Donald Trump wanted to turn the Justice Department into his own private law firm, the FBI into his own political police force, the military into his own private security force, and the Secret Service into his own praetorian guard. He failed in all cases with the exception of the latter. Continue reading
History is repeating itself as far as the presence on the world stage of so many psychopaths in positions of leadership. The last time the world experienced a slew of bloodthirsty craven leaders with megadeath on their minds was World War II. That war etched into the collective memory of humankind such psychopaths as Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Hideki Tojo, Joseph Stalin, Francisco Franco, Vidkun Quisling, Juan Peron, Subhas Chandra Bose, and an assortment of petit-tyrants, fascist despots, and bloodthirsty warlords whose names have largely been forgotten by history. Continue reading
It is quite clear that Donald Trump and his supporters who took part in planning and executing the January 6th insurrection in Washington, DC aimed to kill as many members of Congress, government employees, and journalists as possible. Thanks to the January 6 Select Committee’s investigation to date, we know that the insurrection was planned weeks in advance by Trump and his inside and outside advisers. The J6 Committee played a video of one such Trump supporter, a YouTube blogger who goes by the handle “Salty Cracker,” exhorting his 750,000 subscribers to join in what was planned to be a bloody uprising in Washington on January 6. He said, “You better understand something, son. Red wave, bitch! There’s gonna be a Red Wedding going down Jan. 6 . . . Motherfucker, you better look outside. You better look out Jan. 6, kick that fucking door open and look down the street. There’s going to be a million-plus geeked-up, armed Americans.” Continue reading
As yet another example of the American political system falling under the influence of foreign actors it appears that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has borrowed a page from his friend Vladimir Putin’s playbook. Western intelligence agencies have identified a network of “non-governmental organizations” (NGOs) tied to Erdogan’s government that are establishing pro-Turkish political parties fielding candidates for local and national legislative seats in Europe and the United States. In the case of the U.S., Erdogan’s scheme also involves the U.S. Senate candidacy in Pennsylvania of Dr. Mehmet Oz, a dual Turkish-U.S. citizen who actually lives in New Jersey. Continue reading
Pro-democracy Americans, who continue to represent some 70 percent of the total voting age population of the country, can no longer delude themselves that what occurred in Germany in the early 1930s cannot happen here. What has and is happening here is that a violent movement of Nazis, fascists, and racist Confederates have not only seized control of the Republican Party through their cult leader Donald Trump, but elected Republicans and candidates for office are moving to repaint American history. The intentions of these dreadful products of the Trump movement are clear. They seek to justify the Holocaust of World War II as a necessary, African slavery as necessary for the development of the American economy, and the genocide of the Native Americans as an acceptable manifestation of European colonial expansion. Continue reading
There is always a reluctance in the United States to sentence ex-presidents to prison after having been convicted of crimes. However, the nation is rarely faced with that dilemma. President Gerald Ford’s pardon of his predecessor, Richard Nixon, came with a “get out of jail free” card. In retrospect, Donald Trump’s multiple crimes against the Constitution and people of the United States vastly exceed the impeachable offenses of Nixon. Ford may have been correct in deciding that it would set a bad precedent for the nation if Nixon went to prison. Nixon did redeem himself during his post-presidency and even served as Bill Clinton’s special envoy to Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Trump, on the other hand, has moved the goalpost of presidential crimes against the nation so far, it will set a bad precedent if Trump is not sentenced to prison after his conviction on counts of fraud, criminal conspiracy, communicating the threat of assassination to the vice president, misprision of justice, and a host of other charges under the U.S. criminal code. Continue reading
The world’s biggest spam email operation currently in operation is that of the Trump political campaign and all of its offshoots and affiliates. Not a day goes by when two dozen or more campaign solicitation emails from a host of the vilest people to ever run for office or be involved in politics inundate mailboxes with messages that begin with the salutation of “Patriot.” This term, which has been hijacked by the Republicans, is no different than the ubiquitous use of “comrade” in the old Communist bloc. For Trump World, greeting one another with the term “patriot” is the new “Heil Hitler.” Continue reading
It’s ironic that on the 50th anniversary of the break-in of the Watergate that two journalists who were involved in covering the incident and the subsequent scandal that drove Richard Nixon from the White House have passed on. Continue reading
Republican U.S. Senate candidate Dr. Mehmet Cengiz Oz, the quack medical doctor whose television career was advanced by Oprah Winfrey, is not so much interested in representing Pennsylvania in the Senate as he is in helping to deliver to his friend, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan Turkey, the ultimate prize of Turkish opposition leader Fethullah Gulen. Gulen is wanted by Erdogan as a “terrorist,” a term the Turkish dictator tosses around to describe anyone who opposes his regime. Oz, who would become the first Muslim in the Senate should he be elected, has been silent on what he thinks about Erdogan’s policy of scrapping Turkey’s secular constitution and way-of-life in favor of an Islamist society.
Continue reading
When Elon Musk was born in South Africa in 1971, the racially-segregated nation was firmly in the grasp of Musk’s fellow white Afrikaaners. Unlike most of the British colonialists, the Dutch Afrikaaners stridently believed in their racial superiority over the non-white population of South Africa. Under the apartheid system, South Africa’s population was classified as being part of four groups: African, White, Indian, and Coloured. Apartheid was marked by a system of racial classification that defied logic to most people, but would have found favor by the Nazi German racial purity enforcers. In South Africa, those of mixed white and black lineage were considered “Coloured.” But that designation also applied to Malays and Indonesians. Filipinos, however, were designated as black. Chinese were deemed as Coloured, while Japanese and South Koreans were bestowed with the title of “honorary whites.” The Old Testament-fearing Afrikaaner Calvinists also considered Jews, Lebanese, and Syrians as the children of Canaan, and they were thus branded as whites. Continue reading
The U.S. news media, taking its cues from fake TV reality shows, has reported that French President Emmanuel Macron’s easy defeat of fascist and pro-Russian candidate Marine Le Pen in the second round of the French presidential election is an indication of the French far-right making “gains.” A 59 to 41 percent victory for Emmanuel, while not as strong as his 66 to 33 percent thrashing of Le Pen in the 2017 election, does not show any real “gains” by Le Pen and her National Rally party. Macron’s 2022 campaign strategy of tacking to the right did cost him votes among the French progressive left, but those voters largely decided to abstain from voting in the second round rather than voting for Le Pen. Some 6.8 percent of voters in the second round showed up at polling places to submit “blank” ballots. Continue reading
The Trump-led Republican Party has used its opposition to teaching the actual racial history of the United States in public schools to capture political power in Virginia and school boards across the nation. Using as a weapon the convenient but erroneous label of “critical race theory,” a niche college post-graduate level course not taught in any public school, the far-right is not stopping at banning outright or altering the teaching of European genocide of Native Americans; the Underground Railroad Emancipation, post-Civil War Reconstruction, Jim Crow segregation laws, and the modern civil rights movement; and the era of McCarthyism. The right is also targeting the history of World War II and the almost universally-accepted justification for going to war against Nazi Germany. What the far-right is accomplishing with increased success is historical negationism, denialism, falsification, and revisionism. Legitimate educational institutions find themselves, quite needlessly, on the defensive. That has to change and fast. The right is not entitled to alter the historical record for its own racist, religious, and fascist purposes. Neither does the right possess license to promulgate nonsensical and easily debunked “alternate facts,” as Trump White House official Kellyanne Conway once put it to an astonished public. Continue reading
A European dictator was expected to launch a full-scale military assault on his neighbor. The media was all over the map in speculating whether war was imminent or not. Peace feelers by diplomats and heads of state and government abounded, “don’t worry, he’s bluffing,” many stated to an anxious and nervous public. Continue reading
Yet another major right-of-center watchdog of telltale signs of global authoritarianism has reduced the “democracy” ranking of the United States. Continue reading
The German mega-publisher Axel Springer SE said that in purchasing Politico and Politico Europe last year and Business Insider (now Insider) in 2015, its end goal was to become the leading digital publisher of the “democratic world.” There is only one major problem with that goal. Axel Springer is a media cipher for right-wing politics, not only in Germany, but in other nations where its media tentacles extend. Continue reading
“It” is happening with increasing frequency at school board meetings, supermarkets, the front doors of homes, and even onboard in-flight passenger jets. “It” strikes men, women, teens, blue and white collar employees, retirees and young people, and members of the military. What is “it?” “It” is a worldwide psychosis that has caused people to lose any sense of propriety, turning some into virtual mindless and often violent zombies who are willing to put others and themselves in danger. Continue reading
We interrupt the eulogies for former Senator Bob Dole to bring the readers a few important facts. Normally, when some old politician dies, it is wise to follow the Latin dictum: De mortuis nihil nisi bonum (“Of the dead, [say] nothing but good”). However, in Bob Dole’s case, we must make a few exceptions. Continue reading
False charges from the right-wing that President Biden is hampered by senility represents an old and worn-out tactic by malign players, who have used the tactic against elder statesmen who have served as presidents, heads of state, or heads of government. Biden finds himself in august company when it comes to the propaganda barrage directed at him, in Biden’s case, by domestic and foreign on-line troll campaigns. Charles De Gaulle, Konrad Adenauer, Deng Xiaoping, Jozef Broz Tito, Paul von Hindenburg, and other senior statesmen all faced similar false charges at specific times during their terms in office. Continue reading
While most of the corporate media seek to outdo one another in normalizing seditionists, fascists, insurrectionists, died-in-the-wool racists, and anti-public health conspiracy zealots, the last vestiges of a once-vibrant press in the United States refuse to go quietly into the night. On November 28, the Editorial Board of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch launched a scathing blast at two Senate Republicans, Josh Hawley of Missouri and Ted Cruz of Texas, for supporting the January 6th insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. The editorial, titled “It’s long past time for the Senate ethics panel to address Hawley’s Jan. 6 actions,” stated: “Ten months after a group of Senate Democrats lodged ethics complaints into the conduct of Republican Sens. Josh Hawley of Missouri and Ted Cruz of Texas regarding their roles in sparking the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, the Senate Ethics Committee has shown no sign of movement.” Continue reading
Notable from the tenor and direction of the House of Representatives Select Committee on January 6th’s most recent subpoenas for witness testimony and documents from Infowars’ Alex Jones and longtime Republican political dirty tricks operative Roger Stone is a clear indication that the committee’s investigators are on a trail that could ultimately point to Donald Trump being aware of the plans by insurrectionists to march on the U.S. Capitol. Those Oval Office plans could also include the physical occupation of the Capitol, as well. Continue reading
During his four years in office, Donald Trump, accompanied by his unethical and immoral family, business associates, and advisers, turned Washington, DC, into a replica of wartime neutral cities like Tangier and Macao, where anything and everyone was for sale to the highest bidder. Fans of the 1942 film noir, “Casablanca,” which starred Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, may be surprised to know that it was not wartime Casablanca in Morocco that inspired director Michael Curtiz to develop a theme around Rick’s Café Américain, where foreigners of every political stripe — German Nazis, Vichy French, Free French, and European refugees — co-mingled in an environment of deceit and corruption. Continue reading
In a reality-based world, the recent video summit between President Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping may have gone, in part, something like the following . . . Continue reading
In school board meetings from the battleground county of Loudoun in Virginia to Wisconsin, Florida, Arizona, and other states the far-right is targeting public education in furtherance of a Nazification of school curricula. We have also seen the first moves to traditional de-legitimize institutions of higher learning in favor of universities and colleges, some only recently formed, that teach only far-right propaganda. Continue reading
As it becomes increasingly clear that Republican members of the House and Senate actively supported Donald Trump’s attempted coup on January 6th, it seems that it was in an alternate universe that Democrats and Republican senators came together in 1975 to hammer then-Central Intelligence Agency director William Colby on his agency’s assassination program. Compare that to the present ongoing cover-up by Republicans in Congress to the coup plot and the first non-peaceful transfer of presidential power, outside of assassination, in the nation’s history. Continue reading
Month after month of Democratic Party in-fighting in Congress, caused overwhelmingly by the Trotskyist bloc of Senator Bernie Sanders (Independent Socialist-VT) and House Progressive Caucus Representatives Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) and Ro Khanna (D-CA) on one side and the pro-corporate faction led by Senators Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) on the other side cost the Democrats dearly in elections in Virginia and New Jersey. The failure of the Democrats to pass legislation to give the U.S. economy a post-pandemic kickstart led directly to victories by pro-sedition right-wing Republicans Glenn Youngkin—a former Carlyle Group executive—for the governorship of Virginia and a razor-thin loss for “Stop the Steal” activist Jack Ciattarelli for governor of New Jersey. Continue reading
Republicans have placed the critical and factual teaching of history on the ballot of the Virginia gubernatorial race between Republican Glenn Youngkin, a Trump-supporter and former CEO of the sinister Carlyle Group, and Democratic former Governor Terry McAuliffe. Youngkin has vowed to eliminate the teaching of “critical race theory” (CRT) in Virginia schools. However, Virginia does not and never has taught the theory, which is found only in the graduate curriculum of select universities and colleges around the country. Emulating Senator Joe McCarthy, Youngkin has transformed the non-issue of CRT in Virginia schools into a rallying cry for Donald Trump’s base of ranting and raving whites across the commonwealth. Continue reading
“It’s fine work. Monday bum Millay, Wednesday Whitman, Friday Faulkner, burn ‘em to ashes, then bum the ashes. That’s our official slogan.” These are the words of Montag the fireman in the novel “Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury’s dystopian vision for a world where books are illegal. In that world, firemen don’t put out fires but start them, particularly in houses in which books are found. 451 degrees Fahrenheit is the temperature at which paper catches fire. Continue reading
Attorney General Merrick Garland and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen have come under sharp pressure from Democrats on the way they are leading their respective departments. In Yellen’s case, it has been her foot dragging on “reworking,” as she put it, harsh U.S. sanctions on Cuba that were imposed by Donald Trump. In June, Yellen told the House Appropriations Committee that Treasury was “reviewing” Cuba sanctions. That is where she left it and no loosening of Cuba travel or trade restrictions have occurred so far this year. Continue reading
Long the king of Washington political scandals, the Watergate office, residential, and hotel complex stands to be eclipsed by “Willardgate.” Watergate lent its name to countless other political “gate” scandals due to its being the location where the Democratic National Committee headquarters was burglarized by Richard Nixon re-election henchmen, an act that ultimately brought down the administration of Richard Nixon. Willardgate, however, may replace Watergate as the granddaddy of all DC scandals because, as with Guy Fawkes Day in England, Willardgate has become synonymous with “Treason and Plot.” Continue reading
While no one deserves to die from either COVID-19 or complications brought on by COVID and co-morbidities, the eulogies for General Colin Powell—who recently died from COVID and which had been made worse by multiple myeloma and Parkinson’s—have been a bit over the top. Powell had stated that as secretary of state in the George W. Bush administration his having lied to the United Nations Security Council in 2003 over Saddam Hussein’s alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction was a “blot” on his career. Actually, it was one of many. Continue reading
The first reports of U.S. and Canadian diplomats in Havana being stricken with ear ringing, dizziness, and severe fatigue, dubbed the “Havana Syndrome,” resulted in a series of botched investigations into the source of the illness by the Trump administration. There have been a number of theories about the source of what some experts now believe may have been a psychotronic weapon emitting pulsed radio frequency/microwave bursts directed at the U.S. and Canadian embassies and diplomatic housing areas in Havana. These bursts resulted in the targets suffering from the Frey effect, which manifests itself with ringing, buzzing, grinding, or clicking auditory sensations. Continue reading
RSS
Biden should sack a major staff headache in his White House
Posted on June 16, 2022 by Wayne Madsen
WMR has learned that that the major figure behind President Biden’s seeming fits and starts reaction to spreading deadly gun violence, the baby formula shortage, an increase in migrant southern border crossings, and casting blame for staff resignations on Vice President Kamala Harris is none other than his notoriously acerbic and abrasive Domestic Policy Council chair Susan Rice, the former national security adviser under President Barack Obama. Continue reading →