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Reflections on the Revolution in Middlebury

Monday March 6, 2017

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A few months ago, AEI’s student group at Middlebury College invited me to speak on the themes in Coming Apart and how they relate to the recent presidential election. Professor Allison Stanger of the Political Science Department agreed to serve as moderator of the Q&A and to ask the first three questions herself.

About a week before the event, plans for protests began to emerge, encouraged by several faculty members. Their logic was that since I am a racist, a white supremacist, a white nationalist, a pseudoscientist whose work has been discredited, a sexist, a eugenicist, and (this is a new one) anti-gay, I did not deserve a platform for my hate speech, and hence it was appropriate to keep me from speaking.

Last Wednesday, the day before the lecture was to occur, I got an email from Bill Burger, Vice President for Communications at Middlebury. The size and potential ferocity of the planned protests had escalated. We agreed to meet at the Middlebury Inn an hour before the lecture so that we could go over a contingency plan: In the event that the protesters in the lecture hall did not cease and desist after a reasonable period, Professor Stanger and I would repair to a room near the lecture hall where a video studio had been set up that would enable us to live-stream the lecture and take questions via Twitter.

Here’s how it played out.

The lecture hall was at capacity, somewhere around 400. There were lots of signs with lots of slogans (see the list of allegations above), liberally sprinkled with the f-word. A brave member of the AEI student group, Ivan Valladares, gave an eloquent description of what the group was about. Middlebury’s president, Laurie Patton, gave a statement about the importance of free speech even though she disagrees with much of my work. A second brave member of the AEI club, Alexander Khan, introduced me. All this was accompanied by occasional catcalls and outbursts, but not enough to keep the speakers from getting through their material. Then I went onstage, got halfway through my first sentence, and the uproar began.
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Trump Tapped? President Accuses Obama Of Spying On His Campaign

Monday March 6, 2017

Over the weekend, President Trump Tweeted the he had just learned that former President Obama had wiretapped the campaign headquarters at Trump Towers. The mainstream media is largely ignoring the actual claims -- certainly there is very little investigative journalism going on over it -- but in reality this may be coming to a showdown: either President is so incredibly reckless that he would falsely accuse his predecessor of a serious crime, or former President Obama has indeed committed the most serious political crime since Watergate. What will happen? We discuss in today's Liberty Report...
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Arizona Challenges the Fed’s Money Monopoly

Sunday March 5, 2017

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History shows that, if individuals have the freedom to choose what to use as money, they will likely opt for gold or silver.
 
Of course, modern politicians and their Keynesian enablers despise the gold or silver standard. This is because linking a currency to a precious metal limits the ability of central banks to finance the growth of the welfare-warfare state via the inflation tax. This forces politicians to finance big government much more with direct means of taxation.
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Why Libya's Cry for Justice Must be Heard

Sunday March 5, 2017

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Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s meeting in Moscow with Fayez al-Sarraj, prime minister of the Government of National Accord of Libya, reminds us that security and stability has yet to be restored in the war-torn country.

Though it may have slipped off the radar of global consciousness, Libya’s central importance when it comes a region that has been mired in conflict and chaos over the past few years cannot be overstated. The country’s destruction and societal collapse will forever stand as a withering indictment of Western foreign policy towards the region and NATO’s role, not as a defender of democracy, peace, and stability, but as an instrument of Western imperial power. The savage murder of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi at the hands of a NATO-supported mob in October 2011 was a ghastly and despicable crime, one that stands comparison with the legal lynching of Saddam Hussein in Iraq in 2006.

This is without factoring in the refugee crisis that erupted in the wake of Gaddafi’s overthrow, the worst such crisis the world has seen since the end of World War II. It involved untold thousands of men, women, and children attempting a perilous journey across the Mediterranean to Europe. According to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), over 5,000perished in 2016 alone while attempting to cross the Mediterranean, evidence that this ongoing human catastrophe shows no signs of improving.

Perhaps the most grievous aspect of the military campaign in support of regime-change in Tripoli was the fact that for most of the previous decade, Libya under Gaddafi had been an economic and strategic partner of the West, ending decades of enmity and isolation, with Western oil companies in particular benefiting from Gaddafi’s volte-face where Western governments were concerned.
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TSA Launches 'Invasive' Pat-Downs With 'More Intimate Contact Than Before'

Saturday March 4, 2017

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As a result of a study, which found that weapons routinely make it past airport security, the TSA is introducing “more rigorous” and “comprehensive” physical inspections at airports around the country, according to Bloomberg. The security agency, which until now had the option of using five different types of physical pat-downs in the screening line, is eliminating the "options" and replacing them with a single, universal method which would involve heavier groping.

The Transportation Security Administration made the announcement to its agents this week, and in the case of Denver International Airport employees, advised employees and flight crews on Thursday that the “more rigorous” searches “will be more thorough and may involve an officer making more intimate contact than before.”

In an ominous warning, TSA spokesman Bruce Anderson told Bloomberg that "people who in the past would have gotten a pat-down that wasn’t involved will notice that the [new] pat-down is more involved." The shift from the previous, risk-based assessment on which pat-down procedure an officer should apply was phased in over the past two weeks after tests at smaller airports. In their notice, Denver airport officials said employees are subject to search at random locations: “If a pat down is required as part of the operation, badged employees will be required to comply with a TSA officer’s request to conduct a full body pat down.”
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Obama Ordered Abuse Of Intelligence To Sabotage Trump Policies

Friday March 3, 2017

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In its last months the Obama administration ordered the intelligence agencies to collect and distribute information of contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia. This to prevent any change by the Trump administration of the hostile policy towards Russia that the Obama administration instituted. The intent was also gives the intelligence services blackmail material to prevent any changes in their undue, freewheeling independence.

The above is reported in a rather short New York Times piece published yesterday. The reporting angle captured in the headline is biased to set the Obama efforts into a positive light. But the Obama Administration Rushed to Preserve Intelligence of Russian Election Hacking.

But make no mistake. Not single shred of evidence has been provided that "Russia hacked the election" or had anything to do with various leaks of Clinton related emails. A lot of fluff and chaff was thrown around but not even one tiny bit of evidence.

The effort was clearly to sabotage the announced policy of the incoming administration of seeking better relations with Russia. Obama intended to undermine the will of the voters by abusing instruments of the state.

Excerpts from the piece:
In the Obama administration’s last days, some White House officials scrambled to spread information about Russian efforts to undermine the presidential election — and about possible contacts between associates of President-elect Donald J. Trump and Russians — across the government. Former American officials say they had two aims: to ensure that such meddling isn’t duplicated in future American or European elections, and to leave a clear trail of intelligence for government investigators.
It is completely normal for any campaign, and especially an incoming administration, to have contacts with foreign government officials.
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GOP - Which Way?

Friday March 3, 2017

The Trump presidency is shaking the Republican Party to its core. The neocons, led by Senators Graham and McCain are actively working to undermine the president in league with the Democrats. The old-guard elites cannot bear the bombastic Trump as head of their party. And the millions of mainstream voters who backed him are increasingly angry at their own party. What's the future of the GOP under President Trump? RPI Director Daniel McAdams is on RT's Crosstalk to add his views
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Dissent and the State Department: What Comes Next?

Friday March 3, 2017

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Some 1000 employees at the Department of State are said to have signed a formal memo sent through the “Dissent Channel” in late January, opposing President Donald Trump’s Executive Order initially blocking all Syrian refugee admissions indefinitely, delaying other refugees 120 days, prohibiting for 90 days all other travelers (diplomats excluded) from seven Muslim-majority nations, and other immigration-related issues.

What is the Dissent Channel those State employees used? What effect if any will the memo have on policy? What does the memo say to the new Secretary of State Rex Tillerson about the organization he now heads, and what will he do about it?

What the State Department calls the Dissent Channel is unique inside the American government. Created in 1971 during the Vietnam War, the system allows Foreign Service officers to express their disagreement with U.S. policy directly to senior leaders. The secretary of state is obliged to read and through his staff respond to all Dissent Channel messages, normally within 30-60 days. Persons using the Channel are fully protected against retaliation. Dissent messages are intended to foster internal dialogue within the State Department, and are never intended for the public.

The issues surrounding the most recent dissent memo begin where that previous sentence ends.

What was once understood to be a way to foster internal dialogue is in this case playing out more like an online petition. Multiple versions of the memo circulated within the State Department globally, with persons adding their signatures and making edits as they opened their email. Someone (no one seems to know exactly who) later allegedly melded the multiple versions into the one that was submitted, meaning some signers did not see the final text until it was leaked.
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The Basic Formula For Every Shocking Russia/Trump Revelation

Thursday March 2, 2017

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The basic formula for every breaking Trump/Russia story is essentially as follows:

1. The New York Times or Washington Post releases an article that at first blush appears extremely damning.

2. Anti-Trump pundits and Democrats react reflexively to the news, express shrieking outrage, and proclaim that this finally proves untoward collusion between Trump and Russia — a smoking gun, at last.

3. Aggrieved former Clinton apparatchiks *connect the dots* in a manner eerily reminiscent of right-wing Glenn Beck-esque prognostication circa 2009.

4. Self-proclaimed legal experts rashly opine as to whether the new revelation entails some kind of criminally actionable offense. (Recall the now-laughable certitude that felled National Security Advisor Mike Flynn violated the 200+ year old Logan Act.) This latest version is the certitude that Jeff Sessions committed perjury, when that at the very least is highly questionable.

(Probably best to at least read the relevant statute first.)

5. The notion of Russian “collusion” being key to toppling Trump becomes further implanted in the minds of the most energized Democratic activists, as evidenced this time around by a troupe of protesters who showed up to the Department of Justice headquarters brandishing trademarked “Resist” placards, chanting “Lock Him Up,” and (as usual) hyperventilating about Putin. As I’ve written before, Trump/Putin theories are increasingly the top concern that plugged-in “Resistance” types bring up at the highly-charged town hall meetings that have received so much attention of late.
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Lobbyists Concealed Their Saudi Paymasters From Veterans Pressed to Lobby Against 9/11 Bill

Thursday March 2, 2017

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Three veterans who were flown to Washington as part of a Saudi-sponsored campaign to lobby for changes to the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA) say organizers of the event concealed the Saudi role in the initiative.

Enacted in September 2016 over President Obama’s veto, JASTA altered the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act in a way that cleared the path for 9/11 families and survivors to sue the kingdom for its alleged support of the hijackers.

Earlier this month, The Daily Caller and Politico were first to report that Qorvis MSLGROUP, the public relations giant that works on behalf of Saudi Arabia, has been organizing veterans to travel to Washington at no expense to lobby against JASTA. The veterans initiative is part of a much broader Saudi campaign against the law.

The central argument motivating veterans’ participation—and being used in their lobbying—is that, if other countries reciprocate and pass laws similar to JASTA, individual US service members could be sued in foreign courts. That claim is false, according to William S. Dodge, former counselor on international law at the US State Department and a professor at the University of California, Davis School of Law. (See our detailed analysis of this and related claims.)

In exclusive interviews with 28Pages.org, US Marine Corps and Iraq war veterans David Casler, Tim Cord and Dan Cord shed damning new light on a brazen campaign that turns American veterans into unwitting lobbyists for a kingdom accused of aiding the 9/11 attacks and continuing to support extremism well beyond that day.
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