Thursday, April 23, 2015
Cash Flowed to Clinton Foundation as Russians Pressed for Control of Uranium Company
The headline in Pravda trumpeted President Vladimir V. Putin’s latest coup, its nationalistic fervor recalling an era when the newspaper served as the official mouthpiece of the Kremlin: “Russian Nuclear Energy Conquers the World.”
The article, in January 2013, detailed how the Russian atomic energy agency, Rosatom, had taken over a Canadian company with uranium-mining stakes stretching from Central Asia to the American West. The deal made Rosatom one of the world’s largest uranium producers and brought Mr. Putin closer to his goal of controlling much of the global uranium supply chain.
But the untold story behind that story is one that involves not just the Russian president, but also a former American president and a woman who would like to be the next one.
At the heart of the tale are several men, leaders of the Canadian mining industry, who have been major donors to the charitable endeavors of former President Bill Clinton and his family. Members of that group built, financed and eventually sold off to the Russians a company that would become known as Uranium One.
Beyond mines in Kazakhstan that are among the most lucrative in the world, the sale gave the Russians control of one-fifth of all uranium production capacity in the United States. Since uranium is considered a strategic asset, with implications for national security, the deal had to be approved by a committee composed of representatives from a number of United States government agencies. Among the agencies that eventually signed off was the State Department, then headed by Mr. Clinton’s wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Wednesday, April 22, 2015
Jeb Bush praises Obama over NSA spying
Jeb Bush, a likely presidential contender, said Tuesday that President Obama’s greatest accomplishment was keeping in place controversial spying programs at the National Security Agency.
“I would say the best part of the Obama administration would be his continuance of the protections of the homeland using the big metadata programs,” Bush said in an interview on the Michael Medved radio show.
Bush argued the NSA programs had been “enhanced” under Obama, even if the president “never defends them or openly admits it.”
The former Florida governor said the NSA’s bulk collection of Americans’ phone data was “an important service” carried out in a way that protects individual civil liberties.
He lauded the Obama administration for refusing to buckle under pressure from Democrats, civil liberties groups and some Republicans.
“He has not abandoned them,” Bush said.
Critics of the NSA programs say they’re a massive affront to individual privacy, while defenders say they’re a critical tool in uncovering and combating terrorism.
The issue has revealed an early split among some Republican presidential contenders.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who has long been a critic of the programs, sued the Obama administration last year over the bulk collection of phone records.
What Rand Paul is doing is more important than trying to be a pure libertarian
Brian Doherty’s New York Times op-ed bemoaning what he sees as Rand Paul’s lack of libertarian principle reflects genuine frustration from libertarians with Sen. Paul. Doherty is by no means alone in his frustration among libertarians.
But he is missing a much larger and more important point.
Right now, libertarian ideas are arguably under more serious consideration than ever before in our culture and politics. Americans fed up with big government but also not finding either of the major parties attractive, or their conventional leaders attractive, are looking for new answers and better leaders.
People are looking for something different.
The fact that a “libertarianish” Republican like Rand Paul is even a credible presidential candidate is a significant part of this trend. That Paul is scaring the bejeezus out of the most anti-libertarian factions of the establishment left and right at the moment, should be a pretty good indication of his effectiveness.
That Rand Paul merely exists, as a political force representing a relatively brand-new faction within the GOP, but also as a transpartisan figure that continues to try to turn the whole left-right paradigm on its head—is also a pretty big deal for libertarians.
FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver recently analyzed how though few Americans label themselves as libertarians, sizable portions and perhaps even emerging majorities hold libertarian views on everything from the size of government to issues like gay marriage.
Tuesday, April 21, 2015
Wisconsin’s Shame: ‘I Thought It Was a Home Invasion’
‘THEY CAME WITH A BATTERING RAM.” Cindy Archer, one of the lead architects of Wisconsin’s Act 10 — also called the “Wisconsin Budget Repair Bill,” it limited public-employee benefits and altered collective-bargaining rules for public-employee unions — was jolted awake by yelling, loud pounding at the door, and her dogs’ frantic barking. The entire house — the windows and walls — was shaking.
She looked outside to see up to a dozen police officers, yelling to open the door. They were carrying a battering ram.
She wasn’t dressed, but she started to run toward the door, her body in full view of the police. Some yelled at her to grab some clothes, others yelled for her to open the door.
“I was so afraid,” she says. “I did not know what to do.” She grabbed some clothes, opened the door, and dressed right in front of the police. The dogs were still frantic.
“I begged and begged, ‘Please don’t shoot my dogs, please don’t shoot my dogs, just don’t shoot my dogs.’ I couldn’t get them to stop barking, and I couldn’t get them outside quick enough. I saw a gun and barking dogs. I was scared and knew this was a bad mix.”
She got the dogs safely out of the house, just as multiple armed agents rushed inside. Some even barged into the bathroom, where her partner was in the shower. The officer or agent in charge demanded that Cindy sit on the couch, but she wanted to get up and get a cup of coffee.
“I told him this was my house and I could do what I wanted.” Wrong thing to say. “This made the agent in charge furious. He towered over me with his finger in my face and yelled like a drill sergeant that I either do it his way or he would handcuff me.”
Monday, April 20, 2015
Mr. Libertarian Walter Block Endorses Rand Paul for President
Whether he wanted it or not, US Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) now has the backing of one of libertarianism’s most strident and prominent academics as he campaigns for the presidency. Walter Block, the longtime anarcho-libertarian and Austrian-school economist, released a 1,400-word comment via Facebook this Saturday evening, entitled “The Libertarian Case for Rand Paul.”
“I stand with Rand,” he wrote, “and I urge my fellow libertarians, particularly those who have been most dismissive of him, to reconsider their position on this man.”
Block, a tenured professor at Loyola University New Orleans, believes that his own “libertarian credentials are about as good, among the living, as anyone else’s on the planet.” Lew Rockwell, founder and chairman of the Mises Institute, has dubbed him Mr. Libertarian, and commitment is not a matter of debate for the author of Defending the Undefendable (1976). Block’s uncompromising and combative style has earned him the sarcastic moniker of “the moderate.”
Walter “the moderate” Block claims to have been a libertarian since 1963, and that his “libertarian credentials are about as good, among the living, as anyone else’s on the planet.”
Rand Paul’s latest endorsement comes from Walter “the moderate” Block, who claims to have been a libertarian since 1963. Block says his “libertarian credentials are about as good, among the living, as anyone else’s on the planet.”