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Today's appearance of former Special Counsel Robert Mueller before the House Judiciary Committee to discuss his report on Trump Campaign collusion with the Russian government may be a last ditch effort to make the election all about impeachment proceedings against the president. Will this strategy fall flat on its face? Is Mueller falling flat on his face? Russiagate?
By Chris Rossini
Liberty rests on a solid foundation of non-aggression. No one, including (and especially) government has the right to use aggressive force against anyone else. Interactions between people are to be voluntary, and if someone veers off and decides to use force, or commit fraud, government's job is to punish the aggressor. Today, in America, the ideas of Liberty have been turned completely upside down. The idea that 'Might Makes Right' has been accepted and embraced. The use of aggressive force (especially by government) is just about worshipped in all aspects of life. It starts at the very beginning. Children are forced into government buildings, during their most impressionable years, to be "schooled" by the government. What a recipe for disaster. Year-after-year, this "system" is widely acknowledged as a failure. But, instead of removing the government force, the only idea that ever prevails is to throw more money at it. But more money never has, and never will solve the problem. We are individuals. A one-size-fits-all education system is the antithesis of individuality. Government force and education must be separated completely. Then we move to the economy, where federal, state, and local governments are woven like spider webs into every facet of business down to the tiniest minutia. The results are an abysmal failure as the standard of living in America has stagnated for many decades. Americans live on credit cards and loans of every variety just to get by. But, instead of removing government force, it's much easier to blame foreign nations and call for more government interventions. More might. More force. This error is on auto-pilot and has been for over 100 years. Just as we must remove government force from education, so must it be removed from the economy. Then we move to the BIG ONE. America's foreign policy of 'Might Makes Right' is the biggest and most expensive failure of them all. For 100 years, the American government has been intervening with violent force in the affairs of other nations. This will go down in the history books as one of mankind's greatest tragedies. Here was a country that started out with the philosophy of Liberty, only to throw it all away by worshipping the exact opposite. Despite decade after decade of failure, TRILLIONS are extracted from people living on credit cards to fuel a philosophy of 'Might Makes Right.' Here's the truth: Might DOES NOT Make Right. And it doesn't matter if 99.9999% believe that it does. Americans have been brainwashed into believing that if a majority of people believe and want something, that it should be so, and that it is somehow sacred. Ultimately, this philosophy burns itself out. If it didn't, all of the earlier attempts at Empire would still be with us. The Roman Empire would still exist, as would Spanish, British...etc....etc. But they do not. As the worship of force in America approaches and ultimately reaches its burnout point, a new philosophy will have to be embraced. Americans will have to try again and start over. Why not take the best of what our Founders were thinking? Why not actually embrace the words of the Declaration of Independence? Why not Live and Let Live? Why not keep our hands off other people and their stuff? Why not voluntary interactions, respect for private property, and sound money? It's surely better than this. 
By Ryan McMaken
The Washington Post reported last week that some workers on the Bernie Sanders campaign for calling for a wage increase to a the equivalent of 15 dollars per hour. This, of course, is the hourly rate which Sanders has long pushed for in legislation and on the campaign trail. But that's more than what many Sanders employees make. Many campaign workers are salaried, so the problem lies in the fact that total campaign salaries, when calculated on a per-hour-worked basis, come out to less than $15 per hour. Many employees work around 60 hours per week — as is often typical for full-time workers on a presidential campaign. As reported by the Des Moines Register, For a staffer working 40 hours a week, [the typical campaign salary] comes out to about $17 an hour. But 40-hour workweeks on presidential campaigns are rare.
So, some Sanders employees have complained they aren't earning a "living wage" and have demanded Sanders raise wages immediately. Recognizing the bad optics of the situation, Sanders apparently began looking for a way to raise the per-hour wage.
But how to do it? If we use the typical rhetoric surrounding the minimum wage debate, then the answer is simple: the employer — in this case, Bernie Sanders — should take a pay cut or reduce his own wealth in order to pay employees more. After all, this is what we typically hear about why employees are not paid more: they are only paid so "little" because the owners are "greedy" or unwilling to share the wealth. In Sanders's case specifically, we could conclude he should be willing to sell off some of his substantial real estate holdings or devote some of his income from book sales to paying his employees more. So what is Sanders's solution? According to the Register: Sanders said the campaign will limit the number of hours staffers work to 42 or 43 each week to ensure they're making the equivalent of $15 an hour.
In other words, the campaign will do less in order to pay each employee more on an hourly basis.
For salaried workers at least, the employees won't be paid more overall, although they will get more per hour. There are a couple of things we can learn from this. First of all, of course, we learn that Sanders is not willing to put his money where his mouth is. He's not willing to use any additional portion of his personal wealth to supplement worker wages. He is willing to cut back on campaign activities to make up the difference. Ironically, however, in non-monetary terms, this may turn out to represent a pay cut for campaign workers. After all, it is likely that most people who go to work for the Sanders campaign do so because they want to see Sanders elected. Yes, they want to receive money wages, and many may also be interested in building a career as a professional campaign consultant. But for many of these workers, they also receive payment in the form of getting Sanders elected and in "getting the message out." But if paying a higher per-hour wage means cutting back total campaign work, then this hobbles the campaign and means there will be less of that "getting the word out," and it may also mean Sanders ultimately loses the race. Thus, by demanding $15 per hour, the employees are reducing their non-monetary compensation. Moreover, if the Sanders campaign loses, this will have significant impacts on the ability of many campaign workers to obtain jobs within a new Sanders administration as administrators and political advisors. That is, a Sanders loss will mean Sanders workers will have greater trouble finding new jobs as government employees or on other future campaigns.So losses will be monetary as well. Read the rest of this article at The Mises Institute. No More Wikileaks! Intelligence Authorization Bill Criminalizes Whistleblowers And Reporters7/23/2019
This year's Intelligence Authorization bill contains language drafted by the CIA itself designed to make it a criminal act to reveal the name of undercover agents whether stationed overseas or at home, whether working or retired. The measure is designed - in the CIA's own words - to prevent the kind of transparency that was provided by Wikileaks. It is a war on the free press!
By Ron Paul
The UK got a taste of its own medicine this week as Iran seized a British tanker, the Stena Impero, just two weeks after UK Royal Marines seized a tanker near Gibraltar carrying two million barrels of Iranian oil. As could be predicted, the US and UK media are reporting Iran’s seizure of the Stena Impero as if it were something out of the blue, pushing the war propaganda that “we” have been attacked and must retaliate. Media criticism of the UK is limited to claims that it has not put enough military into the Persian Gulf, not that it should never have seized the Iranian ship in the first place. The truth is, the UK seizure of the Iranian ship was calculated to force Iran to retaliate and thus provide the pretext the neocons need to get their war. As usual, Trump’s National Security Advisor John Bolton is in the thick of this operation. Bolton Tweeted that he was so surprised – but pleased – by the UK move against the Iranian tanker. However it is becoming clearer that Bolton was playing a role behind the scenes pushing London to lure Iran into making a move that might trigger the war he’s long been yearning for. The ramping up of tanker wars comes just as the Pentagon has announced that it will send 500 US troops to Saudi Arabia – the first such US deployment since the US withdrew its troops in 2003. At that time, then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz hailed the move out of Saudi Arabia as denying al-Qaeda one of its prime recruiting tools – US troops in their holy land. What will 500 troops do in Saudi Arabia? Some say they will help prepare the Prince Sultan military air base for a possible US air squadron deployment. We must be clear on how we got to the very edge of war with Iran. President Trump pulled out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) promising he would exchange it for a much better deal for the US. He quickly re-applied all previous US sanctions on Iran and demanded that our allies do the same. The US policy would be to apply “maximum pressure” to Iran which would result in Iran capitulating and agreeing to all US demands. US economic warfare against Iran would bring the country to its knees, the Administration claimed, and would deliver a big win to the US without a shot being fired. But the whole plan has gone terribly wrong. Iran did not back down or beg for mercy in the face of Trump’s actions, and the Europeans have at least attempted to keep the JCPOA agreement alive. And the UK following neocon orders has led the country in a serious and unnecessary crisis that does not look to be easily resolved. How could the US administration have miscalculated so badly? Many of us could have told President Trump that the neocons always promise a “cakewalk” when they are talking up a military action. Time and time again – Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria – they promise a quick victory and deliver a quagmire. The American people overwhelmingly do not want to go to war with Iran and the president wants to be re-elected. Will he return to the political base that elected him on promises of getting along with the rest of the world, or will he continue to follow his neocon advisors down the road to a failed presidency?
The latest neocon scheme is to push US allies to send warships to join a US-led mission to keep the Strait of Hormuz "free and clear" for shipping. In reality it is a trigger for war. Thus far the US has no takers for this clear escalation. Will Bolton's brigades begin peeling away EU hold-outs?
By Liberty Report Staff
Ron Paul joined RT UK's 'Going Underground' to discuss current tensions with Iran. Watch below:
America will never become Socialist? That's probably true, but Socialist policies are not on the outside, looking in. The U.S. has far too many of them! Both Socialism & Corporatism have to go. Free Markets & Liberty must replace them.
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