The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity
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Will the Trump Administration Overdose on Authoritarianism?

Monday May 22, 2017

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Last week Attorney General Jeff Sessions ordered federal prosecutors in drug cases to seek the maximum penalty authorized by federal mandatory minimum sentencing laws. Sessions’ order represents a setback to the progress made toward restoring compassion and common sense to the sentencing process over the past few years. Sessions’ action also guarantees that many nonviolent drug law offenders will continue spending more time in prison than murderers.

Sessions’ support for mandatory minimums is no surprise, as he has a history of fanatical devotion to the drug war. Sessions’ pro-drug war stance is at odds with the reality of the drug war’s failure. Over forty years after President Nixon declared war on drugs, the government cannot even keep drugs out of prisons!
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US Attacks Syrian Government Forces - It Now Has To Make Its Choice

Sunday May 21, 2017

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The Syrian army is on the way to liberate the ISIS besieged city of some 100,000 and garrison of Deir Ezzor in the east of the country. The U.S. has trained a few thousand "New Syrian Army" insurgents in Jordan and is reportedly prepared to march these and its own forces from Jordan through the east-Syrian desert all the way up to Raqqa and Deir Ezzor. About a year ago it occupied the al-Tanf (al-Tanaf) border station which consists of only a few buildings in the mid of the desert. The station between Syria and Iraq near the Jordan border triangle was previously held by a small ISIS group.

A U.S. move from the south up towards the Euphrates would cut off the Syrian government from the whole south-east of the country and from its people in Deir Ezzor. While that area is sparsely populated it also has medium size oil and gas fields and is the land connection to the Syrian allies in Iraq.

With the western part of the country relatively quiet, the Syrian government and its allies decided to finally retake the south-eastern provinces from ISIS. They want to lift the ISIS siege on Deir Ezzor and close the border between Syria and Iraq with its own forces. The move will also block any potential U.S. invasion from the south by retaking the road to al-Tanf and the Syrian-Iraqi border (red arrows). The sovereign Syrian state will not give up half of the country to an illegal occupation by ISIS or the U.S. At the same time as the eastern operations are running consolidation and clearing operations against ISIS in the middle and west of the countries will take place (green arrows).

Yesterday a small battalion size force (~2-300 men) of the regular Syrian army, Syrian National Defense Organization volunteers and Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF/PMU of the Kata'ib al-Imam Ali) marched on the road from the west towards al-Tanf.
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The Russian Obsession Goes Back Decades

Saturday May 20, 2017

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Just consider the accusations that have been leveled at the president:
  1. He has betrayed the Constitution, which he swore to uphold.
  2. He has committed treason by befriending Russia and other enemies of America.
  3. He has subjugated America’s interests to Moscow.
  4. He has been caught in fantastic lies to the American people, including personal ones, like his previous marriage and divorce.
President Donald Trump?

No, President John F. Kennedy.
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The Assault on Trump

Saturday May 20, 2017

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We are witnessing an assault by the national security state and its liberal media on a President of the United States that is unprecedented.

Wild and unsupported accusations of treasonous or illegal Russian connections have been the mainstay of the news since Trump’s campaign for president. These accusations have reached the point that there is an impeachment movement driven by the national security state and its liberal media and endorsed by Democrats, the American leftwing which has turned against the working class as “Trump deplorables,” and luminaries such as Harvard Law Professor Larry Tribe. The Washington Post, which was not present at the meeting of President Trump with Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov, purports to know that Trump gave Lavrov US national security information.

The Russian government has offered the presstitute media a transcript of the meeting, but, of course, the pressitutes are not interested.

The latest story is that Trump tried to bribe FBI Director Comey, before he fired him, not to investigate Trump as part of the “Russian investigation.” Clearly there is no intelligence left in the American media. The President doesn’t need to bribe someone he can fire.

What we are witnessing is the determination of the national security state to keep their prized “Russian Threat” in its assigned role as the Number One Threat to the US. The liberal media, owned by the CIA since the 1950s is in accord with this goal.
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Seth Rich, Craig Murray and the Sinister Stewards of the National Security State

Saturday May 20, 2017

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Why is it a “conspiracy theory” to think that a disgruntled Democratic National Committee staffer gave WikiLeaks the DNC emails, but not a conspiracy theory to think the emails were provided by Russia?

Why?

Which is the more likely scenario: That a frustrated employee leaked damaging emails to embarrass his bosses or a that foreign government hacked DNC computers for some still-unknown reason?

That’s a no-brainer, isn’t it?

Former-DNC employee, Seth Rich, not only had access to the emails, but also a motive. He was pissed about the way the Clinton crowd was “sandbagging” Bernie Sanders. In contrast, there’s neither evidence nor motive connecting Russia to the emails. On top of that,  WikiLeaks founder, Julien Assange (a man of impeccable integrity) has repeatedly denied that Russia gave him the emails which suggests the government investigation is completely misdirected. The logical course of action, would be to pursue the leads that are most likely to bear fruit, not those that originate from one’s own political bias. But, of course, logic has nothing to do with the current investigation, it’s all about politics and geopolitics.
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Black Swans And Interventionistas...With Special Guest Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Friday May 19, 2017

Neocons and the pro-war mainstream media have nothing to lose when the wars they promote go terribly wrong. This is unique in history. After the predictable disaster, they return to their air conditioned Washington and New York offices while millions suffer and die. That is why why they are able to continue. In the words of today's Liberty Report guest Nassim Nicholas Taleb, they have no "skin in the game." The famous author of The Black Swan also lets us in on his thinking about the current state of the US economy and the actions of the Federal Reserve. Tune in to this very special Liberty Report...
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The Special Counsel Comes to Town: It’s the Moscow Trials, Revisited

Friday May 19, 2017

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Donald Trump ran on a platform of improving relations with Russia: his victory was a mandate for that policy. Yet the real power in this country doesn’t reside within the ballot box, and that reality was brought home when the Justice Department appointed a “special counsel” to investigate “any links and/or coordination with the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump.”

After months of leaks coming from the intelligence agencies, who bitterly oppose the new policy, and a barrage of innuendo, smears, and character assassination in the media, the will of the people has been abrogated: the Deep State has the last word. The denizens of Langley, and the career spooks within our seventeen intelligence agencies, have exercised their veto power – a power that is not written into the Constitution, but is nevertheless very real.

Their goal is to not only make détente with Russia impossible – and Trump’s goal of “getting along with Russia” will surely not be implemented now that the regime of the special counsel has trumped him – but also to overthrow a democratically elected chief executive, and perhaps prosecute him for “high crimes and misdemeanors” in the process.

No matter what you think of Trump, this is an ominous development for all those who care about the future of our republic. Because the warning to our politicians could not be clearer: So you want to effect a fundamental change in US foreign policy? You dare to question the permanence of NATO? Let this be a lesson to you.
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While the Deep State ‘Death Star’ Seeks to Finish Off Trump, ‘Mr. Massacre’ Returns Pushing for Greater Albania

Friday May 19, 2017

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The fake news is flying thick and fast in Washington this week. On the heels of Donald Trump’s Oval Office visit with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and other American and Russian officials, it finally seemed the fledgling US administration was turning the corner and beginning to focus on moving forward on cooperation with Moscow against radical Islamic terrorism, particularly in Syria.

Then the Deep State and mainstream media (MSM) counterattacked. First, they questioned why a TASS photographer was allowed access to the meeting while the American fake news purveyors were not. Then they speculated that maybe Lavrov or Ambassador Sergey Kislyak had planted a bug in the president’s office. Then they charged that Trump had compromised sensitive intelligence (received from Israel) by revealing it to the Russians. Finally they accused Trump of obstruction of justice – an impeachable offense – by his reportedly suggesting to now-fired FBI Director James Comey that he should go easy on short-lived National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, whose scalp was the first the Deep State/MSM gang had nailed to the wall.

The whole anti-Trump campaign has been based on criminal leaks of classified or privileged material from within the government. Still, there is no sign of a counterattack. Perhaps Attorney General Jeff Sessions has secretly empanelled a grand jury and indictments of leakers are forthcoming. More likely he has not and is more concerned with whether prosecutors are using too much discretion in the severity of offenses they choose to charge criminal suspects with, or whether states are playing fast and loose with federal marijuana laws.

The only brief respite Trump has received against this onslaught has been when he launched cruise missiles against Syria over a false flag chemical attack by jihadists in Idlib, for which the MSM and Deep Staters applauded him. There is reason to fear that Trump, guided by advisers whose policy proclivities mirror those of his critics, may seek the path of least resistance by further bellicose measures.
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US Thinking on Arming the Kurds: Complex, Intricate, Nuanced, or Just Plain Stupid?

Thursday May 18, 2017

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We are halfway through May, 2017, and it seems to be a month that again highlights the dearth of commonsense in the minds of most of those who are responsible for conducting the republic’s foreign and domestic affairs. On this score, one event merits special notice, namely, the arming of the Kurds.

This decision will eventually have such a widespread and disastrous impact on the Middle East region that the interventionist diplomats, media, generals, and academics who advised President Trump to arm the Kurds will have to fall back on a paraphrase of that old Iraq-War, Bush lie, “We did our best and the calamity that resulted from our decision to arm the Kurds is a case of unintended consequences.” When the worst occurs, anyone with a bit of commonsense will recognize that the failure, destabilization, and additional war that has resulted from arming the Kurds was something that (a) was perfectly and easily predictable and (b) another long step into a fatal swamp in which America has nothing at stake save the feelings, sensitivities, and ardor for lucre of the already rich American governing elite. But first, take a quick look at these two maps.

As can be seen, there are substantial Kurdish populations in Syria, Turkey, Iraq, and Iran, and, at least in Iraq, Kurdish territories sit upon enormous oil and natural gas reserves. Each of those four nations has long feared the Kurds’ strident demands for an independent Kurdish state, their fighting abilities, and their fiery nationalism. As fear always does, the nations’ fear of the Kurds has led to their economic, social, linguistic, and – at times — military oppression by each government. In short, Syria, Iraq, Turkey, and Iran have long seen their Kurdish populations as malcontents bent on independence and so a threat to their territorial integrity.
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Mueller Appointed 'Chief Prosecutor' -- 'Russiagate' Crisis Over...Or Just Beginning?

Thursday May 18, 2017

In a surprise move, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed former FBI Director Robert Mueller as Special Counsel to look into whether the Russian government interfered in the 2016 US presidential election and whether the Trump election team colluded with the Russians. Mueller is also granted sweeping and unspecified power to look into many related issues around the general topic. Many questions have arisen over the move. How will this affect President Trump's foreign policy, particularly as the timing is suspiciously close to the recent successful meeting between Trump and Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov. What does it mean for the rest of Trump's agenda? Have the chances risen for his removal from office? If so, how and by whom? We take a look at all the disparate threads on the issue in today's Liberty Report...
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