A Killing in Iran: Who Gains From Yet Another Assassination?

It is not often that one can agree with the pronouncements made by former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director John Brennan, but his tweeted comment on the killing of Iranian scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh suggesting that the incident “…was a criminal act & highly reckless. It risks lethal retaliation & a new round of regional conflict. Iranian leaders would be wise to wait for the return of responsible American leadership on the global stage & to resist the urge to respond against perceived culprits” was both restrained and reasonable. Or it was at least so until sentence two, which was clearly intended to attack Donald Trump and praise the incoming Joe Biden administration, which Brennan just might be seeking to join.

Bearing in mind that John Brennan was the guiding hand behind President Barack Obama’s kill lists of Americans who were marked for death by drone it is difficult to understand what moral high ground he seeks to occupy in the slaying of Fakhrizadeh. Brennan, who was a leading critic of Trump and who may have led the clandestine effort to undermine his election and term in office, subsequently found himself in an exchange of tweets with Republican Senator from Texas Ted Cruz which degenerated into a trading of insults. Cruz responded “It’s bizarre to see a former head of the CIA consistently side with Iranian zealots who chant ‘Death to America.’ And reflexively condemn Israel. Does Joe Biden agree?” This produced a riposte by Brennan that “It is typical for you to mischaracterize my comment. Your lawless attitude & simple-minded approach to serious national security matters demonstrate that you are unworthy to represent the good people of Texas.”

The assassination of Fakhrizadeh, the “father of Iran’s nuclear program,” took place on a road near the town of Absard to the east of Tehran. According to initial accounts, the Iranian scientist, who has long been targeted by name and in public fora by Israel, was traveling in an SUV together with his wife plus bodyguards and a driver. Initial reports suggested that there was a Nissan truck parked on the opposite side of the road loaded with what appeared to be wood, though it may have turned out that the wood was concealing a bomb which may have been triggered by a signal from a surveillance satellite. The bomb was detonated to disable Fakhrizadeh’s vehicle before an attack on the car by five or six gunmen with automatic weapons who had emerged from a vehicle following the SUV began, again according to initial reports, including reporting by eye witnesses. The Iranian official news agency FARS is now claiming, however, that the attack was carried out by a remote controlled machine gun concealed on the truck, which subsequently exploded, and no human attackers were involved. It is presumed that the bodyguards and driver were killed in the exchange. Fakhrizadeh was badly wounded and died in hospital shortly thereafter. Photos of the SUV reveal shattered windows, blood streaks, and numerous bullet holes as well as other damage from what may have been the bomb.

Iranian news agencies are now reporting that at least one of the attackers has been arrested, and if that is true he will surely be made to talk regarding what he knows. They are also reporting that two of the assailants were killed in the exchange with the bodyguards, which, if true, means they will possibly be identified. Clearly, the attack was well planned, was able to employ considerable resources, and was based on intelligence that would be very hard to obtain, particularly as the Iranian government was taking steps to protect Fakhrizadeh, to include details of his travels.

The killing comes just two weeks after intelligence officials confirmed that Al Qaeda’s second-highest leader Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah was shot dead together with his daughter by alleged Israeli supplied assassins on a motorcycle on August 7th. The hit was reportedly carried out at the request of the United States based on Abdullah’s claimed involvement in the 1998 deadly attacks on two US Embassies in East Africa. The claim that Iran has been harboring al-Qaeda is already being used by the Trump White House to justify increased pressure on Iran and it might possibly even serve as part of a casus belli.

The two assassinations are not linked except perhaps in terms of sending a message to high level Iranians that they are not safe even in their own country even when they are given bodyguards. The claim that Fakhrizadeh was in charge of a secret Iranian weapons program, made regularly by Israel and the US, is not generally believed by most authorities. Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which nuclear armed Israel is not, and its facilities are subject to regular unannounced inspections.

Likewise, the killing of Qods Force commander General Qassem Soleimani in January in a US drone attack was intended more regarding sending a message concerning possible consequences of reckless behavior than it was about actually killing one man. Whatever programs Fakrizadeh and Soleimani were involved in will continue without them. Nevertheless, assassination of Iranians linked to the country’s former and current nuclear program has been Israeli policy since 2010. As many as a dozen Iranian scientists and technicians reportedly have been killed. So-called “targeted killings” have been a regular feature of Israel’s “national defense” strategy. In addition to the Iranians, at least seventy Palestinians have been assassinated.

Though Israel has clearly ordered the assassinations, it is generally believed that the actual preparation for the attacks have been carried out by Mojahedin e Khalq or MEK, a Marxist cult that came into prominence at the time of the Iranian revolution against the Shah. It is generally regarded as a terrorist group that once was virulently anti-American and killed a number of US officials. MEK is a curious hybrid creature in any event in that it pretends to be an alternative government option for Iran even though it is despised by nearly all Iranians. At the same time, it is greatly loved by the Washington Establishment which would like to see the Mullahs deposed and replaced by something more amenable to western and Israeli worldviews.

MEK is run like a cult by its leader Maryam Rajavi, with a number of rules that restrict and control the behavior of its members. One commentarylikens membership in MEK to a modern-day equivalent of slavery. The group currently operates out of a secretive, heavily guarded 84-acre compound in Albania that is covertly supported by the United States, as well as through a “political wing” front office in Paris, where it refers to itself as the National Council of Resistance of Iran.

MEK, which is financially supported by Saudi Arabia, stages events in the United States in Europe where it generously pays politicians like John Bolton, Rudy Giuliani and Elaine Chao to make fifteen-minute speeches praising the organization and everything it does. It’s paying of inside the Beltway power brokers proved so successful that it was removed from the State Department terrorist list in 2012 by Hillary Clinton even though it had killed Americans in the 1970s. MEK also finds favor in Washington because it is used by Israel as a resource for anti-Iranian terrorism acts currently, including assassinations carried out in Tehran. Israel, in fact, directs most terrorist acts carried out by MEK inside Iran.

So those are the players and, at first glance, one might reasonably come to the Ockham’s razor conclusion, i.e. that Israel ordered MEK to kill Fakhrizadeh, an order which was then executed. But that would be to ignore some of the politics currently playing out in Washington. First of all, Israel would not have carried out the high-level assassination without the consent of the White House. Indeed, US intelligence resources might well have played a key role in locating the Iranian scientist. Second, the Trump Administration has clearly adopted a policy of “maximum pressure” against Iran, which has included strangling the country’s economy through sanctions, condoning Israeli attacks in Syria and elsewhere, and destabilizing moves, to include assassinations, designed to make the nation’s leadership both vulnerable and nervous. It is the application of an Israeli strategic doctrine referred to as “Campaigns Between Wars,” meaning constant aggression to erode an enemy’s ability to fight without actually crossing a line that would start a shooting war.

A direct role by the Trump Administration in the assassination should not be ruled out as it is clearly seeking to harden Iranian antipathy towards any new comprehensive arms control or nuclear agreement with the incoming Biden team. Trump himself reportedly raised the possibility of bombing Iran earlier this month, though he was talked out of it by his national security team, but the Israeli Army meanwhile is on alert in case of an American attack. There are confirmed reports that B-52 bombers, capable of deploying the 30,000 pound penetrator bombs that can destroy targets deep underground, have been sent to the Middle East, presumably to Qatar where the US has its principal airbase in the region. They would presumably be used against Iran’s main nuclear development site at Natanz.

Israel is in a strong position right now. Iran has significant military resources to respond to the killing, including the drones and missiles it developed and used in September 2019 to devastate the state-owned Saudi Aramco oil processing facilities at Abqaiq and Khurais in eastern Saudi Arabia. But if it does react robustly to the assassination and sparks a conflict that inevitably would include the United States, it would be a war that Bibi Netanyahu has long sought, destroying Iran at what he hopes would be minimal cost to Israel. If Iran does not respond, Israel will no doubt push the White House to be even more aggressive in its remaining time in office while hardliners within Iran will also demand an end to any agreements with western powers. Taken together, that would make sure that any attempt by the Biden administration to engage diplomatically with Iran would fail. The ultimate provocation by the United States would, of course, be to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities. Unthinkable? Perhaps, but perhaps not. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz is already reporting that “US President Donald Trump has more than a month before he leaves the White House, and on his way out he could set the world on fire. In starting this conflagration, it seems as though he plans to strike every match in the box. Standing beside him, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would be more than happy to lend him a lighter.”

Reprinted with permission from Strategic Culture Foundation.

from A Killing in Iran: Who Gains From Yet Another Assassination?

California Sheriff Slams Gov. Newsom's 'Dictatorial' Lockdowns, Won't Be 'Blackmailed, Bullied Or Used As Muscle' To Enforce

The sheriff of California's fourth-largest county has slammed Gov. Gavin Newsom over the most recent COVID-19 lockdown orders, and says that his department won't be "blackmailed, bullied or used as muscle" against residents during the pandemic, after they were told "there was a potential he would be withholding federal and state funding from counties who did not enforce the orders." In a Friday evening video posted to social media (which currently has 2,500 'thumbs up' and 93 'thumbs down'),...

Read the full report by clicking the title, below...

from Peace and Prosperity http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/peace-and-prosperity/2020/december/05/california-sheriff-slams-gov-newsoms-dictatorial-lockdowns-wont-be-blackmailed-bullied-or-used-as-muscle-to-enforce/

From a Hamilton Moment to Perpetual Debt Slaves: This Is the True Face of the EU

Over the summer while the US was mired in the worst kind of color revolution with race riots, economic shutdowns and the worst kind of divisive politics, the European Union was celebrating its great achievement.

A seven-year budget and COVID-19 bailout package that was heralded as German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s “Alexander Hamilton Moment.” Because that legislation, meant to be the cornerstone of Germany six-month stint as the president of the European Council finally granted the European Commission the ability to issue debt, collect taxes and disburse funds.

That would be the way the COVID-19 relief funds would be raised and distributed. It was the first moment of fiscal integration under a central EU body that would bypass the individual member states as the means by which to raise capital.

It would be the first step in the process of consolidating debt issuance and euro creation under the control of Brussels, rather than continuing to carry out the fiction of individual sovereign debt.

The euro is a fatally flawed currency because of this and if it is to survive deeper into the 21st century having only one central issuer of it, the EU itself via the European Commission and the European Central Bank, with one aggregated risk profile (interest rate) is necessary.

The current leadership of the EU was put in place to make this happen on powerful Germany’s watch. And in July is looked like it was done. The markets loved it. The media hailed Merkel as the great leader of Europe. Some countries balked, the so-called Frugal Five, but eventually they signed off on the draft legislation once they were no longer directly on the hook for any more wealth transfers from them to perpetual problem children like Italy, Greece and Spain.

But lurking in the background were the cultural sovereigntists, the Visegrads, most notably Poland and Hungary.

Forgotten in all the media hoopla but known to keen observers of the situation, Hungary and Poland only signed off on the deal if there were to be no tying of funds to what the EU calls “rule of law” violations.

Merkel assured Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban that the final legislation would be free of this requirement and provisionally he signed off on it as well as Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.

Now, anyone who is a regular observer of Merkel knows that her promises are about as reliable as a mail-in ballot from Pennsylvania. When the final legislation came before the European Council for ratification there was an explicit tie of funds to member states being in compliance with the EU’s vaguely-worded standards on internal law.

This meant that the EU could withhold funds if it felt that Hungary or Poland or any other country had a national law on its books that was ‘anti-EU behavior’ they could be sanctioned. Merkel calculated like she always does that pressure would win her the day in the final moment.

After all, everyone always caves to the EU’s power.

Except this time it didn’t work and Orban and Morawiecki very publicly vetoed this because if they didn’t it would mean the end of their countries. Now Merkel’s Hamiltonian Moment is gone.

Hungary and Poland, like the Brits voting for Brexit a second time last year, finally said, that’s it. Further negotiation with you is tantamount to surrender. I talked about this in a recent article in more detail.

The lesson of 2020 to this point has been that negotiation is no longer an option. There can be no settlement on fishing for the Brits, the rule-of-law for EU member states.

For Americans all negotiating has achieved is a terminally corrupt central government running sham elections with a compliant and hostile media telling them they are deplorable scum.

We are now expected to accept the results because they said so. Um, yeah, no.

The only way to accept the current reality is to believe the very people who you wouldn’t buy a used couch from no less lead your government are telling you the unvarnished truth.

Accepting any version of the narrative that this was a close election in the US is the most pathetic form of negotiating your own surrender I’ve seen in quite a long time.

This is the unbridgeable gap of modern politics. It is the infinite gulf between surrender and negotiating with terrorists.

What’s funny is the stunned silence from the EU and its cheerleaders since this happened. Orban and Morawieki did something extraordinary and all the EU could do is beg them back to the table. But they know there is no coming back to the table on this point.

Both of these countries have already suffered the wrath of Merkel on points of internal politics where she even invoked Article 7 against them to try and remove their voices from the wholly irrelevant European Parliament.

There comes a point where threats are meaningless. Neither Hungary nor Poland want to leave the EU but at the same time neither of them signed up for a new form of Soviet Union either.

Orban makes no bones about this in his speeches and especially in his reasoning for this veto, likening ‘anti-EU’ standards to ‘anti-Soviet’ ones.

What’s clear is that if pressure could have worked on Orban and Morawiecki they would never have vetoed the bill in the first place. So, what comes next?

Pulling an end run around them, of course. Enter George Soros dusting off not only his constant call for perpetual bonds to pay for rebuilding Europe on someone else’s dime but now encouraging individual groups of EU states to band together to issue them and exclude Hungary and Poland from the mix.

It turns out that there is an easy way to overcome the veto: employ the so-called enhanced cooperation procedure. It was formalized in the Lisbon Treaty with the express purpose of creating a legal basis for further eurozone integration, but it was never used for that purpose. Its great merit is that it can be used for fiscal purposes. A sub-group of member states can set a budget and agree on a way to fund it – say, through a joint bond.

At this point, perpetual bonds could come in very useful. They would be issued by member states whose continued existence would be readily accepted by long-term investors such as life-insurance companies.

But doesn’t that signal exactly the wrong thing to the markets? Doesn’t that undermine the whole fiscal and financial integration argument? Isn’t this just more of the same balkanization of the EU into regional tribes and not a more perfect union?

What Soros is proposing is, of course, a massive perpetual wealth transfer from the working class who pay the lion’s share of the taxes to the ‘long-term’ investor like his Davos Crowd oligarch friends who need a constant stream of income for doing nothing

The worst part about this proposal, of course, is that with a perpetual bond there is no repayment of principal. You simply pay the interest in perpetuity. Do you really think it’ll be the middle-class shop owner in Frankfurt or Milan buying these perpetual bonds?

Or will it be people like him who made billions scamming off the rigged game of the hyper-financialized casino? It’s not like any of this wealth was earned through building anything. So giving it up for a 3-5% perpetual income stream off the labor of the serfs is all gravy.

Of course Soros wants this to happen. It’s the path to perpetual debt slavery.

So, given all of that what incentive would Hungary and Poland (joined most likely by Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and the Baltics) have in even remaining in the EU at all?

And with the tumult in the US and the likelihood that Joe Biden Kamala Harris will be the next president no help will be coming their way either as the restoration of the globalist oligarchy in the US will see US/EU relations restored.

Orban and Morawiecki opened up a big can of worms with this veto. They have to see the bigger picture here. I know Orban understands where his potential allies are – Russia. Unfortunately, the Poles haven’t shown one iota of clue on this front. Once Biden is inaugurated (yes gods I hope not!) we may finally see them come to their senses.

They’ve started this process. 2021 will see a lot of elections – Italy, Germany in particular – that could support them if they continue to hold out and the EU doesn’t negotiate.

But for now the next choice on the European continent is a false one – a USSR reborn with a German and French flavor or perpetual debt slavery. Both choices lead to the other happening. I guess the real choice is only in the order of operations.

Reprinted with permission from Strategic Culture Foundation.

from From a Hamilton Moment to Perpetual Debt Slaves: This Is the True Face of the EU

Covid Regulations in Loco Moco

In August, I reported here on how Montgomery County, Maryland, was seeking to shut down private schools as part of their Covid-19 strategy of abolishing all risk by abolishing all freedom. As more individuals have recently tested positive for Covid, the county government is responding with a new array of iron-fisted decrees. Some of the latest edicts make little or no sense, confirming the county’s nickname of LoCo Moco. 

Gov. Larry Hogan blocked the county government’s effort to criminalize private teaching; Catholic, Jewish, and other schools have operated safely with no significant Covid outbreaks. But county schools remain shut down in large part due to the clout of the teachers union, a bulwark of political support for County Executive Marc Elrich. 

For at least 40 years, MoCo politicians and school officials have invoked “closing the achievement gap” as a sacred goal which justifies the sacrifice of as many taxpayers as necessary. But that goal is not as sacrosanct as assuring that teachers continue to collect full pay while taking zero risks and leaving the most vulnerable students far behind. 

Since the county padlocked public schools earlier this year and shifted to unreliable “distance learning,” there has been a 500%+ increase in the number of black junior high students failing mathematics and a 600%+ increase in Hispanic students failing. The percentage of black elementary school students failing English increased more than 350% and the percentage of Hispanic students failing increased more than 500%. These numbers were revealed during a County Board of Education meeting on December 3; a local activist captured screenshots of the disastrous test results. Some of the data was also reported in yesterday’s Washington Post. Shutting down public schools has done more harm to black students than anything since the end of local school segregation in 1961.

Montgomery’s results are in line with reports elsewhere that show that minority students have suffered far more harm from shutdowns justified to curtail the spread of Covid. This carnage was foreseeable. An analysis by McKinsey & Company consultants last spring estimated that if schools were entirely online until January, on average “white students would lose 6 months of learning, Hispanic students 9 months, black students 10 months and low-income students more than a year during the time school buildings have closed for the pandemic.” 

MoCo leaders recite their devotion to “science and data” except when the data might curb their arbitrary power. CDC chief Robert Redfield testified this week, “The data clearly shows us that you can operate these schools in face-to-face learning in a safe and responsible way.” Maryland State Schools Superintendent Karen Salmon urged local schools to bring back students five weeks ago but Salmon can deliver neither vanloads of votes nor armloads of cash to County Council members. The Washington Post, in an article on the success and safety of European school reopenings, noted, “Teachers unions, which have emerged as a powerful force of opposition to school reopenings in the United States, have generally been more acquiescent in Europe, pushing for safety measures rather than closures.”

Many kids may have unnecessarily lost practically a year of their learning lives but MoCo has compensated with a maniacal devotion to mandating masks. On April 9, Montgomery County’s chief health officer Travis Gayles decreed that any store customer who failed to wear a mask would be fined $500. Gayles discouraged local residents from acquiring and wearing the most reliable protection, such as surgical masks or N95 masks, which the county said “should be reserved for health care workers.” Mandating the wearing of unreliable masks makes about as much sense as requiring everyone to wear a dunce cap with the inscription, “Save me, Big Brother!”

On August 24, the County Council “expanded” the face mask mandate to compel everyone to cover their chins as well as their mouth or nose. (N95 masks were exempt but commoners were not supposed to be using those anyway.) Neither the Council members nor health czar Gayles revealed the secret medical data on how chins could transmit Covid. The edict was poorly publicized and mostly ignored by local residents. 

On November 24, Gayles issued a new mask dictate: “Coverings must be worn outdoors and whenever coming into contact with individuals who are not members of their household, such as being within six feet.” Ordering people to wear masks when they walked alone outside, walked their dog, or went to the mailbox spurred ridicule on local forums. One cynic groused: “Gayles says he follows the science. The science he follows may be from a mad scientist but it’s science.” The following day, the county issued a “clarification” specifying that masks are not required if you are “Alone in your office or vehicle.” Also exempted were kids “Under the age of 18 and are engaged in vigorous sports – as recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics.” But the pro-exercise health guidance apparently becomes null and void on the 18th birthday. 

Maryland has a hotline number to report any violators of statewide mask mandates, and MoCo is a rich soil for raising informants. Politicians and bureaucrats have fanned mass fears which have ripened into hatred of anyone who does not comply with the latest edict. I was recently walking along the C & O Canal Towpath, talking to two friends. None of us were masked. 

Coming in the opposite direction was a geezer, walking slumped forward with a long white shirt, big floppy hat, and a six-foot walking stick. He suddenly stops and points his stick at me and shouts:

“DISTANCING!”
“What?” I replied
“YOU’RE NOT DISTANCING!”

“So what are you supposed to be, an Old Testament prophet?” I said. “Great – so now we got the Prophet Isaiah casting damnation on all Towpath violators.” I should have counted my blessings that he wasn’t like Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner, buttonholing people and forcing them to listen to a 45-minute poem.

Maybe I should have also felt lucky that Prophet Dude could not summon a police SWAT helicopter. Maryland has vigorously encouraged people to rat out violators and the state has no shortage of self-appointed Junior Stasi members. 

County agents conducted 90 inspections of businesses on the night before Thanksgiving. 

Earl Stoddard, Montgomery County’s head of emergency management, lamented to the Washington Post: “We can’t be everywhere in every store all at once.” Stoddard encouraged residents to file accusations against any business with which they had “concerns.” 

Last week’s Black Friday sales were treated by government officials like a crime scene in progress. A long line of customers waited outside of a humongous Best Buy store – along with police cars from both the county and Rockville. Perhaps the police were equipped with long-distance Tasers to zap anyone not wearing a proper mask? 

Businesses have no safe haven regardless of how much they have spent to protect customers and placate bureaucrats. A Harris Teeter grocery store made extensive changes after the start of the pandemic, including placing large plexiglass screens between every one of its nine self-service checkout stations. A single customer, who perhaps failed to take his Xanax that morning, complained to the Montgomery County government that he felt unsafe when he visited the store. A county inspector swooped in and threatened to shut down the grocery store unless they blocked access to half of their self-service stations. As a result, the store now sometimes has long lines of people waiting to check out – and presumably increasing their exposure to Covid while waiting. The inspector also forced the store to designate one of its two entrances as an “exit only.” One store employee feared that county inspectors could return and compel the store to dictate which direction people walk down each grocery aisle. 

Trader Joe’s in Rockville, perhaps seeking favor with zealous inspectors, has imposed some of the tightest restrictions on shoppers since the pandemic began. There is usually a long line out front; shoppers are also required to form a single long line before checking out. Recently, a Hispanic lady pushed her grocery cart to bluntly cut the line. A number of black customers with their grocery carts were in line behind her, and a shouting match ensued with ethnic taunts flying thick and fast. The store manager raced to the scene to squelch the uproar. But this type of fracas never happened in that store prior to its “pandemic fixes.” This is another example of how unjustified government prohibitions are spurring pointless social conflicts. 

Perhaps local residents should be grateful that Gayles or County Executive Elrich have not gone as far as the California mayor who swore that anyone not wearing a mask in public was guilty of “an act of domestic terrorism.” 

Unfortunately, all the bankrupted local businesses, all the shafted young children, and the surge in cases of attempted suicide and mental illness are irrelevant to how MoCo scores its good deeds. As long as county officials can claim that things would have been worse without its destructive edicts, they can continue pretending to have saved humanity. Perhaps Elrich and Gayles are hoping that if they inflict enough misery on MoCo, the Biden administration will appoint them to prestigious positions to help impose a national Covid lockdown.

Reprinted with permission from American Institute for Economic Research.

from Covid Regulations in Loco Moco

Joe Biden Wants a Huge New Tax on Gun Owners

Joe Biden’s gun policy platform offers support for almost all conceivable forms of government restrictions on the Second Amendment. This includes bans and restrictions on sales, expansion of registration and background checks, expansion of buyback programs and gun-grabbing statutes, and the closing of all sorts of “loopholes.”1

While we are only at the policy platform stage, where proposals are grandiose and imprecise, Biden’s legislative agenda will clearly be anti–Second Amendment and not a program to reduce crime and violence. First, he wants to stop the “gun violence epidemic” with restriction on rifles when it is handgun shootings, not rifles, that are a problem and one that is mostly confined to big cities controlled by leftists. Second, he wants to go after “assault weapons” and “weapons of war” when he should know that rifles like the AK and AR “sporters” are not military-grade fully automatic weapons. Third, he would like to hold gun manufactures civilly liable for criminal acts committed with guns, a move which would shut down the industry, the true goal.

In support of the government’s buyback program, i.e., the carrot, Biden has added a gun tax for anyone who wishes to keep their rifles and high-capacity magazines. If you want to avoid the buyback and keep your guns and high-capacity (greater than ten rounds) magazine, you would have to register both under the National Firearms Act, which triggers a $200 tax for each rifle and magazine—the stick. The stick behind the stick is a penalty of up to ten years in federal prison and a $10,000 fine. Registration involves filling out a thirteen-page registration form and providing fingerprints and a photograph of yourself.

This is certainly bad enough for gun owners and Americans in general, but if history is a teacher the end results could be much worse, potentially catastrophic.

Joe Biden was sold to the American voter in 2020 as a moderate of the Democrat Party. He was not a conservative, but neither was he an AOC progressive or a Sanders socialist. His image as a white moderate male was also used to help sell the voters on Barack Obama.

There was also a time when Biden was actually a pragmatist on Second Amendment rights. As the ranking member on the Judiciary Committee, he helped pass the 1986 Firearm Owners Protection Act, which overturned decades of anti-gun court rulings and regulations to restore most gun owner rights and re-expanded commerce by eliminating restrictions on how and where guns could be sold. The legislation’s passage helped lay the foundation of the modern gun rights movement. According to Biden the pragmatist circa 1985:

During my 12.5 years as a Member of this body, I have never believed that additional gun control or Federal registration of guns would reduce crime. I am convinced that a criminal who wants a firearm can get one through illegal, nontraceable, unregistered sources, with or without gun control. In my opinion a national register or ban of handguns would be impossible to carry out and may not result in reductions in crime.2

Despite his recognition of the futility of using gun control to reduce crime and gun violence, the “pragmatist” turned to the dark side when it became politically expedient to do so. In 1993 he helped pass the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, which required background checks through a new national checking system (the National Instant Criminal Background Check System [NICS]). The next year he helped obtain a ten-year ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazine sales.

As vice president, he was President Obama’s point man in developing legislative proposals and executive orders to shore up gun control at the national level, and yet even that administration admitted that gun control is almost a futile endeavor and that their efforts amounted to little more than feel-good measures.

While no law or set of laws will end gun violence, it is clear that the American people want action. If even one child’s life can be saved, then we need to act. Now is the time to do the right thing for our children, our communities, and the country we love.3

Indeed, with more than a century of experience we know that gun control does not reduce crime but rather increases it, as John Lott has demonstrated. According to Lott’s evidence and that of independent researchers, no form of gun control has positive effects and most forms have negative effects on crime, murder, and mass shootings. Indeed, the most noteworthy policies that improve these problems are the elimination of gun-free zones and the expansion of concealed carry laws.4

With respect to Biden’s proposed gun tax, what are the expected outcomes? The tax is certainly not designed to raise revenue, as it would raise little and entail a good deal of bureaucratic spending. It would no doubt encourage gun buybacks and reduce gun ownership at the margin, but to what end? It would mostly impact responsible gun owners economically impacted by the lockdowns and unemployment. These are the gun owners who reduce crime rates because of the deterrence factor they provide. The gun tax would also encourage the diversion of guns and high-capacity magazines to the black market.

Most importantly, would the gun tax reduce access to guns and in turn reduce crime and violence? Biden has already admitted that the answer is no: “a criminal who wants a firearm can get one through illegal, nontraceable, unregistered sources, with or without gun control.” Efforts to reduce gun violence through policies of red tape and taxes are doomed to fail and only lead to further inroads of enhanced policies of restrictionism and even outright prohibition.

For example, in order to address the real and imagined problem of narcotics addiction, which was already in decline at the end of the nineteenth century, the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act was passed in 1914 to regulate and tax the production, importation, and distribution of opiates and cocaine products.

However, the courts interpreted the legislation to mean that doctors could prescribe these drugs in the course of normal treatment, as a dental anesthetic or for short-term pain management, for example, but not as a treatment for addiction. This turned regulation into prohibition and quickly turned the imaginary crimes of blacks and Asians into very real crimes all across the country. Desperate addicts were willing to pay high prices and commit crimes to satisfy their addictions, and smugglers and drug dealers quickly developed a black market.

Similar negative consequences resulted from the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937, which started as a tax to reduce imagined crimes by minorities, i.e., Reefer Madness, only to quickly devolve into an outright prohibition. Fortunately, we as a people have recognized this mistake and are moving to legalize cannabis and hemp, i.e., marijuana, in a state-by-state process that works in the face of federal and international law.

As horrific and far-reaching as the consequences of the war on drugs have been, the consequences of “commonsense” gun control laws are potentially much greater in the long run. In a very important contribution, Stephen Holbrook demonstrates that the Nazis used gun registration information instituted and collected by the Weimar Regime to rapidly disarm the Jews and other political adversaries. This in turn greatly facilitated the Holocaust.5 A disarmed American population would similarly be much more vulnerable to political repression.

But putting this possibility aside, Biden’s gun control proposals, including the gun tax, offer no possibility of improved security, while most of them will make us less secure and more prone to crime and violence. Most importantly, they are all an affront and threat to our liberty as enshrined in the Second Amendment to the Constitution.

1.“The Biden Plan to End Our Gun Violence Epidemic,” JoeBiden.com, accessed Dec. 1, 2020, https://joebiden.com/gunsafety/.

2.131 Cong. Rec. S18229 (July 9, 1985), https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-CRECB-1985-pt13/pdf/GPO-CRECB-1985-pt13-4-2.pdf.

3.“Now Is the Time to Do Something about Gun Violence,” Obama White House archives, the White House (website), Jan. 16, 2013, https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/issues/preventing-gun-violence.

4.What Type of Gun Control Will Actually Make Us Safer? Before the Joint Economic Committee of the United States House of Representatives and Senate, 115th Cong. (2019) (statement of John R. Lott Jr., president of the Crime Prevention Research Center), https://www.jec.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/eb963cec-e717-4d0f-aa1a-9e5a46aff789/john-r.-lott-jr.-testimony.pdf.

5.Stephen P. Halbrook, Gun Control in the Third Reich: Disarming the Jews and “Enemies of the State” (Oakland, CA: Independent Institute, 2013); Audrey D. Klein, review of Gun Control in the Third Reich: Disarming the Jews and “Enemies of the State,” by Stephen P. Halbrook, Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics 17, no. 2 (Summer 2014): 264–70, https://cdn.mises.org/qjae17_2_9.pdf.

Reprinted with permission from Mises.org.

from Joe Biden Wants a Huge New Tax on Gun Owners

President López Obrador of Mexico Says Choose Liberty, not Dictatorship, in Coronavirus Policy

Across the world, politicians are continuing and even expanding coronavirus crackdown measures including the shuttering of businesses, limiting of people’s movement, and requiring of mask wearing. It is refreshing to see some national political leaders who have followed another course, rejecting using coronavirus as a reason for imposing a multitude of harsh restrictions on people. Mexico President Andrés Manuel López Obrador went a step further on Wednesday, calling out other national...

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from Peace and Prosperity http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/peace-and-prosperity/2020/december/04/president-lópez-obrador-of-mexico-says-choose-liberty-not-dictatorship-in-coronavirus-policy/

'Extremism' as a Ticket to Tyrannize

“Extremists” are one of the famous bogeymen that American politicians invoke to sanctify their own power. But the definition of “extremism” has forever been in flux. The only consistent element in definitions of extremism is that politicians always win.

In the 1770s, people who suggested that the king of England had no right to rule America were considered extremists. Even a 2013 Pentagon instructional document declared that “the colonists who sought to free themselves from British rule” were an example of “extremist movements.”

In the 1850s, Southerners who suggested freeing the slaves were considered dangerous extremists who were often censored into silence. Northerners who suggested that the South needed to be militarily ravaged were considered extremists, at least until John Brown was awarded sainthood.

In the 1920s, people who suggested that the president should have the power to confiscate citizens’ gold were considered extremists — if not communists.

After 1934, people who denounced the federal confiscation of Americans’ gold were often considered extremists.

In the post–World War Two era, presidents routinely invoked fighting “extremism” to sanctify their killings or smear their critics.

In 1952, when Republicans criticized the Korean War as useless, President Harry Truman condemned “reckless and irresponsible Republican extremists” and “the false version of history that has been copyrighted by the extremists in the Republican Party.” But the lies and atrocities that permeated the US military campaign in Korea were sufficiently widely recognized to destroy Truman’s presidency.

In 1964, Lyndon Johnson declared, “Extremism in the pursuit of the Presidency is an unpardonable vice, and moderation in the affairs of the Nation is the highest virtue.” The media portrayed Johnson as a moderate choice even though he was heavily bombing North Vietnam and, despite his denials to voters, preparing a massive military escalation of the conflict.

In 1965, after Johnson sent US Marines into the Dominican Republic to prop up a military junta that had just seized power, he announced that “the Dominican people … [do] not want government by extremists of either the left or right.” As long as he denounced extremists and recited bogus warnings of Communist takeovers, the thousands of Dominicans killed in the subsequent fighting became sacrifices on the altar of moderation.

In 1966, in a speech at the East-West Center in Honolulu, Johnson lamented, “There remain in Asia voices of extremism and apostles of militancy.” The prior year, his State Department had secretly endorsed a brutal crackdown by the Indonesian military on suspected communists (or people who lived in the vicinity of suspected communists). Half a million Indonesians were slaughtered with Johnson’s approval in carnage that the CIA labeled “one of the worst mass murders of the 20th century.”

Clinton and Bush

Bill Clinton routinely used extremism to tar political opposition. In 1999, he told the Democratic Leadership Council that “we are still confronting a level of extremism and partisanship [from Republicans] which is truly chilling for the long-term interests of America.” But it wasn’t the Republicans who had engaged in six years of non-stop lying to stretch and sanctify federal power. On the eve of the 2000 election, Clinton declared, “Someone needs to be doing what I’ve done for the last six years, which is to stop extremism in Washington, D.C., and you certainly only have one choice: Al Gore.” Gore lost, in part because many voters feared he would bring more extremism in Washington.

Prior to September 2001, anyone who suggested that the US government lead a crusade to “rid the world of evil” would have been labeled both an extremist and a loon. But when George W. Bush promised exactly that three days after 9/11, the media cheered and his approval ratings soared.

In 2004, after the US-controlled Afghan government held a fraud-ridden election in 2004, Bush proclaimed, “The success of Afghanistan’s election is a standing rebuke to cynicism and extremism and a testimony to the power of liberty and hope.” But Afghanistan soon plunged into a downward spiral, spurring even more US government rigging of subsequent Afghan elections.

In 2004, Bush sanctified his war on terrorism: “This struggle between political extremism and civilized values is unfolding in many places.” And any methods the Bush administration used — including torture — were “civilized” by definition because the opponents were extremists.

Extremists were one of Bush’s favorite straw men. Bush told a group of journalists, “We actually misnamed the war on terror. It ought to be the struggle against ideological extremists who do not believe in free societies who happen to use terror as a weapon to try to shake the conscience of the free world.” Washington Post reporter Dana Milbank suggested an acronym for Bush’s new declaration of war: SAIEWDNBIFSWHTUTAAWTTTSTCOTFW.

In his 2005 State of the Union address to Congress, Bush boasted of the recent Iraqi elections, “The whole world now knows that a small group of extremists will not overturn the will of the Iraqi people.” Iraq’s 2005 election was more akin to a Soviet Bloc referendum than a New England town meeting. American troops traveled around broadcasting a get-out-and-vote message at the same time they raided people’s homes. After soldiers passed out thousands of sample ballots, the top UN election official condemned US military interference.

Obama

In 2009, in his first speech to Congress, Barack Obama declared, “To overcome extremism, we must also be vigilant in upholding the values our troops defend — because there is no force in the world more powerful than the example of America.” Obama invoked extremism to justify any and every power grab he committed. As part of its war against violent extremism, the Obama administration claimed a right to kill Americans without a trial, without notice, and without any chance for targets to legally object.

In a December 2009 speech at West Point, Obama announced that he would send far more US soldiers to Afghanistan as part of the “struggle against violent extremism” — which he said would be “an enduring test of our free society.” More than a thousand Americans subsequently were killed in Afghanistan in an escalation which did nothing more than prolong the war. The CIA had sought to warn Obama that his “surge” would be a failure, but a little crowding in Arlington Cemetery was a small price to pay for burnishing Obama’s tough-guy image.

In 2011, Obama justified bombing Libya so that that nation would not become “a new safe haven for extremists.” After the United States helped topple Libya’s dictator, extremists seized control of much of the nation and violence claimed thousands of victims (including four Americans killed in Benghazi in 2012). The slave markets that began openly operating in Libya after the US bombing were not formally part of the president’s anti-extremism campaign.

In 2014, Obama justified US military intervention Syria: “What we’re also fighting is an ideological strain of extremism that has taken root in too many parts of the region.” The Obama administration launched more than 5,000 airstrikes on Syrian targets but its pretensions of virtue were the only consistent aspect of its policies. The US government provided arms and money to radical groups tied to al-Qaeda and other Muslim fanatics as part of the US campaign to topple the Assad government. US policy was so muddled that Pentagon-backed Syrian rebels openly battled CIA-backed Syrian rebels.

Trump

In May 2017, Donald Trump visited Saudi Arabia and proclaimed that the United States and the Saudis “seek to embark on new initiatives to counter violent extremist messaging, disrupt financing of terrorism, and advance defense cooperation.” The fact that Saudi government officials had provided financial aid to the 9/11 hijackers (15 of the 19 were Saudis) was not permitted to tarnish the photo opportunity.

Three months later, the White House issued a readout of Trump’s phone call with King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud that stressed that the leaders “discussed the need to defeat terrorism, cut off terrorist funding, and combat extremist ideology.” The press release was not cluttered with the fact that the Saudis have perennially been among the world’s largest financiers of terrorism and radical Islamic movements.

In November 2017, after gunmen killed hundreds of people in a mosque in Egypt, Trump proclaimed, “The world cannot tolerate terrorism. We must defeat them militarily and discredit the extremist ideology that forms the basis of their existence!” Two years later, he astounded attendees at an international summit by hailing Egyptian ruler Abdel Fattah el-Sisi as “my favorite dictator.” Sisi is notorious for killing dissidents, mass arrests, and brutal detention of anyone who protests his abuses. But since Sisi usually followed orders from Washington, his designation as a moderate was irrevocable.

The definition of “extremism” is often a flag of convenience for the Establishment. As a Pentagon training manual on the danger of hate groups noted, “All nations have an ideology, something in which they believe. When a political ideology falls outside the norms of a society, it is known as extremism.” In other words, beliefs that differ from prevailing or approved opinions are “extremist” by definition. And who gets to say what is acceptable to believe? The same politicians and government agencies whose power is buttressed by prevailing opinions.

“Extremism” is even more vaporous than “terrorism.” With terrorism, at least the malefactors are conniving to inflict violence. An extremist, on the other hand, is someone with a bad attitude who might do something unpleasant in the future. Crackdowns on supposed extremists can provide the perfect tool to demonize political opposition at home and abroad.

Politicians denounce extremism at the same time the establishment media blanches from publicizing government abuses. The greater the taint of being accused of extremist tendencies, the easier it becomes for government officials to cover up atrocities.

In early 2004, before Abu Ghraib photos leaked out, people who said the US government was torturing detainees were considered extremists. A decade later, after a Senate report documented how the CIA had set up a worldwide torture regime, people who favored vigorously prosecuting CIA torturers were considered extremists. Similarly, people who claimed that the US government was massively illegally violating Americans’ privacy after 9/11 were considered extremists. After Edward Snowden leaked documents in 2013 proving that the National Security Administration had illegally seized the emails of millions of Americans, only extremists favored prosecuting NSA chieftains who had lied to Congress and the American public about their illicit surveillance.

Americans have perennially acquiesced in the government’s seizing of almost unlimited power in the war against extremism. But to permit politicians to define extremism is to let them preemptively vilify their most dangerous critics. Luckily, it is not yet illegal to suggest that the government itself has become the greatest extremist of them all.

Reprinted with permission from Future of Freedom Foundation.

from 'Extremism' as a Ticket to Tyrannize