Tuesday, October 1, 2013

New Trailer for THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG

The main trailer has just come out for the upcoming movie The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. From what I know, I am looking forward to see this movie, and have high hopes for it (though it won't be too high since the team introduced Tauriel into the movie in order to add some "feminine edge" to it).

For my thoughts on An Unexpected Journey, see here.

BTW, I am looking forward to the upcoming extended edition of this movie, and I will make sure to review that too. And my advice is, read the book before watching the next movie; it's not as action packed but it is still an exciting story.

Here it is. Enjoy.

Letter of Liberty News Edition (10-01-2013)

Pat Buchanan on the lies of the Beltway on the Obamacare war

Jacob Hornberger on shutdown anxiety

Anthony Gregory writes on the march of the standing army.

Kelly Vlahos on how the Kenyan attacks are tickling right wing warmongering

John Whitehead tells the sad truth: police state programs are not affected by the impending shutdown.

Justin Raimondo reveals the truth: we live in a police state.

Norman Solomon on why the NSA deserves a permanent shutdown

Marc Clair on the five Obamacare taxes that doubled his insurance rates

Kristin Tate: Is Joe Biden right in attacking Ted Cruz this time?

Kristin Tate gives her comments on Ted Cruz's promise to donate to charity in the case of a forced government shutdown.

Joe Beck on the libertarian renaissance

Dave Albin on why government police and private security don't mix

C. Jay Engel on the final authority in constitutionalism and Catholicism

Jim Jones on how Putin blocked Obama from invading Syria

Ron Paul: Is the shutdown a grand bargain for liberty?

Walter Williams on why guns are not the problem

Thomas Sowell exposes the dangers of the minimum wage and how it destroys household jobs.

AmmoLand gives some tips on how to use the gun-control playbook against the gun-control advocates.

Chase Madar on the new American police state

Michael Ostrolenk and John Issac on why it's time to retire isolationism (my view is that isolationism has several variants, such as the protectionist strain exemplified by many in the post-WWI era and the free-trade, libertarian strain emphasized by Murray Rothbard, Frank Chodorov, and Ron Paul; while noninterventionism is the preferable term, isolationism as a term was indeed used by some older classical liberals and libertarians who still supported total free trade but rejected interventionism)

Laura Poitras and James Risen analyze the NSA's gathering of data on social connections of American citizens.

Marc Clair analyzes Murray Rothbard's view on Ayn Rand for this week's Mondays with Murray edition.

Jeffrey Tucker on why taxes are man's inhumanity to man

Eric Blair gives ten signs that the global elite are losing control.

Tess Pennington on what your health says about you

Tim Kelly on why Syria remains a target of the American empire

Edward Group shows five shocking truths about aspartame.

Brett and Kay McKay give nine tips for young men to start developing.

Jacob Hornberger: Shut down the nonessential drug war.

Anthony Gregory gives some advice on shutting down the government.

Jeff Berwick shows the positive effects that a government would have on the people.

A Grand Bargain for Liberty?

A Grand Bargain for Liberty?

by 

Ron Paul (September 30, 2013)

As I write this, it appears that the federal government is about to shut down because the House and Senate cannot agree on whether to add language defunding or delaying Obamacare to the “Continuing Resolution”. Despite all the hand-wringing heard in DC, a short-term government shut down (which doesn’t actually shut down the government) will not cause the country to collapse.
And the American people would benefit if Obamacare was defeated or even delayed.
Obamacare saddles the American health care system with new spending and mandates which will raise the price and lower the quality of health care. Denying funds to this program may give Congress time to replace this bill with free-market reforms that put patients and can spare the American people from falling under the worst effects of this law.
As heartened as we should be by the fight against Obamacare, we should be equally disheartened by the fact that so few in DC are talking about making real cuts in federal spending. Even fewer are talking about reductions in the most logical place to reduce spending: the military-industrial complex.  The US military budget constitutes almost 50 percent of the total worldwide military spending.  Yet to listen to some in Congress, one would think that America was one canceled multi-million dollar helicopter contract away from being left totally defenseless.
What makes this military spending impossible to justify is that is does not benefit the American people. Instead, by fomenting resentment and hatred among the world population, our costly interventionist foreign policy makes our people less safe. Thus, reducing spending on militarism would not only help balance the budget, but would enhance our security.
Yet both the House and the Senate continuing resolutions not only fail to reduce military spending, they actually authorize $20 billion more in military spending than authorized by the “sequestration” created by the 2011 Budget Control Act.  Most of the supposedly “draconian” sequestration cuts are not even cuts; instead, they are “reductions in the planed rate of spending.” This is where Congress increases spending but by less than originally planned—and yet they claim to cut spending.
Under sequestration, military spending increases by 18 percent instead of by 20 percent over the next ten years. Yet some so-called conservatives are so opposed to these phony cuts in military spending that they would support increased taxes and increased welfare “military” spending. This “grand bargain” would benefit the DC political class and the special interests, but it would be a disaster for the American people.
Instead of grand bargains of increased spending and taxes, those of us who support limited government and free markets should form a coalition with antiwar liberals to reduce spending on both the military industrial complex and domestic welfare programs. Instead of raising taxes on “the rich” we should also work to reduce all corporate subsidies. This “grand bargain” would truly be a win-win for the American people.
Sadly, even if a congressional coalition to cut both warfare and welfare spending was formed, it would be unlikely to carry the day as long as the Federal Reserve is willing to enable Congress’s debt addiction by monetizing the debt. But this cannot last forever. At some point the Fed’s policies will result in hyper-inflation and an economic crisis that will force Congress to reduce spending. Hopefully, the growing number of Americans who are awaking to the dangers of our current path can convince Congress to reduce overseas militarism and begin an orderly drawdown of the welfare state before this crisis occurs.