Winston Churchill: A Man of Blood

The Mises Institute is featuring the below excerpts from a Ralph Raico essay on Winston Churchill, in light of the nationwide release of the new film, Darkest Hour, and the Netflix series The Crown.

When, in a very few years, the pundits start to pontificate on the great question: “Who was the Man of the Century?” there is little doubt that they will reach virtually instant consensus. Inevitably, the answer will be: Winston Churchill. Indeed, Professor Harry Jaffa has already informed us that Churchill was not only the Man of the Twentieth Century, but the Man of Many Centuries.

In a way, Churchill as Man of the Century will be appropriate. This has been the century of the State — of the rise and hypertrophic growth of the welfare-warfare state — and Churchill was from first to last a Man of the State, of the welfare state and of the warfare state. War, of course, was his lifelong passion; and, as an admiring historian has written: “Among his other claims to fame, Winston Churchill ranks as one of the founders of the welfare state.” Thus, while Churchill never had a principle he did not in the end betray, this does not mean that there was no slant to his actions, no systematic bias. There was, and that bias was towards lowering the barriers to state power.

[…]

Yet, in truth, Churchill never cared a great deal about domestic affairs, even welfarism, except as a means of attaining and keeping office. What he loved was power, and the opportunities power provided to live a life of drama and struggle and endless war.

There is a way of looking at Winston Churchill that is very tempting: that he was a deeply flawed creature, who was summoned at a critical moment to do battle with a uniquely appalling evil, and whose very flaws contributed to a glorious victory — in a way, like Merlin, in C.S. Lewis’s great Christian novel, That Hideous Strength. Such a judgment would, I believe, be superficial. A candid examination of his career, I suggest, yields a different conclusion: that, when all is said and done, Winston Churchill was a Man of Blood and a politico without principle, whose apotheosis serves to corrupt every standard of honesty and morality in politics and history.

-RW

(via  Tho Bishop and C Jay Engel)


 

Also see: The Winston Churchill File

Is Mueller Going to Split the Trump Family?

That's what I hear from a source who would know about these things.

The President is going to have some very interesting choices to make in 2018.

-RW

Infowars Attacks Ron Paul

The video below is a perfect example of how the Trump presidency is moving many away from libertarian principles.

In a recent must watch episode of the Liberty Report, Ron Paul and Daniel McAdams discuss the horrific Executive Order just signed by President Trump that will allow the US government to freeze the US assets of individuals or corporations worldwide who have violated "human rights" or have engaged in corruption.

Trump supporters, including the Infowars commentators in the clip below, argue

The New Puritans: A Comment From Istanbul

By Uygar Aktan

Much has been written about the phenomenon of the watermelon. No not the fruit. I'm referring to the eco-socialist intelligentsia who resemble the colors of that fruit (green on the outside but red on the inside). Although many dismiss watermelons as just a bunch of old hippies and young hipsters, we musn't underestimate their influence in framing political discourse. Indeed, eco-socialist collectivism seems to have completed it's "long march through the institutions" to finally become the de facto ruling ideology of sorts. So it might be useful to deconstruct the deeper motivations and mild pyschosis of the watermelons.

 At first glance, watermelons may appear to be libertines. Certainly secular. Even atheistic. But don't let that fool you.

Noam Chomsky: Why The World Hates America

After this, you should be absolutely disgusted with American presidents.



-RW

Target Liberty Best Sellers List 2017

   

    

1. Progressivism: A Primer on the Idea Destroying America by James Ostrowski

2. The Foundations of Morality by Henry Hazlitt

3. Strictly Confidential: The Private Volker Fund Memos of Murray N. Rothbard

4. An Austro-Libertarian View: Current Affairs, Foreign Policy, American History, European History  (Volume 3) by David Gordon

5. The Making of the President 2016: How Donald Trump Orchestrated a Revolution by Roger Stone

6. Fools, Frauds and Firebrands: Thinkers of the New Left by Roger Scruton

7. Why Government Doesn't Work: How Reducing Government Will Bring Us Safer Cities, Better Schools, Lower Taxes, More Freedom and Prosperity for All by Harry Browne

8. Hitler's Beneficiaries: Plunder, Racial War, and the Nazi Welfare State by Götz Aly

9. Never a Dull Moment: A Libertarian Look at the Sixties by Murray Rothbard

10. Death by Government: Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1900 by R. J. Rummel

Did Trump Just Launch a Covert US-Led Color Revolution in Iran?

This looks very suspicious to me.

In recent days, large number of protesters have been taking to the streets in

Bill Kristol's Best Tweet Ever

The war hawk gets one right.

Excellence from Koufax and also Scully, without marching US soldiers on foreign lands. No one is maimed, no one dies, just peaceful perfection that mesmerizes a crowd in the stadium and, certainly, many more listening to the voice of Scully on a nearby radio near. And now us.

Here, in honor of Sandy Koufax's 82nd birthday, is Vin Scully's thrilling call of the 9th inning of his perfect game on Sep. 9, 1965.https://t.co/Zpf9eswDQt

— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) December 30, 2017

 -RW

A Huffington Post Editor and Cultural Marxist's New Year's Resolution: Kill All Men

A Tweet from the Parents Editorial Director at Huffington Post:

Yes, this Cultural Marxist on steroids is giving advice to parents!

-RW

Did White House Intern Flash White Power Sign in Photo with Trump?

White nationalists are apparently now using the okay sign as a symbol of white power.

It apparently started as a hoax but is gaining traction among the race-fixated set (white division).

You see there is a W and a P in the sign:

So now a photo has surfaced of President Trump with White House interns all giving the Trump trademark thumbs up, except one intern. One gives

Professors Claim Farmers’ Markets Cultivate Racism

Two cultural Marxists professors from San Diego State University who have no understanding of how standards of living increase in a region and what gentrification means have visited farmers’ markets.

They claim in a new book that farmers’ markets in urban areas are weed-like “white spaces” responsible for oppression, reports The Washington Times.

“Farmers’ markets are often white spaces where the food consumption habits of white people are normalized,” Pascale Joassart-Marcelli and Fernando J Bosco write in an anthology released this month titled “Just Green Enough.”

The geology professors claim that 44 percent of San Diego’s farmers’ markets cater to “households from higher socio-economic backgrounds,” which raises property values and “[displaces] low-income residents and people of color.”

Joassart-Marcelli is the Director of Urban Studies Program at SDSU where, among other courses, she teaches, "Community-based Geographic Research: Food Justice."

From the SDSU facebook page:

[H]er study of food access in San Diego shows that the food desert label stigmatizes low-income communities as unhealthy and devalues the everyday food practices of their residents by normalizing a white suburban food environment centered on large supermarkets and erasing the contributions of small ethnic markets.

Bosco conducts a Graduate Seminar: Urban Social Geography.

“The most insidious part of this gentrification process is that alternative food initiatives work against the community activists and residents who first mobilized to fight environmental injustices and provide these amenities but have significantly less political and economic clout than developers and real estate professionals,” they write.

To understand what gentrification is really about, see: What the Gentrification Haters Don't Get.

-RW

(ht Felix Bronstein)

Trump Administration Set to Get More Establishment in 2018

Jonathan Swan reports:

There’s an operational reshuffle coming at the top level of the White House. Senior Trump administration official Johnny DeStefano is set to assume greater responsibilities and influence, including overseeing the beleaguered White House political operation.

Two sources with direct knowledge of the internal deliberations say DeStefano is expected to assume most of deputy chief of staff Rick Dearborn’s responsibilities. Dearborn is expected to leave the White House sometime in the new year.

 DeStefano has played a major role in blocking Trump anti-establishment loyalists from gaining positions in the Administration, now he is going to have even more power closer to the President.

He is total establishment.

He worked for Ohio Republican Congressman John Boehner. From 2007 to 2011, he was Boehner's political director. From 2011 to 2013, when Boehner was Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, DeStefano served as Boehner's senior advisor.

-RW

The Founder of Kwanzaa Was Once Convicted of Torture and Diagnosed as a Nut Job

Kwanzaa founder

The shaky holiday of Kwanzaa was created by a man convicted of felonious assault and false imprisonment after torturing two women, so says Warner Todd Huston as does Wikipedia.

The Dartmouth Review reports:

The founder of Kwanzaa, Ron Everett, a.k.a. Maulana Ron Karenga, stood at the forefront of the black power movement in the 1960s. Karenga distinguished himself as a “cultural nationalist” as opposed to a traditional Marxist. In 1965 Karenga founded the United Slaves Organization (US), a group that would rival the Black Panthers on the UCLA campus. The US was more radical than the Panthers, setting off quarrels between the two.

The biggest dispute between the US and the Panthers centered around the leadership of the new Afro-American Studies department at UCLA; both groups backed a different candidate. On January 17, 1969, 150 students gathered to discuss the situation. Panthers John Jerome Huggins and Alprentice Carter used the meeting to verbally attack Karenga, much to the dismay of his followers. Two US members, George and Larry Stiner, confronted Huggins and Carter in a hallway after the meeting and shot and killed them.

Here's the Review on the torture:

[T]he Los Angeles Times described the events: “Deborah Jones, who once was given the title of an African queen, said she and Gail Davis were whipped with an electrical cord and beaten with a karate baton after being ordered to remove their clothes. She testified that a hot soldering iron was placed in Miss Davis' mouth and placed against Miss Davis' face and that one of her own big toes was tightened in a vice. Karenga, head of US, also put detergent and running hoses in their mouths, she said.”

And then the turn as reported by the Review:

The shooting at UCLA caused Karenga to

Libertarian of the Year

Target Liberty names Laurence M. Vance "Libertarian of the Year."

Many of you may not be familiar with Vance but I urge you to get familiar with his writings. He is a prolific and important libertarian writer.

Some of what he writes is not of interest to me but when he writes about libertarianism, I believe he is one of the most consistent in correctly applying libertarian theory. In the age of Trump, this is extremely important.

I would also argue that he is one of the most underrated libertarian thought leaders and he deserves a much wider following.

Vance is a columnist and policy adviser for the Future of Freedom Foundation, an associated scholar of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, and a columnist, blogger, and book reviewer at LewRockwell.com. His published books and pamphlets include "Social Insecurity," "The War on Drugs Is a War on Freedom," "War, Christianity, and the State: Essays on the Follies of Christian Militarism," "War, Empire, and the Military: Essays on the Follies of War and U.S. Foreign Policy" and "Gun Control and the Second Amendment."

        

-RW

The Horrible Truth About Che Guevara

By Guillermina Sutter Schneider 

[On Decmeber 7], 50 years after his death, many people still remembered Ernesto “Che” Guevara as a warrior for social justice. For so many celebrities, politicians, and activists, Che Guevara is a kind of Good Samaritan who fought against oppression and tyranny. It is unfortunate, though, that these people ignore some of their idol’s defining character traits.

Che Guevara was in fact an intolerant and despicable man.

In the process of building a communist society after Fidel Castro came to power in 1959 in Cuba, one of the ideas Che Guevara presented and promoted was the notion of the “new man.” This concept grew out of Guevara’s aversion to capitalism, and was first explained in his note on “Man and Socialism in Cuba“. He believed that “The individual under socialism (...) is more complete,” and that the state should educate men and women in anti-capitalist, cooperative, selfless and non-materialistic values.

Anyone who deviated from the “new man” was seen as a ”counter-revolutionary.” Such was the case of gay men — whom Guevara referred to as “sexual perverts.” Both Guevara and Castro considered homosexuality a bourgeois decadence. In an interview in 1965, Castro explained that “A deviation of that nature clashes with the concept we have of what a militant communist should be.”

Che Guevara also helped establish the first Cuban concentration camp in Guanahacabibes in 1960. This camp was the first of many. From the Nazis, the Cuban government also adapted the motto at Auschwitz, “Work sets you free,” changing it to “Work will make you men.” According to Álvaro Vargas Llosa, homosexuals, Jehova’s Witnesses, Afro-Cuban priests, and others who were believed to have committed a crime against revolutionary morals, were forced to work in these camps to correct their “anti-social behavior.” Many of them died; others were tortured or raped.

Read the rest here.

Polish PiS: A Trend Launched By Trump

It's the worst of all worlds, economic nationalism in the worst sense of the term coupled with the nanny state.

Mateusz Morawiecki, the new Prime Minister of Poland for the conservative-nationalist Law and Justice Party government, has laid out a Trump-style program  rejecting both socialism and globalist neoliberalism, reports Breitbart.

He has stated that Law and Justice — known in its native country as Prawo i Sprawiedliwość, or PiS — stands “far from neoliberalism, and equally far from socialism,” but this is because he doesn't understand socialism. Managing trade and labor in the style he wants to advance is socialism of the Third Reich variety.

According to Breitbart,  it is broadly eurosceptic, fiercely anti-Communist (so were the Nazis). But it is eurosceptic in an anti-free trade sense. It places a strong emphasis on job creation, infrastructure investment, and defending coal workers under "constant attack" from the European Union. In other words, like their inspiration, President Trump, they don't understand a damn thing about free trade.

But it gets worse, PiS expects the government to intervene on the domestic front, disturbing free exchange in the homeland. It has worked to lower the retirement age, establish social programs to support poor rural communities in the countryside, and provided support for mothers who wish to stay at home with their children rather than be "conscripted" into the labor force.

Sounding something like a cross between Trump and a social justice warrior,  Morawiecki has said that “In a reasonable way, we must help our ladies – our wives, sisters, daughters and mothers – both in the workplace and in everyday life. And when it comes to maltreatment, rape, oppression and injustice, will not be accepted it in any way, shape or form. The state must wield a very heavy hand in this matter.”

-RW

More on Ross Ulbricht and a Trump Pardon

As a follow up to, Okay Libertarians for Trump Make Some Noise: #RossUlbricht, CC: @WalterEBlock, Roger Stone, Walter Block emails to remind me of his paper on Ulbricht in the Journal of Economic and Social Thought:

Is Ross Ulbricht of Silk Road a Libertarian Hero?

Abstract

Abstract. Ross Ulbricht was sentenced to life imprisonment with no possibility of parole for electronically facilitating trade in illegal drugs with his website Silk Road. This is a more severe penalty given to drug dealers, and even murderers. Is he heroic for violating an unjust law, which makes selling drugs a victimless crime? Is he a libertarian? Is he a libertarian hero? These are the questions addressed in the present paper.

Walter adds in his email:

Hey, if Trump does pardon him, that’ll be one point on my side of our debate!

As an aside, although I believe that Ross has been treated horrifically by the government and should be released immediately, I do not believe he is a hero (See: Is Ross Ulbricht a Hero?).

-RW

The Deep State Profile on @RealDonaldTrump is Out....

... to control him, praise him to high heaven, banana republic style.

From The Washington Post:

In Cabinet meeting, Pence praises Trump once every 12 seconds for three minutes straight

Now this:

Jerusalem Post reports a train station to be built next to the Western Wall will be named after @realDonaldTrump, per Israeli Transportation Minister Israel Katz.https://t.co/jAnyIK211U

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) December 27, 2017

How are "Libertarians for Trump" going to top this?

-RW

A Follow-Up On a Trump Pardon for Ross Ulbricht

Paul Grant emails:

Just read your December 26 article about Ross Ulbricht and thank you for writing it.

It would be fantastic if Trump would find a reason (or excuse) to pardon Ross or to commute his sentence.

I haven't read your "The Fed Flunks" book but I will.

It reads like you have been keeping pretty well informed on the progress of Ross' case.  Thanks for being concerned.

Far too many libertarians have naively thought they should directly challenge the state and many have paid a terrible price.  I have been watching that all of my adult life.

Ross is a good man who deserves to be free.  He is a brilliant and kind young man who will help make this a better world if he is free.

Paul Grant
(I represent Ross in some post-conviction matters)

What the Hell is Going On: Are the Masses Being Brain-Controlled?

MB emails:

I am  not trying to be "Tin Hat" with my question to you. Statement first:

It seems to me that there is  exponential growth in the number of folks in this country developing, holding and expressing vociferously, even angrily, very strange and humanly hostile ideas. It almost appears to manufactured though, in what I feel is an intense effort to subvert and disparage tradition.

Do you think it is possible that some of these people are mentally/emotionally controlled remotely to some extent?

Or,

Is it possible that some substance is damaging these peoples brain?

 I am just continually shocked at what some folks think these days.

Am I paranoid?

 RW response:

Russia Accuses Trump of Fomenting War...

...and the Russians are correct.

Specifically, Russia has denounced the Trump administration’s decision to provide new lethal weapons to the Ukrainian military, saying the US had “crossed the line” in the conflict and accusing Washington of fomenting bloodshed.

The angry response from Sergei Ryabkov, deputy foreign minister, comes amid rising tensions in US-Russia relations, with the Trump administration recently publishing a new national security strategy that labelled Moscow a “revisionist power,” reports The Financial Times. 

“Washington is trying to present itself as a mediator,” Ryabkov said, according to a statement published on Saturday on the Russian foreign ministry website. “It is not a mediator at all, it is an accomplice in fomenting a war.”

News reports indicate that Trump is sending, among other weapons, Javelin anti-tank missiles.

This goes beyond the recklessness of the Obama administration which resisted Ukrainian requests for Javelins, fearing the use of US-made missiles against Russian tanks could escalate the conflict to an international level.

The United States has no business in Ukraine. It is using the Ukraine unrest as cover to get its assets on the border between Ukraine and Russia. This is not the act of a friendly operator. It is the action of a hostile nation in the face of  Russia.

-RW

My Early 2018 Debate Schedule

I have two big debates coming up after the first of the year.

In January, I will be debating Dr. Walter Block.  The motion being:

RESOLVED: Donald Trump is a disaster for libertarianism.

I will be taking the affirmative position.

The debate is going to be prerecorded and will be posted online by the debate host Lions of Liberty on January 22, 2018.

On February 21, 2018, in San Francisco, I will be debating money manager Malcolm Greenhill:

The motion being:

RESOLVED: This House believes that Bitcoin will change the world.

I will be taking the negative position.

This debate is being arranged by Dr. Michael Edelstein and will be recorded. I will post the debate at EPJ.

-RW

Okay Libertarians for Trump Make Some Noise: #RossUlbricht, CC: @WalterEBlock, Roger Stone

Ross Ulbricht

Slate reports:

Sholom Rubashkin, whose 27-year sentence President Donald Trump commuted on Wednesday, is a corrupt criminal who deserves punishment for his misdeeds. The Rubashkin case was nevertheless a criminal justice scandal, and Donald Trump was absolutely right to commute his draconian and constitutionally defective sentence. The only shame here is that Trump will almost certainly decline to grant clemency to other prisoners whose cases are just as egregious.

Rubashkin’s crimes are well-documented. As the chief executive of a large kosher meatpacking plant in Iowa, Rubashkin allegedly hired hundreds of undocumented immigrants, including some minors. He also swindled his lenders out of millions. In 2008, federal agents conducted a massive raid on his slaughterhouse. Prosecutors charged him with violating child labor and immigration laws but eventually dropped those counts and focused exclusively on his financial deceit. A jury ultimately convicted Rubashkin of money laundering and bank fraud. Prosecutors recommended a sentence of 25 years, a stringent punishment for a nonviolent, first-time offender.

But U.S. District Judge Linda R. Reade decided that the government’s proposed sentence was insufficiently harsh. She sentenced Rubashkin to 27 years behind bars, more time than the chief executives of Tyco and Enron faced. This fact alone is extremely troubling. Reade, it seemed, decided to factor in Rubashkin’s alleged immigration and child labor crimes even though he was not convicted of any immigration offenses. In fact, a jury acquitted Rubashkin of child labor charges in a separate state trial. Reade, who routinely hands out ruthlessly long prison terms, appeared to be punishing Rubashkin for crimes not proved at trial, a clear violation of his constitutional rights.

The same appears to be the case with Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht.

He was convicted of

Intersectionality Theory is Turning College Kids Tribal

This is all too true and it is going to be difficult to stop.

John Haidt writes

(ht TakingHayekSeriously)

Trump's Turning College Grads Into Democrats

White college graduates in America’s suburbs have turned hard against Republicans in elections around the country and threaten to upend the party’s control of Congress in the 2018 midterm elections, reports The Los Angeles Times.

Put off by Donald Trump’s presidency, they have been shunning Republicans in congressional and state legislative contests. Their support was crucial in electing Democrats as governor in Virginia and U.S. senator in conservative Alabama, according to the paper.

“This is a big group of people, and they’re growing, and if they turn into a base group for the Democratic Party, that really changes things a lot,” said Ruy Teixeira, a demographics expert at the left-leaning Center for American Progress. “If there’s anyone who can do that, it’s Donald Trump.”

The Trump backlash is endangering House Republican incumbents in well-off suburban districts nationwide, including more than a half dozen in Southern California.Republicans Dana Rohrabacher of Costa Mesa and Darrell Issa of Vista are two of the Democrats’ top targets for 2018.

Republicans acknowledge that suburban whites turned off by Trump pose a daunting challenge, especially when women, African Americans, Latinos and other core Democratic groups are highly motivated to vote.

Trump is just bad news. The country is going to move even more socialist because of him.

Tump has no strategic value for libertarians. He should be attacked and attacked any time he moves in a more interventionist direction.

Young people need to understand there is a non-socialist alternative to Trump.

-RW

TROUBLE The Establishment is Cautiously Optimistic About Trump's Foreign Policy in the Wake of the National Security Strategy Report

Trump with his puppetmaster McMaster.

It appears that establishment intellectuals are pleased with the National Security Strategy report recently released by the Trump Administration.

They know it signals an aggressive foreign activities role for the United States.

Walter Russell Mead writes in The Wall Street Journal:

The Trump administration hews closer to the blue-water school. In the time of Pax Britannica, blue-water partisans believed Britain could accumulate great strength and wealth by advancing its interests in the wider world. This would do more to keep the country strong and respected than success in the intricate games of European diplomacy, they believed. A strong and rich Britain could always intervene in European politics if necessary to preserve the balance of power, and a globally dominant Britain would always be respected, even if it failed to make itself loved.

This is the view now driving many of America’s key foreign-policy decisions...

[B]lue-water strategists in the Trump national-security team believe that it is American power, not multilateral institutions, that keeps the West afloat. If challenges to American power from countries like China, Russia, Iran and North Korea are successful, the wider West will weaken and crumble.

Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster and his team deserve credit for finding ways to narrow the gap between President Trump’s strongly held personal views about foreign policy and the ideas embraced by mainstream Republicans. Whether they can make the strategy work in the real world remains an open question. But they appear to have done with this document all that an administration can hope to accomplish with a National Security Strategy—that is, to lay out the broad principles and elements of consensus on which the administration will base its work.

The world remains as unstable and crisis-prone as it did before the publication of the NSS. The Trump administration’s national security apparatus, on the other hand, seems to be finding its sea legs.

Bottom line: The generals are in charge and they are going to guide President Trump on an aggressive muscle-flexing foreign policy.

BTW, Trump's puppetmaster McMaster, referenced above by Meade, unloaded about Trump at a private dinner in July, according to a report in BuzzFeed, referring to the President as an “idiot,” a “dope,” and a man with the intelligence of a “kindergartener.”

-RW

JFK's Great-Nephew May Be Considering a Run Against Trump

Here's another indication that the Kennedys are setting up to make a new big splash in US politics.

Rep. Joe Kennedy (D-MA), the great-nephew of late President John F. Kennedy, may be considering a presidential run against Donald Trump.

According to the Daily Caller. Kennedy has reportedly been taking trips to Ohio, Michigan and other places around the nation known to be big presidential campaign stops.

He also is known for working with Republicans, that could give him some bipartisan support if he decides to throw his name in the hat for 2020, according to DC.

Kennedy is a grandson of former U.S. Attorney General Robert F., a great-nephew of former U.S. President John F. Kennedy and former U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy, and a great-grandson of Joseph P. Kennedy Sr.

Chris Kennedy is running for Governor of Illinois and rumors continue to circulate that Caroline Kennedy may run for office.

-RW

Gerard Casey on The Worldview of Murray Rothbard

Gerard Casey on the man whose perspective could someday result in Peace on Earth.

 

-RW

Is Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman More Dangerous Than Kim Jong Un?

President Trump doesn't like North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, which probably puts some kind of check on him. However, on the other side of the globe, we have Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, heir to the Saudi throne.

He is extremely ambitious, impulsive, vicious and apparently a global BF of Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner.

If there are two people that could get the world into a major shooting war, it is

VIDEO Russian Pranksters Get UN Ambassador Nikki Haley to Support Independence of Non-Existent Island, Binomo, After Claim of Russian Election Interference There

Famous Russian pranksters Vovan & Lexus called up the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley and persented themselves as the Prime-Minister of Poland and had a diplomatic conversation with her.

They informed Haley about the situation in Binomo - an island in the South China Sea: Putin supposedly interfered in their elections (this island doesn't exist).

Haley said she was aware of the situation and confirmed Putin interfered in the elections of Binomo.

The pranksters then go on to tell Haley made-up stories of Kevin Spacey's harassment towards the President of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, and Trump's harassment of a former top Polish official.

 

-RW

Julian Assange Twitter Account Down

It appears that the Twitter account of Julian Assange is down:

-RW

UPDATE

Four Key Geopolitical Trends for 2018 From a Deep State Perspective

An insider take by Stratfor Vice President of Global Analysis Reva Goujon.

This is how the Deep State is currently thinking.

 

It is not likely to be a happy new year for many.

Remember, one of President Trump's four pillars is to "Advance American influence"---and he does not have in mind advancing through peaceful trade.

-RW

Bizarre Pro-Trump Ad Launched for Christmas

Pro-Trump group America First Policies plans to air its “Merry Christmas” ad 11 times over a week on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” beginning on Christmas day, The Daily Caller reports.

The video is just off-the-wall. Showing clueless Trump supporters of all different races, including mixed race-Asians.

But the real kicker comes when the ad features a black guy thanking Trump for "putting America first," which is then immediately followed by a woman thanking Trump for "supporting Israel," not exactly putting America first.

This is followed by a government-trained killer (aka veteran) thanking Trump for his nationalistic call that everyone stand for the national anthem.

 

-RW

Top Saudi General Reportedly Tortured To Death After Refusing To Turn Over His Fortune

First, there were reports that Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal was being tortured by being hung upside down, after his detention as part of a purge that by was led by his cousin and heir to the throne Crown Prince  Mohammed bin Salman.

Now there is

How the Left Conquered the Right

This is an excellent analysis by Paul Gottfried.

 

-RW

The Vision of Harry Browne

Harry Browne was a great libertarian communicator.

This is just great stuff.  Notice, Browne doesn't hedge and move away from libertarian principle on any question.

-RW

SERIOIUS: Deep State Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe to Retire Early

Another deep state soldier is going down.

Cristina Laila writes:

Deep State FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe is set to retire early next year after a barrage of attacks for his corruption.

Via WaPo:

Andrew McCabe, the FBI’s deputy director who has been the target of Republican critics for more than a year, plans to retire in a few months when he becomes fully eligible for pension benefits, according to people familiar with the matter.

[…]

McCabe won’t

Another Flip-Flop: Trump Approves Lethal Arms To Ukraine

A series of great points by Ron Paul and Daniel McAdams.



-RW

A Straussian National Security Strategy?

By Daniel W. Drezner

President Trump’s first National Security Strategy was released Monday, and there have already been many, many, many takes about it. I will get to them in a second. My takeaway is a simple one: This might be the world’s first Straussian national security strategy. And by Straussian, I mean the following:

Philosophers, Straussians maintain, learned to write at two levels for two sorts of readers. On the surface, their teaching would strive to be unobjectionable to the authorities of their regime; their deepest insights—or their real opinions—would lie hidden, accessible only to those few with the intellectual penetration and patience to navigate the apparent lapses in argument, mistakes in citation, or peculiarities of presentation that had been made deliberately to draw the adept to the philosophical core of a work.

In other words, this is a strategy in which the subtext matters at least as much as the text.

To understand what I mean, you have to appreciate the ways in which this document departs from past national security strategies. These documents have been mandated for 30 years, and they have mostly stressed the continuity of American grand strategy. While the threats might have changed in the post-Cold War world, Barack Obama’s grand strategies did not repudiate George W. Bush’s grand strategies, which in turn did not repudiate Bill Clinton’s, and so forth.

That is not the case with Trump’s NSS. This NSS explicitly rejects the past 30 years of national security strategies:

Read the rest here.

Rothbard on the Confused Intellectuals

  -RW

FBI Arrests Former Marine For Alleged San Francisco Christmas Day Terror Plot

This looks like a typical FBI setup, though the guy does seem more willing than in some of the other setups.

Via CBS San Francisco:

The FBI announced Friday that they arrested a man suspected of offering to carry out a terrorist attack on Christmas Day in San Francisco.

Authorities said 26-year-old Everitt Aaron Jameson was arrested at his home in Modesto on Wednesday morning.

According to the criminal complaint, Jameson detailed his plans with

Walter Block on the Koch Heir Who is Suing His Ex-Fiancee to Get a Huge Engagement Ring Back

Wyatt Koch — the son of billionaire Bill Koch — is suing his ex-fiancée to get back an 8.24-carat ring after she broke off their engagement, according to court documents, reports The New York Post.

Wyatt’s lawyers claim that he purchased the  Oscar Heyman cushion-cut diamond with two tapered baguette diamonds for $180,000 in March for Ivie Gabrielle Slocumb.

But come May — after she allegedly “broke off” the engagement — Slocumb kept the rock. Wyatt’s lawyers say the ring’s now worth $250,000, and Wyatt also wants $15,000 in damages.

According to court documents filed in Florida circuit court, Wyatt has “demanded the return of the ring . . . on multiple occasions” and says that the would-be bride “received the ring as a conditional gift. She refuses to return it despite proper demand and the condition not being fulfilled.”

I asked libertarian scholar Dr. Walter Block for his take on the situation. He emails:

I support Wyatt Koch on this. He gave his fiancee that ring conditionally. What was the condition? That she would marry him. But she later delined to do so. Therefore, I think she ought to return the ring to him.

    -RW

Crazed Propaganda Video: Saudi Arabia Launches Successful Attack on Iran

The below animated film in which Saudi Arabian forces attack and successfully win a war against Iran is, I am told, going viral in the Saudi Kingdom.

Note well, at the end of the film cheering Saudis are holding up pictures of the reckless and ruthless buddy of Jared Kushner, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, heir to the throne who just had arrested most of his male cousins and is reportedly torturing some of them.

   -RW

Trump Administration Considers Separating Families to Combat Illegal Immigration

Trump is a beast.

The New York Times reports:

The Trump administration is considering a new policy that would separate parents from their children when families are caught entering the country illegally, according to officials who have been briefed on the plans. The forceful move is meant to discourage border crossings, but immigrant groups have denounced it as draconian and inhumane.

Under current policy, families are kept intact while awaiting a decision on whether they will be deported; they are either held in special family detention centers or released with a court date. The policy under discussion would send parents to adult detention facilities, while their children would be placed in shelters designed for juveniles or with a “sponsor,” who could be a relative in the United States, though the administration may also tighten rules on sponsors.

The policy is favored by the White House, and has been approved by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to three officials at the Department of Homeland Security and one at the White House who have all been briefed on the proposal but declined to be named because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly.

  -RW

Dave Chappelle On Poor White People

  -RW

Praise For Our Great Leader....

...from his Cabinet.

Steve Benen reports:

Donald Trump hosted his first full cabinet meeting in June, and the political world wasn’t fully prepared for how much it departed from traditional presidential cabinet meetings. As regular readers may recall, the Republican went around the room, offering each member of his cabinet an opportunity to talk about how happy they are to be on his team.

The result was downright creepy. CNBC’s John Harwood‏, apparently flabbergasted, said at the time, “Honestly this is like a scene from the Third World.” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and his staff quickly put together a satirical meeting in the senator’s conference room, mocking the tone and the rhetoric of Trump’s gathering.

The mockery apparently didn’t bother Trump World, because yesterday’s cabinet meeting was arguably worse.

Trump asked HUD Secretary Ben Carson to say grace, and Carson proceeded to thank God for “a president and for Cabinet members who are courageous, who are willing to face the winds of controversy in order to provide a better future for those who come behind us.” Then, as the Washington Post  reported, it was Vice President Mike Pence’s turn.

Over nearly three minutes, Pence offered plaudit after plaudit after plaudit, praising Trump’s vision, his words, his strategy and his results in light of the passage of tax cuts. By the end, Pence offered 14 separate commendations for Trump in less than three minutes – math that works out to one every 12.5 seconds. And each bit of praise was addressed directly to Trump, who was seated directly across the table.

After the cabinet meeting, the White House issued a written statement quoting members of Trump’s cabinet talking about how impressed they are with Trump’s record.

   -RW UPDATE

Pence goes full Banana Republic. pic.twitter.com/QzIpZG9IVi

— ian bremmer (@ianbremmer) December 21, 2017