Throughout the country, bureaucrats and politicians are clamping down on the Constitution in the name of fighting a virus that thus far has not shown itself more deadly than the seasonal flu. Those numbers can change and it can be a serious disease, but as after 9/11 we are being told we must sacrifice our liberties in the name of security. Government did not deliver then and it will not deliver now. Liberty stolen will not be returned. Is there a better way? Watch today's Liberty Report... read on...
The US Justice Department unsealed an indictment on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and other government officials last week, accusing them of "narco-terrorism." The move is reminiscent of the 1988 indictment of former CIA asset and Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega. The Noriega indictment resulted in a US invasion of Panama that left hundreds – possibly thousands – of dead civilians in its wake. Attorney General William Barr took to the podium to announce Maduro’s indictment. Barr happens to be the same person who gave the first Bush administration the legal justification to invade Panama just over 30 years ago.
Barr first worked in the DOJ in 1989 when George H. W. Bush appointed him as head of the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC). Bush and Barr had some history together. The two first crossed paths in 1976 when Bush was head of the CIA, and Barr served as a congressional liaison for the agency. At the time, Manuel Noriega was also on the CIA’s payroll.
Noriega served as a useful tool for the CIA for decades, most notably known for helping the US send money and weapons to the Contras in Nicaragua. But after Noriega became more of a liability than an asset, the US turned on him. Noriega’s connection to drug trafficking became the pretext for his disposal, something the US government was undoubtedly aware of long before the indictment.
In 1988, the Senate subcommittee on terrorism, narcotics, and international operations said, "It is clear that each US government agency which had a relationship with Noriega turned a blind eye to his corruption and drug dealing, even as he was emerging as a key player on behalf of the Medellin Cartel (Pablo Escobar’s infamous Colombian cartel)." read on...
September 17, 2019 was a significant day in American economic history. On that day, the New York Federal Reserve began emergency cash infusions into the repurchasing (repo) market. This is the market banks use to make short-term loans to each other. The New York Fed acted after interest rates in the repo market rose to almost 10 percent, well above the Fed’s target rate. read on...
The controversial speech of Rep. Haley Stevens, D-Mich., on the floor of the House of Representatives shows how members can fuel rather than fight hysteria and panic. The incredible scene was played out as the very task force members who she referenced are trying to rebut some alarmist predictions and estimates. Much of the nation is sheltering in place. We get it. However, Rep. Stevens seems intent on elevating not the discussion but the volume of the national discourse.
What was most notable is that Stevens was not saying anything particularly new . . . just saying it louder. Indeed, the Democratic Majority Whip was trying to give her the added 30 seconds that she had asked, but she was yelling over his voice.
As a social, cultural, and medical episode about a virus becomes more surreal each day, Congress passed a law to spend massive amounts of money the federal government does not have to assist a badly damaged economy the government itself caused -- along with mass media -- by their frantic, fear-generating publicity that emboldened state governors and local mayors to illegally give orders to restrict and shut down the very movement of people and their participation in personal, family, religious, business, and organizational activities, which were previously sustaining their lives and well being. By failing to fully disclose and discuss publicly the structure and composition of the virus and its physiological effects before taking ham-handed, drastic steps, all levels of government have trapped themselves with no objective criteria and evidence on which to base a return to sane, normal life.
The virus in question is SARS-CoV-2: Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus 2. It is alleged to cause an illness called COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019), earlier called 2019-nCoV.
The Senate voted 96-0 to pass the bill at 11:17 p.m. on Wednesday, 25 March. All laws appropriating money are required to start in the House of Representatives, so the Senate took an existing bill with a different subject relating to appropriations that had earlier passed in the House -- H.R.748 -- and replaced its contents with Senate amendment 1578, which was put into the Congressional Record on pages CR 2063 to 2156--
Today, Friday, the House passed it by a shifty, and possibly outlaw procedure, bulldozing past Representative Thomas Massie (Repub. Kentucky), who demanded that a quorum be proved and that a recorded vote be taken on the proposed law. It is not clear at this time exactly what took place within the context of the House rules and the constitution. read on...
Amidst the coronavirus lockdown, some of the claims of governments and media have been shown to be exaggerated. Ten years ago, they tried the same thing with swine flu. They haven’t learned their lessons — has the public? read on...
“Thank God for the Deep State,” declared former acting CIA chief John McLaughlin while appearing on a panel at the National Press Club last October. In 2018, the New York Times asserted that Trump’s use of the term “Deep State” and similar rhetoric “fanned fears that he is eroding public trust in institutions, undermining the idea of objective truth and sowing widespread suspicions about the government and news media.” read on...
As governments all over the world enact and enforce unprecedented policies to deal with the pandemic, where do our rights stand? Are we abandoning our rights for security? Ron Paul Institute Director Daniel McAdams and Constitutional lawyer Robert Barnes join RT's Crosstalk to debate... read on...
Last week, Newsweek published a report entitled “Inside The Military’s Top Secret Plans If Coronavirus Cripples the Government,” which offers vague descriptions of different military plans that could be put into effect if the civilian government were to be largely incapacitated, with a focus on the potential of the current novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic to result in such a scenario.
The article’s author, William Arkin, largely frames these plans as new, though — buried deep within the article — he eventually mentions that such contingency plans can be traced back to the Eisenhower administration (though they were in place before) and have since been developed and updated by most subsequent administrations, largely through the issuance of executive orders. Arkin also points out that some of these “Continuity of Government”, or COG, plans include the “devolution” of leadership and Constitutional authority, which he notes “could circumvent the normal Constitutional provisions for government succession, and military commanders could be placed in control around America.”
Yet, there are key aspects of COG and its development that Arkin leaves out. For instance, in his timeline on how such plans have developed in the post-World War II era, he conveniently fails to mention any of the Reagan administration’s major changes to COG, including the Reagan-era Executive Order on which all current COG programs are based. Indeed, many of the “extra-Constitutional” aspects of COG that Arkin mentions began during the Reagan administration, when these plans were redrafted to largely exclude members of Congress, including the Speaker of the House, from succession plans and even moved to essentially eliminate Congress in the event of COG being implemented, with near total power instead being given to the executive branch and the military. read on...
The assault on our civil liberties is in overdrive. Habeas corpus is thrown out the window and the government is asking to be able to indefinitely detain Americans without charge or trial. Constitutional law attorney John Whitehead, President of the Rutherford Institute, joins today's Liberty Report to discuss these threats...and to let us know what we can do about them! Watch today's Liberty Report... read on...
