Dave Benner

On the eve of his second inauguration, President-elect Donald Trump promised to declassify all federal documents related to the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King.

In his first term, Trump promised the declassification of the John F. Kennedy files but stopped short of doing just that. It has been alleged that the reason for this was that former CIA Director Mike Pompeo urged him not to, and alleging doing so would threaten national security. In the end, the president released some additional documents but not all that exist, compounding speculation doing so meant US involvement.

Indeed, the findings of the Warren Commission and the official US narrative of the JFK assassination have been criticized for years, and several published narratives contradict the official story. Moreover, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has said publicly that the information he has been exposed to confirms the CIA was involved in his uncle’s murder.

At times, RFK Jr. has also claimed that the CIA was involved in his father’s assassination and has suggested that his father’s assassin, Sirhan Sirhan, may not have acted alone. To justify this view, he has said that discrepancies in Cesar’s stories related to his firearms have led him to believe that Thane Eugene Cesar, a security guard who RFK Jr. says was a CIA asset, was the likely culprit.

Regardless of which narrative one believes about the Kennedy assassinations, enough questions linger more than 50 years after both events happened, after the death of nearly all prominent figures involved.

The chance to learn more about the Martin Luther King Jr. assassination is perhaps even more intriguing than either of the Kennedys. The FBI’s relentless harassment campaign of the civil rights leader has become public knowledge in recent years, but many of the details about it have remained tightly guarded for decades.

Agency director J. Edgar Hoover branded King “the most notorious liar in the country,” and wiretapped him without a warrant for over a year. The project culminated in a decision to draft a letter to King—authored by Deputy FBI Director William Sullivan—which revealed knowledge of the civil rights leaders’ adulterous affairs and urged him to commit suicide.

In 1999, a civil jury even agreed that a conspiracy by Memphis mobster Frank Liberto and restaurant owner Loyd Jowers was responsible for King’s death, and the King family has maintained that the information they have seen leads them to conclude the FBI did the deed.

A federal judge ordered the FBI’s surveillance tapes on King sealed until 2027, and it remains unclear as to whether those or other documents are the ones Trump plans on releasing. In either case, though, Americans will probably finally get additional answers when it comes to the FBI’s ruthless assault on King’s rights and his death.

Without Pompeo and the most villainous creatures of the deep state to stand in his way, Trump has a real opportunity to change the course of history by declassifying the documents he has promised.

That alone is great news for any dissident, but the greatest benefit is the precedent it may create. A release of this type may justify and lead to future releases of the same kind, potentially unleashing a new era of transparency in government that we have never witnessed before.

Incoming FBI Director Kash Patel—who has supported the creation of a full-time declassification unit—may also encourage the government to abandon the past obsession with secrecy in favor of such an approach.

Above all, Trump’s decision to declassify documents related to the three most controversial political assassinations of the last century is a big step forward for liberty. Beyond shedding light on the past—especially the crimes of the US deep state—it could push the federal government in a more transparent direction.

Tulsi Gabbard recent made headlines when she announced a stunning turnabout on FISA Section 702. “Section 702,” she now says, “is crucial for gathering foreign intelligence on non-US persons abroad,” and such a “unique capability cannot be replicated and must be safeguarded to protect our nation while ensuring the civil liberties of Americans.”

The program—which permits the federal government to wiretap Americans without warrants—has long been controversial among libertarians and opponents of the deep state. The topic recently made waves when Congress extended Section 702 in April of 2024. John Ratcliffe, Trump’s selection to head the CIA, has also supported extending the program.

But what’s behind her sudden change of heart? Apparently, Gabbard’s confirmation as the Director of National Intelligence is being held up by several Republican senators who view the program’s preservation as a litmus test. Without the required votes to confirm the appointment, Trump would have to decide whether to attempt to place Gabbard into the position via a recess appointment or choose an alternative nominee.

The Fourth Amendment guarantee of “the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects” must not be taken lightly. In fact, one of the controversies that convinced the American colonies to secede from the British crown was violations of warrantless searches and seizures. “Writs of assistance,” as they were known then, allowed British agents to search property without warrants to crack down on smuggling. In the 1761 episode of “Paxton’s case,” patriot firebrand James Otis famously argued that the scheme violated England’s constitutional system. Though his argument failed to sway the court, a young John Adams observed the oratory and later remarked that “then and there the child Independence was born.”

It was no surprise, then, when Congress adopted—and the states ratified—a rigid constitutional amendment to prevent the federal government from searching and seizing the possessions of Americans without probable cause and a warrant. This is the timeless purpose of the Fourth Amendment, one of the most crucial vestiges of privacy rights in our political system.

As we all know, that safeguard has vanished in modern times. Many programs and agencies are responsible, such as COINTELPRO and the NSA, but FISA Section 702 has also opened the doorway to abuses by allowing intelligence services to conduct warrantless surveillance on any American who communicated with a non-US citizen who becomes a target of the program. As Ron Paul noted, FISA Section 702 has become the surveillance state’s “crown jewel.”

So what should be done about Tulsi Gabbard’s prospective confirmation and the immediate situation? The most reasonable response involves blasting FISA Section 702 as a blatantly unconstitutional tool of the federal police state, criticizing Gabbard herself for the policy reversal, blasting the devious Republican senators withholding their support for her, and for GOP leaders and donors to threaten to withhold their own support from them.

If it comes to it, holding a floor vote that rejects Gabbard’s nomination would also be red meat for those wanting to take out the deep state’s favorite Republicans. In addition, Trump could also consider restructuring the intelligence hierarchy to make an unappointed bureaucrat with similar powers, using a recess appointment to place her into the position, and/or leaving the National Director of Intelligence office vacant. Furthermore, the states could revive legislation that threatens to cut water and electricity to the buildings of intelligence agencies that reside within them, such as the plan Maryland entertained in 2014.

None of the above tactics are mutually exclusive, and all benefit opponents of the deep state more than merely withholding criticism from any or all parties involved and hoping for the best. Americans cannot afford to let Trump’s electoral mandate, which included pledges to challenge the state that framed him for treason, to be overcome by feckless senators and Gabbard’s willingness to play the political game and make indefensible sacrifices for power.

Whether one attributes blame to the US security apparatus, the Republican senators in question, or Gabbard herself—the flip on FISA Section 702 is a terrible sign that is likely to have implications for Trump’s other cabinet members and advisors. The threat of establishment Republicans withholding their support to preserve tyrannical programs, power structures, and bureaucratic power is a real threat, and it’s safe to say we haven’t seen the end of it.

In his Farewell Address, George Washington announced it was US policy “to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world.” Similarly, Thomas Jefferson declared that “peace, commerce, and honest friends will all nations, entangling alliances with none” should be the American creed.

In our modern times, this view has been most famously articulated by Ron Paul, who stood tall in the 2008 Republican presidential debates and professed that “they attack us because we’ve been over there.”

Despite how well these sentiments have aged, they have gone completely ignored by America’s modern political class, and the recent New Orleans terrorist attack is just the latest reminder of that fact.

According to several reports, New Orleans bomber Shamsud-Din Jabbar, who killed 14 people and injured more than 30 others on Bourbon Street, professed support for ISIS.

Jabber, an army veteran from Texas, placed two improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and drove his pickup truck into a crowd just as jubilant people were celebrating the New Year.

Mere hours before the attack, he posted on Facebook that he had joined the organization, and originally considered killing his family, but did not think it would benefit the “war between believers and unbelievers.”

ISIS, a terrorist organization that traces its origins to Al-Qaeda in Iraq, was largely created by the US. This is because the US war against Iraq—which toppled Saddam’s regime and created a power vacuum—encouraged radical Arabs from the Middle East to converge on the country. The prolonged occupation of Iraq allowed ISIS to form and grow into the institution it is today. Simply put, ISIS is blowback for the reckless foreign policy project that was the US invasion of Iraq.

If ISIS’ presence in Iraq wasn’t enough, the US encouraged it to develop into an international terrorist organization beginning in 2014 through its involvement in Syria, which began with targeted bombings and was followed by a ground invasion. Even after the Assad regime fell last month, the US still occupies one-third of the country.

Whatever Jabbar’s motivations, and regardless of how involved he was in the organization, it’s clear that he could never have been magnetized to ISIS or its mission without the decades of senseless US military excursions in the Middle East.

ISIS, just like Al-Qaeda before it, was the product of US military intervention. This is understood by anyone who follows foreign policy closely. Still, the CIA, corporate media, and military-industrial complex continue to use these organizations as justifications for more wars, more regime change operations, more bombing campaigns, and more overseas bases. Ironically, the US presence in the region creates the very problems the war machine purports to solve. The only difference this time is it manifested domestically.

It’s not likely that the US empire will be abandoned anytime soon, and Trump’s recent foreign policy appointments seem only to confirm that fact. Nevertheless, until the war machine’s aspirations for conquest and world domination are ended the American people will suffer. The deaths will continue to rise, the national debt will continue to grow, and the dollar will continue to be debased to finance this madness.

And on top of all of it, innocents will pay the price in the US—as they did on New Year’s Eve—as a consequence of US foreign policy blunders. So much for the old neocon slogan, “We have to kill them over there so they can’t kill us over here.”

To our peril, the empire remains, and the blowback will continue until it is given up. We can cling to hope that it will be confined to some obscure corner of the world, but the New Orleans incident—just like 9/11—proves it doesn’t always work that way. As our rulers continue to ignore the lessons of the past, Washington, Jefferson, and Paul’s warnings on the dangers of entangling alliances seem all the more wise.

If there’s one thing dissidents know best, it’s the sad truth that the average person has little sway over national politics. Washington, D.C. is teeming with national lobbies, deep state bureaucrats, and corporate media propagandists. The representative ratio of Congressmen to constituents is now 1 to 750,000, and even a personal conversation with one’s representative is a rare occasion.

That said, sometimes the rise of social media breaks the political paradigm in interesting and unprecedented ways. One such occasion unfolded last week, where one of president-elect Donald Trump’s prospective nominees was completely undermined by the concerted uproar of the masses.

It all started when Trump announced he was appointing Chad Chronister to head the DEA on November 30. Taking issue with this, the Libertarian Party of Mississippi took to X to rebuke the decision. As it turned out, Chronister played a major role in his state’s iron-handed COVID regime as a Florida sheriff. Most controversially, he arrested Rodney Howard-Browne, a pastor who defied his state’s lockdown policies by holding worship services.

If that wasn’t enough, Chronister boasted about the arrest on social media, claiming the pastor “intentionally and repeatedly disregarded state and local public health orders, which put his congregation and our community in danger.” Furthermore, he posted a press release accusing Howard-Browne of having a “reckless disregard for human life.”

A true adherent of the Church of Fauci, Chronister also used his position to sell the vaccine propaganda to the masses. “Stop listening to the politicians…start listening to the medical professionals and scientists and get vaccinated,” he told a local news station. Thomas Massie quote-tweeted the Libertarian Party of Mississippi’s criticism of Chronister, resulting in 3.9 million additional views. From there, a who’s who of right-wing influencers followed suit, calling Chronister out and criticizing Trump for the selection.

On December 3, news spread that Chronister had withdrawn from consideration for the position. “The gravity of this very important responsibility set in,” he explained on social media, claiming that he had turned down the nomination.

This announcement was a huge cause for celebration for those whose lives were ruined under COVID regime policies, but there was another comical twist. Refusing to let Chronister’s explanation stand, Trump posted on Truth Social that it was actually he who rescinded the appointment. “He didn’t pull out, I pulled him out, because I did not like what he said to my pastors and other supporters,” he wrote. Regardless of what the true story was, we all benefit from a Chronister-free DEA.

Those who have resisted the federal government’s drug war for decades know that the DEA shouldn’t even exist, and its elimination should always be our North Star aim. Even so, it behooves us to admit that Washington’s sinister enforcement schemes would be far less tyrannical if headed by an administrator who exercises discretion—the kind that Chronister lacks.

Short of changing Washington from the inside, working locally to thwart the enforcement of the federal drug enforcement regime has paid the most dividends. The feds have completely lost the plot on marijuana, for instance, where 24 states have openly legalized its use despite rigid federal prohibition laws.

Under the government we have now, it’s easy to become cynical. The banks, military industrial complex, and regulatory agencies direct our domestic and foreign policy with remarkable continuity regardless of who occupies the White House. Making any headway against the leviathan often seems insurmountable, especially from those outside of the political class itself.

At the same time, incidents like this give dissidents hope for the future, and underscore the true potential of online activism and the independent media. The wave of antipathy that was unleashed against Chronister had a palpable effect on the composition of the federal law enforcement regime, and seems to challenge the notion that “social media isn’t real life.”

One of Donald Trump’s most repeated promises to American voters throughout his presidential campaign was that he would settle the war between Russia and Ukraine through diplomacy. At one point, he even claimed he would end the conflict “in 24 hours.” A huge aspiration for antiwar dissidents, these pledges also parallel the general loss of support among Americans for the idea that Russia is an actual threat to the US.

Pew Research Center November 25, 2024

On November 6, the American electorate sent a clear message in alignment with these views when Trump was elected in the biggest US presidential landslide since 2012. President-elect Trump even spent some of his first hours after his victory on the phone with Vladimir Zelenskyy in an attempt to lay the groundwork for a peace deal. Shortly after that, Trump wrote that “both sides will be able to come together and negotiate a deal that ends the violence and paves a path forward to prosperity.”

So how did the Biden regime and the deep state respond to this? First by ignoring it completely, then by doing everything it could to derail any prospective road to peace.

This was first evident on November 8, two days after Trump’s call to Zelenskyy, when the Biden administration lifted a ban on the deployment of US military contractors to Ukraine for the first time since the beginning of the war. While the Pentagon predictably downplayed the decision’s significance, it was yet another step on the long path of increased US involvement in the war since it began.

And it only got worse from there. Far worse.

On November 17, Biden gave the green light for long-range US missile strikes within Russia, an incendiary, direct attack against the country. The first true US-initiated foray into the war came in the form of two ATACMS missile attacks in Kursk, where North Korean troops reinforced their Russian allies.

Perhaps the most ludicrous part of this horrifying roll of the dice against a nuclear power was the blatant admission among US officials that the strikes would not “fundamentally alter the course of the war.” Any reasonable person would ask why the attacks were even authorized in such a case, but the strategic purpose of military excursions is completely irrelevant to the modern war machine.

US involvement in Ukraine, after all, was never designed to bring about success. Instead, it was designed to—as Afghanistan did before it—line the pockets of the military-industrial complex at our expense. Our corrupt foreign policy is even worse in this theater because, unlike others, its operations unfold at the risk of nuclear war.

The lack of significant territorial changes, the system of conscription that enslaves men in Ukraine and Russia, the repression of political dissidents in Ukraine, and $183 billion in aid packages will never dissuade the war regime from its zealous drive to cultivate endless wars. It has a far different incentive structure than moral and rational people.

As the ideal puppet of the deep state, Biden has recklessly expanded the war and tempted Russia to respond in a catastrophic manner. The deeds of the modern war party have made even the coldest of Cold Warriors of the past—many of whom were themselves guilty of war crimes—seem infinitely wise to the threat of nuclear attacks and tempered in their approach to the subject by comparison.

Thankfully, Russian Foreign Affairs Minister Sergey Lavrov seems aware of the political situation in the United States, and called the recent strikes an “attempt to leave as bad a legacy as possible to the next administration.” Still, all antiwar dissidents and opponents of the propaganda machine must now hope that Trump’s call with Putin left assurances that the careless escalation games will not continue under the president-elect’s new administration.

Above all, this sad episode demonstrates how disconnected the federal government is from the average voter, and refutes the fraudulent notion that “our government is a reflection of us.” No, our government is a reflection of the banks and military-industrial complex—both of which profit off of this war at our expense—and has acted contrary to the wishes and interests of American voters. Dissidents have long been aware of this fact, but the deep state’s escalation of Zelenskyy’s fruitless war has revealed it to a new generation of eyes.