Bill Kristol of Neocon Central thought he had Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC) in his sights. He backed a Republican primary challenger to the North Carolina antiwar Republican (and RPI Board Member) and brought on board the likes of Haley Barbour, Karl Rove, Ari Fleischer, and Sarah Palin. They huffed and they puffed but they could not blow the principled Walter Jones down. He not only beat their candidate, but he beat him by over 50 percentage points! More on what Jones' victory means in today's Liberty Report. read on...
Some 31,000 troops and thousands of military vehicles are taking part in NATO's "Operation Anakonda 2016" in Poland this week. It is the largest NATO operation since the end of the Cold War and it is taking place not far from Poland's border with Russia's Kaliningrad. US generals swear it is just a "defensive" exercise and there is nothing for Russia to be concerned over. How would the US feel about a similar Russian/Chinese military exercise in Mexico? We ponder this and more in today's Liberty Report... read on...
At the height of his popularity, in a move that destroyed his fame and fortune, Muhammad Ali refused to step up to the white line when his name was called. In so doing he was making it clear that he would not go to Vietnam to fight Washington's war. He refused to be drafted. What have the Viet Cong ever done to me, he asked. It was one of the greatest acts of defiance to Washington's war machine -- and ever since then the war-promoters have made sure it could not be repeated. Media coverage of war has been sanitized, billions are spent by the Pentagon to propagandize the American people, the "enemy" is relentlessly demonized. History has already shown that Ali's battle against this unholy murder machine is the most important fight of his life. More today on his legacy in today's Liberty Report... read on...
The neoconservative, Democrat-heavy Center for a New American Security (CNAS) has created a foreign policy blueprint for what they hope is a future Hillary Clinton presidency. Unsurprisingly, it is heavy on the "need" for the US military to much more aggressively dominate the globe. The Obama Administration was far too dovish, according to CNAS "experts." No one should be shocked that yet another militaristic Beltway "think tank" is funded predominantly by the military-industrial complex. Will Americans continue to be fooled by those who line their pockets with cash while making the rest of less safe and more poor? We give it our two cents in today's Liberty Report... read on...
Iraqi military troops along with Iran-backed Shia militias are fighting to expel ISIS from its two year control of Fallujah. That unfortunate city is also the location of two US battles to "liberate" the city and both times the place was flattened. The US says it is fighting in Iraq to rid the country of ISIS, but is very conflicted over the Iranian role in expelling ISIS. The US government has no strategy to "fix" Iraq, and in fact what it is trying to achieve -- a non-sectarian, unified country not aligned with Iran -- was already achieved by Saddam Hussein before the US "liberation." The only sensible place for the US military to go is home. read on...
President Obama has suggested that he would like to see 100,000 refugees from Middle East wars admitted to the United States in 2017. According to one study, the total cost of such a move to the US taxpayer would be more than six billion dollars over the next five years. Additional refugees would raise that cost significantly. Anyone who objects to such a massively expensive program is accused of being heartless. But what about those who objected to US interventionist "regime change" policies that created the refugee crisis in the first place? Are we who would have left them alone to live their lives really heartless? What would be the best solution to the crisis? Tune in to the Liberty Report to find out... read on...
Harvard law professor and former Obama Administration official Cass Sunstein has written approvingly recently about a recent Supreme Court decision which affirms a 1997 case that determined that Executive Branch agencies have the authority to interpret the meaning of the regulations they write. What this means is that the Legislative Branch and the Judicial Branch of government will have no role in either writing or interpreting what are de facto laws (anyone who does not believe that should try breaking an IRS regulation and see what happens) written by the Executive Branch. It represents a huge agglomeration of power in the hands of the bureaucrats who in most cases answer to no elected authority. This is the real "deep state," where the elites rule over us under the approving gazes of ideologues like Sunstein. What does this mean for liberty? Tune in to today's Liberty Report... read on...
President Obama's visit to Vietnam was more about bringing this former adversary into the US sphere of influence against China than about truly developing further mutually-beneficial trade and other relations. The opening of weapons sales to Vietnam will be a boon to the US military-industrial complex (Lockheed-Martin and Raytheon are already eyeing juicy deals) and is designed to cut out the Russians. Pushing the Trans-Pacific Partnership is to the benefit of the "deep state" and a new world order of non-elected global governing bodies. And the implied US support for a more confrontational Vietnamese relationship with China shows the "Pivot to Asia" as nothing more than an Asian version of NATO's policy of encircling Russia. It is a shame that in his "farewell tour" Obama is carrying such dangerous baggage... read on...
This week served as another reminder that the Beltway serves the Beltway and not the American people. The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) again appeared on the House Floor and again it flushed away hundreds of billions of dollars to maintain the US military empire overseas. Very little if any of the $600-plus billion in Pentagon spending will go to actually keeping us safe, and in fact much of it will be used to provoke our current and future adversaries thereby making us far less safe. The NDAA also has become notorious for stepping far over the line in violating our civil liberties. This year a measure to force young women to register for the draft narrowly missed inclusion in the bill -- it was removed at the last minute. But remember the NDAA of 2012? Remember Section 1021, which provided for the indefinite detention of American citizens without charge or trial? Remember how little opposition such an anti-American measure faced in Congress? Remember when one outraged Congressman went to the Floor of the House to demand that this horrible measure be repealed? read on...
Shortly after World War II, after the Soviet Red Army liberated Hungary from Nazi occupation, the Hungarians held their first election in six years. The November, 1945 vote resulted in an overwhelming victory for a coalition led by the agrarian, anti-communist Hungarian Smallholders Party. This victory at the ballot box infuriated Hungary's Communist Party and Hungary's new occupying Soviet overlords. Little by little, in what became known as "salami tactics," the Hungarian communists chipped away at the ruling coalition -- slicing off one piece of salami (coalition partner) at a time until nothing was left. Once accomplished, a new election was held in which the Communists captured power and ruled for 40 years from the barrel of a Soviet tank (literally in 1956). read on...
