The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity
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America Should Exit From NATO and the National Security State

Sunday July 3, 2016

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In its reporting on Brexit, the New York Times asks an interesting question: “Is the post-1945 order imposed on the world by the United States and its allies unraveling, too?”

Hopefully, it will mean the unraveling of two of the most powerful and destructive governmental apparatuses that came out of the postwar era: NATO and the US national-security state. In fact, although the mainstream media and the political establishment elites will never acknowledge it, the irony is that it is these two apparatuses that ultimately led to the Brexit vote:

The Times points out:

Refugees have poured out of Syria and Iraq. Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon have absorbed several million refugees. But it is the flow of people into the European Union that has had the greatest geopolitical impact, and helped to precipitate the British vote.

But what was it that gave rise to that massive refugee crisis?
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Confessions Of A War Propagandist

Saturday July 2, 2016

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In explaining Donald Trump and the train wreck of the Republican Party, neoconservative contempt has targeted cultural rot, immigrant haters, and according to the the National Review, prescription drug addicted hillbillies. These poor, dumb racists have latched on to a celebrity shyster who has no conservative principles and worst of all, no understanding of international affairs. 

No self-reflection is even considered by neoconservatives or their strongest pro-war allies, evangelical Christians. In 2002-2003 I was in the center of both groups during the buildup to the Iraq War, as the media relations director for the Committee of the Liberation of Iraq (CLI) and as an evangelical Christian active in small groups, community outreach, and engagement with other “gospel-centered” evangelicals who were earnestly seeking to share the gospel with a world that desperately needed to know God’s love and mercy.

It never occurred to me that there were any contradictions in being a war propagandist, a missional Christian, and a fierce opponent of big government. I reported for duty at the CLI office on Pennsylvania Avenue, scheduling interviews for my boss, Randy Scheunemann and other members of the Committee such as Christopher Hitchens, our left-wing pro-war star. I spoke to The Weekly Standard magazine editor Bill Kristol daily, who had conceived the CLI with Scheunemann and Bruce Jackson of Lockheed Corporation. Following a New York Times story announcing the formation of the CLI, the media frenzy never slowed.
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Stop Giving Chickens Away, Bill Gates

Friday July 1, 2016

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Bill Gates’ philanthropic efforts are usually greeted with near-universal praise from people who believe he is a great humanitarian, but Bill Gates knows very little about sustainable, intelligent development.

 Bolivia to Bill Gates: Go to Hell and Take Your Chickens with You

The billionaire recently sought to donate 100,000 chickensto impoverished countries. The leftist government of Bolivia, one of the nations to receive the poultry, refused the donation, describing Gates’ gift as “offensive.”

“He does not know Bolivia’s reality to think we are living 500 years ago, in the middle of the jungle not knowing how to produce,” said Bolivia’s minister of land and rural development. “Respectfully, he should stop talking about Bolivia, and once he knows more, apologize to us.”

Coop Dreams

Gates announced the chicken initiative — dubbed [Honestly, I am not making this up] “Coop Dreams” — earlier this month.
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RPI Conference Announcement: Paul and Rockwell Together Again in DC!

Thursday June 30, 2016

Here's one great reason to visit the US capital this September: Ron Paul and Lew Rockwell will be back together again in Washington, D.C., speaking at the RPI "Peace and Prosperity 2016" conference! Lew Rockwell, the founder and CEO of the Mises Institute and editor of LewRockwell.com, was also Dr. Ron Paul's first Congressional chief of staff (1978-1982). We are so honored that Lew has agreed to return to what we know is not one of his favorite places -- the "belly of the beast" -- to speak on the importance of a pro-peace, non-interventionist foreign policy. 
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Obama’s ‘New Beginning’ was the Beginning of the End

Thursday June 30, 2016

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It’s been seven years since Obama delivered his famous speech at Cairo University in June 2009, which at the time was quite ironically heralded as the “new beginning” since it was believed that it would open a new page in the US relations with the Middle Eastern and North Africa.

Back then, this speech was perceived as an actual program that Obama would be following, therefore many Muslim states embraced Obama’s vision as a game changer. According to this “new beginning” speech, Obama was going to depart from the Bush-era marked by aggressive policies, known by the armed aggression against Afghanistan and the invasion of Iraq. The US president was also particularly vocal in declaring his support of mutual values most African and Islamic states share.

It must be understood that this speech has been instrumental in the Nobel Peace Prize that Obama was honored by the Nobel Committee with in its eagerness to show its unconditional support for Washington.

However, seven years later, even American experts only dare to mention this speech, proving the US has failed to fulfill any of Obama’s promises. It’s now a recognized fact that Washington’s “vision” of US relations with Middle East has been completely detached from reality, since the White House remains still a ruthless aggressor.
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Istanbul Bombing - Who's At Fault?

Wednesday June 29, 2016

Yesterday's tragic bombing of the Kemal Ataturk Airport in Istanbul comes amid a busy week of Turkish diplomacy: Turkish President Erdogan has apologized to Russia for shooting down a Russian fighter jet and Turkey has taken major steps to restore good relations with Israel and Egypt. Who would want to shut down Turkey as it takes an apparent foreign policy shift...and why? We look into the possibilities in today's Liberty Report...
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The Syria 'Dissent' Memo and US Bureaucratic Pressure Strategy

Wednesday June 29, 2016

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The memorandum by 51 State Department officials calling for US military intervention in Syria last week has been treated in news media coverage as a case of dissent from existing Syria policy by individual officials involved in Syria policy.

But the memo has all the earmarks of an initiative that had the blessing of the most senior officials in the department – including Secretary of State John Kerry himself - rather than having been put together by individual officials entirely on their own. And it may mark the beginning of an effort to take advantage of the presidential candidacy of Hillary Clinton.

The memo called for a “more militarily assertive US role” in the Syrian conflict in the form of “a judicious use of stand-off and air weapons, which would undergird and drive a more focused and hard-nosed US-led diplomatic process".  That is precisely the policy option that Secretary of State John Kerry has been widely reported to have championed privately for years. As the story in the New York Times, which published the supposedly confidential memo, noted, “[H]igher-level State Department officials are known to share their concerns.”
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The Magnitsky Hoax?

Tuesday June 28, 2016

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Sergei Magnitsky was a Russian lawyer hired by an Anglo-American investment fund operating in Moscow to investigate the apparent diversion of as much as $230 million in taxes due to the government. He became a whistleblower after discovering that the money had been stolen by the police, organized crime figures and other government officials. After he went to the authorities to complain he was unjustly imprisoned for eleven months. When he refused to recant he was both beaten and denied medical treatment to coerce him into cooperating, resulting in his death in jail at age 37 in November 2009. He has become something of a hero for those who have decried official corruption in Russia.

The Magnitsky case is of particular importance because both the European Union and the United States have initiated sanctions against the Russian officials who were allegedly involved. In the Magnitsky Act, sponsored by Russia-phobic Senator Ben Cardin and signed by President Barack Obama in 2012, the US asserted its willingness to punish foreign governments for violations of human rights. Russia reacted angrily, noting that the actions taken by its government internally, notably the operation of its judiciary, were being subjected to outside interference. It reciprocated with sanctions against US officials as well as by increasing pressure on foreign non-governmental pro-democracy groups operating in Russia.

Tension between Moscow and Washington increased considerably as a result and Congress will likely soon approve a so-called Global Magnitsky Act as part of the current defense appropriation bill. It expands the use of sanctions and other punitive measures against regimes guilty of egregious human rights abuses though it is unlikely to be applied to US friends like Saudi Arabia and Israel. It is also sponsored by Senator Ben Cardin and is clearly intended to intimidate Russia.
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‘We the Prisoners’: The Demise of the Fourth Amendment

Tuesday June 28, 2016

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In a carceral state—a.k.a. a prison state or a police state—there is no Fourth Amendment to protect you from the overreaches, abuses, searches and probing eyes of government overlords.

In a carceral state, there is no difference between the treatment meted out to a law-abiding citizen and a convicted felon: both are equally suspect and treated as criminals, without any of the special rights and privileges reserved for the governing elite.

In a carceral state, there are only two kinds of people: the prisoners and the prison guards.

With every new law enacted by federal and state legislatures, every new ruling handed down by government courts, and every new military weapon, invasive tactic and egregious protocol employed by government agents, “we the people”—the prisoners of the American police state—are being pushed that much further into a corner, our backs against the prison wall.

This concept of a carceral state in which we possess no rights except for that which the government grants on an as-needed basis is the only way I can begin to comprehend, let alone articulate, the irrational, surreal, topsy-turvy, through-the-looking-glass state of affairs that is being imposed upon us in America today.
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