Since the German Marshall Fund of the United States unveiled its “Alliance For Securing Democracy (AFSD)," I’ve resisted commenting, simply because the lobby group’s “Hamilton 68 dashboard” is too preposterous to merit serious analysis.
It has rightly been ridiculed by journalists and activists who never tire of knocking the Kremlin.
The portal purports to use “600 Twitter accounts linked to Russian influence efforts online” to prove how Moscow is trying to sow seeds of doubt in the Western political system, via the social network. However, the creators won’t reveal the users concerned, and results seem to suggest they are mostly members of the US alt-right and alt-left. Meaning this is yet another attempt to pass off American dissent as some Kremlin “Psy-op.” Which is beyond ridiculous.
Furthermore, the names behind AFSD betray the project’s real purpose: to shift blame from internal American and European factors to the convenient Russian bogeyman. Which, of course, suits its financial backers, including the State Department, NATO, and the ubiquitous weapons maker Raytheon. All of whom benefit commercially and politically from strained ties between Moscow and Washington.
To achieve these goals they’ve hired the usual roll call of reliably anti-Russia blowhards. Including Estonian-American politician Ilves Toomas and rent-a-quote talking head Michael McFaul, the 'Mother Theresa of the Russia beat.' Those two are joined by neoconservative windbag William Kristol and ex-CIA chief Michael Morell.
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Two police officers in Kissimmee, Florida, were recently shot and killed while investigating illegal drug activity in a dangerous part of town. According to the New York Times, government officials praised the officers for their service and asked Floridians to pray for other law-enforcement personnel. President Trump weighed in with a tweet in which he offered his thoughts and prayers for the Kissimmee police and their families.
There is one big thing about that picture, however: It is the drug war itself, which Trump and, no doubt, most of the Kissimmee police department, favor, that is the reason that those two police officers are dead. If drugs were legal, those two dead police officers would not have been investigating illegal drug activity because there would be no illegal drug activity.
Take a look at this very interesting and revealing article in yesterday’s New York Times about a DEA agent named Enrique Camarena. He too is dead, having been kidnapped, tortured, and murdered in 1985 by a Mexican drug gang. Not surprisingly, the DEA went ballistic over the murder and pulled out all the stops, including violent kidnapping, to bring the malefactors to justice.
One big thing to notice, however: It is the drug war itself, which most DEA agents favor, that brought about Camarena’s death. If drugs had been legal, Camarena wouldn’t have been in Mexico investigating illegal drug activity because there wouldn’t have been any illegal drug activity.
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Trump and the War Party: RPI's Daniel McAdams on Mises Weekends
The costs of our wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria—human and economic—keep piling up. How do such deeply unpopular wars go on so long? Why do sensible notions of peace and non-intervention fail to gain a foothold in Congress or the White House? How does the War Party in DC plays both sides? And, how do they silence anti-war voices like Tulsi Gabbard? This is a no-holds-barred discussion of the grim realities behind US foreign policy...
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Blowback: Israel Threatens Syria Over Iran
US and allied interventionism in Iraq and Syria has not produced the promised results. An Iraq government close to Iran, a Syria saved from a jihadist takeover by Russia and Iran, and so on. Israel was firmly aboard the "regime change" train but suddenly sees the shake-out not looking in its favor. That is the problem with regime-change and interventionism: it does not work as promised. Now Israel feels threatened by the result. What's next? Threats are flying from Netanyahu over Iranians in Syria. We discuss blowback in today's Liberty Report...
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Five Minutes Five Issues: Bundy Ranch, Trump Recants, Deadly Tasers, Ukraine Weapons, Anthem Protest
A new episode of Five Minutes Five Issues posted on Friday. You can listen to it, and read a transcript, below. You can also find previous episodes of the show at Stitcher, iTunes, YouTube, and SoundCloud.
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Senate Declares War On Wikileaks - With Philip Giraldi
The US Senate Intelligence Committee has passed an Authorization bill that specifically targets Wikileaks and its senior personnel as a "hostile non-state intelligence agency" that receives assistance from foreign state intelligence services. This designation would green-light all manner of US overt and covert action against the news organization and its employees, in blatant violation of the First Amendment. Is the US, under a president that said "I love Wikileaks," about to go to war with Wikileaks? Former CIA officer Phil Giraldi brings his vast experience to bear in today's Liberty Report. What might we expect?
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Ron Paul Says President Trump’s Afghanistan War Plan Calls for Perpetual War and is a Recipe for Disaster
What does prominent nonintervention advocate and three-time presidential candidate Ron Paul think of President Donald Trump’s Monday night announcement of the Trump administration’s policy regarding the Afghanistan War? Paul said in a Tuesday interview at RT that the Trump plan calls for perpetual war and is a “recipe for disaster.”
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New Aug. 22:
The Senate Intelligence Authorization Act (SB 1761), introduced Friday by Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-NC) and alreadyapproved by the committee, concludes with a one sentence section — Section 623 — that appears to threaten WikiLeaks with potential harsh actions. The section categorizes the news organization, which helps expose information obtained from whistleblowers, as resembling "a non-state hostile intelligence service."
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