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After a bizarre pause in the impeachment proceedings, House Speaker Pelosi has finally decided to send the House-passed articles of impeachment over to the Senate for trial. Constitutional duty...or political grandstanding? And are they missing the whole point on impeachment?
By Chris Rossini
Let's say you want to be an authoritarian. You want to rule over other human beings by force (or the threat of force) if they don't obey your commands. You immediately run into a problem. Human beings are free to choose. Everyone that you want to boss around is one-of-a-kind and completely unique. What each person thinks, values, and chooses are out of your control. In other words, each person naturally has individual independence. This is a conundrum for you. How are you supposed to boss around a bunch of unique individuals? It would be much easier if humans were like homogeneous robots. All your non-thinking human robots just wait around for your command, and follow, without question. But you cannot have that...and that bothers you. So you start thinking. You come to realize that you'll never be able rule a bunch of individuals who are aware of their independence. You'll be inundated with rebels at every turn ... if they are aware. But what if you could blur that awareness? What if you can trick a bunch of people, and have it so that they are not aware of their independence? You could definitely rule over them....right? If you can somehow convince a critical mass of people that they are not individuals with independence, maybe then you can start bossing people around and attempt to mold humanity in your own image. After all, you're the brilliant one. You believe you've been put on this Earth to arrange it the "right way." Everyone else is just too stupid to understand that. Now, you know that you're not going to be able to blur the awareness of everyone. But you're OK with that. There will always be rebels who are aware of their independence. But if you keep the number of rebels at a minimum, that's good enough. Your main focus is in getting a critical mass of people to buy into your new idea that you like to call "collectivism." Under your idea of collectivism, all individuals (other than yourself, of course) are to think in terms of "we." You....are the "I". So when you decide something, everyone else believes that "we" decided it. This is so brilliant, it just might work! "We" should help the poor. "We" should get out of Afghanistan. "We" should fix the electoral system. "We" should educate people better. ....and the grand-daddy of them all ---- "We" are the government! Bamboozle enough people to think in these terms, and the world is your oyster! You've just stripped a critical mass of people of the awareness of their individual independence. They still have that individual independence, of course. You surely don't have the power to take it away. But if they're not aware of it, you've de facto achieved the same result. Now, of course you know there is no "we." There are only 7,000,000,000+ individual "I's" walking this Earth. The Creator didn't create "we's." The Creator created "I's". Remember the Declaration of Independence? It's in there: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." Individual Life --- That is Free --- To pursue its own Happiness. But the belief in a fictional "we" is all that you needed. And now you can roll-up your sleeves and make the world over. The endgame though, is much different than what you may expect. You can't make the world over, even in the name of "we." You can do nothing but create a very expensive and terribly costly lesson for you, and everyone that believes you.
The European partners of the JCPOA Iran nuclear deal have handed a big gift to the neocons and warmongers, announcing that they have trigged a mechanism within the agreement that will effectively kill the agreement in weeks. So say goodbye to peace and trade and hello to war with Iran. More in today's Liberty Report.
 By Ron Paul President Trump’s decision earlier this month to assassinate Iran’s top military general on Iraqi soil – over the objection of the Iraqi government – has damaged the US relationship with its “ally” Iraq and set the region on the brink of war. Iran’s measured response – a few missiles fired on an Iraqi base after advance warning was given – is the only reason the US is not mired in another Middle East war. Trump said his decision to assassinate Gen. Qassim Soleimani was intended to prevent a war, not start a war. But no one in his right mind would think that killing another country’s top military leader would not leave that country annoyed, to say the least. Senators Mike Lee (R-UT) and Rand Paul (R-KY) said the Trump Administration’s briefing to Congress on its evidence to back up claims that Soleimani was about to launch attacks against the US was among the worst briefings they’d ever attended. After initially claiming that Soleimani had to be taken out immediately because of “imminent” attacks he was launching against the US, Trump Administration officials including Secretary of State Pompeo and Defense Secretary Esper have been busy walking back those claims. Esper claimed over the weekend that he had not seen the intelligence suggesting an attack on US embassies was in the works. If the Secretary of Defense did not seen the intelligence, then who did? No doubt the Iraqi leadership recognized these kinds of deceptions: the same kinds of lies were used to push the US into attacking their own country in 2003. So it should not have come as a big surprise that the Iraqi government met last week and voted that all foreign military personnel should leave Iraqi soil. Then a funny thing happened when the Iraqi prime minister attempted to communicate to the US government the will of the Iraqi people through their democratically-elected officials. On Thursday Iraqi Prime Minister Mahdi phoned Pompeo to urgently request that Washington enact a US troop “withdrawal mechanism” in Iraq. American troops are in Iraq by invitation of the Iraqi government and the Iraqi government had just voted to revoke that invitation. The State Department responded with a statement titled “The US Continued Partnership with Iraq,” in which it essentially said that the US would not abide by the request of its Iraqi partners because the US military is a “force for good” in the Middle East and that as such it is "our right" to maintain "appropriate force posture” in the region. The US invaded Iraq based on Bush Administration lies and a million Iraqis died as a result. Later, President Obama ramped up the drone program and also backed al-Qaeda affiliated terrorists to overthrow the secular Syrian government. Obama also attacked Libya based on lies, leaving the country totally destroyed. Trump is assassinating foreign officials and threatening destruction of Iran. And the State Department calls that a “force for good”? The United States can be a true force for good, however. End the military occupation of the Middle East, end foreign military aid, stop using the CIA to overthrow governments. Allow Americans to travel and do business in any country they wish. Lead by example and demonstrate how free markets and peace benefit all. A “force for good” means not forcing others to bow to your will. 
After the Iraqi parliament vote to end US troop presence, the US is in no mood to discuss abiding by the wishes of the Iraqi government. When Prime Minister Mahdi called Pompeo to discuss terms for US withdrawal, the Trump Administration threatened to seize billions of Iraqi dollars held in the New York Federal Reserve Bank...and to again put Iraq under sanctions. 17 years of war and we're back to square one.
Trump officials - including Trump himself today - have been steadily pulling back from initial claims after the January 3rd assassination of Iranian top general Soleimani that he was killed because of "imminent threats" of attack led by the Iranian. New evidence is emerging that the kill order had been given seven months ago and according to Israeli media, Netanyahu was directly involved in plotting the killing. Former CIA officer Phil Giraldi joins the Liberty Report to try and unpack the competing claims and whirlwind of lies surrounding the targeted killing.
By Liberty Report Staff
Ron Paul joins The Heat on CGTN America to discuss the U.S. warfare state:  By Adam Dick President Donald Trump is offering plenty of justifications for the US government’s recent military actions against Iran, including that the actions were taken to prevent the deaths of Americans and to prevent a war. Not so, says former US House of Representatives member and presidential candidate Ron Paul in a Wednesday interview with host Ernest Hancock at Declare Your Independence. Incessant US attacks on Iran from sanctions to the killing last week of Iran General Qassim Suleimani, says Paul, are a consequence of a different policy that the US has had “for a long time” and that is endorsed by both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party, as well as the deep state. Paul, in the US-Iran-relations-focused interview, describes this policy as follows: We want to own Iran like we owned it when we had the Shah in power, and nobody’s going to be happy until that happens. Listen to Paul’s complete interview here. For an introduction to the US effort to place the Shah in power in Iran, aid the Shah’s government for the following 25 years, and, for the 40 years since the Shah’s departure, regain control over Iran, read Jacob Hornberger’s February of 2019 article “Understanding Why Iranians Bash the US Government.” 
Counterfeit money produces a counterfeit economy. A counterfeit economy is bolstered by counterfeit news. All of this leads to a counterfeit society, and America's counterfeit society is heading towards a horrendous disaster. You should know about sound money. It's the only way out.
The US House will vote today on a Democrat-introduced resolution limiting the President's ability to wage war on Iran without Congressional approval. Is this finally a sign that the Legislative Branch is taking up its Constitutional obligations? Or is this just more partisan show-boating?
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