Leaders of the far-right Proud Boys group, including its national chairman, Enrique Tarrio, have been charged with seditious conspiracy for plotting to storm the U.S. Capitol to obstruct the certification of Joe Biden’s election win over Donald Trump on January 6, 2021.
While this is certainly a move in the right direction,...
CIA detracts from national security by purporting to know what it doesn’t
In a recent feature article in The New Yorker magazine, writer Amy Davidson Sorkin recalls the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s 1995 bill, the Abolition of the Central Intelligence Agency Act.
One of the original neoconservatives, Moynihan had...
I had the great fortune recently of addressing a gathering of Greek parliamentarians in Athens and with meeting members of the European Parliament to discuss national security whistleblowing. The European Union has drafted, and will soon release, a new whistleblower protection law that would be the finest and most comprehensive...
Some people on the left have been confused about what to do in November. So much so, that former members of Students for a Democratic Society felt compelled to write an open letter urging a vote for Biden against Trump. We agree.
A Trump victory would further exacerbate inequality, sexism...
Yellow Journalism of the Hearst Era Is Alive and Well in the 21st Century
There is a wise old maxim that says, “The first step on the road to wisdom is to call things by their right names.” So, let’s do that.
"Fake News" has been around a long while: The...
In chaotic times like ours, it behooves us to practice proactive optimism, which is far more than infantile hope or pious faith.
Conscious, vigorous optimism is visionary and builds on our awareness of our human identity and dignity. It expresses our faith in humanity, our resolve to be morally and...
History as usual provides a cautionary lesson
On August 8, 1974, Richard M. Nixon resigned from the presidency in disgrace with impeachment proceedings underway against him for the Watergate affair in which five men from his presidential election reelection committee were caught trying to break into and undertake illegal wiretapping...
The tale of a Vegas gambler, failed politician, and professional Nazi groupie
The war in Ukraine has been a bonanza for grifters. From mercenaries and gun runners to OSINT (Open Source Intelligence) and journalists, a bottomless well of western financing combined with a firehose stream of information both true and...
I’ve been doing a lot of research lately for a new book I’m writing that has nothing whatsoever to do with intelligence or the CIA, and I stumbled upon the biography of Frank Mankiewicz, the former Robert F. Kennedy speechwriter, who apparently had been a “secret backchannel” between President...
More and More Are Seeing Through the Lies
As Amnesty International confirms the inconvenient truths, which many independent journalists and political observers already knew, about the Ukrainian army’s behavior in Donbass, it's worth examining how manipulating the truth has become—not only an everyday occurrence but a central element of the West's proxy...
