The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity
The Ron Paul Peace and Prosperity Institute
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Who Will Weed Out the Warmongers?

Tuesday November 1, 2016

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If Hillary Clinton hangs on to win the presidency, liberal Democrats have vowed to block her appointment of Wall Street-friendly officials to key Cabinet and sub-Cabinet jobs. But there has been little organized resistance to her choosing hawkish foreign policy advisers.

Indeed, Washington’s foreign policy establishment has purged almost anyone who isn’t part of the neoconservative/liberal-interventionist “group think.” That’s why pretty much everyone who “matters” agrees about the need to push around Russia, China, Syria, Iran, etc.

Reflecting that attitude, Sunday’s lead editorial in the neocon Washington Post hailed the broad consensus within the Establishment for more warlike actions once President Obama is gone, taking with him what the Post calls Obama’s “self-defeating passivity.”

The Post praised a new report from the liberal Center for American Progress which calls for bombing the Syrian military and getting tough to “counter Iran’s negative influence” in line with what all the neocons — as well as Israel and Saudi Arabia — want the next President to do.
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New Poll: Americans Feel Less Safe After 15 Years Of War

Tuesday November 1, 2016

We were told that we had to attack Iraq because the Saddam Hussein government made us less safe. We were told we had to bomb and kill Gaddafi in Libya because his regime made us less safe. Ditto with the Taliban in Afghanistan and Assad in Syria. Now. 15 years after 9/11, Americans are seeing through the endless wars that have lasted through the Bush and Obama Administrations. Trillions spent, untold thousands killed, societies destroyed, people displaced. A new poll sponsored by the Center for the National Interest and the Charles Koch Institute has found that Americans feel less, not more safe after a decade and a half of war. We are reaching the critical mass where Americans begin to demand a change in our interventionist foreign policy. More on the encouraging poll in today's Liberty Report
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Obama's Victory Lap?

Tuesday November 1, 2016

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In between nearly daily campaign stops shilling for Hillary, President Barack Obama has been promoting his record as Head of State. To Obama’s credit, he talks nice and appears to be both thoughtful and rational, qualities that were not always evident in his predecessor in office. But the hype about what was achieved in his eight years appears to be more than a bit overblown, particularly if one considers the flagship domestic project, Obamacare. It is a program in which the government forces individuals to buy a product that has been crafted together by private, for profit companies. If the people do not buy, they will be penalized by the government. The companies in turn have learned that it is tough to make money insuring people who are actually sick so they are leaving the program while those individuals who have to buy their own coverage without government subsidies are discovering that the significant annual price increases mean that they cannot afford insurance at all.Donald Trump is right that the program is in crisis, is “over,” and should be repealed.

Against that, what has Obama accomplished domestically? I will not consider the constant pandering on gender and race because that is, after all, what Democrats do. But if one considers immigration a part of domestic policy, he is responsible for refusing to enforce immigration law, letting Haitians stay illegally in the US as compensation for a hurricane that occurred in 2010, while also failing to deport whole categories of Hispanics who are in the country without visas or residency permits. 

Domestic would also include the continuation of several types of surveillance of citizens by the NSA and FBI, the hounding and prosecution of whistleblowers, and the increased reliance on the State Secrets privilege to derail the use of the judicial system to pushback against government overreach. And in a just concluded parole hearing involving a Guantanamo detainee who had been repeatedly tortured, the Obama Administration has now determined that some individuals can be held in prison forever without ever being charged with a crime or convicted.
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Not Guilty: The Power of Nullification to Counteract Government Tyranny

Monday October 31, 2016

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How do you balance the scales of justice at a time when Americans are being tasered, tear-gassed, pepper-sprayed, hit with batons, shot with rubber bullets and real bullets, blasted with sound cannons, detained in cages and kennels, sicced by police dogs, arrested and jailed for challenging the government’s excesses, abuses and power-grabs?

Politics won’t fix a system that is broken beyond repair.

No matter who sits in the White House, the shadow government will continue to call the shots behind the scenes.

Relying on the courts to restore justice seems futile.

Indeed, with every ruling handed down, it becomes more apparent that we live in an age of hollow justice, with government courts, largely lacking in vision and scope, rendering narrow rulings focused on the letter of the law. This is true at all levels of the judiciary, but especially so in the highest court of the land, the US Supreme Court, which is seemingly more concerned with establishing order and protecting government agents than with upholding the rights enshrined in the Constitution.

Even so, justice matters.

It matters whether you’re a rancher protesting a federal land-grab by the Bureau of Land Management, a Native American protesting an oil pipeline that will endanger sacred sites and pollute water supplies, or an African-American taking to the streets to protest yet another police shooting of an unarmed citizen.
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Will The Deep State Win The Election?

Monday October 31, 2016

Most of the country is on the edge of its seat over next week's presidential election. Will it be Hillary? Trump? We don't know. One thing we do know is that the real winner will be a public/private hybrid known as the "deep state" that ensures Washington's policies do not significantly shift out of its favor. They will come out on top regardless of who wins next week. There are more "private" contractors with top secret clearances than government employees. A recently released FBI memo referenced the "7th Floor Group" or "Shadow Government" made up of very high-ranking State Department officials and perhaps others. This not conspiracy, it is conspiracy fact. What can be done about it? Plenty. We are joined by Rutherford Institute president John Whitehead to discuss in today's Liberty Report...
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Raqqa Now Key to US Strategy in Syria and the Wider Region

Monday October 31, 2016

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To understand the situation in Aleppo is to understand the key to the conflict in Syria at this juncture: Will Washington and its allies or the Syrian Army and Russia liberate Raqqa, the capital of the so-called Islamic State.

It does not take a military genius to discern Washington’s strategy in prolonging the military operation being conducted by the Syrian Army, supported by Russia, to liberate eastern Aleppo – which remains occupied by Nusra Front and the “moderates” fighting alongside the Salafi-jihadist group.

Keeping the Syrian and Russian military forces bogged down in eastern Aleppo is key to allowing the US-led coalition to complete the operation, currently underway, to take the Iraqi city of Mosul from ISIS, before continuing an east-west advance across the Syrian border to take Raqqa. Raqqa will then be established as the de facto capital of so-called moderate Syrian forces, which will re-group there, presumably under cover of a US-imposed no-fly zone, to become a counterweight to the authority of the Assad government in Damascus. Such a development would also establish a permanent US military presence in a country that has long been key to Washington’s objective of dominating the region.
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Blame Government, Not Markets for Monopoly

Monday October 31, 2016

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When Time-Warner announced it planned to merge with another major communications firm, many feared the new company would exercise near-total monopoly power. These concerns led some to call for government action to block the merger in order to protect both Time-Warner's competitors and consumers.

No, I am not talking about Time-Warner’s recent announced plan to merge with AT&T, but the reaction to Time-Warner’s merger with (then) Internet giant AOL in 2000. Far from creating an untouchable leviathan crushing all competitors, the AOL-Time-Warner merger fell apart in under a decade.
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Selling ‘Regime Change’ Wars to the Masses

Saturday October 29, 2016

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American journalist Edward Bernays is often described as the man who invented modern propaganda. The nephew of Sigmund Freud, the pioneer of psychoanalysis, it was Bernays who coined the term “public relations” as a euphemism for spin and its deceptions.

In 1929, as a publicist for the cigarette industry, Bernays persuaded feminists to promote cigarettes for women by smoking in the New York Easter Parade – behavior then considered outlandish. One feminist, Ruth Booth, declared, “Women! Light another torch of freedom! Fight another sex taboo!”
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Comey Sends Letter To Congress Citing New Evidence (and An Investigation) In The Clinton Email Scandal

Friday October 28, 2016

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There is a major news development with the release of a letter from FBI Director James B. Comey that the Bureau has decided that new evidence requires further investigation into the Clinton emails. It was a surprising change just days before the election. After all, as recently as September 27, 2016, Comey rejected the idea that the bureau would reopen its investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of state. Comey wrote in a letter to top members of Congress that the bureau has “learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the investigation.”

I have been critical recently of the handling of the FBI investigation, particularly in the granting of immunity to key potential targets. I recently wrote a column on FBI investigation into the Clinton email scandal and revised my view as to the handling of the investigation in light of the five immunity deals handed out by the Justice Department.  I had previously noted that FBI Director James Comey was within accepted lines of prosecutorial discretion in declining criminal charges, even though I believed that such charges could have been brought. However, the news of the immunity deals (and particularly the deal given top ranking Clinton aide Cheryl Mills) was baffling and those deals seriously undermined the ability to bring criminal charges in my view.

Wikileaks disclosures have only embarrassed the Bureau further in showing Clinton aides debating how to explain the deletions and how to delay turning over material. Comey now has told legislators that “I agreed that the FBI should take appropriate investigative steps designed to allow investigators to review these emails to determine whether they contain classified information, as well as to assess their importance to our investigation.”
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Paper Tiger ISIS Digs Into Mosul

Friday October 28, 2016

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As a former soldier and war correspondent who has covered 14 conflicts, I look at all the media hoopla over tightening siege of Mosul, Iraq and shake my head. This western-organized “liberation” of Mosul is one of the bigger pieces of political-military theater that I’ve seen.

Islamic State (IS), the defender of Mosul, is a paper tiger, blown out of all proportion by western media.  IS is, as this  writer has been saying for years, an armed mob made up of 20-something malcontents, religious fanatics, and modern-day anarchists.  At its top is a cadre of former Iraqi Army officers with military experience.

These former officers of Saddam Hussain are bent on revenge for the US destruction of their nation and the lynching of its late leader. But IS rank and file has no military training, little discipline, degraded communications, and ragged logistics.
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