US News President Joe Biden said he is considering a temporary gas tax holiday. The tax reduction would cut gas prices by 18.4 cents per gallon. [Link] Biden said rebate cards are also being considered. [Link] Miami police were offering $50 for handguns, $100 for shotguns and $150 for “high-powered” rifles such as AK-47s or AR-15s in a gun buyback drive. The city says it will transfer the weapons to Ukraine to aid the war effort. [Link] Space X is working with the Department of Defense on a rocket-launched troop movement system that can deploy forces anywhere in the work within hours....
Asia
US Considering Letting Tajikistan Keep Abandoned Afghan Aircraft, Increasing Special Operation Ties
US Central Command commander Gen. Michael Kurilla said the US is considering transferring aircraft that once belonged to the Afghan Army to the Armed Forces of the Republic of Tajikistan. The aircraft was flown to Tajikistan by Afghan soldiers during the fall of the US-backed government in Kabul. Over the weekend, Kurilla traveled to the Central Asian country for a high-level summit with President Rahmon, Minister of Defense General Colonel Sherali Mirzo. At the meeting, Kurilla said, “I came here to reaffirm our commitment to the independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity of...
News Roundup 6/18/2022
Assange British Home Secretary Priti Patel on Friday signed an extradition order to send Julian Assange to stand trial in America. [Link] Julian’s wife Stella vowed to fight the order. "We're going to fight this. We're going to use every appeal avenue," Stella Assange told reporters, calling the decision a "travesty". "I'm going to spend every waking hour fighting for Julian until he is free, until justice is served." [Link] Assange's brother said the Assange legal team's appeal to London's High Court of the decision to extradite him to the United States would include new information...
News Roundup 6/17/2022
US News The Senate Armed Services Committee has added $45 billion to President Joe Biden’s military spending plans in its annual defense policy bill. This week’s boost brings the bill’s topline budget figure to $847 billion. [Link] A major bill expanding health care and benefits for veterans exposed to toxic military burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan passed the US Senate. [Link] The House Homeland Security appropriations subcommittee approved a budget of $2.9 billion for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), $417 million higher than the White House’s original budget...
Sen. Cruz, Gen. Milley, Zelensky Say Ukraine Is Vital to National Security
As the costs of supporting Ukraine’s war effort soar well beyond $50 billion, high-level officials are seeking to sell Americans on even more military spending, with senators, generals and the Ukrainian president himself each insisting aid to Kiev is vital to American interests, amid rampant inflation, mounting shortages and monumental public debt in the US.
30 Years With No Strategy Brought Us the War in Ukraine
Washington DC has not excelled in grand strategy; the art and science of cost-effectively employing the diplomatic, economic, and informational powers of the United States in combination with its armed forces to secure its national goals and interests. Most of the strategic decisions to use American military power that were made over the last 30 years resulted in one of two strategic outcomes: abject failure (Somalia, Haiti, Afghanistan, and Iraq) or a new regional status quo that is untenable without a permanent U.S. military presence far from America’s borders (the Balkans). The reasons...
On the Brink of Nuclear War ft. Connor Freeman Ep. 216
https://youtu.be/CJ62Lw1PJsg In this episode of the podcast, I speak with Connor Freeman about the dismal state of U.S./Russian relations. We discuss the spiraling escalation in Ukraine and U.S. policy decisions which signal that the unthinkable may be inevitable. Episode 216 of the Liberty Weekly Podcast is Brought to you by: CrowdHealth Use promo code LW99 to get your first three months for $99/mo Liberty Weekly Substack The Liberty Weekly Patreon Page: help support the show and gain access to tons of bonus content! Become a patron today! Show Notes:...
Turkey Could Block NATO Membership for Finland, Sweden
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization's sole Asian member has suggested it could bar two Nordic countries from entering the alliance.
‘America First’ Means Anti-Bush, Not Antiwar
Donald Trump, despite not being perfect (far from it), was useful in making the idea of chronic interventionism and foreign entanglements unpopular, but as much credit as the New Right is given, they are hardly antiwar. The New Right is largely a rejection of the moderates—the neoconservatives and neoliberals—and their exemplars, the Clintons, Cheneys, Bushes, and Romneys. There is certainly an aversion towards our involvement in the Middle East, with Trump telling Jeb Bush in 2016 that, “Your brother lied,” about WMDs in Iraq. But while they may not be Middle East hawks like the...
The War in Ukraine and the ‘Star Wars Effect’
The American media’s Ukraine narrative is a vast deception that functions as a reassuring fantasy. The facts on the ground in Ukraine have overwhelmed the narrative being deployed in the West, but the American media simply ignores those facts. The effect is to placate the American people in service to the American state. The American state has learned well the lessons of Hollywood. The blockbuster film Star Wars (1977) allowed the American people, disillusioned from the recent defeat in Vietnam, to project onto and root for a victorious rebel insurgency. The state-driven media...