The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity
The Ron Paul Peace and Prosperity Institute
Subscribe to the Institute View Us on YouTube Follow Us On Twitter Join Us on Facebook Join Us at Google Plus

Search Results

for:

Trump foreign policy enters lame duck period

Friday July 24, 2020

undefined

There was a time when President Trump’s personalised diplomacy seemed a hydra-headed phenomenon with tentacles reaching far and wide. He engaged such diverse politicians — from Shinzo Abe and Kim Jong-Un to Xi Jinping and Narendra Modi, from Mohammed bin Salman and Recep Erdogan to Vladimir Putin and Angela Merkel. But as time passed, the circle began shrinking and the scope for personalised diplomacy altogether diminished as coronavirus epidemic spread and countries turned inward, including the US. 

Today, Trump is left largely with Putin’s company – although they have had only one formal summit in Helsinki on July 16, 2018 – to whom he keeps going back with an extraordinary frequency. Trump and Putin have held at least seven calls since March 30, amid the coronavirus pandemic. On July 23, Trump again spoke with Putin. He hasn’t spoken to any other foreign politician so frequently this year. And the paradox is that while Trump is famous for his pursuit of transactional relationships, there is very little transaction taking place between the US and Russia. 

The Kremlin often describes these Putin-Trump phone conversations as “constructive and substantive,” although we hardly see any concrete results. The two leaders strove to create and atmospherics but failed to create content in the relationship — foreplay without consummation. The leading think tanker at Moscow Carnegie and author, Dmitry Trenin tweeted after yesterday’s Putin-Trump conversation that they “appear as a parallel universe with no connection to real Russia-US relations. Weird.”
read on...

After 30 Years, Did the Disabilities Act Work?

Thursday July 23, 2020

undefined

Thirty years ago, President George H.W. Bush signed [7/26/1990] the Americans with Disabilities Act, which was supposed to create a new era of equality and justice. Instead, the ADA often turns disabilities into assets, encouraging far more people to claim to be disabled to receive special treatment or privileges. The ADA’s breadth and vagueness have spurred a deluge of absurd federal decrees and more than half a million lawsuits that risk stigmatizing people the law sought to assist. 

The ADA is essentially a federal command for people to treat certain other people “nice”- with harsh penalties for any behavior considered not nice – and with niceness defined on a case-by-case basis through endless court cases and complaint settlements. Anyone who is disabled acquires a legal right to request accommodations from employers and others, with the federal government and private lawyers waiting to sue anyone who fails to “accommodate.” Congress defined “disability” far more broadly than most Americans recognize, including anyone who claims they have significant trouble standing, lifting, bending, reading, concentrating, or thinking. 

The ADA is known as “Attorney’s Dreams Answered.” According to lawyer Mark Pulliam, the ADA “may be the most widely-abused law in our history…. Nationwide, a cottage industry has developed among a bottom-feeding element of the plaintiffs’ bar that specializes in bringing a high volume of cookie-cutter lawsuits against small businesses for technical violations of the ADA, and extorting quick settlements of several thousand dollars each.” Federal judges have characterized mass-produced ADA lawsuits as a “sham” and “an ongoing scheme to bilk attorneys’ fees from the defendant.”
read on...

While Covid Distracts, Turkey And Egypt On Brink Of War Over Libya

Thursday July 23, 2020

Remember Libya? The country "liberated" by Obama and Hillary? Nine years later the country remains destroyed, with the remains being picked apart by warlords and slave traders. Turkey, an enthusiastic supporter of the 2011 invasion, is making its move to snatch Libyan oil. Neighboring Egypt says, "not so fast." The world is distracted by disappearing coronavirus while a major war is brewing. Also in today's Report, Texas Covid updates, W.H.O. hires corrupt PR firm, and more. Watch today's Liberty Report...
read on...

I Don’t Always Believe CIA Narratives. But When I Do, I Believe Them About China.

Wednesday July 22, 2020

undefined

My social media notifications have been lighting up the last few days with virulent Chinagaters sharing a video which purports to show Uighur Muslims being loaded onto a train to be taken to concentration camps. It’s actually an old video that had already surfaced last year, but it is magically making the rounds again as a new and shocking revelation in 2020 now that western China hysteria has been officially kicked into high gear, at exactly the same time the US enacts one of the most dangerous and incendiary escalations of recent years in the South China Sea.

Everyone tagging me in this video presents it as a self-evident “gotcha” moment, in exactly the same way Russiagaters spent years tagging me in every HUGE BOMBSHELL WALLS ARE CLOSING IN item of thinly sourced narrative fluff in their debunked conspiracy theory that the Kremlin had infiltrated the highest levels of the US government.

They are one hundred percent certain that the video shows Uighurs being loaded onto a train to go to a concentration camp, solely because that is what the bit of text over the video tells them they are seeing. They aren’t looking at the actual data and thinking critically about it, they’re looking at the narrative and believing it on blind faith. Which, in a post-Iraq invasion world, is an absolutely insane thing to do when presented with information about a nation that is targeted by the US-centralized empire.
read on...

Who’s That Masked Man!

Wednesday July 22, 2020

undefined

It should be evident by now that the Donald’s one and only north star is his own glorification and self-aggrandizement. That’s why he’s totally flat-footed at this crucial moment in the pandemic saga.
read on...

US Expels China From Houston Consulate. Is Pompeo Pushing To Spark China War?

Wednesday July 22, 2020

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was in the UK yesterday, blaming China for the spread of the coronavirus and suggesting it was a purposeful move on the part of Beijing. Meanwhile in an incredible escalation, the US State Department has demanded that China evacuate its consulate in Houston, TX. Meanwhile US Defense Secretary Esper is threatening more US military for the South China Sea. Also in today's Report: Ron Paul's headlines and new Covid updates. Watch today's Liberty Report...
read on...

Was This Michigan Teacher Fired After Tweeting Support For Trump and Reopening Schools?

Wednesday July 22, 2020

undefined

We recently discussed a Vermont principal who was told that she would have to retire after expressing her opinion of Black Lives Matter on her personal Facebook page. Now, a popular social studies teacher and baseball coach at Walled Lake Western High School in Michigan has been fired after tweeting his support for President Donald Trump and reopening the schools.

For free speech advocates, the firing of Justin Kucera, 28, raises concerns that he might be another teacher terminated for expressing unpopular views expressed outside of the school. The District denies that it fired Kucera over his support for Trump but that means that someone is lying: either Kucera or the District. For his part, Kucera said that it was the tweets that were raised by the District, not some other ground for termination.

Kucera was called into a Zoom meeting after three tweets. In the first tweet, he retweeted the President saying “SCHOOLS MUST OPEN IN THE FALL!!!” He also tweeted: “I’m done being silent. @realDonaldTrump is our president … Don’t @ me.” When someone responded to that tweet, Kucera responded “Liberals suck man.” He later deleted that last tweet.
read on...

Subscribe

Authors

Tags