The revelations that businessmen tied to Ukrainian oligarch Dmytro Firtash and other foreign interests funneled campaign cash into the coffers of several Republican Party politicians, including the president, senators, U.S. representatives, and governors is like a case of déjà vu. In 1940, the United States first began to take seriously foreign cash donations to U.S. political campaigns in the months preceding the U.S. entry into World War II. Continue reading
One of the tropes Israel and its international phalanx of lobbyists has used since the state’s inception in 1948 is that “Poor Little Israel” requires Western money and diplomatic support because the small country is surrounded by hostile Arab countries. Neither of these contentions have ever been true. Continue reading
By Donald Trump’s own admission and through documents provided by an Intelligence Community whistleblower and former U.S. special envoy for Ukraine Paul Volker it is known that the Trump administration pressured at least four countries to dig up dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden. The countries identified as being involved in the Trump operation thus far are Ukraine, the United Kingdom, Australia, and China. The attack on the Democratic Party’s leading presidential candidate in 2020 is far worse than that carried out by Richard Nixon henchmen G. Gordon Liddy, E. Howard Hunt, Donald Segretti, and Charles Colson in the Watergate scandal and events surrounding it. Continue reading
There are several correlations currently being made between the current move by the US Congress to impeach Donald Trump for high crimes and misdemeanors and a similar action that resulted in the resignation of President Richard Nixon as a result of the Watergate scandal. However, there is a major difference between then and now: The Internet and the dissonant cacophony of polemics from non-journalists whose sole goal is to muddy the informational waters with far-out conspiracy theories and libelous prose. Continue reading
With a dangerous right-wing and quasi-fascist administration in power in Washington, one that rejects internationalism and consensus-building, it is past time for the United Nations to move its headquarters and member states’ permanent missions to a more neutral location. One can understand why the UN was originally located in New York. The Rockefeller family donated the land on Turtle Bay on the East River for the construction of UN Headquarters. After World War II, the United States was in a prime position to nurture the UN, something it failed to do after World War I when Washington rejected membership in the League of Nations. Continue reading
In July 2018, White House leaks indicated that Donald Trump gave his personal mobile phone number to various foreign leaders. Although Trump is known to have phoned some foreign leaders over his official White House landline, he is also known to call some leaders using his mobile phones on a whim and while some of his calls’ recipients, in Asia, for example, are asleep. Trump is also known to use multiple cell phones to call foreign leaders. Criminals, including narco-lords and drug smugglers, often use multiple “burner” phones in the hope they can evade detection and eavesdropping by law enforcement. Continue reading
The Central Intelligence Agency, founded largely by a bunch of self-entitled graduates of America’s Ivy League universities and alum of secretive fraternities – particularly Yale and the Skulls and Bones — appears to be re-indulging in some of its worst antics of the Cold War years. Many CIA plank owners joined the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) during World War II, a convenient way for them to avoid combat and killing Nazis, for whom they had some ideological sympathies. Continue reading
The disclosure by the British Parliament of the “Most Sensitive” Operation YELLOWHAMMER document describes a United Kingdom ripe for the machinations of Britain’s proto fascists, who make up a large part of the Tory government of Prime Minister Boris Johnson. YELLOWHAMMER’s prediction of economic and social chaos in the United Kingdom resulting from a hard-British exit (BREXIT) from the European Union will have dire consequences for the rule of law and democracy throughout the United Kingdom. Continue reading
Shortly before proroguing Parliament, British Tory Prime Minister Boris Johnson was ordered to release a classified report titled Operation Yellowhammer, a government-wide survey of how a no-deal British exit from the European Union (Brexit) would affect citizens of the United Kingdom and its territories, including three crown dependencies. The document that was officially released by the British government contains a redacted paragraph (number 15). However, WMR was able to obtain the paragraph and included it in our unredacted copy of the Yellowhammer document. Continue reading
Modern diplomacy can generally be traced back to the late 19th century and the intercession of professional diplomats in the foreign relations between major and minor powers of the era. International negotiations to resolve problems were primarily handled by diplomats prior to politicians giving their assent to peace treaties and compacts. The Congress of Berlin of 1878 and 1905 Treaty of Portsmouth (New Hampshire) helped resolve the Russo-Turkish War and Russo-Japanese War, respectively. These early diplomatic efforts would eventually lead to treaties establishing the League of Nations, the International Court of Justice, and the United Nations, in addition to a variety of regional and specialized international agencies. Each of these international agencies brought into being a corps of international diplomats who, for the most part, were committed to hammering out disputes between nations through negotiations and not armed conflict. The lessons of World Wars I and II provided an impetus for nations to commit to dialogue rather than war. Continue reading
Anyone who has ever cared for a relative or a close friend suffering from dementia is well aware of the effects of this debilitating disease. Living with a dementia sufferer is as bad, if not worse, for the care giver as it is for the person afflicted. Obsessive compulsiveness, irrational outbursts such as inappropriate laughing, crying or yelling, insensitive bigoted comments, and voicing strange ideas are only a part of a dementia patient’s overall symptoms. Continue reading
Not since the Third Reich regime of Adolf Hitler have Nordic nations been forced to deal with a megalomaniac foreign leader like Donald Trump. Trump has summarily criticized the prime ministers of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, lied about a conversation with the president of Finland; and is likely to soon turn his Twitter venom on the prime minister of Iceland. The five Nordic leaders serve as heads of government of five countries that annually top the world’s list of happiest nations because of their policies that put the health and welfare of their people first. Continue reading
Donald Trump wants to buy Greenland, an autonomous constituent part of the Kingdom of Denmark. If any other US president proffered such an idea, it would be viewed as a joke. But with Trump, it is a serious proposal, according to White House insiders who passed the information to The Wall Street Journal. Continue reading
Further pushing his cruelty from caged migrant children separated from their families at the southern border to yet other children coming home from school in Mississippi to find their parents having been hauled off by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to detention centers, Donald Trump has now turned his attention to needlessly harming animals. Trump is a well-known critic of pet owners, including his own vice president, referring to them as “low class.” Continue reading
The indictment of wealthy investor Jeffrey Epstein by the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York (SDNY) on charges of international sex trafficking and a wider conspiracy to commit such activity has sent shock waves throughout the political, business, and social strata of the United States and other countries. Continue reading
Donald Trump has made no secret of his desire to transform the Department of Justice into a phalanx of private vendetta-seeking lawyers and the FBI into his own private security force. The practice of “lawfare,” abusing the constitution and legal system to target particular political leaders, has been used by the Central Intelligence Agency with great success in Brazil, Ecuador, and Paraguay. Continue reading
There is no reason why any journalist worth his or her salt should be treating Donald Trump and his dysfunctional administration as anything other than an aberration. To normalize Trump is to act as an instrument of his propaganda machinery, which has borrowed heavily from Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, as well as apparatchiks’ playbooks found in information ministries in countless tinpot dictatorships that have existed throughout recent history. Continue reading
Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law and the person Trump appointed to broker a Middle East peace agreement recently called Palestinians “hysterical and stupid.” That is particularly galling language coming from a notorious New Jersey, New York, and Maryland slumlord and the son of a federally convicted criminal. Kushner’s father and real estate mogul, Charles Kushner, spent fourteen months in prison after being convicted of tax fraud and witness tampering, among other crimes. Jared Kushner believes his father was wrongly convicted and imprisoned. But the wunderkind son-in-law of Trump has no problem in maintaining the status quo in the Middle East, one that has led to the large-scale incarceration of the people of the Gaza Strip in virtual desert ghetto. Continue reading
As witnessed during Donald Trump’s recent attendance at the G20 Summit in Osaka and his side trip to the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) in Korea, relying solely on the counsel of one’s daughter and son-in-law resulted in Trump displaying for the world his total ignorance of the fundamentals of international relations and geopolitics. Trump insisted on placing his daughter, Ivanka Trump, and her husband, Jared Kushner, on center stage in Osaka for the G20 conclave and at Panmunjom for a hastily arranged meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Ms. Trump acted as if she was on some sort of sorority house outing and was keen to impress her friends with inane statements that stepping into North Korea with her father was “surreal.” Continue reading
Billionaire Wall Street hedge fund financier Jeffrey Epstein was arrested by federal authorities on July 6 at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey. Epstein was returning on his private jet from a trip to Paris. After his arrest, Epstein was taken to the Metropolitan Corrections Center in Manhattan while awaiting arraignment in federal court at Foley Square on July 8. Epstein’s old friend, Donald Trump, was spending the weekend at Trump’s Bedminster, New Jersey gold club, 44 miles from the Teterboro airport where Epstein was arrested. Continue reading
For a nation that was founded by some of the most intelligent people who then lived on the planet—Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, to name but a few—the United States has plummeted into a new age, not one of enlightenment, but one of stupidity. Continue reading
During an ego-fellating interview with Donald Trump in Japan, Fox News opinion show host and unofficial Trump national security adviser Tucker Carlson and Trump discussed America’s homeless population and agreed that it should be called “filth.” Trump and Carlson singled out San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York as examples where homeless people represent such urban “filth. Trump, moreover, lied about the U.S. homeless problem existing for merely the past two years. Trump also concocted a story about homeless people causing police officers walking the beat to become sick because of the “filth.” Trump also iterated to Carlson that the administration “may intercede” to clean the “filth” from cities like Washington, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. Continue reading
The ecologically-sensitive Galapagos Islands, home to many species not found anywhere else in the world and made famous by scientist Charles Darwin in his seminal work on evolution, “On the Origin of Species,” will soon be the location of yet another US military base. Under Donald Trump, the Pentagon is expanding its network of overseas bases to include some of the world’s most pristine regions. Based on prior actions, a US military presence leaves a permanent footprint of hazardous materials, plain garbage, and petroleum and its by-products in and around air and naval bases. Continue reading
One of the obvious signs of fascism is the co-option by a despot of the legal system, which includes law enforcement and the judiciary. The Weimar Republic of Germany enjoyed a robust and relatively fair legal system prior to the rise of the Nazis. After Adolf Hitler came to power, the German legal system was steadily replaced by one based on the Führerprinzip, which deemed that Hitler was above the law. German citizens who were designated by the Nazis as being outside the German community (Volksgemeinschaft) were not afforded any legal rights under the Third Reich. Continue reading
With ten minutes left to spare, someone prevailed on an amoral Donald Trump to call off the planned U.S. military attack on Iran. Trump later claimed that he did not want the deaths of 150 Iranians, the number estimated by the Pentagon who would have been killed in the pre-dawn attack, on his conscience. However, Trump has no conscience, so there must have been another reason. Continue reading
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was recently castigated by the usual suspects after she likened U.S. southern border political asylee detention centers as “concentration camps.” AOC refused to back down from her description of the camps, which are even housing children separated from their parents in sub-human conditions. On June 8, AOC tweeted: “This administration has established concentration camps on the southern border of the United States for immigrants, where they are being brutalized with dehumanizing conditions and dying. This is not hyperbole. It is the conclusion of expert analysis.” Continue reading
Donald Trump has installed far-right Christian fundamentalist stalwart Ken Cuccinelli as acting director of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), which is part of the Department of Homeland Security. Cuccinelli, a former Attorney General of Virginia and failed Republican candidate for governor of the Old Dominion, was appointed to his present position with the strong backing of Trump’s immigration policy adviser, Stephen Miller. Continue reading
The Donald Trump administration, aided and abetted by the Republican Congressional Conference, will go down in history as a regime of liars, grifters, dime store propagandists, common criminals, and schoolyard bullies. The evidence that “Team Trump” can and probably will lie the United States into a war with Iran, just as George W. Bush and Dick Cheney lied America into a war with Iraq, is seen in the latest tomfoolery regarding recent attacks on two tankers in the Gulf of Oman. The attacks follow by almost a month similar suspicious attacks on four ships at anchor in the Gulf of Oman, off the coast of the United Arab Emirates sheikhdom of Fujairah. Although Iran was blamed by members of the Trump administration for the May 12 attacks, no evidence was provided to bolster such claims. Continue reading
It was like a day from the 1970s. Except the close encounter between a Russian SU-27 fighter-interceptor and a US Air Force RC-135V intelligence-gathering plane and a Swedish Gulfstream IV spy plane occurred on June 10. The incident, which occurred within Polish maritime airspace near the airspace of the Russian Kaliningrad region, resulted in diplomatic protests being lodged with the Russian Foreign and Defense ministries by the US embassy in Moscow. Continue reading
After the surprise victory of Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election, the corporate media reported that it came as the result of faulty polls and a lack of Hillary Clinton’s campaigning in key battleground states, where she was believed to be ahead. The foreign meddling in the election was reported to be limited to the manipulation of social media and not much else. Continue reading
The June 25-26, 2019 “peace conference” scheduled for Manama, Bahrain and attended by the United States, Israel, a few Palestinian quislings, and sell-out Arab states is nothing more than a rubber stamp on the future virtual annexation of the West Bank by Israel. The so-called “peace plan,” which has been dubbed the “deal of the century” by Donald Trump, had no Palestinian input, but was crafted by Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, Trump’s “special envoy” for International Negotiations Jason Greenblatt, US ambassador to Israel David Friedman, and Kushner aide Avi Berkowitz. Greenblatt and Friedman were formerly lawyers for the Trump Organization. Continue reading
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Fake news, fake polls, and now, fake history
Posted on October 16, 2019 by Wayne Madsen
Donald Trump, who believes everything that is real is fake and everything that is fake is real, has delved into another academic discipline for which he believes he is an eminent expert. After promulgating his own fake weather forecasts, political opinion polls, and news, Trump has now proclaimed his own fake history. After abandoning to invading Turkish forces the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) forces, who have been allied with US Special Forces battling the Islamic State caliphate jihadists in Syria, Trump stated, “They [the Kurds] didn’t help us in the World War II, they didn’t help us with Normandy, as an example.” Continue reading →