The medical establishment has been captured by the globalists. Check out this headline from an article that appeared in my email from the JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association): “Critical Care Physician Takes on Climate Change in New World Health Organization Role.” In the 1970s I can remember climate scare tactics being applied but back then we were supposedly headed for a new ice age by the turn of the century. Then they decided the problem was global warming. After several years of cooling occurred they changed the name to climate change. These climate hysterics are shameless but persistent. Here is a small snippet from the climate change JAMA article:

“This June, the World Health Organization (WHO) appointed Kerry its first-ever Director-General Special Envoy for Climate Change and Health. ‘The climate crisis is a health crisis,’ she said in a recent video interview with JAMA, in which she spoke about the rapidly escalating threat that climate change poses to human health—and the opportunity the health care sector has to change course.”

To “change course.” In other words, allow us to direct you from the top down. These court intellectuals claim that hydrocarbon emissions from the use of fossil fuels are poised to harm the planet, and thus mankind unless we take drastic measures now (like adopt EVs on a large scale). Meanwhile, climate related deaths have been on a steady decline since the 1930s, largely due to the extensive use of these same hydrocarbons. And many of the same activists that claim to be so fearful of carbon emissions are also opposed to nuclear energy, which produces no carbon emissions. I smell a rat.

The climate change scam is not about saving the planet; it’s about exerting more power and control over people. One way to exert more control is to limit people’s mobility. I can fill the tank of my car with gas in five minutes and drive it for almost 500 miles without stopping. An electric vehicle will take hours to charge and may go half that far under ideal conditions. Furthermore, you must beef up the electrical system in your home. According to Kentucky congressman and electrical engineer Thomas Massie, the typical two car family converting to EVs will be running the equivalent of 25 extra refrigerators. How will all that extra electricity be generated? Surely some will be powered by natural gas or coal. And how will all the metals that go into those EV batteries be mined? With large caterpillars that burn diesel fuel. Also, EVs are much more expensive. I can buy a used vehicle with a gas engine for 20k, drive it for 100,000 miles and then sell it for 5k. My cost for the vehicle alone has been $15,000 for 100,000 miles; that’s fifteen cents per mile. I can push a gas engine to 200,000 miles or more. The EV will be done at 100,000 miles. The average cost of a new gas powered engine car is about $35,000 vs. the EVs $50,000 average new car cost. These cars are mainly owned by the virtue-signaling parasitic elites while the productive working folks are forced to subsidize it via taxation or inflation (the printing press).

So fewer people will be able to afford a car if we convert to only electric vehicles. That’s not a bug but a feature if you want to control people. The globalist elites have also introduced the concept of “15 minute cities.” The idea is to have these city dwellers be within a 15 minute walk to all they need: groceries, hardware store, clothing shops, restaurants, movie theaters, etc. The image of a hamster running on a wheel comes to mind. Less mobility for the masses; more control for the elites. People need to wake up to what’s occuring in slow motion in front of them and complain now before it’s too late. Your internal combustion engine has been marked for extinction and with it the mobility it brings. The vaccine passports and lockdowns during the covid hysteria had the same effect of limiting mobility and enhancing government control. It wasn’t about protecting your health and it isn’t about saving the planet. As popular radio personality Earl Pitts used to say: “Wake up America!”

Elon Musk’s Tesla has spent billions installing EV charging stations in 48 states. One such station is located about half-way between Los Angeles and San Francisco and is named the Harris Ranch Supercharger Station. It contains 98 charging units. However, if all 98 units were being used at the same time it would take down the local electrical grid- blackout city. But do not despair. What rides in to save the day but, wait for it… diesel powered generators. These generators are operating under less strict emissions standards than, wait for it… gas powered cars. “Green” electric vehicles are a scam folks, intended to redistribute wealth to the likes of Elon Musk, while at the same time draining resources from you and me and making transportation more expensive. Another goal of the elites is to eliminate the middle class. Poor people are easier to control due to fewer resources to command. Upper class, lower class, and nothing in the middle. You could call it neo-feudalism for the modern age. As one World Economic Forum spokesman said “You will own nothing and you will like it.” That’s the plan.

We can punch back or continue to be the punching bag. Find ways to become more self-sufficient so that you can say “no” when the next wave of tyranny arrives- and it will. If enough people say no we will win. Their plans depend on enough people just going along to get along. That is a crucial point so I’ll say it again. Their plans depend on enough people just going along to get along. During the height of the covid hysteria in October 2020 I was proud to gather with many freedom-minded people at a Mises Institute event at Jekyll Island Georgia. At a time when the whole world was masked we all attended the event for three days and there was not a mask to be found. Not one. Were we being needlessly reckless? No. We knew what most did not; masks don’t prevent acquiring or passing respiratory viruses. That very knowledge had been the position of the CDC until covid. The CDC changed their position based not on “the science” but for political expediency. The goal was not to protect but to frighten. Paniced people were more likely to take the “vaccines” and submit to vaccine passports or lockdown orders.

Note: I used “vaccines” rather than vaccines because in the past everyone understood that a vaccine is supposed to prevent you from getting and passing along a disease. The covid “vaccines” did neither. The CDC changed the definition of vaccine just as they had changed the “science” about masking. Not to inform but to deceive. All this legerdemain would not have been possible without the regime’s willing mouthpieces in the legacy media and censorship in the new social media. Thanks to recent revelations such as the “Twitter files” we know that government entities colluded with social media during the covid hysteria to suppress dissident voices, in clear violation of the First Amendment.

Now back to the idea of resistance. As I drove home from the office one day during the covid hysteria in 2020 I stopped at a local Publix to get groceries. I was the only person in the store not wearing a mask. I knew the masks did not work because I had found respiratory virus experts from big name universities such as Harvard, Stanford, and Oxford who were willing to tell the truth. Not all the doctors were lying, just the official government experts. Not one person challenged me as I walked through the store wearing my scrubs and NOT wearing a mask. My point was to display passive resistance. You don’t have to show up at city hall with a pitchfork; simply don’t go along with the tyranny. If enough people resist they are powerless to stop us. They can’t throw everybody in jail. Passive resistance by a few can lead to passive resistance by the many and the cancelling of policies that curtail civil liberties. We have the numbers but we can’t act as clay in their hands.

Arm yourself with the knowledge you need by NOT believing anything the legacy media tells you. You can’t trust CNN, Fox News, the New York Times, Wikipedia, the Google search engine, your local network affiliate news, facebook, or instagram. Instead, get your news from lewrockwell.com, mises.org, or antiwar.com. Sign up for the Tom Woods newsletter at tomwoods.com. Use the Yandex search engine, encyclosearch.org rather than wikipedia.

Remove your kids from the left-wing indoctrination camps called public schools. They are instructing such balderdash as there are multiple genders, white people are oppressors, and we live in a white supremacist country. Find an alternative such as home schooling with the Ron Paul Home School (ronpaulhomeschool.com). Tom Woods did the history portion of that curriculum. He is one of the good guys and has a B.S. in history from Harvard and a PhD in history from Columbia. You will not find a better history teacher anywhere. The Ron Paul Homeschool not only teaches a more nuanced version of history, but teaches public speaking, how to start your own online business, and how to be an entrepreneur. In other words, it teaches students how to be independent financially and intellectually. We must stop supporting institutions that hate us. And yes, take them to church so they can learn there is a higher power than the State. Religion acts as another power center; that’s why they hate it just as the former Soviet Union hated it. That’s why the regime was so insistent on shutting down churches during the covid hysteria. It’s not about public health or saving the planet. It is about control. But be careful when choosing a church because even some of the religious institutions have been infiltrated by left-wing ideologues. I was in Memphis last year and saw the following message on a banner on the lawn of a church with the First United Methodist Church logo on it: “End Racism.” If your church is teaching race politics rather than the gospel, it is time to find another church.

During the covid hysteria many workers had to choose between keeping their jobs and taking the “vaccine.” How can you avoid future tyranny in the workplace? You can start your own business or learn a new skill that will allow you to earn from home. Start a side gig. Work for a smaller company who may be less likely than larger ones to succumb to the woke madness. Stop borrowing money to make consumer purchases such as cars. Save enough money to pay cash for them. The more debt you have the less independent you are. Don’t keep up with the Joneses by borrowing. It is the road to prison. Pay off the credit card every month or use a debit card instead. Don’t spend money you don’t have. Live in a smaller house so you can more easily afford the mortgage payments. Gain some cash flow by investing in affordable rental houses in landlord friendly jurisdictions (not San Francisco!). You can buy these properties without ever visiting them and have the property manager and tenants in place as soon as you close on the property. They only sell to investors so you will not be competing with retail buyers. They will even help you sell the property if and when the time comes. I will give you two websites where this can easily be done: rpcinvest.com and noradarealestate.com. The more cash flow you have aside from your job income the more independent and less subject to tyranny you become. Grow your own food or buy from a local independent farmer to become less vulnerable in a food crisis. Keep a three month supply of non-perishable food on hand and some drinking water. Take action now before the next manufactured crisis arrives.

The choice is ours. Let’s choose freedom and be brave in the face of tyranny. As Thomas Paine said long ago:

” Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.”

This discussion was triggered by an article I read on a conservative website which was dismayed that a national teachers union was funding legal services for teachers that teach critical race theory(despite newly created state laws against it).

What is critical race theory(CRT)? It teaches that caucasians are oppressors and racist, even if they are not aware of it. It teaches that minorities live in a country awash in systemic racism that is rigged against them. Caucasians are the beneficiaries of white privilege. Parents have begun pushing back against these ideas being taught in the public schools. Many white parents don’t wish their children to be told they are oppressors; many black parents don’t wish their children to be told the world is against them.

What is the libertarian position on this issue? It derives from the non-aggression principle: you can’t hit people and you can’t take their stuff. You can only agress against others when they threaten you; you can’t initiate aggression against any other person or their property.

How does this relate to public education? First, the money to fund the education is forcefully taken from people through taxation. We libertarians believe taxation is theft. If the mafia robbed you at gunpoint and sent the money to a school we would all view that as theft. If we gave this mafia the special name of “government” it would not change the fact that you have been robbed. Robbery violates the non-aggression principle cited above. We don’t make exceptions to the rule just because the thieves have given a special name to their robbery- taxation. And even if you think taxation is okay, why should Jones with no children have to pay for the education of Smith’s ten children? When parents bring children into the world they should be responsible for ALL the costs associated with them, not their neighbors.

In addition, who should get to decide what is taught to the children? We believe that should be the parents and the parents ONLY. The parents should decide what they are taught or even IF they are taught. Not a school board nor a state board of education nor a national education department nor a group of politicians.

We are all familiar with the concept of the separation of church and state and why it is important. Many of the American colonists fled religious persecution in England. Many European countries had an official state religion and wars were fought over what religion that would be. Why? Because the official state religion could use its power to suppress other religions or denominations and to gain special privileges for itself. The First Amendment wisely avoided these potential conflicts by saying “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

I believe we should separate education and state as well. When parents dislike what their kids are being taught they should not have to ask for the permission of a school board to change it. They should be able to vote with their feet and take their child and money with them.

Prior to the nineteenth century much education was privately funded and most people could read and write; people understood the value of education without coercion. Many of the people who pushed for mandatory public education had good intentions, but many of them who led the movement for mandatory public education wanted public education so they could indoctrinate the children(sound familiar?). They wanted to teach them to be obedient so they could work in a factory or serve in the military. They would not be taught entrepreneurship or independence or how to be an autodidact. What the designers wished to produce were obedient pawns, not independent thinkers.

Most of us believe, with good reason, that monopolies are bad. We learned that monopolies can charge high prices, give poor service, not react to customer feedback, and never have to worry about customers fleeing to a competitor despite a poor product or service. What is a public school but a government sanctioned monopoly? You are forced to fund them with taxes. You must send your kids there, unless you want to pay for the service twice by sending your kids to a private school or by taking on the unpaid job of homeschooling. If you don’t like the food at a local restaurant you can remove your money from that restaurant and give it to another. You’re not allowed to remove your money from the public school. You are forced to fund the service whether you like it or not.

There would be a number of benefits to moving schooling into the free market. But before I get into those benefits let me explain what I mean by a free market. It means no government interference in the schooling industry whatsoever. No minimum teacher to pupil ratios. No standardized curriculum. No teacher certification requirements. No mandatory school attendance. No tenure requirements. No hours attended requirements for graduation. No minimum or maximum number of students required.

Think of the variety of schools and innovation that would be created under this system. School A decides to focus on the three Rs: readin’, ‘ritin’, and ‘rithmetic. This school would focus on basic competence and would bring students up to speed in these subjects. Student Einstein would master the subjects in one year, pass the end of school competency exam, and be ready to move on. Student Average might take three years to master the subjects and pass the competency exam.

School B decides to be the advanced math and science shool. Its entrance exam will require students to have some basic competence in reading and math before attending. Einstein passes the entrance exam easily, decides to focus on computer science, and passes the computer science exit exam after two years. He’s only nine years old and is ready for college, but he wants to be a tech entrepreneur and his parents think he is too young to go off to college. So he attends a local school that specializes in teaching business skills three days a week, attends another school that teaches musicianship two days a week, and a martial arts school one day a week. He wants to be well rounded.

Meanwhile, another special young student Johnny entered the three Rs school but did not do well. Testing revealed that he was mentally challenged. Not to worry because school C is designed for just this type of student. The school uses entrance tests to ensure that Johnny doesn’t just have a single subject deficit such as dyslexia. The school is designed to prepare mentally challenged students for the work place. Because there are varied levels of the mentally challenged some of the students will be able to learn to do the three Rs but at a slower than normal pace; for others reading may be an unrealistic expectation. The ultimate goal of the school is to teach marketable work skills to the students. The administrators have networked with local businesses to ensure they are teaching useful skills.

School D decides to focus on vocational training. Because most of the vocations will require at least a minimum proficiency in reading, they require a completion certificate from the three Rs school before they can train in those vocations. A few of the vocations do not require reading and students entering those programs are not required to be literate. Many students who thought they could skip the reading school decide otherwise when they learn how few jobs they can do without it; they decide to attend the three Rs school after all. The vocational school has programs for mechanics, carpenters, electricians, plumbers, hair stylists, waitresses, and the like. Programs are added or subtracted according to market demand.

In addition to school vocational programs, the lifting of mandatory schooling has allowed many individuals to do on the job training. Many kids who were forced to attend school and hated every second of it have traded their frustration for productive work. The abolition of the minimum wage was an important adjunct to making this type of training possible. Youths who were once shut out of the work force can now get their foot in the door, enhance work skills, and earn a higher wage. The bottom rungs of the work ladder have been restored.

School E is designed on the traditional K-12 model so it also offers sports. Because it must compete with other schools it has become much more sensitive to parental wishes. For example, it offers optional Bible courses taught by local pastors. And the old home economics type courses have made a return; it turns out some parents like their daughters to have some baking and home accounting skills. As a matter of fact, all courses are optional and there are no grade levels. Taking a higher level course is not decided by age but by competence only. The school offers a general diploma that certifies competence in the traditional areas of learning. A bright student might achieve the diploma by age 12; a slower student may take until age 21. By the way, school E allows students from other schools in the area to participate in their sports programs; these programs ARE based on age. The school is a member of the voluntary High School Sports League. The league has competition categories based on team size and sets limits on when and how often teams can practice. Because the league is voluntary the member schools, with parental inut, have insisted that absolutely NO women that used to be men can play on the women’s teams.

Meanwhile, basketball coach Trey is out of a job. His old K-12 state supported school no longer exists and not all the new schools have sports teams. After conversing with several local school administrators he believes there will be ample interest in fielding a boys and girls basketball team, as well as wrestling and volleyball teams. Fortunately, he has a good reputation as a coach and decides to start a varsity basketball team. He forms a corporation. He recruits a group of his old players as investors as well as a ladies basketball coach, volleyball coach, and wrestling coach. He pays for some advertising to announce an upcoming meeting at the gym where he will lay out his plans for the sports teams. The attendance at the meeting exceeds his expectations. He asks for a show of hands at the meeting to see how many people might be interested in buying shares of the corporation. Many hands go up. He will be the initial CEO of the corporation and the largest investors as well as the other coaches will serve on the board of directors. They plan to hire an experienced CEO soon so that Trey can concentrate on coaching. They put together a business plan that will raise revenue from the following sources: sales of corporate shares, fees to players for joining the team, food and drink concessions during games, a wall with plaques honoring local business donors, fees for admission to games, and fees from renting the facility during the offseason for youth basketball, wrestling, and volleyball teams, concerts, speakers, etc. They secure a loan from a local bank, buy an old run down high school gymnasium on the cheap, perform some needed repairs, and get it in shape just in time for the upcoming basketball season. The board of directors decide to join the High School Sports League, a statewide organization, and abide by their rules for the teams. A local business makes a HUGE donation to the corporation in exchange for naming the facility after them: Tyson Gymnasium. Whew! Who knew starting a sports business would be so much work! Trey looks forward to next year when a new CEO can take some of the business load off his shoulders.

Remember earlier when I said that no certification would be required for teaching, just ability to teach? As it turns out, administrators of the new schools are more comfortable hiring certified teachers with teaching degrees and experience; they are in high demand. The new math and science oriented school is no exception and hire predominately teachers with a teaching degree. However, they decide to hire a couple of local computer whizzes to teach courses. One of them turns out to be a teaching “natural” and his students do well. Not so much with the second whiz. Although great at doing he is not so great at teaching and after a couple of years it is apparent that his computer prowess does not translate into teaching skills. He is so brilliant he just can’t understand why the students don’t “get it”. The school decides to let him go; they hire a traditional teacher to replace him.

School F makes a decision to go “woke”. Parents are not alerted to the decision. The junior high age students are taught ideas derived from Critical Race Theory. They will teach the white students they suffer from white privilege and are oppressors. Minority students are taught they are oppressed and are living in a white supremacist nation. The history classes trace the founding of the nation back to 1619 when the first black slaves were brought from Africa. All the Founding Fathers who were slave owners have blood on their hands, including the first President George Washington. An informant from within the school alerts parents to what is being taught. A furor abruptly ensues and angry parents descend on the school administrators. The administrators refuse to yield. They will continue to teach the kids what they should know with or without parental consent. The administration is about to learn a valuable lesson about free markets economics. Their funding is no longer controlled by state boards of education or a national education department or by politicians. The school is 100% funded by the parents. The parental dilemma is quickly resolved. Fifty percent of the parents remove their kids from the school and the parents hire a lawyer to the sue the school for breach of contract. A court rules in favor of the parents and orders the school to refund fees to the parents. After repaying the fees the school cannot meet payroll and is forced to file for bankruptcy. It is a casualty in the new free market in education. In a free market businesses that spit on their customers soon perish.

School G opts for an online model of teaching. It provides computers with an internet connection so that parents can choose from a wide variety of online courses and curricula. For example, the Ron Paul Homeschool curriculum has become quite popular. It teaches kids independent thinking skills, how to become self-taught, and how to start a business. The on-site workers at the school serve to keep the students on task, to proctor tests, and to answer questions the students have about the subjects they are studying. The on-site teachers are well rounded so they can answer questions about a variety of subjects. They can also act as personal tutors for students who may be struggling. The school provides an exercise area and physical education teacher as well. The students can run laps, do push-ups or sit-ups, or use a variety of exercise machines. The PE teacher ensures they are being done safely. An OK letter from a physician is required before students can participate in PE activities. All teachers at the school are required to be certified in CPR. Because the school can be used to access a wide variety of curricula the student level ranges from first grade through graduate school. The school is open from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. and students can check in or check out at any time. Parents enjoy the option of taking their kids to lunch whenever they please. There are no standard school hours. Martha attends from 8-2 Monday through Friday. Sam only attends online school on Tuesday and Thursday. He attends another school on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Student fees are assessed according to the number of hours spent at the school. This “pay for what you use” model has been adopted by most schools, allowing parents maximum flexibiity and affordability for their children’s education. Younger non-driving students can only leave with adults specifically designated by their parents. Driving students must come and go according to a schedule dictated by their parents. The school keeps attendance records for billing purposes and parental reference only; mandatory attendance laws have been abolished.

A major benefit of the new free market education system has been cost containment and quality enhancement. The factors making this possible include: competition for students among schools, no compulsion to complete high school, less cost from kids who didn’t wish to be there, no rules for starting a school that drives up costs, no accreditation process, no tenure laws, no mandatory standardized tests, no state funding. It turns out that when schools don’t get an automatic check from the state the cost goes down and the quality goes up. Imagine that!

There is no such thing as a perfect educational system and the new free market system with no mandates is no exception. Although most parents realize the value of education and choose to send their kids to school or homeschool, a few do not. The numbers are extremely low but some reach the age of 18 without any formal education. Fortunately, a coalition of charitable organizations including the Gates Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and many others have foreseen this and similar eventualities. They will provide grants for any students who cannot afford to attend school, including individuals who are no longer minors. The coalition has made the commitment to support all levels of schooling including graduate school. They support school based and on the job vocational training as well. Their motto is “no mind left behind.”

One objection to this type of model is that education is too important to leave to the free market and must be provided by government. Really? Is education more important than food? Without food and you won’t need an education; you’ll be dead. The free market provides a wide variety of choices for food. You can have expensive steak and lobster or you can have a peanut butter sandwich dirt cheap. There is nothing provided by government that can’t be provided better and cheaper by the market. Nothing, including education.

Another objection to a free market in education is that it will be unaffordable for poor families. In other words, no businesses will cater to the poor. Experience refutes that argument. How many of those poor families have smart phones? Heating and air conditioning? High definition color television sets? Automobiles? Stoves? Refrigerators? Two or more bedrooms? One or more bathrooms? Dishwashers? Washers and dryers? And what if our poor family wants to splurge and eat out? Have you heard of McDonald’s? Taco Bell? Captain D’s? Domino’s? And how will our poor family get to the restaurant? Have you heard of the Toyota Corolla? The Honda Civic? The Nissan Versa? The Ford Fiesta? Most of them come standard with anti-lock brakes, air bags, air conditioning, radios, power brakes, power door locks, and power windows. But somehow education will be different and the free market won’t provide options for the poor. How can people make this argument with a straight face?

Let’s say for the sake of argument the naysayers are correct and notwithstanding all the evidence to the contrary, the free market does not provide a product for the poor. That’s where private charities can fill the void. And what if private charities along with the uber wealthy such as Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos and the Waltons turn a blind eye to the problem? Then we might be tempted to have government step in at that point and provide funding. But we would be returning to the original problem with top-down control rather than parental control. In addition, government funding would start to raise the costs again. Schools, knowing that government will make up the difference, would begin to raise fees again. This is exactly what has happened at the universities. The injection of government cash via student loans and grants has allowed the universities to raise fees above market price. The result is that college is unaffordable without loans or scholarships. Universities don’t care if their students fail; 40% of entering freshmen will not graduate but those 40% do serve to drive up costs by increasing demand. This outrageous state of affairs could not exist without government intervention preventing true free market competition. So we must draw a hard line in the sand and say no state intervention. Once the camel’s nose gets under the tent, soon he’ll be eating your dinner.

There will also be objections from the usual suspects that loathe parental control of education: teachers unions, education bureacrats, politicians, race-hustlers. In other words, resistance will be heaviest from those who benefit the most from the status quo.

It’s time we rethink education. It’s time we end the public education monopoly. It’s time we separate education and state. It’s time we put parents back in control of their children’s education. As the folks at Apple Computer might say, it’s time to think different.

A recent MarketWatch article featured quotes from JP Morgan Chase Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon. He is one of the oligarchs and puppet masters who pull the strings of the politicians to get the economy rigged for themselves at the expense of the masses. In part of his comments he laments wealth inequality to virtue signal his concerns about the issue. His comments are taken from his annual letter to shareholders. I will share some of his quotes below and comment on them.

Jamie Dimon: “Our nation is clearly under a lot of stress and strain from various events: the COVID-19 pandemic, of course, which has taken more American lives than the total lost in World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War combined, resulting in acute economic distress for millions more…”

Comment: It is not the pandemic itself but the government reaction to the pandemic(lockdowns) that has wrecked the economy. The government then passed the CARES act and subsequent “stimulus” bills which sent much more money to corporations such as the airlines than it did to individuals.

Jamie Dimon: “…the brutal murder of George Floyd and the racial unrest that followed; the divisive 2020 presidential election, culminating in the storming of the Capitol and the attempt to disrupt our democracy; and the seemingly inevitable, but nonetheless alarming and unnerving, rise of China, threatening America’s global preeminence…”

Comment: The trial of police officer charged in the case of George Floyd is ongoing as he wrote this. Opportunists like Dimon would have him executed without a trial. The BLM narrative that the Floyd death was racially motivated has no basis in fact, yet it is assumed that the death of ANY minority at the hands of ANY white police officer is racist.

The disruption to democracy that he refers to occured during the 2020 election when boat loads of mail-in ballots all of a sudden appeared deep in the night and Joe Biden, who could not get more than a dozen people to attend one of his campaign rallies, was declared President. Afterward, tens of thousands of Americans who felt disenfranchised showed up at the Capitol on January sixth to protest. A few of them entered the building without violence and the episode was termed an insurrection by the Democrats and their presstitutes. No dummies. An insurrection involves lots of guns and bloodshed and destruction. There was an unarmed white ex-military female protester that was murdered by a black Capitol police officer during the event. No charges were filed and no tears were shed by the presstitutes or people like Jamie Dimon. We can imagine the reaction if the protesters had been Democrats, the officer white and the dead woman black.

Dimon then speaks of the unnerving rise of China. The crony capitalists in the defense industry need an enemy to justify U.S. military spending. Of the top eleven nations vis-a-vis military spending the U.S. is number one and spends more then the next ten combined including Russia and China. That is why China must be an enemy. It is why the establishment hacks in D.C. accused Trump of being a Russian agent. He could not be allowed to normalize relations with Russia. Continuing to treat China and Russia as enemies does NOT make American safer but does the opposite. Creating and extending tensions with nuclear armed countries is hubristic, careless, and dangerous. But it is worth the risk if you sell arms.

In the above quote Dimon also worries that America is losing its global preeminence to China. It is interesting to note that in recent decades China has abondoned pure communism in the economic sphere and allowed capitalism to take root. Could it be that China’s rising economic fortunes can largely be attributed to the rise of capitalism in that country? Meanwhile, western nations such as the U.S. have lurched in the socialist direction. The rise of socialistic impulses seen with the New Deal and the Great Society are now firmly entrenched with programs such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, and low-income housing. The D.C. political class no longer believes in laissez-faire capitalism. It no longer has faith in private charity. It has embraced crony-capitalism, a.k.a. corporatism or economic fascism. Corporatism is in the process of eviscerating the middle class; the remaining structure will be one of either rich or poor. The resulting wealth inequality is real but is not being created, as the political class and media would have us believe, by systemic racism but rather by the D.C. crowd, who have rejected free market capitalism and the wealth it produces for EVERYBODY. One example of rejection of the free market comes in the form of the minimum wage. The economic and historic illiterates that champion the concept don’t realize that the minimum wage was originally conceived in the 1930s in order to prevent blacks from competing with whites for blue collar jobs; this according to black economist Walter Williams(R.I.P. Walter). The minimum wage hurts most those on the lower rungs of the economic ladder by denying them work opportunities. If the minimum wage is $15/hr and your labor is only worth $10/hr you are unemployed. And it will cause many minimum wage jobs to be replaced by machines. Have you noticed the order taking kiosks at McDonalds or the self checkout counters at Walmart? In addition, it causes price inflation that disproportionately hurts the poor. In short, economic destruction comes primarily not from the enemy without such as China but the enemy within such as Jamie Dimon and his buddies in D.C.

Funny aside: Dr. Walter Williams taught economics at George Mason University for many years. He once told a class of students that he was not in favor of anti-discrimination laws because he felt them no longer necessary because businesses are in the business of making money and that discriminating against a group would be bad for business. This applies not just to customers but to hires as well. Businesses will naturally hire the most qualified for a job regardless of race or gender in an attempt to gain a market advantage. Anti-discrimination laws are also an attack on private property- if you own the business only you should be allowed to determine its policies. Can you imagine the bad press if a company said “no blacks allowed?” Williams then goes on to tell the class how he discriminated against white girls and fat girls when searching for a wife. And when he finally chose a wife he discriminated against all the other women on earth.

Jamie Dimon: America has “faced tough times before,” he said, adding that the cited problems are fixable. But first the institutions that have lost the trust of the people — government, schools, media and businesses — must regain that trust and understand that the underlying problem is inequality. “The enormous wealth of our country is accruing to the very few,” he said.

Comment: No kidding Jamie. And you are one of enormously wealthy few. I have no problem with people acquiring wealth honestly through the free market. But the quickest way to wealth is to bribe government to give your company or industry special favors. Jamie Dimon and his JP Morgan company made some risky bets on financial derivatives prior to the 2008 financial meltdown. Then the bets turned sour. Rather than have to face the economic consequences of his own bad decisions he ran to government for help; his company and others like his received hundreds of billions of dollars in bailouts from you and I Joe and Jill Taxpayer. Wealth inequality anyone? The hypocrisy is so thick you would need a steak knife to cut through it. Nay, you would need a chainsaw. Social scientist and economic historian Franz Oppenheimer said in his marvelous book The State that wealth can be acquired in two ways. He referred to the acquisition of wealth through the free market and honest work as the economic means. The acquisition of wealth by using the coercive power of the state he termed the political means. As I have stated before, the quickest way to eliminate the political means of wealth acquisition is strip the state of its ability to “regulate commerce.” We need separation of commerce and state. And because of the socialist indoctrination factories known as the public schools and universities, we need separation of education and state as well. The state and its regulatory apparatus is the enemy, not China or Russia or Iran. The real source of wealth inequality? The state and its crony allies such as Jamie Dimon.

I saw this interesting quote today:

“If you catch 100 red fire ants as well as 100 large black ants, and put them in a jar, at first, nothing will happen. However, if you violently shake the jar and dump them back on the ground the ants will fight until they eventually kill each other. The thing is, the red ants think the black ants are the enemy and vice versa, when in reality, the real enemy is the person who shook the jar. This is exactly what’s happening in society today. Liberal vs. Conservative. Black vs. White. Pro Mask vs. Anti-Mask. Vax vs. Anti-vax. Rich vs. poor. Man vs. woman. Cop vs. citizen. The real question we need to be asking ourselves is who’s shaking the jar… and why?” – Shera Starr

Note: I often use the terms government and state interchangeably.

So who is shaking the jar and why? The answer to the first part of the question is the D.C. swamp creatures and their corporate overlords. The overlords are the oligarchs and corporations that benefit from government largesse such as George Soros, Bill Gates, Boeing, Verizon, Amazon. They fund the deception. The swamp creatures are those that spend their careers in or connected to D.C.: politicians, think tank inhabitants, lobbyists, workers at the Justice Department, Department of Homeland Security, Energy Department, CDC, NIH, Department of Education, CIA, DEA, I could go on for days. Their careers and 401ks depend on maintaining and better yet extending the largesse.

I cannot overemphasize the role the mainstream media plays in this legerdemain. We see one fake news story after another day after day, month after month, year after year. The media sends out whatever rubbish D.C. feeds them. They are in bed with the swamp creatures. The media whores at CNN parrot the democratic version; the media whores at Fox parrot the republican version. Conflict sells. If it bleeds it leads. Keep the populace entertained and fed(bread and circuses) and they won’t notice. Shaking the jar keeps our attention diverted from what they don’t want us to see.

Why are they shaking the jar? Why do the oligarchs fund the likes of BLM and antifa to sow disharmony and conflict? It’s the old divide and conquer strategy. If we spend our time fighting with each other we won’t notice THEY ARE STEALING US BLIND. They even invented a clever euphemism for the theft to make it seem dignified- taxation. The theft of your wages before you even get paid are called payroll taxes. The theft whenever you buy products essential to live are called sales taxes. The theft of your home even after you have paid off the mortgage is called a property tax. The theft imposed when you open a business is called a business license, when you fish a fishing license, when you hunt a hunting license, when you drive a driver’s license. When you are young and have to pay for the pensions of the old because they were robbed when they were young it’s called the social security tax.

The theft can come in clever forms such as the so-called Federal Reserve System. This system is essentially a government-sanctioned cartel of bankers that creates money that is first handed to its well connected friends. These cronies can use the money before the inflationary effects of the money printing begin. By the time we cattle get any of the money it is worth less than it was when the cronies got it. Another example of the subtle theft can be seen by asking this question: How many bombs has the U.S. military dropped around the world the past ten years? You know the number is really large. How much did those bombs cost? You know the number is really larger. Who made money on the bombs? Not you citizen. Who paid for the bombs? You citizen. The subtle theft here goes from the pockets of us taxpayers to the pockets of the bomb makers. And don’t expect your media faves at Fox News to complain about the warfare state. Fox News likes big government too; they pretend they don’t. It’s all part of the deception.

We are told the taxation theft is not really theft because we agreed to it. I didn’t agree to it, did you? We are told the theft is necessary because it covers services that could not be provided by the private sector such as education and road building. But the literacy rate was high BEFORE public education started to be implemented in the 19th century and the first roads in America were built with private funding. We are told the state must provide the judicial system but we already have a functioning private court system; it is called arbitration. The truth is there is nothing the state provides, including national defense, that could not be provided by the private sector much more efficiently. To see how defense might be provided by the private sector see “Chaos Theory: Two Essays on Market Anarchy” by economist Robert Murphy.

We can begin to stop the theft by first educating ourselves about the true nature of the state. I recommend the short book “Anatomy of the State” by Murray Rothbard or for a longer version read “The State” by sociologist Franz Oppenheimer. You won’t see these texts recommended by your local government monopoly school system. Take the “blue pill” and extricate yourself from the matrix created by the state and its media harlots.

The following is the outline text version of my YouTube video which can be viewed by clicking here:  https://youtu.be/V2A3_jrB0gk

You can subscribe to my YouTube channel by clicking here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIb4k41f3A1lftMXivcvj5g.

You can make a donation at patreon.com/libertymanvan

I.              Trump Considers More Military Action in Syria

A.             Last week said might withdraw from Syria

B.             Chemical attack in Damascus suburb of Douma

1.              What We know

a)              Residents heard objects falling from sky followed by smell like chlorine

b)              Roughly 70 people died

c)              Syrian government denies involvement

d)              UN has not determined culprit

e)              US believes Assad to blame, has threatened military action

Why US should get out of Syria

2.              Risk of war with nuclear power Russia

3.              ISIS has been defeated

4.              US has already destabilized the whole region with Afghanistan and Iraq invasions

5.              20 trillion dollar debt and rising

6.              Many more civilians will die

7.              War enhances state power

8.              Will do nothing to make Americans safer

C.             Article- “America’s Long History of Trying to Determine Who Rules Syria

1.              1949 CIA coup

The CIA organized its very first coup in Syria in 1949 to overthrow a democratically elected president and install a military dictator. The U.S. has never given up trying to determine who rules Syria…

2.              1986 CIA memo

A CIA document declassified last year exposed a plot to overthrow the Syrian government by provoking sectarian tensions all the way back in 1986.

 

Here are a few juicy excerpts:

 

“Although we judge that fear of reprisals and organizational problems make a second Sunni challenge unlikely, an excessive government reaction to minor outbreaks of Sunni dissidence might trigger large-scale unrest. In most instances the regime would have the resources to crush a Sunni opposition movement, but we believe widespread violence among the populace could stimulate large numbers of Sunni officers and conscripts to desert or mutiny, setting the stage for civil war.”

3.              2007 General Wesley Clark statement

General Wesley Clark made the following statement on Democracy Now in 2007 about a conversation he had with a general in 2001:

 

About ten days after 9/11, I went through the Pentagon and I saw Secretary Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz. I went downstairs just to say hello to some of the people on the Joint Staff who used to work for me, and one of the generals called me in.

 

He said, “Sir, you’ve got to come in and talk to me a second.”

…He says, “We’ve made the decision we’re going to war with Iraq.”

…So I came back to see him a few weeks later, and by that time we were bombing in Afghanistan. I said, “Are we still going to war with Iraq?”

 

And he said, “Oh, it’s worse than that.” He reached over on his desk. He picked up a piece of paper. And he said, “I just got this down from upstairs”?—?meaning the Secretary of Defense’s office?—?“today.” And he said, “This is a memo that describes how we’re going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran.”

4.              2012 beginning of current civil war

a)              U.S. proclaims its desire for regime change

b)              Says Assad must go

c)              U.S. backs rebel groups that include al-qaeda

d)              U.S. public told that rebels were “moderates”

e)              U.S. involvement results in ISIS caliphate once controlling large portions of Iraq and Syria.

f)               Leftover U.S. weapons from Iraq war used by rebels in Syria

D.             Why Trump probably won’t say no to the war hawks

1.              Has been accused of false election collusion with Russia

2.              Show he is not puppet of Putin

3.              John Bolton new head of NSA

a)              Was in favor of regime change in Iraq, says not a mistake

b)              Would like regime change in Iran

c)              Wants to scrap Iran nuclear agreement

Would like regime change in Syria

4.              Strong Israel lobby

a)              Antipathy towards Iran

b)              Have conducted several bombing raids into Syria during civil war

5.              Has already ramped up involvement in 17 year-old Afghan occupation

6.              Lacks knowledge to “be his own man”, will listen to Generals

7.              Ego, tough guy

E.              Excuse for military action?

Excuse will be to protect the people of Syria from the evil Assad

The body count of civilians there will be greater from bombing than from any alleged chemical attacks.

F.              Timing of the attack?

Before any international agency has had time to determine if there was a chemical attack and who was responsible.

G.             Addendum

President Trump has ordered and military has conducted bombing and missile attacks on targets in Damascus Syria.

 

II.            Speaker Paul Ryan Announces Retirement

A.             Comment on Ryan cartoons

1.              Will kill Medicare

Ryan never intended to end the Medicare program and never said he would.  He did talk of reforming the program so as to try to tame the federal debt.  In the end, he nor his Republican colleagues never had the guts.

2.              Will repeal Obamacare and give savings to the rich

This is how Democrats always caricature any attempt at fiscal restraint.  You are just a heartless monster that wants the poor to suffer.

3.              I love deficits

This one has some truth to it.  Although he talked a good fiscal responsibility game he never “walked the walk.”

4.              House under new management, influenced by the far-right

New management did not apply to Ryan.  He was part of the same mainstream Republicans that run huge budget deficits whenever they hold the reins of power.

5.              New budget does not kill Obamacare

True.  Although Trump ran on repealing Obamacare he along with the GOP controlled House and Senate never even came close to realizing the promise.

6.              Medicare recipients watch out!(2 cartoons same message)

Are you kidding?  Medicare reform by either party will never happen before U.S. government bankruptcy.  If minor reform does occur they will simply be re-arranging the chairs on the Titanic that is the federal debt.  Video of federal debt clock.Libertarian Humor

This graphic shows a lifeguard watching as several bodies are floating in the pool.  The caption reads “Libertarians make bad lifeguards.”  This common caricature of libertarians implies that we won’t lift a hand to help people in need.  It is based on the fallacy that if government does not help people no one will.  Never mind that humans had a long history of helping each other long before any government was created.

III.          Campus insanity

Temple University Faculty Members Are Trying to Erase the ‘Gender Binary System’

The gender binary refers to the traditional classification of human gender into two distinct categories, masculine and feminine. Some professors at Temple University are looking to erase this “outdated” classification altogether.

 

Heath Fogg Davis, a professor of political science at Temple, argues in his new book that he wants to live in a world in which everyone uses a “gender-neutral pronoun.”

 

“My argument in the book is not that we try to live beyond gender, but [to minimize] the formal use of gender and gender policies because of the ways it infringes on people’s individual autonomy,” Davis said. “In an ideal world, I wish that we all used a gender-neutral pronoun.”

A.             Students accused of ‘hatred’ for defending traditional marriage

LGBT students are attempting to defund Love Saxa, a Georgetown University student group that supports traditional marriage.

 

Love Saxa’s mission statement says the group “exists to promote healthy relationships on campus through cultivating a proper understanding of sex, gender, marriage, and family among Georgetown students.”

…Jasmin Ouseph submitted a formal notice to the university on September 25, on the grounds that Love Saxa’s definition of marriage fosters hatred and intolerance which would violate Georgetown’s Student Organization Standards.

B.             Feminist prof says ‘traditional science’ is rooted in racism

A feminist professor at the University of California-Davis has vowed to “challenge the authority of Science” by “rewriting knowledge” through a feminist lens.

Sara Giordano argues that “traditional science” relies on “a colonial and racialized form of power,” and must be replaced with an “anti-science, antiracist, feminist approach to knowledge production.”

C.             Harvard Hosts Anal Sex Workshop Entitled ‘What What in the Butt’

As a part of Harvard University’s sex week, the Ivy League Institution hosted an anal sex workshop entitled, “What What in the Butt: Anal 101.” The workshop taught students “how to put things in their butt,” according to a report from The College Fix.

 

As with most proceedings at Harvard, the anal sex workshop placed great emphasis on equality. After the presenter noted that “not all men have penises, not all women have vaginas,” she argued that “the butthole is the great sexual equalizer. All humans have a butthole.”

IV.          The Myth of National Defense

This publication was a collection of essays edited by Hans-Hermann Hoppe.  The following excerpts are from one of the essays written by Murray Rothbard.

…The fundamental axiom of libertarian theory is that no one

may threaten or commit violence (“aggress”) against another

man’s person or property. Violence may be employed only

against the man who commits such violence; that is, only

defensively against the aggressive violence of another.1 In

short, no violence may be employed against a nonaggressor.

Here is the fundamental rule from which can be deduced the

entire corpus of libertarian theory.

 

…This use of violence to obtain its revenue

(called “taxation”) is the keystone of State power. Upon this

base the State erects a further structure of power over the individuals

in its territory, regulating them, penalizing critics, subsidizing

favorites, etc. The State also takes care to arrogate to

itself the compulsory monopoly of various critical services

needed by society, thus keeping the people in dependence

upon the State for key services, keeping control of the vital

command posts in society and also fostering among the public.  Thus the State is careful to monopolize police and judicial

service, the ownership of roads and streets, the supply of

money, and the postal service, and effectively to monopolize or

control education, public utilities, transportation, and radio

and television.

 

…In the modern world, each land area is ruled over by a State

organization, but there are a number of States scattered over

the earth, each with a monopoly of violence over its own territory.

 

…since each State can

mobilize all the people and resources in its territory, the other

State comes to regard all the citizens of the opposing country as

at least temporarily its enemies and to treat them accordingly by

extending the war to them. Thus, all of the consequences of

interterritorial war make it almost inevitable that inter-State war

will involve aggression by each side against the innocent civilians—

the private individuals—of the other.

 

…If one distinct attribute of inter-State war is interterritoriality,

another unique attribute stems from the fact that each State

lives by taxation over its subjects. Any war against another

State, therefore, involves the increase and extension of taxation-

aggression over its own people.

 

…All State wars, therefore, involve increased aggression

against the State’s own taxpayers, and almost all State wars (all,

in modern warfare) involve the maximum aggression (murder)

against the innocent civilians ruled by the enemy State.

 

…In short, the libertarian is

interested in reducing as much as possible the area of State

aggression against all private individuals. The only way to do

this, in international affairs, is for the people of each country

to pressure their own State to confine its activities to the area

which it monopolizes and not to aggress against other State monopolists.

 

…We cannot leave our topic without saying at least a word

about the domestic tyranny that is the inevitable accompaniment

of war. The great Randolph Bourne realized that “war is

the health of the State.”13 It is in war that the State really comes

into its own: swelling in power, in number, in pride, in

absolute dominion over the economy and the society. Society

becomes a herd, seeking to kill its alleged enemies, rooting out

and suppressing all dissent from the official war effort, happily

betraying truth for the supposed public interest. Society

becomes an armed camp, with the values and the morale—as

Albert Jay Nock once phrased it—of an “army on the march.”

The root myth that enables the State to wax fat off war is the

canard that war is a defense by the State of its subjects. The

facts, of course, are precisely the reverse. For if war is the health

of the State, it is also its greatest danger. A State can only “die”

by defeat in war or by revolution. In war, therefore, the State

frantically mobilizes the people to fight for it against another 

State, under the pretext that it is fighting for them.

 

The following is the text version of my YouTube video which can be viewed by clicking here: https://youtu.be/Lzkg6IRNHDQ

You can subscribe to my YouTube channel by clicking here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIb4k41f3A1lftMXivcvj5g.

Liberty Watch Episode 15:  Political Division as Diversion

LMV:  Hello again and welcome to another edition of Liberty Watch.  I am your host Liberty Man Van.  Our show for today is entitled “Political Division as Diversion” and will discuss how the differences between Republican and Democratic parties in the U.S. are minor.  While on the surface and to listen to the mainstream media and debates on C-SPAN you would think the parties are worlds apart, the reality is that they are alarmingly similar.  They are both for big government, fiscal irresponsibility, and the continuing rise of budget deficits and the national debt.  Did I mention the national debt?

Video:  National debt clock

LMV:  That’s right, 20 trillion dollars and growing- more than $170,000 per taxpayer.  And that does not include the so-called unfunded liabilities, costs that the government will owe in the future for items such as social security and Medicare.  Including these costs adds another $127 trillion, or over $1 Million per taxpayer.

But important questions such as the national debt hardly make it to the surface of the political and news consciousness.  I don’t believe this is an accident.  The political elites and their willing accomplices in the press don’t want you to focus on these types of issues.  Instead they divert your attention to tabloid events such as the Monika Lewinski sex scandal, the supposed hacking of the 2017 presidential election by the Russians, and the alleged use of the term “shithole countries” by Trump to refer to some third world nations in a meeting.  Meanwhile the continuing U.S. involvement in a 16 year old war in Afghanistan, the starving children in Yemen caused by a naval blockade by U.S. ally Saudi Arabia, and the growing humanitarian crisis in Venezuela worsened by U.S. sanctions, and the continuing years long political imprisonment of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange go unnoticed.

It is the old Roman bread and circus treatment.  Keep the dummies fed and entertained and they will not notice how they are being manipulated and robbed.  But with the advent of alternative media sources on the internet we no longer have any excuses for being tricked and misinformed.  Evidence the following article I found on disobedientmedia.com entitled “Political Division Is A Hysterical Charade Maintained By Corporate Press.”  From the article:

Graphic:  49% of Americans believe the country is: ‘run for the benefit of a small elite.’

“ The Hill recently reported that a staggering 49% of Americans believe the country is: ‘run for the benefit of a small elite.’ In other words, a vast portion of Americans are at least superficially familiar with the concept that the media representation of US politics does not serve the public at large and it functions to a large extent as propoganda.”

LMV:  Like a professional magician, one hand diverts our attention with a handkerchief while the other hand secretly performs the mechanics of the trick; our attention has been diverted from what is important.  The political parties want us to think as a tribe.  Whatever the other tribe does is all evil.  Whatever my tribe does is all good.  What they don’t want us to see is that they are just fighting over which tribe gets to control us and punish us if we are in the other tribe.  The constant bickering between the parties captures our attention.  Witness the recent days long coverage of if Donald Trump might have referred to some third world countries as “shithole countries” and if he did what that meant.

Video:  “Shithole” comments discussed ad nauseum.

LMV:  And back to the Disobedient Media article:

“Disobedient media recently reported on establishment Democrats’ subversion of the Democratic process in the 2016 Primary race, and their attempts to deflect from the revelation of their corruption by focusing exclusively on the largely discredited Russian hacking narrative. Allegations of Russian hacking, then Russian collusion, then Russian social media trolls consumed corporate media attention for what seemed like the entirety of 2017.”

LMV:  It seems like about all we heard from CNN and MSNBC in 2017 was about how there was some kind of collusion between the Trump team and Russia.  To hear them tell it, Trump was just a puppet of Vladimir Putin.  While they were floating these stories to their loyal tribe members watching on TV no substantive evidence of malfeasance has appeared.  But we do know that the chairman of the DNC during the primaries, Deborah Wasserman-Schultz was doing everything she could to ensure that Hillary Clinton rather than Bernie Sanders won the democratic nomination for President.  The following from Wikipedia.org:

“Wasserman Schultz was elected chairperson of the Democratic National Committee in May 2011, replacing Virginia Senator Tim Kaine.^[2][3] On July 24, 2016, Wasserman Schultz announced her resignation from her position after Wikileaks released a collection of hacked emails indicating that Wasserman Schultz and other members of the DNC staff showed bias against the presidential campaign of Senator Bernie Sanders in favor of Hillary Clinton’s campaign.^[3] Her resignation was finalized on July 28 following the 2016 Democratic National Convention.^[4]”

LMV:  While this real life version of rigging an election only lasted in the news for a short time the unproven allegation of hacking by Russia wore on in the news for months.  And this from theintercept.com:

“LEADING CONGRESSIONAL DEMOCRATS have spent the last year relentlessly accusing Donald Trump of being controlled by or treasonously loyal to a hostile foreign power. Over the last several months, they have added to those disloyalty charges a new set of alleged crimes: abusing the powers of the executive branch — including the Justice Department and FBI — to vindictively punish political opponents while corruptly protecting the serious crimes of his allies, including his own family members and possibly himself.

…One would hope, and expect, that those who genuinely view Trump as a menace of this magnitude and view themselves as #Resistance fighters would do everything within their ability to impose as many limits and safeguards as possible on the powers he is able to wield.

…Yesterday in Washington, congressional Democrats were presented with a critical opportunity to do exactly that. A proposed new amendment was scheduled to be voted on in the House of Representatives that would have imposed meaningful limits and new safeguards on Trump’s ability to exercise one of the most dangerous, invasive, and historically abused presidential powers: spying on the communications of American citizens without warrants.

…a substantial minority of GOP lawmakers have long opposed warrantless surveillance of Americans and thus, announced their intention to support new safeguards. Indeed, the primary sponsor and advocate of the amendment to provide new domestic spying safeguards was the conservative Republican from Michigan, Justin Amash…

…To secure enactment of these safeguards, Amash needed support from a majority of House Democrats. That meant that House Democrats held the power in their hands to decide whether Trump — the president they have been vocally vilifying as a lawless tyrant threatening American democracy — would be subjected to serious limits and safeguards on how his FBI could spy on the conversations of American citizens.

…Debate on the bill and the amendments began on the House floor yesterday afternoon, and it became quickly apparent that leading Democrats intended to side with Trump and against those within their own party who favored imposing safeguards on the Trump administration’s ability to engage in domestic surveillance.

…LEADING THE CHARGE against reforms of the FBI’s domestic spying powers was Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee who, in countless TV appearances, has strongly insinuated, if not outright stated, that Trump is controlled by and loyal to Russian President Vladimir Putin.”

LMV:  Here is some video of this same Adam Schiff criticizing Trump for foreign influence.

Video:  Adam Schiff

LMV:  That’s right, Adam Schiff voted to continue to give Trump’s FBI to illegally spy on American citizens.  The two tribes will argue with each other because they each want to control the coercive force in D.C. but they never vote to curtail that force or its ability to spy on Americans.   By the way, among the numerous Democrats who voted in favor of giving Trump such unprecedented surveillance ability was infamous former DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

Disobedient media continues:

“The vote ripped the mask from the pretense of differentiation between the Democratic party and Republicans, and highlighted instead the troubling bipartisan support among lawmakers for increasing the power of the American deep state.”

LMV:  When it comes to increasing state power, the Republican and Democratic tribes are no different.  Likewise, they both agree to continue supporting the carnage in the middle east.  That brings us to another story that has continued for years and has been shielded from public view, the civil war in Yemen and our support of one of the main players in that conflict- Saudi Arabia.  As a part of the war effort, Saudi Arabia has conducted a blockage of Yemen’s ports.  This has prevented sufficient food, water, and medical supplies from reaching the people of Yemen.  It is the weak, the very young and very old, that have suffered the most death from this blockade.  It was started under the Obama administration but has continued with President Trump.  Meanwhile, Trump has signed off on a hundred billion dollar arms deal with Saudi Arabia.  Thousands of lives lost to hunger and cholera have underscored the complete lack of difference in foreign policy between two presidents, Trump and Obama, who could not seem more different.

LMV:  There was a time in America when we could point to the antiwar left.  During the Vietnam war there was widespread protest against the war.  As more U.S. soldiers came back in body bags the protests grew louder.  Yes, some of the protesters were simply opportunistic thugs and communist sympathizers who wanted to tear the country apart.  But others were protesting what they saw as a pointless war in a far-away country and were looking out for the young men conscripted to fight in the jungles of southeast Asia; they wanted to bring the boys home alive.

But the days of a solid anti-war sentiment from the left or right side of the political spectrum have vanished.  Neither party, for example, has spoken out about our continued 16 year occupation of Afghanistan.  Politicians don’t speak of ending the war, only of how we should conduct it.  It started under Bush, was continued under Obama, and has continued under Trump.  No matter which party is in power we get the same policy- more war.

Any sane person looking at U.S. military involvement in the middle east since 9/11 can see that it has been an unmitigated disaster.  Since the invasion in Afghanistan over 30,000 civilians have died.  Over 2300 U.S. soldiers have died and more than 20,000 have been wounded.  An estimated 150,000 total humans have died in Afghanistan and Pakistan since 2001 as a result of the war.  No end is in sight.

And how about the 2003 invasion of Iraq?  Americans were told that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and must be toppled from power.  Iraq was defeated, its leader slain, and a new government was installed after elections.  But the continued occupation of Iraq led to an insurgency and after the U.S. military withdrew chaos reigned.  The new power vacuum in Iraq destroyed what had been a counterbalance to Iran in the region.  Iran’s influence in the region has been augmented thanks to the U.S. invasion.  And what to show for it?  500,000 Iraqi civilians are dead, more than 4500 U.S. soldiers are dead and more than 32,000 wounded.

And let’s not forget Libya.  After taking one secular ruler out in Iraq and creating chaos the U.S. president, this time Obama, thought it would a good idea to take out another secular ruler.  This time the victim was Muammar Gaddafi and the result was the same- more bloodshed and civil war.  The result for has been a massive influx of migrants from Africa pouring through Libya and crossing the Mediterranean Sea into Western European countries.

We are given the illusion in the U.S. that because we elect our representatives we have control of the government.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  President Bush, Jr. ran as the anti-war candidate.  Obama ran as the anti-war candidate and for closing Guantanamo bay.  President Trump in his campaign signaled that we should decrease our footprint in the middle east.  Americans vote for less war but only get more war.  Every few years a new puppet is placed in the oval office but nothing changes.  We only have the illusion of control.  As long as we agree to be taxed without our consent our tax dollars will continue to be spent on warfare, domestic spying, and increasing the federal leviathan.

But not everyone has been fooled.  We will end the episode today with a clip from the premiere political sage of our age, George Carlin.

Video:  George Carlin

LMV:  That’s the show for today.  See you next time on Liberty Watch where we don’t believe you need some guy with a bullhorn to tell you what to do.