In July of 2016, Nick Turse wrote at The Intercept about “1,700 Navy SEALs, Army Green Berets, and other military personnel” who were then “carrying out 78 distinct ‘mission sets’ in more than 20 nations” across Africa. This military activity is in line with the increased United States military focus on Africa that Turse described three years earlier in his Tom Dispatch article “The Pivot to Africa: The Startling Size, Scope, and Growth of U.S. Military Operations on the African Continent.” By October of last year, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Joseph Dunford was acknowledging the US had “a little over 6,000 forces … in about 53 different countries” in Africa. read on...
Is President Trump even in any kind of control of his own Administration? His Treasury Department has slapped new sanctions on Russia over a list of grievances that sound like they could have come from a Hillary or an Obama Administration. Poll after poll shows that the majority of Americans and the vast majority of Republicans want the President to get on with improving relations with Russia, yet his Administration is moving in the opposite direction. RPI Director Daniel McAdams is interviewed on how the Trump Administration's foreign policy seems to be out of the hands of Trump... read on...
President Donald Trump says he wants to improve relations between the United States and Russia, and he met in July with Russia President Vladimir Putin largely in a purported effort to move toward this goal. Yet, the Trump administration continues to send more US troops and military equipment to along the Russia border, including in Norway. Around 300 US Marines were deployed to Norway in the final days of the Barack Obama administration. Then, last week, Reuters reported that the Trump administration will soon more than double to 700 the number of Marines in Norway and that some Marines will be stationed closer than before to Norway’s border with Russia. read on...
Last week Trump suspended former CIA head John Brennan’s security clearance. His defenders immediately rose to declare this shall not stand. Twelve former intelligence officials signed a statement criticizing Trump’s decision, claiming “We have never before seen the approval or removal of security clearances used as a political tool, as was done in this case… this action is quite clearly a signal to other former and current officials to stay silent.” read on...
Reading Rutherford Institute President John W. Whitehead’s Monday editorial “From Boston to Ferguson to Charlottesville: The Evolution of a Police State Lockdown,” I wanted to find out more about an arrest Whitehead mentions took place over the weekend in his hometown of Charlottesville, Virginia. Following a link in Whitehead’s editorial to a Daily Progress article by Allison Wrabel, I found that John Miska, a local individual who was arrested for defying some of the draconian restrictions government imposed in the city last weekend, provides a heroic example of resistance to the police state and martial law conditions about which Whitehead warns in the editorial. read on...
Interviewed Tuesday at RT, libertarian communicator Ron Paul weighed in on social media companies’ purges this week that have affected individuals including popular talk show host Alex Jones and Ron Paul Institute Executive Director Daniel McAdams. Paul argues that purges undertaken by social media companies often are motivated by a desire to silence people “challenging the status quo,” instead of the purported reasons social media companies offer related to “terms of service.” He also chides the companies for doing “the work for the NSA,” or the National Security Agency, in conducting mass surveillance. read on...
A new episode of Five Minutes Five Issues is out. You can listen to it, and read a transcript, below. You can also find previous episodes of the show at Stitcher, iTunes, YouTube, and SoundCloud. read on...
Some readers are aware I have been permanently suspended from Twitter as @wemeantwell. This followed exchanges with several mainstream journalists over their support for America’s wars and unwillingness to challenge the lies of government. After two days of silence, Twitter sent me an auto-response saying what I wrote “harasses, intimidates, or uses fear to silence someone else’s voice.” read on...
A new episode of Five Minutes Five Issues is out. You can listen to it, and read a transcript, below. You can also find previous episodes of the show at Stitcher, iTunes, YouTube, and SoundCloud. read on...
It seems that United States government actions taken in the name of “security” become more oppressive each year. This trend can be seen in the activities of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) that corrals people into checkpoints at airports for harassment, friskings, and warrantless searches of luggage — abuse that worsens over time. For example, last year, TSA friskings were made more invasive with the introduction of a new “universal pat-down” procedure. And, this week, we have the revelation of the TSA’s Quiet Skies that James Bovard, in a new editorial, sums up as a surveillance program “spurring federal air marshals to target dozens of Americans each day on the flimsiest of pretexts.” read on...
