Barber and Lich sentenced to year's house arrest

Freedom Convoy organizers Chris Barber and Tamara Leach have been sentenced to a year's house arrest, followed by 6 months' curfew, and 100 hours of community service. 

'Freedom Convoy' leaders Tamara Lich, Chris Barber given conditional sentences | CBC News:

Chris Barber and Tamara Lich. CBC News.

October 7 - "Tamara Lich and Chris Barber, two major figures of the 2022 'Freedom Convoy,' have been handed conditional sentences and spared further jail time. Barber was found guilty of mischief and counselling others to disobey a court order earlier this year, while Lich was found guilty of mischief. Both were found not guilty on several other counts.

"On Tuesday, each was given an 18-month conditional sentence: Twelve months at home with limited outings per week, followed by six months under a 10 p.m. curfew. Lich is being given credit for the 19 days she initially spent in jail, and for another 30 days she spent in custody after breaching her bail conditions. Barber and Lich will each have to serve 100 hours of community service.

"Lich's lawyer Lawrence Greenspon said they're still considering whether to appeal her conviction. 'The main objective was to make sure she didn't spend one more day in jail, and that was achieved,' he told reporters outside the courthouse.

"Barber's defence lawyer Diane Magas said her client respects the judge's decision and considers it reasonable, adding it was more or less the sentence they expected....

"Crown prosecutor Siobhain Wetscher previously asked Justice Heather Perkins-McVey to impose extraordinary sentences — eight years' imprisonment for Barber and seven for Lich — arguing that such heavy penalties would reflect the profound impact the two had on the public during the protests they led in Ottawa."

Read more: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/tamara-lich-chris-barber-sentencing-freedom-convoy-1.7652753

Democrats force U.S. gov't shutdown over Obamacare subsidies

GOP Obamacare Surrender | Ron Paul Institute | Ron Paul:

October 6, 2025 - "For all the media hand-wringing over the government shutdown the fact is only approximately 750,000 of the over two million non-military federal workers are being furloughed. Most federal programs will continue operating, including the major entitlement and welfare programs. The national parks will remain open, if understaffed and with closed visitor centers. Unfortunately, the shutdown will not affect the military-industrial complex.

"President Trump’s supposed 'master plan' to implement mass firings of federal employees will only fire 16,000 employees.

"Democrats are refusing to vote for a short-term continuing resolution unless it extends the increase in Obamacare subsidies that was part of the Biden-era covid relief legislation. Republicans, who for years campaigned on repealing and replacing Obamacare, are not opposing extending the subsidies. Instead, they are focusing on concerns the Democrats want to allow illegal immigrants to receive taxpayer-funded health benefits. Republicans are also emphasizing that they want to negotiate over extending the Obamacare subsidies, not simply shove them into a 'must pass' continuing resolution. Republicans also want to ensure that laws barring illegal immigrants from receiving the subsidies are in place.

"Republicans’ de facto embrace of the increased Obamacare subsidies, which were supposed to be a temporary increase to help Americans who lost their jobs because of the covid lockdowns, is a little noticed but major milestone in the history of Obamacare. For many years Republicans campaigned on a promise to 'repeal and replace' Obamacare. Opposition to Obamacare, along with opposition to the big bank bailouts and the cap and trade scheme, fueled the 'Tea Party' movement, which led in the 2010 election to a Republican takeover of the House of Representatives. In 2013, as the federal government was implementing Obamacare, Tea Party Republicans orchestrated a government shutdown. The argument was this was the last chance to repeal Obamacare because once it was fully implemented the number of people who would become reliant on the program would make Obamacare politically impossible to repeal.

"These Tea Party Republicans were mocked for their efforts, but history has proven them right. Even though Donald Trump and many Republican candidates for House and Senate promised to repeal Obamacare in their 2016 campaigns, they never even held a vote on full repeal of the healthcare law. Instead, they pushed legislation repealing the “unpopular” parts of Obamacare even though the way the program was structured it was impossible for the popular parts to work without the unpopular parts. The legislation repealing the “unpopular” parts of Obamacare was opposed by some Republicans who had previously voted to repeal all of Obamacare.

"In the 2018 midterm election, the Democrats then turned the tables on Republicans by running as champions of healthcare who would protect Obamacare from the Republicans. This helped them retake the House.

"Now, the majority of Republicans appear ready to ratify President Biden’s increase in Obamacare subsidies. So, Republicans have gone from promising to repeal Obamacare to promising to repeal the 'unpopular”\' provisions to de facto supporting the program.

"Republican failure to effectively oppose Obamacare is because of failure to acknowledge that the pre-Obamacare healthcare system was seriously flawed because of government interventions. Therefore, a way to 'fix' healthcare is via measures giving patients and providers control over the healthcare system, such as tax credits and Health Savings Accounts (HSAs). Unapologetic advocacy of free markets is the only effective way to oppose big government schemes like Obamacare and advance liberty."

Copyright © 2025 The Ron Paul Institute. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit and a live link are given.

https://ronpaulinstitute.org/gop-obamacare-surrender/

FBI report sheds light on events of Jan. 6, 2021

The release this week of the FBI's "after action" report sheds new light on the events of January 6, 2021.

The Real Jan. 6th Coup | Ron Paul Institute | Ron Paul: 

Sep 29, 2025 - "In my first column after the events of Jan. 6th, 2021, I criticized those who called the protest a 'coup,' pointing out that, 'Some of the same politicians and bureaucrats denouncing the ridiculous farce at the Capitol as if it were the equivalent of 9/11 have been involved for decades in planning and executing real coups overseas. In their real coups, many thousands of civilians have died.'

"The media at the time played up the violence committed by a relative few at the protest to stoke a national outcry and demands for 'justice.' More than 1,500 Americans were charged over the incident and nearly 500 were imprisoned, including outrageous prison sentences for relatively minor crimes like entering the Capitol building through doors opened by the police, and filming the event.

"While most Democrats and Republicans in Congress harshly denounced the January 6th 'insurrectionists,' a few Members displayed the appropriate skepticism over accepted government narratives. Rep. Thomas Massie, for example, was relentless in his search for answers to a simple but critically important question: How many of the 'insurrectionists' were actually undercover FBI agents and other law enforcement officers and what role might they have played in inciting the violence. Massie grilled then-Attorney General Merrick Garland several times, but Garland would not budge. He refused to say whether there had been any undercover federal agents in the crowd, though of course he must have known.

'Last week we learned a little more of the truth. With the release of the FBI’s long lost 'after action' report, we now know that more than 250 undercover agents were in the crowd. According to the report, they were given roles including crowd control that they were not suited for. Some agents cited in the report complained of political biases in the Bureau against conservatives. What other tasks might have been given to a 'politicized' FBI undercover team?

"In addition to the undercover agents, there were more than two dozen paid informants in the Jan. 6th crowd. Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.), who chairs the subcommittee investigating the matter, asks an important question: 'With that many paid informants being in the crowd, we want to know how many were in the crowd, how many were in the building, but I also want to know, were they paid to inform or instigate?'

"Were they paid to inform, or to instigate? That is a good question. We do know that the event was used by the incoming Biden Administration to demonize and persecute the political opposition. There is no telling how many Americans would have liked to use their First Amendment guarantee of free speech to criticize the Biden Administration but were silenced by fear of persecution, or worse. It’s easy to conclude, seeing so many arrested and handed long sentences for non-violent 'crimes,' that it’s better to keep quiet. At the time, the US was still in the grip of Covid tyranny, where speaking out against 'the Science' could get you 'cancelled' or worse. This was another way to silence people who were not 'going along with the program.'

"In the end, January 6th, 2021, was a coup of sorts. It was a coup against the First Amendment. The lesson for all of us is that if we do not regularly but peacefully exercise our First Amendment guarantees we will definitely lose them, regardless of who is in power."

Read more: https://ronpaulinstitute.org/the-real-jan-6th-coup/