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Are al-Qaeda Affiliates Fighting Alongside U.S. Rebels in Syria’s South?

by | Jul 8, 2018 | ,

DARAA, Syria – At first glance, all appears calm in this southern Syrian city where protests first broke out seven years ago. Residents mill around shops in preparation for the evening Iftar meal when they break their daily fast during the holy month of Ramadan. But the tension is nonetheless palpable in this now government-controlled city. A few weeks ago, Russian-brokered reconciliation talks in southern Syria fell apart when Western-backed militants rejected a negotiated peace. Whether there will now be a full-on battle for the south or not, visits last week to Syria’s three southern...

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PC Media Projects Their Racial Bigotry Onto Ron Paul

by | Jul 5, 2018 | ,

This week, the mainstream media and its social media followers found another target of wrath: former presidential candidate and Texas congressman Ron Paul. One of his staffers posted a link criticizing political correctness with a cartoon image attached that depicted ugly racial stereotypes. It was clearly insensitive and was quickly deleted with a notice of correction issued by Ron Paul. CNN marched to the rescue with a Chris Cuomo segment headlined “What we ignore, we empower.” Cuomo mimicked the media narrative of Paul being guilty of “bigoted BS.” Cuomo declared,“We need to expose it...

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EpiPen Pricing Controversy Reveals Ignorance about Market Competition

by | Jun 26, 2018 | ,

A recent episode of CNN’s Boss Files podcast featured Heather Bresch, CEO of Mylan and the first woman to run a Fortune 500 pharmaceutical company. The podcast focused primarily on her journey to success. However, roughly 40 minutes in, Bresch was questioned about her pricing strategy for EpiPen, the epinephrine auto-injector for treating emergency allergic reactions. Mylan acquired the right to sell EpiPen in 2007 and, under Bresch’s leadership, EpiPen prices were raised nearly 400 percent in late 2015. In mid-2016, Mylan released a generic EpiPen, which sold for about $300 for a 2-pack (50...

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The Problem with Government Licensing Schemes

by | Jun 21, 2018 | ,

According to conventional wisdom, one of the prerequisites for a civilized society is a system of government enforced licensing of numerous occupations. Licensing laws establish the standards (e.g. educational) to be met before people are legally permitted to sell specified services. The government says the safety and wellbeing of consumers impels it to enact these laws, which ensure the superior quality of various products and services purchased by consumers, as compared to what would be available in the absence of such laws. Unfortunately, legal licensing also creates unemployment and...

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Trump Meets Kim, Averting Threat of Nuclear War—and US Pundits Are Furious

by | Jun 18, 2018 | ,

It was an electrifying sight that captured the imagination of millions of people living on the crisis-weary Korean Peninsula but sent many Americans spinning into paroxysms of anger and cynicism, depending on their politics and knowledge of the rocky history of US relations with North and South Korea. On Tuesday, President Trump and Kim Jong-un met and shook hands on Singapore’s resort island of Sentosa, curbing decades of deep and bitter hostility between the two countries and possibly opening a new chapter for the United States in East Asia. Afterward, Trump even boasted that he had...

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Commentary: Whatever happens next, the Trump-Kim summit is a win

by | Jun 14, 2018 | ,

In the end, diplomacy can work – as a process, not an event. There is no Big Bang theory of nuclear diplomacy. If no further progress is made toward peace on the Korean peninsula, all this – the back-and-forth, the Moon-Kim meetings, the Singapore summit itself – is at worst another good start that faded. It is more likely, however, a turning point. It is easy to announce a morning-after defeat for Trump: to criticize the agreement as vague and lacking in specific commitments regarding denuclearization. But those critics ignore Kim's moratorium on nuclear and ballistic missile testing, the...

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Libya "Before And After" Photos Go Viral

by | Jun 14, 2018 | ,

A Libyan man who took photos of himself posing at various spots across Beghazi in 2000 has revisited the same locations 18 years later to photograph life under the new "NATO liberated" Libya. The "before and after" pics showing the utter devastation of post-Gaddafi Libya have gone viral, garnering 50,000 retweets after they were posted to an account that features historical images of Libya under Gaddafi’s rule between 1969 and 2011. It appears people do still care about Libya even if the political elites in Paris, London, and Washington who destroyed the country have moved on. Though we...

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The Mueller Indictments Still Don’t Add Up to Collusion

by | Jun 14, 2018 | ,

In just over one year, special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of the Trump campaign and Russia has generated five guilty pleas, 20 indictments, and more than 100 charges. None of these have anything to do with Mueller’s chief focus: the Russian government’s alleged meddling in the 2016 election and the Trump campaign’s suspected involvement. While it’s certainly possible that Mueller will make new indictments that go to the core of his case, what’s been revealed so far does not make a compelling brief for collusion. The most high-level Trump campaign official to be indicted is Paul...

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A. Trevor Thrall and Erik Goepner



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Israel Winner of the 2003 Iraq Oil War

Israel Winner of the 2003 Iraq Oil War

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From the Foreword by Lawrence B. Wilkerson: “[T]he debate over whether oil was a principal reason for the 2003 invasion has waxed and waned, with one camp arguing that it absolutely was, while the other argues the precise opposite.” “Mr. Vogler, himself a former...

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