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Why Not Abandon All Foreign Bases?

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Neoconservatives—like Michael Rubin at the American Enterprise Institute (“The One Foreign Base Biden Should Abandon”)—haven’t gotten over President Joe Biden’s withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan.

But Rubin is also upset that “the Biden administration is determined to hold on to the one base that America should have abandoned a decade ago.” This is Incirlik Air Base in Turkey.

Rubin maintains that during the Cold War, Incirlik was crucial. But even though “the base supported U-2 surveillance flights, US operations during the 1958 Lebanon crisis, the 1991 liberation of Kuwait, and, most recently, the fight against the Taliban,” Incirlik—which “also hosts approximately 50 nuclear weapons”—is “now a strategic liability” instead of “a strategic asset.”

Turkey “is as much an enemy as an ally.” President Erdogan cannot be trusted. “Every American serviceman, contractor, and family at Incirlik are potential hostages.” “Incirlik now risks a repeat of the 1979 Iran hostage crisis.” An American “departure from Incirlik” would not “affect US operations.” The United States should use the “Mihail Kogalniceanu air base in Romania” or the “Souda Bay Naval Base” in Greece. It would not be “irresponsible” to leave “an obsolete base.”
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Biden's Mad Mandate Is Ripping The Country To Shreds

Nuclear scientists dismissed. First responders booted. Doctors and nurses axed. Pilots put on leave. And Biden's "mandate" has not even been promulgated by OSHA. The country is being ripped apart...and that may be just what they want. Meanwhile, Biden's numbers continue an express elevator downward. What's the end game? Watch today's Liberty Report...
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Mother, may I? Americans have lost their spines if they need Fauci’s blessing to gather for the holidays

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US chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci has declared American families may spend the holidays together – as long as they’re vaccinated. But who gave him the authority to decide, and why are people still listening to him anyway?

“If you’re vaccinated and your family members are vaccinated … you can enjoy the holidays,” the self-styled Coronavirus Pope magnanimously declared on Sunday, in an interview with ABC’s Martha Raddatz. “You can enjoy Halloween trick-or-treating and certainly Thanksgiving with your family and Christmas with your family.” 

How thoughtful of him! But the good doctor didn’t give his approval unbidden – it was Raddatz, sporting a furrowed brow, who solicited his opinion about whether Americans would be permitted to see their families. Who, besides those TV talking heads tasked with pantomiming obedience, was actually waiting for Fauci’s sign-off for permission to enjoy Thanksgiving, Christmas, or Halloween with their families? Surely Americans, known for their independent streak, are more than capable of deciding who they’re going to spend their holidays with?
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The Empire of Lies Breaks Down: Ugly Truths the Deep State Wants to Keep Hidden

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America is breaking down. This breakdown—triggered by polarizing circus politics, media-fed mass hysteria, racism, classism, fascism, fear-mongering, political correctness, cultural sanitation, virtue signaling, a sense of hopelessness and powerlessness in the face of growing government corruption and brutality, a growing economic divide that has much of the population struggling to get by, and militarization and militainment (the selling of war and violence as entertainment)—is manifesting itself in madness, mayhem and an utter disregard for the very principles and liberties that have kept us out of the clutches of totalitarianism for so long.
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Colin Powell And The Empire Of Lies

The death this week of former Secretary of State Colin Powell reminds us of his ignoble role in selling the lies that led to the destruction of Iraq and a million deaths. It was one big lie, but the empire itself is built upon lies. Also today: Nebraska allows virus treatment drugs to be prescribed, Chicago mayor warns of an "insurrection" by the police, and Americans confirm they are sick of government. Watch today's Liberty Report...
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Why Government Cover-Ups Succeed

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“It’s not necessary to censor the news, it’s sufficient to delay the news until it no longer matters,” Napoleon Bonaparte reportedly said. The same standard helps explain why Washington politicians and federal agencies usually get away with covering up their lies and abuses.

Many people assume that unless the government actively censors, people will learn what the government has done. But most government cover-ups succeed. Daniel Ellsberg, who risked life in prison to leak the Pentagon Papers, related in his 2002 memoirs: “It is a commonplace that ‘you can’t keep secrets in Washington’ or ‘in a democracy’…. These truisms are flatly false. They are in fact cover stories, ways of flattering and misleading journalists and their readers, part of the process of keeping secrets well. The fact is that the overwhelming majority of secrets do not leak to the American public.”

Cover-ups succeed because people defer to promises by government officials to investigate themselves. This was how the Nixon-era Pentagon buried scores of Vietnam atrocities even after confirming the carnage. After the My Lai controversy exploded, many US soldiers reported other atrocities to the Pentagon. Nine thousand pages of documents were compiled confirming more than 300 war crimes, including seven other massacres of civilians by US troops. David Hackworth, a retired colonel and the most decorated officer in the Army, later commented, ‘’Vietnam was an atrocity from the get-go…. There were hundreds of My Lais. You got your card punched by the numbers of bodies you counted.’’ American soldiers faced more legal perils for reporting than for committing atrocities.
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Biden’s China Policy is Dangerous

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Joe Biden’s China policy is unnecessarily adversarial. It is impractical and dangerous. It plays out as if US foreign policy is run by WWII reenactors.

China was artificially reimagined as an enemy-in-a-box as the wars of terror sputtered out and America needed a new Bond villian. Biden envisions China as an autocratic foe for democracy to wage a global struggle against. “On my watch,” Joe said, “China will not achieve its goal to become the leading country in the world, the wealthiest country in the world, and the most powerful country in the world.” Biden went on to claim the world was at an inflection point to determine “whether or not democracy can function in the 21st century.” In Biden’s neo-Churchillian view, the US and what the hell, the whole free world he believes he is president of, are in a death match with China for global hearts and minds.

One problem in this world view is the unbelievable hypocrisy underlying America’s claimed role. Biden seems oblivious the US mows down Muslims by drone and cluster bomb even while it self-righteously tsk tsks China for bullying its Uighur minority. After our two decade hissy fit of invasions and nation building brought kleptocracies and terrorists to lead countries, we dare bark that China is not democratic. We seem not to notice our lack of clothing when we stand shoulder-to-shoulder with petty tyrants and dictators strewn around Africa and the Middle East. We see no issues demanding democracy in Hong Kong while ignoring its weakening across the United States (never mind not having had much to say about democracy in Hong Kong when it was a British colony stolen by war from Chinese sovereignty.) A pretty weak resume when you’re aiming at Leader of the Free World.
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Fauci To Americans: 'Enjoy Christmas...If You're Vaccinated!'

Fauci made the mainstream media rounds again over the weekend, this time "granting his permission" for Americans to celebrate Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas...but only if they are vaccinated. Will Americans continue to heed his demands? Also today: California's public workers are not vaccinated, Colin Powell passes from Covid, and new footage from the "insurrection..." Watch today's Liberty Report...
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NBA Player Says COVID Vaccine Caused Blood Clots, But Team Officials Told Him to ‘Keep Quiet’

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In the midst of the standoff between the National Basketball Association (NBA) and Kyrie Irving — who’s been banned from practicing or playing with the Brooklyn Nets until he gets vaccinated — another player has sounded the alarm on how the COVID vaccine ended his season last year, and how his team officials attempted to cover up the blood clots he suffered from the shot.

Brandon Goodwin, former point guard with the Atlanta Hawks — who on Thursday signed a new contract with the New York Knicks — in May pulled out for the season for what was described as a “minor” respiratory condition.

“Atlanta Hawks backup guard Brandon Goodwin will miss the NBA playoffs after being diagnosed with a respiratory condition,” the Associated Press reported May 18. “While the team described the condition as minor, it will require treatment and keep Goodwin out for the remainder of the season.”

Nothing else was known about the “minor” condition until Sept. 29, when Goodwin disclosed on the video-streaming website Twitch that his minor condition was blood clots, which he said developed after he got the vaccine.
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The Truth About Tyranny

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In the simple model of tyranny we learned as school kids, there is a bad guy on top, or perhaps several because he needs advisors, and then there is everyone else suffering under his yoke. The job of freedom is to overthrow the powerful bad guy and set everyone free. 

I say the simple model, but I’m pretty sure that I believed this all my life. And there is more than a grain of truth in this. The biggest conflicts in world history always pit the government against the people. This is for the simple reason long highlighted by the liberal tradition: government uniquely enjoys the legal privilege of threatening and imposing violence. That power is subject to abuse. 

And yet there is more going on here. I recall reading The Black Book of Communism when it came out in 1999. The chapter on China I found most riveting. It described the terrifying force called The Red Guard. It was what we call today a non-government organization. Terrorists more precisely. They were more convinced of Mao’s teachings than Mao himself. They were blinded by Red ideology and prepared to kill for it. They did. Many millions died.
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