RPI Director Daniel McAdams appeared on RT America to discuss the dysfunction of Biden's foreign policy team and the incomprehensibility of hitting Russia with another round of sanctions just two days after the US president initiated a phone call with his Russian counterpart to invite him to a joint summit... read on...
The mainstream media didn’t find it incongruous that the US walked back a claim that Russia placed bounties on US troops in Afghanistan on the same day it sanctioned Russia on the basis of another set of evidence-free accusations.
The CIA now only has “low-to-moderate confidence” that Russia paid the Taliban to kill American servicemen in Afghanistan, it was reported on Thursday.
On the same day, the Biden administration announced a new raft of sanctions against Russia as punishment for its “efforts to undermine the conduct of free and fair democratic elections and democratic institutions in the United States and its allies and partners; [and to] engage in and facilitate malicious cyber activities against the United States and its allies and partners.” Russia was said to have interfered in the 2020 US election and to be behind the so-called SolarWinds hack.
The Biden administration – targeting Russia’s sovereign debt – barred American financial institutions from buying rouble bonds issued after June 14 by any Russian federal financial authority. The US government “designated” six Russian technology companies that allegedly “provide support to the Russian Intelligence Services’ cyber program.” It also sanctioned 32 entities and individuals supposedly “carrying out Russian government-directed attempts to influence the 2020 US presidential election, and other acts of disinformation and interference.” In addition, the government sanctioned eight individuals and entities “associated with Russia’s ongoing occupation and repression in Crimea.” Finally, Washington announced the expulsion of 10 Russian diplomats who were allegedly spies. read on...
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the White House’s go-to for all things coronavirus, said on Sunday on national news that even those who’ve been vaccinated should not gather indoors, or eat indoors, or remove their masks — or basically, in essence, do anything that involves being and breathing around others.
This guy will have Americans walking on pins and needles, living in fear, forever — if we let him.
His so-called supporting science is about as solid as tossing a coin. Heads, stay at home; tails, don’t go outside. Heads, wear a face mask; tails, wear two face masks.
MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan asked him, “What is the message to vaccinated and unvaccinated Americans as to what they should and should not be doing right now? For example, eating and drinking indoors in restaurants and bars — is that OK now?”
“It’s still not OK for the simple reason that the level of infection, the dynamics of infection in the community, are still really disturbingly high,” said, Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. “Like just yesterday there were close to 80,000 new infections, and we’ve been hanging around 60,000, 70,000, 75,000.” read on...
That the United States likes to use expressions like “shock and awe” or “maximum pressure” would rather suggest that there is a psychopath working in the White House basement whose full-time job is to come up with pithy one-liners to somehow euphemize government bad behavior. read on...
Just two days after speaking with Russian President Putin by phone, and suggesting a summit, President Biden has hit Russia with another round of sanctions - including an attack on the Russian currency. The reasons given for this "national emergency" include the seven year old return of Crimea to Russian control and the still-unproven allegations of Russian election meddling, hacking, and placing bounties on US soldiers' heads in Afghanistan. Today on the Liberty Report... read on...
Obsessive Covid cleaning is just the most recent and most palpable government regulation to serve no discernible health and safety policy goal. Many rules ostensibly made to “protect” you and yours really serve to protect incumbents from new entry by artificially increasing new entry costs. Others are paternalistic efforts designed to save you from yourself, including your natural cravings for wholesome natural foods.
One particularly stunning example of the latter is the US Food and Drug Administration’s ban on the interstate sale of raw, which is to say unpasteurized, milk. According to the FDA, the ban is necessary because “raw milk can contain a wide variety of harmful bacteria, including Listeria, E.coli, Salmonella, Campylobacter, Yersinia, and Brucella.”
Like so much government disinformation, that claim is only partially correct. Bovine milk can become contaminated with anything after it leaves the cow’s udder due to unclean milking or handling processes but to suggest that milk from healthy cattle naturally teems with such nasties is disingenuous.
Some groups of humans have consumed the milk of cows and other mammals for thousands of years. Consuming animal milk may have helped human immune systems adapt to living intimately with ungulates, a major source of meat, muscle power, and fertilizer in addition to milk and its sundry cognates. The oldest confirmed production of cheese dates from 7,200 years ago! read on...
The US decision to leave Afghanistan without any conditions represents a political victory for those in the US government who sought an end to the nearly two-decade conflict in that nation. read on...
Orange County officials have announced that they are launching a "vaccine passport" system to make people feel "safe." While Biden has claimed no interest in a federal system, will increasing pressure, primarily from "blue" states, push the Administration to change its tune? Which state or county is next to demand us to "show your papers!"? Watch today's Liberty Report... read on...
1. Vaccine passports have existed in the U.S for decades.
Some of my libertarian heroes have recently stated during podcasts that vaccine passports create a caste system and that this is one reason they should be opposed. The term “caste system” accurately and brilliantly describes one of the consequences of vaccine passports. However, in the same discussions, they have characterized vaccine passports as a “new” threat to liberty. In fact, vaccine passports and their resulting caste systems have been in effect for millions of Americans for years. Unfortunately, most libertarians have overlooked this fact. Due to semantics, these passports have not been recognized for what they are.
For decades, American children have been required by state governments to “show their papers” in order to attend public school and, in some states, private school as well. Generally, the papers not only must prove that a child has been vaccinated, they also must prove that he or she has received each of the specific vaccines required by the state. Without periodically flashing this passport, children have generally not been permitted to attend school.
Exemptions exist and, in limited circumstances, have allowed attendance without the passport, but the exemptions have been rolled back, as discussed in section 2, below. (The erosion of the exemptions is also discussed in my April 26, 2020 article entitled “Central Planning of Your Immune System is Dangerous”.)
Some may view a vaccine passport requirement for school attendance to be significantly less egregious than the vaccine passports currently being proposed. If so, I would suggest that they ask a child forced to stop attending school with his or her friends due to “lack of papers” how significantly this impacted his or her life. For many children, their time interacting with friends is critical to their emotional health. We have seen evidence of this within the context of children “locked out of” their schools by COVID-19 lockdowns. Ironically, children denied school attendance due to lack of vaccination papers have received little support from the libertarian community, but those denied school attendance due to COVID-19 lockdowns have received significant support from it. There is a lack of evidence establishing that either group of children poses a danger to others. read on...
Rule by brute force. That’s about as good a description as you’ll find for the sorry state of our nation. SWAT teams crashing through doors. Militarized police shooting unarmed citizens. Traffic cops tasering old men and pregnant women for not complying fast enough with an order. Resource officers shackling children for acting like children. read on...