“Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freedom of speech.”—Benjamin Franklin Beware of those who want to monitor, muzzle, catalogue and censor speech. Especially be on your guard when the reasons given for limiting your freedoms end up expanding the government’s powers. In the wake of a mass shooting in Buffalo, NY, carried out by an 18-year-old gunman in military gear allegedly motivated by fears that the white race is in danger of being replaced, there...

NBC's Meet the Press just aired an absolutely freakish segment in which the influential narrative management firm Center for a New American Security (CNAS) ran war games simulating a direct US hot war with China. CNAS is funded by the Pentagon and by military-industrial complex corporations Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, and Lockheed Martin, as well as the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office, which as Antiwar's Dave DeCamp notes is the de facto Taiwanese embassy in the US. The war...

On May 16, just before I was interviewed for The Critical Hour, Putin addressed Finland’s and Sweden’s plans to join NATO, using words far milder than had most expected: “Russia has no problems with these states. There is no direct threat to Russia in connection with NATO’s expansion to these countries.” Then, the kicker: “But the expansion of NATO’s military infrastructure to these territories will certainly evoke a response on our part. We will see what it will be like based on the threats...

Seeing Russia invade Ukraine, historically neutral Finland has undergone a late conversion and decided to join NATO immediately. Why? Because NATO membership means the world’s strongest power, the United States, under Article 5 of NATO, would go to war against Russia, should it cross Finland’s border. Nervous about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s intentions, Finland wants America legally and morally bound to fight Russia on its behalf, should Putin invade Finland as he invaded Ukraine. From...

Even by Washington standards, the Biden Administration’s recent request for $33 billion for military aid to Ukraine was shocking. Surely a coalition of antiwar progressives and budget-hawk Republicans would oppose the dangerous and expensive involvement of the US in the Russia/Ukraine conflict? No! Not only did Congress not object: they added nearly seven billion MORE dollars to the package!In the end, not a single House Democrat voted against further US involvement in the war, and just 57...

Politicians have long viewed tragedies and crises as opportunities not to be “wasted.” Most recently, Samantha Power, Biden’s Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development, told ABC that they did not want to waste the war in Ukraine as a way of pushing green initiatives. She explained to George Stephanopoulos that you should “never let a crisis go to waste.” Governor Kathy Hochul (D-NY), adopted the same approach to the massacre in Buffalo in renewing calls for...

It was — literally — a made-for-television moment. A former US Navy chief petty officer turned cable news pundit, dressed in a fresh out-of-the-box camouflage uniform replete with body armor and magazine pouches, wearing matching camouflage helmet and gloves, and cradling an automatic rifle, stared into the camera and announced “I am here to help this country [Ukraine] fight what is essentially a war of extermination.” With a Ukrainian flag on his left shoulder, and a US flag emblazoned on his...

The United States has now delegated some $56 billion in new money to debase the currency “for Ukraine,” but hardly any of it is actually going to the Ukrainian people. Due to President Trump, the D.C. war machine spent 2016 to 2020 starving for a monetary replenishment. And now that they have their man in the White House, along with easy consensus in the legislature, it’s time to cash in. Wherever your opinion resides on this proxy war/inter-slavic spat 5,000 miles away on the Russia-Ukraine...

Americans are reeling from surging gas prices, food prices, and the price of rent – all of which have steadily risen since the start of the pandemic. US President Joe Biden has chosen to blame Russian President Vladimir Putin for the situation, dubbing it “Putin’s price hike” – but people aren’t buying it. In addition to mile-high inflation, the US economy risks stagnating as consumers are unable to pay the higher costs of basically everything from gas to essential groceries. The logistical...

The US House of Representatives has voted 368-57 to spend $40 billion on a world-threatening proxy war while ordinary Americans struggle to feed themselves and their children. All 57 "no" votes were Republicans. Every member of the small faction of progressive House Democrats popularly known as "The Squad" voted yes. The massive proxy war bill then went to the Senate, where it was stalled with scrutiny not from progressive superstar Bernie Sanders, but from Republican Rand Paul.  This is...

Thirty years ago, I co-taught a course on the making and use of the atomic bomb at the US Air Force Academy. We took cadets to Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, where the first nuclear weapons were designed and built during World War II, and we also visited the Trinity test site, where the first atomic device exploded in a test conducted in July of 1945. It was after that first test when J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb, mused that he had become death, the...

Last week, sources leaked to The New York Times that, in Ukraine’s targeting and killing of Russian generals and the sinking of Russia’s Black Sea flagship, the Moskva, US intelligence played an indispensable role. Apparently, our intel people identified and located for the Ukrainian forces what became the targets of their deadly attacks. Why US intelligence would do this seems inexplicable. By claiming credit for Ukraine’s most visible military successes, we diminish the achievements of that...

Prominent journalists are calling for the media to champion a “pro-democracy” bias in how they portray politicians and government agencies. But tub-thumping for democracy — or at least for politicians who claim to be pro-democracy — is a poor substitute for exposing the proliferation of government abuses. Freedom will be the victim if journalists grasp a new pretext to portray government as a trustworthy savior. In January, Washington Post columnist Perry Bacon called for a “pro-democracy...