Tag Archives: United Arab Emirates

Biden Appointee Spread Russian Hacker Conspiracy

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Neera Tanden, who President-elect Joe Biden nominated to serve as Director of the Office of Management and Budget, speaks at The Queen theater, Tuesday, Dec. 1, 2020, in Wilmington, Del. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

How can Democrats oppose unhinged conspiracy theories while empowering its worst purveyors?

By Glenn Greenwald

Source: Scheerpost

The announcement that Joe Biden intends to nominate Neera Tanden as his Director of the Office of Management and Budget — a critical position overseeing U.S. economic and regulatory policy — triggered a wide range of mockery, indignation and disgust from both the left and the right. That should not be surprising: though a thoroughly mediocre and ordinary D.C. swamp creature from the perspective of both ideology and competence, Tanden’s uniquely unhinged, venomous, corrupt and pathologically dishonest conduct as a Clinton Family and DNC apparatchik and President of the corporatist-and-despot-funded Center for American Progress (CAP) has earned her a list of enemies far longer and more impressive than her accomplishments.

When news of her appointment broke, many of the journalists and activists she has spent years abusing, slandering, and lying about instantly stepped forward to compile just some of her worst political and behavioral lowlights. And some preliminary signs emerged that she might encounter difficulty in obtaining the Senate confirmation needed for her to assume this position. The Communications Director for GOP Senator John Cornyn of Texas announced that “Tanden stands zero chance of being confirmed” by the Senate.

Former Sanders campaign aide David Sirota hypothesized that “it is not a coincidence that they are putting Neera Tanden — the single biggest, most aggressive Bernie Sanders critic in the United States of America — specifically at OMB while Sanders is Senate Budget Committee ranking/chair.” Sirota’s statement suggests Biden’s nomination of Tanden was intended as yet more humiliation doled out to the Democratic-loyal Sanders left by cucking the Vermont Senator even further by forcing him to shepherd the confirmation of one of his most vicious and amoral attackers (who Sanders himself in 2019 vehemently denounced). But Sirota’s point also raises the prospect that Tanden’s nomination could even encounter trouble from that side of the aisle as well (given Sanders’ compliant and disciplined conduct over the last six months, it’s more likely we will see him roll out a literal red carpet for Tanden to walk on, gently toss red roses on it before she passes, and then serve her a glass of Chardonnay rather than meaningfully obstruct her confirmation).

The list of sociopathic and even monstrous acts from Tanden is too long to list comprehensively. She punched one of her own employees, a reporter for CAP’s now-abolished blog ThinkProgress, after he had the temerity to ask Hillary Clinton in 2008 about her support for the Iraq War (Tanden claimed she “merely” had “pushed,” not punched, her undeferential reporter). In 2011, as the Obama administration was participating in the NATO bombing of Libya, Tanden suggested in internal CAP discussions that the U.S. steal Libya’s oil as a way of reducing the U.S. deficit (a story I was able to report only because Tanden had abused and alienated so many of her employees that they worked together to leak her incriminating emails to me).

During her tenure as CAP’s President, Tanden accepted millions of dollars from the regime of the United Arab Emirates, which built Dubai and Abu Dhabi using slave labor, along with massive donations from Facebook, Google, Microsoft, J.P. Morgan, the Walton Family and Michael Bloomberg, while hiding the identity of some of her think tank’s largest donors. A huge chapter on the NYPD’s abusive policies toward Muslims under Mayor Michael Bloomberg was removed from a CAP report after Boomberg donated more than $1 million to Tanden’s organization, and he continued to donate even more after that courteous gesture.

She ordered the supposedly independent journalists of the ThinkProgress blog, including Muslim writers, to stop writing critically about Israel after key CAP donors, including Barney Frank’s sister Ann Lewis and long-time Clinton advisor Howard Wolfson, complained. She and Wolfson plotted in 2016 how to weaponize female journalists and people of color against Hillary’s critics as well to use their identity to stigmatize and thus stop undesirable coverage from The New York Times. In 2018, she outed a CAP employee at a staff-wide meeting who had filed an anonymous complaint of sexual harassment and retaliation against one of Tanden’s male allies. Secure with her UAE-and-corporate-funded large salary, she has long urged cuts to Social Security. The list goes on and on.

Freedom Rider: U.S. Wages War Against the World

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By Margaret Kimberly

Source: Black Agenda Report

The U.S. “troika of tyranny,” Trump, Bolton and Pompeo, are making things up as they go along, seeking to bend the planet to their lawless will.

“The activists who chose to protect the Venezuelan embassy from Guaido and the other Venezuelan traitors are showing us the way to move forward.”

This columnist has spent many years predicting a United States war on Iran. There is now a president who may finally make good on that long expressed threat. Donald Trump is deep in the thrall of Saudi Arabia and Israel, the two nations that pose the greatest risk to Iran. He happily does their bidding and is in a position to bring the sick neocon fantasy to reality.

But the U.S. excels at nothing except creating misery for millions of people and raising the risk of an all out hot war.  Cuba recently instituted rationing after Trump returned to the bad old days of strict sanctions enacted against that nation. More than 40,000 Venezuelans have lost their lives as a result of the crushing sanctions imposed on that country. Iran suffered catastrophic flooding but not one country would provide them with needed aid because U.S. sanctions prevented them from doing so.

“More than 40,000 Venezuelans have lost their lives as a result of the crushing sanctions.”

Aside from starving civilians and depriving them of medical care, the U.S. can’t do much else that doesn’t create dangerous consequences. The latest regime change attempt failed miserably and exposed the limits of U.S. power.  The Venezuelan coup attempt was a complete farce . Hand-picked puppet Juan Guaido never had more than 25 soldiers on his side, and those few were tricked into showing up for what amounted to a photo-op.

In the interim, National Security Adviser John Bolton and Secretary of State Pompeo have proven themselves to be the worst in a long line of bad foreign policy decision making. First they accused Iran of some unspecified aggressive act and sent a fleet of ships to make their case for a war of aggression. Then Pompeo scheduled meetings with Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov to be followed by talks with Vladimir Putin himself. But he chose to cut short his time in Russia in order to meet with Europeans and enlist their support for action against Iran.

“Hand-picked puppet Juan Guaido never had more than 25 soldiers on his side.”

All of the bluster, meeting changes and dispatching navy vessels to the Persian gulf prove one important point. The U.S. “troika of tyranny,” Trump, Bolton and Pompeo, are making things up as they go along. They picked a trade fight with China that they could not win. They want regime change in Iran and Venezuela but they won’t get the results they want even if they carry out military attacks.

In the meantime they fall back on the old tricks of false flags, in this case blaming Iran for a mysterious and conveniently timed oil tanker explosion in the United Arab Emirates. The Saudi puppets are obviously part of the plan and right on cue claim to have been sabotaged .

The United States has willing vassals such as the NATO member states. It has the biggest military in the world. It can attack Venezuela or Iran but faces serious consequences should it do so. Iran and Venezuela have friends, namely Russia and China. Those two countries have developed a strong alliance in order to protect themselves from the crazed and unpredictable Americans.

“They fall back on the old tricks of false flags.”

The U.S. continues to up the ante with phony requests to attack Venezuela allegedly coming from the dupes who thought the United States would put them in power. It isn’t coincidental that the activists protecting the Venezuelan embassy were expelled at the same time.

The evil war mongers are very stupid but that it isn’t a cause for celebration. Unintended consequences have already lead to two world wars and millions of dead.  Unfortunately no one who ought to educate the public on this subject are doing what they should. The corporate media always support presidents at war. Even supposedly liberal outlets have spent years demonizing Russia, Venezuela and Iran. In so doing they have made the population ignorant and or blood thirsty. Democrats in congress are equally imperialist and will say nothing as the government plans a humanitarian catastrophe. At most they will mutter that Trump must ask for their approval before killing thousands of people. Instead they carry on the discredited Russiagate story but oppose none of the things that actually make the Trump administration so dangerous.

“At most Democrats will mutter that Trump must ask for their approval before killing thousands of people.”

But Russiagate and phony claims of a constitutional crisis were intentionally created for this moment. When the United States most needs détente and a lessening of tensions, the lies meant to make Russia look like an aggressor are repeated and make war more likely.

Only the people can lead the United States away from disaster. The activists who chose to protect the Venezuelan embassy from Guaido and the other Venezuelan traitors are showing us the way to move forward. Leftish Democrats won’t help us. The media will continue to lie in service to the state. The “resistance” aren’t angry about anything except a faux scandal. Those of us who want peace will have to say so and demand that our representatives work for the people and not for the cause of war and suffering. There will be no saviors for this country or for the rest of the world. We can only rely on ourselves.