The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity
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NAFTA 2.0: Free Trade or Central Planning?

Monday October 8, 2018

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Last week the United States, Mexico, and Canada agreed to replace the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with a new United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). Sadly, instead of replacing NAFTA’s managed trade with true free trade, the new USMCA expands government’s control over trade.
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The Final Truth of Russia-gate

Monday October 8, 2018

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The conspiracy to overthrow a sitting US President extends far beyond our own “Deep State.” As I’ve been saying in this space for quite some time, it’s been an international team effort from the beginning. Setting aside the British origins of the obscene “dossier” compiled by “ex”-MI6 agent Christopher Steele, we now have further confirmation of foreign involvement in President Trump’s decision to delay (perhaps indefinitely) the declassification of key Russia-gate documents. While US intelligence officials were expected to oppose the move, “Trump was also swayed by foreign allies, including Britain, in deciding to reverse course, these people said. It wasn’t immediately clear what other governments may have raised concerns to the White House.”

But of course the Washington Post knows perfectly well which other governments would have reason to raise “concerns” to the White House. It’s clear from the public record that the following “allies” have rendered the “Resistance” essential assistance at one time or another:

United Kingdom – This entire episode has Her Majesty’s Secret Service’s fingerprints all over it. Steele’s key role is plain enough: here was a British spook who was not only hired by the Clinton campaign to dig up dirt on Trump but was unusually passionate about his work – almost as if he’d have done it for free. And then there was the earliest approach to the Trump campaign, made by Cambridge professor and longtime spook Stefan Halper to Carter Page. And then there’s the mysterious alleged “link” to Russian intelligence, Professor Joseph Mifsud, whose murky British-based thinktank managed to operate openly despite later claims it was a Russian covert operation.
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Trump’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad National Security Team

Monday October 8, 2018

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Gareth Porter paints a dismal picture. Time and again, President Donald Trump indicates he wants to do the right thing: get out Afghanistan, get out of Syria, get out of South Korea.

Every time, his national security team – the people he appointed – sends him to “the tank” and hotboxes him with all the reasons he’s wrong and why the US needs to “stay the course” in multiple wars and absurd deployments.

If the account of Bob Woodward is to be believed, Trump’s flailing against his own appointees is nothing less than pathetic, that of a pitiable Gulliver roped down by Lilliputians of his own installation. As described by Tom Engelhardt...
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NATO’s Manipulation Of The Macedonian Vote Exposes Its Modus Operandi

Sunday October 7, 2018

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NATO membership used to be motivated by a shared fear, however exploited, of a so-called “Soviet/communist threat” which made joining the military bloc a seemingly “natural” decision for the countries that did so during the Old Cold War. The US certainly pressured many of them behind the scenes, however, and it also exploited their membership for clandestine purposes such as embedding Gladio squads into their societies. The Soviet dissolution of 1991 removed the very reason for NATO’s existence, yet the organization survived and has been progressively reinventing itself throughout the subsequent two and a half decades.

At this point in time, it still functions as an anti-Russian alliance after the recent Western-initiated provocations of the New Cold War, but it’s also taken on so-called “anti-terrorist” functions by becoming what de-facto amounts to a recruitment center for American-backed mercenaries. Tiny European states that would otherwise have no interests in far-away battlefields such as Afghanistan have contributed a comparatively significant amount of their troops to this and other conflicts in order to advance America’s grand strategic interests, the success of which they’re told they also have a stake in.

The interim period between the Old and New Cold Wars from the 1990s until the early 2010s was marked by the rapid expansion of NATO eastward towards Russia’s borders as the bloc sought to partially rebrand itself as an “unquestionable” “rite of passage” for the EU-aspiring former communist countries of the former Warsaw Treaty. This was never anything more than an excuse for preparing the geopolitical ground in advance of the preplanned New Cold War, during which time the US would already have freedom of military operability all throughout Central and Eastern Europe up to the Russian frontier.
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The Military-Industrial-Humanitarian Complex: Spreading Western Hegemony Under the Guise of Virtue

Friday October 5, 2018

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Traditionally honorable words such as "humanitarian" and "democracy" have come to acquire a darker and more cynical meaning following their misappropriation to justify the invasion of sovereign nations and to promote the spread of Western military and cultural dominance across the globe. The mainstream media, alongside some human rights activists, assist these ventures by helping disseminate mistruths and by tapping into the emotions of fear, anger and revulsion to soften public opinion and make aggression against a sovereign state appear justified.
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US Military in Syria Ready for Long-Endurance Mission

Thursday October 4, 2018

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Speaking at the UN General Assembly on Sept. 29, Syria’s Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem demanded that US, French and Turkish forces leave his country immediately or be dealt with “accordingly”. Indeed, with the Islamic State reduced to insignificance, they have no justification for being there. The message is primarily addressed to Washington. Trained and equipped by the United States, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) control roughly 25-30 percent of Syria, including areas which hold the bulk of the country's oil and gas reserves. The group has pressed for Syria’s division along federal lines with autonomous cantons created in various regions. It has already set up cantonal administrations in areas it controls with their own revenues, police and public services.

The SDF is backed by 2,200 US troops on the ground illegally operating in a foreign country. The forward operating base at Al Tanf is manned by American military. It is located at the strategic border area between Iraq, Syria and Jordan. Last month, the Marine Corps conducted an exercise to demonstrate that the United States is there for the long haul.

Presidential candidate Trump promised to stay out of foreign wars. In April, the US president said the forces would leave Syria soon with the decision taken “very quickly” on how long they will remain there. “We’ll be coming out of Syria, like, very soon. Let the other people take care of it now,” he stated. On Sept.24, US National Security Adviser (NSA) John Bolton said the US would remain in Syria "until Iran leaves". “We’re not going to leave as long as Iranian troops are outside Iranian borders, and that includes Iranian proxies and militias,” the NSA formulated the US position. According to Military Times, his statement was “signaling a fundamental shift from the current counter-terrorism operations to a mission focused more on geopolitical maneuvering and proxy warfare.”The source believes the White House has revealed a massive mission creep. It cited James Phillips, senior research fellow for Middle Eastern affairs at the Heritage Foundation, who said. “I would prefer to keep US troops there indefinitely, because they also serve a purpose in blocking Iran’s freedom of movement and access to lines of communication that would connect western Iraq with Lebanon.”
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James Comey and the Unending Bush Torture Scandal

Thursday October 4, 2018

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The vast regime of torture created by the Bush administration after the 9/11 attacks continues to haunt America. The political class and most of the media have never dealt honestly with the profound constitutional corruption that such practices inflicted. Instead, torture enablers are permitted to pirouette as heroic figures on the flimsiest evidence.
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UN Rules Against US On Iran Sanctions; Pompeo Vows More Sanctions

Thursday October 4, 2018

After the US unilaterally pulled out of the JCPOA Iran nuclear agreement and re-applied sanctions early this summer, Iran, citing a Treaty of Amity with the US, took the case to the International Court of Justice seeking among, other things, a ruling against US blocking trade in medical, food, and civil aviation products. The UN court ruled partially in favor of Iran, leading Secretary of State Pompeo to announce it was unilaterally pulling out of the treaty and blaming Iran for politicizing the court. Meanwhile, a newly uncovered US intelligence document from 2011 reveals that the US determination to overthrow Assad in Syria was driven by a desire to hit at Iran. It's all about Iran! Tune in to today's Liberty Report...
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Trump To Saudi King: Pay Up For US Military Protection!

Wednesday October 3, 2018

Frustrated by the Saudi refusal to increase oil production by two million barrels per day, President Trump said at a rally yesterday that absent US military protection the Saudi government would not last two weeks. He said the Saudis should "pay up" if they want to remain in charge. Why are oil prices going up? Who's to blame? The best answer comes from a surprising source. Tune in to today's Liberty Report...
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That Sign Telling You How Fast You’re Driving May be Spying on You

Wednesday October 3, 2018

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The next time you drive past one of those road signs with a digital readout showing how fast you’re going, don’t simply assume it’s there to remind you not to speed. It may actually be capturing your license plate data.

According to recently released US federal contracting data, the Drug Enforcement Administration will be expanding the footprint of its nationwide surveillance network with the purchase of “multiple” trailer-mounted speed displays “to be retrofitted as mobile LPR [License Plate Reader] platforms.” The DEA is buying them from RU2 Systems Inc., a private Mesa, Arizona company. How much it’s spending on the signs has been redacted.

Two other, apparently related contracts, show that the DEA has hired a small machine shop in California, and another in Virginia, to conceal the readers within the signs. An RU2 representative said the company providing the LPR devices themselves is a Canadian firm called Genetec.

The DEA launched its National License Plate Reader Program in 2008; it was publicly revealed for the first time during a congressional hearing four years after that. The DEA’s most recent budget describes the program as “a federation of independent federal, state, local, and tribal law enforcement license plate readers linked into a cooperative system, designed to enhance the ability of law enforcement agencies to interdict drug traffickers, money launderers or other criminal activities on high drug and money trafficking corridors and other public roadways throughout the U.S.,” primarily along the southwest border region, and the country’s northeast and southeast corridors.
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