Speaker McCarthy Flip Flops On 'No Blank Check For Ukraine'
Washington's old guard can't help itself: when it comes to throwing endless streams of our money down a foreign boondoggle they just never refuse. Even if they promise to do so. Speaker Kevin McCarthy is backing off his "no blank check" promise when it comes to Ukraine - even after $100 billion has already been authorized! Also today: House to move to make Iran sanctions permanent and...the Navy's secret recruitment weapon!
Washington's old guard can't help itself: when it comes to throwing endless streams of our money down a foreign boondoggle they just never refuse. Even if they promise to do so. Speaker Kevin McCarthy is backing off his "no blank check" promise when it comes to Ukraine - even after $100 billion has already been authorized! Also today: House to move to make Iran sanctions permanent and...the Navy's secret recruitment weapon!
Hello everybody and thank you for tuning in to the Liberty Report.
With us today is Daniel McAdams, our co-host, Daniel.
Good to see you today.
Good morning, Dr. Paul.
How are you this morning?
I'm doing a lot better than the marketplace.
The market's hurting.
And I'm going to make a couple of comments on there because that's one of the things I do when I wake up.
I look for news and I look for the news related to the marketplace.
And today's, if you're looking for entertainment, there's a lot of entertainment, but if you're losing a lot of money, it's not so much entertainment.
But, you know, I asked a very good friend who is a very good economist and a very good libertarian and a gold bug.
I say, what's the first thing you look at when you wake up in the morning?
This is the gold price.
And, you know, I have to confess, that's pretty much on top of my list.
What's gold doing?
But I try to avoid saying, what's the gold price?
I want to say, what is the dollar doing?
And the dollar in relationship to gold, dollars way down.
Even though if you look at the index on the dollar, you know, it's not changing much.
All the other currencies are just sort of standing still.
But when you're measuring it by the precious metals, all of a sudden there's some serious things going on there.
Stocks are responding to the news.
And today, the Dow is probably close to 600, down, 600 points, which has scared people.
Now, the thing, the news that scared people was a shift in attitude just like this, because we've heard for weeks and months, you know, full employment, 2.5%, 3% unemployment, and we can't find workers.
Today, it's just like a switch.
They turn it on, and now they're, all of a sudden they found out that a lot of people aren't quitting their jobs and more people are looking for things which just changed attitudes and changed the market.
So some of those numbers were just unbelievable about, you know, there was nobody out of work and everybody, it was, I think they fudged the numbers and made it look better than it really was.
And that helped keep the stock market up because I believe that almost everything the Fed does is to keep the stock market up and gold down.
And they have been able to do that because gold is symbolic of something really going wrong.
And at times they lose control.
I would think today that they're nervous about the vote that gold is putting out there on what to expect.
But, you know, gold right now is firmly over $2,000.
It's been up and down and up and down over $2,000 for a long time.
But today it seems to be solid.
So that might be an indication that if it's solidly over $2,000, there's going to be a lot more people coming in.
And those central banks who are accumulating gold will say, hey, we better get a little bit more gold at $2,000 rather than if the market, which we have to respect, they could drive it up much more if they're in the business of accumulating gold.
But the markets are really rocking right now.
And there's going to be a lot of money lost.
And those who understand Austrian economics are always wondering if there will ever be and if there will be a win, and that is the crack up boom, where people get really nervous.
I mean, we have recessions coming to, we have depressions, but the crack of boom is what happens in countries like Venezuela and Zimbabwe, where people just don't want the cash anymore.
I don't think we're on the verge of that, but the conditions are set where that could happen.
And that's why people are often nervous about it and starting to look to alternatives.
So it's a rough situation.
And I think the number one cause of this instability is the fact that we're working worldwide like we never had before with an international reserve standard.
And there's no definition to it.
No definition to the money.
So you can't build a sound economy if there's no definition of the unit of account.
So all these measurements are fake.
They fake the interest rates, and that misleads people.
So it's been a gross distortion.
So I'm not a bit surprised that all of a sudden unemployment rates are 2.3 or 3%, and then all of a sudden they start skyrocketing and people panic because there's a lot of deception out there.
And did you know, Daniel, that governments will deceive the people?
And sometimes they even deceive the people on foreign policy.
So, well, we need to get away for the moment on the markets, even though everybody's involved in the markets.
And I understand we have a couple subjects today to go over.
Maybe Sanctions Are Hurting00:14:36
Well, it's appropriate that you mentioned deception because that might be a little bit too strong of a word.
But you remember back when Kevin McCarthy was struggling to become Speaker of the House.
I forget how many votes there were, but there were plenty of votes.
He couldn't quite squeak through, couldn't squeak through.
He finally squeaked through.
But while he was struggling, remember he played the tough guy.
He said, we will have no more blank check for Ukraine.
We're not going to keep flushing this money down the toilet.
We're going to stand up strong.
And it really sent a strong signal, and it may well have put him over the edge.
And we have our friend Kelly Vlajos, who we've known for a long time.
We can put this first clip up to thank for letting us know the unhappy news that he is changing his tune a little bit.
And Kelly writes in Responsible Statecraft that Speaker McCarthy drops, quote, blank check for full support of Ukraine aid.
He took a little trip over to Israel, and I guess he was feeling his oats over there because he started being more of a tough guy again.
Let's put this next one up.
Here's what he said.
Here's what he's saying now, after he originally was cautious.
I vote for aid for Ukraine.
I support aid for Ukraine, he said, responding to a question from a Russian reporter.
So that is definitely walking it back.
And if you go back, I will remind everyone what he did say.
And he was actually very accurate, Dr. Paul, and it goes with what you started in the opening segment on the market update.
If you can go to the next one, he says, Kelly writes, this is a bit of a tone shift for the Republican leader, at least since October when his party was embroiled in a tight race for dominance in the elections, and inflation was a hot topic.
Now, here's what he said back then.
I think people are going to be sitting in a recession, and they're not going to write a blank check to Ukraine.
They just won't do it.
It's not a free blank check.
So it seems like he was right at the time.
I don't know, how did he change his tune, do you think?
Well, I think he's confused a bit.
And I think he is, just like people get confused about the unit of account and we don't have one, they do dumb things.
But when you have an interventionist foreign policy and you're very powerful and you have a central bank that can print as much money as they want, you're going to make many mistakes and you're going to overextend.
And it's been a history all the way back to Roman days.
That's how the Roman Empire came down.
They overextended their foreign adventurism.
And I think it's interesting, and you've already brought it up, the similarity.
This thing this morning was a big, sudden shift in attitude from we have too many workers, and nobody, we don't have enough workers when we're looking for them.
And all of a sudden, now there's a shortage of workers.
And it happens so fast.
But I think intervention leads to this.
And I think that when you get politicians in it, even the foreign policy is up and down and has not said, you know, we're non-interventionists.
People say it, but we're not going to go and we're not going to tell other people what to do.
And I think what happens is the leadership who might be talking about policy and they have to say one thing over here and one thing over here.
That's one thing that made me very comfortable and I didn't have to keep note.
What did I say to that guy?
Yeah, exactly.
What did I say to this group?
What did I promise them?
Well, I think people want the truth, even if the truth is a little harsh.
I think ultimately, except when it nibbles away their income check from the government, then all of a sudden you have some competition.
Yeah, for sure.
Well, this, you know, this is, we didn't pick this one to pick on McCarthy necessarily, but what I think it says is a few things.
First of all, it says the fact that when he was in a struggle for that position, when they were a struggle for taking over the House, he knew where Republican voters were.
He knew they didn't have a taste for endless war spending, and that's why he mouthed those words.
Sadly, now it shows that even though he knows it, he doesn't care much about where they are.
But I think this kind of reversion to mean after this is kind of a symbol of what the old guard is doing, the old line Republicans.
And that's what I think McCarthy represents here.
And I think that, I hate to be too optimistic, but I think that might be coming to an end.
And I think he might be developing a tin ear when it comes to his own rank and file.
And in fact, this is what Kelly wrote.
If you could put that next one on.
She said, but McCarthy's seeming shift comes two weeks after a group of 19 Republicans sent a letter to Biden saying they would no longer support unconditional aid to Ukraine and that future packages would have to come with a clear strategy for ending the war.
It doesn't say winning, ending the war.
And this is not going to surprise you, Dr. Paul.
These 19 were led by three senators, Senator Paul, Senator Lee, and Senator JD Vance, who we put on yesterday.
They led the pack.
A lot of Republicans in the House signed on.
You say 19, that's not really much.
That's a good start.
That's a heck of a good start, especially when that margins in the House are very thin and very narrow.
That 19 is important, and it shows the thinking, a shift in thinking of what I would say are the new line of Republicans.
And we have some polling info that I'll show later that plays it out.
You know, I think the coalition is growing because there was another foreign policy vote just recently, and it was like 50 Republicans and 50 Democrats.
We talked about that yesterday.
Yeah, I put that.
And that to me was very encouraging.
Like I said, it used to be three here and three there.
And even the fact that the Speaker, when he was campaigning for his job, had to respond to a sentiment.
I mean, there is a sentiment now out there that is taking a different position.
That's good.
Yeah.
Well, here is that poll, and Kelly linked to it in her piece.
This is a Brookings Ipsos poll that just came out a couple of days ago, if you can put that next one up.
We love polls around here, at least I do, maybe I'm just simple-minded, but I like looking at pictures.
Americans show signs of impatience with Ukraine war.
That came out just a couple of days ago on Friday, a new poll that Brookings and Ipsos did.
The results are pretty, not surprising, but they're pretty obvious.
Let's put up this next one.
I just took a couple of questions out from this.
Which of the following should be the primary U.S. objective in Ukraine?
And they asked Republicans, Democrats, and everyone together.
Okay, so what is the primary objective?
Help Ukrainians liberate all the territories occupied by Russia.
Only 12% of Republicans believe that should be our objective.
And even more shockingly in a way, only 23% of Democrats believe that.
Now, help Ukraine return to the status quo that preceded the Russian invasion.
Only 20% of Republicans and only 26% of Democrats agree with that.
Prevent Russian expansionism?
Only 16% of Republicans and 18% of Democrats.
Weaken or defeat Russia, you go down to 9% and 10%, respectively, of Republicans, Democrats.
A tiny, minuscule number of people.
And Brookings, let's not forget, is a very pro-war think tank.
So they are probably sweating when they're looking at these numbers.
But you can see an absolute abandonment of support for this Ukraine adventure.
And let's do the next one.
I have just two more, Dr. Paul, if you don't mind.
How do you feel about the current level of U.S. military expenditure in support of Ukraine?
It's too much.
Republicans, 50%.
Democrats are only 13%, but you might say it's never too much, no matter what.
And it's too little, only 8% of Republicans.
So if McCarthy is looking at this poll, which I would recommend he does, he would know that 50% say way too much is being spent on Ukraine, and only 8% says, please spend more, please give a blank check.
And about the right level, you only have 20% of Republicans and half, around half of Democrats saying that we're spending the right.
So overall, Republicans are way sick.
Republican voters are way sick of what's happening.
And let's look at the shift over time, Dr. Paul, because this is also dramatic.
If you put on this last one, it is, how much of a cost are you prepared to see the U.S. pay in helping Ukraine?
High energy prices?
Well, Democrats back in last October, 80%, sure, sure, we'll pay gas prices.
Boom, it's down to 65%.
Republicans from 48% in October.
I'm willing to pay high energy prices.
Boom, down to 34%.
More inflation?
Republicans went from 44 to 34.
And Democrats more dramatically from 74 only to 60.
And when you talk about the loss of lives of troops, that's way, way, way, way down and decreasing.
So the trends are all toward America being sick of Ukraine.
That's the good news.
The trend is right.
Because in a way, I'm disappointed.
Why aren't they like 10%?
Just 10%.
But anyway, that is good.
And I think this is what you're reciting here is a reflection of the attitude of the people.
And I've always argued that you can't quite get away with doing anything, especially when you're trying to cut back on government, unless the people understand it or they'll only cling to their desires and their handouts.
But right now, I guess this is also a reflection of a practical matter that maybe they think the government might run out of, out of their ability to keep passing this out.
There's numbers coming out for Medicare and Medicaid.
The trillions of dollars.
People, well, they can't deal with that because you can't even visualize a trillion dollars.
Well, my check will be there next month.
They're trying to get that budget deal done because they say on June 1st now, there's going to be a default, which is not true because it never happened before.
Besides, the default is going on.
If their prices are going up to live, the default is there because they're taking away the value of the money.
Yeah.
Well, let's move on.
You know, the old guard may be slipping, but they're not gone.
And this is our next story from our friends at anti-war, Dave DeCamp.
Tell us exactly what's going on.
And this smacks of desperation.
Thank you.
Lawmakers introduced a bill to make law authorizing Iran sanctions permanent.
Essentially, what it is, it's a way to remove the sunset, which means that the House doesn't have to revote every year on the 1996 Iran Sanctions Act.
Key word being 1996, because it's a few years since then.
What has it achieved?
Zero, nothing.
But they want to make it permanent.
They want to call it the Solidifying Iran Sanction Act.
Essentially, that just drives Iran into the trading arms of Russia and China and increasingly now Saudi Arabia.
Because, you know, this great rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia, we are basically just lighting a fire to all of our potential markets in the Middle East.
See, this was passed under Clinton.
Yeah.
But one thing is that they had to throw a bone to a few in there that said, this isn't open-ended.
Oh, we won't make it open-ended.
We'll have a sunset clause.
And then they always just renew it.
And this is coming up for renewal.
And now there's some resistance.
But the opposition, like you say, the establishment hasn't given up yet.
So they want to repeal that provision of a sunset provision.
But I wanted to mention Janet Yellen.
Yeah, she's involved in it.
Has an interesting thing.
And from this article, it says that the introduction of the legislation comes after Treasury Secretary Yellen.
Reno, who we don't want to talk about.
It's a different one.
Janet Yellen acknowledged that the U.S. sanctions on Iran have caused a real economic crisis, but haven't changed the behavior of the government.
Maybe the sanctions are doing little but hurting order.
Here she's been chairman of the Fed, now she's the secret of the Treasury.
She should have tremendous cloud.
But what are they going to do with her?
Just ignore her.
Because she's slipping it up there that maybe this is not, I don't know where she's coming from that.
Maybe in her younger age or something, maybe she came across interesting things on the market.
Maybe, maybe she, yeah.
But, you know, she's saying, hey, it's not working, but let's keep doing it.
Don't stop.
All right, Ms. Yellen.
Well, let's do a final one on this one, and this is from the article, because I think this is indicative of what the rest of the world is just tired of.
And Michael McCall, who, as we both say, is not an unpleasant person, and he's misidentified here as being from California.
He's from Texas.
But the bill was introduced by Michael Steele, Republican from California, and co-sponsors include the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Michael McCall from Texas.
Of course, a mega hawk.
He likes war almost as much as Lindsey Graham.
But here's what McCall said that I put this up because I think this is indicative of what the rest of the world is sick of.
He says, this bill takes the long, overdue step of striking the arbitrary sunset from the law so that sanctions will only be lifted if Iran stops its threatening behavior.
First of all, what is it threatening?
Is Iran building a base in Mexico?
Is it cut some submarines off our coast?
It's not threatening to the United States whatsoever.
But this whole idea of the U.S. wagging its finger, you better behave better, you better behave better to sovereign nations.
Oh, this won't apply to us.
Yeah, that's right.
It's not going to apply to us.
We're not allowed to threaten anybody.
Threatened behavior.
And yeah, we're the lecturers, and we are the ones who taught the real professionals how to install, you know, put on sanctions and threats backed up by bombs and the military-industrial complex.
Navy's Civil Liberties Boost00:07:01
Yeah, we'll be sure.
Yeah, before we move to our last story, which is a real humdinger, I have to say, I do want to say I'm glad you have heard that our good friends at 4patriots.com have decided to sponsor the show for May, and we do appreciate their sponsorship.
It allows us to continue doing the show.
And they wanted us to let you know that there's a new report out.
The government is warning of a known safety threat that poisons Americans, hundreds of Americans, thousands of Americans each year, and even worse.
And this is a terrible story.
Craig didn't know his wife and kids were going to die that night.
He tried to do the right thing during Hurricane Ida.
He bought a gas generator and fired it up.
But during the night, deadly carbon monoxide seeped out of the gas generator and into Craig's home.
It poisoned Craig's wife and two children in their sleep, fire officials said.
The sad part is Craig isn't alone.
It's even worse, Craig's tragedy didn't have to happen at all.
Thanks to a new generation of portable, safe, silent, and 100% fume-free generators, they are now available to all Americans, even those who think they might not be able to afford it.
4Patriots.com has the Patriot Power Generator, and you're looking at it on your screen right now.
It's a solar generator that doesn't use gas, so it doesn't have fumes.
And instead of being loud, it's quiet as a laptop.
It's lightweight.
You can take it with you.
You can even use it outside.
It's powerful enough for your phones, your medical devices, or even your fridge.
And we have a picture of the fridge up there.
And right now you can go to 4patriots.com, the number 4patriots.com, and use the code RON to get 10% off your first purchase on anything in the store.
Get a generator, get some food, get anything you want over at 4patriots.com.
We will put a link in there, but use the code again, RON, to get 10% off that order.
And of course, free shipping on all orders 97 and above.
I will add that link when we're done.
Dr. Paul, let's talk about the Navy.
It looks like the Navy is the Bud Light of military services.
If we can put this next clip up, I saw this on the Daily Caller, and even though it was late, I just had to send it over to you because I don't know what's going on, Dr. Paul.
It feels like this is, I don't recognize the world whatsoever anymore.
And in fact, I have to make a confession online.
I even once was very close to joining the Navy, the Naval Reserves, a long time ago.
U.S. Navy used Drag Queen Influencer to attract a wide range of new troops as recruitment plummets.
Gee, I wonder why.
So this guy, whatever, however they identify, this is an active duty sailor.
This guy's on a submarine, wherever he is.
He licensed herself up as a woman and put on a drag show.
And the Navy said, you know what, that's a neat idea.
That's going to attract a lot of young patriotic Americans to join the Navy.
The person that did the ad for Bud Light, if she were, you know, more astute and up to speed, this problem started before Bud Lightning.
And, you know, and they should have questioned it because this is just not sudden that the recruiting is down.
The recruiting is down because of the nonsense going on in the military.
So what do they do?
They want to boost it up more.
So they're sort of like treating inflation with inflation.
So the Drag Queen episode, you know, gets less people interested in being in the Navy or the Marines or whatever.
And now they're going to see it worse.
I don't think, do you think this whole story is going to have people say, well, you know, jobs might get hard to take them.
I guess I better join.
Who happens to disavow the nonsense that go on and the morality that is associated with all this drag queen stuff.
I have some good friends that are in the Navy and they're patriotic Americans and there are a lot of good people in there.
They're going to be astonished and disgusted by this.
We should clarify, though.
We don't care what this guy does in his spare time.
We're not criticizing what he chooses to do.
That's his business.
It's not our business.
But we have to look at from the objective stance of why do we have a Navy?
What should they be doing?
And if they need to recruit people, is this the best way to do it?
I think some boomer went back to the 70s and watched that in the Navy video from that one group.
And they thought, you know, this might be a nice idea to do something like this, the village people.
And I just don't know.
I don't think it's going to work.
Well, hopefully, this story will wake up a couple people here and there and put it all together because it looks like government management, whether it's even for the military, with probably some good intentions for by some of them, they're defending civil liberties.
But I think they're a little bit confused about what civil liberty is all about.
They believe that you protect civil liberties by taking away the liberty from the majority of the people.
You know, because 1% want certain things, and they say, well, the 98 have to be prohibited from doing anything at all.
So it's all a consequence of an authoritarian government trying to sort all this out, even with the good intention.
They want to do this and make things all fair and hunky-dory.
It just doesn't work.
Freedom is a much better choice.
Yeah, and the numbers are there.
Let's do it.
Let's skip ahead to the one where it says Yeoman Second Class.
I think it's a two-ahead.
Skip those next two.
I mean, I'm old enough that I remember watching MASH where you could dress up as a woman and get out of the military.
That looks like that may be a ticket into the military.
Yeoman Second Class Joshua Kelly, whose stage name is Harvey Daniels, announced that the Navy invited him to become the first Navy digital ambassador, and that was back in last November.
So he is a digital ambassador to make the Navy more appealing to Americans.
I don't think it's working.
If you could put the next one on, I don't know.
Someone's missed the boat here.
The Navy is seeking to boost its size to 347 officers and enlisted sailors in 2024, up from the current 341, according to the Navy Times.
Well, the service squeaked by its recruiting targets for fiscal year 2022.
It did so by delving deep into the delayed entry pool, a program that allows people to accept contracts but remain on hold before shipping out to boot camp, according to the press release.
Now, this is the part that I highlighted.
The Navy is projected to fall 16% or 6,000 recruits short of its fiscal year 2023 goal for enlisted sailors.
So they are in the dumps.
They can't recruit anyone.
They're going to fall consistently below their goal.
Yet their idea to how to fix this problem, let's just say it this way, Dr. Paul, it's a little different than the idea that you and I would use to get people to go into the Navy.
Well, the next thing will come will be to really boost the enlistment bonuses.
Yeah, yeah, the money is, yeah.
Yeah, just give them more money.
And the re-enlistment, you know, before when we had problems not as serious as they are now, it was just don't leave yet.
We have you and we'll just give you a bigger re-enlistment bonus.
And that's what they'll do.
And it's all paper.
I think they haven't run out of the paper.
Besides, they can use a computer to give them their electronic check.
Boosting Enlistment Bonuses00:03:08
But no, I think this is a sad situation.
What's happening there?
And, you know, nobody's against the good national defense.
But this cannot contribute to at least my idea of a good national defense would be much smaller.
And I don't call it real defense.
I call it militarism.
So having, and now the Republicans and others are starting to say, you know, going into Ukraine, spending a lot of money and selling weapons and helping the military industrial complex, how's it helping our national security?
Then they introduced these hiring procedures and the image of the military.
It doesn't look good.
And yet, the people who are annoyed by it, I think they really outnumber this crowd that does this.
And it just takes a while for people to get activated enough to resist it.
The resistance here is going to be people who don't want to join.
I mean, that's the personal resistance that we'll see.
Yeah.
Well, I'm going to close out, Dr. Paul, if you're ready.
Just to remind our viewers, if we can put on that final clip, again, of our June 3rd Houston conference.
It's a nice time to come out.
It's going to be at a beautiful hotel.
And as I mentioned earlier, our friend Jordan Schachtel will be one of the speakers.
He writes the post, The Dossier.
He's a great speaker.
He was terrific during COVID.
He really helped us through that mess with all of his great reporting.
But he's also very good on foreign policy restraint, on government.
In fact, you can go to, I think he gave a recent speech at Hillsdale College that you might want to check out if you're wondering whether you want to see Jordan speak and meet him in person.
But there will be a couple of other great speakers.
Dr. Paul, I heard you're going to be doing some speaking there, and everyone loves to hear that.
I better start preparing my notes.
Well, this topic is inspired by you on nihilism.
And I'll be giving a talk and we'll have some other guests coming.
So it'll be a fun half-day conference.
Gonna have a great breakfast buffet in the morning, get all tanked up on coffee and sausages and hear some great speeches and meet some great people.
So I will add a link here to how you can get your tickets or just find out more about the event.
You know, we talk about liberty in segments, you know, economic liberty, personal liberty, foreign policy that would protect our liberty.
And when I think of these and I need to discuss them or write something about it, I think, how do I pull it all together?
And I still like the word volunteerism, you know, because if you have socially, if two sides have to, you know, come together voluntarily and economically, that's what it's all about.
But this whole idea that you have to assume the government's going to regulate prices and conditions and everything else, it's not voluntarism.
It is authoritarianism coming from a bunch of bureaucrats and the special interests.
And that is the big problem.
So we will be there at the conference.
I'm looking forward to this.
And I will probably talk about volunteerism as well.