John Bolton seen more frequently around the White House - By The Wayne Madsen Report

                               John Bolton seen more frequently around the White House
                                                 By The Wayne Madsen Report

John Bolton, the only unconfirmed U.S. ambassador to the United Nations to have ever represented his country in the international organization, has recently been seen more frequently around the White House. There are strong rumors that Donald Trump's next purge will claim the National Security Adviser, Lt. General H. R. McMaster, and that Bolton has the inside track to replace him. Bolton taking over the National Security Council will, after a nine-year hiatus, put the neo-conservatives back in the foreign policy and national security driver's seat in Washington.

The firing of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and his replacement by Central Intelligence Agency director Mike Pompeo, a neocon and Christian Dominionist, and the continued presence of neocon Nikki Haley in Bolton's old job at the U.N. marks a sharp turn for a president who campaigned on general U.S. non-involvement in global affairs as the "world's policeman." Bolton, Pompeo, and Haley advocate a more confrontational U.S. foreign policy with nations like Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, and Venezuela.

Bolton had Trump's ear when Steve Bannon was serving as Trump's strategic adviser. After Bannon was fired last August, Bolton saw his access to the White House rescinded by chief of staff John Kelly and National Security Adviser McMaster. Bolton was rumored to be a strong candidate for Secretary of State or National Security Adviser during the presidential transition process in late 2016. [Bolton at Trump Tower for Dec. 2016 interview, left]

In recent months, Bolton has seen his White House access restored and he regularly briefs Trump on national security and foreign policy issues.

Bolton, like Trump, is plagued by allegations of bizarre sexual activities. Bolton's first wife, Cristina Bolton, claimed in court filings in Virginia that Bolton forced her into having group sex at Plato's Retreat, a Manhattan swingers club that catered to heterosexual couples and bisexual women and operated between 1977 and 1985. The club was located in what had been a gay bathhouse known as Continental Baths. Plato's Retreat moved to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where it changed its name to "321 Slammer" and is now a gay male sex club. On August 15, 1982, while John Bolton was on a two-week trip in his position as assistant administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Mrs. Bolton fled their residence at 918 Grand Court, Vienna, Virginia, taking with her all of her personal possessions and most of the furniture.

With such a personal history, Bolton might have faced a tougher time getting confirmed for a post entailing even greater access to highly-classified information than the U.N. ambassador post. However, the National Security Adviser position does not require Senate confirmation.
Bolton’s tenure at the U.N. was punctuated by his own undiplomatic outbursts, as well as those of his spokesman and personal assistant, Richard Grenell, Trump’s openly-gay nominee to be U.S. ambassador to Germany. Bolton strenuously pushed the neocon foreign policy line, as spelled out in the charter for the movement founded in 1997, the Project for the New American Century (PNAC).

Bolton also favors scrapping the Iran P5+1 nuclear agreement, known formally as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Bolton’s international views are no different than those of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, a camaraderie Bolton shares with Trump.

On the issue of Palestine, Bolton has demanded the abolishment of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which administers aid programs for Palestinian refugees. In May 2017, before accepting the Guardian of Zion Award from Bar-Ilan University in Jerusalem, Bolton told The Jerusalem Post that the “two-state solution” of Israel and an independent Palestinian state should be abandoned, Hamas, Fatah, and the Palestinian Authority disbanded, Gaza given to Egypt, and the West Bank divided between Israel and Jordan. Bolton cynically said he believes in a “three-state solution” with Israel, Egypt, and Jordan taking control of current Palestinian territory.

Trump may not be the only top U.S. official with a blackmail problem over sex claims. A photograph of a bulletin board at Plato's Retreat clearly offers customers the videotaping of their sex acts. [Pictured, right] Whether or not Bolton knows it, his "swinging acts" may have been captured on video, which may explain his subservience to Israel. Plato's Retreat was founded by a high school friend of New York pornographer Al Goldstein. Goldstein had something in common with Trump's convicted child molester friend, Jeffrey Epstein: they both shared the same criminal defense attorney, Alan Dershowitz. Dershowitz has also been an ardent defender of Trump and his policies.

Bolton’s neocon rhetoric on NATO is no less alarming. He wants membership in NATO fast-tracked for Ukraine and Georgia. Bolton as Trump’s national security adviser would help usher into the Trump White House Bolton’s fellow neocons ensconced at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, where Bolton enjoys a senior fellowship.
Bolton actually believes Iran is exploiting the political turmoil in Venezuela to gain access to the country’s uranium deposits. He also is convinced that Hezbollah has established a drug-running network in Latin America. Bolton has called on Trump to reassert the arcane Monroe Doctrine – proclaiming the Western Hemisphere as America’s domain – because of “Russian meddling” in Latin America. Bolton’s predilection for such conspiracy theories, while welcomed and highly sought in Republican Party cuckoo land, are not the product of sober intelligence analysis of world events.

Historical evidence points to Trump's father being a Nazi sympathizer; possible wartime agent By The Wayne Madsen Report

Historical evidence points to Trump's father being a Nazi sympathizer; possible wartime agent

                                                     By The Wayne Madsen Report

An historian, who specializes on Nazi influence in America during the 1920s, 30s, and early 40s, has contacted WMR with supporting evidence that Fred Trump, Donald Trump's father and New York real estate baron, was not only a Nazi sympathizer during the 1920s and 30s, during the time of Adolf Hitler's rise to power in Germany, but may have also acted as an intelligence agent for Nazi Germany in wartime America.

Heretofore, the evidence that Fred Trump was a Nazi sympathizer rested on a June 1, 1927 article in The New York Times. The article, "Warren Criticizes 'Class' Parades," reported that "1,000 Klansmen and 100 policemen staged a free-for-all battle in Jamaica." Jamaica is a neighborhood in Queens where Fred Trump resided at the time. Donald Trump has consistently sought to obfuscate the fact of his father's arrest, claiming in media interviews that it never happened and that his father never lived at 175-24 Devonshire Road in Jamaica, as claimed in The New York Times story from 1927. Fred Trump, according to the Times story, was released by Magistrate Thomas F. Doyle. It is noteworthy that Fred Trump and the six other defendants arrested with him at the Klan march were represented by ex-Judge Edgar F. Hazleton, described in the article as a "prominent member of the Knights of Columbus," the Roman Catholic fraternal society. Fred Trump and his fellow Klansmen were actually protesting against the "Roman Catholic" New York Police Department when the melee broke out with the hundred New York cops.

However, an announcement of the marriage of Fred Trump to Mary A. MacLeod, Donald Trump's mother, that ran in the January 22, 1936 edition of the Long Island Daily Press clearly states that Fred Trump of "175-24 Devonshire road, Jamaica." Donald Trump has a habit of calling any news unfavorable to him and his family "fake news" from the "lying media." In fact, "lying press" (Lügenpresse) was a pejorative used by the Nazis in Germany to describe "Jewish, Communist, and foreign-owned" media. During the 2016 presidential campaign, the term "lying press" was resurrected by Trump supporters, including members of alt-right neo-Nazi groups.
The fact that a prominent member of the Knights of Columbus would represent Fred Trump and the other Klansmen is interesting because the 1920s -- which saw a KKK heavily steeped in anti-Catholic and anti-papacy beliefs -- would quickly subside in the 1930s and give way to the German-American Bund as the leading far-right political grouping in the United States. The Bund supported Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party. Because Hitler was a Roman Catholic, the American far-right toned down anti-Catholic fervor and concentrated their venom on Jews and blacks.

Fred Trump's parents hailed from Bavaria and, although they were ostensibly Lutheran, their home village in predominantly Lutheran Kallstadt was surrounded by heavily Catholic parishes. On the eve of the outbreak of World War II, Fred Trump, already a successful real estate mogul in Queens and Brooklyn, claimed that he and his parents were Swedish.

Claiming false Swedish lineage was no guarantee of avoiding accusations of pro-Nazi sympathies. During the 1930s, one of the biggest apologists for Nazi Germany was Swedish-American, Charles Lindbergh. "Lucky Lindy" was even awarded the Service Cross of the German Eagle by Nazi Air Minister Hermann Goering in Berlin in 1938. Lindbergh was a prominent member of the America First Committee, which urged the United States to avoid a war with Germany and which had much in common with the pro-Nazi German-American Bund. Donald Trump has resurrected "America First" in his political rhetoric.

Trump apologists claim that Fred Trump was probably arrested not as a marching Klansman, but as an innocent bystander attending what was billed as a Memorial Day parade honoring military war dead. This contention is without merit as seen in the June 2, 1927 edition of the Long Island Daily Press. [Pictured, right] The article on the KKK march clearly states that "when the police attempted to break up the formation of klansmen and resulted in the arrests of seven of the berobed marchers." Not only was Fred Trump part of the Klan march, but he was wearing the signature white robe and regalia of the Ku Klux Klan when he was arrested.
Donald Trump may try to convince his followers that The New York Times is "fake news" -- a ridiculous charge considering the Times article is from 1927, long before Trump's "fake news" meme gained any currency -- but he cannot explain why the same report on his father's arrest appeared in three others newspapers: The Daily Star of Brooklyn of June 1, 1927; The Queens County Evening News of June  2, 1927; and The Richmond Hill Record of June 3, 1927. [Pictured right from top to bottom]

All three papers, along with The New York Times and The Long Island Daily Press, the Daily Press providing details about Fred Trump's KKK march participation and Klan robes, are certainly not "fake news," but legitimate references that would be relied upon by any historian or biographer. Four of the papers include Fred Trump's address as 175-24 Devonshire, which Donald Trump claimed was never his father's address.

The Richmond Hill Record provides interesting details about Fred Trump's fellow "Jamaica Seven" Klansmen. They hailed from around the New York area: John Kipp of Peekskill, New York; John Marcy of Yonkers, New York; Fred Lyons of New Hyde Park, Long Island; Thomas Carroll of Jamaica; and Harry J. Free of Carl Place, Long Island; as well as Thomas Erwin of West Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The KKK march in Queens was no local affair and drew participants from beyond New York City. In the 1930s, Nazi meetings in New York, including the February 20, 1939, 20,000-strong "Americanization" rally at Madison Square Garden, drew participants from around the country, but especially from Long Island, upstate New York, New Jersey, and the Philadelphia area.

There is also the interesting fact that members of the Knight of Columbus defended the ostensibly anti-Catholic Klan, with John P. Conlon, the marshal for five years of the Jamaica Division of the parade, being quoted as saying, "Police action was atrocious and entirely unwarranted. Police performed atrocities which were unpardonable. Without their interference the parade would have been perfect. I am a Knights of Columbus man and I do not agree with the principles of the Klan, but I do believe they should have been granted permission to participate in any parade to honor dead war veterans."

The Klan marchers in Queens [pictured, left] believed that the NYPD was a "Roman Catholic" police force, so it would appear unusual for a leading Catholic organization like the Knights of Columbus to defend the KKK. However, given the situation in Europe with the steady rise of Nazism in Germany and fascism in Italy, the right-wing Catholic rapprochement with the KKK is perfectly logical as both groups decided to make common cause against Communism, "Jewish Bolshevism," and socialism. The year 1929 saw the enactment of the Lateran Treaty between the Vatican and Benito Mussolini's fascist government, while the Concordat (Reichskonkordat) between the Vatican and Nazi Germany was signed in 1933 between Vatican Secretary of State Eugenio Pacelli, the future Pope Pius XII (the so-called "Nazi Pope') and Nazi Vice Chancellor Franz Von Papen. These two agreements resulted in Nazi and fascist groups around the world, including the KKK, making common cause with far-right groups, regardless of their Catholic ties.

Perhaps no one was more instrumental in uniting the pro-Nazi sympathizers within the United States than Roman Catholic priest, Father Charles Coughlin. The expert on American Nazism and fascism in the interwar years, a renowned expert on Coughlin, believes that Fred Trump was a follower of not only Coughlin, but of Hitler. The expert's research indicates that Coughlin, much of whose material came from early and rather obscure Hitler speeches, influenced not only Fred Trump but also his son Donald. Research into Hitler's speeches and those of Coughlin and Donald Trump show definite similarities in rhetoric and policies. For example, Donald Trump has called the press the "enemy of the American people." Hitler stated, "A press which is in principle anti-national cannot be tolerated in Germany." The Coughlin expert told WMR that Hitler and Donald Trump have one definite thing in common: "Hitler took advantage of those who thought they were taking advantage of him," adding that Trump does the very same.
Coughlin, whose weekly radio broadcasts from Michigan reached up to 30 million listeners in the United States, were laced with rhetoric in support of Hitler, Mussolini, and Japanese Emperor Hirohito. In 1938, Coughlin voiced support for the Nazi Kristallnacht in Germany, which saw attacks on Jews, synagogues, and Jewish-owned businesses throughout the country. Coughlin also received financial support from Nazi Germany and, along with Lindbergh, was a leading figure in the America First movement.

In the years between Fred Trump's arrest as a robed Klansmen in Queens and his surfacing as a U.S. government contractor, little is known.  Trump was busy building barracks and other buildings for the U.S. Navy troop embarkation ports in Chester, Pennsylvania and Norfolk and Newport News, Virginia. As WMR stated in our August 16, 2017 report: "Around 1937, Fred Trump's pals in the Klan joined with the Bund and the Nazi Silver Shirts and Black Legion to form the Storm Troops. This early "United the Right" movement received heavy corporate funding. By 1937, Fred Trump was making handsome profits as a notorious Queens slum lord. Did any of those profits end up in the coffers of either the Bund or Storm Troops?" In addition, we reported that a Bund member, German immigrant Waldemar Othmer, infiltrated the U.S. military as a civilian employee and dutifully sent via microfilm information to his Abwehr handlers in Berlin on the movements of British and American military vessels, convoys, and merchant ships out of Brooklyn and Norfolk. Sinking American ships was a high priority for German naval commander Admiral Karl Donitz, who dubbed the program Operation Paukenschlag or Drumbeat."

Considering Fred Trump's Klan background and the "unite the right" agreement between the Klan and the Bund-affiliated groups in the United States, did the father of the current president have loyalties to another master, perhaps Herr Hitler? As we previously reported, '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."

FBI files on Fred Trump, while containing information on his violation of the Fair Housing Act in the 1960s in refusing to sell or rent to blacks and his ties to organized crime, are void of any mention of his activities in the 1930s and 40s. FBI director J. Edgar Hoover is known to have downplayed the collection of intelligence on America Firsters and Nazis until the December 7, 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Defenders of Fred Trump point to his friendship in the 1980s with then-Israeli ambassador to the United Nations Benjamin Netanyahu and Fred Trump's donations to Jewish causes. However, Netanyahu, whose Likud Party has joined political forces with far-right and neo-Nazi groups in Europe and tolerated similar groups in the West Bank and Israel proper, is hardly an exemplar for establishing one's anti-Nazi bona fides. Donald Trump's embrace of pro-Israel Stephen Miller as his adviser and major speechwriter is no different than his father's embrace of Netanyahu. Miller serves as a conduit for President Trump to the alt-right neo-Nazis led by Miller's friend and Duke University classmate, Richard Spencer.

As president, Donald Trump has shown loyalty to foreign autocrats but little to the U.S. Constitution. Donald Trump has called neo-Nazi marchers in Charlottesville, Virginia "fine people" and he has extolled the "virtues" of Confederate generals, placing himself in the mold of his Klan father. Rather than call for a military march in Washington, DC, Mr. Trump might want to fess up about his father's time as a Klansman and as a possible Nazi sympathizer and war-time agent. In the case of the President of the United States, it is not the sins of the father that are as important as the political indoctrination passed down from father to son.

Trump prefers dictatorships, including one for the U.S. By The Wayne Madsen Report

Trump prefers dictatorships, including one for the U.S.

By The Wayne Madsen Report

At a Republican Party fundraising dinner and reception held at his Mar-a-Lago resort over the weekend, Donald Trump remarked that he envies Chinese President Xi Jinping [pictured, right] for having recently abolished the two-term limit for his office, thus opening the way for Xi to remain as president of China for life, well past what had been a presidential term that was due to expire in 2023. At 64 years of age, Xi could remain as president well into the 2030s and, quite possibly, beyond. 

Ignoring the fact that China is a one-party state, Trump told the enthusiastic 250 Republican donors, who paid $27,700 per couple to attend the dinner, "He’s [Xi's] now president for life . . . president for life. And he’s great. And look, he was able to do that. I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll give that a shot someday.” Trump is limited to two terms in office as stipulated by a Constitutional amendment enacted in 1951.

On December 18, 2000, after it became clear that George W. Bush was president-elect after a dubious election that was contested in the courts, the president-elect said, after a meeting with Congressional leaders, "I told all four that there were going to be some times where we don't agree with each other. But that's OK. If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator." Bush's cackling after his comment showed he thought it was funny, but members of Congress on both sides of the aisle felt the comment was inappropriate and dangerous. Bush got the message, but that did not stop him from praising other dictators, even while claiming credit for ridding the world of Saddam Hussein, who he called a ruthless dictator. Bush's dictator transgressions now seem mild compared to those of Trump.

Trump called Xi "a great gentleman," adding, "he’s the most powerful president in a hundred years." Trump appeared to have disregarded the fact that Chinese Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong ruled China with an iron fist from 1949 to 1976.
Trump's quip about becoming president-for-life was not his first dalliance with projecting fascist tendencies. On February 28, 2016, Trump tweeted a quote made notorious by Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini, "It is better to live one day as a lion than a 100 years as a sheep." In defending the tweet after criticism, Trump said, "Mussolini was Mussolini . . . It's a very good quote. It's a very interesting quote." The electoral gains of Italy's former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, an open admirer of Mussolini and his Italian fascist movement, will undoubtedly encourage Trump's promotion of fascism and dictators.

According to a 1990 interview she gave to Vanity Fair, Trump's ex-wife, Ivana Trump, said Trump kept a copy of Adolf Hitler's book Mein Kampf on a book cabinet by his bed. She said Trump would read the book "from time-to-time." Asked by Vanity Fair writer Marie Brenner about the book, Trump replied, "Who told you that? . . . I don't remember . . . Actually, it was my friend Marty Davis from Paramount who gave me a copy of Mein Kampf, and he's a Jew."

In May 2017, Trump told Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte that he was "doing an unbelievable job on the drug problem." Since being elected in June 2016, Duterte has carried out more than 6000 extrajudicial killings of suspected drug dealers. When Duterte decides to eliminate a political opponent, he merely charges them with drug dealing. Last month, Trump said he wished he could execute drug dealers in the United States, following the example of Singapore. Since its independence in 1965, Singapore adopted a meritocratic form of government, which dissuades active political opposition in return for a generous social welfare system. Trump has been quoted by one White House aide, according to Axios, as saying, "You know the Chinese and Filipinos don’t have a drug problem. They just kill them."

During a visit to Manila on November 17, 2017, Trump yucked it up with Duterte after the Philippines autocrat accused American journalists of being "spies." In response to American reporters' questions about Trump bringing up human rights in his conversations with Duterte, Trump cut off the questioners with Duterte chiming in, "With you around, guys, you are the spies," repeating, "You are." In 2016, Duterte justified killing journalists in the Philippines, declaring, "Just because you’re a journalist you are not exempted from assassination if you’re a son of a bitch."

In September 2017, Trump praised Turkey's autocratic president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has imprisoned opposition politicians, journalists, businessmen, military officers, and academics, giving him "high marks." It is now widely believed in Turkey and abroad that Erdogan allowed the July 15, 2016 coup to commence, knowing full well that he would be able to put it down in its infancy and justify his subsequent assumption of near-dictatorial powers. Trump congratulated Erdogan for the passage in 2017 of a referendum that gave the Turkish president virtual unlimited powers.

Trump has also offered praise for Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who came to power after he ousted the democratically-elected Muslim Brotherhood government of President Mohamed Morsi in a July 2013 coup. In April 2017, Trump said he was "very much behind President al-Sisi," adding, "he's done a fantastic job in a very difficult situation." Sisi has jailed the political opposition and members of the media and permits no dissent in Egypt.

In November 2017, Trump praised a royal coup within the House of Saud as an "anti-corruption" initiative. Trump tweeted, "I have great confidence in King Salman and the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, they know exactly what they are doing . . . Some of those they are harshly treating have been ‘milking’ their country for years!”  Trump failed to mention how King Salman and his son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), has been taking part in the Saudi "milking" operation. MBS, with his dementia-stricken father's blessing, arrested hundreds of Saudi princes, government ministers, businessmen, and diplomats in a sweeping purge that saw some Saudi princes, reportedly with the aid of mercenaries supplied by Blackwater founder Erik Prince's Abu Dhabi-based Reflex Responses (R2), being hung upside down by their toes during torture sessions in Riyadh. Prince's sister, Betsy De Vos, serves as Trump's Secretary of Education. Trump's reference to "harsh treatment" by MBS failed to mention that at least two Saudi princes were assassinated by forces loyal to MBS.

Trump has also avidly praised Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is on the verge of being re-elected Russia's president and who has held the post of president or prime minister since 2000. In September 2016, Trump said of Putin, "he's been a leader, far more than our president [Barack Obama] has been a leader."

In April 2017, Trump, during a meeting with his erstwhile Argentine real estate business partner, President Mauricio Macri, called the right-wing Argentine leader "a good friend," "a great, wonderful person," and "a great leader." Macri has misused the Argentine court system and presidential powers to imprison and put on trial leaders of the political opposition, as well as attacking the opposition media and labor unions. Trump has also praised Honduran strongman President Juan Orlando Hernández, who was re-elected in a November 26, 2017 election marred by electoral fraud and violation of civil liberties.

The 1930s saw the global rise of fascist dictatorships in Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Hungary, Romania, Austria, Portugal, China, Argentina, Brazil, Greece, and other nations. The world could count on an American president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, to hold the ground for a small group of democratic nations that were, early on, outgunned by the fascist powers. And had FDR not been president in the 1930s, with fascism-appeasers such as Herbert Hoover, Alf Landon, and Wendell Willkie serving as successive U.S. presidents, the entire world would have quickly come under the yoke and jackboot of fascist rule under the Axis powers of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan. Today, a supporter and appeaser serves as President of the United States and there is no longer an American backstop to prevent the world from falling under fascist rule. 

Trump-linked crime syndicate to world: "Ignore Us!" By The Wayne Madsen Report

Trump-linked crime syndicate to world: "Ignore Us!"

By The Wayne Madsen Report

The criminal syndicate with links to the Trump Organization is very similar to Ian Fleming's fictional SPECTRE, the organization of crime bosses and former spies recruited from the ranks of Joseph Stalin's SMERSH (SMERt' SHpionam, or "Death to Spies," security service), Nazi Germany’s Gestapo, Yugoslav Marshal Josip Tito’s secret police, the Italian Mafia, the Unione Corse (the Corsican Mafia), and a massive heroin-smuggling syndicate based in Turkey. The Japanese yakuza and Chinese Triads also lent their services to SPECTRE. Led by Polish-Greek super-villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld, SPECTRE was stymied at every turn by British agent 007 James Bond.

Fleming was prescient in his creation of SPECTRE. Today, a criminal syndicate with roots and tentacles in the former Soviet states, the former Yugoslavia, Turkey, Asia, and Latin America has taken over the White House; Kremlin; Beit Rosh HaMemshala - the official residence of the Israeli Prime Minister; the Casa Rosada presidential palace in Argentina, the White Palace in Ankara, and other seats of government around the world. Former British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) agent Christopher Steele, the closest we have to a James Bond, has been pilloried by the right-wing press and Republicans in Congress -- all owned by the real-life SPECTRE -- for bringing attention to the infiltration of the Trump presidential campaign by the global crime syndicate, which could be called "TRUMPKUSHMAN" -- "Trump, Kushner, and Manafort."

The syndicate goes by many names -- Eurasian Mafia (preferred by the FBI); Russian Organized Crime (ROC) (a misnomer considering the fact that Ukrainians, Moldovans, Azerbaijanis, Latvians, and others are heavily involved); Red Mafiya (a term coined by author Robert Friedman after the fall of the Soviet Union); "Bratva" (Russian for "brotherhood"); and "Kosher Nostra" (a take-off on the Italian Cosa Nostra and a term not considered politically correct, except for FBI agents and police detectives when they use it privately).

The investigation of the Trump, Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort organizations by Justice Department Special Counsel Robert Mueller has reportedly opened up a Pandora's Box of criminal intelligence on money laundering, smuggling, human trafficking, embezzlement, stock fraud, tax evasion using offshore accounts, and contract murder schemes.

A business squabble between the Trump Organization on one side and the owner and condominium owners’ association on the other, which concerns the operations of the Trump Ocean Club International Hotel and Tower in Panama City, Panama, has resulted in a Panamanian law enforcement investigation of the Trump Organization. The Trump Organization in Panama has been busy shredding documents after the hotel owners ordered them evicted from the property. The documents being destroyed concern various Trump Tower investors, including a Brazilian fraudster named Alexandre Ventura Nogueira who dealt personally with Eric, Donald, Jr, and Ivanka Trump on the Panama hotel/condo project. Trump Tower investors also included David Murcia Guzman, a Colombian drug money launderer; suspected human trafficker from the Ukraine, and a native of Moscow named Arkady Vodovosov, who served a five-year prison sentence for kidnapping and threats to torture and murder; a Belarusian-Israeli bank fraudster and Trump Mar-a-Lago Country Club member named Alexander Altshoul (and a relative of Vodovosov); and a Ukrainian named Stanislau Kavalenka investigated by Canadian authorities for sex trafficking. Altshoul was also involved in the Trump Tower project in Toronto.

Also involved with Trump in the Panama City project was former Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli, who is currently being held at the Federal Detention Center in Miami awaiting extradition to Panama. The U.S. Justice Department, reportedly at the behest of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, has been slow to act on extraditing Martinelli to Panama, where it is expected he will divulge, in a public trial, details of Trump's operations in the Panama City building complex. Judge Edwin Torres of the U.S. District Court in Miami, ordered Martinelli extradited to Panama. However, the ex-president's attorneys are appealing the decision. Martinelli has been linked to the hemispheric-wide scandal involving the Brazilian construction firm Odebrecht and bribes to politicians in Brazil, Argentina, Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela, Colombia and other Latin American nations. Martinelli and members of his family represent a possible link between Odebrecht and the Trump White House, including Donald Trump, Jr., Eric Trump, and Ivanka Trump and real estate chicanery in Panama.

SPECTRE was known in the Bond movies for its audacious crimes, including precipitating a U.S.-Soviet nuclear war, launching a biological warfare attack, and assassinating political leaders and overthrowing governments. The crime syndicate responsible for putting Donald Trump in the White House is no less impudent than its fictional counterpart. One of the now-defunct corporate contrivances that has links to the Manafort and Trump Organizations is Ignorus, LLC of Palm City, Florida. While Ignorus's corporate masters want the public to ignore it and other artifices now being investigated by Mueller's prosecution team, the Special Counsel has other ideas, as seen with his list of Manafort companies detailed in successive federal indictments. Firms like Ignorus represents the type of corporate glue that links together the networks of Trump, Manafort, and Trump presidential campaign financier and Ukrainian-American real-estate magnate Alexander Rovt.

Linked to Ukrainian fertilizer magnate Dmitry Firtash, ordered extradited to the United States by Austrian authorities, Rovt, who self-identifies as a "Carpathian Jew," bought Lower Manhattan's Bankers Trust building, damaged in the 9/11 attack, for a bargain price of $303 million in cash. Along with Trump, Kushner, and Larry Silverstein, Rovt is now considered one of New York City's top real estate magnates. The dubious dealings in which these and other members of the global syndicate engaged are no longer being ignored, as the name of the former firm in Florida strongly implied.

School shooting raises red flags in Broward County By The Wayne Madsen Report

 School shooting raises red flags in Broward County

By The Wayne Madsen Report

The Trump administration has shown that it is more than capable and willing to take advantage of any event, regardless of the sensitivities, to reap political fodder. The recent mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, in which 17 students lost their lives, is no different. Trump and his supporters have used the incident to call for the arming of school teachers, even though an overwhelming majority of teachers and school administrators have rejected the idea as ludicrous.

A major red flag in the incident has been raised with comments made by Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel [pictured, right]. County sheriffs in Florida are elected positions. Israel, a native of New York City, began his police career with the Fort Lauderdale Police Department. In 2012, Israel was elected as Broward County Sheriff as a Democrat. However, Israel, a former registered Republican, is no ordinary Democrat. In his 2012 race, Israel received the backing of Republican dirty tricks operative Roger Stone, a resident of Coral Springs in Broward, whose sleazy work extends back to the Richard Nixon administration and encompasses the campaigns of Ronald Reagan, John McCain, and Donald Trump. Stone was involved in dirty tricks operations against CBS anchorman Dan Rather and New York Governor Eliot Spitzer. In many ways, Stone makes longtime GOP operative Karl Rove, himself no stranger to dirty tricks, look like a saint by comparison.

No sooner had he been elected Broward County Sheriff, Israel hired Michael Colapietro, Stone's co-author of the books "The Man Who Killed Kennedy — The Case Against LBJ" and "Nixon's Secrets," as a Sheriff's Department community affairs specialist. Another community affairs specialist hired by Israel was Stone's book publicist, Jennifer "Jen" Hobbs. Together with his friend Andrew Miller, who runs the blog Broward Bugle.com, Stone has backed Israel politically. Stone and Miller have defended Israel against charges of excessive force by police officers in Broward County.

Israel also hired Chairwoman of the Libertarian Party of Miami-Dade County and Miami Tea Party co-founder Dianne Thorn as the sheriff's assistant chief of staff. It just so happened that Thorn was Stone's longtime personal assistant and Miller's former step-mother.

Israel's close connections to Stone do not end with Colapietro, Hobbs, and Thorn. Israel's general counsel is Stone's longtime friend Ron Gunzburger, an early supporter of Israel for sheriff. Topping off the Israel-Stone connection is the fact that Stone's stepson, Scott Stone, was transferred by Israel to a detective job even though he only had two years on the police force. Israel told the Sun-Sentinel newspaper, "if his name was Scott Jones, he would still be [a sheriff's deputy]."

Israel is being criticized for the way his department handled the high school shooting carried out by former student Nikolas Cruz. Although one sheriff's deputy assigned to the Parkland high school resigned after failing to enter the school after Cruz began to open fire with an AR-15 assault rifle and two others are under investigation for failing to heed prior warnings the department received about Cruz, Israel is refusing to take any responsibility for the bloody mayhem. There are calls from 73 GOP state representatives for Governor Rick Scott, a Republican and Trump supporter, to remove Israel from his sheriff's position. Given the close ties of Israel to Stone, Trump's unofficial political adviser, that is unlikely. Israel's membership of the Parkland Chabad House (known as a front for Mossad activities) and his endorsement of the teachings of the Talmud have ensured that he is immune to political pressure in Broward County, which has a politically-influential Jewish community.

In a February 25, 2018 interview with CNN, Israel made a boast worthy of Donald Trump. He told CNN's Jake Tapper, "I provided amazing leadership to this agency.” Asked by Tapper if he would resign, Israel declared, "Of course I won’t resign."

The Coral Springs police officers who arrived at Stoneman High School to find four Broward deputies waiting outside the school as Cruz carried out his killing spree are not so taken with Israel's "leadership" qualities. Coral Springs police officers were the first to enter the school and Coral Springs Police Chief Tony Pustizzi was irate that Israel took all the credit for the enforcement response to the shooting and the efforts of the Coral Springs Police and Fire Departments were largely ignored. Israel appears to be at the nexus of failures to coordinate red flag warnings received about Cruz by Broward County mental health officials, the local FBI office, neighboring Palm Beach County law enforcement officials, and his own sheriff's department.

Arch-conspirator and health supplement flim-flam salesman Alex Jones, who features Stone on his broadcasts, downplayed Stone's connection to Israel, claiming he just "had dinner with the sheriff." Jones's ignoring Stone's close relationship with Israel, whom Jones erroneously called "a big Hillary boot-licker," is in keeping with the constant stream of lies and misinformation disseminated by Jones, Stone, their propaganda acolytes, and their number one fan, Trump.

Stoneman High School was not the first major shooting incident on Israel's watch. On January 6, 2017, just fourteen days before Trump's inauguration, a former member of the Puerto Rico and Alaska National Guard, Esteban Santiago-Ruiz, arriving at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport on a Delta flight from Anchorage via Minneapolis, unpacked his luggage in the baggage claim area. In a restroom, Santiago-Ruiz loaded a 9-millimeter automatic pistol he declared in his checked in baggage in Anchorage and proceeded to open fire on other passengers in the baggage area, killing five and wounding six. Santiago-Ruiz was known to the FBI office in Anchorage as a mentally disturbed individual and he was eventually fired by his private security firm employer, Signal 88 Security, which is based in Omaha. In 2007, Signal 88's CEO was featured on Fox News [pictured, left] after Richard Hawkins entered Westroads Mall in Omaha -- whose owners have strong Israeli connections --  opened fire, killing eight shoppers. There were immediate calls for metal detectors to be installed at entrances to shopping malls across the United States.

The Fort Lauderdale airport investigation was stymied by the leak of an airport videotape of the shooting to the media. Broward County Sheriff's deputy Michael Dingman was discovered to have leaked the video to TMZ. Although Dingman was suspended -- with pay -- considering the number of Stone cronies working within the Broward Sheriff's office, the videotape leaking points to a consistent problem with videotape tampering in Broward. The airport incident in Fort Lauderdale resulted in calls for enhanced security at outer perimeters of U.S. airports, a business that Israeli-owned aviation security companies are all-to-eager to accommodate. In the Fort Lauderdale airport incident, Trump's supporters pointed to the shooter's Hispanic ethnicity, even though Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens. The shooting merely fed into the repeated anti-Hispanic gas-lighting by Trump.

When Coral Springs police officers arrived at Stoneman High School they were confused by what was billed as real-time security video streaming from inside the school. The real-time video images, broadcast by Broadcastify, an audio streaming website, were "delayed 20 minutes." The Coral Springs cops believed Cruz was still shooting inside the school when he was long gone and sitting at a nearby McDonald's restaurant.

Broward County serves as a nexus for Israeli intelligence and "Eurasian Mafia" and it hosts the Trump Hollywood Condo complex, which has attracted as buyers several dodgy characters with ties to Eastern European and Israeli organized crime. Broward and Hollywood, in particular, also served as a center for suspicious pre-9/11 activity, as previously reported by WMR.
Hollywood [pictured, left, along Dixie Highway main thoroughfare], Fort Lauderdale to the north, and Hallandale and Aventura to the south lie in the heart of Broward County, which is heavily populated by Jewish transplants from New York City, like Sheriff Israel. Our sources in Broward continue to pose one major question: Why would alleged lead 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta and his team have been cruising bars and causing scenes in a city with a large Jewish population, just four days before the Arabs were to carry out the "crime of the century" -- the hijacking of four passenger planes in order to fly them into the World Trade Center, Pentagon or White House, and the U.S. Capitol building?
And why would Atta and his team have chosen to use a mail drop at a rental mailbox store in a shopping center catering to Jewish residents, next door to a kosher restaurant? In fact, the mail drop was practically located across the street from the apartment complex that housed at least one of the Israeli "art students" believed by U.S. intelligence to have been part of an Israeli intelligence team. Hollywood was one of several cities where the addresses of the Israeli art students closely matched up with those of the alleged hijackers. 

Scott Israel not only has a lot of explaining to do over Marjory Stoneman Douglas High and Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International, but the use of his county by unsavory criminal syndicates linked to Trump and deplorable conspiracy propagandists associated with the likes of Alex Jones. Trump, for his part, has said he is envious that 9/11 raised George W. Bush's presidential popularity to over 90 percent. The Parkland shooting occurred as the Justice Department Special Counsel's investigation of Trump, his administration, and campaign team was reaching a crescendo. What part did Trump's dirty tricks team play in diverting attention from the federal courthouse in Washington, DC to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High in Florida?

Bernie Madoff running financial scams from federal prison By the Wayne Madsen Report

Bernie Madoff running financial scams from federal prison 

By the Wayne Madsen Report

Bernie Madoff, who is serving a 150-year sentence after being convicted of running a $64.8 billion fraud scheme in New York in 2009, has been permitted by Trump administration officials to quietly resume running investment schemes from the medium-security Federal Correctional Institute in Butner, North Carolina. [pictured, left] According to a high-level enforcement official of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission who contacted WMR, Madoff, who is 79, has been permitted to maintain contact with the outside world to direct investments from assets he continues to control from the prison, which has been nicknamed "B'nai Butner" due to its heavy concentration of Jewish white collar criminals and the only kosher-certified chef and kitchen in the federal Bureau of Prisons system.

Madoff is reportedly treated by fellow inmates like a Mafia don. One of those inmates is Carmine "the Snake" Persico, the Colombo family crime boss from New York, who is also serving a life sentence. On at least one occasion, Persico intervened to protect Madoff from another inmate who physically assaulted the disgraced investment banker in a dispute over the selection of a television channel.

Prison officials granted Madoff [pictured, right] a coveted job in the prison commissary, where he sells sundries to fellow inmates. The job may afford Madoff the opportunity to communicate with associates outside of Butner's security barricades. Madoff reportedly gives stock tips and financial advice to fellow inmates.

In his 2009 book, Think Like a Champion, Trump said he rejected requests by Madoff to invest in the Madoff fund. Trump wrote, [Madoff would say],"'Why don't you invest in my fund?' I didn't know much about him and I'm not a fund guy so I said no. I had enough going on in my own businesses that I didn't need to be associated or involved with his." Trump added, "He is without a doubt a sleazebag and a scoundrel without par."

However, according to a longtime SEC regulator who spoke exclusively to WMR, Trump did invest money with Madoff but avoided being one of 20,000 investors bilked by Madoff's Ponzi scheme. It is not known whether Trump or Attorney General Jeff Sessions played a role with the Bureau of Prisons in permitting Madoff to conduct business from Butner.

Trump names George Soros acolyte as charge in Havana By The Wayne Madsen Report

Trump names George Soros acolyte as charge in Havana By The Wayne Madsen Report
Donald Trump has named Phillip Goldberg, an arch-interventionist U.S. diplomat and acolyte of the "regime change" dogma of hedge fund mogul George Soros, as the interim chargé d'affaires of the U.S. embassy in Cuba. Goldberg's task will be to initiate Soros-inspired themed street demonstrations in Cuba when Cuban President Raul Castro steps down on April 19 of this year.

Goldberg will replace Lawrence Gumbier, who has served as chargé since last October. 
Goldberg [pictured, left] is not liked in Latin America. As ambassador to Bolivia, Goldberg's involvement in Bolivia's domestic politics earned him an expulsion in 2008 by the government of President Evo Morales. Goldberg also served as the chief of the U.S. mission in Kosovo, a Mafia-run state that would not have been created and thrived had it not been for the efforts and influence of Soros over European Union and U.S. State Department policies during the administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama. 

Goldberg, a former and assistant secretary of state for intelligence and research, is an integral member of the U.S. intelligence bureaucracy and a "deep state" functionary of the highest order. Goldberg's placement in Cuba by Trump is yet another indication that Trump's rhetoric about his combating the "deep state" is pure political rhetoric having no basis in fact.

Cuban-American Senators Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Robert Menendez (D-NJ) have blocked the appointment of a full U.S. ambassador to Havana. President Obama nominated Cuba expert and diplomat Jeffrey DeLaurentis as ambassador but his nomination died in the Senate.

While in La Paz, Goldberg ran a major Central Intelligence Agency espionage operation out of the embassy. Before Goldberg, himself, was expelled from Bolivia in 2008, Assistant Regional Security officer at the U.S. embassy, Vince Cooper, was declared persona non grata by the Bolivian government and charged with espionage. Cooper had attempted to enlist U.S. Peace Corps volunteers and at least one Fulbright scholar in Bolivia to spy on Cuban and Venezuelan nationals in the country. One Fulbright scholar approached by Cooper, John Alexander van Shaick, blew the whistle on the espionage operation.

Goldberg supported secessionist movements in the energy resource-rich states of Santa Cruz, Beni, Pando, Cochabamba, and Tarija. Goldberg's activities, supported by the CIA station in La Paz and U.S. Special Forces in the country, sought to break away 35 percent of Bolivia's population to weaken Morales's government. Goldberg also supported the "Santa Cruz Autonomy Statute," which tried to withhold two-thirds of Santa Cruz's tax revenues from Morales's government and establish an autonomous state-wide police force.

Goldberg was also reportedly a part of a CIA terrorist operation in Bolivia that blew up agas pipeline from Bolivia to Sao Paulo, Brazil. The severing of the pipeline cut Bolivia's natural gas output to Brazil by 10 percent. Other Goldberg activities included coordinating anti-Morales actions by the right-wing governors of Santa Cruz, Pando, Beni, and Tarija. Opposition groups funded by the United States took over government buildings in the four states. The opposition also cut the gas flow to Brazil and Argentina by taking over gas installations.

Goldberg's actions left Morales no choice but to expel him from Bolivia in 2008. In solidarity with Morales, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez also expelled the U.S. ambassador in Caracas and Nicaragua's President Daniel Ortega sent the U.S. ambassador in Managua packing. In expelling ambassador Patrick Duddy, Chavez said, "Yankees, go to hell," adding that the United States was "full of shit."

As U.S. ambassador to the Philippines, Goldberg immediately involved himself in that nation's 2016 presidential election. Goldberg endorsed and assisted the campaign opponents of the eventual victor, Rodrigo Duterte. In August 2016, irritated by Goldberg's election meddling, Duterte called Goldberg a "'bakla' son-of-a-bitch." Bakla is Tagalog for gay.
In dispatching Goldberg as his "man in Havana," Trump has left no doubt that he expects the U.S. diplomat to stir up political violence and disruption in Cuba after Castro's resignation in April. Trump's Cuba policy, which foresees Trump and Scion hotel properties edging out Marriott, Hilton, Sheraton, Sofitel, and other chains in a country governed in a post-Castro era by returning right-wing Cubans from south Florida, is as obvious as Goldberg's jaded diplomatic resumé. Goldberg also represents Trump's growing neo-conservative contingent, which includes ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley and ambassador to Israel David Friedman, within key ranks in the State Department.

Fake news is not enough, now it's fake history BY THE WAYNE MADSEN REPORT

Fake news is not enough, now it's fake history 

BY THE WAYNE MADSEN REPORT

Donald Trump continues to push his full-throttled assault on the free press by claiming any news report that is critical of him or his policies constitutes "fake news." Not content with re-writing current events to fit Trump's agenda, some of his ardent supporters are now pushing the meme of "fake history" to discredit actual chronicles of past events in order to advance false or misleading historical claims or radical religious dogma. 

Altering history to achieve totalitarian rule was the basis for George Orwell's warning in the novel 1984: "Who controls the past, controls the future; who controls the present controls the past." Trump's affectation for "alternative facts" and baseless "fake news" are part of a treacherous attempt on his part to control the present. The efforts of Trump's alt-right supporters to create fake histories serve to control the past. The overall agenda represents a naked push to control the future.

Outside of the disciplines imposed by academic and archival research and historical and biographical documentation, fake history, like its evil twin fake news, is finding a hospitable nesting ground in social media. Facebook, Twitter, and Google are as responsible for promulgating false historical narratives as the alt-right's digital cesspools that include Breitbart News, the Daily Stormer, and Infowars. Although the governments of Britain, France, and Germany are attempting to enact laws against pushing fake news and history, there is no legislative solution to this problem. The only answer lies in educating the public, particularly school age youth, in relying on information that has passed the test of accuracy via scholarly vetting and accurate references.

Accurate referencing does not include movies like The Darkest Hour, which erroneously portrays wartime British Prime Minister Winston Churchill as a dogged opponent of German Nazism and Italian fascism. Churchill's number one priority in World War II was to protect and preserve the British Empire. Unfortunately, Trump believes The Darkest Hour presents an accurate history of Churchill, which only further feeds the Oval Office occupant's fractured knowledge of history. It is Trump's myopic knowledge of history that led him to proclaim some sort of equity between neo-Nazi and Ku Klux Klan protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia and those opposing their presence in the city that has a historical legacy that reaches from the Civil War and antebellum South back to Thomas Jefferson's founding of the University of Virginia in 1819.

Trump's racist supporters find the Civil War presents the greatest opportunity to proffer fake historical events. For example, the fake history of African-American Confederate battalions in the Civil War is a creation of the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV), an outwardly racist organization, which along with its sister group, the League of the South, seeks to restore the Confederate State of America. There is no record of any African Americans having fought under the Confederate flag. The SCV has been able to enlist the support of a few African-Americans like Anthony Hervey of Mississippi, "honorary" SCV member H.K. Edgerton of North Carolina [pictured right], Karen Cooper of Virginia, and 2013 Virginia GOP lieutenant governor candidate Reverend E. W. Jackson to support the flying of the Confederate battle flag, the singing of "Dixie," displaying Confederate memorials, and the belief in blacks fighting for the Confederacy, but these individuals are cartoonish outliers within their own communities.

There is no evidence that any regimented black soldiers fought for the Confederacy. A belief among some Confederacy supporters that General Stonewall Jackson commanded two battalions of black Confederate soldiers is made from whole cloth. Only when the Union forces were on the verge of defeating the Confederacy in March 1865 did the Confederate Congress in Richmond authorize the military training of a small number of freed slaves. However, the war ended before any African-Americans could take up arms. Internet websites offering "proof" of black Confederate soldiers are echo chambers for the SCV and related neo-Confederate organizations trying to repaint the Confederacy as benevolent toward African-Americans and not the prime protector of slavery as a valued institution of the South's culture and economic system.

In a Superbowl ad, Fiat-Chrysler decided to use a speech of Dr. Martin Luther King to pitch  RAM trucks. King said, "You don’t have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve." The ad then ran the slogan: "Built to Serve." There has been a recent tendency to use King as a corporate logo to sell products. George Washington's and Abraham Lincoln's likenesses have been used to sell everything from bed linens and mattresses to recreational vehicles and refrigerators. For those fake historians anxious to turn King into a shill for Wall Street, it should be noted that, far from urging people to buy pickup trucks, King penned the following notes while in seminary: "capitalism has seen its best days in American, and not only in America, but in the entire world."

There are other attempts by the alt-right to promote fake history. The most absurd theory is that Adolf Hitler was a "socialist" and Franklin D. Roosevelt was a "fascist." In fact, the opposite -- with a few qualifications in the case of FDR -- was true. Hitler's party was the National Socialist German Workers' Party -- shortened as "Nazi" -- but the party was more interested in nationalism and conquest than in workers' rights or socialism as advanced by the Marxist and democratic labor parties of the interwar era.

Fake history also includes an attempt to portray Senator Joseph McCarthy as correct in his   pursuit of "Communists" embedded in the U.S. government and President Harry S Truman as a Communist "fellow traveler." These falsehoods were originally promoted by the far-right John Birch Society, which, under Trump, has experienced a resurgence, along with its discredited fake history claims. The exchange of telegrams [above] between McCarthy and Truman presents an accurate illustration of McCarthy's perfidy and Truman's rejection of McCarthy's spurious allegations: 

Promoting fake history is not the same as researching alternate views of history. Historical research is a dynamic pursuit and newly-discovered documentation often results in acceptable revisionist views of historical events. However, revisionist views of history are different than fake history, the latter having no proof of supporting evidence, but merely unsubstantiated rantings and ramblings found on dodgy websites. Trump, however, in his repeated attacks on "fake news,' has legitimized those who traffic in fake history.

Betsy DeVos, Trump's billionaire Secretary of Education, is encouraging taxpayer-funded voucher and charter schools to teach "Christian history." This curriculum includes discredited "creationism" and the rejection of the scientific evolution of species. DeVos is more interested in America's public schools building "God's Kingdom" than in promoting true education, a goal that can only exist in a secular environment free of religious dogma and sectarian indoctrination. DeVos's and the Republican Party's overall support for historical illiteracy is compounded by the offerings on what was once known as the History Channel. This eyesore of the vast wasteland known as cable television now offers such mindless fare as "Swamp People," "American Pickers," "Counting Cars," and "The Curse of Oak Island." Instead of accomplished historians being cited for their work, a charlatan like Bill O'Reilly can claim the mantle of historical "expert" because he wrote a "Killing Series" of pulp fiction novels masked as historical research on the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Abraham Lincoln, and Jesus of Nazareth; the alleged assassination of General George Patton; and the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan. Conservative commentator Glenn Beck is another purveyor of fake history in his writings and Blaze cable TV network blathering.

After the Dark Ages, Europe emerged into the era of the Renaissance. The arts and the study of history flourished. Hopefully, the United States will emerge from the dark age of Trump into a new renaissance where historical fact wins out over ludicrous claims based on ignorance and intolerance.

Trump's military parade in DC could cost millions in damage and disruption by The Wayne Madsen Report

Trump's military parade in DC could cost millions in damage and disruption by The Wayne Madsen Report

Donald Trump's vainglorious desire for a military parade along Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC could result in millions of dollars in damage to streets, Washington Metro, and other key elements of the nation's capital's infrastructure. Trump recently tasked the Department of Defense to come up with a plan for a military parade that features armored vehicles, aircraft flying in formation, and marching military personnel. Trump got the idea after watching the French military parade held in Paris on Bastille Day while visiting Paris on July 14 last year.

The last time a military parade was held in Washington was after Operation Desert Storm in 1991. From a reviewing stand between 17th and 15th Streets, President George H. W. Bush viewed parading armored vehicles, mobile Patriot missile launchers, and troops dressed in camouflage combat uniforms. However, that parade was held along Constitution Avenue and consisted of two M1-A1 Abrams tanks, [pictured, left] each weighing 67-metric tons, and two 33-ton Bradley Fighting Vehicles. [pictured, right] The parade route was along Constitution Avenue, south of the White House Ellipse, and a safe distance from underground Metro stations and parking garages. However, there was still disruption to the capital's infrastructure, with street lights having to be removed and then re-installed and the armored vehicle treads from the tanks and Bradleys tearing up the asphalt along Constitution Avenue and side streets. Connecticut and Pennsylvania Avenues, as with many of DC's streets, are designed for a maximum of 30 gross weight tonnage per vehicle.

Another casualty of the 1991 parade was the Smithsonian's Hirshhorn Sculpture Garden. The only thing the attack helicopters over the Mall managed to "attack" with their rotor wash were sculptures in the outdoor garden. Pebbles kicked up by the helicopters strafed the sculptures, many of them priceless, with gouges. The total cost of parade damage for Washington was $12 million, not counting the destruction caused to the Hirshhorn. The Pentagon refused to pay the Smithsonian for the damage caused by its helicopters.

It does not take much in the way of seismic vibration or shaking to dislodge the hundreds of sheet-metal acoustic panels located in Metro stations underneath Pennsylvania Avenue between the U.S. Capitol and the White House. These include the Orange/Blue/Silver Line's Federal Triangle and the Yellow/Green Line's Archives-Navy Memorial stations. In November 2010, construction above Farragut North station on the Red Line resulted in the ceiling tiles collapsing onto the subway platform.

According to various news reports, Trump desires a parade much more extensive than the 1991 affair, with a number of armored vehicles and missiles. The annual French Bastille Day parade in Paris does feature armored vehicles along the Champs Elysees but they are put on display to assuage the personal whims of the French president. Since World War II, the French have honored their annual French Revolution commemoration with a military parade to mark France's victory over Nazism.

Washington has seen military parades in the past, but these, like the 1991 parade, were to mark the end of wars. Parades in Washington were held following the Civil War, World War I, and World War II.

Trump originally wanted military vehicles, such as tanks, featured in his inaugural parade along Pennsylvania Avenue on January 20, 2017. Because of inadequate time to plan for such a display, only fighter plane fly-overs were scheduled for the parade but they were canceled due to rain.

While there is bi-partisan opposition in Congress to Trump's military parade, Defense Secretary James Mattis claimed that the Pentagon has been "putting together some options" for the parade. Although some of the "options" include holding the parade outside of Washington, Trump is intent on Pennsylvania Avenue. The city recently repaved the street following the 2017 inaugural parade. DC Mayor Muriel Bowser said Trump would have to pay for the parade. Senator John Kennedy (R-LA) summed up the feelings of many congressional Republicans and Democrats about the proposed parade, "I don't think it's a particularly good idea. Confidence is silent. Insecurities are loud."

In a poll conducted by Military Times, which is largely read by active duty and retired military personnel and their families, 89 percent of the 51,000 respondents felt that the parade is "a waste of money," adding that "troops are too busy” for such an event. Many critics feel that such displays of military might are what can be expected from authoritarian regimes.

MBS to celebrate his palace coup in Washington with Trump, Kushner By The Wayne Madsen Report

MBS to celebrate his palace coup in Washington with Trump, Kushner 

By The Wayne Madsen Report

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, known as "MBS," will lead a large Saudi delegation to Washington this month, undoubtedly to brief Donald Trump and Middle East "special envoy" Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law, on the success of his royal palace coup against rival princes within the House of Saud. The MBS-led coup resulted in a number of Saudi princes being detained, with an additional two executed on orders from MBS. In his book Fire and Fury, author Michael Wolff wrote that Trump told friends that "we've put our man on top," after MBS's purge of his fellow princes. [To the left, Trump and MBS are seen shaking hands last year in Riyadh].

The 32-year old MBS is expected to hold more "strategy sessions" with Kushner, like those Kushner and MBS spent together until the early morning hours in Riyadh in October 2017. Some of the discussions also involved Jason Greenblatt, Trump's special adviser on the Middle East and his one-time business lawyer. 

Both Kushner and Greenblatt are known to represent the interests of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. It is expected that Kushner will push MBS to purchase additional defensive and offensive missile systems from Israel. Saudi Arabia has already obtained missile systems from Israeli firms, including Elbit Systems Ltd. and its American branch, Elbit Systems of America. 

It is significant that a key player in Saudi Arabia's arms purchases, Ahmed Al Khateeb, the chairman of Saudi Arabian Military Industries (SAMI), is expected to accompany MBS to Washington. Last November, MBS put SAMI in charge of all Saudi defense acquisitions. Also expected in Washington as part of the Saudi delegation are Lieutenant General Prince Fahd bin Turki bin Abdulaziz, the Commander of Saudi Ground Forces, and Khalid bin Ali Al Humaidan, the chief of the Saudi General Intelligence Directorate (GID).

For Donald Trump, the main issue to be discussed with MBS and his advisers is the listing of Saudi ARAMCO's initial public offering (IPO) with the New York Stock Exchange. Some Saudi officials, including ARAMCO chairman and Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih, want the IPO to be listed with the London exchange. They point out that a New York exchange IPO would pose a risk to the firm because it could be subjected to lawsuits and potential asset attachments by the families of victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks. ARAMCO President and CEO Amin Nasser has delayed a decision on the ARAMCO IPO listing until later this year. MBS is known to favor the NYSE for the listing but Nasser has also spoken in favor of London and Hong Kong or even Saudi Arabia's own Tadawul exchange in Riyadh. Trump tweeted last November his preference for New York: "Would very much appreciate Saudi Arabia doing their IPO of Aramco with the New York Stock Exchange. Important to the United States!"

It is expected that MBS and his delegation will push the United States to increase its military strikes against Houthi forces in Yemen. U.S. air attacks in Yemen have increased six-fold over those conducted by the Obama administration. The Pentagon insists that the attacks are aimed at forces of the Islamic State in Yemen, which it calls ISIS-Y. In fact, this is a not-so-clever cover story to mask U.S. strikes against Houthi forces. 

The Saudi coalition fighting on behalf of a puppet Yemeni government, which has now lost its base in Aden to United Arab Emirates-backed forces of the South Yemen independence al-Hirak al-Janoubi movement, has been caught providing military assistance to jihadists in Yemen. These include Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and the Pentagon's appellation, ISIS-Y. Other items on the MBS agenda in Washington include the Saudi-led sanctions imposed on Qatar, U.S. support for jihadist remnants in Syria, and increasing economic and diplomatic pressure on Iran and Lebanon, as well as Lebanese Hezbollah. The MBS agenda is virtually a copy of that of Netanyahu, including the desire to stymie lawsuits against Saudi interests by 9/11 victims' families. 

MBS will likely ask Trump for the United States to militarily help put down the South Yemeni "Southern Transitional Council" (STC), the de facto government now ruling South Yemen from Aden. MBS will call these forces, which include socialists and Marxists from the old People's Democratic Republic of [South] Yemen, "terrorists." However, that will result in a final break with the UAE's powerful Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Mohammed bin Zayed (MBZ), who supports the South Yemeni separatists. 

If Trump and Kushner decide to heed MBS's call and wade fully into the Yemeni civil war, the already-disastrous human suffering in Yemen will only grow worse. Also, aside from the support it is receiving from the UAE, it will be difficult for the STC to match the lobbying power of the Saudis in Washington. The STC's chief representative in the United States is Summer Ahmed, a Dearborn, Michigan mother, who also works as a lab technician. To beef up the STC's lobbying clout in Washington, the UAE hired Grassroots Political Consulting LLC to promote the interests of the STC in the Congress and White House.

Of interest to anti-fraud watchdog groups and Attorneys General suing the Trump administration for violating the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution -- which forbids a president from accepting money or gifts from foreign sovereigns -- is in what DC hotel the Saudis will stay during their time in Washington. 

In the past, the Saudis, as well as their Kuwaiti allies, have tended to favor Georgetown's plush Four Seasons Hotel or the downtown Ritz-Carlton. However, this February 26th, the Kuwaitis will hold their National Day celebration at the Trump International Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue. Last year, not only did the Kuwaitis hold their National Day celebration at the Trump venue but Saudi ally, Bahrain, chose it for their National Day celebration, just following the November 8, 2016 election. 

If the Saudi delegation or part of it choose to stay at the Trump-owned hotel, it will provide further proof for lawsuit plaintiffs that Trump is knowingly violating the Emoluments Clause to line his and his family's pockets. And there is every indication that most of the Saudi delegation will stay at the Trump hotel. Last year, MSL Group Americas, a lobbying firm hired by the Saudis to lobby against the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act or JASTA -- an act that allows families of 9/11 victims to sue Saudi Arabia and its interests -- spent $270,000 at the Trump International Hotel. 

Trump previously stated that he would turn over to the U.S. Treasury foreign profits from his hotels to the U.S. Treasury. To date, he has failed to do so.

U.S. now ranked as a "flawed democracy" By The Wayne Madsen Report

 U.S. now ranked as a "flawed democracy" By The Wayne Madsen Report

The staid financial and political news magazine The Economist is not prone to publish outlandish news stories and headlines. For that reason, the magazine’s readers around the world have taken notice of its annual Democracy Index for 2017. The magazine's 2016 Index warned that the United States had dropped from a "full democracy" to a "flawed democracy."

Thanks to the actions of the Trump administration, the United States fared even worse in the Index for 2017. The United States is still ranked as a "flawed democracy," but the actions of Trump to circumvent the powers of the legislative and judicial branches, as well as curtail the independence of the Justice Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation, have placed the nation at risk of dropping further in the annual index for 2018 to a "hybrid regime." The Economist Intelligence Unit, which calculates the annual Democracy Index, rates nations as falling into four categories: full democracy, flawed democracy, hybrid regime, and authoritarian regime.

The top five full democracies for recent years have included Norway, Iceland, Sweden, New Zealand, and Denmark. Norway finished at the top of the Democracy Index for 2017. For 2017, the United States was tied with Italy and ranked just behind South Korea and just ahead of Japan.

The writer Sinclair Lewis, author of Elmer Gantry and Main Street, [pictured, left] could have had someone like Donald Trump in mind when, in 1935, he published his best-selling novel It Can't Happen Here. In 1936, the novel was adapted into a play with the same title. The novel's chief protagonist is journalist Doremus Jessup, a reporter for the Fort Beulah, Vermont Daily Informer, an old-school liberal newspaper. Jessup helps lead the opposition to an authoritarian "populist" president named Berzelius "Buzz" Windrip.

In the 1936 election, Windrip defeats President Franklin D. Roosevelt at the Democratic National Convention, whereupon the incumbent president organizes the Jeffersonian Party to take on Windrip in the general election. Windrip goes on to defeat both Roosevelt and the fictional Republican candidate, Senator Walt Trowbridge, in the November election. Windrip, a firebrand populist, wins office on a platform of restricting immigration, attacking the poor, and threatening to curtail the "liberal" press. Windrip manages to get America's religious right to support him after he receives the full backing of a firebrand Indiana fundamentalist radio preacher named Bishop Prang.

After Trump's upset win over Hillary Clinton in 2016, Money magazine reported that sales of Lewis's novel spiked.

Soon after assuming office, Windrip proceeds to ban dissent. He trains a paramilitary force called the Minute Men to arrest his enemies and throw them into concentration camps. In his first State of the Union address, Trump announced he was keeping open the detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a U.S. military enclave that exists in a legal "no man's land" outside the constraints imposed by the U.S. Constitution.

One of Windrip's initial actions is to limit the power of the U.S. Congress. Windrip replaces Congress with a "Corpo" government that eliminates rights for women and minorities. The president also abolishes states by replacing them with administrative sections. Military tribunals take the place of civilian courts.

In reaction, Jessup joins the New Underground, led by Senator Trowbridge, to spirit dissidents out of the United States to political asylum in Canada. Jessup forms a new paper, called the Vermont Vigilance, to fight against Windrip's corporate fascist government.

After Windrip fails to deliver to his ardent supporters the improvement he promised to lift them out of the Great Depression, opposition to his presidency increases. After Windrip orders the arrest of his running mate, Vice President Perley Beecroft, for insubordination, the Veep flees the country. Windrip is eventually ousted in a coup led by his Secretary of State, chief propagandist, and one-time campaign adviser, Lee Sarason, as well as his top military adviser, General Dewey Haik. Windrip then flees to France.

Upset with Sarason's presidency, Haik leads a military revolt that commandeers the White House and kills Sarason and his top aides. Haik then orders a U.S. military invasion of Mexico. Lewis's novel ends as a civil war breaks out across the United States, with Jessup working as a spy for the New Underground in Corpo-ruled parts of southern Minnesota.

It Can't Happen Here was slated to become a 1936 film starring Lionel Barrymore; Basil Rathbone; radio's "Charlie Chan," Walter Connolly; and Virginia Bruce -- the co-star of 1936's The Great Ziegfeld. However, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer chief Louis B. Mayer axed the production after complaints were received from Nazi Germany, via the Production Code Administration in Washington, DC about the film's unsuitability for the German market.

In 1968, the film project was dusted off for the small screen in a TV mini-series with the working title of Shadow on the Land, starring Jackie Cooper, John Forsythe, and Gene Hackman, and Carol Lynley. Also titled, United States: It Can't Happen Here, the series pilot was aired as a made-for-television movie but the rest of the series' production run was canceled. As with the 1936 movie, there was reason to believe that right-wing elements in the United States -- including FBI director J. Edgar Hoover -- objected to the "anti-fascism" nature of the production. In 1982, a TV series based on Lewis's novel, titled Storm Warnings, was presented to NBC, which rejected the premise of a fascist takeover of the United States. NBC only bought off on the series after American fascists were recast as human-consuming reptilian extraterrestrials and the name of the series was changed to V.

More recently, Philip K. Dick's short novel, The Man in the High Castle, has been optioned for a third season as a miniseries on Amazon Prime. Dick's story is set in an alternate history in 1962, fifteen years after the Axis powers defeat the Allies. The United States is split between the German Reich, which occupies the East Coast and Midwestern states, and the Japanese Empire, which occupies the Pacific States. The Rockies exist as a neutral zone law and order do not exist. Dick, like Lewis, portrays a number of Americans as willing accomplices of fascist overseers. The Man in the High Castle series premiered during the 2016 election and after the electoral success of Trump, production was extended for two additional years.

It would appear that after so many failures in bringing It Can't Happen Here to the screen, the political advent of a authoritarian bully real estate developer, who became popular with a reality TV show on NBC, has brought about an adaptation of the Sinclair Lewis novel to real life. The Economist's Democracy Index's rating of the United States as a downward-spiraling flawed democracy confirms the fact that "It Has Happened Here."