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Nov. 22, 2022 - Ron Paul Liberty Report
32:12
War Party Rising! Incoming House Speaker McCarthy Touts Super-Neocon Agenda

Incoming Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has vowed to put "confronting China" at the top of his agenda as speaker. Washington Neocons cannot survive without an enemy. Also today, Daniel Larison lays out what a President DeSantis foreign policy may look like...and it ain't pretty. Are neocons firmly back in the driver's seat?

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Long Weekend Eye-opener 00:15:04
Thank you for tuning in to the Liberty Report.
With us today is Daniel Wick Adams, our co-host.
Daniel, good to see you this morning.
Welcome back, Dr. Paul.
How are you?
Doing well, doing well.
We returned from a weekend, long weekend up in Dallas at the wedding of one of our grandchilds.
And it was, like I told you, it was an eye-opener.
It was a little bit different than the wedding music that we used to listen to, especially the wedding music after the wedding.
But I assure you, they had a good time.
Oh, I was awesome.
And it was a good wedding.
So, but today, I wished everything we could talk about would be good news, but I bet we can find something positive to say.
So the worse it gets, the more people wake up.
That's my theme.
But anyway, the date wakes me up because it's a date that I remember very, very clearly.
And you have a short memory because you don't even remember it.
You weren't quite into politics back then.
But I was a draftee.
I was a flight surgeon.
But I was taken in the military because of the missiles in Cuba.
But by the time I actually got sworn in and active, that had settled down.
So what was going on there was the war in Vietnam and this sort of thing.
But I was the flight surgeon in charge of Kelly Air Force Base on November 21st, the day before Kennedy was killed.
And that was just standby and just the case.
And he was there just a short time, maybe an hour or two, but he went on, of course, to the disaster.
But that was very memorable in the sense of what a horrible situation that was.
And I was absolutely in no conspiratorial mood at the time.
And that didn't cross it.
To me, it was just tragedy.
And it was so sad.
But now, thinking very generally about what went on, there have been a lot of books and a lot of speculation on why it happened.
And I'm sort of in the camp where foreign policy was a big deal, a big deal on this.
And this to me also emphasized that it was a big deal because of a war going on here in the United States, the Hawks against the Peace Necks.
And that probably was the reason that was different than the initial thing.
It was all the Castro.
We had to do a Castro.
And that was heard of for a long time.
But I just think that whole thing, and I fortunately think of it in the most, I guess, most negative sense, was, well, first, I think that date is important to me because I think it was a significant date when it was very evident that it was an unraveling of the Republic and that this was a coup and that Johnson was involved in it.
And when I think about his election, Texans will remember it and a lot of other people.
In 1948, there was a big argument whether Coach Stevenson would be the senator or whether it would be LBJ.
And there was a big fight and a court contest and fighting and all this.
And finally, after all the legal things went on, Johnson won by one vote.
Wow.
And he was ushered in.
He had to run against a Republican, but Republicans existed by that.
So he became the senator.
And it was essentially the beginning of his presidential career because he did go on.
And then I keep thinking, you know, there was one vote, but now I think about the one shot.
Yeah.
The one shot that killed Kennedy.
And then it wasn't only until recently in a book that I did come across that sounded very credible because it was really very politically incorrect to say that, and I didn't want to believe that, that Johnson could have been involved.
And now people, and statistically, the American people have given up on believing the commission.
And now the commission, and a lot of them seem to be won over, you know, by Johnson being involved.
So I think of, you know, one vote, one shot, and then a disaster and a disaster we're still living with.
But all I hope we can do in our very short conversation will be to alert people to pay attention to foreign policy because it's probably a bigger deal than people realize.
We talk about domestic spending and foreign policy spending and foreign aid and the empire.
Let's just say, for instance, that's 50-50.
But the one thing is it's so solidly bipartisan.
And now, of course, you know, changes are going to occur.
And there are a couple dozen Republicans, I think, do a very good job on talking more about a constitutional foreign policy.
And that, of course, is what we would like to encourage.
Yeah, well, unfortunately, the House leadership coming in in the next Congress is not going to be very exciting when it comes to foreign policy.
And this is something we notice in the Hill, if we can put up that first clip.
Because most likely future Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Republican from California, is planning on bringing up the old grandstanding of the neocon wing of the GOP.
And that is the dominant wing, but we were hoping it would shift.
And here's a piece from yesterday in The Hill, McCarthy planning select committee on China, if elected Speaker.
And let's put up this next clip because this is his claim.
They never once in this majority had a hearing on where COVID originated from.
They have never stood up to China, McCarthy said of Democrats in an interview on Fox News Sunday Morning Futures.
And of course, that's not correct.
The Democrats have been, from the White House down, have been increasingly treading on China, Dr. Paul, as you know.
And in fact, he was referring to Congress, but if you look at the new national security strategy for the United States, which is the next clip, explicitly, this strategy recognizes that the People's Republic of China presents America's most consequential geopolitical challenge.
In other words, the number one issue for the United States when it comes to its foreign policy and national security strategy is China.
So McCarthy is trying to outhoc the administration on China.
I guess they feel like that's a safe territory to be in.
You know, there was a time when the traditional division would be that hopefully the Republicans either get in office or they have influence to counteract the peacenicks in the Democratic Party.
And that, of course, was argued even back on the Kennedy assassination.
But the whole thing here is that Congress now is reacting in a way that is quite different because the hawks are all over the place.
But also, the peace people are divided up.
And, of course, the immediate goal ought to be for our position would be to find those people, whether they call themselves libertarians, independent, constitutionalists, Republicans, or Democrats that have a different foreign policy.
But there's that division, which is controlled by the deep state and controlled by the military-industrial complex.
But there's also a sentiment that has to be reflective of the people.
So the people have to decide whether they're going to look at this type of policy now and not wait until after 10 years of Vietnam, after Korea, and after 10 years in the Middle East, plus after 20 years in Afghanistan, and now many years into Syria and Ukraine and all these things.
The American people have to start looking because we cannot depend on the people when they even get into office.
We could say that, yes, we never want to neglect those and we have to encourage those people that take a position that's much closer to ours.
At the same time, we are outnumbered out there, and it takes a crowd to get out there and show that there's more than just 10 people saying, well, you know, it's time to end war.
No, they're not ready.
They're not in time to ready to cancel their golden egg, you know, all the money that's been made.
And it's easy for the neocons and a lot of Americans that follow them that don't understand the complexities of these things to beat their chests and say, yes, we've got an enemy, we're going to take down those THICOMs.
What they don't understand, what they should understand now of all times, is the domestic implications of a hawkish foreign policy.
Essentially, what we're seeing here is that McCarthy wants to do to the American people via China as the Biden administration has done to the American people and to a larger extent the Europeans have done to the European population vis-à-vis Russia.
Essentially, they want to shoot themselves in the foot and destroy the economy all on the whole basis of having an enemy, having an enemy out there.
We need to attack China.
And here's McCarthy.
China is the number one country when it comes to intellectual property theft.
All the other nations combined, China steals more than the others, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
This whole thing, they're robbing from us.
They're terrible.
They take advantage of us.
It's only an excuse for a trade war with China, which will hurt the American people at home.
So really, I think the lesson, Dr. Paul, is beware, because you feel like it may be risk-free to cheer for a more hawkish foreign policy.
But ask the Europeans right now who are freezing in Germany how a hawkish foreign policy toward Russia, which has not helped them in the slightest, how it feels to have to pay for that at home.
You know, this diverts the attention from what I think is the real cause of dissension in the world, and that is, you know, a bankruptcy, which includes financial bankruptcy and a moral bankruptcy.
We talk about the 60s, and a lot of people have written about the 60s in a broader sense than the assassination, but multiple assassination and the cultural changes that occurred then.
And I truly believe it has had a big influence on The disintegration that has been going on in our country, and that there has been significant changes away from a constitutional government.
But the people, the people have to realize that, you know, you're not going to get one person.
It's just sort of like one person isn't going to be able to close down every faction that loves the Federal Reserve.
And you can't close down.
And I think it's a foreign policy thing is it doesn't get closed down, Republican or Democrat.
If you're too strong on pro-war, it becomes one of the most dangerous things in this country because it wasn't the assassination wasn't ended with the Kennedy assassination.
It went on and on, and people even just close to them could be in trouble.
A lot of people died over that situation because foreign policy is a big deal.
And they do not deal with those two issues, the moral bankruptcy, but the financial bankruptcy.
I mean, how long are we going to be able to do this?
Of course, we've been, a few have saying this for a long time, and then they say, well, you lost all credibility because you said that would happen before.
Yes, I said it was going to happen once I discovered what the significance of the Bratton Woods was, the breakdown of the Bratton Woods.
And, you know, the lines, everything supports the disintegration of what's happening now.
So it is a major problem.
So I think everybody has to participate.
To me, it's getting out information so that people understand, you know, what's going on rather than saying, well, we need somebody more hawkish.
You know, in there, I think there was this attempt with our last election, but no.
Right now, a lot of people are going to be happy with this.
But even the ones that are unhappy have to be careful because there still will be a base.
But it seems like the power and the influence of the military-industrial complex and the communication system, just as they control the message, they do a very good job in controlling the message.
Whether it's the war against COVID or the war against the Ukrainians, it seems like it's nearly universal when it comes to listening to the news.
Yeah, well, you know, as I say, an unnecessarily aggressive foreign policy does come home to Roost and it does affect the U.S. economy.
And, you know, that's another reason to stockpile, Dr. Paul.
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Dr. Paul?
Well, you know, we have had this change and we have, it looks like a new speaker coming in.
Desantis on Trump and Foreign Policy 00:11:41
And he wants to be, the one subject that he's spoken about already is being much more hawkish against China.
We don't have enough problems.
have to go and aggravate.
I saw one report certainly that if there's a contest, and I guess there always will be a contest maybe between Russia and China, although we're pushing real hard to keep them together, but it looks like the Chinese have been better at manipulating their economy because the gold is flowing from Russia to China.
But it's not flowing into America.
America's given up on that because they proved that the dollar was as good as gold.
And you just pretend that, and that's why a lot of the gold was sold off.
But eventually, you know, gold wins out on that.
But the problems exist.
That's just a measurement of the degree of the problem.
But I think that we have to be concerned with more than just China.
That's a good symbol of what's happening.
But how about the associations that DeSantis had when he was in Congress?
You know, he was pretty principled, but not on our side.
Not on our side, because here they get away with becoming strong fiscal conservatives and never vote against a nickel going overseas.
And who knows, the amount connected somewhere or other to foreign policy and foreign intervention, it may exceed sending food stamps out to poor people here, for sure.
Well, yeah, and that brings up our next topic, which is a piece that Dan Larison wrote for Responsible Statecraft.
If we can actually skip one and go ahead to that Responsible Statecraft one.
And it's a good article.
It's definitely worth reading.
What might a DeSantis foreign policy look like?
And unfortunately, Dr. Paul, I know you're looking for some silver linings today.
This is not going to give us one, unfortunately.
I guess the way we could show some hope is to think that maybe he will change.
Maybe he will surround himself with people who are astute on foreign policy as his advisors appear to be, at least in Florida, on domestic policy.
And he's done a great job with COVID.
He's fought against political correctness, and he deserves all the credit for what he's done.
And the voters have rewarded him handsomely for doing that.
But unfortunately, if his presidential ambitions are indeed what some suggest, the area of the president, the executive branch, the head of the executive branch, carries with it enormous power in foreign policy.
I would say much more so than domestic policy, because you have to deal with Congress in a much more complicated way.
Foreign policy is where the president has the real power.
And unfortunately, from what we've seen of DeSantis in the House, despite being a nice person, I think, is not very encouraging.
And I'll just do one clip before I send it to you because this is Larison's piece.
If we can just put that next one up.
Basically, you go down the laundry list of things on foreign policy.
DeSantis has taken out, staked himself out the most extreme neocon position.
He was extremely, extremely opposed to any kind of deal with Iran.
He wrote articles with Tom Cotton, and this is from Dan Larison's piece.
Like most critics of the agreement, they misrepresented what it would do and exaggerated the benefits Iran would receive from sanctions itself.
In other words, a classic neocon tactic of, well, exaggerating, lying, whatever you want to call it.
But here's a good point that Dan put.
DeSantis and Cotton also indulge in rather hysterical threat inflation about Iran saying, quote, they will stop at nothing to end our way of life.
I want to make a comment on it, and it's my opinion.
And It's just something I've been thinking about, but there looks like there's going to be, and there already is competition between DeSantis and Trump.
And it looks like the mainstream media and most of the stations right now are sort of, we've had enough of Trump.
We've got to get rid of him.
We hate Trump.
So that keeps going.
But what if the foreign policy is one of the major factors?
You can't say that Trump fitted into the category of the peace next, you know.
He's not there because he vacillates.
He's been back and forth.
But he is a lot more for working things out than, say, DeSantis sounds like it.
So what if the foreign policy is the major issue and not just the ordinary everyday hating of Trump, you know, just for political reasons, we're just tired of Trump.
Maybe there is because that turned out to be the big issue on Kennedy's assassination, as well as has his mistress later on was murdered for the same reason because they figured she had too much information.
So foreign policy is very, very powerful.
And I guess this is just a thought that is a possibility.
And I can't prove it is going to happen, but obviously it's a mixed bag.
We don't have somebody totally hawkish and totally for peace.
We have a sort of a mixed bag.
But I think DeSantis, you give him credit for being more precise, but unfortunately he's not precise for what we're looking for.
Yeah.
Well, here's a couple of more things from Dan's article.
I do encourage reading it at Responsible Statecraft.
You can find it at antiwar.com.
But he talks about, this is more with DeSantis and Iran.
DeSantis has imagined that the Iranian government could be brought down through more outside pressure.
So this is probably one of the most disturbing things about him.
He believes that regime change operations overseas are good ideas.
We know based on fact that they have never worked out for the positive.
They have never worked out in a way that produces a more free, more open, more democratic, more wealthy society.
Just ask any Libyan how they like having their democracy shoveled in front of them.
So he's very in favor of doing this.
The other thing that's also disturbing, if we can do this next clip, is who are his heroes?
Well, this is also not good news.
He touted Trump's decision to provide military assistance to Ukraine.
Okay.
And in order to, and to order attacks on Syrian government targets, sorry.
And then here's the thing, here's the kicker, Dr. Paul.
When John Bolton was named National Security Advisor, DeSantis praised the choice.
John Bolton, it's a very strong voice, a very clear thinker.
No, Ron, he's not.
Not you, Ron.
The other Ron, sorry.
But the thing is that the last point I just wanted to make, Dr. Paul, is that you have, you can't, and I started by saying this, you cannot separate domestic and foreign policy.
DeSantis is very good on civil liberties, very courageous, very good on fighting PC.
The problem is aggressive foreign policy overseas always comes home to roost.
Oh, we only need the patriot because of those evil Muslims overseas.
We've got to keep an eye on them.
We find out they were spying on us all along.
You give them the tools to go after the bad guys overseas.
They use those tools to come after us at home.
You know, and you make the point on why it's difficult for us to understand.
If they're so good here, why don't they apply the same principle?
And of course, the way I start off with, if it's just a suggestion that non-intervention is a good thing, that's more or less what's in the Constitution, is non-invention.
Let people live their own lives.
Let the economy work out its place.
Don't go in and invade your neighbors.
Don't have an empire.
Don't debauch the currency.
All this is non-interventionism.
And what they're saying is, well, intervention over here, we need it, but over here, no, we shouldn't do it.
We should allow the people to go.
And you're absolutely right.
You can't separate the two.
I remember one time in a debate, the announcer said, okay, tonight we're going to be talking about foreign policy, none of this economic stuff.
And I objective-friendly, of course.
Yes, but you can't do that.
How can you separate the two?
It takes money to fight these wars.
And there's so many ramifications on civil liberties and all these kinds of things once the war starts, and they're long-lasting.
And they precipitate so many problems that last decades, you know, when it comes to the destruction of lives and families and alliances.
So, no, non-interventionism means that we mind our own business and we don't use aggression to have our way.
And if we want to change the world, it's not that complicated.
Set a good standard.
You know, in a way, domestically, I think DeSantis has achieved that to a degree.
You know, he got political pluses for standing his guns, standing on his ground on domestic affairs.
And other states, I think that encouraged other states to do the same thing.
So, yes, I think setting an example is very good.
We just need more people setting an example, you know, on the foreign policy.
Well, we skipped over one thing that I wanted to ask you about, actually.
And if I don't want to put you on the spot, but I'm genuinely interested in your view because we haven't talked about what you think about this.
But this is going back to McCarthy and his announcement that he will strip committee assignments from Eric Swalwell of California, Adam Schiff of California, and Elon Omar of Minnesota, all Democrats.
He's going to strip them of their committee posts.
They won't have any committees.
I honestly just am curious what you think about it.
I think it's typical politics.
It doesn't solve any problems, but to lay back and not even say anything after what they've done.
It seems like I guess I was even a little surprised because I never saw it happen before, where some incoming person takes people off a committee, but I guess the speaker does have this authority.
They certainly played that role, and maybe it's that commission on January 6th.
Because I think a lot of people, just fair-minded, when they look at that, and the voters voted there, the longer those hearings, so-called hearings, those kangaroo court thing, the longer they were up, the less interested the people became.
So in a way, that was working that way.
But I'll tell you that I was a little surprised.
And if they want to do this, I'm not going to cry over Schiff getting kicked off a committee and Swalwell.
I mean, it's just that we want the right person doing it.
Yeah, yeah.
I think, if I'm not mistaken, Marjorie Taylor Greene was stripped of her committee assignments when she was first elected.
And I think that's, I don't know if there's a problem.
I don't remember there being a precedent when we were there.
Maybe Trafficant was stripped of his assignments, but it is an unusual thing.
And I'm just uncomfortable with it.
Admittedly, they're nasty people, very nasty people.
Well, I saw the stripping of positions, but it's by their own party.
You know, the Republican leader can take you, and he approves all the committee assignments.
Thanksgiving Break Plans 00:03:17
So it's there.
But to do it on the other side, I guess that doesn't happen very often.
But if this is a start of something big, you'll keep getting bigger.
It'll be back and forth for years.
So, if the Democrats do something, if they don't obey now to the new speaker, you better watch out.
You might lose your position on your committee.
And that's almost disenfranchising the voters from that district in a way as well.
So, someone made a funny joke because, you know, Elon Omar, he's kicking her out because of her supposed anti-Semitism because she happens to be critical of Israel occasionally, which you're not allowed to be if you're in Congress.
But someone made a joke: well, if they're kicking her out for anti-Semitism, they should kick her out for voting to send money to Nazis in Ukraine.
That's worse than just making a couple of anti-Semitic comments.
But anyway, we'll keep an eye on it.
I'm going to close out if we're ready, and just thanking our viewers.
We're approaching a Thanksgiving weekend.
We're going to take a couple of days off.
We'll have a show tomorrow, but we'll take a couple of days off, so I wouldn't get the opportunity to wish you all a happy Thanksgiving.
I know, Dr. Paul, it's one of your favorite holidays.
It's one of the reasons we're taking a little time off.
But enjoy each other.
It's easy to get down, to get depressed, and I'm the number one victim of that or the number one culprit in that.
But take some time and enjoy your families, enjoy some of the brighter things in life.
Get out and get some fresh air.
Take a walk if you can.
And when you're done next week, after tomorrow, we'll still have shows on Thursday and Friday, but we'll see you next week on the Liberty Report.
Very good.
And Thanksgiving Day has always been special for me because I've always been so thankful for how things have worked out for me and family and these sorts of things.
And I think that's wonderful.
And I've often said that I'm thankful because when people talk about how horrible people are, and we do it here all the time, but I don't think they're the world.
I think they're just in a position where they're eager enough and they're calloused enough where truth and being fair doesn't affect them.
They just go ahead and do it.
And they have the advantage of the person that sort of sits back and says, you know, things are okay and they hope it'll get better and not realizing that you need a fair amount of activity.
And, you know, I've often said, you know, if when people complain about their neighbors and all this, I say, you know, when I think about it, you know, most people I've met throughout my life, whether it was from grade school all the way up to medical school and residency and the military and in Congress, even in Congress, you know, on a personal basis, I just couldn't find anybody I wanted to grab hold and shout at them, you know.
But so there was a sort of an atmosphere of friendliness because I think that is a natural thing.
But I also think the opposition is alive and well, and there's always these temptations, and they have the greatest desire to, if they have no belief in a higher law, they can do anything they want anytime they want and there is no truth, so just go ahead.
And they have that.
They have that advantage of not having any restraint, any moral restraint.
And that is why I think it's a real challenge.
But I still think there's a lot of good people out there, and I've met a lot of them, and I think it's just great.
I've been very impressed over the years with young people wanting to have more information.
Opposition Alive and Well 00:01:39
It's almost like, you know, if I get to talking about economics and gold standard and all that, their eyes and ears pop up and they want to listen to it.
Obviously, this is new to them.
They didn't hear it in their schools, you know.
But I think that's changing too to the positive when I think of institutions like the Institute of Mises Institute, how beneficial they are to us.
The information is out there, and as bad as the internet is, it's available for a lot of information.
We get to put our program out, and hopefully, it looks like, keep our fingers crossed, maybe things are going to improve a little bit.
And cancellation with the arm of government working through the social media, maybe they'll lose a little bit of their clout for regulation of speed.
So that should be helpful.
But I always think when you feel frustrated about how do we get our message out, well, think about how the people did it under the British Empire when the colonists wanted their liberties.
They didn't even have radio there, you didn't have television, but they did have a printing press and they did have word of mouth and they did spread a message.
And the message can be spread.
And just remember, the message can't be stopped.
You know, armies can't stop messages of hope.
And this is important that they can't do an idea whose time has come can't be stopped.
So join us all in, and I will certainly keep my efforts up.
And I want to thank all of you for supporting us in our efforts and tuning into our Liberty Report each day.
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