Peter Van Buren | The Libertarian Institute

Who’s Winning in Ukraine? George Orwell (and Baghdad Bob)

by Peter Van Buren | Sep 29, 2022 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

Score another point for author George Orwell as his masterwork 1984 continues to serve as an instruction manual for our society. In the world of the future, war was a constant feature, though the sides changed frequently. Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia are the three fictional super nation states in George Orwell‘s 1949 dystopian novel. Using the government’s near-perfect control of the media and ability to rewrite history on the fly, whenever an old ally became the new enemy, everything was switched around to make it appear “Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia.” Lies were the news....

Truth, Lies and Sussmann

by Peter Van Buren | May 25, 2022 | Featured Articles, Politics

It can be a bittersweet moment when truth is all that's left. Suspicions of infidelity become credit card receipts from a no-tell motel. A Facebook post tells of a meal shared when a business trip was scheduled. It is ugly, especially the certainty you were lied to by someone you once trusted, especially when that person wanted to be President of the United States. Two such instances that deserve notice passed through the mainstream media last week with barely a notice. The first is that Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee lied about Russiagate. Hillary paid experts to...

The Russiagate Hoax Goes Deeper Than We Thought

by Peter Van Buren | Apr 18, 2022 | Featured Articles

The latest filing by Special Counsel John Durham, investigating Russiagate and the Hillary Clinton campaign, suggests the rabbit hole goes a bit deeper than we thought. One hates to sound like Rachel Maddow, but it is just that much more likely the walls are closing in. Durham filed a new, 34-page motion on April 15, 2022, in answer to defendant Michael Sussman's request to dismiss the case against him. Durham accused Sussman of lying to the FBI about his working for the Clinton Campaign while he was trying to sell the Bureau on an investigation into Trump's ties to Russia, focusing on...

When Did You Lose Faith in the War in Afghanistan? (If You Had Any)

by Peter Van Buren | Apr 27, 2021 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

President Biden announced he will withdraw all troops from Afghanistan by September 11. That will end 20 years of a war that has killed some 2,300 Americans, an unknown number of Afghans, and cost trillions of dollars to accomplish nothing. Biden speaks more plainly about failure than any previous president. We cannot continue the cycle of extending or expanding our military presence in Afghanistan hoping to create the ideal conditions for our withdrawal, expecting a different result. I am now the fourth American president to preside over an American troop presence in Afghanistan. Two...

It Was All a Lie

by Peter Van Buren | Mar 24, 2019 | Featured Articles, Politics

The short version? Mueller is done. His report unambiguously states there was no collusion or obstruction. He was allowed to follow every lead unfettered in an investigation of breathtaking depth. It cannot be clearer. The report summary states, “The Special Counsel’s investigation did not find that the Trump campaign or anyone associated with it conspired or coordinated with Russia in its efforts to influence the 2016 US Presidential Election…the report does not recommend any further indictments, nor did the Special Counsel obtain any sealed indictments that have yet to be made public.”...

The Offending Tweets That Got Me Banned for Life from Twitter

by Peter Van Buren | Aug 27, 2018 | Featured Articles, Politics

A leaky little “bird” inside Twitter tells me these are the tweets that got me banned for life. I have no way of verifying this; official Twitter will not respond to my inquiries. I stand accused of dehumanizing several reporters (“targeted abuse”), using words to offend them into silence. It seems now you can judge for yourself, as it should be. This whole series of threads started when Trump accused the press of being “enemies of the people,” followed by Glenn Greenwald reminding us how the media enables America’s wars. The tweets about Sulome Anderson’s father, Terry Anderson, were cited...

Five Bad Arguments to Restrict Speech

by Peter Van Buren | Aug 23, 2018 | Featured Articles, Politics

Without free speech people stop thinking, losing out on all but a narrowing band of ideas. Open discussion, debate, and argument are the core of democracy. Bad ideas are defeated by good ideas. Fascism seeks to close off all ideas except its own. Yet all of these most basic concepts of free speech in our nation are under threat, and too many of them are under threat from the left. I never thought I would write that last phrase, just as I never thought I’d need to explain five bad arguments the Left is using to restrict speech from the Right. Despicable People Despicable people and their...

Who’s Winning in Ukraine? George Orwell (and Baghdad Bob)

Truth, Lies and Sussmann

The Russiagate Hoax Goes Deeper Than We Thought

When Did You Lose Faith in the War in Afghanistan? (If You Had Any)

It Was All a Lie

Five Bad Arguments to Restrict Speech

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