA. Continue reading
Senate Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has expressed his fear that the Senate is in play in this year’s mid-term elections. Although Democrats are defending 10 Senate seats in states that Donald Trump won, a combination of events, including a conviction and cooperation deal with Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort; the sleaze factor surrounding Trump and members of his administration; and farmers and livestock growers devastated by retaliatory moves by other countries on Trump’s tariffs, has put an unlikely state in play for the Democrats: Nebraska. Continue reading
On every anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani is cycled through various talking head “news” formats to recount the events of the fateful day seventeen years ago. Giuliani’s veracity about the events of 9/11 had plenty of doubters just after the attacks. However, given Giuliani’s declaration on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on August 19, 2018 that “truth isn’t truth,” Giuliani’s lies about both the Trump administration and 9/11 should be considered holistically as coming from a corrupt liar. Continue reading
It is truly amazing how many individuals who stood opposed to George W. Bush’s wars of choice in Iraq and Afghanistan now blindly follow the patently neocon foreign policy of Donald Trump. During the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump constantly castigated candidates like Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham, and others for their support for neocon regime change in other countries. Continue reading
Political scientists would argue that the rigors of running for political office coupled with the glaring microscope of press attention would normally weed out any candidate suffering from mental illness. Whether political leaders gain office democratically or from unconstitutional means, the degree of mental illness among the top leadership of nations around the world in recent history has been remarkably high. Continue reading
When the nation’s founders selected what is now the District of Columbia to serve as the capital of the United States, engineers and architects were faced with the task of building a capital city on what was essentially a swamp. Donald Trump and his cronies and grifters have done their damnedest to turn Washington back into a swamp, one inhabited by slimy and scaly denizens eager to cash in on government access and control. Continue reading
As Washington was still reeling from the contents of Bob Woodward’s new exposé of the inner workings of the Trump administration, a current senior-level official of that administration penned an anonymous op-ed column in The New York Times revealing an unprecedented “resistance” movement within the White House. The movement has, according to the anonymous source, managed to circumvent several of Donald Trump’s anti-constitutional decisions and desires. The opinion piece, titled, “I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration,” was only published by the “paper-of-record” under an anonymous by-line because the author is a high-ranking official of the Trump White House. Continue reading
While WMR has been a frequent critic of the often pusillanimous Bob Woodward of Watergate infamy, his new book, “Fear: Trump in the White House,” does paint a picture of the Trump White House that comes as no surprise to those who have tracked Mr. Trump’s business methods and political chicanery. Woodward, who enjoyed special access to previous administrations, always delivering puff piece descriptions of them in his past “chronicles” of politics on the Potomac, does land several body blows on Trump. Continue reading
Before Brett Kavanaugh, Donald Trump’s nominee for the U. S. Supreme Court, was a federal judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, White House staff secretary for George W. Bush, and a member of the Bush-Cheney 2000 legal team in the 2000 Florida presidential vote recount, he was a member of Independent Counsel Ken Starr’s investigation team looking into the July 1993 suicide of Bill Clinton’s deputy White House counsel, Vince Foster. Kavanaugh also helped draft the Starr Report, which recommended the impeachment of Clinton. Continue reading
Regional international organizations formed to keep the peace are loathe to adjusting borders, even if such changes maintain the peace. For example, when Kosovo President Hashim Thaci recently proposed “a correction” of its border with Serbia, active and retired diplomats on both sides of the Atlantic warned against the idea. Their reasoning is flawed. Continue reading
Donald Trump’s foreign policy, like much of his domestic policy, is a throwback to the worst right-wing excesses of the Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan administrations. Mr. Trump, who avoided the draft during the Vietnam War for “bone spurs,” praised that nation’s government during a visit by Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc to Washington in May 2017. Trump repeated those warm words for Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang, during a visit to Hanoi in November 2017. However, given the fact that Vietnam recently imprisoned 12 individuals, including two US citizens, who were fighting with a guerilla movement that seeks to restore the US-backed “Republic of Vietnam” (South Vietnam), Trump’s foreign policy could be ripped from the history pages covering 1969 to 1971. Continue reading
Officially, three grand juries have been hearing testimony from witnesses in the Justice Department’s investigation of criminal activities by Trump Organizations and Trump campaign officials. These have included the U.S. Attorney’s Offices and federal courts in Manhattan, Washington, DC, and Alexandria, Virginia. Continue reading
Donald Trump’s scandal-plagued administration was, like that of Richard Nixon’s, buffeted by the political winds of August. Continue reading
Donald Trump has demonstrated his disdain for international agreements and treaties by either pulling the United States out of them or violating their basic requirements by his malign actions. Trump’s first renunciation of an international agreement was his June 2017 pullout from the Paris Climate Accord. The United States achieved the distinction of being the only nation in the world to denounce the agreement, which had been agreed to by all the world’s nations, including such non-members of the United Nations as the Holy See, the Faroe Islands, Aruba, Curacao, and Somaliland. Continue reading
Former Donald Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, convicted in the U.S. Court for the Eastern District of Virginia on eight criminal counts, including bank and tax fraud, was the chief promoter of Vice President Mike Pence while Trump was deciding on a running mate. Pence’s brother, Ed Pence, is a retired executive with engine manufacturer Cummins, Inc., headquartered in Columbus, Indiana. During Ed Pence’s 36 years with the firm, he was promoted to vice president in charge of strategic initiatives. Ed Pence retired in December 2017. Ed Pence was largely responsible for developing a close relationship between Cummins and Russian truck manufacturer KAMAZ, based in the Russian autonomous Republic of Tatarstan. Continue reading
Donald Trump has emaciated environmental regulations instituted by administrations from that of Richard Nixon to Barack Obama. Trump has also targeted federal social safety net programs initiated by Franklin Delano Roosevelt and refined by Harry S Truman, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon Johnson. Trump’s attack on public education negates strides made by Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, Benjamin Harrison, Woodrow Wilson, FDR, Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, LBJ, Nixon, and Gerald Ford. Trump’s exploitation of federal parks, nature reserves, and lands for oil exploration, fracking, and mining unravels the conservation efforts instituted, primarily, by Theodore Roosevelt, but supplemented by the actions of Lincoln, Ulysses Grant, Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison, Wilson, FDR, JFK, LBJ, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama. Continue reading
Democratic candidates up and down the ballot in this year’s mid-term election campaign are discovering the added bonus of Republican endorsements to add to favorable polling numbers. The candidates for governor of Florida will be decided on August 28, however, former Democratic U.S. Representative Gwen Graham, the daughter of former governor and senator Bob Graham, is leading in polls. Continue reading
The institution of Donald Trump’s scattershot tariff policies are having a negative effect on consumer prices at the supermarket even as the White House paints a rosy picture of the nation’s economy. Although Trump promised American workers wage increases arising from his giveaway tax breaks for billionaires, few laborers have seen any increase in their take-home pay. This has resulted in a mild form of “stagflation,” which occurs in an economy suffering from inflation with no commensurate increase in wages. Because unemployment is low, the traditional definition of stagflation—inflation with high unemployment—does not fit the current economic environment. Instead, some economists are calling inflation with low-paying jobs with low unemployment “slumpflation.” Continue reading
The white nationalist immigration policy established by Donald Trump’s policy adviser, Stephen Miller, and his former U.S. Senate boss, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, is putting in jeopardy a number of governments-in-exile and political leaders receiving asylum in the United States. Since World War II, the United States has been one of the few countries in the world that extended a welcome to governments overthrown in coups and military invasions. However, under the Trump administration’s policy of reviewing the status of permanent resident immigrants in the United States, the welcome mat may soon be pulled out from under a number of exiled governments and their leaders. Continue reading
The federal arrest and indictment for insider stock trading of Representative Chris Collins (R-NY), the first member of Congress to endorse Donald Trump for president, had a familiar air about it. Indicted along with Collins were his son, Cameron Collins, and Stephen Zarsky, the father of Cameron Collins’s fiancee. Continue reading
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Trump, the resurgent Cold War president
Posted on October 23, 2018 by Wayne Madsen
Some of the world’s hottest points of conflict during the Cold War are, once again, in the headlines because of Donald Trump’s erratic and bombastic saber-rattling antics. Even a military pact between North and South Korea, one worked out between South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un at their third summit in Pyongyang in September is being actively opposed by Trump’s pompous Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo. In remarks in the South Korean parliament, Foreign Minister Kang Kyung said that Pompeo wanted Seoul to go slow on its talks with North Korea. It is known that Trump wants another summit with North Korea’s Kim. Little resulted from the first Trump-Kim meeting in Singapore, which was largely a much-ballyhooed photo op, but was heralded by some myopic Trump supporters as an epic event rivaling President Richard Nixon’s trip to China. Continue reading →