Aletho News

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

Soros, sanctions and propaganda: How the US secretly controls the ‘world’s largest investigative journalism organization’

RT | December 3, 2024

An investigation published on Monday by France’s Mediapart and its partners, including Drop Site News (US), Il Fatto Quotidiano (Italy), and Reporters United (Greece), has uncovered that the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), the world’s largest investigative journalism network, is secretly controlled by the US government.

The report reveals that Washington has provided around half of the organization’s funding and has significant sway over its leadership and editorial direction, raising questions about the independence of the network’s reporting.

US govt funds more than half of OCCRP budget

Since its founding in 2008, the OCCRP has received at least $47 million from American government sources. This accounts for approximately half of the organization’s overall funding, making the US state the largest donor by far.

The OCCRP’s financial dependence on the US government has led to concerns about the potential influence of Washington on the organization’s editorial stance, particularly given the US government’s strategic interests.

According to Drew Sullivan, the OCCRP’s co-founder and publisher, the US government remains the organization’s largest donor, providing crucial financial support for its operations. In an interview with German state broadcaster NDR, Sullivan acknowledged, “I’m very grateful to the US government” for its support.

While OCCRP officials insist that government grants come with “impenetrable guardrails” to protect journalistic integrity, critics will argue that such substantial funding creates a structural dependence that could affect editorial independence.

Washington has veto power over OCCRP leadership

In addition to providing substantial funding, the US government also wields significant influence over the OCCRP’s leadership. Washington has the right to veto key personnel appointments within the organization, including the nomination of its publisher, Sullivan. Under agreements with the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and other government bodies, the OCCRP must submit resumes of potential hires for senior roles to the American government for approval.

USAID’s Shannon Maguire confirmed this in a statement, saying the agency has the “right to have its say” on personnel decisions. Sullivan himself admitted in an interview that the US can use this veto power, although he maintained that it has never been exercised. “If they veto somebody, we can say we don’t take the money,” he said. The power to dictate appointments, however, underscores the US government’s influence over the OCCRP’s leadership.

Soros provides significant funding

In addition to the US government, the OCCRP has also relied on funding from private donors, including the Open Society Foundations (OSF), the pressure group founded by Hungarian-American billionaire George Soros. While OSF’s contributions are significant, they have not raised the same concerns about influence as the US government’s donations, as far as the authors of the investigation are concerned.

Still, OSF’s role adds to the complex web of financial support that the OCCRP has received over the years.

OCCRP founded based on secret US govt grant

The OCCRP’s origins are tied directly to US government funding. In 2007, the US State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) provided the initial $1.7 million to establish the network. This secret funding, funneled through the Journalism Development Group (JDG) controlled by Sullivan, was key to the creation of the OCCRP.

Sullivan’s relationship with USAID and the US government dates back to the early 2000s, when he worked on a USAID-funded initiative in Bosnia and Herzegovina to train local journalists. He later used his connections to secure funding from the US government to establish the OCCRP. The fact that such an influential journalistic network was born out of a covert US government grant raises concerns about the independence of its operations.

US govt funds investigations aimed at opponents such as Russia

One of the most striking revelations of the investigation is that the US government has directed the OCCRP to focus its investigations on specific countries, including Russia and Venezuela. The OCCRP received $2.2 million from the US to investigate Russian media in an effort dubbed ‘Balancing the Russian media sphere’.

Similarly, the organization was granted $2.3 million to investigate corruption in Cyprus and Malta, two locations where Russian business people have significant financial interests.

By funding investigations that target certain countries, the US government has influenced the scope of the OCCRP’s reporting, ensuring that its investigations align with American geopolitical interests. The OCCRP has worked on several high-profile international investigations, including ‘Cyprus Confidential’, which exposed Russian citizens allegedly using the island as a tax haven to bypass sanctions. These investigations are clearly in line with US foreign policy priorities.

OCCRP reports weaponized to justify US sanctions policy

The OCCRP’s investigative reports have also been used by the US government to justify its foreign policy, particularly sanctions. Through the Global Anti-Corruption Consortium (GACC), a program co-financed by the US State Department, OCCRP investigations have been directly linked to judicial actions and sanctions procedures.

The US government uses the OCCRP’s findings to push for greater sanctions on individuals and entities it frames as being associated with corruption, often targeting countries such as Russia and Venezuela.

Sullivan confirmed that the OCCRP works closely with governments, including the US, to apply the findings of its investigations in ways that support broader international policy goals. “We believe the GACC has proven to be highly successful,” Sullivan said. This program has been instrumental in lobbying for tougher anti-corruption and anti-money laundering legislation, he adds, often in countries that the US government sees as adversaries.

Propaganda tool designed to advise US foreign policy interests

The revelations of the OCCRP’s close ties to the US government will fuel criticism that the organization is not simply an independent journalistic entity, but rather a tool used by the US to promote its foreign policy interests. While the OCCRP maintains that it operates independently, its reliance on US funding and its role in advancing US political goals suggests that its reporting may be subject to external influence, particularly when it comes to issues that affect US geopolitical priorities.

As one director of a South American media outlet put it, “The OCCRP makes the US seem virtuous and allows them to set the agenda of what is defined as corruption.” While the OCCRP continues to investigate corruption in many parts of the world, its close financial relationship with the US government raises significant questions about the organization’s independence and the potential for its work to be used as a tool of American foreign policy.

In conclusion, the findings from Mediapart and its partners highlight the complex and often hidden relationship between the OCCRP and the US government. Despite its protestations, the scale of its financial dependence on the US government and the influence that Washington has over its operations will hardly be ignored.

December 3, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , | Leave a comment

Deception, manipulation, sabotage: What the UK does to keep the Ukraine war going

By Tarik Cyril Amar | RT | November 30, 2024

Unless you want to be blind, it is obvious that Ukraine under the Zelensky regime is not remotely a free country. In politics, after massive repression, there are only remnants of an opposition, which face continuing oppression and harassment by the government, as even the French newspaper Le Monde, generally naïve about the Zelensky regime, has reported.

Ukraine’s public sphere is stifled by nationalist propaganda, pressure, and demonstrative, intimidating terror. Before the escalation of 2022, even a robustly propagandistic tool of Western information warfare such as Freedom House could still acknowledge that much: its 2018 report, authored by Ukrainian researcher Vyacheslav Likhachev, identified Ukraine’s Far Right organizations as “a threat to democracy” and “aggressively trying to impose their agenda on Ukrainian society, including by using force against those with opposite political and cultural views.”

Regarding Ukraine’s media, expect not much resistance from there. They are tightly controlled and, often, pro-actively obedient, whether out of misguided conviction, fear, or careerism. Even Ukraine’s Western supporters, as well as some courageous critics in Ukraine, have voiced criticism of the crude propaganda habits of the Zelensky regime.

Make no mistake: The authoritarian features of the rule of Vladimir Zelensky – formerly the object of a veritable Western personality cult that, by now, at least some devotees must feel embarrassed about – are not the result of the large-scale war. The politics of Zelenskyism, to coin an ugly but handy term, were always unusually deceitful and manipulative and, by 2021 at the latest, openly bending toward authoritarianism, as many Ukrainian critics pointed out at the time.

And yet: Imagine a future trial, maybe to be held in Ukraine, of Zelensky and his team. The defense would not be able to do much about their record of corruption, but it would certainly at least try to blame some of the former leader’s underhanded and tyrannical tendencies on the war. It would be a stretch, but lawyers have to do their best, even for the worst of clients.

In the case of the Western users of the Zelensky regime, though, such a defense would not be merely far-fetched but completely absurd. Yet a defense some of them at least might come to need. Take for instance the case of Britain’s Lieutenant General Charlie Stickland and his shadowy but numerous associates.

The unfortunately important general – boasting of his pirate ancestors and in charge of “UK-led joint and multinational overseas military operations” – and his motley crew have just been the object of an investigative exposé by Grayzone reporter Kit Klarenberg. In, for now, two articles, the Grayzone has detailed how, in 2022, Stickland set up a below-the-radar network of “an assortment of leading academics, authors, strategists, planners, pollsters, comms, data scientists and tech.” Under the name Project Alchemy and overlapping and liaising with another group of wannabe keyboard Ninjas calling themselves – I kid you not – “the Elders,” this conspiratorial group has worked on, in essence, keeping the Ukraine war going at any price and by means foul and fouler.

Based on leaked documents, the Grayzone’s reporting is revealing in more ways than can be discussed here. Yet, as we are dealing with prose authored by militant bureaucrats and self-weaponizing intellectuals in the land of George Orwell, that old stickler for the English language, we would be remiss not to appreciate their bizarre lingo. It brings together a certain jejune rugby field boyishness – “mischief” is proudly being made – with a militarized sociolect of corporatese: “fusion players” and “sideways thinkers” get “badged” and “meshed in” to “move at pace,” and – greatest pride of the eminent executive – stand ready to work over the weekend!

Doing what exactly? All kinds of things, really, and all based on one stupid yet once immensely popular assumption: that the proxy war in Ukraine could be leveraged to defeat Russia, reduce it to geopolitical insignificance, impose regime change on it, and even break it up. Some, including the new de facto foreign minister of the EU, Estonia’s Kaja Kallas – imagine Annalena Baerbock, but without the brilliant intellect – still seem to be on that political equivalent of an LSD trip gone terribly wrong. What a hangover it will be one day, probably soon.

In Britain, highlights of Project Alchemy groupthink included hatching plans for stay-behind sabotage networks and recommending the example of the underground “Gladio” operations that NATO ran in Western – not, please note, Eastern – Europe during the Cold War. Strictly speaking, Gladio was an Italian label, while the same bad idea had different names in other countries. By now, though, Gladio stands for a whole plethora of clandestine organizations set up, ostentatiously, to engage in partisan resistance in case of a Soviet attack and occupation.

You may feel that, in principle at least, for generals, preparing for the possibility of future partisan warfare is not an objectionable activity. Yet the issue is that, in reality, the Gladio operations were not only extremely dubious in constitutional and legal terms, as being entirely beyond democratic control and oversight, as well as tied to foreign intelligence services. In addition, these networks served to fight a dirty war against the domestic left, including by terrorism, false-flag attacks, the systematic use of far-right conspirators and terrorists, and support for military coups.

An influential, black-ops-connected British general and his chums wanting to learn lessons from Gladio for underground networks in Ukraine? The country with the best-armed (compliments of the West), most whitewashed and naively underestimated (compliments of the Western media and self-weaponizing intellectuals of the Anne Applebaum/Tim Snyder variety), most aggressive, and most militarized far right in the world? Swimming in arms right next to an EU-NATO Europe they will soon feel bitterly disappointed by? What could possibly go wrong? But maybe Charlie ‘Pirate’ Stickland is “fusion”-”thinking” “sideways” in Churchillian terms: “Set Europe Ablaze!” Yet Stickland seems to have overlooked that Churchill wanted to set it ablaze against the Nazis, not with them.

All of this is, in and of itself, very bad, if unsurprising, news. But Project Alchemy has been prolific, producing lousy ideas the way Russian industry is churning out artillery shells and missiles. There also were: a frank emphasis on “creatively using” – let’s be honest: breaking – the law so as to get silly violent things done, including “deniable ops”; a daft idea to attack the Kerch Bridge, as if Russia would not strike back (both have by now happened, the militarily useless attack and the painful payback); an anticipatory strategy of how to manipulate the British public in case it should get tired of pumping money into the proxy war; attempts to undermine BRICS-plus (thinking big and bigger); plans to shut down Russian media in the West, obviously; and, last but not least, an aggressive strategy to use covert lawfare and deliberate financial pressure to bring down Western critical media as well, including, as it happens, the Grayzone. Say what you will, but Stickland and company seem to have had a foreboding from where exactly they would get their richly deserved come-uppance.

It would be tempting to think of this wave of disinformation and manipulation in the West as a kind of “Ukrainization.” As if the West had caught the contagion of the Zelensky regime’s very bad habits. But to be fair, the West has its own, well-established tradition of waging war by massive lying on the home front. In 2019, it was the Washington Post, usually hewing close to the American government line, that ran a series of in-depth stories detailing how, during the West’s long war in Afghanistan, started almost two decades before, the US had been “at war with the truth.” Suddenly, clearly in preparation of the impending Western retreat, readers were allowed to learn that while “officials constantly said they were making progress,” they “were not, and they knew it.”

And the name of that Washington Post series? The Afghanistan Papers. That, of course, was a reference to the famous Pentagon Papers, an internal and classified Defense Department review of US policy and warfare in Vietnam that was leaked to the New York Times by the historic whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, who suffered severe, criminal attempts to silence, and in effect, destroy him. The long American intervention, begun indirectly in the 1940s and escalating into one of the most brutal US campaigns of the twentieth century in the 1960s, only ended with the total defeat of both Washington and its South Vietnamese proxy in 1975.

The New York Times began to publish the Pentagon Papers in 1971. Once again, as with the later bloody Western fiasco in Afghanistan, the moment of truth – some truth – came late, only toward the end of a policy catastrophe that had long been supported by compliant mainstream media. The Grayzone is considered alternative media, and its reporters are doing a much better job at real journalism than their competition in the mainstream version. As to the mainstream media, they clearly have not yet reached the stage of always-too-late revelation that, during the proxy wars in Vietnam and Afghanistan, was marked by 1971 and 2019, respectively.

How do we know? They are ignoring the Grayzone’s sensational revelations about a military-think-tank-industry conspiracy to undermine the law, deliberately manipulate the public, and wage proxy war in a way that is both dirty and bound to backfire very badly on the West itself. One more sign that all too many in the West are not yet ready to face reality, even while the Ukrainians they claim to help but only use keep dying.

Tarik Cyril Amar is a historian from Germany working at Koç University, Istanbul, on Russia, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe, the history of World War II, the cultural Cold War, and the politics of memory.

November 30, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , | Leave a comment

Corporate Media Meltdown Over Trump’s CDC Director Pick Dr. Dave Weldon

A look a the possible changes ahead for the CDC under his leadership

By Jefferey Jaxen | November 25, 2024

Former seven-term congressman Dr. David Weldon was chosen by President-elect Donald Trump going into this past weekend to serve as director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Amidst the flurry of possible appointments grabbing headlines, Dr. Weldon has the opportunity to change the way America has handled public health for decades.

The Washington Post described Dr. Weldon in the second sentence of its breaking news article as “… a strong critic of the CDC, especially its vaccine program.” The reporting meant the sentence to be a negative, ironically, it’s probably now a breath of fresh air for most Americans post-COVID.

“… increasingly we talk only to a certain elite. More and more, we talk to ourselves” wrote Jeff Bezos, owner of the Washington Post, less than a month ago when admitting most people don’t believe corporate/legacy media anymore. It’s like WAPO’s recent reporting on Weldon already forgot this warning.

The New York Times claimed that Dr. Weldon was “skeptical of vaccine safety,” a designation that would have worked to neutralize his voice in years past when the outlet still garnered attention and respect.

STAT News wrote, “The former Florida congressman sponsored legislation that would have carved out the CDC’s vaccine safety research…”

The Vaccine Safety Bill to ‘carve out research’ Dr. Weldon introduced in 2007 wanted to establish an independent agency within the Department of Health and Human Services to handle the nation’s vaccine safety. His reasoning at the time was that the CDC had an inherent conflict of interest being responsible for both vaccine safety and promotion—an issue unchanged to this day.

In Weldon, the public also finds a rare leader who has been willing to ask politically forbidden questions about links between vaccines and autism along with the greater questions about health outcomes of children receiving HHS’s childhood vaccine schedule compared with children who had not been vaccinated. In addition to why there’s been limited investigation to determine what children may be as risk of being harmed by vaccines.

“The thing I continue to find extremely disturbing is the fact that the CDC still does not allow researchers access to the vaccine safety data… The best way to get answers on the vaccine safety data is to open it up and let objective scientists come in and look at it.” – Rep. Dave Weldon at the Vaccines & Autism House Government Reform Committee 2002

One of the key data tranches Weldon is referring is vaccine safety datalink or VSD. A monitoring system using electronic health record data from health sites around the country to assess vaccine safety and detect adverse events in near-real time. Also a system that the public and independent researchers are blocked from accessing.

Besides the possibility of allowing the sunlight of independent researchers to comb through once-hidden vaccine data while dedicating resources to health-affirming tools outside of one-size-fits-all shots, Dr. Weldon will have veto power over the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP).

ACIP makes recommendations about which vaccines are added to the U.S. schedule, among other decisions. The committee needs final approval from the director of the CDC to implement their calls. Dr. Weldon would hold a power position over a committee who unanimously rubber-stamped every COVID vaccine and booster from infants to the elderly, among other questionable call throughout the years leading to reduced public trust.

Another approach long-called for, and even once implemented by the CDC, would be to automate their Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) to instantly detect and report potential safety issues with the shots they promote.

In 2006 this was attempted through a $1M HHS grant to create a spontaneous reporting system to VAERS at Harvard Pilgrim Health Care. The researchers found that “fewer than 1% of vaccine adverse events are reported” yet predictably, the CDC never followed up.

As many new to this conversation are rushing the gates to further their careers or gain influence and power on the back of the rapid political change we find ourselves at the beginning of, there have been those holding a strong space with little fanfare. Dr. Dave Weldon is one such individual.

His decades-long hopes to reform the CDC and, more importantly, protect American children and families from unrestrained harms brought upon so many by liability-free injectable pharmaceutical products which have enjoyed a privileged position away from full public and scientific scrutiny may soon see the light of day.

To the readers, is the CDC even salvageable at this point?

What other major areas of reform could help rapidly transform public consciousness around health and healing?

November 27, 2024 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , | Leave a comment

Israeli Soccer Hooligans Cry Out as They Strike You

By Kevin Barrett –  American Free Press – November 22, 2024

On November 7, chaos erupted in the streets of Amsterdam. Soccer hooligans flown in from Israel, flanked by Mossad handlers, watched their their Maccabi Tel Aviv team lose 5-0 to the Dutch team Ajax. After the game, the Maccabi fans ran wild, arming themselves with wood sticks and metal pipes and attacking cabs, busses, police vans, and individuals unlucky enough to cross their path. Palestinian flags—a common sight in the Dutch capital—were torn down. As they rioted, the Maccabi fans showcased their favorite chants, including “There are no schools left in Gaza because there are no children left”; “F*** the Arabs,”; and F*** you terrorists, everybody die.”

A video account of the event by a teenage journalist known as Bender showed that the violence was incited by Israelis, not locals. Bender followed the Israelis from the stadium and filmed them arming themselves and attacking people and vehicles. He was threatened and told to stop filming, presumably by the Mossad handlers overseeing the event.

As often happens, the spectacle of foreign soccer hooligans attacking people in their own city led to a defensive response. Locals confronted the hooligans, in some cases getting the better of physical altercations. A few Israeli thugs managed to get themselves beat up, while others were unceremoniously introduced to the pleasures of swimming in Amsterdam’s insalubrious canals.

If British soccer hooligans had attacked Paris, or German soccer hooligans had attacked Prague, media accounts would have been reasonably evenhanded and accurate. But because the hooligans were Israelis attacking the city of Anne Frank, the media sought to convince the world that a third Holocaust had occurred. (The second, of course, was the Hamas raid of October 7, 2023.)

Here are a selection of headlines:

*Israeli Fans Attacked After Soccer Match in Amsterdam; Violence Condemned as Anti-Semitic (Washington Post ).

*Israeli soccer fans targeted in wave of violence in Amsterdam (Fox).

*Holocaust survivor calls vicious mob attack on Jews in Amsterdam a ‘modern-day Kristallnacht’ (New York Post ).

*Israeli soccer fans in Amsterdam ambushed by gangs of anti-Israel attackers shouting ‘Free Palestine,’ Netanyahu sends planes to evacuate citizens (New York Post ).

*The New Kristallnacht: Antisemitic Attacks in Amsterdam Demand Global Action (Times of Israel ).

*Global leaders react to Amsterdam pogrom (The Jerusalem Post ).

*Amsterdam Has Failed Its Jews (Spectator ).

The United States Holocaust Museum issued a statement stating that the Museum “strongly condemns the vicious attacks on Israeli soccer fans in Amsterdam and the outrageous celebrations of those attacks.” The Anti-Defamation League shrieked about the “obscene, unprovoked violence” which it described as follows: “This is what ‘globalize the intifada’ looks like. Mobs of hate-filled people chasing down and attacking innocent Israeli soccer fans who they have dehumanized as ‘Zionists,’ hunting down and brutalizing ordinary people who came to Amsterdam simply to enjoy a soccer match.”

But why did these Israeli “ordinary people” repeatedly commit assault, battery, and vandalism, long before any locals retaliated? Why did the Israeli attacks on people and vehicles draw no response from local police, who pointedly ignored the rioting until the tables had been turned? And why were the hooligans flanked by Mossad agents as they incited a riot?

Dutch scholar and author Alexander Wolfheze, who was in Amsterdam on November 7, describes the event as a “psy-op.” In a November 12 interview with this author Wolfheze agreed with critics who argue that the Israeli hooligans’ attack on Amsterdam was carefully orchestrated by intelligence professionals in order to produce precisely the headlines listed above, and thousands more like them: “I believe that there are PSYOP aspects (to the hooligans’ attack). It happened just before the anniversary of Kristallnacht, something that the mainstream media did not fail to exploit.”

Dr. Wolfheze added that the November 7 Mossad op was also designed to influence Dutch domestic politics: “Holland is once again at the forefront of the Israelization of Europe, the Zionisation of Europe. Holland was the first country to get a real neo-Zionist government (Geert Wilders). And exactly at that time, after the appointment of this new cabinet, this new government here, and this new reality here, we are seeing this program (total Israeli takeover of Holland -KB) being implemented through the hooligans.”

If Israel can attack your country, pretend to be the victim, and force your entire government and mainstream media to go along with the transparent lie, they basically own you. Fortunately, Israel does not own social media journalists like Bender and Max Blumenthal, both of whom were instrumental in exposing what really happened in Amsterdam.

The Israeli attack on Amsterdam once again illustrated the Jewish State’s perfidy, and provided more evidence that when they cry out as they strike you, it isn’t just a hobby—it’s how they make a living.

November 23, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , | Leave a comment

Trump’s election victory: the schism in the US is deepening, the fight is intensifying

By Veniamin Popov – New Eastern Outlook – November 23, 2024

Following a crushing defeat at the November 5 elections (Democrats are now in the minority in Congress), the US Democratic Party is gradually coming to its senses, consolidating and launching new attacks against the Republicans.

At the forefront of all this is the editorial board of the New York Times newspaper, which published an article the day after the vote titled ‘America makes a perilous choice’. The main idea is that Americans should clearly understand the threat to the country and its laws posed by the 47th President of the United States, since he prioritises “the accumulation of uncontrolled power and the punishment of his alleged enemies”. Recognising that the elections demonstrated deep dissatisfaction with the status quo, politics and the state of American institutions, the newspaper demands that Democrats unite and resist the destructive figure of Trump: the task now is to vote correctly in the midterm elections of 2026 and in 2028 “to get the country back on the right track”.

On November 14, the same editorial board published a new article ‘Trump’s reckless choices for national leadership’. “Donald Trump has demonstrated his incongruity with the presidency in countless ways, but one of the most obvious is the marginal figures surrounding him, conspiracy theorists and low liars who put loyalty to him above all else”.

The media loyal to the Democratic party have launched a vehement campaign against the candidates named by Trump for posts in his government. They are accused of a variety of sins and the Senate is being urged to reject many of these nominations.

The idea that many troubles and problems await the United States under Trump is being dispersed in various ways, while the ‘red thread’ is the idea that the president-elect is surrounded by incompetent people and that they are simply unworthy to perform state functions.

Famous US columnist David Ignatius noted in the Washington Post that Trump is by nature a destroyer and hopes to overthrow what he imagines to be the ‘deep state’, but American voters did not give him the opportunity to destroy the country’s military and intelligence services. If they approve Trump’s appointees, they will do more to collapse his presidency “than Democrats ever could”. The New York Times called Trump a “threat to global peace and security” on 11/18/2024.

The fight between Republicans and Democrats intensifies

It should be noted that Trump’s supporters are not indifferent. A number of newspapers and TV networks have been charged with disinformation (amounting to $10 billion), calls for an audit at the Department of Defence are growing louder and louder and demands for an investigation of the many miscalculations of the Biden administration are being voiced on television.

The plan for changing power in the US (‘Project 2025’), developed by one of the think tanks supporting Trump, is being criticised sharply. It proposes to enhance the powers of the head of state dramatically, put a number of departments under his direct control (and to abolish the FBI altogether), resolve the issue of illegal migration with an iron fist, expelling all illegal immigrants from the country, and to “make federal bureaucrats more responsible to the democratically elected president and Congress”. The ideological basis for these changes is the struggle for the revival of the ‘Christian foundations’ of American society and the task of increasing church attendance is also highlighted.

In one of his speeches, Trump himself promised to legislate that only two genders, male and female, are officially recognised in the United States.

A number of publications, including Politico, say that Trump’s victory actually means ‘the end of the era of American-style peace’.

Political scientist Daniel Dresner thinks that the election of Trump symbolises the end of ‘American exceptionalism’.

In the Foreign Affairs magazine articles are appearing stating that Republicans should now show a greater commitment to realism and restraint: “If the US political class could agree that the United States has been overzealous in its foreign policy and should adjust its course, it would help to ensure that the country will not repeat the deadly mistakes of the last 20 years, where the US got bogged down in various conflicts”.

Current events clearly indicate that a fierce battle in the ranks of the American elite is being aggravated; the supporters of globalism and aggressive liberalism do not want to give up their positions. Nevertheless, the huge public debt of the United States, which exceeds $36 trillion, should force authorities to have a more adequate approach to military interventions, which “bring limited benefits and impose high costs on the United States”.

Some comments from the countries of the Global South say that the US is apparently awaiting a long internal political struggle, which may limit US activism in the international arena. Along with this, it is suggested that Washington’s policy is unlikely to change overnight. For example, the Turkish Daily Sabah newspaper expressed on November 15 that “the next four years will not be any better”, however, most importantly, they should also not be worse. Trump should adopt a cooperative approach to foreign policy and security that recognises the limitations of the United States.

At the same time, the Egyptian Al Ahram, noting Trump’s pro-Israeli approach to the Middle East, stressed the other day that the newly elected US president recognises that Israel has lost what he called the ‘PR war’ and should therefore soon put an end to the wars in Gaza and Lebanon, since the world can no longer tolerate daily bloodshed and preposterous destruction.

November 23, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism | , | Leave a comment

The Democratic Party Faces Its Day of Reckoning

By Leonard C. Goodman | Scheer Post | November 19, 2024

Following its crushing defeat in the 2024 election, the Democratic Party might finally face its day of reckoning. The party markets itself as the champion of the working class and a bulwark against the party of the plutocrats. But this has been a lie for at least three decades.

The Democratic Party has partnered with Wall Street donors since at least the 1990s. Under President Bill Clinton, the party overturned Glass Steagall and other New Deal programs that had effectively restrained Wall Street greed for 60 years. It also sold out American workers with so-called trade deals that freed their bosses to ship American jobs overseas. It ended welfare “as we know it” and passed draconian crime bills that destroyed mostly black and brown communities, sending mothers and fathers to prison for decades in the name of a cruel and senseless war on drugs.

Into the 21st century, the Democrats continued pushing the lie that they were fighting for working people. After September 11, 2001, the party put up a token resistance to the Bush/Cheney regime of illegal regime-change wars, black sites, indefinite detention and torture. All the while, it continued soliciting campaign contributions from the arms dealers profiting from Bush’s wars.

In 2008, the party found a Black face to carry on its Wall Street-friendly agenda. Gullible Americans, myself included, were taken in by Barack Obama’s promises to end “dumb wars” and to institute a single payer healthcare system. We ignored the red flags, like the fact that Obama’s campaign broke records in pocketing Wall Street donations. It was later revealed by Wikileaks that nearly every member of Obama’s cabinet had been selected by the giant Wall Street bank Citigroup.

It didn’t take long for President Obama to crush our hopes that he was a different kind of Democrat. One of his first acts as president was to funnel trillions of dollars to the big banks that, newly freed by Clinton from FDR-era regulations, had embarked on an orgy of unbridled greed, swindling millions of Americans out of their homes and retirement savings with a scheme to sell worthless mortgage-backed securities.

Adding insult to injury, Obama saw to it that the bailed-out bank executives faced no criminal prosecutions and received their year-end bonuses. In their place, the Obama Justice Department brought federal mortgage fraud charges against thousands of poor people — I represented a half dozen of these folks — who had signed their names to the phony mortgage loans that the Wall Street bankers encouraged, packaged and sold to pension funds and other unwitting investors.

The pipe dream that Obama would be an anti-war president was also quickly dispatched. During his two terms, Obama ushered in a new era of continuous war, envisioned by George Orwell and favored by Wall Street. Obama expanded Bush’s bombing campaigns into Libya, Pakistan, Yemen, Syria and Somalia. Today’s Democratic Party is indistinguishable from the Republicans in its ties to war profiteers and trillion-dollar Pentagon budgets.

Obama also effectively ended the Democrats’ promise to fight for a true national health care system in which all Americans would be able to go to the doctor when sick without fear of bankrupting their families. In its place, Obama pushed through a health care plan developed in right-wing think tanks, that guaranteed profits (and taxpayer subsidies) for the private insurance industry and did little to contain costs.

By 2012, Glen Ford of the Black Agenda Report was describing the Democratic Party as the “more effective evil” for using its reputation as protector of the working class to neutralize effective opposition and push through right-wing policies that the Republicans could not get passed.

In 2016, the Democrats received a wake-up call when their chosen successor to Obama lost the White House to a crude-talking New York City real estate developer and game show host with no prior political experience. But with the help of its partners in corporate media, the party managed to limp along for another eight years, first by telling the American people that President Trump was an agent of Russia, and then by claiming that Trump was Hitler who was planning concentration camps and firing squads for his political enemies.

Now after the November 2024 elections in which Trump won every swing state and the popular vote, the Democratic party is finally being forced to face some uncomfortable truths. The party’s partners in the corporate media initially tried blaming the election result on the voters for being too misogynist, too racist, or too dumb to vote correctly. But there is little trust that remains in corporate media.

The party’s corporate consultants have put the blame on the party’s excessive focus on identity politics. But the issues for the Democrats run much deeper than bad messaging. The real problem is that the party takes direction from plutocrats whose interests are antagonistic to the needs of the working people it pretends to represent. Both Democrats and Republicans are financed by the same corporate interests. Thus, there is general agreement and support for policies that guarantee high rates of return on investment capital, policies like continuous war, for-profit health care, and outsourcing jobs. This leaves few issues for the parties to fight about other than abortion and identity politics.

Fifty years ago, American capitalists still relied on American workers to build everything from cars and televisions to sneakers and light bulbs. These titans of industry had to care about things such as functioning schools, decent wages, cities and public transportation. But the times have changed. Today’s plutocrats support outsourcing jobs to low-wage countries and have little concern for the condition of American workers. And while ordinary Americans want the country’s resources to be spent at home, plutocrats are heavily invested in foreign wars, and they shun diplomacy.

These contradictions could only be covered up for so long. Even with reliable partners in the corporate press, the internet has given Americans alternative sources for their news. During the last few years, in a desperate effort to keep its scheme afloat, the Democrats embraced censorship and a regime of corporate “fact checkers” to police social media and remove or punish unsanctioned speech. In so doing, the party abandoned the last of its core principles: standing up for free speech and the right to dissent.

Many Democrats argue that they had to go after Wall Street money to compete with the Republicans. In 2016, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer explained the strategy: “For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia, and you can repeat that in Ohio and Illinois and Wisconsin.” But for this plan to work, the party still needed an actual message to take to the voters.

Forbes Magazine reports that during the 2024 presidential race, Kamala Harris’s campaign raised a billion dollars while Trump’s campaign raised $388 million. Harris’s substantial edge in fundraising allowed her to flood the airwaves with commercials. But she had nothing of substance to say to voters.

The Atlantic Magazine reports that early in her campaign, Harris gained ground by attacking Trump as a stooge of corporate interests—and touted herself as a relentless scourge of Big Business. But then, suddenly, Harris abandoned her attacks on big business at the urging of her brother-in-law, Tony West, Uber’s chief legal officer.

Many Democrats, especially in swing states, opposed the Biden Administration’s unfailing support for Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza, which has killed more than 43,000 Palestinians and displaced nearly all of its 2.3 million residents. Harris could have gained the support of many of these voters by promising to stop arming Israel during the genocide. But her Party’s donors wouldn’t allow her to even hint at such a change in policy. Two days before the election, while campaigning in the swing state of Michigan, Harris stated, “I will do everything in my power to end the war in Gaza.” But as Ali Abunimah of the Electronic Intifada pointed out on election night, this promise carried no weight because Harris had also promised that she would never do the one thing within her power to stop the slaughter: cut off the flow of bombs to Israel.

After decades of malfeasance and deception, it has become evident that the corporate Democratic Party cannot serve as the lone opposition party to the corporate Republicans. The American people need a viable political party that represents the interests of ordinary working people.

A true workers party will not raise as much money as the corporate Democrats. But it will have an honest message with the potential to appeal to large numbers of Americans. Further, a political party that actually represents workers will press for reforms that begin to even the playing field between the haves and the have nots.

For example, one the most effective ways plutocrats game the political system is by flooding campaign contributions to the lawmakers who sit on the key committees that oversee their businesses. Members of Congress covet these committee chairs because they guarantee high fundraising numbers. Lawmakers who sit on the House Financial Services Committee have jurisdiction over banks and insurance companies and are targeted by those firms with campaign contributions. Lawmakers who sit on the Armed Services and Appropriations Committees provide funding for lucrative government contracts and are flooded with war industry cash.

These practices are corrupt and deprive American citizens of their right to be governed by representatives free from conflicts of interest. A judge who has received political contributions from a litigant must be removed from the case. Similarly, the most important functions of government, such as determining tax and how our tax revenue will be spent, should be performed by lawmakers who have not been bribed.

In 2017, the Center for American Progress, a think tank aligned with the Democratic Party, proposed a “Committee Contribution Ban” for Congress. It asserted: “Congress should enact a law to make it unlawful for members of Congress to accept campaign contributions from entities that fall within the jurisdiction of their committees.” Unsurprisingly, this proposal never reached the floor of Congress, that I could find.

Some states have enacted similar conflict of interest rules. And Congress could certainly pass such a law, if it chose. Of course, this will never happen as long as we are ruled by two corporate parties that benefit from the corruption. But if we had a political party that represented ordinary people, countless opportunities for positive change would soon emerge.

Leonard C. Goodman is a Chicago criminal defense lawyer and has been an Adjunct Professor of Law at DePaul University.

November 20, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Deception, Economics, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Dog Ate My Nord Stream: German Media Doubles Down on Ukrainian Connection Claim

Sputnik – 20.11.2024

Even though the United States has long been identified as the primary suspect in the terrorist attack on the Nord Stream underwater gas pipelines, German media continues peddling the narrative where Ukraine is to blame.

This week, one German magazine presented an account that looks more like a Cold War spy thriller script, detailing an alleged effort by Ukrainian saboteurs to take out Nord Stream.

– The entire operation, codenamed “Diameter” was supposedly carried out by 12 people: 11 men and one woman who was included to help disguise the team as a tourist group

– Five of the group’s members were divers, selected from some 20 candidates

– The bombs – diving tanks loaded with octogen and hexogen explosives – were planted on the seams to ensure maximum damage to the pipelines

– The entire budget of this operation was only $300,000, allegedly donated by some entrepreneur “close to the Ukrainian special forces”

– The plan of this operation was ostensibly presented to Gen. Valery Zaluzhny then-chief of Ukraine’s army, who supposedly liked it so much that he suggested carrying out a similar terrorist act against the TurkStream natural gas pipeline that runs from Russia to Turkiye under the Black Sea. No details of this second operation are provided, save for that it failed

– Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky was allegedly unaware of this entire scheme

– The US purportedly learned of the Ukrainian terrorists’ plan in June 2022, three months before the Nord Stream attack, and demanded that it be called off, to no avail.

In other words, this narrative portrays the US leadership and Zelensky as blameless and pins the blame on a small group of rogue Ukrainian operative, which is very convenient for the US and Ukraine, not to mention Germany who needs to avoid making any uncomfortable discoveries in the Nord Stream affair.

November 20, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, False Flag Terrorism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | | Leave a comment

German army warning companies of war with Russia – media

RT | November 20, 2024

The German military has begun instructing local enterprises on how to prepare and what to do in the event of a conflict between NATO and Russia, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) newspaper has reported.

The Bundeswehr is providing training to the companies based on a 1,000-page document entitled ‘Operational Plan Germany’, which was recently approved by lawmakers, the outlet stated in an article on Monday.

The contents of the plan are classified, but FAZ claimed that it includes lists of buildings and infrastructure facilities that should be protected as a priority in case of an escalation with Moscow. The plan also reportedly details what private businesses should do to help with defense operations.

If the fighting breaks out on NATO’s eastern flank, Germany could become a hub for hundreds of thousands of soldiers, who would have to be transported to the east, as well as for military equipment, food and medical supplies, the article read.

Among other things, the German military urges businesses to draw up specific plans for employees and try to ensure self-sufficiency through diesel generators or wind turbines, FAZ said.

The paper also cited concrete advice given by Lieutenant Colonel Jorn Plischke to companies during a recent meeting at the Hamburg Chamber of Commerce. “For every hundred employees, train at least five additional lorry drivers that you don’t need. [Because] 70 percent of all lorries on Germany’s roads are driven by Eastern Europeans. If there is a war there, where will these people be?” he said.

Similar meetings are taking place across Germany, with the Bundeswehr ordering all state commands to organize them, according to FAZ.

The first joint exercises between civilian forces and the German military, called ‘Red Storm Alpha’, were recently held in Hamburg. They were aimed at protecting the local port from espionage and sabotage attempts, the report read. ‘Red Storm Bravo’ drills are already in preparation, it added.

Plischke told FAZ that, based on Berlin’s intelligence assessments, Russia “will be willing and able” to attack NATO within four or five years.

A few months ago, Russian President Vladimir Putin rejected allegations of Moscow planning aggression against NATO as “nonsense” and “bulls**t.” According to the Russian leader, such claims are made by Western politicians to deceive the public in their countries and justify increased spending on defense and aid to Kiev amid the conflict with Moscow. “In Ukraine, we are just protecting ourselves,” Putin insisted.

November 20, 2024 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Obama Fueled Russia Collusion Lies in Secret White House Meeting

By Hans Mahncke & Jeff Carlson | Truth Over News | November 4, 2024

In 2022, Bloomberg’s Jason Leopold obtained a transcript of a secret briefing that Barack Obama held with a group referred to in the transcript as “progressive journalists.” The meeting took place during the final days of the Obama administration on January 17, 2017.

A Bloomberg article regarding the secret meeting focused on the part of the briefing in which Obama alleviated the journalist’s concerns about a potential Trump presidency. Obama stated that a one-term Trump presidency was no big deal because Trump’s breach of the “norms” could be remedied, whereas eight years of norm breaking posed a genuine threat.

Leopold later sent out a tweet promoting the Bloomberg article. It mentioned that he would post the transcript; however, it was only posted a few days ago. Many thanks to our friend Stephen McIntyre for bringing it to our attention.

The transcript, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, spans 21 pages. The most intriguing revelations have, to date, remained unreported. In particular, the transcript reveals a strategy employed by Obama to repeatedly implant the Russia collusion narrative in the minds of the attending journalists. In fact, Obama addressed the Russia collusion hoax on four distinct occasions during the meeting.

Before we delve into an analysis of what Obama said, it is worth noting that approximately six months earlier, on July 28, 2016, Obama was informed by his CIA director, John Brennan, that the Russia collusion narrative was a dirty trick concocted by the Hillary Clinton campaign. It is unclear what Obama communicated to Brennan during the closed-door White House meeting in July 2016, which was apparently also attended by FBI Director James Comey. What is known is that within three days of this meeting, the FBI launched its fraudulent Crossfire Hurricane investigation into the Trump campaign for alleged collusion with Russia, despite the fact that they should have been investigating the Clinton campaign for staging a hoax with significant national security implications.

Instead, the investigation continued to escalate, placing several Trump advisors under surveillance. Notwithstanding the onslaught, Trump managed to secure a victory in November 2016. After Trump’s win, Obama chose to weaponize the Clinton’s dirty trick by commissioning an Intelligence Community Assessment with the aim of entrenching the false narrative that Trump owed his win to Putin. This action by Obama solidified the Russia collusion narrative and, in many ways, undermined Trump’s presidency over the following four years.

With this in mind, it is remarkable that Obama was exceedingly cunning and dishonest with the group of progressive journalists. Instead of extinguishing the flames of a situation he knew to be fabricated, he chose to fan them.

  1. Obama blames media for not embracing Russia collusion narrative

In the first of four instances where Obama discussed the Russia collusion allegations, he stated the following:

“I think the Russian leaks, how that played out, how all this stuff was reported — I mean, I’m just being honest with you, and many of you share this view. You guys weren’t necessarily the culprits, but how that played out. Some failures of polling and analytics leading a leading Democratic candidate never to appear in Michigan or Wisconsin, or show up in a union hall, right? I mean, there’s just a bunch of stuff that could have happened in which we wouldn’t be having this particular conversation.”

In his characteristic crafty manner, Obama intertwined Hillary Clinton’s shortcomings with the media’s failures, particularly lamenting that the media did not promote the Russia collusion narrative with greater intensity. What is often overlooked is that, despite numerous attempts by the Clinton campaign to publicize the Steele dossier, the media did not report on it until just a few days before the election, and the dossier was not published until two months after the election. The most straightforward explanation for the media’s actions is that they may have been more principled eight years ago and refrained from publishing information that seemed fabricated and was entirely uncorroborated. Additionally, most people anticipated Clinton’s victory, which may have led the media to feel less compelled to fully engage with the highly dubious dossier.

By attributing blame to the media, Obama skillfully, albeit subtly, instilled the notion of guilt regarding Trump’s victory, fully aware that the media would subsequently intensify its efforts to compensate for its perceived role in failing to prevent his win.

  1. Obama suggests that Trump uses third parties to communicate with Putin

Having planted the seed of guilt, Obama then turned it up a notch and not so subtly suggested that Trump was communicating with Putin through intermediaries:

“I think the Russia thing is a problem. And it’s of apiece with this broader lack of transparency. It is hard to know what conversations the President-elect may be having offline with business leaders in other countries who are also connected to leaders of other countries. And I’m not saying there’s anything I know for a fact or can prove, but it does mean that — here’s the one thing you guys have been able to know unequivocally during the last eight years, and that is that whether you disagree with me on policy or not, there was never a time in which my relationship with a foreign entity might shade how I viewed an issue. And that’s — I don’t know a precedent for that exactly.”

Notice how Obama addressed the issue by stating that Russia is a problem, but then seamlessly transitions to talking about other countries more broadly, effectively distancing himself while knowing that the audience will primarily remember Russia. In typical Obama fashion, he then established a contrast with himself.

The idea that Trump was secretly communicating with Putin through third-party business leaders appears to directly reference the Alfa Bank hoax, which was included in both the Steele dossier and the broader Clinton dirty tricks campaign. Specifically, the allegation claimed that Trump was in contact with Vladimir Putin via Russia’s Alfa Bank. A few weeks after Obama held his secret meeting, Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann approached the CIA to promote the false Alfa Bank narrative. He had previously pushed the Alfa Bank allegations into the FBI.

  1. Obama implies that Trump received payoffs from Russia

When a reporter asked Obama to “talk a bit more about the Russia thing”, he had this to say:

“And can say less. (Laughter.) This is one area I’ve got to be careful about. But, look, I mean, I think based on what you guys have, I think it’s — and I’m not just talking about the most recent report or the hacking. I mean, there are longstanding business relationships there. They’re not classified. I think there’s been some good reporting on them, it’s just they never got much attention. He’s been doing business in Russia for a long time. Penthouse apartments in New York are sold to folks — let me put it this way. If there’s a Russian who can afford a $10-million, or a $15- or a $20- or a $30-million penthouse in Manhattan, or is a major investor in Florida, I think it’s fair to say Mr. Putin knows that person, because I don’t think they’re getting $10 million or $30 million or $50 million out of Russia without Mr. Putin saying that’s okay.”

Obama’s response seems to reference the unwitting involvement of Sergei Millian in the Russia collusion narrative. Millian is an American realtor who, in 2007, sold condominiums to Trump in Florida, including, reportedly, to Russian buyers. On direct instructions from Clinton campaign operatives, ABC News obtained, under false pretenses, footage of Millian acknowledging that Trump had sold apartments to Russian citizens. While there is nothing inherently wrong with such transactions—Trump has sold numerous apartments to individuals of various nationalities—the ABC footage was utilized by Clinton in an advertising campaign to imply that Trump was indebted to Putin. Setting this aside, the notion that Putin would personally need to approve Russian citizens purchasing apartments appears to be rather implausible. However, this did not concern Obama, whose primary objective was to weaponize Clinton’s dirty tricks campaign in an effort to undermine the President of the United States.

  1. Obama insinuates that Putin has influence over Trump

Later in the briefing, Obama was asked: “if there were somebody with the powers of U.S. President who Russia felt like they could give orders to, that Russia felt like they had something on them, what’s your worst-case scenario?”

Again, Obama’s response was intended to stoke the flames of a scandal he knew to be fabricated:

“What I would simply say would be that any time you have a foreign actors who, for whatever reason, has ex parte influence over the President of the United States, meaning that the American people can’t see that influence because it’s not happening in a bilateral meeting and subject to negotiations or reporting — any time that happens, that’s a problem. And I’ll let you speculate on where that could go.”

With little effort to conceal his true intentions, Obama not so subtly suggested that Trump was under Putin’s influence. What is particularly noteworthy—and once again quite clever on Obama’s part—is that he informed the media that this influence was occurring secretly behind the scenes. This ensured that the media would propagate entirely speculative stories, as Obama had effectively encouraged them to do so.

Lastly, we will engage in some speculation of our own. The 21-page transcript does not indicate who the progressive journalists in attendance were. However, on two occasions, Obama mentions someone named Greg. Greg Miller is a national security reporter for The Washington Post and was part of a group that won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on Russia collusion, reporting that was largely false. While we cannot assert with any degree of certainty that Obama was referring to Greg Miller, the familiarity Obama displayed with him, along with Miller’s outlet and area of coverage, suggests a strong possibility that it is indeed Greg Miller. In other words, if our speculation is accurate, Obama directly contributed to the false narratives that led to legacy media winning the Pulitzer Prize.

November 20, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment

Tulsi Gabbard, the new U.S. intel chief… a brave call to debunk NATO’s war propaganda in Ukraine

Strategic Culture Foundation | November 15, 2024

The nomination of Tulsi Gabbard as the United States intelligence supremo has sent shockwaves through the American and NATO establishments. The Western news media – always a dutiful echo chamber for deep-state policymakers – is reverberating with horror at her nomination by President-elect Donald Trump.

That reaction is a good sign that something significant has happened.

The potential appointment of Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence (DNI) could be the most consequential decision yet by Trump in forming his cabinet.

If one move could signal the foreign policy direction under the 47th president, Gabbard’s nomination is the most salient and potentially the most constructive on the key issue of world peace.

Time magazine headlined with the U.S. intelligence community’s response to Gabbard’s selection. “We are reeling,” it was reported. Reuters reported that the Western “spy world is vexed.” Meanwhile, in The Atlantic, an establishment mouthpiece, Gabbard was denounced as a “threat to the security of the United States.”

That’s a staggering charge to levy on the person who is going to be head of national security.

It is almost hilarious to see the apoplectic reaction in the U.S. establishment and its servile mainstream media.

CNN’s news anchor Jim Sciutto was distraught in sharing his concerns with colleague Richard Quest, remarking that Gabbard’s views “contradict” almost everything about U.S. foreign policies.

If we may paraphrase that exchange, the sentiments were: Oh my God, how terrible! Whatever shall we say now about all the lies we have been spinning for years and getting fat salaries for?

After all, as far as the U.S. corporate media are concerned, especially those channels and newspapers associated with the Democrats, the establishment, and the deep state intelligence apparatus, Tulsi Gabbard has been smeared as a “Russian asset.”

It is indeed profoundly challenging – one might even say, earth-shattering – to the deep state if Gabbard becomes Director of National Intelligence.

As with Trump’s other cabinet picks, the nominations will have to be approved by Senate panels. So there is a while to go before her post is confirmed. A lot can change or be derailed.

Trump’s cabinet picks this week have been keenly watched by observers trying to discern the future foreign policies of the next presidency, which begins in January after his inauguration. Trump’s early call-ups this week of hawkish figures Pete Hegseth for defense and Marco Rubio for secretary of state caused dismay among some critics of U.S. foreign policy who wanted a fundamental break from warmongering and hostility toward Russia, China, and Iran, among others.

Then came Trump’s selection of Tulsi Gabbard. The former Congresswoman has gained wide popular American and international respect for her outspoken and independent criticism of U.S. militarism in the Middle East and Ukraine.

However, the U.S. political establishment and media have slandered her as a “traitor” and a “Russian asset” for her views criticizing Washington’s regime change wars in Syria and the Middle East. In 2017, Gabbard traveled to Syria and met with President Bashar al-Assad. She spoke out against Washington’s covert policy of sponsoring terrorist militia for regime change in Damascus. For telling the truth, she was vilified as an “apologist” for Assad.

More recently, the “apologist” slur was thrown at her again after Gabbard opposed the U.S. and NATO’s arming of the Kiev regime and the proxy war against Russia. She said that the conflict in Ukraine could have been avoided if Russia’s security concerns about NATO’s threatening expansion had been taken into consideration. How refreshing to hear that sanity and objectivity.

In a twisted way, the CNN clapping seals are correct. Her views on the conflict in Ukraine do indeed contradict the U.S. establishment and media’s propaganda about “Russian aggression.” Her views unequivocally debunk the wall-to-wall “news” propaganda as false and serve as a warning to the public that NATO’s lies are dragging the world into a nuclear war.

The role of Tulsi Gabbard in the second Trump administration – if she makes it through Senate vetting – cannot be overstated.

In her DNI capacity, she is the intel supremo who oversees the CIA and NSA. Through her daily briefings to the president, Gabbard will play a crucial role in President Trump’s foreign policymaking. Given Trump’s freewheeling style, it can be fairly assumed that Gabbard’s input into policymaking will have much greater influence than the secretaries of defense or state. She will call the shots, and Trump will designate Hegseth, Rubio, and others to follow suit on the policies.

Some critics of Gabbard have pointed out that she is unduly supportive of Israel. That is a valid concern.

Nevertheless, in relations with Russia, China, and Iran, Gabbard has been a trenchant and tenacious voice of reason. She has courageously advocated peaceful negotiations and diplomacy along with historical understanding as a way to avoid military conflicts. Her reasonable emphasis on diplomacy illustrates just how extremist the U.S. “mainstream” has become in its promotion of wars and more wars.

Gabbard is a veteran of the Iraq War and appears to have been deeply affected by the human cost of wars. She has repeatedly condemned endless wars that are endemic to U.S. imperialism. Her honesty in criticizing the failings and faults of American policy, calling it out often as criminal, is admirable.

She quit the Democrat party in 2022, condemning it for its relentless warmongering policies. She endorsed Trump for the White House because, she said, he would prevent World War Three by stopping the reckless proxy war in Ukraine.

President-elect Trump has said that he wants to end the conflict in Ukraine as one of his priorities.

Some commentators have expressed skepticism about the chances of Trump making a peace settlement in Ukraine. Even senior Russian figures have said they do not expect significant change in U.S. policy.

Still, Russia has clearly stated that it is open to dialogue and diplomacy. Moscow has said it will respond positively to Trump’s outreach. And Trump is reported to be ready to appoint an envoy of credible stature to explore a peaceful solution in Ukraine.

Now, there’s the rub. Russia is adamant that its conditions for peaceful settlement must involve its original objectives: no Ukraine membership of NATO, denazification of the Kiev regime, and acceptance of realities on the ground, meaning recognition of Russia’s regained historical territories. Russia will not accept a frozen conflict, and given the rapid military advances it is making against the NATO-backed regime, Moscow is in a position to fully demand its terms.

If Trump is serious about finding a peaceful resolution, he will have to accept Russia’s terms. That will require an understanding of how that conflict started and how to reverse it. No bluster, no bravado, and certainly no browbeating Russia.

Tulsi Gabbard can provide the necessary counsel to Trump upon which a lasting peace settlement can be made because she understands the history of that conflict and has debunked the false propaganda that the U.S. establishment, the Democrats, some Republicans, and the corporate media have peddled for far too long.

In the meantime, Russia must advance towards its righteous goals in Ukraine. And right now, the best contribution to peace is to defeat the corrupt Nazi regime in Kiev in short order.

November 17, 2024 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Debbie Wasserman Schultz labels Trump’s pick for intel chief ‘Russian asset’

RT | November 16, 2024

Tulsi Gabbard, US President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for national intelligence director, is “likely a Russian asset,” according to Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Florida). In an interview with MSNBC on Friday, Schulz accused Trump of making “irresponsible” choices for his new cabinet.

Gabbard is a former congresswoman from Hawaii and a lieutenant colonel in the US Army Reserve. An outspoken critic of Washington’s military interventions, she left the Democratic party shortly after the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022. Last month she announced that she had joined the Republican Party and was backing Trump. The president-elect announced her nomination earlier this week, saying that Gabbard “will bring the fearless spirit that has defined her illustrious career” to the US intelligence community, which includes the NSA, CIA, and FBI.

Schultz claimed that appointing Gabbard to the post would be “dangerous,” as it would make her “a direct line” from the US intelligence community “to our enemies.”

“Tulsi Gabbard is someone who has met with war criminals, violated State Department guidance and secretly, clandestinely, went to Syria and met with [President Bashar] Assad. She’s considered to be, by most assessments, a Russian asset,” the congresswoman claimed, saying that she personally considers Gabbard “someone who is likely a Russian asset.” Schultz did not elaborate on her allegations.

Gabbard has not yet commented on Schultz’s accusations. She previously welcomed Trump’s nomination in a post on X, thanking the president-elect for the opportunity to “defend the safety, security and freedom of the American people.”

Twitter users were quick to lambast Schultz’s for her remarks, pointing out that she presented no evidence of Gabbard’s alleged spying on Russia’s behalf and calling her claims “defamatory.” One user noted that “whenever the left doesn’t like somebody – they’re a Russian asset.” Gabbard was not the first of Trump’s picks to be accused of having ties to Russia – earlier on Friday, two top Democratic senators demanded a probe into SpaceX CEO Elon Musk over media claims that he had contacts with senior Russian officials. Trump earlier announced that Musk would head the future Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), tasked with reforming the US government.

In her interview, Schultz called Trump’s entire cabinet reshuffle “the most extreme and dangerous” in history and a “Star Wars bar level craziness.” She noted that while a few of Trump’s picks are passable, most are “individually unqualified.”

Apart from Gabbard, the congresswoman was especially unhappy with the nomination of former Florida congressman Matt Gaetz for attorney general. She claimed it was “breathtaking in its extremism” as Gaetz has “no experience whatsoever with the Justice Department other than being a subject of investigation for sex trafficking minors.”

November 16, 2024 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | | Leave a comment

Iran ‘categorically’ dismisses NYT report about its envoy’s meeting with Musk

Press TV – November 16, 2024

The Iranian Foreign Ministry has “categorically” dismissed an American newspaper report on a meeting between Tehran’s ambassador to the United Nations and Elon Musk, a close ally of US President-elect Donald Trump.

The New York Times on Friday cited two Iranian officials as saying that the meeting between Musk and Iran’s permanent representative to the United Nations Amir Saeid Iravani was held at a secret location in New York on Monday and lasted more than an hour.

The officials reportedly described the discussion as focused on how to defuse tensions between Tehran and Washington.

The Times said Musk, the world’s richest man, himself initiated the meeting, held at a location chosen by the Iranian side.

In an interview with IRNA on Saturday, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei rejected the report of the meeting and expressed surprise over “extensive” media coverage by American outlets in this regard.

November 16, 2024 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »