French president Macron caused a stir last month by stating that NATO is suffering from brain death. At this week's NATO summit marking 70 years of the Alliance, Trump and Macron are clashing. Why is it so hard for NATO to find a purpose? Is this a sign that finally, 30 years after the Cold War, it's time to end the anti-Soviet alliance? Watch today's Liberty Report... read on...
When I retired as a Detective from the NYPD I moved to Florida and decided to join a local sheriff’s office to work as a Deputy. I needed to make some money and it was the only job for which I was qualified. I was accepted and took the job.
From the start I wanted to be the ultimate Libertarian cop. I was not going to arrest anyone for drugs or victimless crimes and I was going to try my best to make as many quality arrests as possible. For a good part of those 3 years I was able to do my thing. I tried to fade into the background. I never brought up the fact that I was retired NYPD-though my colleagues probably knew from the constant stationhouse gossip. I tried to make myself invisible to my supervisors and only interacted with them when I had to do so. And in this sheriff’s office we only held roll call once every two weeks. Sometimes I didn’t see my supervisor for two weeks at a time. And that was great for me. I worked without a partner and basically had no one breathing down my neck. So yes, I was able to do my thing.
If I came across some drug user who had drugs on them I would have them dump the drugs into a ditch and ask them for their help by looking at my clipboard of wanted dangerous felons. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t. But I got my fair share of arrests in this manner. And those same people who had helped me would come back to me on their own to try to ID other dangerous felons. I was also determined to investigate every call I received as if I was still a detective. I interviewed everyone I arrested. Oftentimes I would get confessions. read on...
For months Western media outlets have been retailing stories about riots in Hong Kong. With lip-smacking relish there have been such reports as “On October 1, China’s National Day, the first live round to hit a protester was fired by riot police pursued by protesters in the distant suburb of Tsuen Wan.” Unfortunately for the anti-China zealots in the US and Europe there were no deaths of rioting students, except one “who fell from a parking garage during a police dispersal operation… escalating tensions between police and the public that have been increasingly strained over the months of worsening violence.” The two incidents in which rioters were shot by policemen made Western headlines.
On October 15 the US House of Representatives voted unanimously for a Bill that “addresses Hong Kong’s status under US law and imposes sanctions on those responsible for human rights violations in Hong Kong” and on November 16 the Senate moved “to expedite passage of a bill that would open a path to sanctions against those seen to be eroding freedoms in the Chinese territory.”
(On November 29 the BBC reported that when Hong Kong police entered the Polytechnic University “they found 3,989 petrol bombs; 1,339 explosive items; 601 bottles of corrosive liquids; and 573 weapons” but there will be no criticism by Congress about this arsenal. US legislators apparently consider that petrol bombs intended to incinerate policemen do not violate human rights, providing they are thrown by those in mobs rioting against China.) read on...
Seventy is normally considered a ripe old age at which people should be enjoying retirement. The NATO alliance, which meets to celebrate its anniversary in London, should have been pensioned off long ago. read on...
President Trump's dropping of the "Mother of All Bombs" in Afghanistan is just the latest example of how the US war machine is delivering a scorched earth to those "liberated" by the US military. Already the environmental and health damage from that one bomb has destroyed the lives of many innocent civilians. There are millions more where that came from. Watch today's Liberty Report... read on...
Bolivian President Evo Morales was overthrown in a US-backed military coup d’état earlier this month after Bolivian army generals appeared on television demanding his resignation. As Morales fled to Mexico, the army appointed right-wing Senator Jeanine Añez as his successor. Añez, a Christian conservative who has described Bolivia’s indigenous majority as “satanic”, arrived at the presidential palace holding an oversized Bible, declaring that Christianity was re-entering the government. She immediately announced she would “take all measures necessary” to “pacify” the indigenous resistance to her takeover.
The New York Times, the United States’ most influential newspaper, immediately applauded the events, its editorial board refusing to use the word “coup” to describe the overthrow, claiming instead that Morales had “resigned,” leaving a “vacuum of power” into which Añez was forced to move. The Times presented the deposed president as an “arrogant” and “increasingly autocratic” populist tyrant “brazenly abusing” power, “stuffing” the Supreme Court with his loyalists, “crushing any institution” standing in his way, and presiding over a “highly fishy” vote. read on...
The 50-year US war on drugs has been a total failure, with hundreds of billions of dollars flushed down the drain and our civil liberties whittled away fighting a war that cannot be won. The 20 year “war on terror” has likewise been a gigantic US government disaster: hundreds of billions wasted, civil liberties scorched, and a world far more dangerous than when this war was launched after 9/11. read on...
Former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick entered the presidential race last week. Patrick is touted as a centrist Democrat and is reportedly former president Barack Obama’s favorite candidate. Patrick is also the only candidate in the race responsible for disastrous coverups at both the federal and state level.
Patrick was assistant attorney general for Civil Rights in the Clinton administration. Shortly before Clinton won the 1992 election, US marshals killed 14-year-old Sammy Weaver and an FBI sniper shot Randy Weaver and killed his wife, Vicki Weaver, as she held their baby in the cabin door at Ruby Ridge.
An Idaho jury found Weaver not guilty on almost all charges and federal judge Edward Lodge slammed the Justice Department and FBI for concealing evidence and showing “a callous disregard for the rights of the defendants and the interests of justice.” A task force of 24 FBI and Justice Department officials compiled a 542-page report detailing federal misconduct and coverups and suggested criminal charges against FBI officials involved in Ruby Ridge. Patrick rejected the task force’s recommendation, ruling instead that the FBI sniper who killed Vicki Weaver had not used “excessive force” and did not intend to violate her civil rights. read on...
Intelligence documents reveal how Tehran took advantage of US blundering. The American invasion of Iraq and the overthrow of that nation’s government in 2003 has rightly been described as the greatest foreign policy disaster in the history of the United States. Eight thousand one hundred and seventy five American soldiers, contractors and civilians have died in Iraq since 2003 as well as an estimated 300,000 Iraqis. read on...
The Warsaw Pact may no longer exist, but by contrast the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is expanding its perceived role – the enforcement of western interest - especially in resource-rich Africa. NATO's expansion in Africa is intended to assert western corporate influence, where Macron's France apparently wishes to usurp Germany as the major influential European power.
But corporate interest is not the only driver for NATO's war in Africa since the Russian Federation has significant ambitions there too. Russian non-governmental private military contractors or 'Chastnaya Voennaya Kompaniya' include:
