French President Emmanuel Macron certainly ruffled a lot of feathers this week when he lamented the US-led NATO military alliance as being “brain dead”. But his comments were less about a principled or objective assessment of NATO, and more about self-aggrandizement by the French leader. Macron, whose political ambition is suffused with reviving France as a global power, appears to be exploiting tensions in the transatlantic alliance in order to push his pet plan for creating a European Army....

When the New York Federal Reserve began pumping billions of dollars a day into the repurchasing (repo) markets (the market banks use to make short-term loans to each other) in September, they said this would only be necessary for a few weeks. Yet, last Wednesday, almost two months after the Fed’s initial intervention, the New York Federal Reserve pumped 62.5 billion dollars into the repo market. The New York Fed continues these emergency interventions to ensure “cash shortages” among banks...

Despite President Donald Trump’s order of a partial withdrawal of troops from Syria, the United States’ regime-change war against the country continues in broad daylight. At a US government-funded think tank at the forefront of shaping Washington’s interventionist designs, an American official succinctly laid out the continued-regime change strategy. Dana Stroul, a longtime US diplomat who oversaw a congressionally mandated study of Syria, outlined the four-pronged plan for what she called the...

The current frenzy to impeach President Donald Trump sometimes in its haste reveals that which could easily be hidden about the operation of the Deep State inside the federal government. Congress is currently obtaining testimony from a parade of witnesses to or participants in what will inevitably be called UkraineGate, an investigation into whether Trump inappropriately sought a political quid pro quo from Ukrainian leaders in exchange for a military assistance package. The prepared opening...

Over the course of the past year, something remarkable has happened to George W. Bush. The former president, once detested by many Americans for the numerous debacles that marked his presidency, seems to have shed most of his infamy – becoming reborn, as one paper put it, as the “internet’s favorite grandpa.” Bush has made several media appearances over the past year, first to promote his paintings of wounded veterans, maimed in wars he began, with appearances on programs like the Ellen...

Turkey's state-run media is reporting the United States is planning two new military bases in Syria's oil-rich Deir ez-Zor province, which are currently under construction, after US special forces convoys were seen patrolling the area in the past days. Anadolu Agency, citing local sources, said the bases were under construction as evidenced by the influx of heavy equipment: While the footage captured by Anadolu Agency showed that much construction equipment is being put into action, it was...

Counting on foreign aid to reduce corruption is like expecting whiskey to cure alcoholism. After closed House of Representatives impeachment hearings heard testimony on President Trump’s role in delaying US aid to Ukraine, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer declared: “Numbers don’t lie. It’s even more clear now that President Trump is not the anti-corruption crusader he claims to be.” Most of the press coverage has tacitly assumed that American assistance is vital to fighting corruption in...

“What happens to Julian Assange and to Chelsea Manning is meant to intimidate us, to frighten us into silence. By defending Julian Assange, we defend our most sacred rights. Speak up now or wake up one morning to the silence of a new kind of tyranny. The choice is ours.”—John Pilger, investigative journalist All of us are in danger. In an age of prosecutions for thought crimes, pre-crime deterrence programs, and government agencies that operate like organized crime syndicates, there is a new...

Attorney General William Barr recently sent a memo to law enforcement officials announcing a new federal initiative that would use techniques and tools developed in the war on terror, such as mass surveillance, to identify potential mass shooters. Those so identified would be targets of early interventions, which would include the disregarding of Second Amendment rights, as well as the imposing of mandatory counseling and involuntary commitment.The program would likely match data collected via...

The average American has no idea how alarming is the news that former CIA Director John Brennan reportedly created and staffed a CIA Task Force in early 2016 that was named, Trump Task Force, and given the mission of spying on and carrying out covert actions against the campaign of candidate Donald Trump. This was not a simple gathering of a small number of disgruntled Democrats working at the CIA who got together like a book club to grouse and complain about the brash real estate guy from New...

Pete Buttigieg is pushing “A New Call to Service” for millennials. If Pete is elected—he is currently running head-to-head with Warren, Sanders, and Biden—his “call” will become a mandatory form of slavery. Why not 'national service for all who want it' @PeteButtigieg?? 🤔 https://t.co/1gtvLz05J5 — Secular Talk (@KyleKulinski) November 3, 2019 As should be expected, Buttigieg’s plan is gussied up with identity slash social justice baggage. It hopes to suck in naive millennials with the promise...

According to the MAGA nationalists, the “deep state” only persecutes “conservatives” while liberals get a free pass. The Gestapo-style raid of liberal journalist Max Blumenthal earlier this week demonstrates quite vividly that the state does indeed attack leftist or left-leaning activists and journalists, not only MAGA supporters and “New Right” nationalists. I was arrested on Friday on a COMPLETELY FALSE charge manufactured by the Venezuelan opposition related to their siege of the embassy in...

Photo: U.S. Embassy Jerusalem/ flickr There is a certain irony in President Donald Trump’s frequently expressed desire to withdraw from the endless wars that have characterized the so-called “global war on terror” initiated by George W. Bush in 2001. The problem is that Trump has expressed such sentiments both when he was running for office and also as recently as last week without actually doing anything to bring about change. In fact, the greatly ballyhooed “withdrawal” from Syria turned out...

Ukrainegate is the new Russiagate. The "whistleblower complaint" is the new "dirty dossier." The 'former' MI6 spy Christopher Steele wrote the dossier. The current CIA spy Eric Ciaramella wrote the "complaint": Federal documents reveal that the 33-year-old Ciaramella, a registered Democrat held over from the Obama White House, previously worked with former Vice President Joe Biden and former CIA Director John Brennan, a vocal critic of Trump who helped initiate the Russia “collusion”...