Liberty Links 10/2/16

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Opinion/Must Reads Gary Johnson: Take a Deep Breath, Voters. There Is a Third Way. (Op-ed by Gary Johnson, New York Times) Geopolitics/Foreign Affairs U.S. to Send More Troops to Iraq Ahead of Mosul Battle (We’re never getting out of Iraq, Reuters) Pakistan ‘Completely Rejects’ Indian Claim of Cross-Border Strikes (Reuters) Erdogan Signals Preference for Longer Turkey … Read more

New Gallup Poll Shows 57% of Americans Want a Major 3rd Party

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There’s good news and bad news in the latest Gallup poll on Americans’ desire for a major 3rd Party.

The good news is that at 57%, this is the highest demand we’ve seen during any recent Presidential election year. The bad news is that we’ve seen levels this high before. Additionally, this desire for a 3rd Party doesn’t actually translate into massive third party support when it comes time to actually voting.

Gallup reports:

PRINCETON, N.J. — A majority of Americans, 57%, continue to say that a third major U.S. political party is needed, while 37% disagree, saying the two parties are doing an adequate job of representing the American people. These views are similar to what Gallup has measured in each of the last three years. However, they represent a departure from public opinion in 2008 and 2012 — the last two presidential election years — when Americans were evenly divided on the need for a third party.

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The Situation in Syria is Very, Very Dangerous

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In case you haven’t been paying attention, the recent Syria ceasefire lasted barely a week. While all sides engaged in the conflict were accusing the other of violating the agreement from the beginning, it really unraveled when U.S. forces bombed Syrian government forces, killing at least 62.

As CNN reported at the time:

Hours after US-led coalition airstrikes reportedly killed dozens of Syrian troops, the US and Russian ambassadors to the United Nations chastised each other outside an emergency Security Council meeting.

The strike occurred Saturday in an eastern part of Syria that is not a part of a delicate and nearly week-old ceasefire. The US military said it was targeting ISIS militants and if it hit Syrian troops, it was an accident. 

Russia and Syria said the strikes prove Washington and its allies are sympathetic to ISIS. 

The Russian military said 62 Syrian soldiers were killed near Deir Ezzor Airport, according to state media. The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights put the death toll at 83 and said at least 120 soldiers were wounded.

A fews day after this, Syrian forces launched an attack on the city of Aleppo, and we now find ourselves in an extraordinarily dangerous situation.

Reuters reports:

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Did Trump Support the Iraq War or Not?

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The way Lester Holt “corrected” Donald Trump at Monday’s debate (as he was clearly instructed to do) regarding the Iraq War, you’d think the answer to whether he supported it or not was clear-cut. The truth is, it may not be that simple.

Joe Concha (who has been doing some great work by the way), just wrote an excellent article at The Hill exploring the topic in detail. Here’s what he found:

Question: Did Donald Trump oppose or support the Iraq War?

Before answering, a quick note on why providing clarity around a relatively simple question: It’s rare that cooler heads can prevail in this media world we live in. Lines in the sand have never been drawn between blue and red media as vividly as they are now. And as a result, simple logic and lucidity is supplied less and less to drawing a verdict on whether a story is true or not.

Exhibit A today is the aforementioned question: Did Trump — as he insists — oppose the Iraq War?

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Quote of the Day – Hunter S. Thompson’s Prescient 1972 Warning

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While on the campaign trail in 1972, Hunter S. Thompson issued a dire warning that is more true today than it ever has been.

He warned us about what would happen to the country if we continued along the destructive path he noticed nearly 45 years ago. He observed that if Americans continued to accept “lesser of two evilism” the only thing we’d end up with would be increased evil.

He was right.

Here’s the quote:

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‘You Shouldn’t Listen to Me’ – Here’s What Bernie Sanders Said About Voting for Hillary Clinton

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Before he lost the rigged Democratic primary to Hillary Clinton (only to become her sad mascot in the subsequent months), Bernie Sanders was actually speaking some truth to voters. A perfect example of that can be seen in the following clip from an MSNBC town hall where he responds to a supporter’s question about whether he … Read more

Video of the Day – Why Garbagemen Should Earn More Than Bankers

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Of course our world is in shambles. The best salaries are paid to the people whose professions add the least value to society.

I know, I know. Lots of people are capable of being garbagemen, but not everyone has the skills to be a parasitic financial criminal.

I agree.

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U.S. Corporations Side With Saudi Arabia Against the American People Over 9/11 Victims Bill

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Shortly after the release of the infamous 28-pages earlier today, the White House issued a statement dismissing allegations of Saudi involvement in the attacks of 9/11. I believe such assurances are intended to prevent people from reading it in the first place, because if you actually read them, your mouth will be wide open the entire time in disbelief.

There are only two conclusions any thinking person can come to after reading the 28-pages.

1. Elements within the Saudi government ran the operations behind the 9/11 attack.

2. The U.S. government covered it up.

– From July’s post: The 28-Pages Are Way Worse Than I Thought

If you want to know just how insignificant the interests of the American people are when they happen to conflict with the profit margins of multinational corporations, the following article should leave little doubt.

Politico reports:

Saudi Arabia is mounting a last-ditch campaign to scuttle legislation allowing families of victims of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks to sue the kingdom — and they’re enlisting major American companies to make an economic case against the bill.

General Electric, Dow Chemical, Boeing and Chevron are among the corporate titans that have weighed in against the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, or JASTA, which passed both chambers unanimously and was vetoed on Friday, according to people familiar with the effort. The companies are acting quietly to avoid the perception of opposing victims of terrorism, but they’re responding to Saudi arguments that their own corporate assets in the kingdom could be at risk if the law takes effect.

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The 2016 Presidential Election Comes Down to Only One Thing…

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As we inch closer and closer to November 8th, one thing has become increasingly clear to me. This election will be viewed by voters as a referendum on the status quo’s itself. While it’ll definitely be a referendum on Obama specifically, it’s much bigger than that. It’ll be about whether the American people want to continue along the path we’ve been on for decades, or if they’re willing to try something entirely different.

Indeed, Hillary Clinton clearly highlighted the choice herself earlier today with the following tweet:

The message from the above tweet says it all. She’s not running merely as a continuation of Obama’s last eight years, she’s running as a continuation of the last 40. A period during which median wages in real terms have barely budged, while income inequality has exploded. A period during which financialization has hollowed out America’s economy, while a handful of people reaped enormous wealth via labor arbitrage as they shipped manufacturing overseas. A period during which we have seen pointless war after pointless war, all in the pursuit of an enemy largely created by America’s imperial foreign policy in the first place. In other words, it hasn’t been a very good forty years for the average American. Nevertheless, it took a very long time for the public to figure it out, just like the boiling frog doesn’t get that it’s cooked until too late.

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Introducing the Military-Industrial-Elementary School Complex

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Today’s highlighted article was published last month, but I didn’t read it at the time and I’m guessing you didn’t either.

What’s so uniquely tragic about the the intrusion of the police state into America’s schools, is it appears the parents themselves are the ones demanding it. This is in contrast to an overbearing surveillance state implemented by government in secret, as well as by private corporations via lengthy terms of service agreements nobody actually reads.

What follows are excerpts from a very important article published at The Nation, The School-Security Industry Is Cashing In Big on Public Fears of Mass Shootings:

“Security was the number-one factor for me in choosing a school,” explained one of the mothers I met late last winter at a Montessori preschool in an affluent suburb of Salt Lake City. A quality-control expert at a dietary-supplement company, the woman said she vividly remembers the jolt of horror she felt when she first learned of the Columbine massacre in 1999. So when the time came to send her child to preschool, she selected one that markets itself not only as creative, caring, and nurturing, but also as particularly security-conscious.

To get the front door of the school to open, visitors had to be positively ID’d by a fingerprint-recognition system. In the foyer, a bank of monitors showed a live feed of the activity in every classroom. After drop-off, many parents would spend 15 minutes to half an hour staring at the screens, making sure their children were being treated well by their teachers and classmates. Many of the moms and dads had requested Internet access to the images, but the school had balked, fearing that online sexual predators would be able to hack into the video stream. All of the classroom doors had state-of-the-art lockdown features, and all of the teachers had access to long-distance bee spray—which, in the case of an emergency, they were instructed to fire off at the eyes of intruders. The playground was surrounded by a high concrete wall, which crimped the kids’ views of the majestic Wasatch Mountains. The imposing front walls, facing out onto a busy road, were similarly designed to stop predators from peering into the classrooms.

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