The annual charade of the Executive branch presenting a budget proposal for the next year began today. President Trump presented a massive $4.8 trillion budget proposal that gives the impression of slashing domestic spending while boosting spending on militarism. Do we really need what the Pentagon is buying? Do military spending increases really make us safer...or less safe? Watch today's Liberty Report... read on...
This week the latest Democratic Party attempt to remove President Trump from office – impeachment over Trump allegedly holding up an arms deal to Ukraine – flopped. Just like “Russiagate” and the Mueller investigation, and a number of other attempts to overturn the 2016 election. read on...
The US has deployed “low-yield” nuclear missiles on submarines, saying it’s to discourage nuclear conflict with Russia. The move is based on a “Russian strategy” made up in Washington and will only bring mass annihilation closer.
In a statement released earlier this week, US Under Secretary of Defense for Policy John Rood announced that “the US Navy has fielded the W76-2 low-yield submarine launched ballistic missile (SLBM) warhead.” This new operational capability, Rood declared, “demonstrates to potential adversaries that there is no advantage to limited nuclear employment because the United States can credibly and decisively respond to any threat scenario.”
The threat underpinning justification for this new US nuclear deterrent had its roots in testimony delivered to the House Armed Services Committee in June 2015 by US Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work, who declared that “Russian military doctrine includes what some have called an ‘escalate to deescalate strategy’ – a strategy that purportedly seeks to deescalate a conventional conflict through coercive threats, including limited nuclear use.”
However, any review of actual Russian nuclear doctrine would have shown this to be a false premise. Provision 27 of the 2014 edition of ‘Russian Military Doctrine’ states that Russia “shall reserve the right to use nuclear weapons in response to the use of nuclear and other types of weapons of mass destruction against it and/or its allies, as well as in the event of aggression against the Russian Federation with the use of conventional weapons when the very existence of the state is in jeopardy. The decision to use nuclear weapons shall be taken by the President of the Russian Federation.” read on...
In a key piece of actual extensive, on-the-ground reporting, the New York Times’s Alissa Rubin has raised serious questions about the official US account of who it was that attacked the K-1 base near Kirkuk, in eastern Iraq, on December 27. The United States almost immediately accused the Iran-backed Ketaib Hizbullah (KH) militia of responsibility. But Rubin quotes by name Brig. General Ahmed Adnan, the chief of intelligence for the Iraqi federal police at the same base, as saying, “All the indications are that it was Daesh” — that is, ISIS. read on...
In his book Recarving Rushmore: Ranking the Presidents on Peace, Prosperity, and Liberty, Ivan Eland ranked John Tyler as the best American president of all time. (The Marxist Left that dominates the American academic history profession usually ranks him near the bottom). Eland’s ranking is so at odds with the hard-Left history profession because their criteria give higher scores to presidents who spend and tax the most, consolidate the most power in Washington, D.C., oppress civil liberties the most, centrally plan the economy the most, and are the most belligerent in foreign wars. Hence, Lincoln, FDR, and Wilson have long been at the top of their ratings (although Wilson is recently out of favor after the historians finally acknowledged that he re-segregated the US military).
The American history profession sneers at John Tyler and calls him “the accidental president.” They do this because of how he became president: He was William Henry Harrison’s vice president, and when Harrison died of pneumonia one month after taking office Tyler ascended to the office.
John Tyler was a Virginia statesman who strongly opposed Andrew Jackson’s attempt to enforce the “tariff of abominations” on South Carolina, among other things. Because of his dislike of Jackson he left the Democratic Party and joined the Whig Party which at that time was controlled with an iron fist by Henry Clay. In the 1840 election the Whigs were desperate for Southern votes, so they nominated Tyler as their vice presidential candidate. After running a succession of former military generals (Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott), they finally achieved success with General William Henry Harrison with the famous campaign slogan of “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too” (Harrison was known for his participation in the Battle of Tippecanoe during the Indian wars in Indiana, where he was governor in 1811). read on...
US Rep. and Democratic Party presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard joins today's Liberty Report to discuss the real resonance of her antiwar message among New Hampshire voters. But why is the corporate media and even her own party doing its best to make sure that her voice is not heard? How did she come to turn against US foreign interventionism, after enlisting in the military early in the 2000s? Watch today's Liberty Report... read on...
While Trump's State of the Union speech did not overly focus on foreign policy, what he did say would have been music to neocon and pro-empire ears. Trillions for the US military machine and plenty of new enemies to gear up to fight. Plenty of elections to interfere with. Is this "America first"? Watch today's Liberty Report... read on...
One of the more interesting aspects of the nauseating impeachment trial in the Senate was the repeated vilification of Russia and its President Vladimir Putin. To hate Russia has become dogma on both sides of the political aisle, in part because no politician has really wanted to confront the lesson of the 2016 election, which was that most Americans think that the federal government is basically incompetent and staffed by career politicians like Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell who should return back home and get real jobs. Worse still, it is useless, and much like the one trick pony the only thing it can do is steal money from the taxpayers and waste it on various types of self-gratification that only politicians can appreciate. That means that the United States is engaged is fighting multiple wars against make-believe enemies while the country’s infrastructure rots and a host of officially certified grievance groups control the public space. It sure doesn’t look like Kansas anymore.
The fact that opinion polls in Europe suggest that many Europeans would rather have Vladimir Putin than their own hopelessly corrupt leaders is suggestive. One can buy a whole range of favorable t-shirts featuring Vladimir Putin on Ebay, also suggesting that most Americans find the official Russophobia narrative both mysterious and faintly amusing. They may not really be into the expressed desire of the huddled masses in D.C. to go to war to bring true US style democracy to the un-enlightened.
One also must wonder if the Democrats are reading the tea leaves correctly. If they think that a slogan like “Honest Joe Biden will keep us safe from Moscow” will be a winner in 2020 they might again be missing the bigger picture. Since the focus on Trump’s decidedly erratic behavior will inevitably die down after the impeachment trial is completed, the Democrats will have to come up with something compelling if they really want to win the presidency and it sure won’t be the largely fictionalized Russian threat. read on...
Even before Donald Trump was elected US president, Democrats began talking about impeachment. Now that it has failed, will they finally accept the result of the 2016 election? Don’t get your hopes up.
Trump’s acquittal in the Senate on Wednesday was a foregone conclusion, given as it takes two thirds of the senators present to convict. The only way for 20 Republicans to switch sides was for the House case to be open and shut – something that only Rep. Adam Schiff (D-California) and ‘Russiagate’ truthers in the media actually believed.
In the end, the sole Republican to break ranks was Mitt Romney, and only on one of the articles. Not guilty, exonerated, case closed, let’s “move on” – as Democrats themselves advised in 1999, after the same thing happened to Bill Clinton.
Not so fast. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) has rejected the verdict, calling it “meaningless” because what happened in the Senate “wasn’t a trial.” It’s a retreat to last week’s talking points, arguing that the Senate should have called additional witnesses and documents that the House didn’t care to obtain before rushing to impeach back in December.
Never mind that doing this would have meant the House process was flawed, fatally undercut the second article – “obstruction of Congress” – or that the House managers themselves objected to any new evidence being introduced. If you’re expecting logic rather than lawfare, you’re in the wrong town. read on...
At the time of publication, the winner of the state’s Democratic Party caucuses is still unknown. Sen. Bernie Sanders, the clear winner in virtually every exit poll, is currently ahead in votes. Yet somehow Pete Buttigieg, a favorite of the party establishment who was unknown to most voters until last year, has claimed victory. read on...
