INTREPID REPORT: Week of July 23, 2018

Intrepid Report Newsletter
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So please Donate  Monday Trump and his supporters encourage violence By Wayne Madsen While mourning continues over the shooting deaths of five members of the staff of the Annapolis Journal Gazette, including four journalists, by a deranged pro-Donald Trump and neo-confederate-supporting madman, Trump doubled-down on his incendiary comments about the press, again referring to the media as the “real enemy of the people.” Trump also continues to bash the Democratic Party, claiming it has a “death wish.” Taking ‘wrecking ball’ to Endangered Species Act, Trump administration opens door for corporate attack on vulnerable wildlife If Interior Department's proposals are approved, "Zinke will go down in history as the extinction secretary" By Julia Conley Gutting the law that has protected the bald eagle, the American crocodile, the gray wolf, and countless other animals from extinction over the past four decades, the Trump administration gave its latest handout to corporate interests on Thursday when it unveiled sweeping changes to the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Ethiopia’s peaceful revolution By Thomas C. Mountain The uniquely African Empire of Ethiopia has seen itself launched into a peaceful revolution that promises to transform one of the planets poorest countries into a modern people’s democracy. Pharma ‘screening’ is a ploy to seize more patients By Martha Rosenberg There is an old saying that if you keep going into a barber shop, eventually you will get a haircut. The same can be said of Pharma’s many health “screenings.” Israeli war on Gaza over kites? By Stephen Lendman Hamas is a legitimate political organization, not a terrorist group as falsely designed by Israel and Washington in deference to the Jewish state. Tuesday Stripping away local governmental powers: a global rising tide of fascism By Wayne Madsen Fascists love strong central government control. On the other hand, local autonomy represents good governance, something that is anathema to fascists. Today, around the world, local governments at the municipal, provincial, and regional levels are finding themselves under siege by central governments exercising what can only be described as fascist grabs for unitary executive power. Trump’s Space Force: Military profiteering’s final frontier ‘The heavens are going to be littered with radioactive debris.’ By Harvey Wasserman The commander-in-chief, President Donald Trump, has announced a new mission into the realm of martial excess. It is one is that will surely enrich the aerospace industry while spreading the global battlefield to a new dimension. As Trump tweets threats, warnings of his team ‘working in lock step to lay groundwork’ for war with Iran By Jessica Corbett Following weekend reporting that key members of President Donald Trump’s cabinet are leading a campaign to “foment unrest” in Iran, and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s warning that a conflict between the two countries “would be the mother of all wars,” Trump turned to Twitter late Sunday with a message for Rouhani. Diabolical plot to extradite Assange to US By Stephen Lendman Ecuador granted WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange political asylum at its London embassy in August 2012. Israel—a blatantly apartheid state Jewish Nation-State Law leaves Palestinians in the lurch as hopes for an independent state fade By Linda S. Heard No people on earth have battled for their right to live independently and in dignity as long and hard as the Palestinians. The tragedy is they have been abandoned. Their traditional champions either have problems of their own or feel impotent against the joint might of the Jewish state and its backer, the United States, where states are passing laws defining criticism of the Israeli state as anti-Semitic. Wednesday Bannon establishing ‘Fascist International’ bureau in Brussels By Wayne Madsen Former Donald Trump White House strategist and 2016 campaign chairman Stephen Bannon has been active in Europe trying to stir up far-right political agitation. His latest move has been to announce the creation of an international organization of the far-right in Brussels, known simply as “The Movement.” It is not known where Bannon is getting the funds to start The Movement. In the past, Bannon has received generous subsidies from the billionaire father-daughter team of Robert and Rebekah Mercer. The duo funded Bannon’s former media enterprise, Breitbart News. The faulty logic behind the Zionist attack on BDS By Lawrence Davidson If you search the topic boycotts on Google you immediately realize how historically common they are. There are a lot to choose from, and one of the first listed is the 1769 boycott instituted by the First Continental Congress against Great Britain over the issue of “taxation without representation.” That makes a boycott against a perceived oppressive power an integral part of American heritage. Falsely blaming Hamas for Israeli high crimes By Stephen Lendman Blaming victims is longstanding US, Israel, and scoundrel media policy. More lies from the corrupt elite Don’t believe them By Paul Craig Roberts For two decades the offshoring of American jobs to Asia and Mexico has destroyed the careers and incomes of tens of millions of US citizens, the pension tax base for state and local governments, the federal tax base for Social Security and Medicare, and the opportunity society that once characterized the United States of America. We’re living a constitutional crisis By Robert Reich I keep hearing that if Trump fires Mueller, we’ll face a “constitutional crisis.” Or if Mueller subpoenas Trump to testify and Trump defies the subpoena, it’s a “constitutional crisis.” Or if Mueller delivers substantial evidence that Trump is guilty of colluding with Russia or of obstructing justice, and the House does nothing to impeach him, we have a “constitutional crisis.” Thursday Trump’s political vendettas another sign of creeping dictatorship By Wayne Madsen No one has been more critical of the policies of former Central Intelligence Agency director John Brennan when he was in charge at Langley than I. And this editor’s criticisms of former National Security Agency and CIA director Michael Hayden became very well known to him and his top aides at both agencies. Ditto with Susan Rice when she was the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and national security adviser under Barack Obama. An independent journalist in Eritrea By Thomas C. Mountain Officially I don’t exist. I am an independent journalist in the small east African country of Eritrea who. after 12 years here and over 150 internationally published articles, I find that officially I don’t exist. Freedom Rider: Blacks need to stop calling the enemy ‘we’ and ‘us’ By Margaret Kimberley It is a sad to see black people speak of themselves in the first person when referencing the United States government, its intelligence agencies, and war making apparatus. Two years of relentless war propaganda has conflated opposition to Trump with the interests of the ruling elites. Words such as “our allies,” “our intelligence community,” and “our democracy” should never come out of a black person’s mouth.” The desire to be rid of the racist-in-chief has caused a new epidemic of mental illness. Big Pharma is Murder, Inc. By Jack Balkwill Thousands of people have died from taking Big Pharma’s products as directed, with Big Pharma executives aware that their products caused sickness and death. Kafka on the border The administration has trapped immigrant families in a bureaucratic nightmare—and brought media hacks rushing to defend the indefensible. By Jim Hightower Insanity reigns. The inmates are now officially in charge of the national asylum. Friday No doubt about it: The Deep State is real and Trump is its latest tool By John W. Whitehead There are those who would have you believe that President Trump is an unwitting victim of the Deep State. Jewish Nation-State Law: Why Israel was never a democracy By Ramzy Baroud The head of the Arab Joint List Alliance at the Israeli Knesset (Parliament), Aymen Odeh, described the passing of the racist Jewish Nation-State Law as “the death of our democracy.” An unhappy birthday for Medicare and Medicaid As the iconic health programs turn 53, the GOP is advancing plans to privatize one and gut the other. By Martha Burk July 30 marks a very important anniversary in our modern political history. ‘The American Oligarchy’: A review By Chris Wright Consumers of left-wing media are well aware that America is an oligarchy, not a democracy. Everyone with a functioning cerebrum, in fact, should be aware of it by now: even mainstream political scientists recognize it, as shown by a famous 2014 study by Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page. Nevertheless, it is important to continue to publicize the oligarchical character of the United States, in order to delegitimize the institutions that have destroyed democracy (insofar as it ever existed) and inspire people to take action to restore it. Ron Formisano’s book American Oligarchy: The Permanent Political Class (2017) is a valuable contribution to this collective project. White Helmets: Something wicked is coming our way By Jane Stillwater What’s your worst nightmare? That you drive over a cliff after your brakes fail? That Jurassic World’s T-Rex chases you down the street? That you are forced to become a Republican (just kidding)—or that a former member of ISIS moves in next door?