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 →
There is little doubt that Donald Trump despises California. California’s environmental regulations have become national and international standards. Trump, who is guided only by revenge in his decision-making process, has California in his gun sights. Continue reading →
As a result of pressure exerted on Donald Trump by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu for the U.S. to withdraw from the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) signed between Iran and the United States, Russia, China, and the European Union on international controls over Iran’s nuclear program and the appointment of neo-con war hawk John Bolton as U.S. national security adviser, the Trump administration has imposed a set of new economic sanctions on Iran. Continue reading →
Across Africa, outside nations are vying for influence as the economic and military power of the United States decreases on the continent. Post-colonial spheres of influence established over newly-independent African states are no longer relevant. Replacing paternalistic former colonial overseers like France, Britain, and the United States are China, Russia, India, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates in what resembles the most frenetic “scramble for Africa” since the Congress of Berlin concluded in 1885. Continue reading →
Paul Manafort, the former campaign chairman for Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and lobbyist for eastern European oligarchs and Third World dictators, could not have a better judge in his federal trial in Alexandria, Virginia than Thomas Selby (“T.S.”) Ellis. Manafort has been charged with tax and bank fraud by Justice Department special counsel Robert Mueller. The charges are not related to Mueller’s probe of the Trump campaign for criminal conspiracy related to foreign involvement in the 2016 election. Continue reading →
The British House of Commons Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sports recently released an interim report on “Disinformation and ‘Fake News.’” In a conclusion that does not surprise those who have been investigating “election engineering” in U.S. national and state elections over some two decades, the report states that “a small group of individuals and businesses had been influencing elections across different jurisdictions in recent years.” Continue reading →
Donald Trump’s “horse whisperer,” Steve Bannon, has traveled the speaking circuit throughout Europe, pushing for an alliance of far-right wing parties he calls “The Movement.” The idea for a “Fascist International” is nothing new. Central Intelligence Agency archives contain multiple references to a resurgent Nazi dream, cultivated in the rubble of World War II, to create a “European Reich” stretching from “Dublin to Vladivostok.” This Fourth Reich, unlike the Third Reich, was to be a corporate-controlled supranational entity. Continue reading →
As Donald Trump’s legal problems grow, seemingly by the hour, other world leaders with whom his Trump Organization has conducted business may suffer the legal and political consequences of being identified with Trump and vice versa. One of those leaders, former Panamanian president Ricardo Martinelli, is currently in prison in Panama and awaiting trial for illegal wiretapping of his opponents and public corruption while president from 2009 to 2014. Continue reading →
Former Donald Trump White House strategist and 2016 campaign chairman Stephen Bannon has been active in Europe trying to stir up far-right political agitation. His latest move has been to announce the creation of an international organization of the far-right in Brussels, known simply as “The Movement.” It is not known where Bannon is getting the funds to start The Movement. In the past, Bannon has received generous subsidies from the billionaire father-daughter team of Robert and Rebekah Mercer. The duo funded Bannon’s former media enterprise, Breitbart News. Continue reading →
Fascists love strong central government control. On the other hand, local autonomy represents good governance, something that is anathema to fascists. Today, around the world, local governments at the municipal, provincial, and regional levels are finding themselves under siege by central governments exercising what can only be described as fascist grabs for unitary executive power. Continue reading →
While mourning continues over the shooting deaths of five members of the staff of the Annapolis Journal Gazette, including four journalists, by a deranged pro-Donald Trump and neo-confederate-supporting madman, Trump doubled-down on his incendiary comments about the press, again referring to the media as the “real enemy of the people.” Trump also continues to bash the Democratic Party, claiming it has a “death wish.” Continue reading →
Those US and British politicians who are bashing Russia for foreign “election meddling” could use a more honest set of talking points. It is Israel, not Russia, China, or North Korea, that hosts a blossoming industry of cyber-election meddlers who operate from corporate offices in Tel Aviv, Cyprus, London, Washington, and Tortola. Most, if not all, of these firms, received their start-up funds from Israeli government-backed business development venture capital funds, some of which are solidly linked to right-wing American financiers like Robert Mercer, Paul Singer, Sheldon Adelson, and Donald Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner. Continue reading →
In what many observant Muslims consider to be an act of sacrilege, Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia governing the country in the name of his ailing father, King Salman, has permitted Israeli intelligence agents to enter Mecca and Medina. MBS has struck a close working relationship with the Israeli intelligence service, Mossad, and the Israeli Defense Force’s military intelligence arm, AMAN, to counter several perceived threats, including Iran. Continue reading →
On July 12, former Deputy Assistant Director of the FBI Peter Strzok testified before 70 members of a joint hearing of the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees on his actions as the chief of the bureau’s counter-intelligence division during the 2016 presidential election. Strzok’s text messages, in which he criticized Trump, were fodder for the Republicans who used the occasion to push their various unfounded conspiracy theories. Strzok’s marriage issues, political leanings, and ethics were brought into question by Republicans who have no business accusing others of improprieties. Continue reading →
Trump is excising certain words from the American lexicon.
The administration of American strongman Donald Trump is engaged in introducing a troubling form of “Newspeak” that is reminiscent of the politically-correct language instituted by the fictional super-state of Oceania in “1984,” George Orwell’s classic novel about a dystopian future. Continue reading →
A draft Middle East “peace” plan, scheduled to be rolled out by Donald Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner and then put on hold, involved Mohammed Dahlan, a key former Palestinian Authority figure who now aligns with United Arab Emirates pro-Israeli crown prince Mohammed bin Zayed al Nahayan (MBZ). Continue reading →
The opaqueness of the Soviet Union’s government led leading intelligence services around the world, including the Central Intelligence Agency, to invest millions of dollars into a discipline known as “Kremlinology.” Experts were hired to “read between the lines” of Soviet press statements, newspapers, and magazines and listen closely to Radio Moscow to gain some insight into the inner workings of the Kremlin, particularly after deaths or purges within the Soviet leadership. Photographs of the celebration of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution were closely examined to see what Politburo members were not present during the traditional military parade through Red Square. Continue reading →
Although the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Department of Health and Human Services are justly being hammered for separating immigrant families at the U.S. southern border, the policy of splitting apart families was previously enacted by Donald Trump’s Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). However, in the case of FEMA, the families separated were U.S. citizens. Continue reading →
Donald Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner has provided a windfall business for Israel’s sub-state, consisting of retired and active members of the Israel Defense Force, Mossad, Shin Bet, Unit 8200, AMAN, Unit 81, Unit 9900, Mamram, the Israel National Cyber Directorate, and other Israeli intelligence entities, a virtual blank check to pursue intelligence arrangements that were normally the purview of American defense firms. Continue reading →
The first funerals for the five journalists slain by a deranged anti-press activist with a penchant for threatening journalists and supporting alt-right heroes like Donald Trump and former Anne Arundel county board member and racist League of the South advocate Michael Peroutka had yet to be held when Trump warned his opponents to “just take it easy because some of the languages, some of the words you . . . even some of the radical ideas, I really think they’re very bad for the country.” Continue reading →
The Central Intelligence Agency’s headquarters in Langley, Virginia, is merely the tip of a US intelligence iceberg. Much of the CIA, whether or not it is with a “wink and a nod” from its director Gina Haspel, a veteran of the agency’s extraordinary rendition and torture program, exists in the murky world of “carve out” contracts and front companies. This “unofficial CIA” is where “plausible deniability” for US intelligence actions is of paramount importance. Continue reading →
Four of the five signals intelligence members of the FIVE EYES alliance are increasing their use of special handling caveats to deny intelligence to the United States—the fifth member of the grouping. According to intelligence community insiders, the presence of certain individuals within the Trump administration has resulted in Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand, known as “Second Parties” to the Five Eyes partnership, embargoing critical intelligence sharing with Washington. These second parties fear their sensitive intelligence could be compromised to a number of hostile and non-trusted intelligence powers with ties into the White House. These include Israel, Russia, China, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Ukraine. Continue reading →
The Trump administration, showing no inclination to reunite children separated from their asylum-seeking parents at the U.S. border, decided to farm out kidnapped youngsters to for-profit detention centers across the United States. The firms that are receiving Trump administration contracts to house children under mentally and physically harmful circumstances have donated generously to Republican coffers. Continue reading →
Victims of repression by U.S.-supported fascist governments in Latin America will soon skyrocket as a result of the election of Colombian narco syndicate and death squad-linked Ivan Duque as president of Colombia. Many of those now seeking political asylum from Honduras and Guatemala are fleeing U.S.- and Israeli-supported right-wing regimes in those countries. Refugees from violence-plagued El Salvador are trying to escape from death squads that have their roots in U.S.-supported paramilitary forces propped up in that nation’s civil war in the 1980s. These asylum-seekers will soon be joined by those fearing for their lives in Colombia. Continue reading →
The locations of young girls and toddlers, who are being detained and separated from their parents at the U.S. southern border, are not being disclosed by either U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). The latter has been tasked with running several detention centers around the country, however, many of the detention facilities are being operated by private prison contractors known for providing substandard services to inmates. Continue reading →
US Defense Secretary James Mattis, who earned the nickname “Mad Dog” while serving in the Marine Corps, jetted off to the 2018 International Institute of Strategic Studies’ (IISS) annual Shangri-La Dialogue conference in Singapore armed with threats against China and North Korea. Ironically, Mattis’s military machismo occurred prior to the June 12 summit in Singapore between Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Continue reading →
Under Donald Trump, the State Department has been victimized by a series of bad appointments. Three of them—the posts of U.S. ambassador to Germany and Estonia, as well as the Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, have seen Trump nominate neo-conservative candidates with sordid histories. Out of the three, one was unsuccessful. Trump’s nominee to be ambassador to Estonia was withdrawn after the Estonian government complained that the individual due to take up the post in Tallinn was unacceptable to them. Continue reading →
Trump’s tariffs are driving inflation on supermarket shelves across the country
Posted on August 17, 2018 by Wayne Madsen
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 →