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Israel, Gaza, And WWIII Vibes, With Guest Anya Parampil
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![]() ![]() ![]() Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at the graduation ceremony of the country’s military academies, Oct. 10, 2023 Amidst growing speculations in the US about Tehran’s involvement in the Hamas’ attack on Israel last Saturday and the reported move by the Pentagon to despatch by the weekend a second aircraft carrier to the East Mediterranean, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has spoken for the first time on the explosive situation. Khamenei spoke in Tehran on Tuesday in his capacity as the Commander-in-Chief of Iran’s Armed Forces choosing the occasion of the annual joint graduation ceremony for the cadets of Iran’s military academies to dwell on the topic. In an unprecedented move, excerpts of Khamenei’s remarks have since been relayed in Hebrew to the Israeli audience. Khamenei’s statement warns Israel against any rash moves that it may come to repent later. Khamenei anticipated Israel’s “irreparable defeat.” He said “the killing Palestinian men, women, children, and elderly, desecrating the al-Aqsa Mosque, beating worshipers, and letting loose armed settlers to attack the Palestinian people are among the atrocities committed by the Zionist regime.” Khemenei made three key points in his speech:
- First, Israel is on the wrong path by embarking on such a war against Gaza. “The rulers and decision-makers of the Zionist regime and their supporters should know that these actio ns will bring a greater disaster upon them, and the Palestinian people, with a firmer determination, will slap their hideous faces harder in response to these crimes.”
- Second, the rumour “spread by the elements of the Zionist regime and its supporters” about the involvement of “non-Palestinians (read Hezbollah) including Iran” in the recent events is “nonsense.”
- Three, most important, Khamenei prefaced his remarks by describing Iran’s armed forces as “the steel fortress of security, honour and national identity.” He recalled Iranian armed forces’ brilliant record in the eight-year war with Iraq, which was also a world war, and later, in thwarting the US’s “wicked plot” to create ISIS and destabilise the region, Iran being the ultimate target.
Khamenei was all but explicit that Iran’s armed forces are in a state of readiness and have the capability to defend the country if push comes to shove. That said, he also made a nuanced remark that “The entire Islamic world is obliged to support the Palestinian nation.” The bottom line is, in Khamenei’s words, “From the military and intelligence aspects, this defeat (of Israel) is irreparable. It is a devastating earthquake. It is unlikely that the usurping regime will be able to use the help of the West to repair the deep impacts that this incident has left on its ruling structures.” Indeed, Israel faces a serious existential crisis due to the disunity within and the irrelevance of its military prowess to meet the challenges of the hybrid war it is experiencing. Iran, therefore, sees that the advantage lies with the axis of resistance. Interestingly, Egypt has disclosed that it had warned Israel about an impending large-scale attack by Hamas but the latter failed to act on it. To be sure, there is going to be stocktaking within Israel at some point. Prime Minister Netanyahu will be hard-pressed to explain. On the other hand, typically, he will try to cover up and whip up xenophobia with war cries to distract attention. In the big picture, it is inconceivable that given the catastrophic consequences, the US will dare to attack Iran. But the temptation will be there to roll back the Hezbollah in neighbouring Lebanon using the present opportunity and, second, seriously destabilise the Syrian situation while Russia remains preoccupied in Ukraine — that is to say, make a desperate attempt to undo the gains of the so-called Axis of Resistance led by Iran through the past decade and more. Therefore, there is no question that this remains a potential flashpoint as far as Iran is concerned, and Tehran will remain vigilant about not losing ground in the Levant. The heart of the matter is that the US and Israel are confronting today a vastly different Iran than they have been used to through the past four decades and more since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Consider the following:
- Iran is no more in isolation and it has successfully overcome the Western sanctions;
- BRICS membership is a game changer for Iran’s integration into the global community.
- Iran is a threshold state in its nuclear weapon programme, enjoying strong relationships with Russia and China and can even tilt the balance in the co-relation of forces in West Asia and neighbouring regions and even internationally.
- Iran is no longer entrapped in a debilitating regional rivalry with Saudi Arabia and the easing of the conflict situations in Yemen and Syria creates space for Tehran to manoeuvre on the diplomatic arena. (Iran’s foreign minister is actively coordinating with his counterparts in the region.)
All of this enables Iran to move to the next phase of development and advance its global presence and expand its influence. Suffice to say, Iran is steadily outstripping Israel in the power dynamic of the region. Being a much smaller country with an uncertain future which is called upon to adjust to the new reality of US retrenchment, Israel is no longer in the same league as Iran. The Hamas operation exposes this geopolitical reality. A protracted war in Gaza will be a colossal drain on Israel’s resources and can only weaken the country. Its outcome remains anybody’s guess. But on the other hand, Israel believes that it has no diplomatic options, either. On top of it, if Hezbollah enters the fray, all that happened last Saturday in Israel will seem a picnic. With its massive stockpile of advanced missiles — close to 200,000 rockets trained on virtually every nook and corner of Israel — Hezbollah has the capability to destroy Israel comprehensively. Principally, the deployment of two US aircraft carriers in Eastern Mediterranean is intended to send a strong message to Hezbollah. On the other hand, it also highlights that in addition to Ukraine and Taiwan, the West Asian theatre will continue to engage the US for a foreseeable future. If this is not imperial overstretch, what is it? Something has to give way. These are early days. Meanwhile, the EU’s united front on Israel’s war with Hamas is already showing its first cracks. On Monday, within hours of the announcement that the EU would put €691 million in aid to the Palestinian Authority under review, with all payments immediately suspended, foreign policy chief Josep Borrell stepped in to retract, saying the Commission “will not suspend the due payments” as “punishing all the Palestinian people” would have “damaged the EU interests in the region and would have only further emboldened terrorists.” Disagreements have appeared between EU countries on the conflict. Historically, Israel-Palestine is one of the most divisive issues in the EU. Several countries — including Ireland, Luxembourg and Denmark — sought a reference to de-escalation in the EU joint text on the conflict, which was opposed by others. France, the Nordic states, Belgium and Ireland traditionally support a position that is seen by some other countries as too pro-Palestinian. Quite obviously, with hardly any country in the Global South — other than a handful of cases such as India — rushing in to express “solidarity” with Israel in its apocalyptic war with Gaza and the contradictions within Israel waiting to implode sooner rather than later, Tehran is justified to believe that it is on the right side of history. Reprinted with permission from Indian Punchline. Iran warns Israel against its apocalyptic war Click on the headline to read the full story from ![]() ![]() US Neocons Use Hamas Attack To Push For War On Iran Click on the headline to read the full story from Peace and Prosperity ![]() ![]() ![]() Many Americans have come to accept that corruption and lying is the name of the game in Washington and, increasingly, at both state and local levels of government, in part because lying and stealing by those who run the country has become virtually consequence free. To cite only one example, the current ruinously expensive war against Russia began when the US and other NATO powers lied to Mikhael Gorbachev about their intentions regarding expansion of the “defensive” alliance into Eastern Europe. They then lied again in 2014 with the Minsk Accords, which were supposed to give some measure of autonomy to the Russian ethnic regions of Ukraine in the Donbas, an apparent concession that served as cover for arming and training the Ukrainian Army. Finally, the US and its friends arranged for regime change in Ukraine in 2014 to replace the friendly-to-Russia President Viktor Yanukovych with a pro-western candidate selected by the fanatical State Department neocon Victoria Nuland, who boasted how Washington had spent $5 billion to bring about the flip in government. That move warned Russian President Vladimir Putin regarding what was going on so he quickly annexed Russian ethnic majority Crimea, where the Russian Black Sea Fleet is based. Driving all the US led aggression against Russia is the neocon foreign policy embraced by most of the two major political parties which demands that the United States have military superiority over all competitors everywhere around the world where it has interests or allies. That has meant by one count something like 1,000 foreign military bases. By way of comparison, Russia has only one overseas base, in Syria. And the maintenance of all those bases as well as the network of installations inside the US costs lots of money which fattens defense contractors and also winds up in the pockets of aspiring politicians while increasing the national debt to unsustainable levels. And it is no surprise to learn that when generals and admirals retire from active service, 80% of them wind up employed by contractors to lobby their former colleagues on the latest weapons systems that are so urgently required to maintain supremacy. The recent exposure of Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey’s apparent tendency to accept bribes in exchange for various kinds of favorable treatment and protection was a particularly lurid tale in part because much of the loot consisted of $480,000 in cash stuffed into jacket pockets, closets and in a safe, along with 13 gold bars, two of them marked as 1 Kilogram in weight to the value of more than $100,000. In the garage was an upscale $60,000 Mercedes-Benz convertible that was a gift to Menendez’s then girlfriend, who had wrecked her own vehicle in an accident in which she had struck and killed a pedestrian. The car came from one of the New Jersey businessmen currently involved in the corruption and bribery investigation and no one can quite explain how an accident in which someone had died was never properly investigated by police. Menendez had allegedly helped the businessman by arranging to block a criminal investigation into his company’s activities. Menendez is indeed a powerful senator even though there is more than a whiff of suspicion surrounding him and his activities. A Cuban American who is prominent in the Hispanic caucus, he was regarded as a political hardliner from his bully pulpit as Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In 2015, Menendez was indicted on federal corruption charges but the jury was unable to reach a verdict, and the case was dropped in 2018. In April 2018, the United States Senate Select Committee on Ethics “severely admonished” Menendez for accepting gifts from donor Salomon Melgen without obtaining committee approval, for failing to disclose certain gifts, and for using his position as a senator to advance Melgen’s interests. This time around, however, the evidence for wrongdoing is much more compelling and it even involves a foreign country, Egypt, so he has resigned his chairmanship but has refused to leave the Senate. He claims he is innocent, of course and continues to promote Biden’s view of the world, to include identifying the “core American foreign policy values” as “democracy, human rights, and the rule of law” even though it does not apply to him. And, of course, as a Cuban that worldview includes perpetual hostility to Havana and all its works, including its links to Russia. Bob Menendez is up for reelection in 2024, but opinion polls taken just after the reports of his corruption surfaced indicate that he has no chance of winning against several Democrats who will challenge him. He will certainly receive some favorable press and significant campaign donations as he long been linked to Jewish lobbying groups like AIPAC and is closely aligned with Israel on foreign policy issues to include opposing in 2015 the President Barack Obama nuclear deal with Iran, asserting falsely that Iran is already working on a nuclear weapon. In March 2017, Menendez co-sponsored the Israel Anti-Boycott Act (S.270), which sought to make it “a federal crime, punishable by a maximum sentence of 20 years imprisonment, for Americans to encourage or participate in boycotts against Israel and Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.” More important perhaps, Menendez has twice advanced legislation through his committee supporting Ukraine in its war with Russia, so the White House will presumably do everything it can to protect him, but only up to a certain point. Menendez has been replaced by Senator Ben Cardin of Maryland, who will not be running for re-election in 2024. Cardin, who is Jewish, is a strong and consistent supporter of Israel, like Menendez, and an outspoken critic of Vladimir Putin of Russia. He was a co-sponsor of a Senate resolution expressing objection to the UN Security Council Resolution 2334, which condemned Israeli settlement building in the occupied Palestinian territories as a violation of international law. Cardin warned that “Congress will take action against efforts at the UN, or beyond, that use Resolution 2334 to target Israel.” Cardin also voted with Republicans to support President Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. He declared that the time that “Jerusalem is the capital of the State of Israel and the location of the US Embassy should reflect this fact.” Cardin and Senator Rob Portman of Ohio, like Menendez, were strong supporters of the proposed Israel Anti-Boycott Act in late 2018, described above, and they also called for a sanctions mechanism to punish international organizations that seek to boycott Israel or its illegal settlements. Oddly, Cardin has sometimes been credited with being a “human rights advocate,” a label which the Palestinians and others might object to. The claim is based on his authorship of US legislation referred to as the Magnitsky Act. According to Cardin and his allies in Washington, Sergei Magnitsky was a Russian lawyer hired by Bill Browder head of Hermitage Capital Management Fund, an Anglo-American investment fund operating in Moscow, to investigate the apparent diversion of as much as $230 million in taxes due to the Russian government. Hermitage was a hedge fund that was focused on “investing” in Russia, taking advantage initially of the extremely corrupt loans-for-shares scheme under Boris Yeltsin, and then continuing to profit greatly during the early years of Vladimir Putin’s ascendancy. The loans-for-shares scheme that made Browder his initial fortune has been correctly characterized as the epitome of corruption, an arrangement whereby foreign investors worked with local oligarchs to strip the former Soviet economy of its assets paying pennies on each dollar of value. Along the way, Browder was reportedly involved in making false representations on official documents and bribery. Nevertheless, by 2005 Hermitage was the largest foreign investor in Russia. Magnitsky allegedly became a whistleblower after discovering that the missing money had been stolen by the police, organized crime figures and other government officials. After he went to the authorities to complain he was unjustly imprisoned for eleven months. When he refused to recant he was both beaten and denied medical treatment to coerce him into cooperating, resulting in his death in jail at age 37 in November 2009. He has become something of a hero for those who have decried official corruption in Russia. The Magnitsky case is of particular importance because both the European Union and the United States have initiated sanctions against the Russian officials and entities that were allegedly involved. In the Magnitsky Act, sponsored by a Russia-phobic Cardin and signed by President Barack Obama in 2012, the US asserted its willingness to punish foreign governments for violations of human rights. Russia reacted angrily, noting that the actions taken by its government internally, notably the operation of its domestic judiciary, were being subjected to outside interference. It reciprocated with sanctions against US officials as well as by increasing pressure on foreign non-governmental pro-democracy groups operating in Russia. Tension between Moscow and Washington increased considerably as a result and Congress subsequently passed the so-called Global Magnitsky Act as part of the defense appropriation bill in 2016. It was signed into law by President Barack Obama in December. It expanded the use of sanctions and other punitive measures against regimes guilty of egregious human rights abuses though it has never been applied to US friends like Saudi Arabia and Israel. It has been used to punish China and Cuba. It was also sponsored by Senator Cardin and was clearly primarily intended to intimidate Russia. The tit-for-tat that has severely damaged relations with Russia is based on the standard narrative embraced by many regarding who Magnitsky was and what he did, but is it true? Many now believe that there was indeed a huge fraud related to Russian taxes but that it was not carried out by corrupt officials. Instead, it was deliberately ordered and engineered by Browder with Magnitsky, who was an accountant not a lawyer, personally developing and implementing the scheme used to carry out the deception. To be sure, Browder and his international legal team have presented what they regard as evidence in the case. But while it might be that Browder and Magnitsky have been the victims of a corrupt and venal state, it just might be the other way around. To cite only once example, much of the case against the Russian authorities is derived from English language translations of relevant documents provided by Browder himself. The actual documents in Russian sometimes say something quite different. So there we go again. As the wheel turns in Washington nothing really changes. Benjamin Cardin as Chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs will promote the same policies of unrelenting hostility towards countries like Russia and China as did his recently resigned predecessor Bob Menendez. And as fighting between Israel and Gaza has just broken out, you can count on how the United States will line up even as hundreds of Palestinian children die as a powerful Israel pummels and pounds and largely civilian population in Gaza. Those are the sorts of things that American citizens can count on these days, unfortunately. Reprinted with permission from Unz Review. Senators Bob Menendez and Ben Cardin Play Musical Chairs Click on the headline to read the full story from ![]() ![]() Are US Weapons Fueling The Hamas Offensive? Click on the headline to read the full story from ![]() ![]() ![]() Some days the Caitlin Johnstone articles just write themselves. During her self-titled annual awards ceremony at Georgetown University on Thursday, Hillary Clinton said that the biggest obstacle to peace and security around the world is “men starting wars.” During the Q&A segment of the event, Clinton was asked by a student, “What do you see as the biggest challenge for women, peace, and security over the next ten years?” “Well I think the biggest challenge is men starting wars,” Clinton replied, adding, “You know, I don’t think they have enough to do.” Which would have come across as a humorous and relatable answer, if it had come from pretty much anyone else on the entire planet. The single strongest argument against Hillary Rodham Clinton’s suggestion that only men start wars is the career of Hillary Rodham Clinton. This is after all the same woman who chortled with delight when she found out Muammar Gaddafi had been lynched in the streets following his US-led overthrow in Libya during her tenure as secretary of state, saying “I’m sure it did” when asked if his death had anything to do with her visit to the country. The same woman who as secretary of state promoted the plan of arming extremists in Syria with the goal of toppling Damascus. The same woman who as a senator played a pivotal role in convincing the Democratic Party to support the invasion of Iraq based on lies. The same woman who as first lady said she “urged” her husband Bill Clinton to launch the bombing campaign that would leave Serbia and Kosovo covered in cluster munitions. The same woman who as a US presidential candidate advocated a no-fly zone in Syria which would have required attacks on Russian war planes who violated it, and endorsed the same brinkmanship policies in Ukraine which eventually provoked the Russian invasion. When Tulsi Gabbard famously dubbed Clinton “the queen of warmongers” in 2019, it wasn’t just empty rhetoric. There is no woman alive who anyone could argue is more deserving of that title. If you’d have told me there was a Hillary Rodham Clinton Awards ceremony prior to my having read about it, I would have assumed it was an event where women receive trophies for killing large numbers of human beings with military violence. It is of course true that men have been the drivers of the overwhelming majority of wars throughout the ages, but that’s just what’s so disgusting about the modern iteration of “feminism” that Hillary Clinton rode to prominence on. The girlboss “feminism” of the Hillary Clinton age has ceased to mean advancing women’s interests and ensuring that women are treated as equals to men, and has become a vapid celebration of examples of women proving that they can be just as murderous, tyrannical and abusive as any man. That was the zeitgeist that Hillary Clinton rode her 2016 presidential campaign on, and when the American public recoiled in horror and refused to vote for her, it was spun as a victory for misogyny. It should have been spun as a victory for would-be bombing victims who live in US-targeted nations. Hillary Clinton is all the worst things about modern liberals and the Democratic Party. She is a blood-spattered psychopath who has dedicated her life to serving all the worst impulses of the human species — imperialism, militarism, capitalism, authoritarianism, and, yes, patriarchy — wearing a grinning plastic mask of civil rights and social justice to convince people to let her in the door. She’s one of the creepiest things you could possibly imagine, and the sooner her and those like her are gone and forgotten, the better. Reprinted with permission from Caitlin's Newsletter. Subscribe and support here. Queen Warmonger Hillary Clinton Complains About 'Men Starting Wars' Click on the headline to read the full story from The Biden Family Tree: How Investigations are Exposing the Bidens Influence-Peddling Dynasty10/9/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() Below is my column in The Hill on the exposure of the Biden family and its long-standing business of influence peddling. Newly released evidence from the House Committee on Ways and Means reveals over $20 million coming from 23 separate countries on four continents to at least nine Biden family members. Not only are the Biden transfers becoming clear, so is the Biden family tree in this lucrative form of corruption. Here is the column: President Joe Biden once famously told a state official that “no one f—s with a Biden.” It was a statement that made more sense a few years ago than it does today. These days, it seems like everyone is…well, messing with the Bidens. The president’s son, Hunter Biden, is facing federal charges on gun violations under a law that his father has heralded. He is also looking at possible additional charges on taxes. Joe Biden’s brother James Biden was just subpoenaed alongside his nephew over millions of dollars sent by foreign figures as part of an influence-peddling operation. Joe Biden is now formally under investigation for possible impeachment with at least four articles of impeachment under consideration. Finally, a media that has long shielded the Bidens is now starting to acknowledge that Hunter and others were engaged in corrupt influence peddling. All of this scrutiny is not simply threatening the Biden sense of invincibility. It is also revealing more about the Bidens behind the scenes in an unvarnished and unflattering light. Prosecutors often build narratives around the conspicuous consumption and the lifestyle demands of targets. Trump’s personal and financial dealings have featured greatly in litigation. The Washington Post’s Ruth Marcus and others have written about how the evidence exposed a “stunning display of Trump’s narcissism.” The same may be true with Biden. There is a sharp disconnect between the public persona long maintained by the press and what is becoming more apparent to the public now. Although the image of a “unifier-in-chief” quickly collapsed, the most lasting portrayal is that Joe Biden cares. Unlike Trump, he is portrayed as acting not out of greed, but an overwhelming desire to do good. In a typical article, a contributor to Forbes gushed about “How Empathy Defines Joe Biden.” The article explained that “Biden feels empathetic because that is who he is.” That is not the image that emerges from the growing evidence about Biden and his family. The Bidens are suffering from legal exposure in actions concerning everything from withholding child support to peddling influence to federal felonies. The investigations and inquiries often turn on questions of intent for actions taken by Biden family members, including the president himself. The motive is often all too apparent. Hunter Biden left a long trail of emails and texts seeking millions in exchange for access to his father. He is shown in messages invoking his father’s power, threatening foreign figures to send him money. In one message, he allegedly makes a demand for an immediate transfer of cash from a Chinese businessman by saying that his father is sitting next to him to make sure the payment comes through. Hunter Biden was burning through a fortune on drugs, prostitutes and high living. There were many eager to have the son of the vice president dependent on their largesse. While Hunter is often portrayed as a human wreck, salvaged by influence-seekers, his uncles generated their own controversies. James has been a well-known figure among alleged influence peddlers for years in cashing in on access to his brother, Joe. Joe’s younger brother, Frank, has also been long identified as involved in the family influence peddling. Like Hunter, Frank appears to have been in dire financial straits due to his careening lifestyle and lack of any appreciable skills. Frank’s need for money was not only great but known to his brother. In 1999, at age 43, Frank was involved in a car crash in Cardiff-by-the-Sea near Encinitas, California. He was accused of responsibility for the death of single father Michael Albano and then of evading service and responsibility in lawsuits by Albano’s surviving children. He only recently began paying what he owes. Having had his driver’s license suspended in Florida, Frank nonetheless rented a Jaguar and had a younger man whom he had met at a Whole Foods driving him. Biden, sitting in the passenger seat, reportedly shifted the car into manual gear and encouraged Jason Turton, 25, to “punch it,” at which point he hit 80 miles per hour in a 35 mph zone. Turton was later reportedly found to have twice the allowed level of alcohol in his system. Witnesses said everyone in the car was drinking that day and Frank was accused of telling Turton to “keep driving” after killing Albano. Frank would ultimately remain at the scene after Turton ran off by foot. The police report suggested Frank was uncooperative with police on key points of the investigation. Frank Biden defaulted in the action brought by Albano’s daughters, but he left California and spent decades evading payments. When attorney John F. Hayter, representing the daughters, garnished Biden’s Wells Fargo bank account in February, he found it virtually empty. It took 20 years to get him to pay any of the $1 million he owed in damages. He was also reportedly dodging creditors. The daughters had repeatedly asked Joe Biden to intervene, but nothing occurred for years until he was running for the vice presidency and the media began to pick up on his brother’s evasion of liability. When Biden was still a senator, Albano’s daughter did finally get a response from Joe Biden’s staff that explained, “As you are aware, however, Frank has no assets with which to satisfy the judgment. The senator regrets that this is where matters stand and that he cannot be more helpful.” That appeared to change just when Joe was running for the vice presidency. It was also when the Biden influence peddling efforts seemed to take off in earnest. These cases reveal not just a family committed to corrupt influence peddling, but also strikingly similar patterns of legal and financial evasion. It also shows a family whose members had an insatiable thirst for cash and few skills beyond monetizing government service. It is a familiar narrative in federal prosecutions. Prosecutors focused on such lifestyle demands in Paul Manafort’s prosecution, including highlighting his famous Ostrich coat. The same is true in impeachments. When I served as lead counsel in the last judicial impeachment trial, my client, Judge Thomas Porteous, faced allegations of receiving gifts from those seeking to influence him. The House managers focused on Porteous’s lifestyle and gambling expenses to explain his seeking gifts from those with business in his court. The Bidens had only one family business. They did not make furniture or sell groceries. They sold influence and, as Biden associate Devon Archer explained, Joe was their “brand.” As these investigations and prosecutions continue, the public may conclude that it is not empathy but avarice that defines the Bidens. Reprinted with permission from JonathanTurley.org. The Biden Family Tree: How Investigations are Exposing the Bidens’ Influence-Peddling Dynasty Click on the headline to read the full story from ![]() ![]() ![]() Last week we witnessed a dramatic, historical first: A Speaker of the US House of Representatives was removed from that position by a vote from Members of that body. US Rep. Matt Gaetz was able to gather enough Republicans dissatisfied with the leadership of then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy to send him packing. What was the last straw? According to Gaetz, it was McCarthy’s secret deal with President Biden and the Democrats to bring up another huge funding package for Ukraine separately if they agreed to support a bill to keep the government open without Ukraine money in it. Gaetz and his allies were angry that they were kept in the dark about the deal and in the end it only took eight Republican rebels to end McCarthy’s eight months in the Chair. Several thoughtful Members, including my friend Thomas Massie, made convincing arguments that Republicans removing the Speaker would do little to nothing when looking at the bigger picture of a record US debt, a continuously growing budget deficit, and runaway inflation. It would also, he argued, do little to fix a broken House of Representatives where Members are more interested in showboating than taking a needed chainsaw to the massive yearly Omnibus spending bill that has taken the place of individual funding bills for each part of the Federal government. When I was in the House we mostly worked under what was called “regular order,” where each individual appropriations bill was brought to the floor and debated sometimes for several days, and with unlimited amendments, before they held a vote. With regular order there was at least a chance that Members and staff could actually read the bills and try to make changes. Multi-thousand-page omnibus bills brought to the Floor at the last minute with a demand that they be passed immediately is part of the reason we are up to our eyeballs in debt. They can – and do – sneak everything into them! Even with the deserved criticism, however, there is still something satisfying about seeing such a shake-up over the issue of foreign interventionism. After a year and a half and more than $100 billion sent by Biden’s neocons for the proxy war with Russia in Ukraine, finally some Members are starting to wake up and say “no” to demands for even more. These wars instigated by neocons from both parties always end in disaster, but not until they produce much suffering in the countries they claim to want to liberate. They also further punish the middle and working class while enriching the wealthy and well-connected in the military-industrial complex. The cost of this latest war will be hidden in the cruelest tax – inflation – which disproportionately hurts the poor. Will a new Speaker of the House solve our problems? No. Our biggest problem is our financial and moral bankruptcy, which has been brewing for over 100 years since the creation of the Fed and the rise of the Progressive era. But finally we see Members responding to rising anger among the electorate over the financing of another forever war – this time with a nuclear superpower! Finally we see Members saying “enough” to demands for even more money for the US empire. It’s a good start and we should do all we can to encourage it. Will a New House Speaker Solve Our Problems? Click on the headline to read the full story from ![]() ![]() ![]() Six months ago, FBI officials boasted that in 2022 their agents had spied on only 120,000 Americans without search warrants! Under the Constitution, that number should be ZERO. This revelation is supposed to give members of Congress comfort that the folks we have hired to protect the Constitution are in fact doing so. In reality, the feds continue to assault and violate a core freedom protected by the Constitution -- the right to be left alone. The reason for the FBI revelation is the pending expiration of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and the bipartisan animosity toward its extension. Section 702 is unconstitutional on its face as it directly contradicts the core language of the Fourth Amendment. It permits the feds to conduct warrantless surveillance on foreign persons who are either physically or digitally present in the United States and all with whom they communicate -- American or foreign -- who are located here. Thus, for example, if you call or text or email an art dealer in Florence, Italy, from your home in New Jersey, or your cousin in Geneva, Switzerland, calls or texts or emails you at your home in California, the FBI can monitor all those communications without a search warrant. And then the feds can monitor the future calls you make and texts and emails you send and receive. The reason for the search warrant requirement is to prevent a repeat of what British agents did to the American colonists before the Revolutionary War. Then, secret British courts in London issued general warrants to British agents in America, which authorized the bearer to search wherever he wished and seize whatever he found. When British agents used their general warrants to search colonial homes ostensibly looking for tax stamps in compliance with the Stamp Act, they were really attempting to find who among the colonists entertained revolutionary ideas that might lead to a revolt against the king. The existence and the enforcement of the Stamp Act proved so unpopular that Parliament rescinded it after just one year of British agents roughing up colonists in their homes. But the former bond between colonials and their king had been irreparably breached and a sea change in colonial thinking pervaded the land. The core of that sea change was not taxation without representation; it was “freedom.” To the colonial mindset, freedom had one universal meaning. It meant freedom from the government -- from king and Parliament. The sea change in colonial thinking resulted in an ideological welcome mat for the Declaration of Independence. When Thomas Jefferson was holed up in a Philadelphia rooming house for five days in June 1776 writing and revising the Declaration, he thought he was crafting the ideological fountainhead of a minority of landowners who despised the king’s authority. Yet, within a year, farmers and artisans and laborers joined the popular and bloody revolt that ended in 1783 with freedom from England. What about freedom from the new government here? When the Constitution was ratified six years later, it had no amendments and made no mention of personal liberty. Five of the ratifying states had insisted upon the promise of the addition of a Bill of Rights as a pre-condition to ratification. And so, the first task of the new Congress was to comply with that promise and craft a Bill of Rights, lest these five states secede from the new union. The colonies-become-states presumed a right to secede. They believed that what they had joined voluntarily, they could voluntarily leave. What became the Fourth Amendment protected the quintessentially American right to be left alone. It states that “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects” shall be secure and may be violated by the government only pursuant to a search warrant issued by a neutral judge and based on probable cause of crime, and the warrant must specifically describe the place to be searched or the persons or things to be seized. There is no exception in the amendment for foreign people, bad people, dangerous people, violent people, people the government hates or fears. By the plain meaning of its English words, the amendment protects ALL people. There is no limitation in the amendment to government personnel engaged in law enforcement. The amendment restrains ALL government. The very purpose of the amendment is to present an obstacle to the government because the amendment protects the natural human right to personal privacy and autonomy from the government. James Madison -- who drafted the Bill of Rights -- and his colleagues made a value judgment consistent with their Judeo-Christian-informed morality; namely, that natural rights trump governmental needs. The violation of privacy is a form of government aggression. Madison knew the tendencies of government toward aggression. The Fourth Amendment was to be the bulwark against it. The people could protect themselves against private aggressors, but they’d need a clause in the supreme law of the land and independent judges to restrain government aggressors. After 50 years of studying, teaching, writing about, judging, interpreting and just plain explaining the Constitution, I am convinced that those in government don’t believe its words or accept its values. They don’t feel bound by it. They have crafted mechanisms of all sorts -- like Section 702 -- to evade and avoid it. They will claim that it impairs their duties. Yes, it does -- intentionally so, and in the name of personal liberty. Today, liberty is impaired for foreign persons, an immutable characteristic. Tomorrow it could be impaired for any other immutable trait. Of what value is a Constitution with congressionally crafted, politically based exceptions? None. Section 702 expires on Dec. 31, 2023. Last week, President Joe Biden asked Congress to renew it. It should die a natural death. Paraphrasing Justice George Sutherland, if the provisions of the Constitution are not upheld when they pinch as well as when they comfort, they may as well be abandoned. To learn more about Judge Andrew Napolitano, visit https://JudgeNap.com. COPYRIGHT 2023 ANDREW P. NAPOLITANO DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS.COM A Constitution the Government Evades Click on the headline to read the full story from ![]() ![]() ![]() In the developing world the party in power does away with its opponents one of three ways: a bullet to the head, throwing them in jail or kicking them off the ballot. Good to see America, Leader of the Free World, is already at work on two of the three. With it becoming ever-clearer that nothing in the courts is likely to stop Trump — polls show he can still win as a convicted felon from a jail cell — attention has turned to the third dirty solution, driving him off the ballot in as many states as possible to enable a Joe Biden walk-on win. The vehicle for this is supposedly the 14th Amendment, Section Three. Section Three was ratified in 1868 following the Civil War as a way to keep former Confederate officials out of government. It reads in whole “No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.” (emphasis added) The obvious ploy is to claim Trump engaged in some sort of insurrection on January 6 and with that making him ineligible to be president, his name should be automatically (self-enacting) removed from all ballots. Easier said than done; this use of the 14th Amendment is malarkey, will not succeed, and is simply another attempt at politically decapitating Donald Trump instead of beating him at the ballot box. The problems with the 14th Amendment strategy begin with the question of whether the prohibition still exists. Written in 1868 to affect Confederate officials, the Article was overturned by Congress on behalf of several individuals. They could do the same for Trump. Then in 1872, the disabilities were removed, by a blanket act, from all persons except Senators and Representatives of the Thirty-sixth and Thirty-seventh Congresses, officers in the judicial, military, and naval service of the United States, heads of departments, and foreign ministers of the United States. Twenty-six years later, Congress enacted law that said the disability imposed by Section Three… incurred heretofore, is hereby removed. Further standing in the way of actually using 14/3 against Trump is the 1969 Supreme Court decision in Powell v McCormack, which held a state cannot require of a congressional candidate declarations of loyalty, or affidavits averring lack of intent to seek forcible overthrow of the government. The decision went on to clarify that it was unconstitutional to require any requirements for office other than those already stated in Article I (age, residency, citizenship.) Loyalty to the United States or to its government is not listed as one of the standing qualifications for membership in Congress. Is Trump subject to Section Three? President Trump was unique among all of his predecessors in that he did not hold any prior government position before he took the presidential oath of office in 2017. Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment could only disqualify Trump if the presidential oath he took on that date was as an “Officer of the United States.” Also left undefined is the standard of proof for “insurrection.” As a crime, insurrection has its legal definition. Trump, however, is not charged with insurrection (or sedition or rebellion) in any of the cases he now faces. The 14th Amendment in its Section One also provides for due process, of which the adherents of 14/3 prescribe none, claiming the section is self-enacting and needs no enabling legislation or procedure. Section Three remained largely dormant for many decades. January 6 (as well as a Pennsylvania Law Review article claiming Trump doesn’t qualify to serve as president under 14/3) have prompted renewed interest in the provision and its on and off again history. Active 14/3 challenges to specific candidates have been brought in Indiana, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona, and New Mexico, with contested offices ranging from County Commissioner to Senator (but not yet Trump.) Issues have emerged, including whether Section Three has been repealed; whether Congress has sole power to disqualify its members; whether voters have standing to challenge under Section Three; and questions of subject matter jurisdiction and federalism. Absent action by Congress (in process though not expected to succeed) the arguments over Section Three demand either that the whole thing be forgotten to history where it belongs, or the Supreme Court step in to sort out the significant legal issues, not the least of which is state versus federal power. If you are keeping track of steps into the abyss, take a look at the core of what some current legal thinkers believe is 14/3: “Partisan officials in state governments, without specific authorization or checks and balances, should apply broad and uncertain definitions to decide who can run for office in a republic, when responsible officials with clear statutory and constitutional authority have not done so.” Seems instead like something for voters to decide, not out-of-context legalese from a previous century. This isn’t public policy, or even sound jurisprudence. This is a politicized legal fight. Sound democratic to you? Or maybe more like Democratic? Reprinted with permission from WeMeantWell.com. Trump and the 14th Amendment Click on the headline to read the full story from |
Ron Paul
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