Yesterday’s market crash shocked many in the financial world. Today comes the blame game, with several Republican hopefuls calling out China as being behind US economic woes. One candidate suggested that President Obama cancel the upcoming state visit of the Chinese president, while another spoke openly of the need for a trade war with China. The big danger with all this saber rattling toward China is that a trade war or a war of words can easily spill over into an actual war. Today’s Ron Paul Liberty Report looks at the populist protectionism that threatens to further sour US/Chinese relations:

Is Samantha Power an excellent US ambassador to the United Nations? Is she putting America’s best foot forward? RPI Executive Director Daniel McAdams joins veteran journalist Patrick Smith and former US intelligence community linguist Scott Rickard to discuss how “human rights” has been weaponized to push regime change overseas:

Recently 340 US rabbis — from the full spectrum of US Judaism — signed a letter to Congress urging approval of the Iran deal. As AIPAC spends millions lobbying against the deal, perhaps the US Jewish community is not as unified as the neocons would like us to believe. Today’s Ron Paul Liberty Report discusses support for the deal:

The neocons are looking to make a big comeback. Job one is to rehabilitate the Iraq war fiasco by re-writing history. It was not lies and manipulation that brought the US into the Iraq war, they claim, but it was only “faulty intelligence.” And Dick Cheney is coming out with a new book urging the US to “rebuild” the military so that it can engage in more pre-emptive wars! Will they succeed? Tune in to today’s Liberty Report:

As the neocons continue to bombard Congress demanding that the deal with Iran be killed, a group of former senior US military officers and a group of former Iranian political prisoners living in the US have both signed letters in support of the deal. Who will US lawmakers listen to? Today on the Ron Paul Liberty Report:

Donald Trump wants to hit ISIS hard, to “put a ring around them” and take their oil, presumably with US troops on the ground. But according to former CIA expert Michael Scheuer, attempting to defeat ISIS militarily would only help them grow in power. The best US “weapon,” writes Scheuer, is non-intervention in the Middle East. Who’s right? Today on the Liberty Report:

Former Defense Intelligence Agency head Gen. Michael Flynn is not backing down from his claims that elements of the US government were aware of and supported the rise of jihadists in Syria as a means by which to overthrow its president, Bashar Assad. As the US moves ever closer to a full-out invasion of Syria the lack of media interest in Flynn’s story is reminiscent of the one-sided (pro-war) coverage of the run up to the 2003 Iraq War. More on the disturbing new revelations in a special edition of the Ron Paul Liberty Report:

Seventy years after the atomic incineration of Hiroshima, have we progressed beyond the idea of viewing civilians as fair game in a war waged by their leaders? Yes and no, finds the Ron Paul Liberty Report. On one hand public opinion has gradually shifted away from the idea that the bomb was necessary — with the majority of young people in a recent poll viewing the atomic bombing of Japan unnecessary. On the other hand, through sanctions and drone “signature strikes” civilians are still being targeted. Today’s Liberty Report also features Ron Paul reading from his new book, Swords into Plowshares, a section remembering the reaction in his house when the first atomic bomb was exploded:

The US drone war not only continues, but accelerates. More than 5,000 have been killed since 2009 in Obama’s drone attacks and still the US has no idea how many of them might be innocent civilians. In fact, the US does not even bother to target only suspected terrorists. Instead, it targets patterns of behavior called “signatures.” A male of military age is therefore considered a legitimate target. Does such an approach really keep us safe? Today’s Liberty Report takes a look at this disturbing new form of US warfare:

When the latest US-trained batch of fighters were sent into Syria, many were immediately captured by al-Qaeda. So much for US training. Some of the others called for US military air support which was granted. Subsequently, President Obama announced that the US would use airstrikes to protect any future fighters it sends into Syria — whether against ISIS or even the Syrian government. Does this mean the US is now at war with Syria? And where is Congress? Today’s Liberty Report looks at the rapidly escalating US military mission in Syria:

When are the neocons and the hawks going to stop getting us into more trouble, MSNBC’s Chris Matthews asked Ron Paul during an appearance on Hardball. “Well I wish they’d look at reason and look at what is happening,” replied Paul, but “I think it’s unfortunately going to stop when we go broke and there’s nothing left and then the people will find out that it is a total failure.”

The other consequence of the constant wars the US is engaged in, added Paul, is that eventually the wars get turned inward against the American people. And that’s why we have this attack on civil liberties.

“But I concentrate on foreign policy in my new book, he adds, because “these wars are needless, they are immoral, they are unconstitutional, and they hurt us.”

Paul and Matthews discuss the “Giuliani Moment” in Ron Paul’s 2008 run. Paul points out that while many said his campaign was finished because of his discussion of blowback in the debate, in fact from that moment his candidacy actually took off and it was Giuliani who was all but finished.

Chris Matthews finishes the interview telling his audience that if they like the way this man is thinking, his new book is titled Swords into Plowshares.

Watch the whole interview here:

The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is, at a total cost of $1.5 trillion, the biggest military boondoggle in US history. The “next generation fighter” has been plagued with cost over-runs and serious functional problems. The fighter jet will not even have a gun until 2017. But it is being built in a total of 45 states and several foreign countries, so no Member of Congress would dare try to kill this beast. Last week the US Marines declared the jet to be “operational” — but if you read the fine print there is little reason to think they will be flying it anytime soon. Today’s Liberty Report looks at one of the worst examples of military Keynesianism: