By Daniel McAdams
Yesterday, President Trump announced that he was canceling US participation in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JPCOA) otherwise known as the Iran nuclear deal. The president's assertions were ludicrous and factually incorrect, but the neocons who were no doubt behind the speech have never been all that wedded to the truth. It became obvious fairly on that Trump's rationale was not to be taken seriously, when he cited last week's comical stage performance by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu that "Iran Lied" about its nuclear program. Netanyahu's fairy tale required us to believe that the Iranians were storing their most sensitive national security (paper) documents and compact discs in an unguarded desert hut, which the crack Israeli team of intelligence operatives were able to discover and remove by the truckload right under the noses of what they claim is among the most totalitarian "regimes" on earth. And even if one believes that fairy tale, one is required to suspend logic and reason and conclude that evidence that Iran was pursuing nuclear weapons technology but had halted the program by 2003 is actually proof that Iran is currently pursuing nuclear weapons capabilities -- despite repeated inspections that have concluded otherwise. Really, it's something a child could see through. Which is perhaps why the neocons were so successful at packaging it for Trump's consumption. Likewise Trump's claim that Iran is the world's leading sponsor of terrorism...for among other things fighting actual terrorists (al-Qaeda and ISIS) in Syria at the invitation of the Syrian government! Only in the twisted world of the neocons can one country arming al-Qaeda and ISIS (the US) be "anti-terrorist" and another country killing al-Qaeda and ISIS (Iran) be "pro-terrorist." But all that aside, there is something potentially earth-shattering in what at first appears to be just bluster and blunder by President Trump. With neocons in charge of the words coming out of his mouth we should not believe it was an accident. When President Trump uttered this line: "Iran remains the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism, and provides assistance to Hezbollah, Hamas, the Taliban, al-Qaida, and other terrorist networks," he was signaling his official determination that Iran is one of the "associated forces" that is fair game for US bombs as outlined in the post-9/11 authorization for the use of military force. In short, Trump's sentence indicates, in our convoluted and post-Constitutional current reality, that President Trump believes he has all the authority he needs to initiate an attack on Iran. Forget all the other speculation on Trump's speech. This is the only thing to really focus on. This article was originally published at The Ron Paul Institute.
The new, bi-partisan authorization for the use of military force (AUMF) introduced by Senators Kaine and Corker is billed as evidence that Congress is finally taking its Constitutional war-making authority seriously. This could not be further from the truth. Congress is about to grant the president "forever war" power and return to its slumber. Bad for America.
By Ron Paul
One of the few positive things in the ill-named USA FREEDOM Act, enacted in 2015 after the Snowden revelations on NSA domestic spying, is that it required the Director of National Intelligence to regularly report on its domestic surveillance activities. On Friday, the latest report was released on just how much our own government is spying on us. The news is not good at all if you value freedom over tyranny. According to the annual report, named the Statistical Transparency Report Regarding Use of National Security Authorities, the US government intercepted and stored information from more than a half-billion of our telephone calls and text messages in 2017. That is a 300 percent increase from 2016. All of these intercepts were “legal” under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which is ironic because FISA was enacted to curtail the Nixon-era abuse of surveillance on American citizens. Has the US government intercepted your phone calls and/or text messages? You don’t know, which is why the surveillance state is so evil. Instead of assuming your privacy is protected by the US Constitution, you must assume that the US government is listening in to your communications. The difference between these is the difference between freedom and tyranny. The ultimate triumph of totalitarian states was not to punish citizens for opposing its tyranny, but to successfully cause them to censor themselves before even expressing “subversive” thoughts. We cannot celebrate our freedom or call ourselves an exceptional nation as long as we are under control of the kind of surveillance that would have turned the East German Stasi green with envy. We know the East German secret police relied on millions of informants, eager to ingratiate themselves with their totalitarian rulers by reporting on their friends, neighbors, even relatives. It was a messy system but it served the purpose of preventing any “unwelcome” political views from taking hold. No one was allowed to criticize the policies of the government without facing reprisals. Sadly, that is where we are headed. Our advanced technological age provides opportunities for surveillance that even the most enthusiastic East German intelligence operative could not have dreamed of. No longer does the government need to rely on nosy neighbors as informants. The NSA has cut out the middleman, intercepting our communications – our very thoughts – at the source. No one who calls himself an American patriot can be happy about this development. Not even the President is safe from the surveillance state he presides over! According to a news report last week, federal investigators monitored the phone lines of President Trump's personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, even when he was speaking to his client – the president! An all-powerful state that intercepts its citizens’ communications and stores them indefinitely to use against them in the future does not deserve to be called the leader of the free world. It is more the high-tech equivalent of a Third World despotism, where we all exist subject to the whim of those currently in political power. Edward Snowden did us all an enormous favor by risking it all to let us know that our government had come to view us as the enemy to be spied on and monitored. If we are to regain the liberty that our Founders recognized was granted to us not by government, but by our Creator, we must redouble our efforts to fight against the surveillance state!
The showdown is looming. President Trump will decide by the end of the week whether he will continue US participation in the JPCOA Iran nuclear deal or whether he will pull out, as he promised. Will he oppose virtually all of America's closest allies and cancel the deal? What happens then? War?
America’s monetary system was hijacked in 1913. The U.S. Constitution wasn’t amended to bring about The Federal Reserve….it was just ignored. We use unconstitutional money every day. This “system” is the monetary system of Empire. It was constructed for that purpose. We’ll, anyone with even a passing knowledge of history, knows what happens to Empires. There’s a crisis ahead, and you’d be correct to blame the Fed!
By Chris Rossini
Political-correctness twists individuals into an unnatural knot. A population that doesn't know what to think, what opinions they're 'allowed' to have, and what they're 'permitted' to say, is a population that can be easily controlled and manipulated. Here's a spoiler alert for you: there's never a shortage of people who want to do the controlling and manipulating. The lust for power is not a new or unpopular lust. Such people can't control a population of individuals that embrace their natural freedom. We're all born free to think as we choose, reap the results of those thoughts, form our own opinions, beliefs, and convictions. Whether we embrace this freedom or not is up to each and every one of us. It's not a requirement. You can toss your freedom away. Those who lust after power would love for you to do that. They can't control a population of free-thinking individuals. It's much easier if everyone is afraid of their own shadows. Political-correctness seeks to separate you from the most important opinion in the world....your own. You're supposed to put the opinions of others above your own. Arbitrary constructs, like "society," and "community" are to be placed on a pedestal, and you must grovel at their feet. Instead of being the one-of-a-kind individual that you are, you're supposed to fit yourself into a mold (that you didn't create). If you're courageous enough to even peek outside of that mold, you're denounced with an entire lexicon of made-up and ridiculous names. One glance at the world should be enough for you to know that humanity is not an army of robots, stamped out from the same mold. If there's one thing about life, it's that uniqueness is paramount. Your mind is your own personal kingdom, and in this kingdom you can form whatever opinions you want about anything that you want. It would be foolish to allow others to dictate what you can and cannot think or say; that there are pre-determined opinions that you have to adopt. Sadly, making such an critical error has become an epidemic. People are stripping themselves of their own individuality. They wait to be told what to think, adopt it without criticism, and then defend it with reckless abandon. Comparing oneself to others, and one's reputation to the "community," has become the new religion. It makes no sense, in a world of individuals, to compare yourself to others. Others are different than you!....You're different than them! Why would you compare two free-thinking individuals? What about "reputation"? A reputation is not a real *thing*. You can't put it into someone's hand. A reputation is an interpretation. We all interpret things differently. One person may look at you and interpret you as a fool. Another may interpret you as a genius. If "reputation" was an actual thing, they would have to come to the same conclusion, right? But they don't. You have no control over which interpretation someone else is going to choose....Zero control! Speak to 30 different people and you'll find out that you have 30 different reputations. The political-correctness mental prison, that those who lust for power have erected, can be ditched in an instant. Your life is your own ... Your mind is your own ... Your opinions are your own .... And you'll say whatever you want. It's sad, that such a basic return to one's natural state is considered a revolutionary act these days. But whether it's revolutionary or not, everyone has freedom to do it.
Legendary libertarian journalist and advocate John Stossel joins today's Liberty Report to look at the future of the liberty movement in the age of Trump. War powers, regulation, government spending, the media - we cover all bases!
Trump's National Security Advisor John Bolton makes no secret of what he wants for North Korea. Just a month before his appointment he wrote an article arguing for pre-emptive war against North Korea. He has a long record of pressuring analysts to come up with pre-determined conclusions. Is he actually working against Trump behind Trump's back?
By Liberty Report Staff
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave a dramatic presentation yesterday where he claimed to produce new and shocking evidence that Iran was violating the nuclear treaty and continuing its pursuit of nuclear weapons. But much of his "evidence" is actually old evidence from before the 2007 CIA's National Intelligence Estimate that Iran was no longer pursuing a nuclear weapon. Is Bibi bluffing us?
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