US President-elect Joe Biden has nominated top Clinton ally Neera Tanden to serve as Office of Management and Budget director.

As much as she hates Trump, Tanden agreed with him on Libya: They both proposed taking its oil in return for bombing the once prosperous country into oblivion.

(Today, 9 years after the US-led war on Libya, the oil-rich North African nation still has no central government.)
https://thegrayzone.com/2020/11/30/trump-neera-tanden-libya-oil

Israel’s Mossad has spent years on a propaganda campaign aimed at convincing the world Iran possessed a nuclear weapons program – and legitimizing its assassinations of Iranian academics.

https://thegrayzone.com/2020/12/02/israel-intelligence-deception-killing-mohsen-fakhrizadeh/

The US Congress and corporate media spread an incredibly misleading lie, falsely claiming Venezuela's government threatened to starve non-voters by using an intentional mistranslation of humorous slang.

We debunked the latest absurd media misinformation:
https://thegrayzone.com/2020/12/06/congress-corporate-media-venezuelas-government-food-voters/

Exclusive: We obtained documents showing that OPCW executives privately criticized the manipulation of a Syria chemical weapons probe, and supported a dissenting veteran inspector. One official, however, feared helping the “Russian narrative.”

These private admissions further expose the public whitewash of the Douma cover-up, and undermine the ongoing attacks on the whistleblowers who challenged it.

https://thegrayzone.com/2020/12/07/opcw-executives-whistleblower-syria-leaks/

Liberal media outlets are aiding a US economic war on Nicaragua’s Sandinista government, calling for a boycott of “conflict beef” based on deeply flawed opposition accusations.

https://thegrayzone.com/2020/12/10/media-nicaragua-conflict-beef/

In Venezuela, Max Blumenthal sat down for an interview with Ecuador's former President Rafael Correa.

They discussed the brutal US attacks on democracy in Latin America, the corrupt regime of current authoritarian leader Lenín Moreno, and the historic betrayal of asylee Julian Assange.

https://thegrayzone.com/2020/12/13/ecuador-rafael-correa-venezuela-assange/

The US Congress’ $900 billion Covid-19 relief bill was packaged with $1.4 trillion in omnibus spending that includes tens of billions for war, weapons, and regime change abroad, from anti-Russia and anti-China initiatives to $3.3 billion for Israel’s military.

https://thegrayzone.com/2020/12/22/covid-regime-change-us-pandemic-relief/

While the US government and corporate media glorify right-wing Venezuelan opposition leader Leopoldo López as the supposed new MLK, he is conspiring with corrupt politicians who sponsor death squads and drug cartels in neighboring Colombia.

https://thegrayzone.com/2020/12/26/leopoldo-lopez-venezuela-colombia-drugs/

President-elect Joe Biden's Treasury secretary nominee, Janet Yellen, made more than $7.2 million in the past two years alone in speaking fees from Wall Street and large corporations including Citi Bank, Goldman Sachs, Google, UBS, Barclays, and more
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/01/yellen-made-millions-in-wall-street-speeches-453223

Biden's warmongering "liberal interventionist" secretary of state nominee Antony Blinken has recently advised many top corporations, including CIA contractor McKinsey, Facebook, Uber, military contractor Boeing, Bank of America, AT&T, and Blackstone https://twitter.com/AlexThomp/status/1344840283352010752

In 2020, we continued shining a light on the machinations of empire, from the persecution of imprisoned journalist Julian Assange to the defeat of a US-backed coup regime in Bolivia, from the growing corporate war on free speech to the OPCW’s scandalous Syria cover-up.

These are our top 12 stories from last year.

https://thegrayzone.com/2021/01/01/top-the-grayzone-stories-of-2020/

The British judge ruling in the US government’s extradition against journalist Julian Assange justified a CIA spying operation targeting both the WikiLeaks publisher and the Ecuadorian government by pointing to debunked accusations published by CNN.

Yet in a self-referential loop, the American media outlet’s dubious claims about Assange themselves ironically originated with a security firm that was spying on Assange for the CIA – and which is now facing prosecution in Spain for illegal activity.

https://thegrayzone.com/2021/01/05/uk-judge-cia-spying-assange-ecuador-cnn/

Join us for a livestream on Assange, Force the Vote, "Stop the Steal" violence, and more.

7 pm ET / 4 pm PT

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBPDfbPkTlU

Twitch: https://twitch.tv/TheGrayzoneNews

The US State Department designated Yemen’s Houthi movement — the most effective force in fighting al-Qaeda — as a “terrorist” organization. Meanwhile Washington and Saudi Arabia have been supporting al-Qaeda in the country.

https://thegrayzone.com/2021/01/12/us-al-qaeda-yemen-houthis-terrorists/

After condemning the pro-Trump invasion of the US Capitol, the incoming Biden administration invited Carlos Vecchio – a corrupt coup leader charged in the 2014 torching of the Venezuelan Attorney General’s office – to its inaugural ceremony.

https://thegrayzone.com/2021/01/17/biden-inaugural-guest-venezuelan-coup-leader-inciting-violent-assault/

Max Blumenthal reported from the heavily militarized "Red Zone" in Washington, DC, where 28,000 National Guard soldiers have been deployed ahead of Joe Biden's inaugural ceremony

https://t.co/lKnJBiU5sU

The US national security state failed to prevent the pro-Trump mob attack on the Capitol. Yet instead of accountability, US intelligence officials are being emboldened via increased militarization, censorship, and surveillance.

Max Blumenthal and Aaron Maté discuss the dangerous fallout.

https://thegrayzone.com/2021/01/21/mob-mentality-capitol-riot-exploited-to-expand-the-national-security-state-that-failed-to-stop-it/

CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou details his personal experience dealing with Trump insiders to secure a pardon. He says Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani demanded $2 million to try to get him a pardon.

https://thegrayzone.com/2021/01/25/pay-pardons-john-kiriakou-trumps-bidens-cia/

A Venezuelan coup-plotter's bombshell testimony exposes the involvement of the Colombian government, FBI, and DEA in the May 2020 botched invasion of Venezuela
https://thegrayzone.com/2021/01/30/us-colombia-invasion-venezuela-yacsy-alvarez/

Today is a historic election in Ecuador. The Grayzone's Ben Norton traveled there to report on the process, which pits a wealthy US-backed right-wing banker against a left-wing economist who pledges to continue the socialist Citizens’ Revolution launched by former President Rafael Correa.

In this dispatch, working-class Ecuadorians explain why they support leftist candidate Andrés Arauz and oppose the repressive Washington-allied government of Lenín Moreno.

https://thegrayzone.com/2021/02/06/ecuador-election-citizens-revolution/

The presidential candidate that appeared to come in second place in Ecuador's election, and will thus go to a runoff in April, Yaku Pérez, claims to be part of the "left," but he supported US-backed right-wing coups in Bolivia, Brazil, Venezuela, and Nicaragua.

We showed how his US-backed party Pachakutik and the supposedly “progressive” environmentalist campaign Pérez is running is being promoted by right-wing corporate lobbyists, and how he acts as a Trojan horse for Ecuador's oligarchs and US imperialism.

https://thegrayzone.com/2021/02/06/yaku-perez-pachakutik-ecuador-us-coup/