Protester in Pikachu suit joins mass demonstrations in Turkey over arrest of Erdogan’s top rival
Previously:
Georgian “protests” in pictures
Beware of the Juan Guaidó of Türkiye
Tag: front organizations
The Psychoanalytic Kindergarten Project in Soviet Russia
The perils of job hunting
I’ve been searching for remote work opportunities, and one organization immediately caught my eye. It’s been funded by the European Union, the Ford Foundation, the German International Cooperation Society, Germany’s Federal Foreign Office, the Tides Foundation, UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office, USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, and the Global Women’s Institute at the George Washington University, among others. The idea of working for a front organization—while exposing them—would be ironic (not to mention hypocritical).
Read More »How the US bankrolled Duterte’s alleged crimes against humanity
How the US bankrolled Duterte’s alleged crimes against humanity
Less than a month after Duterte took office, then- Secretary of State John Kerry announced a $32 million weapons and training package specifically to support the Philippine National Police. He made no mention of Duterte’s numerous threats to weaponize law enforcement on the campaign trail, or the fact that 239 suspected drug users had already been killed by police without due process at that point.
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USAID Updates
Trump aides circulate plan for complete revamp of foreign aid programs
— Placing the Millennium Challenge Corporation and the U.S. Trade and Development Agency under the auspices of the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation. The combined entity would focus on promoting private sector investment, especially in areas such as infrastructure, energy and technology. The document says the new approach would be a powerful counterweight to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which Beijing has used to gain economic and diplomatic footholds in many countries.
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Palantir Goes to the Frankfurt School
Since the election of Donald Trump, a growing body of research has examined the role of digital technologies in new right wing movements (Lewis 2018; Hawley 2017; Neiwert 2017; Nagle 2017). This article will explore a distinct, but related, subject: new right wing tendencies within the tech industry itself. Our point of entry will be an improbable document: a German language dissertation submitted by an American to the faculty of social sciences at J. W. Goethe University of Frankfurt in 2002. Entitled Aggression in the Life-World, the dissertation aims to describe the role that aggression plays in social integration, or the set of processes that lead individuals in a given society to feel bound to one another. To that end, it offers a “systematic” reinterpretation of Theodor Adorno’s Jargon of Authenticity (1973). It is of interest primarily because of its author: Alexander C. Karp.
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Read More »Concerns over MEK’s potential Influence in Congress + More
The Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) has renewed its efforts to position itself as a credible opposition movement to the Islamic Republic. The recent outcome of the group’s lobbying activities has been a resolution submitted by 160 congressmen. However, a comprehensive new report from the Congressional Research Service [CRS] critically assesses these ongoing efforts, underscoring significant concerns regarding the MEK’s extremist ideological origins, historical involvement in terrorism, documented human rights abuses, and notably weak popular support among Iranians both domestically and within the diaspora.
Concerns over MEK’s potential Influence in Congress (archived)
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Read More »The Latest on Colby’s Strategy of Denial
There’s little in Elbridge A. Colby’s past to suggest that President Trump’s most loyal and fierce allies would embrace him.
Mr. Colby, 45, has deep roots in the foreign policy establishment that Mr. Trump is trying to destroy. He is the grandson of the former C.I.A. director William Colby; a product of Groton, Harvard and Yale Law School; someone who has spent much of his career working across party lines on some of the most complex national security issues: nuclear weapons strategy, China’s military buildup, the commercialization of space.
A Pentagon Nomination Fight Reveals the New Rules of Trump’s Washington
Related:
US Army War College: Adapting US Defense Strategy to Great-Power Competition
USNI: A Forward Denial Defense: Inside the First Island Chain
Beware of the Juan Guaidó of Türkiye
Ekrem İmamoğlu, mayor of Istanbul and a prominent figure in the Republican People’s Party (CHP), is widely regarded as President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s primary political opponent. His arrest occurred just days before the CHP was expected to officially announce him as their candidate for the 2028 presidential election. Ironically, Wikipedia characterizes him as a “dark horse” candidate, a relatively unknown figure who emerged as a challenger in the 2019 Istanbul mayoral election. In other words, the Juan Guaidó of Türkiye.
During his tenure as Mayor of Istanbul, İmamoğlu appointed Yavuz Saltık as the Chief of Staff of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality. Saltık had previously served as an advisor for prominent international organizations, including the International Republican Institute (IRI), the National Democratic Institute (NDI), and the Konrad Adenauer Foundation (KAS). Notably, the IRI and NDI are key elements of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), while KAS is closely linked to the German political party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). NED gets the majority of its funding from the U.S. Congress. The origins of the NED trace back to the late 1960s, when the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) came under scrutiny for covertly backing activists and opposition groups in countries perceived to be aligning with the Soviet Union. After these CIA operations were exposed, the agency faced widespread criticism for what many viewed as underhanded interference in the affairs of sovereign nations. Following years of debate over whether and how such funding should persist, Congress ultimately established the NED in 1983.
Unsurprisingly, Trotskyist factions are rallying behind what appears to be another color revolution, aimed at “balkanizing” Iran, establishing Greater Kurdistan, and undermining China and Russia.
Related:
Flashback 2019: Could the US force regime change in Turkey- The short answer is yes.
Read More »Judge blocks Trump 2.0’s declaration of war on Venezuelan “gangs”
Federal judge blocks Trump’s plan to target ‘alien enemies’ for deportation
In his latest move to clamp down on illegal immigration and immigration more broadly, President Trump has filed a presidential action invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, a seldom-used law that gives the president authority to detain or deport nationals of an enemy nation during wartime. It’s only the fourth time in American history a president has used the act — and the first since World War II.
The directive targets members of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan prison gang, and authorizes expedited removal of all Venezuelan citizens 14 and older, deemed to be members of the organization, who are not U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents.
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Ms. Cat’s Chronicles 
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