Wayne Madsen Report on the story on the fate of the SS Poet set to ballad

WMR story on the fate of the SS Poet set to ballad

WMR's series of articles and book on the ill-fated last voyage of the SS Poet in 1980 has been set to song in a ballad written and performed by Massachusetts song and screenplay writer Timothy Sawyer. WMR's editor recently attended the 37th anniversary of the disappearance of the SS Poet at Old Swede's Gloria Dei Episcopal Church in Philadelphia and met family members of some of the 34 lost crewmen who served on board the doomed merchant ship.

The foreign intrigue of the Donald Trump presidential campaign was not the first to engage in disloyal behavior. In 1980, the Reagan-Bush campaign negotiated an "arms-for-no hostages" agreement with the Ayatollah Khomeni's government that saw Iran refuse to release the U.S. embassy hostages to Jimmy Carter, thus sealing his election defeat in November 1980. The hostages were released at the very moment Ronald Reagan was sworn into office on January 20, 1981. The Reagan pre-election deal with Iran in 1980 would haunt him throughout his presidency with the Iranians successfully receiving U.S. weapons in return for U.S. hostages held by pro-Iranian militias in Lebanon. The diversion of money from Iran to the Nicaraguan contras resulted in a scandal that almost resulted in Reagan's impeachment.

 

And now, "The Skeleton Crew," with a hat-tip to Timothy Sawyer and his wife:

Uzbek terrorist shines light on Tampa as a Pentagon-enabled center for radicalism - By The Wayne Madsen Report

Uzbek terrorist shines light on Tampa as a Pentagon-enabled center for radicalism - By The Wayne Madsen Report

Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov, the accused New York bicycle path terrorist who reportedly moved into an apartment in Tampa, Florida a week ago, shines a spotlight on the Florida city that hosts the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) and the U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOC). Saipov, who was wounded by New York police after plowing his Home Depot rental pickup truck into cyclists along Manhattan's west side Greenway bike and pedestrian path, killing 8 people, claimed to have carried out his attack on behalf of the Islamic State. 

Saipov, a permanent resident of the United States who arrived from Uzbekistan in 2010, lived in Paterson, New Jersey with his wife and two children. Saipov and his wife are both natives of Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan.

Tampa authorities are reporting that Saipov's Florida address of 5586 Granada Boulevard, Apartment 102, Tampa, Florida 33617 on his Florida driver's license is for an apartment that is currently undergoing the type of refurbishment that is common prior to a new renter moving in. [pictured, right] It is unclear whether Saipov, a commercial truck and Uber driver, was planning to move to Tampa, where he had recently established Florida residency by obtaining a Florida license. Saipov also drove a white Toyota Sienna with Florida license plates. Saipov and his family had lived in Paterson for only a few months.

Saipov previously lived in an apartment in Stow, Ohio area, near Akron, where he owned a company, Bright Auto LLC, which was registered at an address in Cuyahoga Falls. Saipov also previously lived in the Cincinnati area, where he registered a firm called Sayf Motors Inc. 

Over the past few decades, the two military commands, which oversee military operations in the Middle East and Central and South Asia, have drawn to the Tampa Bay area several Muslims from hotbeds of Islamist radicalism. It is not known why Saipov was planning to move to Tampa, however, it is noteworthy that simultaneous to Saipov carrying out his terrorist attack in Manhattan, not far from the World Trade Center, CENTCOM, through an intelligence contractor called COLSA, Inc., advertised two job openings for fluent Uzbek speakers whose jobs would be to monitor social media. The FBI and New York Police Department are currently analyzing Facebook, Twitter, and other social media for any communications involving Saipov and possible radical Islamist colleagues.

The two October 31, 2017 CENTCOM job postings for Uzbek linguists and an addition job posted on October 20, are below:

Cleared Uzbek Social Media Analyst I (Entry Level/CENTCOM) COLSA Tampa, FL -- Cleared Uzbek Social Media Analyst II (CENTCOM) at COLSA Tampa, FL 33621 -- Posted 11 days ago: Cleared Uzbek Social Media Analyst III (CENTCOM) at COLSA Tampa, FL 33621

In an effort to fill a vacuum of qualified linguists in such "critical" languages as Uzbek, CENTCOM and other military commands have lowered vetting requirements for intelligence analysts. In addition, CENTCOM and other military commands have relied on foreign partners to vet military personnel sent to the United States for training in such areas as logistics, ordnance, field artillery, communications, and engineering. Since 2005, 320 foreign military trainees out of 253,977 have gone AWOL while attending classes in the United States. 152 of the AWOL trainees were from Afghanistan. Since 2015, the number of AWOLs of foreign military trainees has increased. The foreign trainees come to the United States on A-2 visas, which are foreign government officials traveling to the United States for official business. Some AWOL foreign military personnel have successfully petitioned the government for permanent residency status, such as that possessed by Saipov. 39 AWOL personnel from Afghanistan were granted legal residency status in the United States. Thirteen Afghan trainees disappeared in the United States altogether.

CENTCOM has not only been a magnet for Middle East and Central and South Asian A-2 visa trainees but also for their families, including extended family members. Noting the problems with the foreign military training programs, Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) recently said, "If the U.S. government can't keep tabs on foreign military trainees, maybe the training shouldn't take place in the United States." 

Of the AWOL trainees in the United States, Uzbeks account for those who are members of the Uzbekistan armed forces, as well as Uzbek members of the armed forces of Afghanistan. Other AWOL trainees came from Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Iraq, Bangladesh, and Azerbaijan, all primarily Muslim countries, some of which, like Uzbekistan, have active jihadist movements that have aided the Islamic State in the battlefields of Syria and Iraq.

Uzbekistan was subject to a suspension of most U.S. military training in 2005, owing to that nation's human rights abuses. However, the Pentagon's Expanded International Military Education and Training (E-IMET) program was resumed with Uzbekistan in 2010, the same year Saipov arrived in the United States from the central Asian country.

JFK files reveal Hoover's prurient interest in sex By The Wayne Madsen Report

 

JFK files reveal Hoover's prurient interest in sex

By The Wayne Madsen Report

While the partially-released JFK assassination files contain some nuggets of interest that fill in the gaps for some of the events that transpired before, during, and after the November 22, 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy, there are a few FBI memos that point to its director's penchant for gathering intelligence on prurient sexual matters. Hoover, who is now recognized by many historians as being a closeted homosexual, maintained an extensive card filing system that included information that could be used to blackmail politicians and other prominent citizens. 

FBI agents assigned to investigate Lee Harvey Oswald assassin Jack Ruby appeared anxious to whet Hoover's appetite with memos regarding Ruby's female "employees." One air telegram sent from the FBI office in Los Angeles concerned a former Ruby night club stripper named Marjorie Alice Putnam. A January 7, 1964 Airtel implies that Putnam, who went by the stage name "Syra the Dutch Doll," moved to Hollywood, California after working for Ruby in Dallas.

An earlier FBI telegram from the FBI office in Cleveland to Hoover and the FBI Dallas office, dated November 27, 1963, five days after Kennedy's assassination, concerns a former stripper named "Taffy Twist," who denied to the FBI knowing Ruby. For the FBI to be chasing down strippers appears to have been a monumental waste of resources at the time.



A January 30, 1964 Airtel to Hoover from the FBI office in San Francisco also dwells on sexual information. Dr. Walter Bromberg, a resident of Sacramento, was one of Ruby's defense team psychiatrists. After the FBI in San Francisco determined that Bromberg had not been a member of the Communist Party, the FBI San Francisco office noted that a Napa, California source, a nurse, reported that Bromberg, who was married, "conducted sex parties in which he struck women companions with a whip."



A June 21, 1967 FBI memo concerns a bureau interview with Lillie Mae McMaines, a New Orleans friend of Perry Russo, one of New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison's chief witnesses and an associate of CIA-linked businessman Clay Shaw, aka Clem Bertrand. McMaines used the name Sandra Moffett while living in New Orleans. After dating Russo and becoming pregnant by him, Russo told her to "get lost." During the time she dated Russo, she stated that he "photographed her on several occasions while she was engaging in the act of coitus with different men." Moffett later turned to prostitution to support herself. On another occasion, Russo wanted Moffett and a girl named Kathy to engage in a lesbian act so he could photograph it. Moffett/McMaines was used by Garrison to prove the association of Russo with JFK assassin co-conspirator David Ferrie. The FBI memo states that Moffett/McMaines "told substantially the truth" during a polygraph examination.

The newly-released files also contain a wealth of information on the activities of Ruby, aka Jacob Rubinstein, in Chicago. A November 25, 1963 telegram from the FBI office in Chicago to Hoover and the Dallas FBI office refers to "Jack Leon Ruby" being a relative of a notorious Chicago gangster named Harry Rubinstein, the owner of the Olympic Hotel on North Clark Street in Chicago's Near North Side. Harry Rubinstein killed a man at his hotel in the mid-1940s but, by paying $25,000 to a Chicago cop, was able to have the homicide charge dropped to manslaughter with one year of probation. Ruby worked for Rubinstein as a bartender at the Banker's Building in the Chicago Loop. Ruby tried to enlist in the Navy in 1942/1943 but failed the physical examination.

The FBI, relying on an informant, noted that Jack Ruby, whose nickname was "Sparky," was an "excellent fist fighter" who operated a bookie operation out of his friend Abe "Zuckie" Zuckerman's restaurant on Roosevelt Road in north Chicago during the World War II years. Because Zuckerman failed to cut Chicago hoodlum Leonard Partick in on the bookie profits, Patrick had Zuckerman shot to death. 

Due to the second page being suspiciously missing from the November 25, 1963 FBI telegram, the full context of the FBI's statement that Ruby's gangster associates provided three of the four guns used by Puerto Rican nationalists who, on March 1, 1954, opened fire from the visitor's gallery of the U.S. House of Representatives on to the House floor, is incomplete. Wounded in the attack were Alvin M. Bentley (R-MI), who was shot in the chest; Clifford Davis (D-TN), wounded in the leg; Ben F. Jensen (R-IA), also shot in the back; George Hyde Fallon (D-MD); and Kenneth A. Roberts (D-AL).

A December 12, 1964 telegram from the FBI in Chicago to Hoover and the Dallas field office provides information on a Ruby associate named Paul Dorfman, who had infiltrated, on behalf of the mob, the Waste Paper Handlers Union in Chicago. Bob Mullenix, a private investigator hired to probe Dorfman's involvement with the union, was killed in an "auto accident" in November 1962, a year before JFK's assassination. Mullenix's files on Dorfman and, presumably Ruby, were sent to his brother, John C. Mullenix, in Springfield, Illinois for safekeeping. The FBI Springfield office was tasked with reviewing those files.

There is a fascinating radio telex message from the FBI in New York to Hoover and the Dallas field office, dated November 30, 1963, that provides information on a link between Ruby and Dallas Police Chief Jesse Curry. The telex is titled "Possible Association Between Jesse Curry, Chief of Police, Dallas, Texas, and Ruby." The New York FBI source was the Polish Press Agency's New York correspondent Wieslaw Gornicki. Gornicki relayed a conversation he had with Poland's United Nations ambassador Bohdan Lewanowski. The ambassador told Gornicki that the correspondent for the Indian publication "Blitz" was in Dallas on the day of the assassination. 

The Indian reporter told Lewanowski that he had obtained documents indicating that Ruby and Curry were members of "MB KESIDE" or "MB SESILE." These appear to be CIA digraphs followed by cryptonym used to denote various covert operations. For example, "MK" denoted the CIA's Technical Services Division operations in the 1950s and 60s, while "MH" denoted the CIA's worldwide operations. MHCHAOS was the CIA's anti-Vietnam War protest surveillance operation and LITEMPO was a CIA spy operation in Mexico. [UPDATE: Among the newly-released documents is an October 11, 1963 message from the CIA station in Mexico City referring to the implementation of the program with the digraph/cryptonym combination of LCFLUTTER. The "MB" reference may be the CIA's digraph for operations targeting President Kennedy in Dallas in 1963. LCFLUTTER was a CIA program to use Sodium Amytal (amobarbital), Sodium Pentothal (thiopental), and Seconal (secobarbital) in a targeted individual to induce regression]. It is intriguing how a correspondent for a magazine in non-aligned India came to share such information with the ambassador of a Communist country in New York. However, the Indian and Polish reporters, as well as the ambassador, may have been CIA informants.


Another, much later message, dated October 6, 1975, from the FBI Dallas to FBI headquarters in Washington, states that Dallas Morning News reporter Earl Golz "came into possession of documents three years ago from Paul Rothermel, a former Special Agent, FBI, and former Chief of Security, for Hunt Oil Company, Dallas, Texas." One of the documents, dated November 4, 1963, is from "Rothermel to H. L. Hunt (now deceased) which states Rothermel was told by a reliable source that there would be violence along the parade route to be taken by the President John F. Kennedy. The communication further states Rothermel reported this information to Dallas Police Dept., and the FBI." The FBI message refers to Golz as a person who believed in a "conspiratorial plot to assassinate the president," an all-too-familiar pejorative, crafted by the CIA and used by Warren Commission junkies.

While the FBI sought to damage the credibility of journalists like Golz, it had its own informants within the news media. A December 5, 1963 memo to Hoover from the FBI office in Philadelphia concerns an effort to discover the identity of a "JHC" who "sent a letter to Dallas," and a post card to radio station WPEN in Philadelphia that concerned Ruby. The FBI telex states that Theodore Reinhart, the producer of the night talk program, the Red Benson Show on WPEN, was an "established source" for the FBI. Reinhart used the Red Benson Show to appeal to "JHC," who apparently called into the Red Benson Show sometime after January 1, 1963 and before November 22, 1963 with information concerning Ruby and the planned assassinations of JFK and Lee Harvey Oswald, to "come forward" with his or her identity. There is no indication that "JHC" ever surfaced.

A May 8, 1964 FBI memo to the FBI's third-in-charge William Sullivan reports on an interview with Ned Touchstone, an FBI informant, editor of the Citizens' Council of Louisiana publication The Councilor, and member of the Original Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, who reported that President Lyndon Johnson "was formerly a member of the Klan in Texas during the early days of his political career." Sullivan was shot to death on November 9, 1977 in New Hampshire when a local hunter said he mistook him for a deer. Sullivan was due to testify before the House Select Committee on Assassinations. The shooter's father was a New Hampshire state policeman at the time of the incident.

A July 25, 1969 FBI memo concerns a report from Charles William Thomas, a diplomat who served as Political Officer at the U.S. embassy in Mexico City from 1964 to 1967. Thomas related how the famous Mexican play-right [sic] Elena Garro de Paz told him about a party she attended at the home of her cousin Ruben Duran sometime before the JFK assassination. At the party, she was introduced to Oswald and two other Americans. The memo stated that, at the time of the party, there was a close association between the CIA station chief in Mexico City, Winston Scott, and President Gustavo Diaz Ordaz, who served as Interior Minister before becoming president in 1964. With the CIA controlling the Mexican Interior Ministry, the so-called "surveillance" of Oswald consorting with Soviet diplomats in Mexico City is highly dubious, considering the links between the CIA, FBI, and the Mexican security services at the time. Thomas's report states that the CIA was "considerably disturbed" by de Paz's recollection of the meeting with Oswald and the two unidentified Americans and information she ascertained at the time about a plot to kill President Kennedy.

Something is rotten in Whitefish, Montana By The Wayne Madsen Report

 Something is rotten in Whitefish, Montana By The Wayne Madsen Report
Federal government sources have told WMR that there is a close relationship between Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke; Zinke's wife Lolita ("Lola") Hand Zinke [both pictured right]; and Whitefish Energy owner Andy Techmanski. Secretary Zinke is a native of Whitefish and his neighbor and family friend Techmanski, also a resident of Whitefish, received a $300 million no-bid contract from the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) to repair the electrical grid of Puerto Rico that was virtually wiped out by Hurricane Maria. The day Maria struck Puerto Rico, Whitefish Energy had just two employees and during this past summer, Zinke's son worked at one of Techmanski's construction sites in Montana. Our sources report that Mrs. Zinke was the main intermediary between Techmanski [pictured left] and her husband in steering the PREPA contract to Whitefish Energy.

San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz said the Whitefish Energy contract "should be voided right away, and a proper process which is clear, transparent, legal, moral and ethical should take place."

After Maria dealt a major blow to Puerto Rico's infrastructure, Whitefish Energy, almost overnight, picked up two Dallas investment groups as significant financial backers. One of the firms reportedly is closely tied to former president George H. W. Bush. Mrs. Zinke is the daughter of former U.S. Consul in Peru Consuelo Castro Hand, a Peruvian naturalized U.S. citizen, and Santa Barbara businessman Frederick Hand. She also claims a direct family relationship to World War II Navy Admiral William "Bull" Halsey. Mrs. Zinke's claim about her mother is peculiar because Zinke claims that her mother was the "U.S. Consulate" in Peru during the Eisenhower administration. The consular corps is composed of either Consul-Generals or Consuls. Consulates are the physical buildings housing consular offices. Secretary Zinke is a former Navy SEAL who was drummed out of the Navy in an early retirement for submitting fraudulent travel claims.

WMR has also learned that during the time Secretary Zinke served as a Montana State Senator and U.S. Representative, his actual residence was a home in Hope Ranch Park, a gated community outside of Santa Barbara, California. In May 2014, the home owners' association of Hope Ranch Park complained after Zinke posted his Montana U.S. House campaign posters in the community. Zinke rarely visited Whitefish or anywhere else in Montana, even though he purportedly represented his state district in Helena and an At-Large congressional district in Washington, DC. In 2013, Zinke listed his address as 735 State Street in Santa Barbara. The address was used on Zinke's Securities and Exchange Commission filing as a director for Save the World Air, Inc., a dodgy Australian-owned and Reno-based company that changed its name in 2015 to QS Energy, Inc. Zinke has come under fire for charging the taxpayers for private charter flights in the United States and abroad that were billed as "official" Interior Department business.

We have also been told by federal sources that Mrs. Zinke and Zinke's two sons, Wolfgang and Konrad Zinke were friends of former Whitefish resident Richard Spencer, the neo-Nazi leader who moved to the Washington, DC area after Donald Trump's election. Lolita Zinke served as a Hispanic outreach campaigner for Donald Trump  [both, pictured left]. Spencer is a college friend of Trump's adviser and speech writer Stephen Miller. Spencer previously lived at his parents' multi-use residence in Whitefish that also served as the national headquarters for his neo-Nazi National Policy Institute and its related publications. Whitefish has also been at the center of a number of anti-Semitic incidents aimed at the town's small Jewish population. After Trump's election, Richard Spencer moved his headquarters to Alexandria, Virginia in order to be closer to Trump administration officials, said to include not only Miller but the Zinke family.

After marrying Zinke in 1992, Lolita Zinke worked as a civilian intelligence aide to Navy Admiral Mike Boorda, who was the Commander-in-Chief of U.S. Naval Forces Europe (CINCUSNAVEUR) in London. Ryan Zinke worked as a plans officer for Admiral Boorda. Boorda became Chief of Naval Operations in 1994. In 1993, Zinke transferred to Naval Special Warfare Development Group (NSWDG) in Dam Neck, Virginia shortly before Boorda took command of the Navy in Washington. WMR has learned from government sources that Lolita Zinke continued to work for Boorda while he was the CNO. In later biographies, Mrs. Zinke claims that she was merely a "civilian quality control specialist" for the Navy in London. However, quality control specialists normally do not require a Top Secret clearance, which Mrs. Zinke claims she possessed while working in London.

Mrs. Zinke also claims to have worked as an "undercover operative with the California Department of Motor Vehicles in San Diego." She provided no further details of what that job entailed.

On March 29, 2010, WMR reported on the actual circumstances behind the May 16, 1996  suicide of Boorda at his residence at the Washington Navy Yard. That report follows:

"According to a colleague of the late military affairs journalist and one of the most highly decorated members of the U.S. military, Colonel David Hackworth, Boorda's reason for committing suicide -- pushed by the corporate media and the U.S. Navy -- namely, his unauthorized wearing of two combat "V" (valor) devices on his Navy Achievement and Navy Commendation medals for service in Vietnam -- was false. Boorda reportedly took his own life by a self-inflicted shot gun blast at the CNO's residence at the Washington Navy Yard.

WMR's source reports that Boorda committed suicide because Secretary of the Navy John Dalton had discovered that Boorda, who was married at the time, was carrying on an extramarital affair with a female civilian who worked in the office of the CNO. Dalton reportedly informed Boorda that he would involuntarily retired within a few months of the discovery by the Navy Secretary of the affair.

WMR has also learned that Boorda wrote two suicide notes -- one to his family and the other to Navy personnel. Neither of the notes were ever publicly released by the Navy.

In addition, the Awards and Decorations officer for the Secretary of the Navy informed Boorda that he was not entitled to wear either of the 'V' devices. However, former CNO Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, Boorda's commander in Vietnam, later stated that Boorda was entitled to wear the valor devices.

The Boorda extramarital affair was an obvious potential embarrassment to the Clinton administration. At the time, President Bill Clinton was engaged in his own extramarital affair with White House staffer Monica Lewinsky."

This story is developing.

Is the CIA behind sonic attacks in Havana? By TheWayne Madsen Report

Is CIA behind sonic attacks in Havana?

By TheWayne Madsen Report

By insisting that the Cuban government is behind mysterious alleged sonic weaponry attacks on American diplomats in Havana, the Trump administration wasted no time in downgrading diplomatic relations with Cuba by withdrawing over half of its diplomatic staff in Cuba and expelling 15 Cuban diplomats in Washington. The break in relations with Cuba is in line with other Trump actions intended to reverse every action implemented during the 8-year term of Barack Obama, including normalization of relations with Cuba. Trump called the normalization of ties with Havana "a completely one-sided deal." It is also known that Trump's businesses had previously violated U.S. sanctions on Cuba to advance potential Trump-owned hotels and resorts on the island.

The Trump administration has stated that it does not know what is causing the high-pitched cricket-chirping sound claimed to have damaged the health and caused deafness of not only American but also some Canadian diplomats in Havana. The Cuban government even invited the FBI to come to Cuba to join in its investigation of the sonic attacks. The Trump administration refused the Cubans' invitation. Nevertheless, without a shred of evidence, Trump's spokespeople blame the Cuban government for the sonic interference directed at the U.S. embassy [pictured left].

The corporate media is ignoring the one possible source for the sonic attacks that stands responsible for the only known sonic attack on a diplomatic mission in recent history -- the Central Intelligence Agency. Not only is the CIA led by a Trump sycophant with no previous intelligence background -- former Representative Mike Pompeo (R-KS) -- but the CIA is being directed to adopt many of the "false flag" intelligence operations of the Cold War years. These include blaming other countries for operations carried out by agents of the CIA. In the case of Cuba, the CIA can rely upon a network of Florida-based Cuban-American and other Latin American agents who have been integrated into Cuban government and business institutions after traveling to the island from third countries like Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, and Venezuela.

The Trump administration is also cautioning American tourists to avoid Cuba, claiming that sonic weapons could be aimed at their hotels. There is no plausible reason why Cuba would do anything to harm its financially beneficial tourist industry, however, there are several reasons why the Pompeo-led CIA, in collusion with Florida Senator Marco Rubio's right-wing Cuban network in Miami, would suggest that Cuban hotels are targets of sonic weaponry. The entire "sonic weapon" attack operation appears to be a major false flag attack designed to hurt the Cuban economy and freeze relations between Washington and Havana. The reported sonic attacks on Canadian diplomats are obviously targeted at the government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The Trudeau family, including the late Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, the present prime minister’s father, remained close friends of Cuban President Raul Castro and his late brother and president, Fidel Castro. Anything that could be used to sour close Canadian-Cuban ties would be implemented by the CIA under the direction of Pompeo, a fundamentalist Christian "creationist," who rejects most conclusions of modern science, including evolution and the age of the Earth.

The fingerprints of the CIA have been found on at least one sonic attack against a foreign mission in Latin America. In 1990, after Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega sought refuge from invading American troops in the Vatican Apostolic Nuncio in Panama City, U.S. forces, using CIA psychological warfare methods crafted by the CIA, aimed ear-splitting heavy metal music at the Vatican mission from large speakers on the street. The use of the sonic weapon to force out Noriega was not only a violation of the Vatican mission's diplomatic extraterritoriality but also the sanctuary policy of the Roman Catholic Church. Noriega eventually surrendered to the American forces.

After Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was ousted in a 2009 coup instigated by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the CIA, the Honduran leader, who had been exiled from the country at gunpoint, sneaked back into the country and took up residence inside the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital. After the CIA-supported Honduran military junta cut off electricity, water, and food supplies to the embassy, they began using sonic-type weapons that were much-improved from those used against the Vatican mission in Panama City almost twenty years earlier. Zelaya claimed that Israeli mercenaries working under the direction of the junta and CIA aimed high-frequency weapons at the Brazilian embassy. Apparently, the Israelis used a cell phone jamming system to cause discomfort for Zelaya and others inside the embassy. Found on the roof of the building next to the Brazilian embassy was a C-Guard cell phone jammer manufactured by NetLine of Tel Aviv.

The Israelis have used sonic weaponry to terrorize the population of Gaza. Using F-16s supplied by the United States, the Israeli Air Force has often created sonic booms over Gaza by flying low and causing shock waves to shake buildings, break windows, and blow off doors, all with the intent of causing massive fear and hysteria.

Eyewitnesses outside the Brazilian embassy claimed that the junta's personnel used a "high-pitched sonic device" on the embassy. Such sonic weapons had recently been used by police and military forces against protesters at the 2009 G-20 summit in Pittsburgh.

Today, Long-Range Acoustic Devices, or LRADS, can cause extreme pain by directing a 150-decibel beam of sound at crowds of people, including protesters. LRADS are considered semi-lethal weapons. Israel and the United States account for most LRAD manufacturing. [Israeli LRAD pictured left].

CIA archives show the agency has been interested in ultrasonic devices, including "acoustic artillery" and "static sirens," going as far back as 1952.

In 2011, Alan Gross, a U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) contractor with Development Alternatives Inc. of Bethesda, Maryland, was arrested in Cuba and later convicted of espionage. Gross was ostensibly installing Internet links for Cuba's small Jewish community, something the leading rabbis for the community denied. When he was arrested by Cuban security police, Gross was found to have cell and satellite phone equipment in his possession. The question of whether other foreign intelligence agents, in addition to Gross, smuggled sonic weaponry masked as telecommunications equipment into Cuba, is extremely germane to answering the question as to who is behind the sonic attacks on the U.S. and Canadian embassies in Havana. If the congressional intelligence oversight committees were doing their jobs, which is rarely the case, they should have Pompeo, under oath, answering these and other questions about the current state and use of CIA sonic weaponry.

Trump outsources U.S. foreign policy to Israel By The Wayne Madsen Report

Trump outsources U.S. foreign policy to Israel

By The Wayne Madsen Report

The signs that Donald Trump planned to allow Israel to largely call the shots on U.S. foreign policy have been evident since he named ultra-Zionist New York bankruptcy attorney David Friedman, formerly with the Kasowitz, Benson, Torres & Friedman law firm, as his ambassador to Israel and son-in-law Jared Kushner as his "special advisor on Middle East peace." Israel's control over Trump's foreign policy, especially on Middle East issues, has manifested itself in several ways.

Friedman altered long-standing U.S. Middle Eastern policy by stating to an Israeli audience that "they [the Israelis] are only occupying 2 percent of the West Bank," adding that, “settlements there are part of the Jewish state proper." Since invading the West Bank in 1967, Israel has taken over 42 percent of Palestinian land, a violation of 27 United Nations Security Council resolutions. Although Trump vowed to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, the mere call for such action is a violation of UN General Assembly resolution 181, which calls for Jerusalem to be a "corpus separatum," an international city governed under the auspices of the UN. Israel cites ancient mythological Jewish texts, not recognizable under international law, as the basis for its occupation of east Jerusalem and West Bank territories.

In a span of two days, Trump carried out two act that were not in America’s interest but had been pushed by Netanyahu. These were the withdrawal of the United States from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), because Trump viewed it as overly anti-Israeli, and Trump’s official decertification of the P5+1’s (United States, United Kingdom, Russia, France, China, and Germany) Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on the Iranian nuclear program. Netanyahu was brimming with joy at the decertification of the JCPOA and followed Trump's action on UNESCO by withdrawing Israel from the organization.

On a visit to Ramallah in May, Trump reportedly screamed at Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas during a meeting attended by U.S. and Palestinian officials. Trump accused Abbas of lying to him during a previous meeting at the White House. Trump yelled at Abbas, "You tricked me in DC! You talked there about your commitment to peace, but the Israelis showed me your involvement in incitement [against Israel]." The Israelis know they have Trump in their hip pocket. Trump's support for the Saudi-led sanctions against Qatar were not only supported by Israel but the entire underpinning for the sanctions -- a false Qatar News Agency report of Qatar's emir criticizing the Saudis to the Iranians -- was fabricated in a hacking operation of the agency's computer network in Doha. The hacking of the news agency and placement of a fake news story was designed by the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi --  an Israeli lackey and business partner of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos's brother, Blackwater founder Erik Prince -- and the Israeli influence-peddling organization in Washington, the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.

Several of Trump's foreign-born business partners and real estate investors who are now being scrutinized by Justice Department counsel Robert Mueller are active in criminal syndicates in Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Moldova, Belarus, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Romania, and Poland. These business partners are also strong promoters of Israel and lead several Zionist organizations in Russia, Ukraine, Israel, and central Asia. One of these partners, Beny Steinmetz, the Israeli diamond, mining, and real estate magnate, is under criminal indictment in Israel for money laundering and bribery.

Among Trump's top political campaign donors are such Zionist supporters of Israel as casino tycoon Sheldon Adelson, who backs Netanyahu's government, and Paul Singer, the Wall Street hedge fund vulture who preys on faltering economies like those of Puerto Rico, Argentina, and countries in Africa.

Encouraging Trump's rabidly pro-Zionist and pro-Israel agenda is, ironically, the alt-right. The person who coined the alt-right phrase, neo-Nazi leader Richard Spencer, considers himself a "white Zionist," even though he uses Nazi-like "Heil Trump" salutes at his white supremacist gatherings. Spencer's longtime friend, Stephen Miller, an outspoken Jewish Zionist, ensures that Trump uses white nationalist "dog whistle" phrases and jargon in his speeches. Former Trump adviser Stephen Bannon, who has returned to Breitbart News, is also known to support Zionist causes even though his ex-wife said he didn't want their children going to certain schools because there were too many Jewish students in attendance.

Netanyahu is more than comfortable with Trump's ties to neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups. The Israeli Prime Minister refrained from criticizing Trump's comment that there were "fine people" marching in the neo-Nazi and Ku Klux Klan parade in Charlottesville, Virginia. Netanyahu has made common cause with various far-right and formerly neo-Nazi political parties in Austria, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Poland. Netanyahu has actually broken with Jewish groups that have publicly condemned the events in Charlottesville and Spencer's organization.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is known to be fuming over the ardently pro-Israeli activities of Kushner, Friedman, and U.S. ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley. Although Friedman and Haley report to Tillerson, both diplomats appear to have another chain-of-command, one that leads directly to Kushner and his wife Ivanka Trump, a convert to Orthodox Judaism, in the West Wing.

FOIA request submitted on Nazi ties of Trump's father BY THE WAYNE MADSEN REPORT

 FOIA request submitted on Nazi ties of Trump's father

BY THE WAYNE MADSEN REPORT

WMR has submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the FBI requesting any documents on FBI surveillance of Donald Trump's father, Fred Trump, from 1927, the year he was arrested at a Ku Klux Klan rally in Queens, New York, to 1993, the year he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. 

Donald Trump has denied his father was arrested at a Klan rally in 1927, even though the incident was reported by June 1, 1927 edition of The New York Times. Fred Trump was 21 at the time. The KKK was allied closely to several Nazi organizations in the United States, including the German American Bund and Silver Legion. 

Later, as war clouds gathered over U.S.-German relations, Fred Trump insisted that the Trump family was Swedish, not German. In fact, Fred Trump's father and mother were German nationals who immigrated to the United States from Kallstadt, in the then-Kingdom of Bavaria. The Trumps wanted to cover up their German heritage, something they had in common with other Nazi agents in the United States. The Nazi Duquesne spy ring relied on the honey trap Lilly Stein, an Austrian Jew who immigrated to New York with the help of U.S. Vice Consul in Vienna Ogden H. Hammond, Jr. Stein, who covered up her Jewish ancestry, penetrated some of the highest and most well-connected social circles in the city. 

The same year Fred Trump was arrested at a Klan rally in Queens, German immigrant Hermann Lang arrived in New York. Lang, a draftsman for the Carl L. Norden Corporation at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, was recruited by the Abwehr in 1939. Lang passed the top secret blueprints for the Norden bomb sight to the Nazis. In 1938, the Luftwaffe began using a bomb sight similar in design to Norden's.

The elder Trump, who was born in The Bronx in 1905 to his German immigrant father and mother, fit the profile of several right-wing German immigrant offspring in the New York area who were recruited as agents for Nazi Germany. The FBI files may be rather sparse on Nazi spies since its director, J. Edgar Hoover, considered the surveillance of Soviet agents to be a higher priority for the FBI until after the U.S. entry into World War II in December 1941.

German military intelligence, the Abwehr, and Nazi state security, the Gestapo, placed a premium on recruiting German-American citizens into clandestine service in the 1930s and early 40s. Fred Trump's affiliation with the KKK would have made him a prime recruitment target for the Abwehr and Gestapo stations in New York City.

WMR has requested from the FBI any files that would link the elder Trump to the German American Bund, a group of German-American Nazis active in the New York and New Jersey area in the 1930s, as well as other Nazi organizations. Also of interest is Fred Trump's wartime building construction work at major U.S. Navy ports used for the embarkation of U.S. troops to Europe. Fred Trump’s bidding on Navy contracts to build housing and other units in Chester, Pennsylvania and Norfolk and Newport News,Virginia are suspicious given Trump’s past activities with Nazi-affiliated groups. Newport News was the location of Newport News Shipbuilding Company and the C&O Pier, where many U.S. troops embarked for Europe and a number of German prisoners-of-war were disembarked for internment camps. [At left, HMS Mauretania in September 1942, embarking U.S. and Canadian troops for Europe].

One Nazi agent, Waldemar Othmer, a naturalized American citizen who came to America in 1919, took jobs at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, close to Fred Trump's rental apartments, and at Camp Pendleton in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Virginia Beach was one of the planned German landing sites in the event of a German military invasion of the United States. Othmer used his presence at the bases to track the entrances and exits of British and American warships, troop transports, convoys, and merchant ships. [Photo at left: German U-Boat survivors of a U.S. Coast Guard attack in the Chesapeake Bay]. Othmer used invisible ink to send coded messages to his Nazi intelligence handlers. In 1942, Othmer was transferred by the U.S. Army to Knoxville, Tennessee, where he had a perch close to the atomic bomb development work at nearby Oak Ridge.

Dr. Ignatz Griebl, who immigrated to Manhattan's Yorkville neighborhood in 1925, became both a Nazi spy handler and an officer in the U.S. Army Reserve. Griebl handled Nazi agents in Norfolk, Baltimore, and Boston, including those conducting surveillance on Navy operations at the ports. One of Griebl's agents was Gustav Guellich, who immigrated in 1932 and landed a job as a metallurgist at the Federal Shipbuilding Company in Kearney, New Jersey. Recruited as a Nazi spy in 1935, Guellich was able to collect documents on new U.S. Navy guns and shells, destroyer blueprints, and samples of cables deployed on Navy ships. Also coming into Guellich's hands was top secret information on the rocket research being conducted by Dr. Robert H. Goddard at his laboratory in Roswell, New Mexico.

There is every indication that Fred Trump held his far-right views during the war. He adamantly refused to rent to African Americans, even though many of them worked at the Brooklyn Navy Yard and other nearby military bases and were in need of housing. When the draft was imposed in 1940, Fred Trump, who was 35, was subject to conscription but was never drafted. In 1942, Trump's age and dependent children would have put him in a lower priority category for the draft. Yet, Fred Trump did not serve in any draft-exempt occupational areas such as war production or public health and safety. He built housing for the Navy but it was under contract and Trump was paid well by the government. After the war, Fred Trump built homes for veterans and low-wage earners but was soon hauled into court for bilking the government, including the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. [Left: list of World War II shipyards. Sun Shipbuilding & Drydock in Chester, Newport News Shipbuilding & Drydock, and "others" were wartime construction sites for E. Trump & Son Company].

Fred Trump's history during the 1930s and war years is replete with gaps, which is always an indication that someone's biography is being altered or manipulated. Hopefully, FBI records may help shed some light on Fred Trump's highly suspicious past.

The following is the FOIA letter sent to the FBI for all records on Fred C. Trump:

WayneMadsenReport P.O. Box 4232 Washington, DC 20044-4232 waynemadsendc@hotmail.com 9 October 2017 Federal Bureau of Investigation / Attn: FOI/PA Request / Record/Information Dissemination Section 170 Marcel Drive, Winchester, VA 22602-4843 Expedited FOIA Request Transmitted via FAX: (540) 868-4391/4997 Dear Sir/Madam: This letter constitutes an expedited request under the Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”), 5 U.S.C. § 552, and is submitted on behalf of Wayne Madsen Report (WMR). We request copies of all records generated between January 1, 1927 and December 31, 1993, concerning Frederick Christ Trump of Jamaica Estates, Borough of Queens, New York. Mr. Trump died on June 25, 1999, as reported by The New York Times on June 26, 1999. This request includes, but is not limited to, minutes of meetings, notes, correspondence, submissions, reports, memoranda, telephonic call records, staff calendars, as well as any and all documents referencing Frederick Christ Trump and E. Trump & Son, Incorporated, relating to the Ku Klux Klan; Friends of the Hitler Movement; Friends of New Germany; German American Federation; German American Bund; Silver Legion of America; the Free Society of Teutonia; Mr. Fritz Julius Kuhn; Mr. Walter Kappe; Mr. Heinz Spanknöbel; Mr. Fritz Gissibl; Mr. Andrew Gissibl; Mr. Peter Gissibl; the New Yorker Staats-Zeitung, Deutsche Zeitung, and Deutscher Weckruf und Beobachter newspapers; and the AV Publishing Company. Of particular interest are any FBI counterintelligence documents regarding Frederick Christ Trump’s wartime construction contracts at Sun Shipbuilding Co., Chester, PA; U.S. Naval Base, Norfolk, Virginia; and Newport News Shipbuilding and Fort Eustis, Newport News, Virginia. For purposes of fee assessments, we request that WMR be placed in the category of “news media” requester. WMR publishes daily news articles of a public interest on an international web site, issues special on-line reports, and is used as a primary news source by broadcasters, newspapers, magazines, and news websites around the world. We note that the National Security Agency, Department of the Navy, U.S. Department of State, and the Defense Intelligence Agency have previously recognized that WMR qualifies for “news media” status. We also request a waiver of all applicable duplication fees, as release of this information will contribute significantly to the public’s understanding of the activities and operations of government. As the FOIA requires, I will look forward to your response within twenty (20) working days. Sincerely yours, Wayne Madsen Editor

The politics surrounding a massacre BY THE WAYNE MADSEN REPORT

The politics surrounding a massacre BY THE WAYNE MADSEN REPORT

Clark County Sheriff Joseph Lombardo was surprisingly open to the press about where his initial investigation was leading in the wake of alleged gunman Stephen Paddock's massacre of 58 people and wounding of some 489 others gathered at the Route 91 Harvest country music festival in Las Vegas on October 1. At a press conference on October 4, Lombardo held out the possibility that Paddock may have had assistance in carrying out his deadly massacre from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel & Casino on the Las Vegas strip.

Lombardo said, "Do you think this was all accomplished on his own? . . . Self value, face value, you got to make the assumption that he had to have had some help at some point. And we want to ensure that that's the answer. Maybe he's a super guy ... [he] was working out all of this on his own. But it'd be hard for me to believe that."

Lombardo also revealed that Paddock booked an AirBnB room at the Ogden condominium in Las Vegas the prior weekend. That room overlooked another concert venue, the Life Is Beautiful music festival. Other factoids offered by Lombardo included the fact that Paddock, while firing his weapons, stood back from the hotel's smashed-out windows to protect himself from return police sniper fire. Lombardo later revealed that a note with a list of numbers was found in one of the two adjoining suites comped to Paddock by the Mandalay because of his high-roller gambler status. The sheriff's office was also the apparent source for a report that someone with a room key card and who was not hotel staff entered Paddock's suite while he was away from the hotel.

Lombardo's willingness to be open with the public hearkens back to the "Sagebrush Rebellion" of the 1980s, when elected sheriffs in the Rocky Mountain West demonstrated their fierce independence from dictates out of Washington. The more information Lombardo offered the press, the more Las Vegas FBI special agent-in-charge (SAC) Aaron Rouse pushed back against Lombardo's revelations. The conflict between Western sheriffs and the FBI and other federal law enforcement agencies are ingrained in federal-state relations extending from Arizona through Nevada and into the upper Rockies.

Lombardo, a Republican, was elected sheriff of Clark County in 2014. Lombardo spent 30 years as a Las Vegas police officer prior to being elected sheriff. His office also places him in charge of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Department. While Lombardo has police authority within the city limits of Las Vegas, the famed "Strip" lies outside the city limits but Lombardo still has ultimate police authority over the casino region as the sheriff of Clark County.

It was noteworthy that Las Vegas mayor Carolyn Goodman pushed back against Lombardo's statement that Paddock may have had help. Goodman brushed off additional parties being involved in an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer. She insisted that the word "may" was key and reiterated the investigation remained inconclusive, despite the earlier comments by Lombardo. Ms. Goodman succeeded her husband Oscar Goodman as mayor seven years ago. 

Oscar Goodman, who owns a steakhouse in Las Vegas, is a former Philadelphia lawyer for mobsters like Nicky Scarfo and Phil Leonetti. While practicing law in Las Vegas, Goodman represented other mobsters, including Meyer Lansky, Herbert "Fat Herbie" Blitzstein, and Stardust "skim" boss Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal. Now an independent, Oscar Goodman ran for mayor in 1998 as a Democrat. Carolyn Goodman declined to endorse either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election. Some local Las Vegas journalists regard the Goodmans as part of the mob scene in Las Vegas. Oscar Goodman pushed hard for U.S. Congressional approval and budget earmarking for Las Vegas's Mob Museum, located in the old U.S. Post Office Building and which honors the mob's contributions to the founding of Las Vegas.

FBI agent Rouse only offered up the fact that the FBI's investigation of the mass shooting extended "across the United States and all across the world." Paddock is known to have traveled widely international, including booking cruises to Europe and the Middle East. Rouse was appointed Special Agent-in-Charge for Las Vegas in 2016 by then-FBI director James Comey. His previous job was section chief in the Counterintelligence Division at FBI Headquarters. Prior to that he served in the Tampa and San Antonio Divisions. In what may represent a first, Rouse announced that the FBI, Las Vegas Police, and Clear Channel Outdoors, a subsidiary of the right-wing iHeartMedia, Inc., were partnering in a Las Vegas area billboard information campaign to encourage people to contact the FBI if they have information on Paddock or anyone else with knowledge of the shooting. Borrowing from the Department of Homeland Security's "If you see something, say something" campaign on counter-terrorism, the FBI is spearheading a campaign based on "If you know something, say something,” along with a 1-800-CallFBI tip line.

The FBI did not seem interested in the fact that on the morning of October 2, the morning after the Las Vegas shooting, Nye County Sheriff's deputies arrested wanted violent felon Duane Johnson, who may have been armed, run into Manse Elementary School in Pahrump, Nevada, which is about 62 miles to the west of Las Vegas. Johnson was not apprehended. Nye County Sheriff's deputies also responded to reports of an armed man at both Floyd Elementary and Rosemary Clarke Middle Schools, both also in Pahrump.

In the past few days, Lombardo has apparently been sidelined at joint FBI-Las Vegas Sheriff's Department press conferences by his Undersheriff Kevin McMahill, a graduate of the CIA-connected Harvard Kennedy School of Government's Senior Executives in State and Local Government Program. McMahill is a graduate of Columbia Southern University, a distance-learning and for-profit institution headquartered in Orange Beach, Alabama. Lombardo's recent absence coincides with a tightening up on law enforcement information provided to the media concerning the mass shooting.
There is increasing evidence, based on Paddock's life style, background -- including being a private pilot --  financial wealth, and international travel, that he may have served as an underworld hitman. Two Hollywood movies, "The Mechanic" and "The Accountant," provide main characters -- hit men -- who mirror Paddock's personality and background. Paddock's fascination with numbers and weapons, as well as his previous job as an accountant for a Lockheed subsidiary and the Internal Revenue Service, closely match the persona of the Ben Affleck character, Christian Wolff, in "The Accountant." [pictured right].

Las Vegas is the capital city of contract hits. Adding credibility to the Paddock-as-a-professional-hitman theory is Lombardo's stated belief that Paddock [pictured left] intended to survive the aftermath of the shooting. Paddock may have had a specific target in the concert crowd but some other party may have altered the scenario from a single hit to a mass shooting. Paddock appears to have specialized in sniper hits into large crowds at long ranges and from tall structures as evidenced by his interest in renting hotel rooms overlooking Chicago's Grant Park during a major music festival there in the summer of 2016 and Boston's Fenway Park, another popular venue for concerts.

Within the past decade, there have been over a half-dozen criminal cases involving Las Vegas-based hitmen. In July of this year, Thomas Randolph, 62, was convicted of hiring a Vegas hitman, Michael James Miller, to kill his wife. After Miller murdered Sharon Causse, Randolph's sixth wife, Randolph shot Miller to death. Randolph was convicted of a double homicide and sentenced to death. In 2012, Noel Stevens, a Vegas hitman, who went by the name "Greyhound," murdered Shauna Tiaffay, the estranged wife of a Las Vegas firefighter. The firefighter, George Tiaffay, paid Stevens $600 to club his wife to death with a hammer.

In 2004, Las Vegas habitué and hitman Ronald Bruce Bigger stabbed Tucson, Arizona physician Dr. David Brian Stidham. Bigger was paid $10,000 by Stidham's medical partner, Dr. Bradley Schwartz. The case is germane to Paddock because Bigger was diagnosed by an Arizona forensic psychologist as suffering from a personality disorder with narcissistic and antisocial features. Paddock has been described in very similar terms. 

In 2009, Wen Jun Li was stabbed and slashed 32 times by Taiwanese United Bamboo gang martial arts hitman Xiao Ye Bai for failing to pay back $10,000 in gambling debts. The attack occurred a few blocks west of the Strip at the KTV karaoke bar.

Contract hits have become so common in Las Vegas that the Las Vegas police run undercover officers posing as hitmen who are contacted by individuals trying to arrange murders-for-hire. In 2012, Jorge Velasquez of Las Vegas paid one such undercover officer $2000 to murder his wife as his 32nd birthday present.

Chicago hitman Frank Cullotta worked for Chicago mobster Lefty Rosenthal, a numbers man who ran the mob's casino "skim" of the gross house take at the Stardust Casino. Cullotta is now a featured speaker at Oscar Goodman's pet project, the Mob Museum. Cullotta joined the Federal Witness Protection Program after rolling on the mob.

Las Vegas, which continues its reputation as a "mobbed up" city, may never truly solve the Paddock case. If Paddock was, in fact, a professional hitman, other cans of worms may be opened that the "city fathers" may very well want to keep closed.

Confine kings and queens to decks of playing cards By The Wayne Madsen Report

Confine kings and queens to decks of playing cards

By The Wayne Madsen Report

Although it is difficult to believe that in the 21st century there are still kings, queens, and other potentates in the world, it is even harder to fathom such leeches on taxpayers calling political shots. However, that is exactly what Spain experienced recently when King Felipe VI weighed in on the results of a popular referendum in Catalonia that overwhelmingly backed independence for the region.

The president of Catalonia, Carles Puigdemont, denounced the king, saying, "The king has adopted the (national) government's position and policies which have been disastrous with regard to Catalonia. He is deliberately ignoring millions of Catalans." In a televised address to the nation, Felipe railed, "With their irresponsible behavior they [the Catalans] put their own region and all of Spain at risk." However, Puigdemont countered the King by stating the Spanish monarchy refuses to even negotiate with Catalonia, "I will repeat it as many times as necessary: dialogue and agreement are part of the political culture of our people. However, the state has not given any positive answer to those offers."

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy totally rejected Catalonia's offer of dialogue. Rajoy accused the Catalonian government of blackmail.

King Felipe bears a lot of family baggage in coming to the support of Rajoy in his confrontation with the Catalonian government and people. It was the ideological forefather of Rajoy's People's Party, Generalissimo Francisco Franco, Spain's fascist leader, who placed Felipe's father in the position of Spanish regent, or "Prince of Spain." Although Spain's monarchy had been abolished in 1931 by the Second Spanish Republic, Franco restored the kingdom after winning the Spanish Civil War in 1939 with the help of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. Franco made Juan Carlos his heir apparent in 1969 after the "prince" swore allegiance to Franco's fascist movement.

Franco skipped over Juan de Borbón, the Count of Barcelona, the son of King Alfonso XIII, the nation's last king before the republic was established in 1951, and chose Juan Carlos. Juan de Borbón was seen by Franco as "too liberal," a euphemism for the Count having too much sympathy for Catalonia, the capital of which is Barcelona.

There is a widely-held belief in Spain that Juan Carlos shot to death his younger brother, Prince Alfonso, at the Borbón family's estate in Portugal, on purpose. Although Juan Carlos and royal aides claimed the shooting death was an accident, it was revealed that the revolver used by Juan Carlos was a personal gift from Franco. The only two people in the room when the shot was fired were Juan Carlos and Alfonso. The Spanish embassy in Lisbon crafted a press release that rivals any of the fake news seen today:

"Whilst His Highness Prince Alfonso was cleaning a revolver last evening with his brother, a shot was fired hitting his forehead and killing him in a few minutes. The accident took place at 20.30 hours, after the Infante's [Alfonso] return from the Maundy Thursday religious service, during which he had received holy communion."

During the Spanish Civil War, Franco's fascists committed genocide against the Catalans and Basques, both ethnic groups strong supporters of the loyalist forces of the Second Republic. During the first decade of Franco's rule, Catalans and Basques were massacred in the "White Terror," which saw as many as 400,000 opponents of the fascists fall victim to Franco's feared Guardia Civil. Franco ruthlessly made illegal the Catalan language; abolished Catalonia's instruments of autonomy; proscribed Catalonian political parties, trade unions, and newspapers; and wiped out all vestiges of Catalan culture. It is with these historical underpinnings that Catalonia today seeks to part ways with a Spanish government steeped in fascist traditions and a blind eye toward the past genocide of the Catalan people.

As if to remind Catalans of the White Terror, Rajoy's government dispatched helmeted and armed Guardia Civil members to forcibly shut down independence referendum polling places across Catalonia, beat voters and protesters, arrest Catalonian government officials, and clash with Catalonian firefighters trying to protect Catalans who were attempting to vote. The Rajoy regime has threatened to charge with sedition Major Josep Lluis Trapero, the chief of the Catalonian police force, the Mossos d’Esquadra, for failing to take the side of the Guardia Civil and other Spanish state security forces against his own people. Trapero faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted.     

European integrationist supporters of monarchies in the European Parliament, including the quisling Green Party, as well as Guy Verhofstadt, the Belgian chairman of the "liberal" ALDE European parliamentary group, insisted that Catalonia must remain, at all costs, a part of Spain. These so-called "liberal" and "centrist" parties made common cause with the proto-fascist Rajoy and Donald Trump, who recently insisted on Spain remaining united at a White House press conference held with the Spanish prime minister.

Verhofstadt, a major opponent of the Brexit referendum in the United Kingdom, is also a fierce opponent of the secession from Belgium of Flanders as an independent republic. Verhofstadt served as Belgian prime minister from 1999 to 2008, during a time when Belgian King Albert II was embroiled in a festering scandal involving pedophiles at the highest levels of the government, church, and business. In 2013, Albert suddenly abdicated the throne in favor of his son Philippe.

Felipe of Spain, Philippe of Belgium, Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands -- who insists on retaining colonies as his personal fiefdom in Aruba, Curacao, Bonaire, St. Maarten, St. Eustatius, and Saba, Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom -- who quietly campaigned against independence for Scotland and republic status for Jamaica and Barbados, Mohammed VI of Morocco -- who brutally governs the stolen nation of Western Sahara, and the jihadist-supporting monarchs of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Abu Dhabi have seen their era come and go. The only kings, queens, and knaves should be those found in every deck of playing cards and not governing from palaces in European capitals and desert sands of the Middle East.

Reports from Syria of U.S. military engagement with Russian troops By The Wayne Madsen Report

Reports from Syria of U.S. military engagement with Russian troops

By The Wayne Madsen Report

Reports have reached WMR of possible combat between U.S. Special Forces and Russian troops in northeastern Syria. The situation is so dire, some U.S. Special Forces personnel have broken operational security, or "OPSEC," to send electronic messages to their next-of-kin in the United States that they are currently deployed in Syria and may never again see their loved ones. It should be emphasized that these U.S. Special Forces personnel -- Army, Marine Corps, and Navy -- have never before revealed to their families where they are currently engaged in combat.

In a statement from Moscow, Russia's deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov blamed the United States for the recent combat death in Syria of Russian Lt. General Valery Asapov. The general was killed recently in mortar shelling carried out by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), near the besieged Euphrates River town of Deir Az Zor. Asapov, a military adviser to the Syrian government, was killed at a Syrian Army command field station while directing troops fighting to liberate Deir Az Zor from ISIL.

Reports from the combat zone in northeastern Syria suggest that ISIL and the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Front (SDF) have joined forces in fighting against Syrian government forces and their Russian allies. WMR's information from U.S. Special Forces sources indicates that American troops have engaged Russian, Syrian, and Iranian troops on behalf of ISIL and its SDF partners. One communication indicated that if any U.S. Special Forces personnel are killed in combat, the Pentagon will inform the next-of-kin that they were not killed in Syria, but died elsewhere. It has long been Pentagon policy to claim that Special Forces troops who are killed on covert missions died while on "training missions" far from the actual combat zones.


Russian Lt. General Valery Asapov killed in Syria combat. Russia blames U.S. for his death as U.S. Special Forces in Syria break OPSEC to warn of U.S.-Russian combat engagement
Asapov is not the only Russian military member who has been killed in Syria at the hands of U.S.-linked jihadist forces. The Russian government has not disclosed the total number of Russian killed-in-action but some estimates have the total as being over 30.

An important 9/11 postscript - BY THE WAYNE MADSEN REPORT

An important 9/11 postscript - BY THE WAYNE MADSEN REPORT

WMR has been informed of an important detail concerning the mysterious airline company, Air Cargo Carrier (ACC), based at General Mitchell International Airport in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. On September 19, 2017, WMR reported that an individual associated with ACC threatened a group of graduate engineering students at the University of Alaska with non-employability because of their research into the circumstances surrounding the collapse of World Trade Center Building 7 during the late afternoon of September 11, 2001. There was an inference that the engineering students were "aiding terrorism" with their research.

Our report stated that ACC is owned by ACC Holding, Inc. ACC also owns Telford Aviation, Inc., also based in Milwaukee, which also does business as "The Telford Group." ACC, which is also known as ACC Integrated Services, Inc., "offers short notice service throughout North America, Mexico, and the Caribbean." ACC was founded in 1986, at the height of the Iran-contra affair, and specializes in airlifting freight to various destinations in North America and the Caribbean.

According to corporate records for Telford Aviation, Inc., its chairman of the board and chief executive officer was Wirt D. Walker III, a cousin of George W.  Bush and his brother, Marvin Bush. Walker and Marvin Bush figured heavily in the investigation of firms linked to both the World Trade Center and Dulles International Airport, nexuses for the 9/11 events. Walker and Marvin Bush are featured in this editor's book, "Jaded Tasks: Brass Plates, Big Oil & Black Ops":




The association of members of the Bush family with a reputed CIA airline front company provides more highly-relevant circumstantial evidence on the involvement of the Bush family with the events of 9/11. Former president George H. W. Bush was diverted to Milwaukee, the headquarters of Air Cargo Carrier, while in-flight from Washington, DC to St. Paul, Minnesota during the morning of the 9/11 attack. Bush had spent the previous day and night at the White House. Bush claims he and Barbara Bush were whisked off to a motel well outside the city limits of Milwaukee by the U.S. Secret Service. During the night and morning of September 10-11, 2001, Bush, Sr. attended a board meeting of The Carlyle Group at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Washington. Also attending that meeting was the brother of Osama bin Laden.

The founder of Telford Aviation, Telford Allen II, was killed on August 1, 2010 in the crash of his Cessna A185F floatplane into Moosehead Lake in Rockwood, Maine. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) concluded that Allen had taken too much of the over-the-counter antihistamine, diphenhydramine, which impaired his judgment and caused him to crash his plane. The NTSB interim report stated: "While the pilot may have been having difficulty sleeping due to back pain or his impending surgery or possible chemotherapy, the investigation was unable to determine that fatigue was a factor in the accident." While Allen was killed, a passenger, although injured, survived the crash. The passenger indicated to the Bangor Daily News that they "had a normal flight” and the location of the crash was in "the same area" Allen always landed.
Some four months after Allen's death in Maine, two ACC pilots, Kevin Kuranz of Sheboygan, Wisconsin and Christopher Schmidt of Maryville, Tennessee, were arrested by the Dominican Republic police in Santo Domingo on December 2, 2010. 321 pounds of cocaine and 4 pounds of heroin were discovered hidden beneath the floor boards and behind the wall panels of their ACC-owned aircraft. Some 19 members of the Dominican military were also arrested in connection with the illegal narcotics discovery. 

Kuranz and Schmidt, who were temporarily based in Puerto Rico, were released on bail of $12,160 each after an intercession by ACC with the Dominican Republic's ambassador in Washington and the government in Santo Domingo. The two pilots agreed to return to Santo Domingo in the event of a trial, however none was ever scheduled for them. The Dominican prosecutor assigned to the case, Carmen Diaz Amezquita, wanted the two American pilots held until he could fully prepare the case. The presiding judge overruled the prosecutor and ordered the pilots released on bail. The case was never brought to trial and 12 of the Dominican military personnel initially arrested in connection with the drug bust were released without charges being brought.
What is discovered about ACC, Telford Aviation, Stratesec/Securacom, Aviation General, and Commander Aircraft are interlocking directorships involving members of the Bush family and their business associates.

Bloomberg's corporate database provides the following linkages:





From the above information, Wirt Walker III, Abrahamson, and McDaniel, previously cited in "Jaded Tasks," are found, along with Mishal Yousef Saud al-Sabah, the Kuwaiti chairman of KuWam and board member of Commander Premier Aircraft Corporation. There are board interlocks between StoneGate Capital Group LLC, with offices in Dallas and New York City, and Commander Aircraft and Stratesec (formerly Securacom). The Securities and Exchange Commission reportedly investigated Wirt Walker and his wife Sally for insider trading prior to 9/11. Their September 6, 2001 purchase of 56,000 shares of Stratesec, which had security contracts for the World Trade Center, Dulles airport (where highjacked American Airlines flight 77 originated), and United Airlines. The stock doubled in value on the morning of September 11 and remained that way until the market re-opened on September 17. The SEC recommended that the Walkers be investigated for 9/11-related insider trading but the FBI cleared the couple and considered the case closed. 

WMR landed the story on the suspicious death of Marvin Bush's maid, near Alexandria, Virginia on September 29, 2003. Bertha Champagne was crushed by her own vehicle on Mr. Bush's driveway after she told the president's brother she had a "video" to show him.

Now we have an individual associated with a Walker/Bush-influenced company, Air Cargo Carriers, making veiled threats to engineering students who have been researching the collapse of WTC Building 7, a facility for which Securacom/Stratesec had a contract for security. The conclusion of the University of Alaska report is that fire from the impact of the two planes into WTC 1 and 2 (the Twin Towers) was not a factor in the internal demolition-like collapse of Building 7. Apparently, some members of the Walker and Bush families do not appreciate engineering experts sticking their noses into an area where the Walkers and Bushes are on very shaky ground.