CovertAction Institute

09/18/2026

Debrief From Quito: Ecuador’s 2021 Presidential Election to the Present

With and sometimes without one raggedy, expired Telesur press pass and a handful of inside contacts, Esteban Carrillo and I repeatedly penetrated Ecuador’s presidential candidate Andrés Arauz’s security detail.

A protégé of former Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa, Arauz won the 2021 first-round vote by more than 13 percentage points over his top rival, right-wing banker Guillermo Lasso. Over the course of five months during the general election campaign, we gave everybody—from Arauz’s personal bodyguards to military soldiers and their checkpoints—the slip, attending press conferences, political rallies, and other events where he and his vice-presidential running mate, Carlos Rabascall, appeared and gave public statements.

We were in good. Too good. In broad daylight we literally bumped shoulders with both candidates at polling station entrances or after they had cast their ballots on first and second round election days. On two separate occasions, without being frisked, i even interviewed Arauz, the country’s leading presidential candidate.

“Arauz’s security detail is weak,” I wondered aloud. “Yeah,” Esteban replied on cue, “it’s almost like they want something to happen to him.”

And that something was not mere hypothesis. Notwithstanding backing from right-wing U.S. lobbyists, another presidential candidate, Yaku Pérez (Pachakutik Party), an “eco-socialist” implant subverting the climate-conscious and Indigenous vote, would eventually make his intentions clear, calling for an Ecuadorian military intervention, as well as requesting a purge of electoral authorities and nullification of the first-round electoral results on February 7th. [...]

With and sometimes without one raggedy, expired Telesur press pass and a handful of inside contacts, Esteban Carrillo and I repeatedly penetrated Ecuador’s presidential candidate Andrés Arauz’s security detail. A protégé of former Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa, Arauz won the 2021 first-r...

09/18/2026

Trial of Accused Tupac Shakur Murderer Brings to Light Police Coverup

On August 31, Duane “Keffe D” Davis was convicted of first-degree murder for his role in the death of famed rapper Tupac Shakur 30 years earlier.

Prosecutors argued that Davis and his nephew, Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson, “went hunting” for Shakur after Anderson was in a fight with him and his entourage at the MGM Grand following a Mike Tyson boxing match, Chief Deputy District Attorney Binu Palal said.

According to Palal, Davis led the charge through his role as a “shot caller” for the Southside Compton Crips and, ultimately, was driven by self-interest in his statements.

The defense countered by saying that the evidence tying Davis to Tupac’s killing was inconclusive and that the prosecution had not presented documentation to show that Davis was even in Las Vegas at that time.

Evidently the jury did not believe this. But regardless of whether Davis was involved in the murder in some capacity, he is a small fish compared to some of the big players who were involved in Tupac’s murder, which appears to have been orchestrated at higher levels.

Like other Black artists, Tupac was a target of offshoots of the FBI’s COINTELPRO operation.

He came from a radical family linked to the Black Power Movement and was considered a threat to revitalize the spirit of that movement, especially because his rap songs adopted subversive anti-establishment messaging.

The FBI, at the behest of ruling U.S. elites, deliberately provoked internecine conflict among Black rappers and groups that, if united, could have potentially mobilized Black youth in a political direction and away from the gang violence that has helped to devastate the Black community along with neo-liberal economic policies that have affected them disproportionately, racialized policing and the War on Drugs, which has spawned a new Jim Crow. [...]

On August 31, Duane “Keffe D” Davis was convicted of first-degree murder for his role in the death of famed rapper Tupac Shakur 30 years earlier. Prosecutors argued that Davis and his nephew, Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson, “went hunting” for Shakur after Anderson was in a fight with him a...

09/16/2026

Displaced Chagossians Are Among Victims of Iran War

The Trump administration is blocking an agreement that would allow Chagossians who were displaced 60 years ago to return to their homeland

The many victims of the Iran War include thousands of Chagossian refugees living in Mauritius who have been prevented from returning to their home on Diego Garcia in the Chagos Islands for more than 60 years.

In May 2025, the British government signed an agreement with the Mauritius government, which vowed to allow the displaced Chagossians to finally return home.[1]

The Trump administration initially supported the agreement, though withdrew its support shortly before the U.S. attacked Iran in February. Donald Trump stated that he did not want to relinquish control of the U.S. military base on Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.[2] [...]

The Trump administration is blocking an agreement that would allow Chagossians who were displaced 60 years ago to return to their homeland The many victims of the Iran War include thousands of Chagossian refugees living in Mauritius who have been prevented from returning to their home on Diego Garci...

09/16/2026

China Officially Stands for World Peace Yet Cooperates with U.S. War-Making and Promotes Alienation

China seeks to be the world’s richest country. It already has the world’s second most millionaires/billionaires after the U.S.

Forbes magazine’s 2025 statistics show that “China’s stock markets have been on the roll, fueled by the AI boom…the CSI 300 [stock] index climbed 15% since we last measured fortunes, boosting the collective wealth of China’s 100 richest to $1.35 trillion from $1.03 trillion last year.”

Forbes “counted a record 3,428 ten-figure fortunes around the globe…no nation boasts more billionaires than the United States, which has a record 989 worth a combined $8.4 trillion. China follows with 539 billionaires worth a collective $2.2 trillion.”

China aims to be the world’s strongest technological power within 15 years. Alienation Instructor (AI) in the forefront.

“In the last twenty years, China has achieved the feat of turning an economy with approximately $2,000 GDP per capita into one of the world’s leading innovation hubs, with close to $14,000 today. The Chinese government plans to take this further. Its next goal, announced in the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China’s 15th Five-Year Plan, released on 13 March, is to establish China as the world’s dominant technological power.”

The plan sets an economic growth rate of 4.5% by the end of 2026, producing 12 million new jobs, seeking to hold unemployment in cities at 5.5%. Its military budget will increase by 7% to $281 billion.

China’s military budget is intended to maintain its current military expenditures plus some growth; however, it has no war costs, because it is not at war with any country.

The U.S. today is warring in “seven known countries military engagements across six different wars. Wars with direct U.S. involvement include War on Terror (Somalia and Yemen), the war on cartels (Operation Southern Spear), and the Iran War. Wars with indirect U.S. involvement include the Russo-Ukraine war, the Gaza war, and the Israel-Hezbollah conflict.”

During the Joe Biden’s administration, he ended the 20-year war against Afghanistan, while continuing the War on Terror, and sending military aid and money for the Russo-Ukraine and Gaza wars without sending troops or pilots, officially. However, surveillance and CIA aid were and are still provided. In Biden’s last year, the military budget was $841 billion but reached $997 billon. The official U.S. military budget for 2026 is $1 trillion. Trump wants another $500 billion—$1.5 trillion—for 2027. [...]

[Parts I and II of Ron Ridenour’s China series can be read here and here.—Editors] Part Three: Artificial Intelligence = Alienation Instructors I am conscious of being alienated. Feeling, knowing we have no real control over our lives, or over what happens around us throughout the world. Many of...

09/14/2026

Leader in Russian Studies Field Served on Secret Board of CIA Academic Consultants

Philip Mosely, who was considered the “most influential Sovietologist of the Cold War,” embodies the close ties between academia and the CIA

[This article is part of a CAM back to school special series examining the close links between academia and the CIA. See other articles in the series here, here, here, here and here.—Editors]

In his 1987 book Cloak and Gown: Scholars in the Secret War, 1939-1961, historian Robin Winks details a close connection between academia and the CIA and its predecessor agency, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), and how Ivy League professors served at the front lines of a secret propaganda war at the heart of U.S. Cold War strategy.[1]

Founder (1946) and director (1951–55) of the Russian Institute at Columbia University, Philip E. Mosely (1906-1972) embodied Winks’ main thesis and the CIA’s effective infiltration of higher education institutions during the Cold War—and beyond.

For years, Mosely served on a secret board of CIA academic consultants who met four times per year at Princeton to work on intelligence assessments for the CIA with Director Allen Dulles and Sherman Kent, a Yale history professor considered the “father of intelligence analysis.” [...]

Philip Mosely, who was considered the “most influential Sovietologist of the Cold War,” embodies the close ties between academia and the CIA [This article is part of a CAM back to school special series examining the close links between academia and the CIA. See other articles in the series here,...

09/11/2026

Fitting Predictable Historical Pattern, Anti-War Activists Who Warned About Militarized Response to 9/11 Were Demonized and Blacklisted

At the May 26, 2026, Rage Against the War Machine rally, Joe Kent, a former top counterterrorism adviser and CIA paramilitary officer, denounced the war on Iran as a war driven by Israel and rooted in lies, along with other speakers like former Fox News host Tucker Carlson who had at one time supported Donald Trump and the MAGA movement.

The Rage Against the Machine rally was indicative of the growing disaffection with the War on Terror among wide swaths of the public and of a major shift in the Republican Party, which a quarter century earlier had been at the forefront in supporting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Jeremy Varon’s Our Grief Is Not a Cry for War: The Movement to Stop the War on Terror provides the first comprehensive history of the movement to oppose the War on Terror, which he shows was rooted initially on the political left.

Varon is a history professor at The New School in New York City who has written previous books on the Weather Underground and on Jewish students in post-war Germany.

While many today would view them as prophetic, the people who spoke out against a militarized response to 9/11 in the aftermath of the attacks were voices in the wilderness at the time who were blacklisted and smeared.

On September 13, 91% of Americans approved George W. Bush’s response to 9/11, with 77% supporting military action; a week later a Pew Research poll had 82% of the public favoring “robust military action, including ground troops.” Just 9% opposed a war.[1]

Even traditionally anti-war publications like The Nation published articles supporting the war in Afghanistan, which renowned Princeton University Professor Richard Falk said “qualifies in my understanding as the first truly just [U.S.] war since World War II.”[2]

The Nation writer Katha Pollitt lit into protesters after attending a peace rally by suggesting that they presented “no credible alternative to war…Osama bin Laden is not likely to mail himself to the International Criminal Court.”[3] [...]

09/11/2026

Why Democrats May Lose the November Elections Even Though Polls Now Say They Can Win

Trump has already rigged the race to crush Democratic voters and ensure a Republican victory—but Democrats don’t want to hear it

The polls confirm a growing surge of voter enthusiasm for Democrats. Are they wrong? No. They may just not be relevant.

While Democrats deliriously high-five themselves at the release of each new favorable poll, Trump has been diligently rigging the electoral process to ensure that Republicans keep control of Congress (and incidentally keep him from being impeached, convicted and thrown in jail for tax evasion and the sexual abuse of minors).

So why may the pro-Democratic poll numbers be irrelevant? Because they only show how people intend to vote, not whether they will actually be able to vote. Or even if they do vote, whether it will make any difference.

Consider these 12 dirty tricks that Trump will use to crush Democratic voters flatter than in the illustration at the outset of this article.

1. Aggressively Partisan Gerrymandering:

Eight state legislatures have already redrawn congressional districts to lock in an artificial Republican House majority even before voting starts. This will dilute millions of Democratic votes across entire states so they will have little or no impact, regardless of overall turnout. Six more states will soon follow their example. And don’t look for the courts to strike down these biased electoral maps: The Supreme Court has already ruled in their favor.

How many House seats will gerrymandering steal for the Republicans in November?

According to redistricting analyses from the Brennan Center for Justice and the Princeton Gerrymandering Project, these new Republican electoral maps now provide a net structural baseline advantage of 14 to 20 House seats for Republicans over a neutral national map.

In a narrowly divided House, where majority rule often hinges on fewer than five seats, gerrymandering alone can determine control of the chamber, regardless of a national lead in the popular vote for Democrats. Having 14 to 20 more seats locked up can make Republican control of the House a slam-dunk, turning the predictive headline of this article into a reality.

2. Announcing “enhanced poll surveillance by ICE to preserve order and prevent illegal voting”:

This will have a chilling effect on Latinos, naturalized citizens, and people of color in general. Many will decide to stay home, because they know that ICE sweeps are fueled by racial profiling, so that even U.S. citizens can disappear into unmarked cars, wind up in detention camps for days or weeks, and even be deported to El Salvador before they are able to prove their citizenship.

Although federal statutes such as 18 U.S.C. § 592, forbid the government from stationing armed federal troops or civil officers at “any place where a general or special election is held,” that will not stop Trump. He will exploit jurisdictional gray areas that permit the staging of immigration or federal enforcement operations outside statutory boundary lines (e.g., 100 to 500 feet away from the polls). [...]

Trump has already rigged the race to crush Democratic voters and ensure a Republican victory—but Democrats don’t want to hear it The polls confirm a growing surge of voter enthusiasm for Democrats. Are they wrong? No. They may just not be relevant. While Democrats deliriously high-five themselve...

09/10/2026

Harvard History Department Chairman, Who Was Lead Author and Historical Consultant to the 9/11 Commission Report, Worked for the CIA

Ernest R. May embodies deep connection between academia and the CIA

Ernest R. May (1928-2009) was a Harvard history professor for 55 years and dean of Harvard College in the late 1970s; he also served as the senior historian, consultant and main author (with Philip Zelikow) of the 9/11 Commission Report.

The 9/11 Commission Report was a 600+ page history published in 2004 that was intended as the definitive account of 9/11 and aimed to validate the official U.S. government narrative and its backstory, and to defend the White House, Justice Department, FBI, CIA and U.S. military.

While the report acknowledged advanced warnings about 9/11 that, in hindsight, should have been followed up, it did not place the onus of responsibility on anyone in any position of power and advocated for relatively minor bureaucratic restructuring rather than sweeping changes in government policy.

After May’s death, George Washington University’s National Security Archive published a tribute which referenced a book noting that May was “well known for his long-standing relationship as a historical consultant for the Central Intelligence Agency.”[1]

A naval officer in the Korean War who served on President John F. Kennedy’s academic advisory board, May had historical expertise as an analyst of intelligence-gathering failures and, for years, taught a course on the subject at Harvard for intelligence operatives.[2] [...]

09/08/2026

China Officially Stands for World Peace Yet Cooperates with U.S. War-Making

Trump Visits Xi Jinping: China Still Sells U.S. Minerals Used for Its Wars

One of only two major commitments made by China during President Donald Trump’s May visit to Beijing was to buy 200 Boeing jets, the first such deal in almost a decade. The number of jets China agreed to buy was far less than the 500 which Trump’s billionaires had expected, causing a drop in the company’s share price.

China must buy its oil and most has come from Iran and Venezuela. In the last of 2025 and early 2026, the U.S. has seized as least four ships, either Chinese of contracted, with oil headed for China. China did nothing about that, just more words of protest.

Boeing’s CEO Kelly Ortberg was among a dozen billionaires who traveled with Trump. Tesla’s Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, and Jensen Huang, the CEO of AI chip giant Nvidia, were among his partners.

Why should China buy commercial aircraft from a major United States warmongering corporation?
Furthermore, one of China’s defense corporations, China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, is number three (2025) among the world’s top 100 weapons firms. Boeing’s listing ranges from number two to seven (2025). [...]

China invests in U.S./Israel Wars and supported Pol Pot’s Genocide and South African Apartheid Che Guevara’s revolutionary humanist perspective led him to “reject any notion that included using capitalist tools or fetishes. The pipe dream that socialism can be achieved with the help of the dul...

09/07/2026

“An Honest Union Leader Who the Bosses Tried to Frame”

Harry Bridges made his mark as leader of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) for more than 40 years, surviving FBI harassment and efforts to deport him.

His fusion of union leadership with the rank and file and outspoken opposition to U.S. imperial foreign policies provide a model that today’s union leaders should follow.

[This article is part of an annual CAM special for Labor Day where we honor progressive labor leaders. Last year, our focus was on Elizabeth Gurley Flynn. See article here.—Editors]

In 2001, then-California Governor Gray Davis designated July 28—the day of Harry Bridges’ birthday—as Harry Bridges Day, following a special ceremony in which the plaza in front of the San Francisco Ferry Building was named Harry Bridges Plaza.

Some 67 years earlier in 1934, San Francisco had been roiled by a longshoremen’s strike that catapulted Bridges into national fame as a leader of the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA), whose West Coast affiliates became the International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union (ILWU) in 1937 (and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union in 1997).

Rooted in demands for higher wages ($1 an hour), a shorter work week and a union hiring hall, the longshoremen’s strike lasted for 83 days and led to a city-wide general strike after two strikers were killed by police in what was known as “Bloody Thursday.”

Bridges remained ILWU president until he retired in the late 1970s, during which time he was widely respected for his commitment to democratic standards and support for progressive policy positions.

In 1941, The Almanac Singers—then composed of founders Pete Seeger, Lee Hayes and Millard Lampell (and subsequently joined by Woody Guthrie)—wrote a song called “The Ballad of Harry Bridges” which paid tribute to Bridges as an “honest union leader” whom “the bosses tried to frame”—accusing him of being a Soviet-communist agent and trying to have him deported. [...]

Harry Bridges made his mark as leader of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) for more than 40 years, surviving FBI harassment and efforts to deport him. His fusion of union leadership with the rank and file and outspoken opposition to U.S. imperial foreign policies provide a model...