Author Archives: Wayne Madsen

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 →

The re-emergence of the feared Janjaweed paramilitary forces in Sudan should serve as a wakeup call for every American who supports democracy and the rule of law. The Janjaweed emerged in 2003 in the genocide committed in the western region of Darfur to deal with black African tribes that opposed the regime of General Omar al-Bashir. After Bashir later began to loosen his tight grip on power, the Janjaweed paramilitary volunteers faded back into their regular jobs. However, in April, Bashir was ousted in a military coup by a junta led by Lieutenant-General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and, more ominously, the Janjaweed commander, Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, also known as “Hemetti.” Continue reading →

Donald Trump chose to spend the Memorial Day weekend hobnobbing with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, a man who consistently honors his nation’s dead war criminals from World War II. Make no mistake about it, Abe is a right-wing nationalist and that is what makes him attractive to the racist Trump. Continue reading →

In the early 1970s, the Old Confederacy was reborn as the “New South.” Although Richard Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” saw the old Dixiecrat Democrats embrace the Republican Party, a wave of moderate-to-liberal Democrats swept into governors’ mansions across the South. These included Jimmy Carter and Carl Sanders in Georgia, Terry Sanford in North Carolina, Reubin Askew in Florida, Albert Brewer in Alabama, Bill Waller in Mississippi, John West in South Carolina, and Ray Blanton in Tennessee. Even George Wallace, who returned to the Alabama governorship after a 1968 firebrand presidential run geared around segregation and an unsuccessful assassination attempt during his Democratic run for the White House in 1972, became known as one of Alabama’s most progressive and inclusive governors in the state’s history during his third and fourth terms in office. Continue reading →

Donald Trump fancies himself as a deal-maker. His foreign and economic policies, however, are more akin to those of a Mafia extortionist. At a minute after midnight on May 10, Trump hiked tariffs from 10 to 25 percent on $200 billion of Chinese imports. He also threatened a 25 percent tariff on the rest of the $325 billion of imports from China. Trump, who is as challenged in simple mathematics as he is with the English language, falsely tweeted that Chinese tariffs would be paid directly into the US Treasury. This statement was both comically and tragically wrong. Any increase in US tariffs on foreign goods are charged to the importer, which passes the higher costs on to the American consumer. Trump, in order to stoke his trade war with China, decided to hold the US consumers as hostages to higher costs for goods. Continue reading →

Relying on the advice of neo-conservative war hawk John Bolton, pompous Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and Iran-Contra scandal felon Elliott Abrams, Donald Trump has embarked on the containment encircling of Venezuela. Trump is engaged in a fool’s errand of relying on the support of fascist leaders of Venezuela’s neighbors to pressure Venezuela’s president Nicolas Maduro to turn over power to a motley collection of Wall Street puppets who want to reverse the Bolivarian socialist policies of Maduro and his late predecessor, Hugo Chavez. Continue reading →

An unprecedented letter signed by over 720 nonpartisan and bipartisan former federal prosecutors and Justice Department career line attorneys states that Donald Trump’s conduct as president as described in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report “would, in the case of any other person not covered by the Office of Legal Counsel policy against indicting a sitting President, result in multiple felony charges for obstruction of justice.” Mueller cited current Justice Department guidelines in his decision to not indict a sitting president for obstruction of justice. The letter also serves notice on Attorney General William Barr that his conduct in representing Trump’s personal interests and not those of the American people violates a primary duty of the attorney general to carry out his oath and duties of his office. Continue reading →

Running for president of the United States has turned into a cash cow for several politicians. The reason is that the Federal Election Commission (FEC), which was created in 1974 to disclose campaign finance information; to enforce the provisions of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, including the limits and prohibitions on contributions; and to oversee the public funding of Presidential elections is all but out of business. Continue reading →

With former Bear Stearns executive David Malpass heading up the World Bank and one-time Goldman Sachs executive Steve Mnuchin as Secretary of the Treasury, Donald Trump and his coterie of grifters are in prime positions to plunder the wealth and natural resources of countries around the world. Both Malpass and Mnuchin are hedge fund managers. Exploitation of faltering national economies and buying up state-owned resources are a major specialty of hedge funds. Continue reading →

Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Germany had their dreams of “Drang Nach Osten,” a German push to conquer the lands to the East—Poland, the Baltic nations, Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine—to acquire space for German colonists (“Lebensraum”) while enslaving or committing genocide on the Slavic peoples. Continue reading →

Freshman US Representative Ilhan Omar, Democrat of Minnesota and a Somali-American Muslim, is not the first nor will she be the last victim of Zion’s sting. Omar is merely the latest in a long line of US politicians who have faced the onslaught of Israel’s powerful lobbying vise grip in Washington. In fact, long before there was a state of Israel, American presidents and statesmen fell victim to the power of political Zionism to retaliate against those who failed to back the concept of a Jewish homeland in the Middle East. Continue reading →

Donald Trump’s decidedly neoconservative administration is waging economic warfare through the combined imposition of tariffs and economic sanctions against nations on six continents. Trump’s policies, which fuse bullheadedness with oafishness, have wreaked havoc on the stock market, pension funds, employment, and overall economic stability on a scale not seen since the Great Depression of the last century. Continue reading →

US National Security Adviser John Bolton may be known for a lot of things, but “diplomat” is not one of them. In 2005, Bolton was never confirmed by the US Senate to be George W. Bush’s ambassador to the United Nations because the walrus-mustachioed neoconservative ideologue had made past comments deriding the UN as a useless organization. In 1994, Bolton infamously said, “There is no United Nations. There is an international community that occasionally can be led by the only real power left in the world, and that’s the United States, when it suits our interests and when we can get others to go along… The [UN] Secretariat Building in New York has 38 stories. If you lost ten stories today, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference.” Continue reading →

The British and French governments are voicing their complaints about the activities of Russian private military companies (PMCs) in Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America. In an utter display of hypocrisy, London and Paris are not as critical when their own PMCs, also known as “mercenaries,” are caught engaged in all sorts of skullduggery in various countries around the world. Continue reading →

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, taking advantage of political bedlam inside the Donald Trump White House, has busied himself with “regime change” in Venezuela. Pompeo, working with National Security Adviser John Bolton and Iran-contra felon and arch-neo-conservative Elliott Abrams, worked secretly with Venezuela’s self-proclaimed “interim president,” Juan Guaido, to overthrow that nation’s duly-elected president, Nicolas Maduro. Continue reading →