Not long ago anyone who suggested that neo-Nazis were involved in the US-backed government in Ukraine would be ridiculed as a conspiracy theorist. Then last week the US House voted to prohibit funding to the Azov Battalion because of its neo-Nazi ideology. As NATO makes plans to station thousands of troops and tons of heavy military equipment right on Russia's border, the Ron Paul Liberty Report takes a look at who exactly is escalating tensions in eastern Europe... read on...
Born 800 years ago today, the magna carta was in essence the result of a rebellion against the unchecked power of the executive to take a country to war and then stick the citizens with the bill. What can we learn from that rebellion and how can we put it to use to preserve and defend our own liberty against a modern unchecked executive power? Today's Ron Paul Liberty Report takes a look... read on...
Much has been written about the dangers and challenges posed by China as a rising global power. Indeed, historians speak of generic tensions between rising powers and status quo powers that have often led to war.
But instability takes at least two players to create it: the rising power and the resistance of the once-reigning power. Today the US is that once-reigning power, now in a state of relative international decline. If the US itself, and the international order including rising powers, do not acknowledge and handle this transition wisely a dangerous confrontation awaits.
The reasons for US decline across the boards are well known and well described in many statistics. They are not, however, regularly acknowledged by large segments of the US population including Washington. Here I would like to look primarily at the foreign policy aspects of this decline and its implications.
The decline of US power abroad cannot be separated from many domestic failings: deadlocked governance, bloated military budgets and their huge opportunity costs, the rise of the military-industrial-security state and its massive cash infusions into Congress; an impoverished political spectrum that begins on the moderate right of center (Obama) and caroms on over into various degrees of crazy right. read on...
The rebel opposition in Syria has in recent months made a series of gains against the Syrian army, most notably in Idlib, Palmyra, and Ramadi in Iraq. However, given that from the very beginning the opposition had taken “a clear sectarian direction” and has been dominated by “ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra … in addition to other extreme jihadi groups,” itself consisting of “no moderate middle,” and the fact that “in reality there is no dividing wall between them [extremists] and America’s supposedly moderate opposition allies,” it is no wonder why all of the recent gains have been made by hard-line Islamists. [1]
The radicalization of the opposition was the result of a covert US/CIA-led program in collusion with regional allies to expand the dissent base in Syria and strengthen Islamist rebels against the Syrian government. [2]
These recent Islamist advances are the result of an increase in support from the US-led coalition to their proxies inside Syria. Recently both Turkey and Saudi Arabia, who operate out of US-led command centers in Turkey and Jordan, signed a pact in early March to coordinate support to al-Qaeda and other extremist groups in order to further attack the Syrian government. The Huffington Post quotes Usama Abu Zeid, a legal advisor to the Free Syrian Army, as confirming that this new coordination had facilitated recent rebel advances. [3] read on...
Nebraska’s legislature recently made headlines when it ended the state’s death penalty. Many found it odd that a conservatives-dominated legislature would support ending capital punishment, since conservative politicians have traditionally supported the death penalty. However, an increasing number of conservatives are realizing that the death penalty is inconsistent with both fiscal and social conservatism. These conservatives are joining with libertarians and liberals in a growing anti-death penalty coalition.
It is hard to find a more wasteful and inefficient government program than the death penalty. New Hampshire recently spent over $4 million dollars prosecuting just two death penalty cases, while Jasper County in Texas raised property taxes by seven percent in order to pay for one death penalty case! A Duke University study found that replacing North Carolina’s death penalty would save taxpayers approximately $22 million dollars in just two years. read on...
Rarely does the world get a true look inside the corrupt world of Western oligarchs and the brazen manipulations they use to enhance their fortunes at the expense of the public good.
The following comes from correspondence of the Hungarian-born billionaire, now naturalized American speculator, George Soros. The hacker group CyberBerkut has published online letters allegedly written by Soros that reveal him not only as puppet master of the US-backed Ukraine regime. They also reveal his machinations with the US Government and the officials of the European Union in a scheme where, if he succeeds, he could win billions in the plunder of Ukraine assets. All, of course, would be at the expense of Ukrainian citizens and of EU taxpayers.
What the three hacked documents reveal is a degree of behind-the-scene manipulation of the most minute details of the Kiev regime by the New York billionaire. read on...
Back on March 31, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) announced what many media reports heralded as a big rollback in the use of structuring allegations to justify seizing assets from individuals. Yet, here we are less than three months later with the DOJ prosecuting former US House of Representatives Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) for two crimes — structuring and lying to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) about why he employed structuring.
Despite the DOJ’s March 31 talking points used to allay people’s worries about the US government punishing people for the nonviolent action of moving cash in or out of their own accounts in a manner the US government disapproves, the Hastert prosecution shows that business as usual continues at the DOJ. In fact, the willingness of the DOJ to undertake this very high-profile prosecution where there is no alleged crime beyond structuring and lying about structuring may well indicate an escalation in the US government’s structuring crackdown.
According to the DOJ, Hastert faces punishment of up to 10 years in prison and a $500,000 fine if he is convicted. It is thus hard to argue that Hastert is in a better position than the many people whose money has been seized because of structuring allegations but who can choose to just walk away with a significant monetary loss. Hastert’s legal bills are mounting to defend himself against the DOJ that can spend without restraint in pursuit of a conviction. Even if Hastert can beat the charges or make a deal so he can walk free, his financial loss will be very high. read on...
Despite the ongoing war propaganda and political leaders who seem desperate to do the bidding of Washington, a majority of the population in every European NATO member country would oppose going to war with Russia -- even if Russia attacked another NATO member country! That is the surprising result of a recent PEW poll conducted in NATO member countries. Only in the US and Canada -- well away from the battlefield -- is there majority support for striking the Russians. What does this mean for the proponents of the new Cold War? Tune in to the Ron Paul Liberty Report for more... read on...
When at first you don’t succeed, fail, fail again.
And with that, we woke up Wednesday to see the Obama administration ready to announce a change of course in Iraq, one that is very much a back to the future kind of event. Following about a year of not defeating, degrading or destroying Islamic State (IS; in fact, they are doing quite well, thank you), the administration let slip it’s planning to send hundreds or more new US military personnel to set up a new training base in Anbar Province, Western Iraq. The facility will be located at Al Taqqadum, an Iraqi base near the town of Habbaniya.
American plans are to somehow use, what, magic powder, to double the number of Sunni tribesmen willing to fight IS, while at the same time recruiting and training some 3,000 new Iraqi Army personnel to fight specifically in Anbar. Such plans remind one of an eight-year-old, who proclaims she plans to make a billion zillion dollars selling lemonade in front of the house. read on...
President Obama has admitted this week that he has no strategy for Iraq and Syria. But in the absence of a strategy the old familiar tactics are still at play: escalate, escalate, escalate. More US "trainers" to Iraq to perform a miracle: create an Iraqi army that can defeat ISIS; more US weapons on the way (because the last batch ended up in the hands of ISIS); and, to top it off, a new US military base to be built in Iraq's Anbar Province. All to the delight of the military-industrial complex who is really running the show. Tune in to the Ron Paul Liberty Report for more on the chaos... read on...
