Podcast
CovertAction Bulletin
Hosted by CovertAction Magazine · EN
CovertAction Bulletin is the official podcast of CovertAction Magazine which began publishing in 1978 as a newsletter called Covert Action Information Bulletin (CAIB) and later as CovertAction Quarterly (CAQ). CAIB was cofounded and copublished by Ellen Ray, William Schaap, and Louis Wolf, along with former CIA agents such as James and Elsie Wilcott, and infamous whistleblower, Philip Agee.The magazine developed a following not as a conspiracy-theory-related publication, but as a source for reliable, consistent, and accurate investigative reporting. In 2018 we launched on the web at CovertActionMagazine.com where you will find hundreds of articles that blow the whistle on U.S. imperialism and plutocrats worldwide.
20episodes
Episodes
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Iran Gives the U.S. a Black Eye
2w ago00:54:51Tap to summarizeThe United States and Iran have signed a 14-point memorandum of understanding after over 100 days of bombing and war by the U.S. and Israel since February. The United States, the most powerful military on the planet, has been forced to make significant concessions to Iran, including releasing Iranian funds that Trump vowed would never be available to Iran again.Further negotiations will determine the future of Iran’s civilian nuclear enrichment program, with Iran reaffirming its long-held position that it does not seek nuclear weapons. During the 60-day period of the MOU that’s already under way, Iran won’t charge ships for transiting the Strait of Hormuz, and by the end of that period it will come to agreement with Oman and other countries around the Strait.The war ultimately achieved none of the Israeli or U.S. government’s goals for it including regime change or destruction of Iran’s nuclear program, but it has killed thousands in Iran and caused devastation to parts of Iranian civilian and energy infrastructure. But it has shaken basic understandings about international relationships and the balance of power in the Middle East and beyond. CovertAction Bulletin will be on hiatus for a couple months. We thank all of our listeners and encourage you to stay tuned to CovertActionMagazine for more details!Support the show
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Musk: One Trillionaire Too Many
3w ago00:55:21Tap to summarizeElon Musk has become the world’s first trillionaire after SpaceX’s public offering last week, the largest in history. As of recording, he’s worth $1.4 trillion - an unimaginably large amount of money and more than a trillion dollars over the net worth of the next wealthiest person on the planet, Google co-founder Larry Page. Page is worth just over $300 billion. In fact, combining the wealth of the people ranking numbers two through 5 on the Forbes real-time billionaires list (Larry Page and Sergey Brin of Google, Jeff Bezos of Amazon and Larry Ellison of Oracle), their combined net worth is still less than Musk’s.While cautiously avoiding Musk’s far-right political leanings and his recent incitement of racist riots in Belfast, much of the capitalist media is heralding his obscene wealth. An opinion piece published by The Washington Post considers and dismisses the idea that someone should not have such “inordinate wealth,” but suggests that “SpaceX is one of the real success stories of the past several decades” and “has created something of great value for society” that will somehow democratize wealth by flowing money through the stock market.For those of us in the real world who don’t have hundreds of millions or billions of dollars, the cold truth is that prices continue to rise while wages stay stagnant. Inflation was up 0.5% in May compared to April, and up 4.2% over the last 12 months. Prices are up at the gas pump, at the grocery store, and as summer starts around the United States, areas impacted by significant heat will also be hit by massive increases in energy prices. Tens of thousands of people die every year due to homelessness. According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness, over 771,000 people in the United States experienced homelessness. The real number may be significantly higher, but still nothing compared to the fact that Elon Musk’s trillions could buy 2.5 million homes at market price and solve the housing crisis immediately.Support the show
Transcribe →Sold Out: How Profit Undermines the World Cup and New York Basketball
Jun 1000:51:44Tap to summarizeThe World Cup is starting on June 11th with matches across the United States, Mexico and Canada. 104 matches will be played, with the majority in the 11 venues across the US. But as this week’s openers get closer, chaos is spreading around visas, travel and the question of whether fans are even going to bother coming to the United States. Host cities like Kansas City, MO are relying on revenue from an increase in tourism to boost their local economies, with the city estimating 650,000 visitors over the next few weeks. Economists question whether the predictions on visitor count or economic impact will hold true as the Trump administration has instituted steep visa bonds for people from some countries, including Tunisia and Algeria, which will play in Kansas City.At the same time, the U.S. government has already forced the Iranian team to stay in Mexico, despite having its three games in June scheduled for Los Angeles and Seattle - requiring the team to travel across the border on game day. Customs and Border Protection also just denied entry to the only Somali referee, Omar Artan.Plus, we talk about Trump’s appearance at Game 3 of the NBA Finals and the NYPD’s response to a watch party in Bryant Park.Support the show
Transcribe →Two Americas at 250
Jun 300:52:04Tap to summarizeThe Trump administration is planning a series of grand patriotic events for the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. From a massive Ultimate Fighting Championship match on the South Lawn of the White House on June 14th - which is both Flag Day and Trump’s 80th birthday - to a ball drop in Times Square, a Grand Prix on the streets of DC in August and the Great American State Fair spanning the course of two weeks on the National Mall - the America 250 and Freedom 250 celebrations are set to take over the summer across the country.America 250, led by the U.S. Semiquincentennial Commission, has been a decade in the making and says they’re striving for “350 for 250” - “engaging all 350 million Americans by our nations’ 250th anniversary.” The Trump administration’s Freedom 250, with sponsors like Northrop Grumman, and Moms for Liberty and the Museum of the Bible, seeks to celebrate “the triumph of the American spirit.” The two initiatives might seem radically different, with media and administration figures criticizing one or the other, but both intentionally leave out real parts of the history of the United States: the legacy of slavery and indigenous genocide and the racism that’s still with us today, centuries of wars and conquest, mass oppression, but also the resistance and struggle of workers and other oppressed people in the United States. Those true stories won’t be told by either America 250 or Freedom 250.Support the show
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Are We in the Middle of a Socialist Revival?
May 2000:53:41Tap to summarizeFrom the Governor of California to the Mayor of Pensacola and Senate seats in Massachusetts, Ohio and beyond, socialist candidates and ideas are gaining momentum across the country. They’re talking about common-sense ideas that resonate with everyday people - things like public seizure of the 100 biggest corporations, abolishing the Supreme court, reparations for Black Americans, slashing the Pentagon budget, abolishing ICE, expanding housing, public transit and access to medical care and much more.The popularity of socialist candidates and ideas is a reflection of the multiple crises of capitalism that get worse every day. As people can’t afford the basics for survival like food, transportation and shelter, it’s clear that the money is there - but capitalist governments prioritize spending it on war, terrorizing communities with immigration raids and bailing out giant corporations.Also on this episode, we discuss the baseless early-morning raids that happened last week targeting organizers with the immigrant rights group VC Defensa in Ventura County, CA. Listen to our 2025 interview with two VC Defensa organizers: https://covertactionmagazine.com/2025/07/30/covertaction-bulletin-ventura-county-organizes-against-ice/Support the show
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Close Encounters of the Distraction Kind
May 1300:54:01Tap to summarizeThe Pentagon has released hundreds of declassified files, pictures and videos relating to UAPs - Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena - more popularly known as UFOs. The materials date back to the late 1940s and include firsthand but generally uncorroborated narratives from military officers and civilians as well as grainy photos and videos that could really be anything.Various government and private investigations into whether extraterrestrials have tried to make contact have never come up with anything conclusive. But since the end of World War II and the start of the Space Race and the Cold War, UFO culture in the United States has always intersected with fear of others and distrust in the system on the one hand, and government secrecy and coverup on the other hand - going as far as the Pentagon testing planes and surveillance equipment and blaming sightings on aliens.Many questions are still open. Are we alone? Have we been visited? But perhaps most importantly, why is the Trump administration releasing these files now?Plus: Sign the petition to pardon whistleblower John Kiriakou: https://change.org/PardonJohnSupport the show
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May Day and the Power of the General Strike
May 600:54:58Tap to summarizeIn over 3,500 cities and towns across the United States, workers took to the streets on May 1st for a day of no work, no school, and no shopping on the fourth day this year of mass organized action. Following the January 23rd and 30th shutdowns that started in Minneapolis and spread coast to coast and the No Kings Day in March, May Day was the latest in what’s becoming a building process of collective power and consciousness. Around the world, May Day or International Workers’ Day, is a celebration of the power of workers and our movements. Many countries mark it as an official labor holiday.ICE raids continue to terrorize immigrant communities around the country. The fragile ceasefire with Iran is marked by regular threats to resume and intensify with a ground invasion. Trump on Friday signed another executive order trying to starve the Cuban people of resources by further restricting trade. Gas prices and costs of consumer goods continue to soar. And the Supreme Court has taken another step in rolling back hard-won civil rights in its decision in Louisiana v. Callais, attacking core provisions of the Voting Rights Act. It’s becoming more clear to so many that only the power of the people will stop the attacks of the Trump regime and the system it represents.Support the show
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Age Verification: Backdoor to Surveillance & Censorship
Apr 2200:55:36Tap to summarizeImagine being forced to prove how old you are - and having it verified by a third party - before unlocking your phone or signing up for a social media site. That’s the goal of legislation introduced or passed in some U.S. states, the UK and Australia. Age verification requirements for social media and “adult content” are being proposed across the US, Europe and beyond with the justification of protecting children. But verifying your age basically means scanning your ID, and therefore tying your online presence with your real-world identity. Not only will this exclude millions of people who don’t have government IDs, it attacks people who need to speak out anonymously against injustice, including whistleblowers. Even beyond age verification for social media, California’s Assembly Bill 1043 goes into effect on January 1st, 2027 and requires operating systems - Windows, macOS and Linux among others, to perform age segmentation at the base level of the phone or computer system.The surveillance state loves the idea of age verification, which does very little to protect children as it claims to do - but does a lot to silence dissent, prevent the spread of information and silence free speech.Support the show
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Secret Court Reauthorizes Secretive Spy Program
Apr 1500:52:53Tap to summarizeCongress is set to vote soon on reauthorization of the Section 702 warrantless surveillance program, part of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA. 702’s authorization expires on April 20th. On its surface, the program allows intelligence agencies to spy on non-citizens outside the United States - without their knowledge, or the consent of their governments. But people inside the US can be and are caught up in this surveillance if they’re in contact with targets of the program for any reason - including,as noted by the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, “business or personal reasons” not associated with any criminal activity.The intelligence community is on a propaganda tour ahead of the renewal votes, saying the program helped them prevent an attack on a Taylor Swift concert in Austria and to kill El Mencho, a Mexican cartel leader. But regardless of the vote, the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has already approved the program through March of 2027 - regardless of what Congress votes on regarding the renewal of Section 702.PLUS: Democrats are ignoring their own recent history of criminalizing student protest to claim there are no left-wing protests under Trump as the midterms come up - and more.Support the show
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Trump’s Threats Further Destabilize World Order
Apr 800:51:54Tap to summarizeNOTE: This episode was recorded hours before the announcement of the 2-week ceasefire on April 7th.Just a day after Donald Trump made a national prime-time address on April 1st claiming the US is “winning and winning big” in the war on Iran, an American F-15E Strike Eagle fighter plane was shot down over a mountainous region of eastern Iran, kicking off a frantic search-and-rescue and a covert misinformation operation by the CIA within Iran. The U.S. military has over 200 F-15E planes, at a cost in 2026 dollars of $65 million each and the next-generation F-15EX set at about $100 million each. The war on Iran has cost about $43 billion so far.But at an Easter luncheon earlier on April 1st, Trump also said he told Russel Vought, Director of the Office of Management and Budget, “Don’t send any money for day care, because the United States can’t take care of day care.” and went on to say, “It’s not possible for us to take care of day care, Medicaid, Medicare, all these things,” saying that the federal government’s priority should be wars and weapons while people still go hungry, without housing and without healthcare. And he’s effectively threatened genocide against the Iranian people and the entire region.The Trump administration and Project 2025 have been shaking the core of civilization like an earthquake shakes a building. The question of what comes after this structure breaks is at the core of how we move forward.Support the show
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