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In an hysterical rant over the weekend, President Trump has blasted Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) as a couple of "wackos" who refuse to vote with the Republican Party. Meanwhile, President Trump has just announced that his first in-person fundraiser of the election cycle will be for...Lindsey Graham! Also today, Israel breaks ceasefire and kills dozens more Palestinians in Gaza.
By Ron Paul
“What do you expect when you sue the president?” Hearing that comment, some people may guess the comment was made by someone addressing one of President Trump’s political opponents who has been targeted for federal prosecution. That quote, though, is much older. It is from an IRS agent addressing officials of a conservative organization that was being audited during Bill Clinton’s presidency. This illustrates that the use of federal agencies to punish presidents’ enemies did not start with President Trump. The administration of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt used tax investigations against political opponents. Targeted individuals included publishers of newspapers that were highly critical of Roosevelt’s domestic and foreign policies. President John F. Kennedy used the IRS and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to drive his conservative critics off the radio. President Lyndon Johnson also used the IRS and the FCC to silence conservative critics. One tool that was used to silence conservatives was to accuse broadcasters of violating the “fairness doctrine” by favoring conservative commentators. President Richard Nixon used the IRS to target political enemies. The Nixon administration also threatened television and radio companies with revocation of their broadcast licenses unless they provided favorable coverage of the administration. During the Clinton administration, the IRS not only targeted conservative and libertarian organizations it audited Paula Jones after she sued President Clinton for sexual harassment. During the George W. Bush years, the IRS targeted organizations critical of the Iraq War. When Barack Obama assumed the presidency, the tax agency turned its attention back to conservative and libertarian groups, with a focus on organizations associated with the Tea Party. The Department of Homeland Security also issued a warning that those with pro-liberty bumper stickers — including supporting the Libertarian Party or my presidential campaign — might be violent extremists. During the Biden administration, many Americans received harsh sentences for being present at the Capitol on January 6 even if they did not commit any violent acts. Federal agencies can also target presidents’ political enemies without a presidential order to do so being issued. Some ambitious and unscrupulous individuals will target a president’s enemies believing that this is an effective way to curry favor with the president or high-level administration officials. Others will use the power of the government against the president’s political enemies or those involved with political movements seeking to change the direction of the government out of a belief that these people or groups constitute a threat to the federal government that justifies violating constitutional rights. This history suggests that abuse of power is an inevitable feature of the modern welfare-warfare-regulatory state. Therefore, instead of focusing just on electing the “right” president, we should focus on shrinking the size and scope of the federal government to its constitutional limitations. This will ensure that Americans can exercise their right to criticize the government without fear of reprisal. As Thomas Jefferson said, “in questions of power then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the constitution.”
One day we're in a "trade war with China," and the next day we're not. One day, there are threats of "100% tariffs," on Chinese goods and the next day there aren't. World leaders need to do nothing but sit back and watch. Meanwhile, the American people are taken on an emotional roller-coaster of threats that (ironically) would harm the American people more than anyone else. What's going on here?
The US neocon rush to war against Venezuela is accelerating, with a fight boat blown up off the coast, a Trump admission that the US is looking at a land invasion, and the revelation that Trump has authorized a covert CIA operation to overthrow the government. Congress is as usual invisible.
President Trump's "Secretary of War" Pete Hegseth has demanded that news outlets covering the Pentagon sign a pledge to not seek access to "unauthorized" materials. Many news outlets on the Left and Right are crying "foul." Also today, Trump warns that "we" will disarm Hamas if necessary.
Ukrainian leader Zelensky is returning to Washington today to meet with President Trump. The US President has said he is considering sending Tomahawk missiles (nuclear-capable) to Ukraine if the war does not end soon. Russia has again sounded a warning about handing over weapons that could strike deep into Russia and could carry nukes. Is Trump misreading the situation?
By Ron Paul
When it comes to destroying your brand, Norwegian Nobel Committee is the Bud Lite of peace prizes. After all, back in 2009 they gave the Peace Prize to a President Barack Obama who then went on to bomb at least seven countries, set the Middle East on fire, and even conducted drone strikes on American citizens! Other awardees have had similarly suspicious records as peacemakers. They even gave a Peace Prize to the likes of Henry Kissinger. This year has proven to be no different. Last week the Nobel Committee announced that the 2025 Peace Prize would go to Venezuelan politician María Corina Machado. Machado has a long history in the Venezuelan opposition including support for and participation in the US-backed, 2002 coup against then-president Hugo Chavez. She is likewise a strong opponent of current Venezuelan president, Nicolas Maduro, and in 2018 even wrote a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asking for Israel’s assistance in overthrowing the Venezuelan government. Shouldn’t we be cheering anyone seeking to overthrow Maduro’s authoritarian style of socialism that is hardly helping the people of the country? Perhaps, but what Machado is seeking is very different from working for change in her country’s system of government. She has long worked with and been paid by the US government’s “regime change” apparatus, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). NED was founded under President Reagan to do openly what the CIA has been notorious for doing in secret: overthrowing foreign governments that Washington doesn’t like. Scratch any of the “color revolutions” of the past 30 years and you will find the participation of the National Endowment for Democracy. Nowhere have these coups and revolutions promoted and funded by NED (and the CIA itself) been even remotely successful. They have only produced broken, ravaged, burned-out shells like we have seen in Libya and elsewhere. They produced chaos and called it freedom and democracy. They even helped put al-Qaeda in power in Syria! No, you don’t have to love Maduro or his style of governance to be critical of outside attempts to oust him. In President Trump’s first term, he set his neocons loose on Venezuela and the result was the almost comical rise of the political nobody Juan Guaido. I say “almost comical” because Trump’s neocons wasted untold millions of our dollars on the farce. Is the Nobel Peace Prize just another deep state, soft-power tool intended to boost the US global military empire? The timing of the award going to the relatively unknown Machado is suspicious. President Trump has parked an armada of warships off the Venezuelan coast as his aides openly talk about “decapitation” strikes on the Venezuelan government. After the extrajudicial killing of some 20 civilians in his attacks on at least four boats off the Venezuelan coast, President Trump is openly bragging that no one dares launch a boat in the area. The “Peace Prize” endows Machado with a new sense of moral authority and gives weight to any “green-light” she may again give to outside militaries to attack her own country. What’s wrong with heeding Machado’s calls to “liberate” her country? President John Quincy Adams said it best, America “goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.” We should leave Venezuela alone.
President Trump addressed the Israeli knesset today to proclaim, "the end of the age of terror and death" with the completion of the first phase of the Israel/Palestine peace plan. Is he right?
President Trump is ushering a "Golden Age" alright, just not the one MAGA voters were expecting. Instead of getting government off our backs, and no more wars, Americans have been saddled with warmongering on a daily basis, and a turbocharge of government spending, debts and inflation! Those people who want to protect themselves Trump's reckless government policies are piling into gold and sending the price to new all-time highs.
Not long ago US Sen. Ted Cruz told Tucker Carlson that his main purpose in getting into the US Senate was to "protect Israel." Like many US Christians, he expressed the view that one must "bless" the modern state of Israel or God will "curse" you as punishment. Pastor Chuck Baldwin (a former US Presidential candidate) joins today's Liberty Report to provide the counter-argument.
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