The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity
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Is The Libertarian Moment Over? With Special Guest John Stossel

Thursday May 3, 2018

Is libertarianism cool? Legendary libertarian communicator John Stossel joins today's Liberty Report to explain whether the libertarian moment is over, whether we are winning, whether we are on the right track, and how we can better win young people over to the idea of limited government and non-interventionism. What does John Stossel say to John Bolton when they meet at Fox News Studio? You won't want to miss it!
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Congress Again Fails to Discover Collusion to Subvert the 2016 Election

Thursday May 3, 2018

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There have been a number of developments in the endless inquiry into possible collusion between the Russian government and Donald Trump to manipulate perceptions and voting relating to the two presidential candidates in the November 2016 election. In particular, it has been alleged that the Russians were, with the connivance of some in the Trump team, able to obtain information damaging to Hillary Clinton while also misusing social media to send a message critical of the Democratic Party candidate.

“Russiagate” was born out of a desire to explain how Trump was able to defeat the Establishment candidate Clinton and it quickly focused on emails in possession of Wikileaks and meetings of Trump associates with Russians as a plausible explanation for the electoral result. The media opined that “It had to be the Russians,” who also had motive in their recognizing that Clinton was the stronger candidate whose harsh and steely glare was focused on the various crimes and misdemeanors alleged to be committed by Kremlin President Vladimir Putin in places like Ukraine and Georgia, not to mention Syria. Clinton’s campaign message was that she was prepared to do something about Putin while Trump was instead arguing that a good relationship with Moscow was a sine qua non for American foreign policy.

There are currently three investigations proceeding simultaneously looking into the Russian-Trump collusion, though one of them has finally come to an end. The House of Representatives’ Intelligence Committee investigation has concluded that there was no evidence that there had been “collusion, conspiracy, or coordination between the Trump campaign and the Russians” to influence or subvert the outcome of the election. The committee did, however, accept that there had been Russian “active measures” interference, apparently based largely on assumptions about WikiLeaks and the alleged activities of employees of Putin confidant Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Internet Research Agency on social media sites.
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Iran Isn’t Violating the Nuclear Agreement — America Is

Thursday May 3, 2018

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On Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave his most grandiose anti-Iranian performance to date, revealing what he believed was direct proof that Iran “lied” about its nuclear program. This isn’t the first time Netanyahu has overhyped the threat of Iran’s non-existent nuclear weapons program. He has been crying wolf over Iran since as far back as 1992.
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No, Your Intelligence Is Actually Bad. Very Bad

Thursday May 3, 2018

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About a year ago, one Evelyn Farkas boasted "we have good intelligence on Russia...". She was an important functionary on Russian matters in the Obama Administration and was, therefore, much involved in "intelligence on Russia". My immediate reaction when I read it was: No, you do not have good intelligence on Russia; if you did, you wouldn't be surprised all the time and your boss wouldn't be saying such silly things. In March 2015 I enumerated some of the delusions. Vide this famous quotation from a 2014 interview:
But I do think it’s important to keep perspective. Russia doesn’t make anything. Immigrants aren’t rushing to Moscow in search of opportunity. The life expectancy of the Russian male is around 60 years old. The population is shrinking. And so we have to respond with resolve in what are effectively regional challenges that Russia presents.
Obama was surely repeating what Farkas and others told him. Wrong on all three counts: Russia makes many things; it is the second immigrant destination on the planet; and its life expectancy and population are growing. This was not hermetic knowledge, available only to the Illuminati; these facts were easily discovered by any competent intelligence agency. That is not good intelligence. He liked to tell us that “Russia is isolated” or that “its economy [is] in tatters.” Wrong again.
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Comey v. Comey: How New Disclosures Could Put Just One Week Between Comey and Perjury

Wednesday May 2, 2018

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Former FBI Director James Comey continues to market his book – and himself – as a lesson in “ethical leadership.”  However, the historical record is proving increasingly at odds with Comey’s account and image. After months of spins and swerves by defenders, a consensus is emerging that Comey is indeed a leaker. The most damaging evidence, however, comes not from Comey’s critics but Comey himself.  Indeed, Comey v. Comey could be the most telling conflict in this still unfolding scandal. However, at issue, is not simply whether Comey will be viewed as a leaker or a liar, but a perjurer.

Comey’s crumbling defense was most evident in his interview last week with Anderson Cooper when Cooper challenged his self-serving definition of a leak as only involving classified information.  That is manifestly wrong, as Cooper correctly pointed out, since leaks often involve unclassified but still non-public information.

Agency rules (including most notably the FBI’s rules) ban the release of non-public agency information whether or not it has been classified.  Indeed, many leak investigations (including some under Comey) do not involve classified information, such as leaks about White House meetings or non-public statements.  The FBI, including Director Andrew Wray, confirmed that the Comey memos were not his documents (as he continues to implausibly maintain) but rather FBI material subject to rules of nondisclosure. Nevertheless, Comey gave at least four memos to Columbia University law professor Daniel Richman to leak information to the media.

However, in the ongoing Inspector General’s investigation into his conduct, Comey’s defense could ultimately collide with Comey’s own (prior) interpretation.  In the last two weeks, the divide between Comey and his former deputy (and acting FBI Director) Andrew McCabe widens.  McCabe has claimed that Comey knew about his giving non-public information to the Wall Street Journal. McCabe’s counsel directly challenged Comey and said that the public should not buy Comey’s “white knight” account of his own conduct. Comey responded by publicly stating that McCabe was found to be a liar by the IG and that he was the one who called for an investigation into the “leak.”  That’s the problem.
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Unmasking the 'White Helmets'

Wednesday May 2, 2018

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British government official agencies are the patrons, managers and funders of the White Helmets, who have been the go-to source for the mainstream Western media reporting on the ongoing Syrian war.  For good measure, the U.S. State Department's Agency for International Development (USAID) has kicked in $23 million to finance Mayday Rescue, the cutout between the White Helmets and the British Ministry of Defense, the Home Office, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and 10 Downing Street.  This is all a matter of public record, yet no Western major media outlet has bothered to include these "data points" in their lavish coverage of the White Helmets.
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Will Bolton Kill Korea Peace Deal?

Wednesday May 2, 2018

President Trump's National Security Advisor, John Bolton, has long viewed peace and diplomacy as an abhorrent sign of weakness. We know from colleagues in the Bush Administration that he berated and pushed to dismiss any intelligence analyst whose conclusions did not match Bolton's pre-determined demands. He has a history of working behind the back of his bosses to promote his own agenda. Is he currently working to undermine President Trump's peace initiative with North Korea? We examine the evidence in today's Liberty Report...
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Explosions Rock Tripoli Election Commission: Who's Trying to Prevent the Vote?

Wednesday May 2, 2018

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To underscore the dire situation in Libya and the extent to which extremists will go, on Wednesday at around noon two huge explosions occurred at the HNEC, the Higher National Election Commission's HQ, in Tripoli, killing over 15 people and wounding many more. The attack suggests that fanatics may be concerned over the rising popularity of Field Marshall Khalifa Haftar and fear that the controversial Haftar could win in the upcoming elections. They may be seeking to derail the vote. If so, their gambit may have the opposite effect: it could actually galvanize Libyan support for elections as a way out of the current political chaos and conundrum.

No doubt a contributing factor to this tragic bombing was the return on Thursday of Field Marshall Khalifa Haftar from a Paris hospital, via Cairo, to Libya on a proverbial "white horse" seen by some to be a drama giving an appearance of a triumphant return to Libya. 

Recovered after two weeks of alleged illness, which was much exaggerated by the media and by those hoping, like the UN, to see the back of him.

If as widely reported he was on death’s door, he would not have smiled for the bevy of photographers and TV cameras, even laughing and joking as he was met by dignitaries at the airport in Benghazi following his flight arrival from Cairo.
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James Comey’s Forgotten Rescue of Bush-Era Torture

Tuesday May 1, 2018

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“Here I stand, I can do no other,” James Comey told President George W. Bush in 2004 when Bush pressured Comey - who was then Deputy Attorney General - to approve an unlawful antiterrorist policy. Comey, who was FBI chief from 2013 to 2017, was quoting a line reputedly uttered by Martin Luther in 1521, when he told Holy Roman Emperor Charles V that he would not recant his sweeping criticisms of the Catholic Church. Comey’s quotation of himself quoting the father of the Reformation is par for the self-reverence of his new memoir, A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership.
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Netanyahu's Iran Nuke Show: Should We Believe Him?

Tuesday May 1, 2018

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave a dramatic presentation yesterday purporting to demonstrate that Iran is still at work on nuclear weapons despite being given the "all clear" numerous times by the International Atomic Energy Agency. The only problem with Netanyahu's "evidence" is that it was all from before the 2007 US National Intelligence Estimate which concluded that Iran had abandoned its nuclear weapons program. Was Netanyahu lying to us? Tune in to today's Liberty Report...
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