Donald Trump displayed his full neocon colors on February 18 during a speech at Florida International University in Miami. With convicted Iran-contra felon Elliott Abrams now acting as his “special envoy” in charge of overthrowing the Venezuelan government of President Nicolas Maduro, Trump urged Venezuelan military officers to rise up in a coup d’état and oust Maduro, who Trump called a “Cuban puppet.” 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
Donald Trump’s vision of a country with a single political party pledging total loyalty to him, and only him, took a step closer to reality on January 25 after the Republican National Committee (RNC) voted to approve a resolution declaring its “undivided support” for Trump in the 2020 presidential election. The RNC move was designed to thwart any other Republican presidential hopeful from challenging Trump for the GOP nomination. Continue reading
The Trump administration, now rife with regime change advocates and neocon firebrands like John Bolton as national security adviser, Elliott Abrams as the “special envoy” for Venezuela, as well as Tea Party/neocon hybrid Mike Pompeo as Secretary of State, is backing regime changes in not less than five countries. The chief champion for regime change in Vice President Mike Pence, who has toured Latin America looking for allies for the neocon geopolitical cause. Most of Trump’s regime change targets are in Latin America. Continue reading
Howard Schultz, the billionaire founder of Starbuck’s, the over-priced coffee chain that enthralls some deluded progressives by requiring them to speak a bastardized version of Esperanto when ordering a cup of coffee, believes he should be the president of the United States. As if the country can withstand another callous billionaire born in New York City in the White House, Schultz, who is flogging a book, revealed that he is considering an independent run for the presidency in 2020. Many political observers believe that Schultz, like Green Party candidate Jill Stein in 2016, will siphon votes from Democrats and, thus, ensure a second term for Donald Trump. Continue reading
The Trump administration’s January 23 recognition of Venezuela’s National Assembly leader, Juan Guaidó, as the president of Venezuela, in opposition to the “de facto” and “de jure” president of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, threatens an avalanche of nations recognizing leaders of various political factions in countries around the world as legitimate governments. In reaction to Trump’s move, Maduro severed diplomatic relations with Washington and ordered all US embassy personnel in Caracas to leave the country within 72-hours. Venezuela’s opposition-controlled National Assembly declared a caretaker government as a rival to the Maduro government with Guaidó as the interim president. Continue reading
18 U.S. Code § 2331 specifically states that a national of the United States who commits an act dangerous to human life to intimidate or coerce a civilian population or influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion is liable to be charged for violating federal domestic terrorism laws. Continue reading
Somewhere along the line in recent history, some US think tank in the employ of the Central Intelligence Agency must have come up with the idea that overthrowing governments in Latin America by military coups came with bad optics for the coup plotters. Often, democratically-elected Latin American leaders were demonized by a cabal of military officers who left their barracks and laid siege to the presidential palaces. After taking control of the national radio stations, these generals would announce they had seized control of the government to “protect” the people from “communism” or some other concocted bogeyman. Continue reading
Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi’s request to Donald Trump to delay this year’s State of the Union address, scheduled for January 29, was based on advice she received from national security and counter-terrorism experts worried about a “Designated Survivor” scenario. Continue reading
What was purported by the Trump administration to have been widespread illnesses of US diplomats in Cuba resulting from the use—by some nefarious state actor—of advanced acoustic warfare weaponry, turned out to be caused by the mating calls of crickets. In response to accusations that a sonic weapon was targeting US personnel in Cuba, the Trump administration withdrew half of its staff from the US embassy in Havana and expelled 15 Cuban diplomats from their embassy in Washington, DC. During 2017, some 26 US diplomats complained of nausea, headaches, vision problems, cognitive disorders, and other maladies brought about by a high-pitched drone sound they experienced at their homes and hotels. Continue reading
Ever since it was decided to locate the headquarters of the United Nations in New York, the world body has been beset by constant meddling by the host country, that is, the United States, which is increasingly violating the letter and spirit of the 1947 treaty between the United States and United Nations regarding the headquarters of the UN. The treaty, signed on June 26, 1947 at Lake Success, New York between UN Secretary General Trygve Lie and US Secretary of State George Marshall guarantees the extraterritorial nature of the UN headquarters in Manhattan. Furthermore, it guarantees that the US will not interfere with the expeditious granting of US visas to foreigners and UN personnel transiting through US territory in furtherance of their responsibilities to their own governments and the UN. Continue reading
Fascist-ruled Honduras and Guatemala—the latter the home of 7-year old asylum-seeker Jakelin Caal, who died in the custody of U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents—will soon be joined by El Salvador as a major refugee-producing Central American nation. Continue reading
The December 1 arrest by Canadian authorities in Vancouver of Huawei Technologies chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou, based on a US extradition warrant, represents a draconian extraterritorial application of a dubious US law and claim of Huawei’s sanctions violations regarding Iran. Meng was arrested at Vancouver International Airport, while a transit passenger changing planes. Continue reading
Trump and his neocons have withdrawn from so many international organizations and agreements that his foreign policy has earned a shameful nickname: “the Withdrawal Doctrine.” Continue reading
On the 77th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and other U.S. military installations in the Philippines, Guam, and Wake Island, Donald Trump marked the occasion by tweeting: “FAKE NEWS—THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE!” Trump’s tweet was sent at 10:08 pm on December 6. At around 10:00 pm on December 6, a man with a southern accent phoned the CNN bureau in New York and warned it that five bombs had been placed in the building. “CNN Tonight,” which was broadcasting live, was forced off the air and the building was evacuated. The news network was forced to rely on taped programming. Continue reading
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla.—Nearly a decade of vexatious civil litigation in Palm Beach County court between convicted underage sex molester Jeffrey Epstein and Fort Lauderdale trial attorney, Bradley Edwards, who represented pro bono many of Epstein’s victims, concluded rapidly on December 4 after Edwards’s attorney, Jack Scarola, announced an out-of-court settlement between Epstein and Edwards. Under the terms of the agreement, termed a “surrender” by Epstein, a confidential financial settlement was reached in favor of Edwards and an apology by Epstein to Edwards for wrongly suing him in an effort to “damage his reputation” and divert attention from Epstein’s victims. The Epstein suit was designed to force Edwards to abandon Epstein’s victims, including Courtney Wild, formerly known only as “Jane Doe 1,” who was recently identified in a three-part series on the Epstein case in The Miami Herald. Continue reading
The rumored nomination of Labor Secretary Alex Acosta as attorney general in the wake of Jeff Sessions’s firing is apparently what spurred the Miami Herald to publish a detailed 3-part series look at the sweetheart plea agreement worked out by Acosta with convicted child molester and Donald Trump’s close friend Jeffrey Epstein. The Miami Herald story resulted in a public rebuke for the story’s reporter, Julie Brown, from former White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci, who appears to have taken over as Trump’s “muscle” to attack journalists who investigate Trump and those tied to him. Continue reading
In a mere 48 hours, incessant Donald Trump lies, communicated via Twitter, have rocked the stock market, enraged union workers, and have further eroded public confidence in the ability of the White House and its enablers in Congress to govern. Continue reading
Donald Trump is attempting to do something that no previous recent president of the United States has attempted. Trump is trying to abrogate longstanding legal international treaties signed by some of his predecessors with sovereign Native American tribes. The Trump administration is using a requirement that Medicaid recipients work in return for health benefits to deny Native American tribes the right to govern themselves as sovereign entities. The Trump administration is denying an exemption for the work requirement for tribal nations by reclassifying Native Americans as a racial group subject to federal law, not as separate sovereign nations bound by distinct tribal laws. Continue reading
Former Donald Trump chief strategist and 2016 campaign manager Steve Bannon has become a neo-Nazi frequent flyer. Bannon established his organization, known simply as “The Movement,” with the help of some far-right Belgian politicians. In a worrying trend, The Movement is forging close ties with far-right parties and politicians around the world, including Brazil’s incoming president, Jair Bolsonaro, an admitted admirer of Adolf Hitler. Continue reading
Donald Trump, who threatened to misuse the Department of Justice to prosecute 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and former FBI director James Comey as part of a political vendetta, will be meeting like-minded dictators at the G20 summit in Argentina, which will be held from November 30 to December 1. These authoritarian leaders have criminally prosecuted their political opponents, with many currently serving long prison sentences. Continue reading
America has always fancied itself as a “melting pot” of ethnicities and religions that form a perfect union. The Latin phrase, E Pluribus Unum, “out of many, one,” is even found on the Great Seal of the United States. However, as seen in a recent blow-up between First Lady Melania Trump and now-former Deputy National Security Adviser Mira Ricardel, old feuds from beyond the borders of the United States can result in major rifts at the highest echelons of the US government. Continue reading
Attempts by some to liken Donald Trump to Richard Nixon fail to understand the depths of fascism to which Trump has descended. A more accurate comparison of Trump to someone who imprisoned his political opponents, shut down the free press, and believed in a strong unitary executive is the late Chilean fascist military dictator, General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte. Continue reading
Last week, Donald Trump disgraced himself before his French hosts, US and Allied military veterans, and the entire world by remaining inside the residence of the US ambassador to France and snubbing a memorial service for US dead in World War I. Continue reading
Donald Trump traveled to Paris to, as he put it in a tweet, “celebrate” the centenary of the armistice that ended World War I. Trump not only decided to skip a planned visit to the Aisne-Marne American cemetery at Belleau Wood, but also the inaugural ceremony of the Paris Peace Forum. The forum, organized by French President Emmanuel Macron and attended by over 70 world leaders, is held in conjunction with the armistice centenary commemoration. Continue reading
Donald Trump’s erstwhile chief strategist and current occasional telephone adviser, Steve Bannon, has made no secret of his admiration for hedge fund tycoon George Soros and his ability to influence elections around the world to benefit neo-liberal politicians and parties. In creating his Brussels-based group, called simply, “The Movement,” Bannon is emulating Soros’s techniques on behalf of the liberal left in providing electoral advice to neo-Nazi, fascist, and white supremacist political parties around the globe. Continue reading
A few days after Brazil’s new neo-Nazi president, Jair Bolsonaro, declared victory in that nation’s presidential election, Donald Trump’s “wargasmic” neocon national security adviser, John Bolton, was in Miami unveiling the administration’s version of George W. Bush’s “Axis of Evil.” After Trump congratulated the Adolf Hitler-praising Bolsonaro on his victory, Bolton, speaking before a crowd of right-wing Cuban-Americans, warned Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua—nations Bolton called the “Troika of Tyranny”—that the United States and its new far-right allies, including Brazil and Colombia, would work together to overthrow the socialist governments of Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua. Bolton also referred to the three nations as the “Triangle of Terror.” Continue reading
They show up uninvited at your home, business, and vehicle on an average of ten times a day. They come from such relatively unknown places as Meadowview and Boones Mill, Virginia; Warsaw, Kentucky; Justin, Texas; and McKenzie, Tennessee. They try to take your personal details, your savings, and computer passwords. We are not talking about a zombie apocalypse but the scourge of robocalls, the lifeblood of the telemarketing industry. The direct marketing and scam pests run right through the Federal Trade Commission’s Do-Not-Call Registry like a hot knife through butter. Continue reading
The former chief strategist and campaign manager for Donald Trump, Steve Bannon, likes to use the term “globalist” in his zeal to create a worldwide, read that as “global,” movement of fascist, neo-Nazi, and racialist political parties. Bannon, the anti-globalist far-right obese version of Adolf Hitler, initially, had few takers for his plan for a Nazi Internationale. Unfortunately, for the entire planet, that has changed. Continue reading
Latin America’s “springtime of socialism” is at a close. After over a decade of progressive socialist presidents putting people ahead of cronyism, Latin America’s oligarchs, through the abuse of the courts, parliaments, and electoral systems, have put caudillos in office throughout the region. Unlike the past, when local generals, with a wink-and-a-nod from the local Central Intelligence Agency station chief, would call out the tanks and troops to oust democratically-elected presidents, today’s fascist leaders have discovered that social media, coupled with corrupt judges and legislators, can mount what are, essentially, soft “constitutional coups.” Continue reading
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On Bolton’s orders, US ambassadors chastise governments
Posted on February 19, 2019 by Wayne Madsen
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 →