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

Search Results

for:

Coronavirus: What Newsweek Failed to Mention About 'Continuity of Government'

undefined

Last week, Newsweek published a report entitled “Inside The Military’s Top Secret Plans If Coronavirus Cripples the Government,” which offers vague descriptions of different military plans that could be put into effect if the civilian government were to be largely incapacitated, with a focus on the potential of the current novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic to result in such a scenario.

The article’s author, William Arkin, largely frames these plans as new, though — buried deep within the article — he eventually mentions that such contingency plans can be traced back to the Eisenhower administration (though they were in place before) and have since been developed and updated by most subsequent administrations, largely through the issuance of executive orders. Arkin also points out that some of these “Continuity of Government”, or COG, plans include the “devolution” of leadership and Constitutional authority, which he notes “could circumvent the normal Constitutional provisions for government succession, and military commanders could be placed in control around America.”

Yet, there are key aspects of COG and its development that Arkin leaves out. For instance, in his timeline on how such plans have developed in the post-World War II era, he conveniently fails to mention any of the Reagan administration’s major changes to COG, including the Reagan-era Executive Order on which all current COG programs are based. Indeed, many of the “extra-Constitutional” aspects of COG that Arkin mentions began during the Reagan administration, when these plans were redrafted to largely exclude members of Congress, including the Speaker of the House, from succession plans and even moved to essentially eliminate Congress in the event of COG being implemented, with near total power instead being given to the executive branch and the military.
read on...

How The Police State Uses Crises To Expand Lockdown Powers, With John Whitehead

The assault on our civil liberties is in overdrive. Habeas corpus is thrown out the window and the government is asking to be able to indefinitely detain Americans without charge or trial. Constitutional law attorney John Whitehead, President of the Rutherford Institute, joins today's Liberty Report to discuss these threats...and to let us know what we can do about them! Watch today's Liberty Report...
read on...

Wake Up! Your Fears Are Being Manipulated

undefined

I’m not worried about the guy coughing next to me. I’m worried about the ones who seem to be looking for Jim Jones.

Jones was the charismatic founder of the cult-like People’s Temple. Through fear-based control, he took his followers’ money and ran their lives. He isolated them in Guyana where he convinced over 900 of them to commit suicide by drinking cyanide-laced grape Kool Aid. Frightened people can be made to do anything. They just need a Jim Jones.

So it is more than a little scary that media zampolit Rick Wilson wrote to his 753,000 Twitter followers: “People who sank into their fear of Trump, who defended every outrage, who put him before what they knew was right, and pretended this chaos and corruption was a glorious new age will pay a terrible price. They deserve it.” The tweet was liked over 82,000 times.

The New York Times claims that “the specter of death speeds across the globe, ‘Appointment in Samara’-style, ever faster, culling the most vulnerable.” Others are claiming Trump will cancel the election to rule as a Jim Jones. “Every viewer who trusts the words of Earhardt or Hannity or Regan could well become a walking, breathing, droplet-spewing threat to the public,” opined the Washington Post. Drink the damn Kool Aid and join in the panic en route to Guyana.
read on...

The Coronavirus Profiteers

Now that the coronavirus scare has much of the country fearful and sheltered-in-place, there are more than a few special interests that are profiting massively from the "Emergency State" that has emerged. Crony capitalists, corporate criminals, Keynesians, big brother government advocates, previously unknown minor county officials...there is plenty of profit to go around. Don't miss today's Liberty Report...
read on...

Will Coronavirus Bring Down The US War Machine? Not If Pompeo Can Help It...

While major military exercises have been cancelled in Europe due to coronavirus fears, the US has decided to continue with war games in the Middle East aimed at making war on Iran. On the home front, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is using the virus to fight a hybrid war on Iran and other US 'enemies.' Will kicking them while they're down really work to our advantage? More sanctions on suffering countries? Watch today's Liberty Report...
read on...

No Respite for the Wicked, Pompeo Unleashed

undefined

There are few things in this life that make me more sick to my stomach than watching Secretary of State Mike Pompeo talking. He truly is one of the evilest men I’ve ever had the displeasure of covering.

Into the insanity of the over-reaction to the COVID-19 outbreak, Pompeo wasted no time ramping up sanctions on firms doing any business with Iran, one of the countries worse-hit by this virus to date.

It’s a seemingly endless refrain, everyday, more sanctions on Chinese, Swiss and South African firms for having the temerity in these deflating times to buy oil from someone Pompeo and his gang of heartless psychopaths disapprove of.

This goes far beyond just the oil industry. Even though I’m well aware that Russia’s crashing the price of oil was itself a hybrid war attack on US capital markets. One that has had, to date, devastating effect.
read on...

Jon Basil Utley – A Hero For Our Times

undefined

Jon Utley saved my life. While I hadn’t literally fallen into a well and had him pull me out, in a figurative sense that is exactly what he did. Having just spent most of the 1990s living and working abroad in Hungary, I found myself back in Washington, DC, in a well-known neoconservative think tank. It’s a long story, but much of that strange situation had to do with a combination of disorientation and lack of political contacts after so long overseas.

As anyone in those DC circles would recall from that time, Wednesday mornings were set aside for “coalition” meetings chaired by Grover Norquist, where representatives of the so-called conservative think tanks would each give their updates to the delight of those “coalition members” lucky enough to be in attendance. 

These organizations were all solidly neoconservative and were all somehow connected with the massive direct mail rip-off known as “Conservatism, Inc.” Terrify the rubes in flyover country into kicking in a few bucks to fight the enemy of the day who was about to destroy us. More than a couple mansions in the tony DC suburbs were built from the pennies of pensioners frightened by conjured hobgoblins.
read on...

I am an American constitutional lawyer – and I see our government using Covid-19 to take away our fundamental rights

undefined

Do we really think “it can’t happen here” in America? Could we quarantine the constitution? Are we doing it already?

Panics from pandemics unleash unchecked governmental power. The very premise of popular films like V for Vendetta reveal this: a group uses a virus to seize power and create a totalitarian society. Anyone could witness this from far-off lands, watching the news about China locking people up in their own homes and then removing them screaming from those homes whenever the state wanted. World War I and the Great Depression birthed virulent forms of governments with leaders like Hitler, Mao, Mussolini and Stalin.

Governments across America already used the pandemic, and the media-stoked panic around the pandemic particularly, to limit, restrict or remove First Amendment freedoms of speech and free association, with officials complaining about the potential restraints the freedom of religion imposed upon them. Others denied or declared the right to deny Second Amendment rights of gun purchase for personal safety (at a time governments are issuing no-arrest and no-detention orders for a wide range of crimes in their community while publicly freeing inmates from jails and prisons). They want to coordinate with tech companies to surveil and spy on your everyday movements and activities, in violation of the Fourth Amendment and potentially waive, unilaterally, your medical right to privacy in multiple contexts.
read on...


Authors

Tags