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
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
A growing collection of evidence indicates that three nations directly involved in coordinating the planning and carrying out of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States—Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates—were also jointly involved in “hacking” the 2016 U.S. presidential election to bring about Donald Trump’s victory. The January 11, 2017 meeting in Seychelles—involving Blackwater founder Erik Prince, the brother of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, and top officials of UAE, Saudi, and Israeli intelligence—represented a de facto after-action overview of the 2016 election interference that covered successes of the operation. Continue reading
U.S. and allied intelligence agencies are concerned that Donald Trump and his closest White House advisers, including his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, have and are revealing sensitive diplomatic and intelligence information gleaned by U.S. intelligence personnel from foreign sources to hostile parties. Continue reading
Great Britain is determined to never see the sun set on the remnants of the old British empire. However, the United Nations General Assembly recently delivered a stinging rebuke to Britain over its continued occupation of the Chagos Islands, which it cleaved from its colony of Mauritius in 1965 in order for the United States to build a major military base on the island of Diego Garcia. The General Assembly voted 116 to 6, with 56 abstentions, against Britain’s continued control of the Chagos Islands. 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
One thing for which the right-wing neoconservatives specialize is the production of dodgy dossiers and “official” reports. England has been ground-zero for the production of many dodgy dossiers, including the latest passed to NBC News’s resident “useful idiot,” Richard Engel, by a Mikhail Khodorkovsky-funded entity in London called the Dossier Center. 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
The FIVE EYES signals intelligence alliance between the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand is partially blinded over deteriorating relations between the United States and the other four members of the intelligence sharing pact. The fraying of the alliance is predominantly the result of a hardline stance being taken by the Trump administration against the Chinese telecom giant Huawei. Chief instigators of the aggressive policy include Trump, trade adviser Peter Navarro, Vice President Mike Pence, National Security Adviser John Bolton, and National Security Agency director General Paul Nakasone. 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
More and more informed observers in Washington, DC are beginning to take note of Donald Trump’s often inane comments. On two recent separate occasions, the 72-year-old Trump insisted that his father was born in Germany, which is not true according to New York state birth records. Trump’s father, Fred Trump, was born in The Bronx in 1905. Continue reading
There is a reason why buffoonish political leaders like Donald Trump can get away with attacking the news media. Unlike the print and broadcast journalists who covered Watergate and Iran-Contra, many of today’s, mostly cable news reporters and editors, cannot even get basic facts about geography, political systems, and other fundamentals correct. President Richard Nixon never called his media critics “stupid,” because Nixon and his gang understood that they were up against a professional and very well-informed news media. Similarly, in the Iran-Contra scandal, the news media, including the emergent Cable News Network (CNN), covered the scandal with the intuitiveness and tenacity expected of the reporters, editors, and bureau chiefs. Continue reading
In a blatant attempt to unravel the bloc of Venezuela’s Caribbean allies formed nurtured by Venezuela’s late president, Hugo Chavez, Donald Trump and his foreign policy team of neo-conservative war hawks has accomplished to divide the 15-member Caribbean Community (CARICOM) to a degree not seen since 1983. That year saw President Ronald Reagan order the US invasion of CARICOM member Grenada, an event that saw CARICOM split on supporting the move. Among the CARICOM members, Bahamas, Belize, Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago opposed the US invasion, while other states either participated in the military occupation of CARICOM member Grenada or voiced support for it. 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
When an incompetent US president hires as his “special envoy” for regime change in Venezuela the very same buffoon who fumbled his way into helping to expose the Iran-Contra scandal, one can expect anything. Continue reading
Under the directorship of torture and black site maven Gina Haspel, Donald Trump’s Central Intelligence Agency has returned to its traditional roots of conducting “black bag” operations and disrupting electrical grids through cyber-attacks. 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
Forget Russian oligarchs for the time being. Donald Trump and his family appear to have been co-opted by a standard Chinese intelligence operation—both mainland and Taiwanese—that uses overseas Chinese, shady dummy corporations, prostitution and blackmail, and political influence peddling to influence foreign governments. 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
The city of Miami, Florida, may have started out as a retirement mecca for winter-worn pensioners from northern climes. However, after the beginning of the Cold War and US military and Central Intelligence Agency intervention in Guatemala, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Chile, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Guyana, the Bahamas, and other Western Hemisphere nations, Miami became a refuge for exiled wealthy businessmen escaping populist revolutions and elections in South and Central America, and spies. The retirement and vacation capital of the United States quickly became the “Tropical Casablanca.” Continue reading
Expect more VIP heads to roll in Florida’s statewide crackdown on a chain of “day spas” that provided their male clientele with sexual gratification instead of body massages. The arrest of hundreds of men, including three wealthy retirees living on Florida’s “Treasure Coast,” followed quickly on the heels of a decision by U.S. Judge Kenneth Marra of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida in Miami that the 2007 non-prosecution agreement plea deal agreed to by then-U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta, Assistant U.S. Attorney A. Marie Villafaña, Palm Beach County state’s attorney Barry Krischer, and attorneys for Palm Beach billionaire Jeffrey Epstein was “illegal.” Donald Trump appointed Acosta as his secretary of labor, a position over which Acosta is responsible for identifying breeches of federal law against human trafficking, including sexual exploitation of foreign or domestic laborers. Continue reading
A largely ignored story reported by the Lebanese magazine “Ash Shiraa” on November 3, 1986, soon blossomed into a major scandal involving the covert sale of US weapons to the government of Iran and the illegal supply of weapons to right-wing Nicaraguan rebels. The Lebanese magazine was the first to reveal that the Ronald Reagan administration was covertly selling arms to Iran in exchange for the release of seven American hostages by pro-Iranian groups in Lebanon. Continue reading
The hiring by CNN of Sarah Isgur Flores, a longtime Republican Party hack and former spokesman for Attorney General Jeff Sessions, as the political director for the 2020 campaign should not surprise anyone. Lest anyone point to MSNBC as having more sense than CNN, it is noteworthy that Isgur also interviewed at 30 Rockefeller Center, NBC News headquarters in New York, for a position there prior to accepting the one at CNN. For a Donald Trump puppet, someone who gladly signed a loyalty pledge to Trump before accepting the political director’s job at CNN—a network Isgur has previously called the “Clinton News Network”—points to the degradation of broadcast news to nothing more than mindless infotainment and political insider navel gazing. The cable news networks and their money-losing broadcast cousins at ABC, CBS, and NBC are totally governed by ratings and not what’s in the public interest. For those who believe PBS is a safe haven, its Corporation for Public Broadcasting now counts Trump loyalists and contributions from the Koch Brothers among its many journalistic sins. Continue reading
RSS
AOC was right about U.S. concentration camps and it’s major Jewish leaders who should be apologizing for their overall silence
Posted on June 26, 2019 by Wayne Madsen
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 →