Could 2021 Be The Year Of Bipartisanship?

by Steven Woskow | Jan 3, 2021 | Blog

Starting out that way.

Homes of Mitch McConnell and Nancy Pelosi Are Reported Vandalized

Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, called the vandalism of his Louisville, Ky., home a “radical tantrum” taken from a “toxic playbook.”

The homes of Senator Mitch McConnell and Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the two most powerful members of Congress, have been reported vandalized, days after the contentious passage of a stimulus bill that has been criticized as inadequate by a broad coalition ranging from progressive activists to President Trump.

More here

Senator Mitch McConnell’s home in Louisville, Ky., was found vandalized on Saturday

The San Francisco home of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) vandalized

Freedom Agenda 21 – Agorism In The New Year

by Steven Woskow | Jan 2, 2021 | Blog

My New Years resolution – be more agorist

Mike Swatek at Off-Guardian

Each of us can easily expand our fight for individual freedom in the new year. You can do many of the things shared below. In a nutshell, this includes anything, big or small, which weakens the state, its crony corporations or its global financial power-mad masters, altogether herein called, “the beast”.

If we all resolve to do this, we will become freer, especially in our own lives.

Whenever you buy or sell something, first consider doing so in the real free-market, also known as the Agora. Every time you avoid feeding or obeying the beast, without harming any individual, you’re an agorist. Going forward, let’s all do much more for our freedom, in as many of the ways described below as possible, and beyond.

More at Off-Guardian

Tommy Raskin’s Last Article, From Dec. 23: War Resisters, Take Back the First Amendment!

by Scott Horton | Jan 1, 2021 | Blog

Read it here.

RIP Tommy Raskin

by Scott Horton | Dec 31, 2020 | Blog

Tommy Raskin, former intern for Antiwar.com and a former staffer at the National Friends Committee on Legislation died today. He was 25. No cause of death was given.

Tommy was the son of Rep. Jamie Raskin, (D-MD), who announced Tommy’s death today. Tommy had been attending Harvard Law School

During and after his Antiwar.com internship he was an occasional writer on our pages. Tommy wrote an article for The Libertarian Institute last week.

Tommy was active in recent efforts to lobby congressional opposition to US support of the Saudi war on Yemen. We will miss him, and his tremendous dedication to the cause of peace.

The Story Of 1-Year-Old Abdullah Is The Story Of Yemen

by Steven Woskow | Dec 31, 2020 | Blog

People cannot care about kids starving in Yemen if they don’t know kids are starving in Yemen. That’s where you come in.

Scott Horton

Children's Health Deteriorating In Yemen 2020

SANA’A, YEMEN – DECEMBER 13: A nurse checks a child who is suffering malnutrition at a hospital receiving treatment on December 13, 2020 in Sana’a, Yemen. (Photo by Mohammed Hamoud/Getty Images)

“Losing my child while I am watching is breaking my heart,” Mohammed Yousuf says as he tries to calm his crying son. “I feel so worried for my son. I won’t rest until my son is completely healed.”

Yousuf lives in Yemen. His 1-year-old son, Abdullah, has been at a health facility in Sanaa, the capital, where doctors are feeding him reconstituted milk from powder formulated for children with malnutrition to keep him alive.

On Dec. 5, Abdullah weighed 6 pounds on his fifth day of treatment for severe acute malnutrition, says his attending clinician, Dr. Abdelmalek Mohammed. That’s less than one-third of the average weight for his age. The doctor’s diagnosis of severe acute malnutrition is a medical classification reserved for the worst cases. Yousuf and his wife, Fadiah, traveled 15 hours by bus through dozens of military checkpoints to bring their child to the facility in Sanaa. He spoke to NPR by phone.

(NPR has withheld the family names of the parents and doctor because of concerns about their safety.)

In Yemen today, 1 in 5 children are severely malnourished, according to U.N. reports. The 5-year-old civil war has caused the country to plunge deeper into poverty that has been exacerbated by floods and locusts. And even when there is food available, a 3-year-old, Saudi-led blockade restricts goods coming into the country by land, sea and air. The resulting delays increase the cost of basic necessities such as food.

And for many Yemenis, any price is too high. Yousuf lost his job as a farm laborer last year when farmers couldn’t get diesel — required to run the pumps for irrigation and drinking water — because of fuel shortages caused by the war. Now his family depends completely on aid, which he says allows them to eat one small daily meal.

More here

Soon.

by Scott Horton | Dec 30, 2020 | Blog

Department of Justice Closes Tamir Rice Inquiry, Will Not File Charges

by Scott Horton | Dec 29, 2020 | Blog

Of course.

Listen up here: Go and read this important article right now. It explains EVERYTHING.

Tamir Rice’s Basically Reasonable Murder

‘If You Like Your Guns, You Can Keep Your Guns’

by Peter R. Quiñones | Dec 28, 2020 | Blog

“And it’s OK to call anyone talking about taking them away your enemy.”

I believe this is one of the most important messages going forward to draw gun owners to the ideas of liberty. I used the plural “ideas” there purposefully. Many people read Rothbard and others and quickly adopt exactly what they’ve written as an ideal that is inflexible. Many attempt to draw people to liberty but only if they’re willing to agree not only politically, but culturally as well. That is a mistake, a big one. This is the building of the “social club for autists” which I frequently invoke.

I chose guns as the subject of this as gun ownership covers both political and cultural issues. Someone like myself who grew up in the inner city did not believe I should own a gun because it was my right to defend myself should the government turn tyrannical. I wanted to own guns to protect myself from the criminals in my neighborhood. Now I live in the South and am surrounded by people who were brought up in a different way. Many were taught that the right to keep and bear arms was to prevent tyranny. Others just like to hunt. These two tend to crossover a great deal. Both are different cultures than the one in which I was raised.

When crafting messaging designed to draw people to your ideas, it would be wise to keep in mind that you are also drawing them to YOU. If they accept that gun rights are sacred, should that be enough for the time being? Is this really the time for purity tests to start? We have seen the impact of the immediate purity test approach coming from those far-left Libertarian Party members and it has been viewed as cancerous to those who seek numbers in a fight against growing tyranny. One would have to conclude that those administering the purity test are blinded to the growth of totalitarianism in the last 10 months. I am forced to believe they endorse every single government mandate that has destroyed countless lives.

If we are going to build an army to fight the lockdowns, mask mandates, and growing push to make vaccines mandatory, we are going to need all the people we can get. To exclude new folks who may have vastly different cultural views than you is counterproductive. And that’s being nice. I would call it suicidal. To push that we only reach out to people on the Left (as I disclosed was the strategy of the former LP Chair in my last article) is to recruit the segment of this society that has revealed itself to be 100% behind the aforementioned mandates. Again, suicide. Instead, meet people where they are. Let them know what you have in common and what you believe is important. If it’s guns, cool. If it’s health freedom/choice, great. As discussions progress, provide more liberty-minded literature. Don’t alienate potential allies because of ideological fervor. Trust me, I have been guilty of this in the past.