Ron Paul Liberty Report

The downing of a US spy drone near (or within) Iranian airspace has - conveniently for neocons - raised tension and further boxed in President Trump. Pressure on Trump for a military response to Iranian "aggression" will increase. Will he take the bait this time? Or will more such provocations be needed?

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has made it clear to Members of Congress that he does not believe any Congressional authorization is necessary for a US war against Iran. Pompeo claims the post-9/11 authorization to fight al-Qaeda is sufficient. Will Congress roll over?

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has taken the extraordinarily unusual move of travelling to Miami to meet with (and browbeat?) heads of US Centcom and Special Operations Command. Are military leaders balking as neocon plans for "tactical assault" seem to be gaining ground? Where's Trump? Where's Congress? Where's the Pentagon? Who's in charge?

The government wants access to your complete medical records. What could go wrong?

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's rush to judgement that Iran was behind the apparent attacks on two tanker ships last week has not galvanized world opinion against Iran, as the neocons hoped. Instead, it was met with high skepticism even among Washington's closest allies. Has the neocon practice of massively exaggerating and endlessly issuing threats finally destroyed US credibility on the world stage?

America was never meant to be an Empire. Liberty and Empire are mutually exclusive. But alas the road of Empire was taken long before any of us were born, and it has been in steady decline for the last 50 years. Empires always end in a melange of moral and financial bankruptcy. America is following this script to the letter.

Just as the prime minister of Japan was in an historic visit to Iran (the first since the 1979 revolution), a Japanese-owned tanker (and one other) was attacked in the Persian Gulf. US neocons are pointing the finger at Iran. Does it make sense to attack Japan in the midst of productive talks?

In an unfolding scandal you won't much hear about in the mainstream media, the US State Department has been caught funding NGOs that are attacking Americans who express opposition to the neocon policy of confrontation with Iran. This is beyond just propaganda and into the realm of actual attacks - exactly the tactics the US decries in authoritarian regimes overseas.

Afghanistan - the "good war" that never ends. Just when it seemed the US was making progress toward ending the longest war in its history, a new bad guy has emerged that, we are told, is far more threatening than the guys we've been fighting for 20 years. Forget the Taliban! We have to stay in Afghanistan to fight ISIS! Meanwhile, Trump has dropped more bombs on Afghanistan this year alone than Obama's average over five years. War is good for business.

Who's really responsible for all the civilians who die in unnecessary US wars overseas?

Six years ago undercover CIA officer and NSA contractor Edward Snowden came out from the shadows to reveal that he was responsible for the greatest leak of secret government information in US history. Americans learned that the government was not spying on terrorists to keep us safe, but was actually much more interested in spying on us. The revelations led to "reform" in the form of the "FREEDOM Act." But have we recovered any of our privacy protections...or are we worse off...?

While President Trump continues to pile up one bad trade policy after another, Fed Chairman Powell indicated that he's ready to pile on too! More money printing, more debt creation and more QE look to be in America's future. Look out below!

Secretly recorded while speaking off the record to a group of supporters, Secretary of State Pompeo revealed that US policy toward Venezuela has been a disaster and that the US government has lied from the beginning about the level of support for the opposition and the ease of "restoring democracy" to the country. Will Pompeo be made to pay for revealing an inconvenient truth?

Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) has found himself in the hot seat after defending a Navy SEAL on trial for wantonly killing civilians and stabbing prisoners while in Iraq. On a podcast, Hunter wondered what the big deal was - after all, he's responsible for hundreds of civilians killed in Fallujah. It sounds like a war crime, but perhaps the real war criminals are the neocon liars and a feckless president who sent the military into Iraq in the first place. If Hunter belongs on the dock, so does half the Bush Administration.

A determined father was not about to give up trying to find out how his entire family plus four cousins were killed one morning last fall. The US denied conducting any raids in the area. Then the bomb fragments were found. How many times has this tragedy been repeated in the futile 18 year war? To what end?