It is hard to believe it was two years ago when we launched the Ron Paul Institute! We started the project because we wanted to make sure that Ron Paul's ideas would continue to prosper and to fertilize the fields of liberty that he had planted in his 40 years of public life. They said we would never last and if the neocons had their way we would have been shut down by now. But thanks to the interest and support of so many thousands worldwide, we are prospering. We cannot continue to challenge the neocons, interventionists, and police state promoters without your support. Please watch Ron Paul's assessment of our first two years and please consider supporting the Ron Paul Institute...
Having now had a year’s time to get better acquainted with their new Ukrainian friends and the neighborhood overall, Europeans are losing their taste for economic sanctions on Russia.
Contrary to American assurances, economic warfare against Russia meant to compel the return of Crimea to Ukraine hasn’t worked. Nor did the Ukrainian military’s campaign against the Donbas tame the Russian “aggression” mainstream media shouts about daily. All Europe has achieved to date is tens of billions in lost trade and Russia’s abandonment of the South Stream pipeline.
The Russians were building South Stream to insure the – politely put – “integrity” of gas flows to Europe while in transit across Ukraine, and put an end to the country’s 24-year racket of holding Russia’s energy commerce with Europe hostage by virtue of having inherited a key segment of the Soviet pipeline network. The loss of jobs and transit revenues their participation in the construction and operation of South Stream promised was keenly felt in Hungary, Bulgaria, Serbia, Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Austria, France, Italy, Cyprus, Luxembourg, the Czech Republic and Germany have all taken serious losses thanks to the trade sanctions as well. read on...
Last year Washington flew into a panic over an ebola outbreak in parts of Africa. USAID spent $1.4 billion constructing eleven treatment centers in Africa, but nine of those did not treat a single patient. The locals using hygienic products and traditional methods solved the crisis before the US top-down approach. USAID spent like a drunken sailor, with much of that one and a half billion going to well-connected "NGOs" and military contractors, and the people of Africa saw no real benefit. However, it was a "successful" test of the US Africa Command (AFRICOM), which deployed 3,000 US troops to "fight" ebola. Tune in to the Ron Paul Liberty report for the full story of this boondoggle... read on...
Nearly the whole world, seemingly paid off by Saudi money, is waging war against Yemen.
How else can one explain the silence that surrounds the Saudi bombing campaign that will lead to devastating starvation in Yemen and will turn that country into a second, bigger Gaza?
The sycophantic UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon kicked out the UN envoy to Yemen, Jamal Benomar, because Benomar did not endorse the Saudi bombing campaign. He will be replaced with the Saudi choice Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmad from Mauritania:
Previously, in Yemen, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmad was “an embarrassment,” as multiple UN sources put it to Inner City Press. But, hey, whatever the Saudis want. read on...
Senate leadership pretends to be defending the constitutional authority of the Legislative Branch in demanding an up or down vote on any deal President Obama makes on Iran. But of course this is just a cover for their real intent to blow up any deal that would lift sanctions, show Iran to be a rational actor, and move regime change off the table. The problem is this is not a US-Iran bilateral agreement. It is an international deal that, if Congress has its way, would result in sanctions being lifted on Iran by all its major trading partners except the US. In his Liberty Report, Ron Paul discusses the new compromise legislation that passed in the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee this week and what we might expect in the coming clash between Obama and the neocons... read on...
The case of Mohanad Mahmoud Al Farekh is a perfect example of how the national-security state apparatus that was grafted onto our federal governmental structure as part of the Cold War has revolutionized America’s governmental system.
Farekh is an American citizen. Two years ago, the Pentagon and the CIA — the two principal components of the national-security state branch of the federal government — were urging President Obama to authorize an assassination of Farekh. Apparently the request was controversial simply because the intended victim of the hit was an American.
Now, one might say, “Well, Jacob, what’s wrong with the national-security state’s assassination of an American? Haven’t you heard of the war on terrorism? In war, it’s okay to kill the enemy. And if the CIA and the Pentagon say that an American citizen is an enemy combatant, who are we to question that determination?” read on...
President Obama recently issued an executive order declaring Venezuela an "extraordinary" threat to the United States. Both he and his officials knew this was not true, but the determination had to be made so that he could impose sanctions on the country. At almost the same time, the president attended an historic face-to-face meeting with Cuban leader Raul Castro. This is one (positive) step toward normalizing relations with the island. Why the schizophrenia? Meanwhile, recently-declared presidential candidate Marco Rubio pretends to bring fresh new ideas and policies to the race while demanding that the 50 year fruitless embargo of Cuba remain in place. read on...
Easter should be a time of celebration for Christians, but for those of the faith living in the Middle East, there hasn’t been too much to celebrate in recent years.
“Kill the Christians” is the title of a new BBC documentary, to be broadcast this week. In it, veteran reporter Jane Corbin travels “across the Middle East, to examine why Christianity is facing the greatest threat to its existence. She finds hundreds of thousands of Christians are fleeing Islamic extremists, conflict and persecution”.
It’s a grim story, but for the reason why Christians are so threatened today, we need to look at Western foreign policy.
Self-proclaimed Christian leaders in the West have put their fellow believers in such danger by adhering to neocon/liberal interventionist policies. Their number one objective has been to topple secular and socialistic regimes in the Middle East and North Africa, which although authoritarian, protected Christians and rejected religious extremism.
Let’s start with Iraq. The fact that Christians were protected by the government there — and that the long-standing Deputy Prime Minister, Tariq Aziz, was a practicing Christian — didn’t count too much when those great “Christians” George Bush and Tony Blair launched an illegal war of aggression against the country in 2003. read on...
Militarism and military spending are everywhere on the rise, as the new Cold War propaganda seems to be paying off. The new “threats” that are being hyped bring big profits to military contractors and the network of think tanks they pay to produce pro-war propaganda.
Here are just a few examples:
The German government announced last week that it would purchase 100 more “Leopard” tanks – a 45 percent increase in the country’s inventory. Germany had greatly reduced its inventory of tanks as the end of the Cold War meant the end of any threat of a Soviet ground invasion of Europe. The German government now claims these 100 new tanks, which may cost nearly half a billion dollars, are necessary to respond to the new Russian assertiveness in the region. Never mind that Russia has neither invaded nor threatened any country in the region, much less a NATO member country. read on...
The Obama Administration's "pivot to Asia" seems to only have a military component. Unfortunately it is not a pivot toward more trade or more peaceful exchanges. This past week US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter went to Tokyo to celebrate a shift in Japan's defense policy that would allow them to engage militarily should their friends and allies come under attack. It is a slippery slope toward involvement in Washington's regime change operations worldwide. What Carter did not count on, however, was that the opposition to the 70 year US occupation of Okinawa to take center stage. Ron Paul takes on this Asian pivot in his latest Liberty Report... read on...
