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By Liberty Report Staff
PRIVACY and LIBERTY are both parts of the nature of every individual human being. We are all born with the LIBERTY to think in PRIVATE. Our minds are our individual kingdoms, where every thought happens in secret. POWER seeks to abolish both LIBERTY and PRIVACY. Ron Paul explains this threat:
The White House does not want the 9/11 authorization to be "updated." They like it just the way it has been mis-interpreted for the last 16 years. Some in Congress insist we need a new authorization to clarify what, when, where, and how. Who's right?
By Liberty Report Staff
We all know that the American Empire's longest war of 16 years in Afghanistan is a total failure. The lives lost can never return. The Trillion dollars (with a "T") spent can never go back into our pockets. But U.S. Presidents never like to admit defeat, so the war is passed from one administration to the next with the hope that taxpayers will just accept it as a fact of life. The Empire doesn't even want to pretend that success in Afghanistan is measurable anymore. The Pentagon has announced that 'Progress Metrics' of Afghan Army size are now classified. American taxpayers need only to pay up...and shut up. Jason Ditz of Antiwar.com reports: For the last 16 years, the Pentagon’s “progress” in the occupation of Afghanistan has been measured by officials through multiple different statistics, and one most often cited has been the size of the Afghan military. Those numbers have struggled recently, with Afghanistan not recruiting well nor retaining its recruits. So that’s not a metric anymore.
By Liberty Report Staff
Sen. Rand Paul challenged both Mattis and Tillerson in opposing U.S. pre-emptive war policy. The Senator spoke out against multiple US unauthorized wars and the tyranny of the executive branch. 
Press Play to hear Ron Paul deliver his Weekly Update:
By Ron Paul
Does anyone in the Trump Administration have a clue about our Syria policy? In March, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson appeared to be finally pulling back from President Obama’s disastrous “Assad must go” position that has done nothing but prolong the misery in Syria. At the time, Tillerson said, the "longer-term status of President Assad will be decided by the Syrian people." Those of us who believe in national sovereignty would say that is pointing out the obvious. Nevertheless it was a good sign that US involvement in Syria – illegal as it is – would no longer seek regime change but would stick to fighting ISIS. Then out of the blue this past week, Tillerson did another 180 degree policy turn, telling a UN audience in Geneva that, “[t]he reign of the Assad family is coming to an end. The only issue is how that should that be brought about.” The obvious question is why is it any of our business who runs Syria, but perhaps that’s too obvious. Washington’s interventionists have long believed that they have the unilateral right to determine who is allowed to head up foreign countries. Their track record in placing “our guy” in power overseas is abysmal, but that doesn’t seem to stop them. We were promised that getting rid of people like Saddam Hussein and Gaddafi would light the fire of freedom and democracy in the Middle East. Instead it has produced nothing but death and misery – and spectacular profits for the weapons manufacturers who fund neocon think tanks.
In Syria, Assad has been seen as a protector of Christians and other minorities against the onslaught of in many cases US-backed jihadists seeking his overthrow. While the Syrian system is obviously not a Switzerland-like democracy, unlike our great “ally” Saudi Arabia they do at least have elections contested by different political parties, and religious and other minorities are fully integrated into society.
Why has the Trump Administration shifted back to “Assad must go”? One reason may be that, one-by-one, the neocons who opposed Trump most vociferously during the campaign have found themselves and their friends in positions of power in his Administration. The neocons are great at winning while losing. The real story behind Washington’s ongoing determination to overthrow the Syrian government is even more disturbing. In a bombshell interview last week, a former Qatari Prime Minister confessed that his country, along with Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the United States, began shipping weapons to jihadists from the very moment Syrian unrest began in 2011. The well-connected Qatari former minister was trying to point out that his country was not alone in backing al-Qaeda and even ISIS in Syria. In the course of defending his country against terrorism charges leveled by Saudi Arabia he has spilled the beans about US involvement with the very groups claimed to be our arch-enemies. As they did in Afghanistan in the 1980s, the CIA supported radical Islamic terrorism in Syria. Haven’t we done enough damage in Syria? Do we really need to go back to 2011 and destroy the country all over again? The neocons never admit a mistake and never change course, but I do not believe that the majority of Americans support their hijacking of President Trump’s Syria policy. It is long past time for the US to leave Syria alone. No bases, no special forces, no CIA assassination teams, no manipulating their electoral system. We need to just come home.
NATO reacted sharply to Turkey's signing an agreement with Russia to purchase advanced missile defense systems, warning Turkey that it will be responsible for the consequences of such a move. Is the US military-industrial complex getting nervous, or are there larger geopolitical questions at hand? Or both...?
By Liberty Report Staff
Wars and Lies go hand in hand. It's always challenging calling out the government on its lies as war fever picks up. They have the mass media in their pockets and they're all blaring fear inducing propaganda at the same time. Pointing out the blatant lies automatically gets you branded as a "conspiracy theorist," and "unpatriotic." It's always afterwards, when the damage has been done, that the truth finds its way out. By the time the truth comes out, everyone has already moved on to the next military aggression and the lies that are surrounding it. But before we all succumb to the fear of the next fake boogeyman, let's first highlight some important revelations about the failed "regime change" operation in Syria. It too was built on a pyramid of lies. ZeroHedge reports: A television interview of a top Qatari official confessing the truth behind the origins of the war in Syria is going viral across Arabic social media during the same week a leaked top secret NSA document was published which confirms that the armed opposition in Syria was under the direct command of foreign governments from the early years of the conflict.[...]
And so, Americans were lied to, yet again.
Add it to the list. Add the hundreds of thousands of unnecessary casualties to the list as well. Read the full report on Syria at ZeroHedge here.
The income tax should be 0%, just as it was for the first 137 years of American history. So tax cuts across the board are always a welcome development. However, tax cuts are just part of the big picture. What we need is a total cut in government's size and scope. Unfortunately, President Trump is not going in that direction. Ron Paul discusses on today's Liberty Report!
By Jacob G. Hornberger
One of the favorite pastimes of leftists/progressives/liberals is lamenting the fact that some people have more while others have less. They say that life is just unfair in this respect. They want the government to “level the playing field” by using taxation to take money from those who have more and giving it to those who have less. Their ideal is a “level playing field” in which everyone has the same amount of wealth. Even though they would never admit it openly, this leftist/progressive/liberal concept is rooted in envy and covetousness. They just cannot stand the fact that some people have more than they do. They won’t be happy until everyone who has more than they do has been “equalized” down to their level. Leftists claim that in a genuine free market, the rich would only get richer and the poor would only get poorer. Their statuses, leftists say, are permanent. The rich will never be poor and the poor will never be rich, they claim. We need government to equalize everyone, they assert.
Yesterday, the New York Times reported that Hudson’s Bay, the company that owns Lord & Taylor, is selling its 676,000 square-foot store in New York City that has stood for more than a century. The property is being sold to a start-up named WeWork that caters to millennials by providing variable office space. WeWork was founded in 2010 and now has 160 locations in 52 cities.
The shift is part of an economic revolution in the retail business, which has been brought about by the Internet. Another example is Macy’s, one of the country’s largest department stores, which has closed dozens of its stores nationwide. But wait a minute! How is this possible? Don’t leftists say that the rich only get richer? That their status is secure and permanent? That we need government to seize their wealth and give it to the poor? That coercion is needed to “equalize” everyone? What is happening to Lord & Taylor, Macy’s, and other retail establishments demonstrates the ridiculous nature of this particular economic dogma of the left. The fact is that the free market is a great redistributor of wealth and a great equalizer. It brings many of the wealthy down and lifts the fortune of many who are not wealthy. And it’s all done voluntarily and peacefully — that is, without taxation or other government coercion. According to an article by Mark J. Perry on the website of the American Enterprise Institute: Comparing the Fortune 500 companies in 1955 to the Fortune 500 in 2014, there are only 61 companies in 1955 that appear in both lists. In other words, only 12.2% of the Fortune 500 companies in 1955 were still on the list 59 years later in 2014, and almost 80 percent of the companies from 1955 have either gone bankrupt, merged, or still exist but have fallen from the top Fortune 500 companies (ranked by revenue).
But according to leftist economic doctrine, that simply isn’t possible. Remember: They say that the rich only get richer and the poor only get poorer. You need government to “level the playing field,” they claim.
What is it about the free market that proves leftists wrong? Consumers. In a free market, they, not the government, do the equalizing and leveling, and, unlike the government, they do it peacefully and voluntarily. It is consumers who decide who is going to prosper and who isn’t. They, not the government, is sovereign in a free market. How do consumers redistribute and equalize wealth? Through their decisions on what to buy and not to buy. By making those decisions, they decide who is going to be rich, poor, or middle class. That’s why many big sports athletes, many of whom come from dirt-poor families, now make tens of millions of dollars and why many college professors who came from wealthy families make only tens of thousands of dollars. Consumers are willing to spend more on attending baseball games than on taking college courses. Consumers are a ruthless bunch. No matter how long they have done business with a particular company, if someone comes along and offers them something better at a lower price, most of them will not hesitate to shift their loyalties, even if it means that their old company goes broke and has to lay off workers. In a free market there is only one way that a well-established, wealthy company can retain its position in the market. It must continue to satisfy the consumer by providing him with goods and services that he is willing to pay for. Remember: A private company is not like the government — it cannot force its customers to patronize it or forcibly take money from people to subsidize its operations. It must serve people by providing them with goods and services that they are voluntarily willing to pay for. Leftists are wrong. We don’t need government to destroy freedom and private property by coercively confiscating and redistributing wealth. The free market does a fine job redistributing wealth all by itself, and entirely voluntarily.
This article was originally published at The Future of Freedom Foundation.
‘Fair Wage’ Pizza Parlor Touting ‘Economic Justice’ Shuts Down, Lays Off Staff Due to Low Profits10/26/2017
By Katherine Rodriguez
A “fair wage” pizza shop in Boston touting “economic justice” will close its doors after failing to make a profit. The Boston Globe reports that Dudley Dough, which is billed as a pizza parlor “with a purpose,” will close in a few months after two years in business because the shop could not make any money after paying its employees above-market wages. “The challenge for Dudley Dough was to support itself,” said Bing Broderick, executive director of the nonprofit Haley House, which oversees the shop. Despite the pizzeria’s mission-oriented business plan, its mission to pay employees more combined with the added expenses of culinary and leadership training for its employees backfired as the additional costs made it hard for them to beat the competition. Robert Kraft, the owner of the New England Patriots, gave Dudley Dough $100,000 to help its operations but even that was not enough to save the struggling pizza shop. The Globe notes that three other restaurants in the area that opened around the same time as Dudley Dough are still open. A lot of the employees did not see the venture as a failed enterprise and are shocked and saddened by the company’s closing. |
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