Over the past week, the Syrian military has re-taken more than 40 percent of the territory in east Aleppo that had for several years been controlled by the rebels. Most believe that this last large population center not controlled by the government will soon return to government control. After this, the nearly six year insurgency would likely soon be completely defeated. Meanwhile Secretary of State John Kerry is reportedly desperately attempting to make an agreement with the Russian government to halt the Syrian army advance into rebel-held east Aleppo. The Obama Administration fears a new US policy toward Syria would be launched by the incoming Trump Administration and is eager to preserve a flicker of the regime-change project in Syria. What happens next? Tune in to today's Liberty Report... read on...
One of the most discouraging aspects of the filling out of the Donald Trump cabinet is the array of Iran haters that seem to be lining up in the foreign policy and national security areas. Trump has been personally advocating sensible policies relating to Russia and Syria but he appears to have gone off the rails regarding Iran, which just might be attributed to those who are giving him advice. A reversion to the relationship that prevailed prior to last year’s signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPA) between Iran and the so-called P5+1 consisting of the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain, and the European Union would be undesirable, to say the least, but that appears to be what is likely to develop. Or it could be even worse, finding bilateral support for “action” as a number of policy advisors in the presidential campaign from both parties were endorsing something like war against the Persians.
The irony is that the argument made then and now for attacking Iran were based on the threat of Tehran deciding to build its own atomic bomb. With the JCPA agreement, however, most would agree that any remaining concerns that Tehran might even be considering the development of a nuclear weapons program were greatly diminished. Iran has since that time been in compliance with the agreement, possible nuclear proliferation has been avoided, and, apart from the fulminations of the inevitable anti-Iranian politicians in the United States, the signatories to the agreement have expressed their satisfaction with the outcome. It has been Washington that has failed to live up to its part of the agreement by easing remaining restrictions that are being imposed against Iranian financial institutions and regarding the purchase of some commercially available dual use technologies. read on...
With the passing of former Cuban president Fidel Castro over the weekend, the decades-long U.S. war waged against him finally comes to an end, even if the decades-long embargo against the Cuban people continues.
Castro was one of the most tyrannical dictators in the world. After taking power in 1959, he refused to permit democratic elections, suppressed dissent, censored the news, and controlled travel. And, of course, Castro was a communist or socialist. As president, he imposed a socialist economic system on the island, which entailed the nationalization of all private property. Most everyone became an employee of the state.
But that begs an important question, one that the U.S. mainstream media is loath to ask: Under what moral or legal authority did U.S. officials repeatedly try to murder Castro, and under what moral or legal authority did they try to effect regime change in Cuba?
Most of the mainstream media accounts of Castro’s life mention that the CIA tried to assassinate Castro hundreds of times. They also remind people of the U.S. invasion at the Bay of Pigs. read on...
Though its main source remains anonymous, the Washington Post claims to have uncovered a vast conspiracy of more than 200 alternative news outlets -- such as the Drudge Report, Zero Hedge, the Ron Paul Institute, and others -- who have worked as Russian propaganda tools to defeat Hillary Clinton and elect Donald Trump as the next president. Kooky...or dangerous? Our take in today's Liberty Report... read on...
The “war on terror” has simultaneously been a war on truth. For fifteen years—from 9/11 to Saddam Hussein’s “weapons of mass destruction” and “al Qaeda connections,” “Iranian nukes,” “Assad’s use of chemical weapons,” endless lies about Gadaffi, “Russian invasion of Ukraine”—the governments of the so-called Western democracies have found it essential to align themselves firmly with lies in order to pursue their agendas. Now these Western governments are attempting to discredit the truthtellers who challenge their lies.
Russian news services are under attack from the EU and Western presstitutes as purveyors of “fake news.” Abiding by its Washington master’s orders, the EU actually passed a resolution against Russian media for not following Washington’s line. Russian President Putin said that the resolution is a “visible sign of degradation of Western society’s idea of democracy.”
As George Orwell predicted, telling the truth is now regarded by Western “democratic” governments as a hostile act. A brand new website, propornot.com, has just made its appearance condemning a list of 200 Internet websites that provide news and views at variance with the presstitute media that serves the governments’ agendas. Does propornot.com’s funding come from the CIA, the National Endowment for Democracy, George Soros? read on...
Former Dallas Federal Reserve Bank President Richard Fisher recently gave a speech identifying the Federal Reserve’s easy money/low interest rate policies as a source of the public anger that propelled Donald Trump into the White House. Mr. Fisher is certainly correct that the Fed’s policies have “skewered” the middle class. However, the problem is not specific Fed policies, but the very system of fiat currency managed by a secretive central bank.
Federal Reserve-generated increases in money supply cause economic inequality. This is because, when the Fed acts to increase the money supply, well-to-do investors and other crony capitalists are the first recipients of the new money. These economic elites enjoy an increase in purchasing power before the Fed’s inflationary policies lead to mass price increases. This gives them a boost in their standard of living. read on...
Sixty years ago, I was home after school, sitting in our living room on New York’s Central Park West, reading a history of Rome and listening to Dvorak’s splendid cello concerto when the announcer on WQXR broke in to announced, “Israeli armored forces are thrusting deep into Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.”
So began the 1956 Arab-Israeli Suez war, a conflict that is now all but forgotten though it was a major historic turning point for all concerned.
Algeria has risen up against French colonial rule. A ferocious guerilla war was raging. The Socialist government in Paris was too arrogant to admit that anyone could revolt against the glories of French rule. Instead, Paris blamed the revolt on machinations by Egypt’s nationalist strongman, Gamal Abdel Nasser. In fact, Egypt’s role was minor. read on...
With its status as the Beltway newspaper of record, with its budget of some half a billion dollars, with its 750 or so employees, what a surprise that the Washington Post feels threatened by a tiny truth-telling think tank like the Ron Paul Institute. But obviously they do feel threatened. So threatened, in fact, that they recently published an article claiming that the Ron Paul Institute -- along with such notable company as the Drudge Report, Counterpunch, ZeroHedge, LewRockwell.com and others -- is part of a grand Russian conspiracy to publish "fake news" to undermine the Hillary Clinton campaign and, presumably, as in Dr. Strangelove, pollute the "precious bodily fluids" of Americans. RPI's Daniel McAdams joined another blacklisted "fake news" site, RT, to discuss the WaPo report... read on...
The Washington Post has a history of misrepresenting Ron Paul’s views. Last year the supposed newspaper of record ran a feature article by David A. Fahrenthold in which Fahrenthold grossly mischaracterized Paul as an advocate for calamity, oppression, and poverty — the opposite of the goals Paul routinely expresses and, indeed, expressed clearly in a speech at the event upon which Fahrenthold’s article purported to report. Such fraudulent attacks on the prominent advocate for liberty and a noninterventionist foreign policy fall in line with the newspaper’s agenda. As Future of Freedom Foundation President Jacob G. Hornberger put it in a February editorial, the Post’s agenda is guided by “the interventionist mindset that undergirds the mainstream media.”
On Thursday, the Post published a new article by Craig Timberg complaining of a “flood” of so-called fake news supported by “a sophisticated Russian propaganda campaign that created and spread misleading articles online with the goal of punishing Democrat Hillary Clinton, helping Republican Donald Trump and undermining faith in American democracy,” To advance this conclusion, Timberg points to PropOrNot, an organization of anonymous individuals formed this year, as having identified “more than 200 websites as routine peddlers of Russian propaganda during the election season.” Look on the PropOrNot list. There is the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity’s (RPI) website RonPaulInstitute.org listed among websites termed “Russian propaganda outlets.” read on...
In the smoke of Washington's transition battle there remains the issue of Wikileaks and its founder Julian Assange. What is to become of him? Will the US still seek to put him on trial for blowing the whistle on the illegal and immoral activities of the Obama and Bush Administrations? Turn back the clock to 2010 when Wikileaks first appeared on the scene and one-by-one Members of Congress called for Assange's head. US Rep Ron Paul saw clearly the value of the organization and stood on the Floor of Congress to defend all the whistleblowers. Since then he has consistently championed those who shine the light on the activities our government would rather keep in the shadows. Watch Ron Paul's historic 2010 speech... read on...
