Category Archives: Foreign Policy

UPDATED: Republikeynesians Pretend They’re Not Sidelining Paul

Barack Obama, Debt, Democrats, Economy, Elections, Federal Reserve Bank, Foreign Policy, Israel, Republicans, Ron Paul

Megyn Kelly interviewed Ron Paul about the snubbing he has received from the “mainstream media.” “RepubliKeynesians” have been front-and-center in a concerted attempt to ignore Ron Paul’s showing in the 2011 Iowa Straw Poll. One could say that Paul jostled with Mrs. Bachmann for first place, given the 152 votes that separated the two.

Paul sounded strong in the Kelly clip, which has not come online yet. (And he reiterated these Israel-related points, which was gratifying, of course.)

Here is the often dazzlingly brilliant Jon Stewart “savaging the media for treating Paul like he’s the ‘thirteenth floor in a hotel.'” (Via the NYT)

UPDATE (Aug. 17): Jon Stewart is often brilliant, but he is no classical liberal. He’s an economic ignoramus. Classical liberalism is first and foremost about the freedom to make a living. Stewart knows squat about such freedoms.

Be Afraid: The Proof is in the Putin

America, Debt, Economy, Federal Reserve Bank, Foreign Policy, Government

The following is an excerpt from “Be Afraid: The Proof is in the Putin,” my new, WND.COM column:

“Left and right, the cable commentariat is currently engaged in a cut-and-thrust over the use of strong words in politics. In particular, does ‘terrorism’ describe the initial reluctance of some tea partiers to support the US government’s set-in stone spending?

Lost in this silly squabble is the following: ‘the second coming of the Republican revolution,’ as Politico.com dubbed the tea party contingent on Capitol Hill, failed to defuse the threat of the debt. Only 28 tea-party freshmen voted against the ballyhooed “Budget Control Act Amendment.”

Listen to the words of one wily politician whose country’s central bank holds almost 40 percent of dollars as reserve currency. Vladimir Putin’s response to the debt compromise was pitch-perfect, given the stakes stateside and beyond. This via RT and Press TV, respectively:

‘The current deal struck by US lawmakers will not solve the underlying issues. This colossal debt, $14 trillion or more, means that the country has been living on credit, which is really bad for one of the world’s leading economies. They live beyond their means, and put a part of their burden on the entire world’s economy. … The country is … shifting the weight of responsibility on other countries and in a way acting as a parasite.’

Having impressed themselves no end, the lawmakers who came up with the “Budget Control Act Amendment” don’t impress Putin much.

So what was the deceptive deal that was endorsed by 59 of the already stale tea-party freshmen, and got enthusiastic whoops from many among mainstream media’s menagerie of morons? …”

The complete column is “Be Afraid: The Proof is in the Putin.”

If you are interested in syndicating my weekly, WND column, kindly email me for details at ilana@ilanamercer.com. “Return to Reason“ is WorldNetDaily’s longest standing, exclusive libertarian column.

My new book, “Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid South Africa,” is available from Amazon.

Raise awareness of the issues covered in depth and detail in the book by posting your reviews to Amazon. And you need not have have purchased the book from Amazon to review it on the site.

Borrowing From … Brazil

America, Debt, Economy, Foreign Policy, Free Markets, Inflation, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim

Did you know that Brazil “is now the United States’s fourth-largest creditor”? They’ve been increasing their wealth, which has afforded the US the opportunity to spread its debt.

This according to a book by Larry Rohter, BRAZIL ON THE RISE: The story of a country transformed, reviewed in the June 17, 2011 issue of the Times Literary Supplement.

To read between the lines, Brazil is changing from a crappy country to a not-so crappy country. Given Rohter’s retarded analysis—Brazil’s improvement he puts down, in part, to wise “cash-transfer social programmes”—it’s hard to know what’s afoot. The Left truly feels—for they don’t think—that moving money from wealth creators to wealth consumers generates plenty.

It’s safer to say that, as in Chile, freeing markets has generated greater prosperity for Brazil.

Like white on rice, the Us in on any country with “significant foreign currency reserves.”

UPDATED: McCain: Serial Killer By Proxy

Foreign Policy, John McCain, Neoconservatism, War

McCain was interviewed on Fox News practically pleading with Barack Obama to bring the matter of war in Libya to Congress. Why do you suppose McCain is craving congressional approval for America’s latest losing war? McMussolini’s just an old-fashioned neocon. He can’t wait for BHO to legitimize a war he’d like to take to the next level. (I’d provide a link if Fox New believed in the written word.)

George Will let’s McCain off lightly. He dubs him a “promiscuous interventionist”—rather than a serial killer by proxy.

Will has taken a long time to wake up. But better late than never: “Elevating the fallacy of the false alternative to a foreign policy, John McCain and a few others believe Republicans who oppose U.S. intervention in Libya’s civil war — and who think a decade of warfare in Afghanistan is enough — are isolationists. This is less a thought than a flight from thinking, which involves making sensible distinctions.

Last Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” McCain warned that the GOP has always had “an isolation strain.” He calls it “the Pat Buchanan wing,” which he contrasts with “the Republican Party that has been willing to stand up for freedom for people all over the world. …Is Jim Webb an isolationist? Virginia’s Democratic senator, who was Ronald Reagan’s secretary of the Navy, discusses Libya with a trenchancy that befits a decorated Marine combat veteran (Vietnam) and that should shame reticent Republicans:

“Was our country under attack, or under the threat of imminent attack? Was a clearly vital national interest at stake? Were we invoking the inherent right of self-defense as outlined in the United Nations charter? Were we called upon by treaty commitments to come to the aid of an ally? Were we responding in kind to an attack on our forces elsewhere, as we did in the 1986 raids in Libya after American soldiers had been killed in a disco in Berlin? Were we rescuing Americans in distress, as we did in Grenada in 1983? No, we were not.”

McCain, however, says we must achieve regime change in Libya because if Gaddafi survives, he will try to “harm” America. This is always the last argument for pressing on with imprudent interventions (see Vietnam, circa 1969): We must continue fighting because we started fighting.

UPDATE (June 23): Here is the McCain interview with Hannity. He also said that bringing the troops home from Afghanistan will put them at risk. You can see where Meghaaaann gets her brains.