TMR: NATO Warships to Enter the Black Sea,Tax Breaks for Tesla, and LA's "Liberty Kids" on Glenn Beck!
It's time to wrap up the week the right way: a healthy dose of liberty delivered to your eyeballs via your Friday edition of The Morning Roar!NATO Warships to Enter Black Sea by September 7While the eyes of the Average American are diverted by staged beheading videos (and another of suspicious origin), a true crisis may be escalating even more in regards to the Russia-Ukraine situation. RT reports that NATO will be sending four warships to the Black Sea by this weekend:
Four NATO warships from US, France, Canada and Spain will reportedly enter Black Sea waters this week, a diplomatic and military source said.USS Ross, an Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer, French Commandant Birot, Canadian HMCS Toronto, a Halifax-class frigate, and Spanish frigate Almirante Juan de Borbon will enter the Black Sea before September 7, the source told the Itar-Tass news agency.At present there’s only one NATO ship in the Black Sea – France’s Dupuy de Lome, a surveillance ship designed to collect signals and communications frombeyond enemy lines. According to the Itar-Tass source, the French vessel is expected to leave the Black Sea area on September 5.
There may be legitimate reasons to be concerned about the turmoil taking place in Ukraine, and the crisis with Russia certainly has the potential to escalate into a much, much larger conflict. However, the increasing presence of NATO warships is much more likely to increase the risk of escalation, not decrease it.NATO doesn't exactly have a good track record when it comes to defending individual rights, so its motives for involvement in the region should certainly be subject to question, particularly considering the organization is largely funded by the U.S. taxpayer.Tesla Seeks $3 Billion in Tax Breaks for New Battery FactoryMany libertarians often hail Elon Musk and his company, Tesla, as a shining example of a great free market man and organization. There are indeed many reasons to praise Musk and Tesla, such as their recent decision to release all of their patents. But Tesla should not be beyond a discerning eye any more than other corporations should when it comes to calling out crony capitalist tendencies. Fox Business is reporting that Tesla is seeking up to $3 billion in tax breaks from the State of Nevada in order to build a new battery factory there:
Nevada looks to be the winner for Tesla Motors’ (TSLA) new $5 billion battery factory, but the win comes at a cost for state taxpayers.Tesla is seeking up to $3 billion in new tax breaks to help fund about half of its cost for the new battery factory, which Tesla has already disclosed in regulatory filings would be located outside Reno, Nev., about 235 miles from its auto assembly plant in the San Francisco Bay area.“The total capital expenditures associated with the gigafactory through 2020 are expected to be $4-5 billion (sic), of which approximately $2 billion is expected to come from Tesla,” the company said in its latest regulatory filings.
It's understandable that Tesla would seek the most friendly economic environment in which to build its new factory. But Tesla's use of government to enhance its bottom line, as Fox's Elizabeth McDonald describes, is something that taxpayers should be upset about:
Tesla has relied heavily on tax breaks to sustain itself. Hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars have supported Tesla throughout its time as a publicly-traded company, money that has also floated CEO Elon Musk’s other companies such as SpaceX and SolarCity (SCTY).Tesla takes advantage of all sorts of government credits and subsidies, including regulatory credit sales through federal CAFE standards and zero-emission vehicle credits.Though Musk is big on talking about the free-market, his firm needs a lot of taxpayer help to survive.Indeed, that’s the reason why Tesla engineered the bidding war among state and local governments in Arizona, California, New Mexico, Texas, and Nevada so as to grab as much in the way of tax dollars for the new gigafactory, which will make lithium-ion batteries for Tesla vehicles.
Why should Tesla require the extracted funds of US taxpayers in order to run its various business ventures? A true proponent of free markets would call for an even playing field and an end to the redistribution of taxpayer funds, as well as other corporatist schemes such as "carbon credits". It appears Tesla is just another example of crony capitalism; they simply excel at the marketing end better than many of the more obvious abusers of the system.The libertarian policy on Elon Musk and Tesla should be the same that it should be for Rand Paul: Praise when they're right, rake 'em over the coals when they're wrong.Los Angeles' "Liberty Kids" Appear on Glenn BeckEarlier this week Glenn Beck aired several segments of his show featuring the so-called "Liberty Kids", some great young liberty activists from my own backyard here in Los Angeles who won control of the executive board of the Los Angeles County Republican Party back in December 2012. Nick Hankoff, Amir Zendenham, and Noah Johnson have made national headlines for their success in the unlikely liberty stronghold of Southern California. From The Blaze:
“All of us got started during the Ron Paul campaign, so a lot of our principles are very similar to the Ron Paul positions,” Noah Johnson, treasurer of the L.A. County Republican Liberty Caucus, explained on The Glenn Beck Program Tuesday. “Non-aggression, non-intervention, sound money. And we’ve done a lot to be really involved in the party, so we’re not just libertarians who take these positions and go on Facebook and argue all the time. … We actually got our hands dirty.”“Each of us pulled papers and ran for central committee to be locally elected officials,” he said. “And we’ve since just been climbing the ranks through the establishment party.”“You guys are so wicked smart for doing this,” Beck commented.
Check out a clip from the show below, and head to The Blaze for the full story!Of course, I would take issue with the "too many philosophers" statement. I happen to believe the liberty movement doesn't have nearly enough philosophers, but I'll save that rant for another day...Read The Morning Roar every weekday Monday-Friday!The Lions of Liberty are on Twitter, Facebook & Google+Receive access to ALL of our EXCLUSIVE bonus audio content – including “Conspiracy Corner”, “Degenerate Gamblers” and the “League of Liberty Podcast” by joining the Lions of Liberty Pride and supporting us on Patreon!
