tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6613470748905698602024-03-19T04:47:30.920-04:00Ron Paul AmericaStanding up for Individual Liberty!Ron Paul Americahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08798716560498383830noreply@blogger.comBlogger5720125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-661347074890569860.post-8420653878641684552024-03-18T10:27:00.003-04:002024-03-18T10:27:37.094-04:00Can NATO Survive a Loss in Ukraine?By Larry C. Johnson - March 18, 2024 at 09:50AM<br />
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<p>Killing off a bureaucracy — whether civilian or military — is nigh impossible. But the impending defeat of Ukraine on the battlefield by Russia presents one of those watershed moments in history where the <em>raison d’etre</em> of NATO will be exposed as a fraud. Much has been made in recent months about NATO’s supposed growing strength by citing the addition of Sweden and Finland as new NATO members. But this is illusory.</p>
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<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_Armed_Forces#:~:text=The%20Swedish%20Armed%20Forces%20are,by%202024)%20as%20of%202022.">The Swedish Armed Forces</a> are made up of <strong>24,400 active personnel, 11,400 military reserves, 21,500 Home Guard and 5,200 additional conscripts yearly into the Reserves</strong> (set to increase to 8,000 conscripts yearly by 2024) as of 2022.</p>
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<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_Defence_Forces">Finland</a>, with an annual defense budget of 68 billion dollars, has 24,000 active duty soldiers but claims reserves of 870,000.</p>
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<p>In other words, Sweden and Finland could provide a total of 10 brigades (assuming their current active duty personnel are activated and fully deployed under NATO’s command). This is a “nothing burger.”</p>
<p>The once mighty British Army and Navy have been transformed from a lion into a toothless, nasty chihuahua. The U.K. is failing to meet recruitment goals and its current strength — roughly 75,000 soldiers — would barely fill the Manchester United football stadium. When you consider that 50,000 Brits fought in America during the Revolution of 1776 and were defeated by a threadbare group of Colonial rebels, you get some perspective on the impotence of the current British force.</p>
<p>To make matters worse the U.K. is pleading poverty with respect to its ability to supply more tanks, storm shadow missiles and artillery shells to Ukraine. In fact, all of NATO’s major European members have stripped their warehouses bare in the futile effort to supply Ukraine. If NATO decided to enter the fray in Ukraine the Brits would be hard pressed to send 6 combat ready brigades.</p>
<p>NATO’s problems go beyond its inadequate military resources. The very political consensus binding NATO together is coming apart. The recent verbal sniping between the French and the Germans over whether to commit NATO troops to Ukraine is emblematic of a much deeper rift. Based on a recent meeting in Germany, hosted by Scholz and attended by France’s Macron and Poland’s Tusk, Macron was compelled to walk back his insistence on sending more NATO troops to Ukraine. NATO is a mess yet Western leaders and NATO commanders continue to indulge the fantasy that they are ready and capable of carrying out a combined arms military conflict with Russia. They are not.</p>
<p>Russia sent a deadly reminder of this fact in the form of an Iskander missile that hit a site in Odessa filled with <a href="https://t.me/vicktop55/22703">French, Poles and Georgians</a>. <a href="https://t.me/IntelRepublic/35321">U.K. Defense Secretary Grant Shapps</a> cancelled a planned visit to Odessa in the wake of this strike. He probably needed an underwear change and decided it was better to stay home rather than risk becoming cannon fodder.</p>
<p>The following video is a compilation of Russia destroying NATO equipment delivered to Ukraine. The stuff burns well.</p>
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<p><em>Reprinted with permission from <a href="https://sonar21.com/can-nato-survive-a-loss-in-ukraine/" data-type="link" data-id="https://sonar21.com/can-nato-survive-a-loss-in-ukraine/">Sonar21.com</a>.</em></p>
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Ron Paul Americahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08798716560498383830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-661347074890569860.post-23871377754345642502024-03-18T10:27:00.001-04:002024-03-18T10:27:36.433-04:00Blame the Fed for ‘Shrinkflation’By Ron Paul - March 18, 2024 at 09:30AM<br />
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<p>President Biden may have recently made history as the first president to discuss snack chips in the State of the Union message. He used snack chips to illustrate the phenomenon of shrinkflation. Shrinkflation occurs when businesses reduce the amount of goods sold in order to avoid raising prices. President Biden pointed out that businesses hope that, since both the price and the size of the package remain the same, most consumers will not notice they are getting fewer chips, cookies, or whatever other product has been affected by shrinkflation.</p>
<p>President Biden called on Congress to pass legislation, sponsored by so-called moderate Senator Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, to crack down on companies that reduce the amount of a good in a package. Biden and his congressional allies and media apologists think that this will stop shrinkflation. They think this because they believe shrinkflation is caused by corporate greed. In fact, shrinkflation is a rational response to increased prices caused by the Federal Reserve’s dollar depreciation.</p>
<p>Businesses reduce the amount of a product sold as a means to cope with rising prices of materials needed to make their products without directly raising the price paid by consumers. Unless greed is the only human emotion that fluctuates with the Federal Reserve’s policies, the fact that shrinkflation only occurs when Federal Reserve policies cause major price inflation should show anyone willing to think logically about these issues that the Fed, not greedy businesses, causes shrinkflation.</p>
<p>Making shrinkflation a federal crime would force more businesses to increase their prices. This would give the American people a more accurate picture of how the Federal Reserve’s price inflation is affecting their standard of living. Shrinkflation is impossible to quantify. Shrinkflation’s existence indicates that the impact of inflation is well above the Consumer Price Index’s report of a 3.2 percent increase in prices over the past year. The Federal Reserve’s interest rates increases have not been as effective in fighting price inflation as the government’s manipulated statistics make it appear.</p>
<p>If Biden wanted to stop inflation, he would start by reducing federal spending and paring down the over 35 trillion dollars national debt. These steps would allow the Federal Reserve to reduce its efforts to monetize the federal debt in order to keep borrowing costs low.</p>
<p>Disappointingly, but not surprisingly, President Biden’s proposed fiscal year 2025 budget fails to cut spending. It also proposes the government borrow nearly two trillion dollars a year for the next decade. While congressional Republicans have declared President Biden’s “big spending budget” dead on arrival, the fact is that, with few exceptions, Republicans are just as addicted to welfare-warfare spending as their Democratic counterparts. Therefore, instead of fighting for real and substantial reductions in spending, most Republicans are happy to pretend that getting Biden and the Democrats to agree to a one or two percent reduction in the rate of spending growth addresses the problem with excessive spending.</p>
<p>The movement to shrink government must continue to grow. To achieve this government shrinking goal, Congress must cut spending. Congress must also pass the Audit the Fed legislation and legalize competing currencies such as Bitcoin and precious metals. Congress should also pass legislation forcing the government to live within its means by forbidding the Federal Reserve from purchasing federal debt instruments.</p>
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Ron Paul Americahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08798716560498383830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-661347074890569860.post-91763043061414863912024-03-16T12:27:00.001-04:002024-03-16T12:27:27.217-04:00Oh Canada: The Parliament Moves to Impose Potential Life Imprisonment for Speech CrimesBy Jonathan Turley - March 16, 2024 at 10:41AM<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-r_hyVOrY2ug/WK8uQm6qo0I/AAAAAAAAJkM/sMbAZPihU7URNStUyrT10jEmzWlSiTFdACLcB/s200/LargeRonPaul.jpg" style="clear: left;float: left;margin-bottom:1em;margin-right:1em;"><img border="0" height="196" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-r_hyVOrY2ug/WK8uQm6qo0I/AAAAAAAAJkM/sMbAZPihU7URNStUyrT10jEmzWlSiTFdACLcB/s200/LargeRonPaul.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
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<p>We have <a href="https://jonathanturley.org/2022/02/19/oh-canada-trudeaus-government-condemns-cuba-over-free-speech-canada-uses-emergency-powers-to-crackdown-on-the-truckers/">previously</a> discussed the unrelenting attacks by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his allies on free speech. There has been a steady criminalization of speech, including even <a href="https://jonathanturley.org/2010/03/30/comedian-charged-with-human-rights-violation-by-lesbian-insulted-at-club/">jokes</a> and <a href="https://jonathanturley.org/2008/06/09/oh-canada-alberta-human-rights-commission-punishes-and-censures-anti-gay-speech/">religious speech</a>, in Canada. Now, the Canadian parliament is moving toward a new change that would allow the imposition of life imprisonment on those who post views deemed supportive of genocide. With a growing movement calling Israel’s war in Gaza “genocide,” the potential scope of such a law is readily apparent. That appears to be its very draw for anti-free speech advocates in the country.</p>
<p>The Online Harms Act, or Bill C-63 increases the potential penalties from five years to life imprisonment. It also increases the penalty for the willful promotion of hatred (a dangerously ill-defined crime) from two years to five years. The proposed changes constitute a doubling down on Canada’s commitment to reducing free speech for citizens despite criticism from many in the civil liberties community.</p>
<p>There is also a chilling option for house arrest if a judge believes a defendant “will commit” an offense. In other words, if a judge thinks that a citizen will be undeterred and try to speak freely again.</p>
<p>Justice Minister Arif Virani employed the same hysteria to convince citizens to surrender their freedoms to the government. He expressed how terrified he was with the potential of free speech, stating that he is “terrified of the dangers that lurk on the internet for our children.”</p>
<p>It is not likely to end there. Today the rationale is genocide. However, once the new penalties are in place, a host of other groups will demand similar treatment for those with opposing views on their own causes. This law already increased the penalties for anything deemed hateful speech.</p>
<p>The law comes after Canada <a href="https://jonathanturley.org/2024/01/06/oh-canada-government-blocks-citizenship-due-to-russian-conviction-for-criticizing-the-ukrainian-war/">blocked a Russian dissident from becoming a citizen</a> because of her violation of Russian anti-free speech laws. In a telling act, the government said that the same conduct (i.e., free speech) could be a crime in Canada. Indeed, it may now be punished even more harshly.</p>
<p><em>Reprinted with permission from <a href="https://jonathanturley.org/2024/03/14/oh-canada-the-parliament-moves-to-impose-potential-life-imprisonment-for-speech-crimes/" data-type="link" data-id="https://jonathanturley.org/2024/03/14/oh-canada-the-parliament-moves-to-impose-potential-life-imprisonment-for-speech-crimes/">JonathanTurley.org</a>.</em></p>
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Ron Paul Americahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08798716560498383830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-661347074890569860.post-69313548805262297952024-03-15T14:27:00.001-04:002024-03-15T14:27:44.123-04:00How Did American Capitalism Mutate Into American Corporatism?By Jeffrey A. Tucker - March 15, 2024 at 12:37PM<br />
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<p>In the 1990s and for years into our century, it was common to ridicule the government for being technologically backwards. We were all gaining access to fabulous things, including webs, apps, search tools, and social media. But governments at all levels were stuck in the past using IBM mainframes and large floppy disks. We had a great time poking fun at them. </p>
<p>I recall the days of thinking government would never catch up to the glories and might of the market itself. I wrote several books on it, full of techno-optimism. </p>
<p>The new tech sector had a libertarian ethos about it. They didn’t care about the government and its bureaucrats. They didn’t have lobbyists in Washington. They were the new technologies of freedom and didn’t care much about the old analogue world of command and control. They would usher in a new age of people power. </p>
<p>Here we sit a quarter-century later with documented evidence that the opposite happened. The private sector collects the data that the government buys and uses as a tool of control. What is shared and how many people see it is a matter of algorithms agreed upon by a combination of government agencies, university centers, various nonprofits, and the companies themselves. The whole thing has become an oppressive blob. </p>
<p>Here is Google’s new headquarters in Reston, Virginia. </p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img decoding="async" src="https://brownstone.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Screen-Shot-2024-03-15-at-8.14.54-AM-800x450.png" alt="" /></figure>
<p>And here is Amazon’s, in Arlington, Virginia. </p>
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<p>Every major company that once stayed far away from Washington now owns a similar giant palace in or around D.C., and they collect tens of billions in government revenue. Government has now become a major customer, if not the main customer, of the services provided by the large social media and tech companies. They are advertisers but also massive purchasers of the main product too. </p>
<p>Amazon, Microsoft, and Google are the biggest winners of government contracts, according to a <a href="https://www.tussell.com/ss2023?utm_medium=paid%20social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=SS24-JAN&utm_term=SSHandles+Opt&utm_content=spire1">report</a> from Tussel. Amazon hosts the data of the National Security Agency with a $10 billion contract, and gets hundreds of millions from other governments. We do not know how much Google has received from the US government, but it is surely a substantial share of the $694 billion the federal government hands out in contracts. </p>
<p>Microsoft also has a large share of government contracts. In 2023, the US Department of Defense awarded the <a href="https://breakingdefense.com/2023/12/one-year-in-pentagon-looks-ahead-to-joint-warfighter-cloud-capability-2-0/">Joint Warfighter Cloud Capability</a> contract to Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and Oracle. The contract is worth up to $9 billion and provides the Department of Defense with cloud services. It’s just the beginning. The Pentagon is looking for a <a href="https://www.c4isrnet.com/smr/cloud/2023/12/13/pentagon-eyes-successor-to-joint-warfighting-cloud-capability-contract/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=tw_c4">successor plan</a> that will be bigger. </p>
<p>Actually, we don’t even know the full extent of this but it is gargantuan. Yes, these companies provide the regular consumer services but a main and even decisive customer is government itself. As a result, the old laughing stock line about backwards tech at government agencies is no more. Today government is a main purchaser of tech services and is a top driver of the AI boom too. </p>
<p>It’s one of the best-kept secrets in American public life, hardly talked about at all by mainstream media. Most people still think of tech companies as free-enterprise rebels. It’s not true. </p>
<p>The same situation of course exists for pharmaceutical companies. This relationship dates even further back in time and is even tighter to the point that there is no real distinction between the interests of the FDA/CDC and large pharmaceutical companies. They are one and the same. </p>
<p>In this framework, we might also tag the agricultural sector, which is dominated by cartels that have driven out family farms. It’s a government plan and massive subsidies that determine what is produced and in what quantity. It’s not because of consumers that your Coke is filled with a scary product called “high fructose corn syrup,” why your candy bar and danish have the same, and why there is corn in your gas tank. This is entirely the product of government agencies and budgets. </p>
<p>In free enterprise, the old rule is that the customer is always right. That’s a wonderful system sometimes called consumer sovereignty. Its advent in history, dating perhaps from the 16th century, represented a tremendous advance over the old guild system of feudalism and certainly a major step over ancient despotisms. It’s been the rallying cry of market-based economics ever since. </p>
<p>What happens, however, when government itself becomes a main and even dominant customer? The ethos of private enterprise is thereby changed. No longer primarily interested in serving the general public, enterprise turns its attention to serving its powerful masters in the halls of the state, gradually weaving close relationships and forming a ruling class that becomes a conspiracy against the public. </p>
<p>This used to go by the name “crony capitalism” which perhaps describes some of the problems on a small scale. This is another level of reality that needs an entirely different name. That name is corporatism, a coinage from the 1930s and a synonym for fascism back before that became a curse word due to wartime alliances. Corporatism is a specific thing, not capitalism and not socialism but a system of private property ownership with cartelized industry that primarily serves the state. </p>
<p>The old binaries of the public and private sector – widely assumed by every main ideological system –have become so blurred that they no longer make much sense. And yet we are ideologically and philosophically unprepared to deal with this new world with anything like intellectual insight. Not only that, it can be extremely difficult even to tell the good guys from the bad guys in the news stream. We hardly know anymore for whom to cheer or boo in the great struggles of our time. </p>
<p>That’s how mixed up everything has become. We’ve clearly traveled a long way from the 1990s! </p>
<p>Some might observe that this has been a problem far back in time. Starting with the Spanish-American War, we’ve seen a merger of public and private as involving the munitions industry. </p>
<p>This is true. Many Gilded Age fortunes were wholly legitimate and market-based enterprises but others were gathered from the nascent military-industrial complex that began to mature in the Great War and involved a vast range of industries from industry to transportation to communications. </p>
<p>Of course in 1913, we saw the advent of a particularly egregious public-private partnership with the Federal Reserve, in which private banks merged into a unified front and agreed to service US government debt obligations in exchange for bailout guarantees. This monetary corporatism continues to vex us to this day, as does the military industrial complex. </p>
<p>How is it different from the past? It’s different in degree and reach. The corporatist machine now manages the main products and services in our civilian life including the entire way we get information, how we work, how we bank, how we contact friends, and how we buy. It is the manager of the whole of our lives in every respect, and has become the driving force of product innovation and design. It has become a tool for surveillance in the most intimate aspects of our lives, including financial information and inclusive of listening devices we’ve willingly installed in our own homes. </p>
<p>In other words, this is no longer just about private companies providing the bullets and bombs for both sides in a foreign war and obtaining the rebuilding contracts after. The military-industrial complex has come home, expanded to everything, and invaded every aspect of our lives. </p>
<p>It has become a main curator and censor of our news and social media presence and postings. It is in a position to say which companies and products succeed and which ones fail. It can kill apps in a flash if the well-placed person does not like what it is doing. It can order other apps to add or subtract to a blacklist based on political opinions. It can tell even the smallest company to comply or face death by lawfare. It can seize on any individual and make him a public enemy based entirely on an opinion or action that runs contrary to regime priorities. </p>
<p>In short, this corporatism – in all its iterations including the regulatory state and the patent war chest that maintains and enforces monopoly – is the core source of all the current despotism. </p>
<p>It obtained its first full trial run with the lockdowns of 2020, when tech companies and media joined in the ear-splitting propaganda campaigns to shelter in place, cancel holidays, and not visit grandma in the hospital and nursing home. It cheered as millions of small businesses were destroyed and big-box stores thrived as distributors of approved products, while vast swaths of the workforce were called nonessential and put on welfare. </p>
<p>This was the corporatist state at work, with a large corporate sector wholly acquiescent to regime priority and a government fully dedicated to rewarding its industrial partners in every sector that went along with the political priority at the moment. The trigger for the construction of the vast machinery that rules our lives was far back in time and always begins the same way: with a seemingly inauspicious government contract. </p>
<p>How well I recall those days in the 1990s when public schools first started to buy computers from Microsoft. Did alarm bells go off? Not for me. I had a typical attitude of any pro-business libertarian: whatever business wants to do, it should do. Surely it is up to the enterprise to sell to all willing buyers, even if that includes governments. In any case, how in the world would one prevent this? Government contracting with private business has been the norm from time immemorial. No harm done. </p>
<p>And yet it turns out that vast harm was done. This was just the beginning of what became one of the world’s largest industries, far more powerful and decisive over industrial organization than old-fashioned producer-to-consumer markets. Adam Smith’s “butcher, baker, and brewery” have been crowded out by the very business conspiracies against which he gravely warned. These gigantic for-profit and public trading corporations became the operational foundation of the surveillance-driven corporatist complex. </p>
<p>We are nowhere near coming to terms with the implications of this. It goes way beyond and fully transcends the old debates between capitalism and socialism. Indeed that is not what this is about. The focus on that might be theoretically interesting but it has little or no relevance to the current reality in which public and private have fully merged and intruded into every aspect of our lives, and with fully predictable results: economic decline for the many and riches for the few. </p>
<p>This is also why neither the left nor the right, nor Democrats or Republicans, nor capitalists or socialists, seem to be speaking clearly to the moment in which we live. The dominating force on both the national and global scene today is techno-corporatism that intrudes itself into our food, our medicine, our media, our information flows, our homes, and all the way down to the hundreds of surveillance tools that we carry around in our pockets. </p>
<p>I truly wish these companies were genuinely private, but they are not. They are de facto state actors. More precisely, they all work hand-in-glove and which is the hand and which is the glove is no longer clear. </p>
<p>Coming to terms with this intellectually is the major challenge of our times. Dealing with it juridically and politically seems like a much more daunting task, to say the least. The problem is complicated by the drive to purge serious dissent at all levels of society. How did American capitalism become American corporatism? A little at a time and then all at once. </p>
<p><em>Reprinted with permission from <a href="https://brownstone.org/articles/how-did-american-capitalism-mutate-into-american-corporatism/" data-type="link" data-id="https://brownstone.org/articles/how-did-american-capitalism-mutate-into-american-corporatism/">The Brownstone Institute</a>.</em></p>
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Ron Paul Americahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08798716560498383830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-661347074890569860.post-23829623222441424902024-03-15T12:27:00.003-04:002024-03-15T12:27:30.675-04:00France All Dressed up and Nowhere to GoBy Melkulangara Bhadrakumar - March 15, 2024 at 11:05AM<br />
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<p>Ever since its ignominious defeat in the Napoleonic wars, France is entrapped in the predicament of countries that get sandwiched between great powers. Following the World War II, France addressed this predicament by forging an axis with Germany in Europe. </p>
<p>Caught up in a similar predicament, Britain adapted itself to a subaltern role tapping into the American power globally but France never gave up its quest to regain glory as a global power. And it continues to be a work in progress. </p>
<p>The angst in the French mind is understandable as the five centuries of western dominance of the world order is drawing to a close. This predicament condemns France to a diplomacy that is constantly in a state of suspended animation interspersed with sudden bouts of activism. </p>
<p>But, for activism to be result-oriented, there are prerequisites needed such as the profiling of like-minded activist groups, leadership and associates and supporters and sympathisers — and, most important, sustainment and logistics. Or else, activism comes to resemble epileptic fits, an incurable affliction of the nervous system. </p>
<p>The French President Emmanuel Macron’s halcyon days in international diplomacy ended with the recent dissolution of the Franco-German axis in Europe, which dated back to the Treaties of Rome in 1957. As Berlin sharply swerved to trans-atlanticism as its foreign-policy dogma, France’s clout diminished in European affairs. </p>
<p>The stakes are high in the <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/russia-war-olaf-scholz-emmanuel-macron-donald-tusk-meet-in-berlin-resolve-differences-on-ukraine/">reconciliation meeting on Friday</a> as Macron travels to Berlin to meet Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who not only snubbed him by ruling out the <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/26/macron-holds-meeting-in-paris-to-rally-european-support-for-ukraine">use of ground troops from European countries in the Ukraine war</a>, but also digging in on Taurus missile issue arguing that it would entail assigning German staff in support to Ukraine, which, he announced on Wednesday in the Bundestag is simply “out of the question” while he remained the chancellor. </p>
<p>Of course, this is not to decry Macron’s formidable intellect — such as when he declared in a blunt interview in late 2019 with the Economist magazine that Europe stood on “the edge of a precipice” and needed to start thinking of itself strategically as a geopolitical power lest it will “no longer be in control of our destiny.” Macron’s prescient remark preceded the war in Ukraine by 3 years. </p>
<p>According to the newspaper <a href="https://www-marianne-net.translate.goog/monde/europe/guerre-en-ukraine-endurance-russe-echec-de-la-contre-offensive-ce-que-cache-le-virage-de-macron?_x_tr_sl=fr&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc">Marianne, which interviewed several French soldiers</a>, the military reportedly estimates that the Ukraine war is irretrievably lost already. Marianne quoted a senior French officer saying derisively, “We must make no mistake facing the Russians; we are an army of cheerleaders” and sending French troops to the Ukrainian front would simply be “not reasonable” . At the Élysée, an unnamed advisor argued that Macron “wanted to send a strong signal… (in) milli-metered and calibrated words”. </p>
<p>Marianne’s editor Natacha Polony wrote: “It is no longer about Emmanuel Macron or his postures as a virile little leader. It is no longer even about France or its weakening by blind and irresponsible elites. It is a question of whether we will collectively agree to sleepwalk into war. A war that no one can claim will be controlled or contained. It’s a question of whether we agree to send our children to die because the United States insisted on setting up bases on Russia’s borders.” </p>
<p>The big question is why Macron is doing this nonetheless — going to the extent of cobbling together a ‘coalition of the willing’ in Europe. A range of explanations is possible starting with Macron posturing and trying to earn political points at minimal cost, motivated by personal ambitions and intra-European friction with Berlin. </p>
<p>But then, until fairly recently, Macron was a supporter of dialogue with Moscow. The perception in most European capitals, including Moscow, is that Macron is making an attempt to bring the Ukrainian crisis to a new level by announcing western combat deployment against Russia publicly as an obvious political manipulation. </p>
<p>The geopolitical salience is that Macron who once called for dialogue with Moscow and offered his mediation in it, who made the famous declaration of a “Greater Europe” in 2019 and maintained contacts with Russian President Vladimir Putin thereof; who and as of February last year, while speaking on Russia’s “certain defeat” in Ukraine, called for avoiding Moscow’s “humiliation”; who repeatedly underscored his commitment to the matrix of diplomacy attributed to Charles de Gaulle, which assigned France the role of a “bridge between East and West” — has now swung to the other extreme of harsh Euro-Atlantic rhetoric. </p>
<p>This can only be seen as stemming out of the unfavourable development of events in the scenario of the Ukrainian crisis with the prospect of a Russian defat in the war disappearing and replaced by the growing possibility that peace will ultimately be attainable only on Russia’s terms. Put differently, the power dynamic in Europe is shifting dramatically, which of course, impacts Macron’s own ambitions to “lead Europe.” </p>
<p>Meanwhile, Russian-French relations have also been undergoing a stage of fierce competition and rivalry — even confrontation — in a number of areas. For a start, French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejournet, said in an interview with Le Parisien in January that Russia’s victory in Ukraine would lead to 30% of world wheat exports being controlled by Moscow. For Paris, this is a question of the sustainability of one of the key sectors of French national economy.</p>
<p>French agriculture is marked by its history that had its beginning with the Gaulois in 2000 BC. It needs to be understood that In modern history, French Revolution of 1789, which altered every part of the French social order and led to the abolition of privileges for upper classes, was also an Agricultural Revolution, which allowed a broad land redistribution. Suffice to say, the bond of French people to their agriculture is very strong.</p>
<p>As it is, African states are changing the structure of grain imports due to the technical regulations introduced by the European Union as part of its green agenda and French farmers consequently face rising costs, and over and above that, there is now also the looming loss of regional market share to Russia. </p>
<p>This is on top of the inroads Russia is making in arms exports to the African continent lately. In politico-military terms too, France has lost ground to Russia in the resource-rich Sahel region, its playpen traditionally. The fact of the matter is that the birds are coming to roost over France’s neo-colonial strategies in Africa, but Paris prefers to put the blame on Russia’s Wagner group which has moved in to fill the security vacuum in Sahel region, as anti-French forces have come to power in several countries at once — Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Chad, CAR. </p>
<p>In the best traditions of geopolitics, France has begun retaliating in regions sensitive to Russian interests — Armenia, Moldova and Ukraine where Russian military presence is in French crosshairs. Unsurprisingly, Ukraine is the most strategic turf where Macron hopes to achieve a bigger French presence. </p>
<p>Through that, Macron hopes to advance his leadership ambitions in Europe as the navigator of the EU’s foreign policy strategy in a wide arc from the African continent across the Mediterranean to Transcaucasia — and potentially to Afghanistan. </p>
<p>All this is unfolding against the historic backdrop of an inevitable US retrenchment in Europe as Indo-Pacific hots up and the rivalry with China becomes an all-consuming obsession for Washington. Indeed, the towering presence of Russia across Europe is beginning to be felt intensely as it surges as the number one military and economic power in the strategic space between Vancouver and Vladivostok. </p>
<p>Today, the paradox is, then Russian president Dmitry Medvedev had proposed way back in 2008 a legally binding pan-European security treaty, which would develop a ‘new security architecture in Europe,’ involving the reshaping of existing, and creating new institutions and norms regulating security relations in Europe in a wider geopolitical space stretching east ‘from Vancouver to Vladivostok.’ But the US encouraged the Europeans to see the <a href="https://cejiss.org/medvedev-s-initiative-a-trap-for-europe">so-called ‘Medvedev Initiative’</a> as a trap to enfeeble NATO, the OSCE, the EU and other European bodies. </p>
<p><em>Reprinted with permission from <a href="https://www.indianpunchline.com/france-all-dressed-up-and-nowhere-to-go/" data-type="link" data-id="https://www.indianpunchline.com/france-all-dressed-up-and-nowhere-to-go/">Indian Punchline</a>.</em></p>
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Ron Paul Americahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08798716560498383830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-661347074890569860.post-8046920312419093792024-03-15T12:27:00.001-04:002024-03-15T12:27:30.143-04:00No Emergency Powers in the ConstitutionBy Jacob G. Hornberger - March 15, 2024 at 10:49AM<br />
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<p>It has become an article of faith that under our system of government, federal officials can declare an emergency, which then purportedly authorizes federal officials to exercise emergency powers.</p>
<p>However, it just ain’t so. There is nothing in the Constitution that authorizes the federal government to declare an emergency or to exercise emergency powers.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that when the Constitution called the federal government into existence, it did not vest the government with the inherent “police powers” that had characterized governments throughout history. Those “police powers” had empowered governments to exercise powers relating to the “health, safety, morals, and welfare” of the people.</p>
<p>Our American ancestors were not interested in that type of government. They knew that governments with inherent police powers inevitably turned into tyrannical regimes. So, it should surprise no one that under the Articles of Confederation, which preceded the government established by the Constitution, the delegated powers of the federal government were so weak that — get this — federal officials didn’t even have the power to tax.</p>
<p>The delegates at the Constitution Convention at Philadelphia, who were ostensibly meeting to simply develop reforms of the Articles of Confederation, came up with a proposal for an entirely new governmental system. However, they knew that if this new system vested the federal government with inherent police powers, our ancestors would never accept it.</p>
<p>So, the Constitution called into existence a government whose powers were limited to those enumerated in the Constitution. There were no inherent police powers. If a power wasn’t enumerated, it simply could not be legally exercised.</p>
<p>How was that concept to be enforced? That was the purpose of the federal judiciary — to enforce the Constitution against the other two branches of government.</p>
<p>Note that there is no power to declare an emergency in the Constitution. There is also no provision for the exercise of emergency powers.</p>
<p>There is a simple reason for this omission: Our ancestors understood that emergencies are the time-honored way that tyrannical regimes have destroyed liberty throughout the ages.</p>
<p>During emergencies, people become afraid. All too often, during an emergency they are eager and willing to surrender their rights and liberties to governmental officials in return for being kept safe. Of course, it’s supposed to be temporary. As soon as the emergency is over, the government is supposed to restore the people’s rights and liberties. But it rarely happens that way, even when officials promise to do so. Instead, all too often the destruction of rights and liberties remains permanent.</p>
<p>A good example of this phenomenon was the Reichstag Fire and the Enabling Act during the Hitler regime in Germany. Terrorists firebombed the Reichstag, which was the German parliament building. Hitler used that act of terrorism to declare an emergency and to ask German lawmakers to grant him temporary emergency powers to deal with the crisis. The Reichstag granted Hitler’s request in what became known as the Enabling Act. But it was only “temporary.” As soon as the emergency was over, Hitler would restore the pre-emergency rights and liberties of the German people. Every time the Enabling Act was about the expire, Hitler dutifully returned to the Reichstag to secure an extension. Of course, by this time his power was omnipotent. There was no way that the Reichstag was going to say no. The Enabling Act was still in existence when Hitler committed suicide.</p>
<p>Another good example was the Franklin Roosevelt regime, which used the Great Depression to declare an emergency and to exercise emergency powers. There was the National Recovery Act, for example, which converted American industries into cartels, much like was happening in fascist Italy. In that instance, the Supreme Court correctly declared the act unconstitutional. But in other instances, the Court let stand the FDR regime’s exercise of emergency powers, such as with the adoption of Social Security, a massive socialist program with which we still live today.</p>
<p>Our American ancestors were wise not to provide any power to declare emergencies and to exercise emergency powers in the Constitution. Too bad 20th-century Americans rejected their wisdom by letting federal officials exercise powers that were not delegated in the Constitution.</p>
<p><em>Reprinted with permission from <a href="https://www.fff.org/2024/03/14/no-emergency-powers-in-the-constitution/" data-type="link" data-id="https://www.fff.org/2024/03/14/no-emergency-powers-in-the-constitution/">Future of Freedom Foundation</a>.</em></p>
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Ron Paul Americahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08798716560498383830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-661347074890569860.post-61912066525077731692024-03-14T16:27:00.001-04:002024-03-14T16:27:50.915-04:00My Dinner With the PopeBy Andrew P. Napolitano - March 14, 2024 at 03:05PM<br />
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<p>I spent last week living and studying at the Vatican as a guest lecturer at the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, or PASS. PASS is an organization of scholars that explores ideas of interest to the Vatican. Last week, PASS addressed the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, since March 8, 2024, was the 750th anniversary of his death.</p>
<p>This is not an esoteric subject. Aquinas taught that all rational persons are capable of discerning right from wrong and good from evil by the exercise of free will and human reason, and they do not need the government to aid them in this endeavor.</p>
<p>This is generally known as Natural Law. My presentation was on the concept of natural rights, a derivation of Natural Law.</p>
<p>The Vatican, which is about one-eighth the size of Central Park in New York City, has a lovely guest house on the grounds, called The Domus, which was my home for four days. It is also the permanent residence of Pope Francis.</p>
<p>My PASS colleagues and I — 25 of us — were dining in the small Domus dining room, when the Pope came in and sat two tables away from us. It was surreal.</p>
<p>Here is the backstory.</p>
<p>How do we know what we know? Aquinas set about to answer that intriguing question. How do we know that we exist, that 2 plus 2 equals 4, that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line? These are truisms; thus, they cannot change and all rational people can discern them. They are true intrinsically, whether we believe they are or not. </p>
<p>Aquinas taught that all rational adults can discover the truth by the exercise of free will. That exercise requires rational thinking. At the time he taught this, it was radical, as other scholars taught that forces outside of us drew us to discover truths.</p>
<p>Let’s say you like chocolate ice cream. Aquinas taught that you rationally choose chocolate whenever you have an ice cream choice to make. Others taught that you really didn’t choose chocolate; it chose you — meaning that you can’t control your tastebuds.</p>
<p>This is not hairsplitting, rather it is central to Western thinking. If we don’t have free will, if we are just animals drawn to satiate our tastes, then are we responsible for our behavior? Can we take credit when we hit a home run or compose a symphony, or is all this just animal instinct acting out?</p>
<p>Aquinas’ views are known today as Natural Law. And the derivative of natural law is natural rights. Aquinas taught that the same God who made us in his own image and likeness gave us the gift of free will. We can use that free will to discover truth, practice baseball, learn music or choose our favorite ice cream. We can also use that free will to harm others, like stealing a purse or robbing a bank.</p>
<p>Aquinas taught that when we see a purse being stolen or a bank being robbed, we instinctually know that we are witnessing evil. How do we know this? We are hard-wired by our Creator to discern good from evil.</p>
<p>But we cannot know this unless we are free to reject it. That freedom is called free will. As God is perfectly free, so are we — his creatures — perfectly free. Free will is so perfect, one can use it to become a monster or a saint. Stated differently, we are free to reject the truths that we are hard wired to discern. There are monsters among us who see no wrong in stealing a purse or robbing a bank.</p>
<p>The theory of natural rights — extrapolated from Aquinas — teaches that our rights are permanent claims against the whole world, that no one, not even government, can take away. Of course, the purse snatcher and the bank robber give up their rights when they violate the rights of the purse owner and the bank depositors.</p>
<p>Today, we allow the government to take our rights to own property — under the guise of taxation or regulation — and to take other rights, such as privacy and free speech, from us all the time.</p>
<p>Aquinas knew that government is the negation of liberty. We in the 21st century realize that we have a government that is utterly indifferent to our rights. The folks who run the federal government — no matter which political party is in power — believe they can kill any foe, steal any property, claim any right, declare any wrong, regulate any behavior, tax any event, and insinuate themselves into any relationship so long as they can get away with it politically; all in defiance of natural law.</p>
<p>In America today, we see the destruction of natural law principles and the rejection of natural rights.</p>
<p>Now, back to the Pope.</p>
<p>Catholics believe that he is the Vicar of Christ on earth. But the current Pope may be the worst in history. He has watered down Church teaching on marriage, sexuality and confession. He has suppressed the Mass that every canonized saint in Heaven attended and participated in. His attacks on traditional theology and liturgy are the opposite of what he is supposed to do — which is to preserve them.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, it was surreal when he was brought in to the guesthouse dining room, using a walker and an assistant at each arm. It was bizarre when he sat with his back to us. I wanted to go up to him and greet him, but the Swiss Guards had warned us not to approach him or call out to him.</p>
<p>Two days later, I turned a corner in the guest house lobby, and there he was, 10 feet away. I gently bowed and whispered “Your Holiness.” He looked at me and moved on.</p>
<p>The Pope is in poor health, can barely speak or walk; and he radiates sadness. I was thrilled to reside in his home for four days, but I don’t think he’ll be there much longer.</p>
<p><em>To learn more about Judge Andrew Napolitano, visit <a href="https://JudgeNap.com">https://JudgeNap.com</a>.</em></p>
<p><em>COPYRIGHT 2024 ANDREW P. NAPOLITANO</em></p>
<p><em>DISTRIBUTED BY <a href="http://CREATORS.COM" data-type="link" data-id="CREATORS.COM">CREATORS.COM</a></em></p>
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Ron Paul Americahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08798716560498383830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-661347074890569860.post-43392334761486093692024-03-13T10:27:00.001-04:002024-03-13T10:27:40.725-04:00French Defense Reports Acknowledge Ukraine Is Done WithBy Moon of Alabama - March 13, 2024 at 09:15AM<br />
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<p>The French president Macron has recently pushed for an engagement of foreign troops in Ukraine. The idea was immediately rejected by every country that would be able to send a reasonable number.</p>
<p>The question is why Macron suddenly came out with this.</p>
<p>A series of recent reports from the French defense establishment might have caused his irritation.</p>
<p>The French magazine <em>Marianne</em> got access to “several confidential defense reports” from the French army on the situation in Ukraine.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.marianne.net/monde/europe/guerre-en-ukraine-endurance-russe-echec-de-la-contre-offensive-ce-que-cache-le-virage-de-macron">Guerre en Ukraine : de la prudence à l’affolement… Ce que cache le virage de Macron</a> (<a href="https://archive.is/rPZ2s">archived</a>) – <em>Marianne</em>, Mar 7 2024</p>
<p>Arnaud Bertrand has <a href="https://twitter.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1767562336452440422">translated</a> large parts of it:</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>The situation looks exceedingly bleak for Ukraine, which might in part explain Macron’s recent declarations around sending troops to Ukraine. I translated the important parts of the article:<br />
<br />
‘A Ukrainian military victory now seems impossible’<br />
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The reports Marianne consulted write that Ukraine’s counter-offensive ‘gradually bogged down in mud and blood and did not result in any strategic gain’ and that its planning, conceived by Kiev and Western general staffs, turned out to be ‘disastrous’: ‘Planners thought that once the first Russian defense lines were breached, the entire front would collapse […] These fundamental preliminary phases were conducted without considering the moral forces of the enemy in defense: that is, the will of the Russian soldier to hold onto the terrain’.<br />
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The reports also highlight ‘the inadequacy of the training of Ukrainian soldiers and officers’: due to a lack of officers and a significant number of veterans, these ‘Year II soldiers’ from Ukraine – often trained for ‘no more than three weeks’ – were launched into an assault on a Russian fortification line that proved impregnable.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Somehow people who had never heard of the Battle of Kursk convinced themselves that Russian soldiers in defensive positions would run away as soon as they would hear a tank rumbling towards them. They of course did not do so.</p>
<p>These Russian troops are well managed and cared for:</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>The reports also highlight that contrary to Ukraine ‘the Russians have managed their reserve troops well, to ensure operational endurance.’ According to this document, Moscow reinforces its units before they are completely worn out, mixes recruits with experienced troops, ensures regular rest periods in the rear… and ‘always had a coherent reserve force to manage unforeseen events.’ This is far from the widespread idea in the West of a Russian army sending its troops to the slaughter without counting…</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The Ukrainians on the other side are done with:</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>‘To date, the Ukrainian general staff does not have a critical mass of land forces capable of inter-arms maneuver at the corps level capable of challenging their Russian counterparts to break through its defensive line,’ concludes this confidential defense report, according to which ‘<strong>the gravest error of analysis and judgment would be to continue to seek exclusively military solutions to stop the hostilities</strong>‘. A French officer summarizes: ‘<strong>It is clear, given the forces present, that Ukraine cannot win this war militarily.</strong>‘</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The fall of Avdeevka has shown that the Ukrainian military, even on the defensive, will inevitably lose the fight:</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>‘The Ukrainian armed forces have tactically shown that they do not possess the human and material capabilities […] to hold a sector of the front that is subjected to the assailant’s effort,’ continues the document. ‘The Ukrainian failure in Avdiivka shows that, despite the emergency deployment of an ‘elite’ brigade – the 3rd Azov Air Assault Brigade –, Kiev is not capable of locally restoring a sector of the front that collapses,’ alerts this last report.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In consequence the Russian forces will simply move on:</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>What the Russians will do with this tactical success remains to be seen. Will they continue in the current mode of ‘nibbling and slowly shaking’ the entire front line, or will they seek to ‘break through in depth’? ‘The terrain behind Avdiivka allows it,’ signals this recent document, also warning that Western sources tend to ‘underestimate’ the Russians, themselves adept at the practice of ‘Maskirovka,’ ‘appearing weak when strong.’ According to this analysis, after two years of war, Russian forces have thus shown their ability to ‘develop operational endurance’ that allows them to wage ‘a slow and long-intensity war based on the continuous attrition of the Ukrainian army.’</p>
</blockquote>
<p>There is nothing really new in the above for people who have followed the facts on the ground.</p>
<p>So why were western media, and politicians like Macron, late in recognizing the real situation?</p>
<p><em>Reprinted with permission from <a href="https://www.moonofalabama.org/2024/03/french-defense-reports-acknowledge-ukraine-is-done-with.html" data-type="link" data-id="https://www.moonofalabama.org/2024/03/french-defense-reports-acknowledge-ukraine-is-done-with.html">Moon of Alabama</a>.</em></p>
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Ron Paul Americahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08798716560498383830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-661347074890569860.post-83925862311022183762024-03-12T11:27:00.001-04:002024-03-12T11:27:33.008-04:00‘Out of Touch With Reality’ – White House Fails to Navigate the Israeli Re-calibrationBy Alastair Crooke - March 12, 2024 at 09:31AM<br />
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<p>Alon Pinkas, a former senior Israeli diplomat, well-plugged into Washington, tells us that a frustrated White House finally has “had enough.” The <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-03-05/ty-article/.premium/the-u-s-finally-realized-netanyahu-broke-an-unbreakable-alliance/0000018e-0df1-dc37-a9ae-dffba1cf0000">rupture</a> with Netanyahu is complete: The Prime Minister does not comport himself as “an U.S. ally” should; he severely criticises Biden’s Middle East policies, and now the United States has come to understand this fact.</p>
<p>Biden cannot afford any further Israel-affects to jeopardise his electoral campaign, and so – as his State of the Union Speech makes clear – he will double-down on misconstrued policy frameworks for both Israel and Ukraine.</p>
<p>So what does Biden intend to do about Netanyahu’s act of defiance against the “holy grail” of U.S. policy recommendations? Well, he invited Benny Gantz, a member of Israel’s War Cabinet to Washington, and wrapped him around an agenda “reserved for a prime minister, or someone they think will, or should be, premier.” Officials apparently thought that by initiating a visit outside of usual diplomatic protocols, they may “have unleashed a dynamic that could lead to an election in Israel,” Pinkas notes, resulting in a leadership more amenable to U.S. ideas.</p>
<p>It was clearly intended as a first step to “soft power” régime change.</p>
<p>And the prime reason for the declaration of war on Netanyahu? Gaza. Biden apparently didn’t appreciate the snub received in the Michigan primary when the Gaza protest vote surpassed 100,000 “uncommitted votes.” Polls – especially amongst the young – are flashing red warning signals for November (in no small part because of Gaza). Democratic national leaders are beginning to worry.</p>
<p>Leading Israeli commentator, Nahum Barnea, warns that Israel is “loosing America”:</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>We are accustomed to thinking of America in familial terms … We receive weapons and international backing and the Jews give their votes in the key states and money to the campaigns. This time, the situation is different … Since the votes in [presidential] elections are counted regionally, only a few states … actually decide … Like Florida, [a] key state, where the votes of the Jews can decide who will move into the White House, so too can the votes of the Muslims in Michigan decide … [Activists] called on the primary voters to vote “uncommitted” to protest Biden’s support for Israel … Their campaign succeeded beyond expectations: 130,000 Democratic voters supported it. The slap in the face to Biden reverberated across the entire length and breadth of the political establishment. It not only attested to the rise of a new, efficient and toxic political lobby, [but] also to the revulsion that many Americans feel when they see the pictures from Gaza.</p>
</blockquote>
<p> “Biden loves Israel and is truly afraid for it,” concludes Barnea “but he has no intention of losing the elections because of it. That is an existential threat.”</p>
<p>The problem however, is the converse: It is that U.S. policy is deeply flawed, and wholly incongruent with <a href="https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20240131-72-of-israelis-say-aid-deliveries-to-gaza-must-be-stopped-survey-finds/">majority public sentiment</a> in Israel. Many Israelis feel they are fighting an existential struggle, and must not become ”just fodder” (as they see it) to a U.S. Democratic electoral strategy.</p>
<p>The reality is that Israel is rupturing with Team Biden – not the converse.</p>
<p>Biden’s key plan which rests on a revitalised Palestinian security apparatus is described – even in the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/03/05/palestinian-authority-security-forces-gaza/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_todayworld&utm_campaign=wp_todays_worldview&carta-url=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.washingtonpost.com%2Fcar-ln-tr%2F3cf9688%2F65e7f9a01c99264ac92d08c8%2F596a495a9bbc0f0e09e976aa%2F42%2F60%2F65e7f9a01c99264ac92d08c8">Washington Post</a> – as “improbable.” The U.S. tried a PA security “revitalising” <a href="https://ecf.org.il/issues/issue/169">initiative</a> under U.S. General Zinni in 2002 and Dayton <a href="https://sgp.fas.org/crs/mideast/R40664.pdf">in 2010</a>. It did not work – and for good reason: Palestinian Authority security forces are simply viewed by most Palestinians as the hated stooges enforcing continued Israeli occupation. They work to Israeli security interests, not Palestinian security interests.</p>
<p>The other main components to U.S. policy is an even more improbable “de-radicalised” and anaemic “two-state solution,” buried within a regional concert of conservative Arab States acting as its security overseer. This policy approach reflects a White House out of kilter with today’s more eschatological Israel, and one failing to move on from perspectives and policies hailing from decades past which, even then, were failures.</p>
<p>The White House therefore has resorted to an old trick: To project all of its own policy failings onto a foreign leader for not making the “unworkable” work, and to try to replace that leader with someone more compliant. Pinkas writes:</p>
<p>“Once the United States became convinced that Netanyahu was not being cooperative, not being a considerate ally, behaving like a crude ingrate … focused only on his political survival after the October 7 debacle, the time was ripe to try a new political course.”</p>
<p>However, Netanyahu’s policy – for better or worse – reflects what a majority of Israelis think. Netanyahu has his well-known personality defects and is seriously unpopular in Israel, yet that does not mean that a plurality disagrees with his, and his government’s programme.</p>
<p>So “enter Gantz,” unleashed by Team Biden as prospective PM-in-waiting into the Washington and London diplomatic pool.</p>
<p>Except that the ploy didn’t work as expected. As Ariel Kahana writes (in Hebrew, in Israel Hayom on 6 March):</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>Gantz met with all of the top administration officials with the exception of President Biden, and presented positions that are identical to the positions that Netanyahu has presented in his talks with them over the past number of weeks.<br />
<br />
Not destroying Hamas in Rafah means sending a fire truck to put out 80% of the fire,” Gantz told Sullivan. Harris and other officials retorted that it would be impossible to evacuate 1.2 million Gazans from the Rafah area—an evacuation that they view as an essential precondition for any military operation in that southern Gaza Strip city.” “Gantz flatly disagreed.<br />
<br />
Even larger gaps came to the fore in discussions about humanitarian aid. Whereas many Israelis are livid about the decision to allow the delivery of supplies to the enemy — [which they view as] an act that has helped Hamas, has prolonged the war and has delayed a hostage deal—the Americans believe that Israel isn’t doing enough. Biden’s aides have even accused Israeli officials of lying about the quantity of aid that has been delivered and the pace of its delivery.<br />
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Aid of course, has become (rightly) the neuralgic issue pressing on the Democratic Party’s electoral prospects, but Gantz was not having it. As Kahana notes:<br />
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Regrettably, the most senior American officials are also out of touch with reality when it comes to other aspects of the war as well. They still believe that the Palestinian Authority should govern Gaza, that peace can be achieved in the future by means of the “two-state solution,” and that a normalization agreement with Saudi Arabia is within reach. Gantz was forced to address that flawed reading of the situation.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>So, U.S. administration officials heard from Gantz the very same policy agenda that Netanyahu has repeated to them in recent months: Gantz also warned that trying to “play him off” against Netanyahu was pointless: He might very much wish to replace Netanyahu as prime minister at some point, but his policies wouldn’t be substantively different from those of the present government, he explained.</p>
<p>Now that the visit is over and now that Gantz has said what he said, the White House is coming to terms with a new experience: The limitations to U.S. power and to automatic compliance by other states – even the closest of allies.</p>
<p>The U.S. can neither force its will on Israel, nor compel an “Arab Contact Group” to come into being, nor compel a putative Arab Contact Group to support and fund Biden’s “<a href="https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/2024-02-15/ty-article/.premium/why-biden-is-unveiling-his-vision-for-israel-and-the-palestinians-now/0000018d-ad33-da6e-af9f-ad3b2d840000">fantastical</a>” Gaza “solutions.” It is a salutary moment for U.S. power.</p>
<p>Netanyahu is an experienced “old Washington hand.” He prides himself on his ability to read U.S. politics well. No doubt he calculates that whilst Biden can raise the rhetoric a pitch or two, the latter is on a tight leash in respect to how much of a gap he can open between him and the Jewish mega-donors in an election year.</p>
<p>Netanyahu, on the other hand, seemingly has concluded that he can safely ignore Washington – at least for the next ten months.</p>
<p>Biden is desperate for a ceasefire; but even here – on the hostage issue, on which the U.S. policy array stands or falls – the U.S. has a “tin ear.” A last minute demand is made to Hamas to say which of the original hostages are alive.</p>
<p>The request may seem reasonable to outsiders, yet the U.S. must know that neither Hizbullah, nor Hamas, give hostage “proof of life” for free: there is a cost in terms of the exchange ratio for dead bodies and for live hostages. (There is a long history of Israeli failed “proof of life” demands).</p>
<p><a href="https://thecradle.co/articles/cairo-talks-collapse-as-israel-rejects-main-hamas-demands">Reports indicate</a> that Israel is refusing to agree on withdrawal from Gaza; it is refusing to allow Palestinians from northern Gaza to return to their homes, and it is refusing to agree to a comprehensive ceasefire.</p>
<p>All these are original Hamas demands – they are not new. Why should it surprise or offend Biden when they are repeated again. It is not an escalation of demands by Sinwar (as the western and Israeli media allege). It reflects rather, an unrealistic negotiating strategy embraced by Washington.</p>
<p>According to Al-Quds newspaper, Hamas has presented in Cairo “a final document that is not subject to negotiation.” This includes, inter alia, a demand to halt the fighting in Gaza for a full week before executing a hostage-release deal, and a clear Israeli statement about full withdrawal from the Strip – complete with international guarantees.</p>
<p>Hamas is also demanding that all Gazans have the unconditional right to return to their homes, as well as to the entry of supplies to the entire Gaza Strip without security division, beginning on the first day of the deal. According to the Hamas document, the release of hostages would begin a week after the ceasefire begins. Hamas rejects Israel’s demand that any of its members or leaders be exiled and sent abroad. (This occurred in the release of hostages from the Church of Nativity siege, where a number of Palestinians were exiled to EU states – an act that was heavily criticised at the time.)</p>
<p>In a separate clause, Hamas has said that neither it, nor any other Palestinian groups, would provide a list of hostages until 48 hours before implementing the deal. The list of prisoners Hamas is demanding to be released is long, and includes the release of 57 people who were released as part of the 2011 Gilad Shalit deal and subsequently re-arrested; all female and minor security prisoners; all sick security prisoners and everyone over the age of 60. According to the report, only after the first stage is completed will negotiations on the next stage of a deal begin.</p>
<p>These demands should not surprise anyone. It is all too common that people with little experience believe that hostage deals can be reached relatively easily and quickly, by means of rhetoric, media and diplomatic pressure. The history is different. The average time to agree a hostage release is more than a year.</p>
<p>Team Biden urgently needs to reassess its approach, starting from the understanding that it is Israel that is rupturing from the stale, ill-judged U.S. consensus. Most Israelis agree with Netanyahu, who said again yesterday that “the war is existential and must be won.”</p>
<p>How is it that Israel can contemplate severing from the U.S.? Possibly because Netanyahu understands that the “power structure” in the U.S. – as in Europe – that controls much, if not most of the money shaping U.S. politics, and particularly the stance of Congress, is heavily dependent on the Israeli “cause” existing, and continuing to exist, and it is not therefore the case that Israel is wholly dependent on the U.S. power structures and its “good will” (as Biden pre-supposes).</p>
<p>The “cause of Israel” both gives domestic U.S. structures their political meaning, their agenda and their legitimacy. A “No Israel” outcome would pull the carpet from under them, and would leave U.S. Jews experiencing existential insecurity. Netanyahu knows this – and also appreciates that the existence of Israel, per se, offers Tel Aviv a certain degree of control over U.S. politics.</p>
<p>To judge from yesterday’s State of the Union Address, the U.S. Administration is incapable of navigating the present impasse with Israel, and is instead doubling down rather on its time-worn and platitudinous notions. Using the State of Union Address as a bully-pulpit for old thinking is no strategy. Building a jetty in Gaza has a history, too. <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/haaretz-today/2024-03-07/ty-article/.highlight/gaza-desperately-needs-aid-is-bidens-new-emergency-port-plan-the-answer/0000018e-19ed-dec4-abcf-dfefa9150000">It solves nothing</a> – except further consolidating Israeli control over Gaza’s borders and any possible prospects for post-occupation Gaza – Cyprus in place of Rafah for Israeli security checks. (Gaza once had both a harbour and an international airport – all long reduced to rubble, of course, by previous rounds of Israeli bombing).</p>
<p>The inattention to reality is not an electorally “incidental” and irksome issue that needs better PR management by the campaign team:</p>
<p>Israeli and U.S. officials have been warning for some time of a possible spike in tension to coincide with the start of Ramadan on 10 March. Israel’s Channel 12 (in Hebrew) reports that the head of the Military Intelligence Division, “Aman,” has warned the Israeli government in a confidential document of the possibility of a religious war breaking out during the month of Ramadan, starting with an escalation in the Palestinian territories; extending to several fronts, and then turning into a regional war.</p>
<p>This warning – Channel 12 claims – was the main reason behind Netanyahu’s decision not to impose harsher than usual restrictions on Palestinians entering Al-Aqsa for Ramadan prayers.</p>
<p>Yes, things might get worse, much worse, for Israel.</p>
<p><em>Reprinted with permission from <a href="https://strategic-culture.su/news/2024/03/11/out-of-touch-with-reality-white-house-fails-to-navigate-the-israeli-re-calibration/" data-type="link" data-id="https://strategic-culture.su/news/2024/03/11/out-of-touch-with-reality-white-house-fails-to-navigate-the-israeli-re-calibration/">Strategic Culture Foundation</a>.</em></p>
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Ron Paul Americahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08798716560498383830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-661347074890569860.post-41778832697289554932024-03-11T13:27:00.001-04:002024-03-11T13:27:42.956-04:00Biden’s ‘Nighttime in America’ State of the UnionBy Ron Paul - March 11, 2024 at 12:29PM<br />
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<p>Last week President Biden delivered a dark and angry speech meant to convince the low percentage of Americans who still feel positive about his presidency that everything is fine and will only get better if he is re-elected for a second term.</p>
<p>Unfortunately we have come a long way from the optimism of a Ronald Reagan, who won a second term partially on the popularity of his “Morning in America” campaign commercials. Reagan was far from a perfect president, but it was that sense of optimism in otherwise difficult times that resulted in a record re-election victory. Biden’s speech, by contrast, was dark and angry, attacking not only his political opponents but even seeming to threaten the Supreme Court!</p>
<p>As constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley observed recently, “In some ways, the State of the Union speech may have died when former Speaker Nancy Pelosi ripped up the address of former President Donald Trump… While many in the media celebrated her lack of decorum and respect, she tore up something far more important than a speech. She shredded decades of tradition of civility and any remaining residue of restraint in our politics.”</p>
<p>We seem to be becoming a nation that would rather scream at each other than listen to each other.</p>
<p>The message of Biden’s speech was that if you do not support the re-election of Joe Biden, you are an insurrectionist and hate America and democracy. Seven years after the launch of the “Russiagate” hoax against then-candidate Donald Trump, it becomes clearer that the line “our democracy” means it’s only democratic when their side gets elected.</p>
<p>It is understandable that Biden is so angry. Despite all the lying with statistics about the economy, Americans can clearly see for themselves how inflation is undermining the standard of living. Of course this is not all Biden’s fault – Republicans in control of the House show little interest in cutting spending – but people generally blame the president for the state of the economy.</p>
<p>We are no better off on foreign policy either. President Biden started his speech by comparing Russian President Vladimir Putin with Hitler, claiming that Putin is “on the march” in Europe just as Hitler was in 1941, and that just as in those days, if he is not stopped in Ukraine he will continue to rampage through the continent. It was blatant fearmongering, based on no evidence. In fact, as Putin told Tucker Carlson just weeks ago, he has no interest in taking the war beyond Ukraine. But Biden is determined to spend another $61 billion on the failed proxy war in Ukraine and he is willing to say whatever he feels necessary to get that money.</p>
<p>Biden also introduced a bizarre plan to build a temporary pier on the shores of Gaza so that the US could deliver aid to starving Palestinians. Considering the billions of dollars and tens of thousands of missiles we have shipped to Israel, wouldn’t it just be easier to inform the Israeli prime minister that we would either be delivering aid to Palestinians over land, or else?</p>
<p>In all, Biden’s final State of the Union before the election reveals a president and administration that is out of gas and out of ideas. It also reveals a country deep in bankruptcy – both moral and economic. It is high time for a nationwide movement toward liberty.</p>
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Ron Paul Americahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08798716560498383830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-661347074890569860.post-41341324251434924732024-03-09T14:27:00.001-05:002024-03-09T14:27:28.687-05:00Germany and NATO Caught Red-Handed in War PlanningBy Finian Cunningham - March 09, 2024 at 01:23PM<br />
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<p>German military leaders may have bungled foolishly over their private discussions regarding operational plans against Russia. However, the security of their incompetent communication – while laughable – does not lessen the seriousness of what was being discussed.</p>
<p>Lt. General Ingo Gerhartz and his aides were earnestly weighing up the technical and propaganda means by which to strike Russia with long-range ballistic missiles. In short, a NATO member was caught red-handed hatching an act of war against Russia.</p>
<p>After Russian media <a href="https://telegra.ph/Transcript-of-conversation-between-high-ranking-Bundeswehr-officers-dated-02192024-03-01"><u>published</u></a> the audio of the conversation, the German reaction has been to dismiss it as a cerebral war-gaming exercise and as an attempt by Russian disinformation to undermine the government of Olaf Scholz.</p>
<p>This obfuscation by Berlin will not wash. The incontrovertible fact is that the German commanders were deliberating on how to “optimize” the Ukrainian offensive capability to hit Russian targets with the long-range German Taurus cruise missile. The weapon has supposedly not yet been supplied to the Ukrainian regime due to concerns among some German politicians that doing so would escalate the war with Russia. It is clear from the audio tape that the German military chiefs are frustrated by the politicians not ordering the supply of the Taurus.</p>
<p>Gerhartz, the head of the German air force, tells his subordinates in no uncertain terms: “We are now fighting a war that uses much more modern technology than our good old Luftwaffe.”</p>
<p>There you have it: the top German commander says unequivocally, “We are now fighting a war”.</p>
<p>He also goes on to disclose that the American, British, and French militaries are deeply involved in the logistics and planning of attacks by the Ukrainian forces.</p>
<p>We know from numerous other sources that the NATO militaries are involved on the ground in Ukraine fighting against Russian forces. American HIMARS and Patriot missile systems, and the British Storm Shadow and the French Scalp cruise missiles are operated with military expertise from these NATO members.</p>
<p>Still, what is highly damaging from the German military leak is the extent to which the commanders endeavor to conceal the involvement of Germany in a war with Russia. The tortuous conversation about how to avoid the imputation of the German military makes it clear that the German high command knows full well the gravity of what they are organizing. They are discussing the conduct of a covert war against Russia. This is tantamount to the crime of aggression and it runs the risk of starting a full-on war which would no doubt escalate into a nuclear conflagration.</p>
<p>At one point in the discussion with his interlocutors, Lt Gen. Gerhartz talks about the need to conceal direct military involvement by Germany in supplying the Taurus missiles to Ukraine.</p>
<p>He says: “I understand what you are talking about. Politicians may be concerned about the direct, closed connection between Büchel [German air base] and Ukraine, which could become direct participation in the Ukrainian conflict. But in this case, we can say that the exchange of information will take place through MBDA [the German manufacturer of Taurus], and we will send one or two of our specialists to Schrobenhausen. Of course, this is a trick, but from a political point of view, it may look different. If information is exchanged through the manufacturer, then this is not associated with us.”</p>
<p>This is self-incriminating evidence that the German high command is participating in a conspiracy to expand the war against Russia. The only reservation is not to be identified publicly in waging war acts. With utmost cynicism, the German military leaders are looking for a way to claim plausible denial after the crime.</p>
<p>Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, now deputy chairman of the National Security Council, called it correctly when he said of the leaked audio tapes that they show Germany is planning war against Russia.</p>
<p>Berlin dismissed Medvedev’s claim as “absurd”. Berlin is the one being absurd if it thinks that the conversation of its military leaders can be palmed off as simply idle banter and theoretical war gaming.</p>
<p>In the 38-minute discussion, the Luftwaffe commander and his underlings explicitly talk about supplying up to 100 Taurus missiles for Ukrainian regime forces to strike deep into Russia. The German top brass refer to the Taurus as a “super tool” and they specifically identify the destruction of an important bridge in the east, which is presumably the Kerch Bridge linking the Russian mainland to Crimea.</p>
<p>The German missile has a range of over 500 kilometers which is twice that of the British or French weapons.</p>
<p>It looks like the German military is taking on the task of leading deep strikes into Russia. London is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/04/uk-urges-germany-to-give-long-range-missiles-to-kyiv-despite-luftwaffe-leak" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><u>reportedly</u></a> urging Berlin to supply the Taurus missiles despite the embarrassment of the leaked private conversation.</p>
<p>This week it is <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20240304-ukraine-claims-responsibility-for-russian-railway-bridge-blast?xtor=EPR-300&_ope=eyJndWlkIjoiYWRlN2Y0OWRjZDI2MzEyZTY5NWIxZDk4MTA2Mzg2MjUifQ==" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><u>reported</u></a> that a railway bridge was destroyed in Russia’s southwest Samara province near the city of Chapaevsk. The location is further east than Moscow and is around 1,000 km from the NATO-backed Kiev regime’s front lines in Ukraine. The attack appears to have been a precision strike.</p>
<p>As the German commanders noted in their discussions, collapsing a bridge is one of the most difficult aerial operations that requires precision capability and sophisticated radar evasion. Their conversation took place on February 19. The leak was published last weekend. Media reports say the German government is opposed to signing off on supplying the missiles. But with so much going on behind the public’s back who knows if and when these weapons are released? Have they been already?</p>
<p>If it is confirmed that the bridge near Chapaevsk was hit by a missile then it would appear that the NATO war against Russia has reached a new ominous threshold.</p>
<p>Some Western media outlets commented that the Russian publication of the Luftwaffe audio tape last weekend was aimed at embarrassing the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz into definitely ruling out any supply of Taurus missiles to Ukraine. However, such speculation assumes that Scholz is in control of his military commanders. Most likely they don’t answer to him; they answer to the occupying power in Germany – the United States.</p>
<p><em>Reprinted with permission from, <a href="https://strategic-culture.su/news/2024/03/06/germany-and-nato-caught-red-handed-in-war-planning/" data-type="link" data-id="https://strategic-culture.su/news/2024/03/06/germany-and-nato-caught-red-handed-in-war-planning/">Strategic Culture Foundation</a>.</em></p>
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Ron Paul Americahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08798716560498383830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-661347074890569860.post-69101417373097070872024-03-08T16:27:00.001-05:002024-03-08T16:27:09.096-05:00Did ‘Toria’ Jump…Or Was She Pushed?By Daniel McAdams - March 08, 2024 at 03:00PM<br />
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<p><em>(This was first published as an update exclusive for Ron Paul Institute subscribers. Subscribe for free <a href="https://ronpaulinstitute.org/subscribe/" data-type="link" data-id="https://ronpaulinstitute.org/subscribe/">here</a>.)</em></p>
<p>The sudden retirement announcement by State Department Deputy Secretary for Political Affairs Victoria “Toria” Nuland earlier this week left many US foreign policy watchers – your author included – trying to read the tea leaves to see what was actually going on.</p>
<p>There are plenty of theories and speculations as to what motivated someone like Nuland – whose entire professional career seemed to hinge on getting this proxy war on Russia started – to suddenly pack it in and pull out of the game, mid-inning. Especially as the Biden Administration and its supporters still largely claim (in public) that Ukraine can “win” and in fact is winning (with just one more cash infusion from Washington). Who would walk away when your life’s work was just coming to fruition? Does it make any sense?</p>
<p>There are many theories. Let’s look at some of them.</p>
<p><strong>First theory: Cashing in</strong>. A sober Nuland sees the failure of “Project Ukraine” and wants out before it gets too hot in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armoured_personnel_carrier" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">APC</a>. The neocons are very good at one thing: distancing themselves from their worst disasters in the most timely of manners. Example: all neocons circa 2006: “I never really believed Iraq had WMDs!”</p>
<p>In fact neocon Senator Marco Rubio just this week <a href="https://twitter.com/aaronjmate/status/1764484934792528229" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">said</a> that he’d always known Ukraine couldn’t win, but, “tried not talk about this publicly because I thought it undermined the leverage that Ukraine had.”</p>
<p>So at age 62 with a second Biden term looking very iffy, is Nuland looking to cash in for all her years in “government service” before her brand is tarnished by another <a href="https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fthumbnails.cbc.ca%2Fmaven_legacy%2Fthumbnails%2F841%2F106%2Fkabulplane.jpg%3Fcrop%3D1.777xh%3Ah%3B*%2C*%26downsize%3D510px%3A*510w&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=26ceaf3db06cb74e9d5ad2294dfdd0d3948bbb8a208a1c2cd220b8b437aeea9b&ipo=images" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Afghanistan-style collapse</a> in Ukraine? There surely are plenty of think tank sinecures available for the likes of Nuland. The money that most Americans believe goes to protect us in the yearly National Defense Authorization bills, in fact to a grotesque degree <a href="https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2020/10/14/new-report-shows-more-than-1b-from-war-industry-and-govt-going-to-top-50-think-tanks/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">goes to the Beltway “think tanks” promoting war</a> – and is thereby used to promote…more military spending!</p>
<p>My old friend Chuck Spinney’s “<a href="https://robertbryce.com/episode/franklin-chuck-spinney-author-of-the-defense-death-spiral/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">self-licking ice cream cone</a>.”</p>
<p>Then there are the universities, which bathe luxuriously in government money and in turn return the favor by slavishly supporting the national security state – that money tide that raises all boats. Ask <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/international/4485620-ex-ambassador-to-russia-on-new-sanctions-why-did-it-take-an-assassination/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">exiled neocon</a> former US Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul about his charmed life navel-gazing at <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/universities-getting-the-most-government-money-185831904.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">US government funded</a> Stanford University. Never has anyone so wrong about so much benefitted so massively from it.</p>
<p><strong>Theory Two: Nuland didn’t jump, she was pushed</strong>. For the past ten years, US policy toward Ukraine has been identified more with Victoria Nuland than perhaps anyone else. Even before that, she was working behind the scenes under Strobe Talbott in the 1990s to, by subterfuge, bring a fractured Russia under Washington’s boot. But she later ended up being the poster-person for the 2014 US-backed coup against the democratically-elected and universally-recognized government in Ukraine.</p>
<p>As US-backed thugs <a href="https://twitter.com/I_Katchanovski/status/1741239608300478890" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">shot at the crowd</a> – “friendly fire” – to create the chaos and fury necessary to motivate the protesters to “finish it,” Nuland was right there in their midst cheering them on. She was even famously caught in an <a href="https://twitter.com/GUnderground_TV/status/1765056373174436016" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">intercepted phone call</a> with then-US Ambassador to Kiev Geoff Pyatt actually picking who would staff the post-coup Ukraine government.</p>
<p>Imagine if the events of January 6th, 2021, were actually a coup rather than a rowdy protest, and suddenly there emerged on the steps of the US Capitol some of the highest ranking officials from the Chinese Communist Party literally directing the insurrectionists and advising them on how to strike a death-blow to the elected government of the United States. It seems impossible here, but it happened in Ukraine. And none of the US media even bothered to question it. After all, as is attributed to Karl Rove, “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality.” The rules do not apply to us.</p>
<p>Fast forward eight years to just before February 2022 and Nuland’s desired “take-down” of Russia was on track. Years of provocations – from NATO expansion to militarization of Ukraine to, as the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/25/world/europe/cia-ukraine-intelligence-russia-war.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">New York Times only recently reported</a>, covert US warfare directed against Russia from Ukrainian territory – produced a situation where a Russian president who preferred <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minsk_agreements" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">peace agreements</a> felt his only option was war. </p>
<p>We belatedly discovered, in fact, that the Minsk Agreements signed by Russia and Ukraine in 2015 were <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minsk_agreements" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">not considered by the French and German mediators as a pathway to peace</a>, but rather a means of buying time for renewed war with a militarily strengthened Ukraine.</p>
<p>But two years into Nuland’s proxy war – again, her life’s work – the neocon promises of a defeated Russia bowing prostrate and Putin-less before Washington and Brussels has, like all grand neocon plans, come a cropper. Sanctions did not destroy the Russian economy, as they promised, but rather brought in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/13/climate/russia-oil-gas-record-revenue.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">record revenue</a> and in fact opened up an entire “global south” to closer ties and more robust trade with Russia. Indeed, India/Russia trade <a href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/foreign-trade/india-russia-trade-hit-a-record-39-8-billion-in-202223-spief-director/articleshow/99197642.cms" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">hit record highs</a> last year amid futile western moves to isolate Moscow. The unintended consequences of US economic warfare on Russia have been the global realization that the US <a href="https://money.usnews.com/investing/articles/de-dollarization-what-happens-if-the-dollar-loses-reserve-status" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">dollar is not as critical</a> as once thought to keep the global wheels of commerce spinning.</p>
<p>What’s bad for Nuland is that the Biden Administration’s Ukraine policy has become deeply unpopular at home, with a <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/04/politics/cnn-poll-ukraine/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">solid majority</a> of Americans, according to a CNN poll, opposed to more US aid to Ukraine. Worse, according to a <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/610988/biden-job-approval-edges-down.aspx" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Gallup poll</a> taken at the end of February, about the only thing lower than President Biden’s dismal 38 percent overall approval rating is his even more dismal 33 percent approval rating on foreign policy. </p>
<p>No one in the US government has been as closely and publicly identified with Biden’s Ukraine policy than Victoria Nuland, and with a challenging – to say the least – election season approaching, there might be a realization among those who would rather not give up the levers of executive power that some new faces are in order. Perhaps that explains why Nuland’s replacement at the State Department, <a href="https://www.state.gov/biographies/john-bass/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">John Bass</a>, is the government official tapped to manage the chaotic US <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/us-ambassador-afghanistan-withdrawal-rei-john-bass-biden-kabul-book-2023-8?op=1" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">withdrawal from Afghanistan</a>. </p>
<p>The symbolism of putting the guy in charge of “Project Ukraine” whose main claim to fame was the US breakneck departure from Afghanistan cannot be ignored. </p>
<p><strong>Theory Three: ‘It’s complicated.’ </strong>There are often great benefits to reading foreign observers of the US scene. For years I have been reading non-American analysts of US policy who I consider particularly insightful. People like retired UK diplomat Alastair Crooke, who served in the Middle East and who I consider among the most knowledgeable and balanced on the region. I have also been reading retired Indian diplomat Melkulangara Bhadrakumar for many years. From well before Dr. Paul retired from the US House. For years I’d print up his pieces in the Asia Times and take them with me to read on my commute home to the NoVa suburbs. Now we reprint many of them here.</p>
<p>When Bhadrakumar came out with <a href="https://ronpaulinstitute.org/is-ground-beneath-bidens-russia-policy-shifting/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">his own explainer piece</a> this week on the meaning of Nuland’s sudden retirement announcement, I dug into it with relish. It did not disappoint, but it was not what I expected. For example, he wrote:</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>The general impression of Nuland is of an inveterate ‘hawk’ and Russophobe fired up by neoconservative ideology and American exceptionalism who precipitated the Russian intervention in Ukraine and is largely responsible for fueling the ongoing war. Of course, there is no denying that Nuland played a key role in the regime change in Kiev 10 years ago. <br />
<br />
But what lies buried in the debris and all but forgotten today is that Nuland also promoted the Minsk Agreements as the way out of the impasse in Donbass where explosive violence erupted in 2014 as ethnic Russian separatists with support from Russian hinterland rejected the contrived usurpation of power in Kiev by Ukrainian ultra-nationalist forces. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Bhadrakumar goes on to ponder the possibility that Nuland’s vision for a diplomatic solution to the open wound of a separatist-minded, Russian-majority Donbas at odds with the extreme nationalists who had consolidated power after the Maidan coup, is what brought her back to a senior position at the US State Department to continue what she had been working on during Obama, but that had been ignored or abandoned under the Trump presidency. The idea was that she came back to complete what she had started, but that her original vision for a solution to the on-going crisis had been overtaken by events in a Biden Administration that was more focused on restoring the Atlanticism that his immediate predecessor had publicly eschewed. </p>
<p>It is a far more charitable take on Nuland than I would have expected from the Indian diplomat and certainly a benefit of the doubt beyond that which I would be willing to give. But sometimes these answers are more complicated and multi-faceted than at first they seem. That’s just how it is.</p>
<p><strong>Bonus – Humor from Blinken</strong>: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is not a particularly funny person, but in an incredibly flowery send-off for Nuland he inserted several unintended zingers that were difficult to get through with a straight face. Of Nuland, for example, he effused, “she has personified President Biden’s commitment to put diplomacy back at the center of our foreign policy,” which is hard to swallow without a guffaw considering that the Administration is literally at war with most of the globe. War on Yemen, proxy war on Russia, fighting in Iraq, airstrikes in Syria, drone strikes in Somalia, saber-rattling toward China. Threats to Belarus and most of the rest of the global south.</p>
<p>If there is any diplomacy going on in this Administration it’s gunboat diplomacy!</p>
<p>Then comes Blinken’s punchline: “…it’s Toria’s leadership on Ukraine that diplomats and students of foreign policy will study for years to come.” There is no doubt that Nuland’s “leadership” on Ukraine will be studied by future students of diplomacy, but certainly not in the way Blinken intended. A senior US government official in the middle of a foreign coup her government instigated, regulating traffic and picking who should replace the overthrown democracy? It will be in a future State Department guide on how NOT to do foreign policy.</p>
<p><strong>Conclusion – I don’t know</strong>: I don’t know why Nuland left at this moment. It may be something as simple and personal as a family crisis or a health issue. However, given her career helping shape a confrontational post-Cold War US foreign policy, it is very hard to accept that she would be one to just grow tired of the position and walk away. Neocons do not have a reverse gear.</p>
<p>Time will tell.</p>
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Ron Paul Americahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08798716560498383830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-661347074890569860.post-32249058548684740412024-03-07T10:27:00.001-05:002024-03-07T10:27:56.620-05:00The End of the End of IdeologyBy Jeffrey A. Tucker - March 07, 2024 at 08:30AM<br />
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<p>In 1960, Harvard sociologist Daniel Bell published a <a href="https://archive.org/details/endofideology0000dani/page/n7/mode/2up">book</a> called <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_Ideology"><em>The End of Ideology</em></a>. It argued that it was time to put aside all our ridiculous arguments of the past – socialism, fascism, liberalism, anarchism, technocracy, etc. – and just recognize that elites like him have it all under control. They had already established the building blocks of the administrative state so that real experts could be in charge and rule society with a steady hand. </p>
<p>The rest of us need just to work hard, pay our taxes, and comply. We should be free to study, read, and dream. But, he wrote, the political system is off-limits to revolutionaries, simply because the postwar social managers have proven themselves so competent and ultimately moderate in their judgments. The wise and well-trained get the great lesson of modern history: prudence is more valued than vision. The best utopia for which we can hope is a continuation of what we have now with careful tweaks along the way. </p>
<p>In the six decades that passed, we largely went along with the idea. Sure, we argued about this philosophical point or that in what seemed like intellectual parlor games. The Cold War itself devolved into a neat debate in which the US represented the idea of freedom and the Soviet Union instantiated tyranny. Of course none of this debate really hit home; it was an abstraction about which we read and heard on the nightly news. </p>
<p>When that ended – oh how sad for the elites! – matters became confusing but we trudged onward in any case, increasingly satisfied in our sectarian camps of conservative, liberal, and libertarian. There were institutions, events, and publications that indulged our appetite for belonging and donating. No big emergency called forth permanently deep passions, much less panic about the future. </p>
<p>This parlor game came into grave question on 9/11 when the great struggle hit home but even that receded in our memory over time, as the machinery of centralized bureaucratic control grew and grew, just waiting for its day in the sun. That came four years ago. </p>
<p>Apparently out of nowhere, and only with the seemingly reluctant support of the US president, governments at all levels locked us in our homes, shut the parks and gyms, restricted travel, blocked access to public worship, and urged us all to order our food in and otherwise binge streaming services. And why? They said it was to control a virus that had already been described as a serious flu that only mortally threatened the aged and infirm. </p>
<p>They were trying out an experiment on us as we waited for pharmaceutical companies to create and distribute a magic potion that would protect and heal the population. Audacious doesn’t quite sum up the scheme. Needless to say, it didn’t work except to engorge the rules of the system. Along the way, the scheme created vast carnage in lost liberty, health, and trust in institutions. It turns out that Daniel Bell’s beloved intellectual class and wise bureaucracies didn’t have it all together after all. They made an unprecedented mess of things. </p>
<p>That posed a number of problems from an ideological point of view. The first issue to solve concerns who precisely had put these people in charge of the rest of us. How did they gain the power so flagrantly to shred the Bill of Rights and trample on every freedom we had taken for granted? They claimed it was their right to do so, and continue to claim that in every court filing. They have not and will not apologize for what they did. Worse, they have spelled out plans to do more of the same. </p>
<p>That poses a serious problem. All ideology aside, if the people themselves cannot have some influence over the system of government that rules them – if our job is merely to listen for and follow instructions over which we have no input – we are truly back to a pre-Enlightenment age. In that case, no one’s ideology really matters. We don’t have that fundamental thing that birthed modern civilization in the first place, namely the basic dignity that comes from a regime that recognizes human rights and responds to democratic control. </p>
<p>Worse, the more we closely examine what happened to us, the more it defies conventional ideological categorization. The government on which the “liberals” relied to empower people actually took away their rights and injected them with pharma products on which the largest corporations made vast money. The churches, nonprofits, politicians, and the president once celebrated by “conservatives” went along while “conservative” publications said nothing. The big corporations which had long been defended by “libertarians” closely cooperated with government in the enslavement of the population and the disabling of small business. </p>
<p>This is the fundamental reason why ideology seems so scrambled in our times. In the end, everyone was betrayed by the institutions Professor Bell promised would guide us into the light. Even the schools closed, the very jewel of the progressive crown. As it turns out, the professional managerial class in both public and private sectors – ultimately a minority of the population – cooperated in a vast scheme to transfer wealth and power to themselves at everyone else’s expense. </p>
<p>They were not the “best and brightest” after all but rather the most brutal and sadistic, not to mention pompous and condescending. </p>
<p>As everyone attempts to regroup and reconsider, we have new clarity on why left and right are so incredibly scrambled these days. It’s because all of our expectations were defied and we have been presented with new realities that cry out for explanation and solution. </p>
<p>1. Food and medical freedom both involve what goes into our bodies and both came under massive assault. These causes have traditionally been associated with the left. And yet the leaders of what is now called the left completely ignored these concerns while celebrating the forced masking and inoculation of the population. </p>
<p>2. The right has traditionally been defensive of corporate enterprise but these days most large media, tech, medicine, and food distribution is captured by the state, which rather messes up the clean binary between public and private. Enterprise is no longer free and yet conservatives didn’t speak out in any great degree in defense of the crushed small businesses and even turned a blind eye to canceled religious holidays. </p>
<p>3. Both sides of the good guys here – the people who took seriously the best values of the old left and right – agree on the rights of individuals and businesses to go their own way against the corporatist hegemon. These groups are finally finding each other in defiance of the censorship regime and discovering more in common than they knew. </p>
<p>4. Meanwhile, the leadership of old left, right, and libertarian orgs are solidly on the side of the hegemon and pretending as if there is nothing really going on of any import, which is why the establishment in all camps cares nothing about vaccine mandates, the attacks on the Amish, censorship, medical capture, or the Great Reset generally. </p>
<p>5. This further feeds into what is called “populism” but is better described as an authentic freedom movement against the ruling class agenda on all sides. Covid controls peeled back the curtain and now many see what had previously been mostly invisible. This is not only in the US but all over the world. It is showing up in farmers’ protests, new political parties in parliamentary systems, and new media that is threatening the old for influence over a new generation. </p>
<p>What is striking today is how the freedom movement has been enlivened by oppression of various sectors that the central managers had long promised to guard and protect. In particular, this movement concerns education, food, and medicine, again that which is most impactful on our thinking, our sustenance, and our health. </p>
<p>The rise of public schooling beginning in the late 19th century was codified as the norm in the early 20th century, the same time the medical schools came under centralized control and food regulation became a cause célèbre of the progressive elite. Money and finance became centrally controlled at the same time, again with a public-private partnership that promised better results thanks to scientific management. </p>
<p>Think of that: government and corporate control of education, medicine, food, and money/finance are all discredited in light of the last four years, revealed as little more than schemes to crush alternative pathways that might otherwise be chosen by people themselves. The stakes here are very high. We are talking about a century of precedent now called into question among a huge swath of people from a variety of different ideological perspectives. </p>
<p>Looking back, Daniel Bell’s “end of ideology” seems more like an attempt to draw closed a green velvet curtain that was hiding something terrible, namely that we were gradually giving up citizen control of our societies to an elite that pretended to possess wisdom, judgment, and prudence to the point that the rest of us could do no better than to outsource our penchant for exercising freedom and democracy to them. Pull back that curtain and we find ignorance, institutional interest, fraud, graft, and a shocking lack of empathy. </p>
<p>That gang is now discredited. And yet they remain in control. That is the essential problem we face today. It is a problem that vexes all the lower orders of society all across the world as they work to find ways peacefully to unseat the elites from their ill-used power. In this struggle, it is not Daniel Bell who is our prophet but C. Wright Mills and Murray Rothbard, who despite their divergent ideological perspectives agreed on one thing: it is unjust and unworkable that a small elite should rule the world without the consent of the governed.</p>
<p><em>Reprinted with permission from <a href="https://brownstone.org/articles/the-end-of-the-end-of-ideology/" data-type="link" data-id="https://brownstone.org/articles/the-end-of-the-end-of-ideology/">The Brownstone Institute</a>.</em></p>
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Ron Paul Americahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08798716560498383830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-661347074890569860.post-32331422889427004022024-03-07T08:27:00.001-05:002024-03-07T08:27:41.056-05:00Taking Rights SeriouslyBy Andrew P. Napolitano - March 07, 2024 at 08:09AM<br />
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<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>“If all mankind minus one were of one opinion,<br />
Mankind would be no more justified<br />
In silencing that one person,<br />
Than he, if he had the power,<br />
Would be justified in silencing mankind.”</p>
<p> — John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The world is filled with self-evident truths — truisms — that philosophers, lawyers and judges know need not be proven. The sun rises in the east and sets in the west. Two plus two equals four. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line.</p>
<p>These examples, of which there are many, are not true because we believe they’re true. They are intrinsically true. Thus, they are true whether we accept their truthfulness or not. Of course, recognizing a universal truth acknowledges the existence of an order of things higher than government and discoverable by the exercise of reason.</p>
<p>The generation of Americans that fought the war of secession against England — according to Professor Murray Rothbard, the last moral war Americans waged — understood the existence of truisms and recognized their origin in nature.</p>
<p>The most famous of these recognitions were Thomas Jefferson’s opening two sentences in the Declaration of Independence that self-evident truths come not from persons but from “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.” Thus, “All Men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness” is a truism. Jefferson could have appealed to the laws of Parliament, as he had done in previous writings. Instead, he appealed to the laws of nature and nature’s creator.</p>
<p>Jefferson’s neighbor and colleague, James Madison, understood this as well when he wrote the Bill of Rights so as to reflect that human rights do not come from the government. They come from our individual humanity. The Bill of Rights does not grant rights; it restrains the government from interfering with them.</p>
<p>Where do rights come from?</p>
<p>Your right life, to think as you wish, to say what you think, to publish what you say, to worship or not, to associate or not, to shake your fist in the tyrant’s face by telling the government what you think, your right to defend yourself using and carrying the same weapons as the government does, your right to be left alone, to own property, to travel or to stay put — these intrinsic aspects of human existence are natural rights that come from our humanity and for the exercise of which all rational persons yearn.</p>
<p>This is the natural rights understanding of Jefferson’s Declaration and Madison’s Bill of Rights, to the latter of which all in American government have sworn allegiance and deference.</p>
<p>A right is not a privilege. A right is an indefeasible and permanent personal claim against the whole world. It does not require a government permission slip. It does not require preconditions except the ability to reason. It does not require the approval of family or neighbors.</p>
<p>A privilege is something the government doles out to suit itself or calm the masses. The government gives those who meet its qualifications the privilege to vote so it can claim a form of Jeffersonian legitimacy. Jefferson argued in the Declaration that no government is morally licit without the consent of the governed.</p>
<p>No one alive today ratified the creation of the federal government, but most accept it. Is acceptance consent? Of course not — no more than walking on a government sidewalk is consent to government’s lies, theft and killing. Surely, the Germans who voted against the Nazis, and could not escape their filthy grasp, hardly consented to that horrible form of government.</p>
<p>Are our rights equal to each other? Some are equal to each other, but one is greater than all, as none of the rights catalogued briefly above can be exercised without the right to live. This is the right most challenging to governments that have enslaved masses and gloried in fighting morally illicit wars that kill and thus destroy the right to live.</p>
<p>But if a right is a claim against the whole world, how can a government — whether popular or totalitarian or both — extinguish it by death or slavery? The short answer is that no governments, notwithstanding the public oaths their officials take upon assuming office, accept the natural origins of rights. To government, rights are privileges.</p>
<p>Stated differently, governments do not take rights seriously.</p>
<p>Governments hate and fear the exercise of natural rights. Ludwig von Mises properly called government “the negation of liberty.” Freedom is the default position. We are literally born free, naturally free.</p>
<p>Government is an artificial creation based on a monopoly of force in a geographical area that could not exist if it did not negate our freedoms. Government denies our rights by punishing the exercise of them and by stealing property from us.</p>
<p>Rights are not just claims against the government. They are claims against the whole world. This was best encapsulated by Rothbard’s non-aggression principle, which teaches that initiating all real and threatened aggression — whether by violence, coercion or deception — is morally illicit. That applies to your neighbors as well as to the police.</p>
<p>Of course, in Rothbard’s world, there would be no government police unless all persons consented; and he wouldn’t have. A private police entity — paid to protect life, liberty and property — would be far more efficient and faithful to its job, which it would lose if it failed, than the government’s police, which thrives on assaulting life, liberty and property; and keeping their jobs.</p>
<p>The exercise of rights requires abandonment of fear, acceptance of truth, and rejection of compromise with government. As Ayn Rand famously observed, any compromise between good and evil, natural rights and slavery, food and poison, results in death — death of the body, death of liberty, death of both.</p>
<p><em>To learn more about Judge Andrew Napolitano, visit <a href="https://JudgeNap.com">https://JudgeNap.com</a>.</em></p>
<p><em>COPYRIGHT 2024 ANDREW P. NAPOLITANO</em></p>
<p><em>DISTRIBUTED BY <a href="http://CREATORS.COM" data-type="link" data-id="CREATORS.COM">CREATORS.COM</a></em></p>
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Ron Paul Americahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08798716560498383830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-661347074890569860.post-73418249861187824262024-03-06T11:27:00.007-05:002024-03-06T11:27:25.087-05:00Ukraine Has Received Mega-Billions From US, Other CountriesBy Rep. John J. Duncan Jr. - March 06, 2024 at 09:23AM<br />
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<p>As of mid-January, global aid to Ukraine has reached what the Kiel Institute for the World Economy described as the “staggering” amount of $278 billion.</p>
<p>This means that Ukraine has actually had more money than Russia has been able to spend on this war.</p>
<p>Russia’s total GDP of $1.8 trillion is just slightly over California’s GDP and only about eight percent of the total U.S. GDP of over $23 trillion.</p>
<p>The Congress has previously committed $114 billion to the Ukrainian war effort, and far too many in Congress want to give them $61 billion more.</p>
<p>They can far too easily vote for amounts like this because it is almost impossible to humanly comprehend how much $175 billion is, and because the easiest thing in the world to do is spend other people’s money.</p>
<p>If Ukraine loses this war, as it appears they may be close to doing, it will not be for lack of money, and it will certainly not be because the U.S. has not sent this last $61 billion.</p>
<p>The Democrats are masters of public relations, and it is easier for them since most of the national media has been an arm of the Democrat National Committee for many years.</p>
<p>They are aided, too, by having the bully pulpit of the White House. This is not as big an advantage as usual with the weakest president ever in the White House, but it does give the Democrats control over what is reported by every department and agency.</p>
<p>The Democrats in Congress are crying crocodile tears over Ukraine. They see the handwriting on the wall and seem to be convinced of a Russian victory.</p>
<p>They seem to be salivating over a Ukrainian defeat that they can then blame on Republicans in the House for holding up this last $61 billion. The Democrats will never mention the $278 billion Ukraine has already received from all over the world.</p>
<p>Just before this present war started, the Ukraine government was rated as one of the most corrupt in the world. I hate to think how much of this U.S. taxpayer money has already been wasted and/or stolen.</p>
<p>The Democrats never gave a whit about Ukraine until they panicked over the 2022 mid-term elections. Polls showed that because of crime, high gas prices, and high inflation, the Republicans were about to make big gains.</p>
<p>Even Sen. Bernie Sanders said it would be “political malpractice” to rely just on the abortion issue. But polls showed tremendous sympathy for poor, little Ukraine being invaded by big, bad Russia.</p>
<p>Democrat candidates, especially incumbents, latched on to Ukraine for all it was worth. Both before mid-terms and since, the Democrats have constantly portrayed themselves (falsely) as Ukraine’s greatest defender, and Congressional Republicans as mean, selfish, and supporters of bad boy Putin.</p>
<p>In doing this, they have shown little or no concern for U.S. taxpayers and little or no interest in defending our borders.</p>
<p>Aiding the Democrats in this effort have been the big four U.S. defense contractors.</p>
<p>I voted for the first Gulf War in 1991 after hearing all our top officials tell us how great a threat Saddam Hussein and his “elite” troops were and how he was the second coming of Hitler.</p>
<p>I then saw these same “elite” troops surrendering to camera crews and empty tanks and realized how the threat had been greatly exaggerated.</p>
<p>After a few years in Washington, I saw that every department greatly exaggerated the problem or threat they were dealing with so they could keep getting more money, and the Defense Department was the best at this game.</p>
<p>Most of our wars have been more about money and power than any great threats.</p>
<p>If you doubt this, read the first major speech President Eisenhower gave after assuming the presidency. It was a speech to the American Society of Newspaper Editors on April 18, 1953. It is probably the most anti-war speech ever given by a U.S. President.</p>
<p>Then read Eisenhower’s much better-known farewell address given on Jan. 17, 1961, where he warned us about the evils of military-industrial complexes.</p>
<p>And these were words given by a man who spent almost all of his career in the military.</p>
<p>This is why I sometimes call myself an Eisenhower Republican. Except for a very brief recession in 1958, he gave us eight years of peace and prosperity. He had to fight a Democrat congress for six of his eight years in office, issuing 181 vetoes, only two of which were overturned.</p>
<p><em>Reprinted with author’s permission from <a href="https://www.knoxfocus.com/columnist/ukraine-has-received-mega-billions-from-u-s-other-countries/" data-type="link" data-id="https://www.knoxfocus.com/columnist/ukraine-has-received-mega-billions-from-u-s-other-countries/">The Knoxville Focus</a>.</em></p>
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Ron Paul Americahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08798716560498383830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-661347074890569860.post-75487317385138712762024-03-06T11:27:00.005-05:002024-03-06T11:27:24.361-05:00The Great Election Fraud: Manufactured Choices Make a Mockery of Our RepublicBy John W. And Nisha Whitehead - March 06, 2024 at 09:12AM<br />
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<p>The <a href="https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/supreme-court-opinion-trump-ballot-03-04-24/index.html">U.S. Supreme Court was right</a> to keep President Trump’s name on the ballot.</p>
<p>The high court’s <a href="https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/supreme-court-opinion-trump-ballot-03-04-24/index.html">decree</a> that the power to remove a federal candidate from the ballot under the Constitution’s “insurrectionist ban” rests with Congress, not the states, underscores the fact that in a representative democracy, the <em>citizenry</em>—not the courts, not the corporations, and not the contrived electoral colleges—should be the ones to elect their representatives.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, what is being staged is not an election. It is a mockery of an election, a manufactured, contrived “<a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2012/apr/15/entertainment/la-ca-neal-gabler-20120415">pseudo-event</a>” devoid of any intrinsic value save the value of being advertised.</p>
<p>For the next eight months, Americans will be dope-fed billions of dollars’ worth of political propaganda aimed at persuading them that 1) their votes count, 2) the future of this nation—nay, our very lives—depends on who we elect as president, and 3) electing the right candidate will fix everything that is wrong with this country. </p>
<p>Incredible, isn’t it, that in a country of more than 330 million people, we are given only two choices for president?</p>
<p>The system is rigged, of course.</p>
<p>Forcing the citizenry to choose between two candidates who are equally unfit for office does not in any way translate to having some say in how the government is run.</p>
<p>Indeed, no matter what names are on the presidential ballot, once you step away from the cult of personality politics, you’ll find that beneath the power suits, they’re all alike.</p>
<p>The candidate who wins the White House has already made a Faustian bargain to keep the police state in power.</p>
<p>We’ve been down this road before.</p>
<p>Barack Obama campaigned on a message of hope, change and transparency, and promised an end to war and surveillance. Yet under Obama, government whistleblowers were routinely prosecuted, U.S. arms sales <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/07/tomdispatch-dc-congress-defense-international-arms-business">skyrocketed</a>, police militarization accelerated, and surveillance became widespread.</p>
<p>Donald Trump swore to <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2017/04/05/trump-promised-drain-swamp-how-that-going/2BBNbWU1Xd5ExA7u83Vh3I/story.html">drain the swamp</a> in Washington DC. Instead of putting an end to the corruption, however, Trump <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/2017/02/17/donald-trump-drain-swamp-lobbyists-553809.html">paved the way for lobbyists, corporations, the military industrial complex, and the Deep State</a> to feast on the carcass of the dying American republic.</p>
<p>We’ve been mired in this swamp for decades now.</p>
<p>Joe Biden has been no different. If his job was to keep the Deep State in power, he’s been a resounding success.</p>
<p>Follow the money. It always points the way.</p>
<p>With each new president, we’ve been subjected to more government surveillance, more police abuse, more SWAT team raids, more roadside strip searches, more censorship, more prison time, more egregious laws, more endless wars, more invasive technology, more militarization, more injustice, more corruption, more cronyism, more graft, more lies, and more of everything that has turned the American dream into the American nightmare.</p>
<p>What we’re <em>not</em> getting more of: elected officials who actually <em>represent</em> us.</p>
<p>No matter who wins the presidential election come November, it’s a sure bet that the losers will be the American people <em>if all we’re prepared to do is vote</em>.</p>
<p>After all, there is more to citizenship than the act of casting a ballot for someone who, once elected, will march in lockstep with the dictates of the powers-that-be.</p>
<p>So, what is the solution to this blatant display of imperial elitism disguising itself as a populist exercise in representative government?</p>
<p>Stop playing the game. Stop supporting the system. Stop defending the insanity. Just stop.</p>
<p>Washington thrives on money, so stop giving them your money. Stop throwing your hard-earned dollars away on politicians and Super PACs who view you as nothing more than a means to an end. There are countless worthy grassroots organizations and nonprofits—groups like <a href="https://www.rutherford.org/">The Rutherford Institute</a>—working to address real needs like injustice, poverty, homelessness, etc. Support them and you’ll see change you really can believe in in your own backyard.</p>
<p>Politicians depend on votes, so stop giving them your vote unless they have a proven track record of listening to their constituents, abiding by their wishes and working hard to earn and keep their trust.</p>
<p>It’s comforting to believe that your vote matters, but presidents are selected, not elected. Your vote doesn’t <em>elect</em> a president. Despite the fact that there are <a href="http://www.statisticbrain.com/voting-statistics/">218 million eligible voters</a> in this country (only half of whom actually vote), it is the electoral college, <a href="http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/about.html">made up of 538 individuals</a> handpicked by the candidates’ respective parties, that actually <em>selects</em> the next president.</p>
<p>The only thing you’re accomplishing by taking part in the “reassurance ritual” of voting is sustaining the illusion that we have a democratic republic.</p>
<p>In actuality, we are suffering from what political scientists Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page more accurately term an “<a href="http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/is-america-an-oligarchy">economic élite domination</a>” in which the economic elite (lobbyists, corporations, monied special interest groups) dominate and dictate national policy.</p>
<p>No surprise there.</p>
<p>As an in-depth Princeton University study confirms, democracy has been replaced by oligarchy, a system of government in which <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/10769041/The-US-is-an-oligarchy-study-concludes.html">elected officials represent the interests of the rich and powerful</a> rather than the average citizen.</p>
<p>As such, presidential elections merely serve to maintain the status quo. Once elected president, that person becomes part of the dictatorial continuum that is the American imperial presidency today.</p>
<p>So how do we prevail against the tyrant who says all the right things and does none of them? How do we overcome the despot whose promises fade with the spotlights? How do we conquer the dictator whose benevolence is all for show?</p>
<p>We get organized. We get educated. We get active.</p>
<p>For starters, know your rights and then put that knowledge into action.</p>
<p>Second, think nationally but act locally.</p>
<p>Third, don’t let personal politics and party allegiances blind you to government misconduct and power grabs.</p>
<p>Finally, don’t remain silent in the face of government injustice, corruption, or ineptitude. Speak truth to power.</p>
<p>A healthy, representative government is hard work. It takes a citizenry that is informed about the issues, educated about how the government operates, and willing to make the sacrifices necessary to stay involved. It also takes a citizenry willing to do more than grouse and complain.</p>
<p>We must act—and act responsibly.</p>
<p>As I make clear in my book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Battlefield-America-War-American-People/dp/1590795229/"><em>Battlefield America: The War on the American People</em></a> and in its fictional counterpart <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Erik-Blair-Diaries-Battlefield-Dead/dp/1954968027/"><em>The Erik Blair Diaries</em></a>, any hope of restoring our freedoms and regaining control over our runaway government must start from the bottom up. And that will mean re-learning step by painful step what it actually means to be a government “of the people, by the people and for the people.”</p>
<p><em>Reprinted with permission from <a href="https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/john_whiteheads_commentary/the_great_election_fraud_manufactured_choices_make_a_mockery_of_our_republic_short" data-type="link" data-id="https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/john_whiteheads_commentary/the_great_election_fraud_manufactured_choices_make_a_mockery_of_our_republic_short">The Rutherford Institute</a>.</em></p>
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Ron Paul Americahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08798716560498383830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-661347074890569860.post-50550724609178346932024-03-06T11:27:00.003-05:002024-03-06T11:27:23.860-05:00Murder in GazaBy Eric Margolis - March 06, 2024 at 09:04AM<br />
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<p>Good work, Mr. President Biden. You have managed to do what America’s enemies have not – creating widespread hatred for the United States around the globe. Your destruction of the Gaza refugee camps has inflamed antisemitism everywhere.</p>
<p>There is widespread disgust and anger at the US government over your decision to give Israel’s new far right government carte blanche to massacre rebellious Palestinians in the open prison of the Gaza Strip. The death toll is now over 31,000 killed and at least 70,000 seriously injured, not counting the long-term effects of malnutrition and even starvation. Most victims are women and children.</p>
<p>All of Gaza’s hospitals have been wrecked by Israeli bombs and tank fire. The Biden administration has thoughtfully rushed tank shells to Israel’s armored forces. Large stores of arms and supplies, supposedly provided by the US to Israel for an emergency situation, have been offered up to Israel to continue its massacre of Gaza. Such action violates US law – which bars the use of US-supplied arms against civilians. Dropping 2,000 lbs bombs on residential buildings is, according to Israeli spin doctors, ‘counterterrorism.’ The rest of the world does not think so.</p>
<p>Except of course the US, Canada and Britain, where the media is totally dominated by supporters of Israel’s now governing far right. And Washington, which is paralyzed by pre-election fever. Palestinian ‘terrorists’ are purposely running into Israeli tanks, shells and bombs just to discredit Israel. Big money financial donors are terrorizing major US and British educational institutions. Writers who dare challenge Israel’s party line on Gaza are blacklisted. Those honorable Jews who denounce Israel’s brutal policies in Gaza are denounced as ‘self-hating Jews.’</p>
<p>We are not told that Gaza’s terrified civilians originally came from areas around Gaza and Galilee from whence they were driven into the prison camp of Gaza from their historic homes by ethnic cleansing and massacres after 1948. Their lands were seized by the Israeli government or far-right settlers, many from the US.</p>
<p>As yet, we know little about the alleged massacre of some 1,000 Israelis attending a music festival on former Arab lands. I know this region fairly well after visiting the kibbutz of Nahal Oz in the 1950’s to meet relatives and see how Israel was allegedly making once supposedly barren lands flower and blossom. There were no such people as Palestinians, according to Israel’s then prime minister, who herself hailed from Ukraine.</p>
<p>Israel’s governing far right – was described by the late, great Israeli writer Uri Avnery as ‘Jewish fascists.’ They clearly intend to grind Gaza and its people into dust. There are large numbers of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, some of whom were gunned down this week. The objective of Israel’s far right is to expel these Arabs from the entire West Bank that Israel seized in the 1967 War and shove them into the arid Jordanian desert. Israel has long had its eye on southern Lebanon and its Litani River waters.</p>
<p>‘Don’t worry what Washington will say,’ said the architect of this mess, the late General Ariel Sharon. ‘I control Washington.’ True enough, as Biden and his party are showing. Wall Street donors have become more important than America’s geopolitical interests.</p>
<p>Interestingly, the likely winner of the upcoming US presidential election, Donald Trump, is an even stauncher supporter of Israel. But even many Democrats don’t trust his fidelity to Israel even though he openly dislikes Arabs and Muslims. Trump appears to have a clearer idea of where America’s interests lie – he may not allow Israel to lead America around by the nose.</p>
<p>Israel’s North American partisans keep running old films about the Holocaust to help justify their laying waste to Gaza. We ought to remember there were less than half the numbers of Jews in the besieged Warsaw Ghetto than there are today Palestinians in Gaza.</p>
<p>Americans should be ashamed of Biden. His administration, infiltrated and directed by far-right neocons, does not represent America’s values or traditions. Gaza will remain a major crime as well as a dark stain in America’s honor.</p>
<p><em>Reprinted with permission from <a href="https://ericmargolis.com/2024/03/murder-in-gaza/" data-type="link" data-id="https://ericmargolis.com/2024/03/murder-in-gaza/">EricMargolis.com</a>.</em></p>
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Ron Paul Americahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08798716560498383830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-661347074890569860.post-35569234581090149692024-03-06T11:27:00.001-05:002024-03-06T11:27:23.293-05:00What Did the CIA Know and When Did it Know it?By Larry C. Johnson - March 06, 2024 at 08:54AM<br />
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<p>As Ukraine careens toward a political and military disaster it is time to ask why did the CIA fail to predict this. “Wait a minute,” you might say, “how do you know the CIA did not?” Fair question. I no longer have access to classified information, but I can read the public statements of DOD and State Department officials as well as remarks by various members of Congress. At no time during the past two years — since the start of the Special Military Operation — have we heard a single discouraging word from anyone with access to CIA briefings on Ukraine’s military prospects suggesting the West embarked on a fool’s errand in trying to destroy Russia.</p>
<p>On the eve of the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the CIA should have provided answers to the following questions:</p>
<ol>
<li>What is the capability and condition of the Russian armed forces?</li>
<li>What is Russia’s capability to withstand Western economic sanctions?</li>
<li>What are the conditions that must exist that will force President Putin from office?</li>
</ol>
<p>Here is what we know for certain. Despite repeated entreaties from Vladimir Putin to President Joe Biden and other Western leaders to provide assurances that Ukraine would not be admitted to NATO, the West told Putin to screw off and continued building up Ukraine’s military. The U.S. and its NATO allies believed that Russia’s military was weak and ineffective. Western leaders also believed that Russia’s economy was vulnerable to Western economic sanctions and that an economic collapse in Russia would catapult Putin from power.</p>
<p>The Western plan was simple, audacious and delusional — i.e., using Ukraine as a military proxy, defeat Russia and humiliate Vladimir Putin; apply Western economic sanctions that would devastate the Russian economy and further erode support for Putin; break up the Russia Republic into 41 new countries. Sounds crazy, but take a look at what<a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/04/17/the-west-is-preparing-for-russias-disintegration/"> Angel Vohra wrote in Foreign Policy Magazine in April 2023</a>:</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>The Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, an independent U.S. government agency with members from the U.S. House of Representatives, Senate, and departments of defense, state, and commerce, has <a href="https://archive.is/o/B8UJG/https://www.csce.gov/international-impact/events/decolonizing-russia" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">declared</a> that decolonizing Russia should be a “moral and strategic objective.” The Free Nations of Post-Russia Forum, comprising exiled politicians and journalists from Russia, held a meeting at the European Parliament in Brussels earlier this year and is <a href="https://archive.is/o/B8UJG/https://freenationsrf.org/index.php?route=common/home" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">advertising</a> three events in different American cities this month. It has even released a map of a dismembered Russia, split into 41 different countries, in a post-Putin world, assuming he loses in Ukraine and is ousted. </p>
<p>Western analysts are increasingly pushing the theory that Russian disintegration is coming and that the West must not only prepare to manage any possible spillover of any ensuing civil wars but also to benefit from the fracture by luring resource-rich successor nations into its ambit. They argue that when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 the West was blindsided and failed to fully capitalize on the momentous opportunity. It must now strategize to end the Russian threat once and for all, instead of providing an off-ramp to Putin. </p>
</blockquote>
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<p>Put simply, the United States and its NATO allies were obsessed with the elimination of Russia as a nation and saw the war in Ukraine as their opportunity to carry out this plan. At no time prior to the start of the war in Ukraine in February 2022, or after, did the U.S. intelligence community provide any assessment countering this narrative.</p>
<p>So let’s take a backward look at what was being said in public about the three questions I presented above. I will start with the state of the Russian military. Here is what <a href="https://www.gisreportsonline.com/r/russian-military-power/">GIS — a European based “think” tank — was spinning in May of 2022</a>. Note, this assessment was being echoed throughout the U.S. national security establishment:</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>One month into the war, the tables had been turned. The Ukrainian side had inflicted massive losses on the aggressor and taken the initiative in successful counteroffensives. Badly battered, Russian forces withdrew from northern Ukraine. The implication is that, while Ukraine’s ability to resist had been underestimated, the capability of the Russian war machine had been even more seriously overestimated.</p>
<p>And now, based on early developments on the ground, it seems increasingly likely that the Russian offensive in Donbas will meet the same fate as the failed ambition to take Kyiv. If this turns out to be the case, Ukraine will win the war, albeit at a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/17/world/europe/ukraine-war-russia-atrocities.html?searchResultPosition=2" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">horrible price</a>. Given that the Russian side will not be allowed to yield until it has little to fight with, one can predict that Russia will emerge out of the war with a badly damaged military force. Such a scenario would have profound long-term implications.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Then we have retired U.S. Army General Ben Hodges offering his wrong-headed <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/this-indicator-shows-russia-really-weak-according-ex-us-general-1821029">assessment in August 2023</a>:</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>“To me, this is either arrogance, or inexperience, or they just haven’t learned anything,” Hodges continued. “And I think what we’re seeing is even with a multimillion-dollar state-of-the-art attack helicopter, if you have a pilot that is not experienced, then they’re going to be shot down.”. . .</p>
<p>The retired general added during his interview that even “after 18 months” of war, Russia is showing that they are still “really weak” despite having effective and equipped aircraft.</p>
<p>“There’s so much conversation about Ukraine can’t do this, Ukraine can’t do this,” Hodges said. “On the other side … They [Russia] have lost so many pilots, they’ve lost so many tanks, they’ve lost so much artillery, they continue to lose generals. Their logistics system is fragile. So, I think now is the time to really apply pressure on Russia, not to stop or hesitate.”</p>
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<p>I would have to write a 500 page book to compile all of the West’s mistaken, erroneous predictions about Russia’s military capability. This represents a monumental intelligence failure.</p>
<p>We see a similar debacle when it comes to Western predictions about the anticipated effect of sanctions on the Russian economy. The Wall Street Journal, for example, put out its analysis on January 26, 2022 in an article titled, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/russias-attempts-to-sanction-proof-its-economy-have-exposed-a-weak-spot-11643193911">Russia’s Attempts to Sanction-Proof Its Economy Have Exposed a Weak Spot</a>.</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>Experts say the package of retributions drawn by the U.S. and Europe will inflict heavy damage despite Russia’s efforts to insulate its economy. . . .</p>
<p>Now, a raft of harder-hitting measures in case of a renewed incursion into Ukraine could test this approach and experts say they could cause broad economic pain, despite Mr. Putin’s efforts to cushion the blow.</p>
<p>The U.S. on Tuesday said it is <a href="https://archive.is/o/kiKkF/https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-considers-potent-export-controls-against-russia-11643122300" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">prepared to impose sanctions and export controls</a> on critical sectors of the Russian economy. Senior administration officials said the U.S. could ban the export to Russia of various products that use microelectronics based on U.S. equipment, software or technology, similar to the U.S. pressure campaign on <a href="https://archive.is/o/kiKkF/https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-restrictions-push-huaweis-revenue-down-by-nearly-a-third-11640934969" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Chinese telecom giant Huawei Technologies Co.</a> U.S. officials have previously said that measures under consideration also include cutting off Russian banks’ access to the dollar and possible sanctions on Russian energy exports. . . .</p>
<p>Brian O’Toole, a former Treasury official and an expert on sanctions at the Atlantic Council think tank, said the latest round of sanctions, if adopted, “would cause huge economic dislocation, with massive economic consequences… There will be an immediate economic impact.”. . .</p>
<p>Economic pain could further dent Mr. Putin’s approval rating, which dropped to 65% in December from close to 90% in 2015, according to the independent Russian pollster Levada Center.</p>
<p>Among the hardest-hitting options—and one Western negotiators say isn’t currently on the table—the Biden administration has in the past weighed disconnecting Moscow from the SWIFT international banking system, which is used by more than 11,000 financial institutions in over 200 countries, and preventing Russian financial institutions from using the U.S. dollar.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>What a colossal screw up. And the Biden Administration doubled down on this foolish course of action by cutting off Russia’s access to SWIFT. The actual effect of the sanctions led Russia to move quickly to form new economic alliances with China and other major economies in the global south and the sanctions accelerated the development of an alternative payment system that was independent of the U.S. dollar. Either the Biden Administration ignored warnings from CIA analysts that Russia’s enormous reserve of natural resources, oil, gas, coal, aluminum, nickel, nitrogen and rare earth minerals insulated it from Western sanction or the CIA failed to analyze accurately the strength of the Russian economy.</p>
<p>Instead of weakening public support in Russia for Vladimir Putin, his political position became stronger. Instead of isolating Putin, NATO’s proxy war helped Putin solidify and expand relations with China, India, Iran, North Korea, South Africa and Brazil.</p>
<p>The West is caught in its own trap. Russia reactivated a moribund defense industry and is cranking out ammunition, shells, missiles, rockets, artillery, tanks, drones and combat vehicles at a rate the West cannot match. Instead of demonstrating Western superiority, the NATO alliance has been exposed as fractious, impotent lot. The defeat of Ukraine will force the United States and NATO to make a choice — escalate the war with Russia and risk a nuclear conflagration or find a diplomatic off-ramp. While the current rhetoric among many NATO members is bellicose, with France’s Macron trying to whip up support for joining the fight against Russia, the divisions in Europe are growing. Germany certainly is no longer enthusiastic about signing on to France’s suicide mission.</p>
<p>The key to the end of the war resides in Washington, DC. It is an election year and the electorate has no stomach for a direct military confrontation with Russia. Then there is the fact that the Biden Administration is more focused on the war between Israel and the Palestinians, the Houthi closure of the Red Sea and the fear that China will move against Taiwan. There is no good, clean, obvious exit plan for the U.S. to end its support of the proxy war with Russia. The best that the Biden team can hope for is that Ukraine’s Zelensky is overthrown and a new Ukrainian government decides to seek peace with Moscow. At that point, Biden can shrug his shoulders and say, “We tried” and then walk away. That is the outcome I’m hoping for.</p>
<p><em>Reprinted with permission from <a href="https://sonar21.com/what-did-the-cia-know-and-when-did-it-know-it/" data-type="link" data-id="https://sonar21.com/what-did-the-cia-know-and-when-did-it-know-it/">Sonar21.com</a>.</em></p>
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Ron Paul Americahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08798716560498383830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-661347074890569860.post-84253704048689874782024-03-05T10:27:00.001-05:002024-03-05T10:27:28.450-05:00‘Untenable Positions’ – Warning Signs AboundBy Alastair Crooke - March 05, 2024 at 09:56AM<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-r_hyVOrY2ug/WK8uQm6qo0I/AAAAAAAAJkM/sMbAZPihU7URNStUyrT10jEmzWlSiTFdACLcB/s200/LargeRonPaul.jpg" style="clear: left;float: left;margin-bottom:1em;margin-right:1em;"><img border="0" height="196" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-r_hyVOrY2ug/WK8uQm6qo0I/AAAAAAAAJkM/sMbAZPihU7URNStUyrT10jEmzWlSiTFdACLcB/s200/LargeRonPaul.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
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<p>“Tuesday’s local elections were a flashing warning light for Israel. The ultra-Orthodox parties, the religious Zionist groups, and the far-right, racist parties – organized in a few communities and scored gains that are disproportionate to the true size of the groups they represent. Conversely, the democratic camp [largely secular liberal Ashkenazi], which for nearly a year turned out weekly for giant demonstrations on Tel Aviv’s Kaplan Street and dozens of locations around the country, failed in most cases to translate the anger into electoral gains in local governments.”</p>
<p>“Another conclusion to draw from the elections” continues the <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/editorial/2024-02-29/ty-article-opinion/local-election-results-are-a-flashing-red-light-for-israels-democratic-camp/0000018d-f180-d401-a3dd-f99a35b20000" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Haaretz Editorial</a> “is the growing similarity between the ruling Likud party and [Ben Gvir’s party] the far-right Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Supremacy). In Tel Aviv, the two parties ran together, in a move that was unimaginable in the pre-Benjamin Netanyahu Likud … We can learn from this that Likud is changing: Meir Kahane [a founder of the Jewish radical Right, and of Kach Party] defeated Ze’ev Jabotinsky; Jewish supremacy and forced population transfer replaced liberty.”</p>
<p>Put starkly, Israel is turning further to the Right.</p>
<p>Another warning sign: In a (virtually) uncontested primary in the US,</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>…a coalition of pro-Palestinian groups had set a modest target of 10,000 uncommitted votes—Trump’s margin of victory in Michigan in 2016—to send a message that voter frustration over Biden’s backing of Israel’s military campaign could cost him in November … ‘Uncommitted’ however, blew past the 10,000 target and clocked in at nearly 101,400 votes – about 13 percent of the tally. Biden earned more than 80 percent of the vote, yet the number of uncommitted votes were <a href="https://www.wsj.com/politics/elections/michigan-primary-results-trump-biden-outlook-255d5013?mod=hp_lead_pos1">enough</a> to send two “uncommitted” delegates to the Democratic Party’s national convention in August.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>“The biggest danger for the president here is not that too many people voted “uncommitted”,” said former Rep. Andy Levin (D., Mich.), who endorsed the effort. “The biggest danger is if he doesn’t get the message.” </p>
<p>A third <a href="https://clydeprestowitz.substack.com/p/netanyahu-wants-trump?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=999769&post_id=141841032&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1eogb&open=false&utm_medium=email">warning</a> sign: With his plan for Gaza once military operations cease, Netanyahu has formally declared war on Biden and his campaign for re-election:</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>Far from moving toward [the] two-state solution being promulgated by Biden, Netanyahu is calling for an increased and time-unlimited Israeli occupation not only of Gaza but also of the West Bank and all other areas of that which otherwise would constitute an independent Palestinian state. In effect, Netanyahu is calling for the total conquest by Israel of the remains of Palestine – the exact opposite of what Biden and the rest of the world are suggesting.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Put plainly: Netanyahu is putting Biden “between the devil and the deep blue sea.” The former knows that Biden is heavily dependent on not only the Jewish vote, but even more importantly, on Jewish money for his potential re-election. Netanyahu seems to assess that he has the leeway safely to ignore Biden – and for the next eight months or so, to pursue his ambition unhindered: to seize control of “Greater Israel” (up to the Litani River inside southern Lebanon) and to consolidate a Jewish Jerusalem.</p>
<p>Even Tom Friedman at the New York Times is <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/27/opinion/israel-gaza-peace-thomas-friedman.html">showing signs of panic</a>:</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>…It felt to me, at least, that the world was ready, initially, to accept that there were going to be significant civilian casualties if Israel was going to root out Hamas and recover its hostages … But now we have a toxic combination of thousands of civilian casualties and a Netanyahu peace plan that promises only endless occupation … So the whole Israel-Gaza operation is starting to look – to more and more people – like a human meat grinder whose only goal is to reduce the population so that Israel can control it more easily … And, I repeat, it is going to put the Biden administration in an increasingly untenable position.</p>
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<p>Panic is widening in respect to Ukraine too: In Europe, leaders were summoned at 24 hours’ notice to the Elysée Palace to hear President Macron <a href="https://www.politico.eu/newsletter/brussels-playbook/macron-floats-sending-troops-to-ukraine-vows-to-do-whatever-it-takes/">warn</a> EU states that the situation on the ground in Ukraine was so critical, and the stakes for Europe so high, that: “We’re at a critical point in the conflict where we need to take the initiative: We’re determined to do whatever it takes for as long as it takes.”</p>
<p>Macron underlined the growing doubts about America’s continuing support for Kiev and warned of a potential new Russian offensive and brutal attacks planned to “shock” Ukrainians and their allies. “We are convinced that Russia’s defeat is essential for the security and stability of Europe” … “Europe is at stake.”</p>
<p>Bluntly, Macron was grandstanding in order to prise the defence and security leadership of Europe away from Germany, which is busily building a US-linked military axis in alliance with Poland, the Baltics and the European Commission President, former German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen, and to capture it for France.</p>
<p>In any event, Macron’s bid was “a bust.” His call faced immediate repudiation, both within France, and by other European leaders. None of Macron’s peer leaders agreed with him (except possibly the Dutch). Behind the Elysée precipitous “theatre” however, there lurks a more serious objective – that of further centralising EU control through having a common EU defence procurement process.</p>
<p>To fund this European unified defence capacity, the Commission is looking to initiate unitary EU bond issuance and a centralised taxing mechanism (both of which are prohibited under EU Treaties). These are the unspoken projects behind the “scare” narrative of Russian “intent” to invade Europe.</p>
<p>Amidst this, in Europe, both desperation and the casting of “blame” for the Ukraine debacle has begun in earnest: Chancellor Scholtz, in defending Berlin’s decision to not supply long-range Taurus missiles to Kiev, threw France and the UK “under the bus.”</p>
<p>Scholtz said that to supply Taurus missiles would require the assistance of German troops on the ground: “as is done by the British and French, in terms of [missile] target-control and target-control assistance. German soldiers can at no point, and in no place, be linked with the targets that this [long-range] system reaches,” Scholz <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/scholz-defends-refusal-to-send-taurus-missiles-to-ukraine/a-68380516">insisted</a>.</p>
<p>Needless to say, his explicit admission of European troops already on the ground in Ukraine caused a ruckus in Europe. The fact long suspected, is now official.</p>
<p>Yet what is it that caused the wider Euro-hysteria (beyond Macron’s theatricals)?</p>
<p>Most likely two things: First, the rout of Ukrainian forces from Avdeevka, plus the sudden shock of realising that there are no real Ukrainian defensive lines behind Avdeevka – only a few of hamlets and then fields.</p>
<p>And second, the concomitant New York Times’ epic essay <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/25/world/europe/cia-ukraine-intelligence-russia-war.html#:~:text=For%20more%20than%20a%20decade,both%20countries%20in%20countering%20Russia.&text=Adam%20Entous%20and%20Michael%20Schwirtz%20conducted%20more%20than%20200%20interviews,States%20to%20report%20this%20story.">The Spy War: How the C.I.A. Secretly Helps Ukraine Fight Putin</a> by Adam Entous and Mitchell Schwirtz, describing a decade of CIA-Ukrainian cooperation, and reminding all that the US might sever from Kiev quite soon (unless a spending bill is passed).</p>
<p>Adam Entous also co-authored the 2017 Washington Post piece entitled, <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/0c0b21f5-41f9-47c5-9c64-e27ce4788477?j=eyJ1IjoiOHFlNiJ9.GXD-RrPppVE7hiy-ifmsZzotLi0iHxy6DzCinvDFna0">Obama’s secret struggle to punish Russia for Putin’s election assault</a>, which, as Matt Taibbi<a href="https://substack.com/app-link/post?publication_id=1042&post_id=142098661&utm_source=post-email-title&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=false&r=8qe6&token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjo0MDc0NTQsInBvc3RfaWQiOjE0MjA5ODY2MSwiaWF0IjoxNzA5MDczNzE3LCJleHAiOjE3MTE2NjU3MTcsImlzcyI6InB1Yi0xMDQyIiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.jlrIq70VbOzvRc0Yu_6IxlT_rP-Or79ZpxdCwC7Ch2o"> notes</a>, told the cinematic tale of how John Brennan [then head of CIA] hand-delivered to Barack Obama an “intelligence bombshell” from a prized source “deep inside the Russian government.”</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>The heart-racing narrative revealed how the CIA not only learned of Vladimir Putin’s direct involvement in a campaign to ‘“’damage’”’ Hillary Clinton and ‘help elect her opponent, Donald Trump,’ but safely delivered the hush-hush news for the President’s eyes only (before telling the entire world about it of course).</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It was, of course, nonsense: The seeding narrative for the unfolding of Russiagate.</p>
<p>This new New York Times piece of revisionist narrative on Ukraine – full of questionable claims; puff for the CIA and for John Brennan’s role in particular – probably was understood by western Intel services as a “Dear John” break-up letter, ahead of a coming divorce. The CIA was preparing to exit Ukraine.</p>
<p>As to be expected in any “Dear John” missive, the text is framed to exonerate “the author” of all blame and legal liabilities (for murder and assassination): “An un-subtle leitmotif runs through the text detailing civilized America continually begging Ukrainians to lay off atrocities.” </p>
<p>As the partnership deepened “after 2016,” the Times reports, Ukrainians “began staging assassinations and other lethal operations, which violated the terms the White House thought the Ukrainians had agreed to.” Americans were “infuriated” and “threatened to cut off support,” but never did. (Taibbi <a href="https://www.racket.news/p/cia-ukraine-exchange-pre-divorce?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1042&post_id=142098661&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=false&token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjo0MDc0NTQsInBvc3RfaWQiOjE0MjA5ODY2MSwiaWF0IjoxNzA5MDczNzE3LCJleHAiOjE3MTE2NjU3MTcsImlzcyI6InB1Yi0xMDQyIiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.jlrIq70VbOzvRc0Yu_6IxlT_rP-Or79ZpxdCwC7Ch2o&r=8qe6&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email">notes</a>).</p>
<p>It is not clear whether Speaker Johnson will hold the line in refusing to bring the foreign aid Bill to the floor of the House, providing $60 billion for Kiev; or if he will not prove able to persevere.</p>
<p>Yet the “writing is on the wall,” as Senate minority leader McConnell tartly observed, whilst announcing his coming retirement as Senate Leader: ”Politics has shifted, I can see that,” he said.</p>
<p>The GOP base does not favour giving more cash to Ukraine – will little or no prospect that it can prevail.</p>
<p>The point here – clearly spooking European intelligence services – is that so much of what success Ukraine earlier has enjoyed derives from one key factor: western overmatch in ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance). NATO weaponry has disappointed; NATO military doctrine has been slated by Ukrainian forces; but ISR has been key.</p>
<p>The New York Times essay is clear: “a discreet passageway descends to a subterranean bunker where teams of Ukrainian soldiers track Russian spy satellites and eavesdrop on conversations between Russian commanders ….” Are these “Ukrainian soldiers” or NATO techies?</p>
<p>When the CIA does depart when the money is cut, it will not be just their staff that goes. The CIA will not leave sensitive kit and intercept equipment behind, to be overrun by Russian forces, and taken for forensic autopsy. Has this already happened? Were those secret bunkers perchance at Avdeeka? Are sensitive details about to leaked?</p>
<p>In any event, the European intelligence “assistance” to Ukraine will largely be eviscerated by a CIA withdrawal of staff and equipment. In which case, what will be left for Europeans to do? They can fly airborne surveillance; they can use NATO satellites, but not ubiquitously.</p>
<p>And then, might angry, abandoned Ukrainians spin their own narratives? Ukrainian Intelligence Chief Kirill Budanov just <a href="https://twitter.com/MyLordBebo/status/1761755612952530983">punctured</a> the western “Putin killed Navalny” narrative: Asked about the death, Budanov said, “I may disappoint you, but we know he died from a blood clot. It’s more or less confirmed. This is not taken from the Internet.”</p>
<p>Budanov also knocked down other US narratives: Last week Reuters cited six sources <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/00613fd0-a5ba-4713-8de0-e035f65da7cd?j=eyJ1IjoiOHFlNiJ9.GXD-RrPppVE7hiy-ifmsZzotLi0iHxy6DzCinvDFna0">reporting</a> that “Iran has provided Russia with a large number of powerful surface-to-surface ballistic missiles.” Budanov responded to this by saying the Iranian missiles “are not here” and such information “does not correspond with reality.” He also contradicted statements about Russia deploying North Korean missiles, another recent American story: “While a few North Korean missiles were utilized,” he <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/6493825f-030c-4b29-8a8d-b17106b72a89?j=eyJ1IjoiOHFlNiJ9.GXD-RrPppVE7hiy-ifmsZzotLi0iHxy6DzCinvDFna0">said</a>, “assertions of widespread use do not hold true.”</p>
<p>Here lies the crux to the New York Times piece: Fear of fallout from disgruntled Ukrainian officials. “Especially in an election year, any war of words between erstwhile allies could get ugly in a heartbeat.”</p>
<p>Biden be warned. Perhaps, however, it’s already too late?</p>
<p><em>Reprinted with permission from <a href="https://strategic-culture.su/news/2024/03/04/untenable-positions-warning-signs-abound/" data-type="link" data-id="https://strategic-culture.su/news/2024/03/04/untenable-positions-warning-signs-abound/">Strategic Culture Foundation</a>.</em></p>
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Ron Paul Americahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08798716560498383830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-661347074890569860.post-46459554584650575752024-03-05T09:27:00.001-05:002024-03-05T09:27:33.787-05:00The Tyranny of Domestic Highway CheckpointsBy Jacob G. Hornberger - March 05, 2024 at 08:44AM<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-r_hyVOrY2ug/WK8uQm6qo0I/AAAAAAAAJkM/sMbAZPihU7URNStUyrT10jEmzWlSiTFdACLcB/s200/LargeRonPaul.jpg" style="clear: left;float: left;margin-bottom:1em;margin-right:1em;"><img border="0" height="196" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-r_hyVOrY2ug/WK8uQm6qo0I/AAAAAAAAJkM/sMbAZPihU7URNStUyrT10jEmzWlSiTFdACLcB/s200/LargeRonPaul.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
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<p>Many years ago, I traveled to Cuba, which, as most Americans recognize, is governed by a dictatorial regime. One day I took a cab from Havana to a small town named Trinidad. The drive took several hours and I arrived at dusk. I paid the cab driver and he returned to Havana.</p>
<p>There were no hotels in Trinidad, but people would rent a room in their house. When I attempted to rent a room, the owner asked to see my passport. The regime required her to keep track of who stayed in her house. You know — to keep Cubans “safe.”</p>
<p>It was at that point that I realized that I had forgotten my passport back in my hotel room in Havana. The proprietor had a look of horror on her face. She said that she could not dare to rent a room to me. It was too dangerous, she said, because she could get into a lot of trouble with the authorities.</p>
<p>I made her an offer she could not refuse and she agreed to rent the room to me. But she warned me that if I planned to return to Havana by car, I would be in big trouble. She said that the police had highway checkpoints where travelers were required to stop and produce their papers. She said that it was a virtual certainty that I would be arrested and incarcerated for failure to have proper papers with me. The checkpoints were obviously installed at random and on a temporary basis because I not encountered any of them on the trip to Trinidad. Fortunately, I was flying back to Havana and was able to distract the ticket agent from asking for my passport by getting him to talk about a upcoming baseball game between the U.S. and Cuba.</p>
<p>Why do I bring up this story? To show that highway checkpoints are a hallmark of a dictatorial regime.</p>
<p>That brings us to the southern border of the United States, where I lived for more than 30 years of my life. The borderlands have the same types of highway checkpoints that are found in Cuba and other dictatorial regimes. Just as in Cuba, travelers are required to stop at these checkpoints, answer questions, and, upon demand, produce their papers. If they fail or refuse to do so, they are arrested and incarcerated, just like in Cuba. In worst-case scenarios, travelers who refuse to lower their car windows and answer questions have their window bashed in and their door opened, after which they are dragged from their car, sometimes beaten, and then arrested and incarcerated.</p>
<p>These U.S. highway checkpoints are part of the immigration police state that comes with America’s socialist system of immigration controls. To ensure that foreigners do not enter the United States without official permission or “invitation,” the U.S. Border Patrol establishes these highway checkpoints to make certain that people who have illegally circumvented the government controls are not traveling the highways. In fact, anyone who is caught with an illegal immigrant in his car is arrested and prosecuted for the felony offense of transporting an illegal immigrant.</p>
<p>There is something important to note about these checkpoints: They are not located on the border. They are located several miles north of the border. In my hometown of Laredo, there is a highway checkpoint located about 40 miles north of Laredo. Laredoans and others who travel north to San Antonio from Laredo are required to stop even though they may never have entered Mexico. This highway checkpoint is an internal, domestic passport check, just like in Cuba.</p>
<p>It’s the same on highways running east-west in the American southwest. I was once traveling east from Yuma, headed to Phoenix. And there it was — a highway checkpoint stopping travelers who were traveling in a easterly direction. In other words, no one is coming out of Mexico. Instead, travelers are simply traveling inside the United States, just like Cubans traveling inside Cuba.</p>
<p>It’s probably worth pointing out that Anglos are almost always quickly permitted to pass through these highway checkpoints without any problems after answering the simple question, “Are you an American citizen?” It is darker-skinned Hispanics who had better have their papers with them when traveling the borderlands.</p>
<p>It’s oftentimes easy to recognize tyranny when it occurs in a dictatorial regime. It’s oftentimes difficult to recognize the same tyranny at home.</p>
<p><em>Reprinted with permission from <a href="https://www.fff.org/2024/03/04/the-tyranny-of-domestic-highway-checkpoints/" data-type="link" data-id="https://www.fff.org/2024/03/04/the-tyranny-of-domestic-highway-checkpoints/">Future of Freedom Foundation</a>.</em></p>
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Ron Paul Americahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08798716560498383830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-661347074890569860.post-24123002902860421422024-03-04T10:27:00.003-05:002024-03-04T10:27:43.697-05:00Putin’s nuclear warning is direct and explicitBy Melkulangara Bhadrakumar - March 04, 2024 at 09:53AM<br />
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<p>The spectre of Armageddon has been raised often enough during the 2-year old war in Ukraine that the reference to it in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s state of the union address on Thursday had a familiar ring about it. Therein lies the risk of misjudgement on the part of the western audience that Putin was only “crying wolf”. </p>
<p>Three things must be noted at the outset. First, Putin has been explicit and direct. He is giving advance notice that he is obliged to respond with nuclear capability if the Russian statehood is threatened. Eschewing innuendos or dark hints, Putin actually made a sombre declaration of epochal significance. </p>
<p>Second, Putin was <a href="http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/73585">addressing the Federal Assembly</a> in front of the crème de la crème of the Russian elite and took the entire nation into confidence that the country may be pushed into a nuclear war for its self-preservation. </p>
<p>Third, a specific context is sailing into view precipitated by foolhardy, impetuous western statesmen who are desperate to stave off an impending defeat in the war, which they began in the first instance, with the stated intention to destroy Russia’s economy, create social and political instability that would lead to a regime change in the Kremlin. </p>
<p>In reality, the US Secretary Lloyd Austin’s prognosis on Thursday at a Congressional hearing in Washington that “NATO will be in a fight with Russia” if Ukraine was defeated is the manifestation of a predicament that the Biden Administration faces after having led Europe to the brink of an abysmal defeat in Ukraine engendering grave uncertainties regarding its economic recovery and de-industrialisation due to the blowback of sanctions against Russia. </p>
<p>Plainly put, what Austin meant was that if Ukraine loses, NATO will have to go against Russia, as otherwise the future credibility of the western alliance system will be in jeopardy. It’s a <a href="https://tass.com/politics/1754457">call to Europe to rally</a> for a continental war. </p>
<p>What French President Emmanuel Macron stated earlier last week on Monday was also an articulation of that same mindset, when he caused a storm by hinting that sending ground troops to help Kyiv was a possibility. </p>
<p>To quote Macron, “There is no consensus today to send ground troops officially but … nothing is ruled out. We will do whatever it takes to ensure that Russia cannot win this war. The defeat of Russia is indispensable to the security and stability of Europe.” </p>
<p><a href="https://tass.com/world/1753891">Macron was speaking</a> after a summit of 20 European countries in Paris where a “restricted document” under discussion had implied “that a number of NATO and EU member states were considering sending troops to Ukraine on a bilateral basis,” according to Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico. </p>
<p>Fico <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/slovak-pm-fico-says-eu-and-nato-states-consider-sending-troops-to-ukraine/">said</a> the document “sends shivers down your spine,” as it implied that “a number of NATO and EU member states are considering sending troops to Ukraine on a bilateral basis.” </p>
<p>Fico’s disclosure would not have come as surprise for Moscow, which has now put on the public domain the <a href="https://sputnikglobe.com/20240301/full-transcript-of-german-top-military-officials-leaked-plot-to-attack-crimean-bridge-1117078481.html">transcript of a confidential conversation</a> between two German generals back on February 19 discussing the scenario of a potential attack on the Crimean Bridge with Taurus missiles and possible combat deployment by Berlin in Ukraine belying all public denials by Chancellor Olaf Scholz.</p>
<p>Aptly enough, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called the transcript <a href="https://tass.com/politics/1754721">“a screaming revelation.’</a>‘ Interestingly, the transcript reveals that American and British servicemen are already deployed in Ukraine — something Moscow has been alleging for months — and such <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/germany-taurus-missiles-ukraine-war-russia-leaked-audio/">other details too</a>. </p>
<p>This is a moment of truth for Russia. After learning to live with the steady upgrade of western weaponry supplied to Ukraine, which now includes Patriot missiles and F-16 fighter jets, after having signalled vainly that any attack on Crimea or any attack on Russian territory would be regarded as a red line; after gingerly sidestepping the US-UK participation in operations to bring the war home to Russian territory — Macron’s belligerent statement last week has been the proverbial last straw for the Kremlin. It envisages western combat deployment to fight and kill Russian soldiers and conquer territories on behalf of Kiev. </p>
<p>At the speech on Thursday, which was almost entirely devoted to a hugely ambitious and forward-looking road map to address social and economic issues under the new normalcy Russia has achieved even under conditions of western sanctions, Putin held out a warning to the entire West by placing nuclear weapons on the table. </p>
<p>Putin underscored that any (further) crossing of the unwritten ground rules will be unacceptable — that while the US and its NATO allies provide military assistance to Ukraine but do not attack Russia’s soil and do not directly engage in combat, Russia would confine itself to using conventional weapons. </p>
<p>Quintessentially, the thrust of Putin’s remarks lies in his refusal to accept a fate for Russia in existential terms arranged by the West. The thinking behind it is not hard to comprehend. Simply put, Russia will not allow any attempt by the US and its allies to reshape the ground situation by impacting the front lines with NATO military personnel backed by advanced weaponry and satellite capabilities. </p>
<p>Putin has put the ball firmly in the Western court to decide whether the NATO will risk a nuclear confrontation, which of course is not Russia’s choice. </p>
<p>The context in which all this is unfolding has been pithily framed by the leader of a NATO country, Hungary’s prime minister Viktor Orban, while addressing a forum of top diplomats in Antalya in the Turkish Riviera in the weekend when he stressed that “Europeans, along with the Ukrainians are losing the war and have no idea of how to find a way out of this situation.” </p>
<p>Orban said, “We, Europeans, are now in a difficult position,” adding that European countries took the conflict in Ukraine “as their own war” and realise belatedly that time is not on Ukraine’s side. “Time is on Russia’s side. That is why it is necessary to stop hostilities immediately.” </p>
<p>As he put it, “If you think that this is your war, but the enemy is stronger than you and has advantages on the battlefield, in this case, you are in the losers’ camp and it will not be an easy task to find a way out of this situation. Now, we Europeans, along with the Ukrainians, are losing the war and have no idea of how to find a way out of this situation, a way out of this conflict. This is a very serious problem.” </p>
<p>This is the crux of the matter. In the circumstances, the bottom line is that it will be catastrophic speciousness on the part of the western leadership and public opinion not to grasp the full import of Putin’s stark warning that Moscow means what it has been saying, namely, that it will regard any western combat deployment in Ukraine by NATO countries as an act of war. </p>
<p>To be sure, if Russia faces the risk of military defeat in Ukraine at the hands of NATO forces on combat deployment and Donbass and Novorossiya regions are at risk of being subjugated once again, that would threaten the stability and integrity of Russian statehood — and challenge the legitimacy of the Kremlin leadership itself — wherein the question of using nuclear weapons may become more open. </p>
<p>To drive home the point, Putin glanced through the Russian inventory that buttresses its nuclear superiority today, which the US cannot possibly match. And he further de-classified some top-secret information: “Efforts to develop several other new weapons systems continue, and we are expecting to hear even more about the achievements of our researchers and weapons manufacturers.” </p>
<p><em>Reprinted with permission from <a href="https://www.indianpunchline.com/putins-nuclear-warning-is-direct-and-explicit/" data-type="link" data-id="https://www.indianpunchline.com/putins-nuclear-warning-is-direct-and-explicit/">Indian Punchline</a>.</em></p>
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Ron Paul Americahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08798716560498383830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-661347074890569860.post-23673208285795700242024-03-04T10:27:00.001-05:002024-03-04T10:27:43.053-05:00Federal Reserve Responsibility for Consumer and Government Debt CrisesBy Ron Paul - March 04, 2024 at 09:19AM<br />
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<p>According to the Federal Reserve, credit card delinquencies increased by 50 percent in 2023, while consumer debt grew to 17.5 trillion dollars. A recent survey by Clever Real Estate found that three in five Americans have credit card debt and that 23 percent of Americans increase their credit card debt every month. The survey also found that 48 percent of Americans (including 59 percent of millennials) use credit cards for essential living expenses.</p>
<p>The overreliance on credit cards and the accompanying increase in consumer debt are consequences of our fiat money system. Since Richard Nixon severed the last link between the dollar and gold in August of 1971, the dollar’s value has declined by 87 percent based on the government’s understated Consumer Price Index numbers. This means that even though Americans’ nominal wages have increased, their real wages have declined as their dollars buy less.</p>
<p>The continuing erosion of the dollar’s value makes it impossible for many Americans to accumulate meaningful savings. Those Americans who can save may actually lose money by doing so thanks to the Federal Reserve’s inflation tax that erodes the value of savings. This is why Congress has felt it necessary to provide tax incentives to encourage saving for things like retirement, education, and health care.</p>
<p>Congress could help protect Americans from the inflation tax by forbidding the Federal Reserve from purchasing government debt instruments such as Treasury securities. However, since this would end Congress’s ability to run up huge deficits, thus forcing it to pare back the welfare-warfare state, it is unlikely such legislation would pass.</p>
<p>The reliance of so many Americans on credit cards for basic necessities is one reason why many Americans are dissatisfied with the economy. The large amount of consumer debt is also a reason the Federal Reserve will not increase interest rates to anywhere near what they would be in a free market. The problem is compounded by the fact that investors and businesses have become addicted to near zero or at zero interest rates. The Fed’s relatively modest rate increases over the last couple years caused many “experts” to warn that the Fed was going to throw the economy into a recession. The Fed, though, has been able to claim recession has been avoided because the Fed kept the rates relatively low, and because government statistics are manipulated to understate the real rates of unemployment and inflation.</p>
<p>The Fed cannot indefinitely keep interest rates low without causing a dollar crisis. This will either be caused by, or result in, a rejection of the dollar’s world reserve currency status. At that point, interest rates will skyrocket and consumers and businesses that have been relying on debt to cope with the Fed’s dollar destruction will find the piper at their doors, demanding to be paid.</p>
<p>The economic crisis will be worsened by the moral crisis caused by the belief among too many Americans at all levels of society that they have a right to government-provided economic security at the expense of their fellow citizens. This will result in violence and the growth of authoritarian political movements.</p>
<p>The collapse of the fiat money system and the accompanying welfare-warfare state also provide an opportunity for those of us who understand the truth to build a society based around the principles of liberty. We must continue our efforts to reach a critical mass of people with the message of liberty while making plans to ensure our families can take care of themselves when the next crash occurs.</p>
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Ron Paul Americahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08798716560498383830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-661347074890569860.post-25666838329108321542024-03-02T12:28:00.001-05:002024-03-02T12:28:06.880-05:00Forward, into the breachBy Dennis J. Kucinich - March 02, 2024 at 10:26AM<br />
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<p>Leaders make choices in moments of crises which can either lead to enhanced security or catastrophe for their nations, with the lives of innocents often hanging in the balance.</p>
<p>Immediately after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, I went to the floor of the House of Representatives and warned against the U.S. lashing out blindly in response to the devastating attacks which killed over 3,000 persons. </p>
<p>Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, as recounted by Bob Woodward in his book, Plan of Attack, brought forward the idea that 9/11 should be used to further a broader agenda, aimed at ousting Saddam Hussein, and laying the groundwork for the <em>Project for A New American Century</em>, an ideological architecture for American world dominance, with the help of the military. </p>
<p>A full-scale attack on Iraq and the Iraqi people commenced. Rumsfeld, who had a long career in government, including four terms in the U.S. House from Illinois, was instrumental in convincing President Bush to launch a “shock and awe attack” on Iraq, and upon the Iraqi people, which ultimately resulted in 1,000,000 deaths that would have otherwise not occurred.</p>
<p>Our leaders chose to use the most advanced weaponry against a nation that had almost zero ability to defend itself, spending less than one percent of what the U.S. spent for military purposes. </p>
<p>Keep in mind that all the while the attack was being planned, Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. It had nothing to do with Al Queda’s role in 9/11. It had neither the intention and certainly not the capability to attack the United States. It did not have the still undetected “Weapons of Mass Destruction,” which became the pretext for a broad attack, licensed by the fear-mongering, driven by an unquestioning media establishment.</p>
<p>The Iraq War wasn’t about 9/11. It was about empire. It was about controlling resources, ie, oil. It was about the profit of war contractors. The Watson Institute at Brown University has estimated the regime-change wars, post 9/11, cost over $8 trillion, much of it simply added to the U.S. national debt. It cost the lives of nearly 5,000 American soldiers. Iraqis paid dearly. The nation, its cultural institutions, its infrastructure, its families, destroyed, based on the choices made by leaders who used 9/11 to advance a political agenda.</p>
<p><strong>The choices that the Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu made after the October 7<sup>th</sup> attacks, which have been likened an Israeli 9/11, also mirror the choices made by the US government after September 11, 2001. </strong></p>
<p>Hamas attacked Israel, murdering 1,200 Israelis and taking hundreds of hostages. Of course, Israel had a right to respond. But like the U.S. after 9/11, instead of calibrating the response and not seeking to ignite a far-reaching war, the decision was made to collectively punish <em>all Palestinians</em> in Gaza, fully 2.2 million people.</p>
<p>The Netanyahu Likud party, conjoined in a critical alliance with Ben Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit has, under the pretext of “wiping out Hamas,” used the moment to ethnically cleanse Gaza; to engage in wide-spread bombing assuring mass casualties and resulting in the killing of over 30,000 Palestinians. Over 70,000 Palestinians have been injured and entire families vaporized. Dozens of journalists have been killed, the ultimate censorship. </p>
<p>Hospitals, universities, schools, mosques, churches, water systems, sewer systems, markets, housing, roads, cemeteries and museums have reduced to rubble with the clear intent of making Gaza uninhabitable. The ethnic cleansing will force survivors out of Gaza and the long-held conssequential dream of establishing Greater Israel, from the river to the sea and north through Lebanon to the Litani River will come to fruition.</p>
<p>The United States used 9/11 to further a hidden agenda with catastrophic results for Iraq and also for the U.S. Our nation did not just lose blood and treasure, we lost whatever moral high ground we once held.</p>
<p>Netanyahu is falling into the same self-constructed trap. The Netanyahu government is advancing a thinly-disguised agenda in Gaza and the West Bank. While it may have popular support for the moment, it appears to be blind to the consequences of igniting a wider war in the Middle East and how the images coming from Gaza and the West Bank are isolating it from the rest of the world, with the exception of Europe.</p>
<p>There are supporters of Israel, at home and abroad, who recognize that the government’s current policies are suicidal – possibly in the near term and certainly over the long term.</p>
<p>How could alienating 400 million Arabs, 1.8 billion Muslims and the entire global South advance Israel’s security interests? </p>
<p>How could the murder and injury of tens of thousands of Palestinians, as well as the destruction of an entire society not create even more radical groups than Hamas?</p>
<p>The U.S.’ war against Iraq was a war of choice just as the war against Gaza is the choice of Israel. </p>
<p>The same kind of thinking which attempts to rationalize and justify collective punishment, and reject all principles of the laws of G-d and man, and which rejects international law and humanitarian law is at work in the designs of leaders of both the U.S. and Israel.</p>
<p>During my 16 years in the United States Congress, I witnessed the unfolding of fabricated narratives which led the US into war and also in support of wars in other countries. </p>
<p>I was a leader in opposing the wars in the Balkans, Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Libya. I worked to avoid wars against Iran and Syria, consistently speaking out on behalf of the rights of Palestinian, while at the same time supporting Israel’s right to survive and thrive. </p>
<p>I have stood for peace. I have travelled throughout the world in an attempt to stop or head off conflicts, meeting not only with leaders of nations, but also with their opposition, to understand their heart-felt concerns. The only side I take is the side of humanity.</p>
<p>Leadership needs to be able to speak to everyone in order to create openings for peace and understanding. Leadership needs to be patient, to listen to all sides in conflicts, to engage in diplomacy and to find paths to peace.</p>
<p>Instead, at this critical moment when the peace of the entire world is at risk and the live</p>
<p>s of millions hang in the balance in Gaza, the U.S. leadership is preparing to add fuel and funding to the fire instead of issuing a bracing caution to our ally.</p>
<p>It is time for leadership to step forward, pull the emergency brake and declare a durable cease-fire, negotiate a return of hostages, and an end, at last, to the genocide.</p>
<p><em>Reprinted with permission from <a href="https://denniskucinich.substack.com/p/forward-into-the-breach" data-type="link" data-id="https://denniskucinich.substack.com/p/forward-into-the-breach">The Kucinich Report</a>.<br />
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Ron Paul Americahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08798716560498383830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-661347074890569860.post-83941526023038913252024-03-01T17:27:00.001-05:002024-03-01T17:27:44.740-05:00‘This ONE Thing Will Fix Our Broken Foreign Policy And Broken Political System’ – RPI’s Daniel McAdams on the Kim Iversen ShowBy RPI Staff - March 01, 2024 at 03:22PM<br />
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<p>RPI Director Daniel McAdams joined the Kim Iversen show today for a wide-ranging, hour-long provocative discussion on what is wrong the the US political system, what is wrong with our foreign policy, what is wrong with current US culture…and how we can fix it. Though much of the talk is on the issues, there is plenty of fun banter and off-topic discussion to round out the program:</p>
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Ron Paul Americahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08798716560498383830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-661347074890569860.post-22428845622363241472024-03-01T15:27:00.001-05:002024-03-01T15:27:28.806-05:00MSNBC Legal Analyst: Free Speech Could Be America’s ‘Achilles Heel’By Jonathan Turley - March 01, 2024 at 12:52PM<br />
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<p>We have been discussing the alarming shift in higher education in favor of censorship and speech regulations. These voices have been amplified on media platforms like MSNBC which has championed efforts to censor people and groups on social media and other forums. The most recent example is the interview of University of Michigan Law Professor and MSNBC legal analyst <a href="https://michigan.law.umich.edu/faculty-and-scholarship/our-faculty/barbara-l-mcquade">Barbara McQuade</a> by Rachel Maddow. In the interview, McQuade <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/media/law-professor-first-amendment-can-achilles-heel-makes-us-particularly-vulnerable-disinformation">explains</a> how the First Amendment is the “Achilles Heel” of the United States and why the public needs to embrace greater limitations on free speech.</p>
<p>Professor McQuade has published a book entitled <a href="https://whyy.org/episodes/attack-from-within-how-disinformation-is-sabotaging-america/"><em>Attack from Within: How Disinformation is Sabotaging America</em></a>. Despite my strong disagreements with her views on free speech, I am sure that it will be an important contribution to this debate. My forthcoming book, <em><a href="https://jonathanturley.org/pre-order-turley-book-2/">The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in the Age of Rage</a>, </em>takes a diametrically opposed view on the meaning and history of free speech in America.</p>
<p>In the interview, McQuade recognizes the importance of free speech while emphasizing its dangers.</p>
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<p>“Actually, Rachel, I think we’re more susceptible to it than other countries, and that’s because some of our greatest strengths can also be our Achilles Heel. So, for example, our deep <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/media" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">commitment to free speech</a> in our First Amendment. It is a cherished right. It’s an important right in democracy, and nobody wants to get rid of it, but it makes us vulnerable to claims [that] anything we want to do related to speech is censorship.”</p>
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<p>Well, the question is what “we want to do related to speech.” If it involves blacklisting, throttling, deplatforming, and bans, it most certainly does raise questions of censorship. Free speech is now portrayed as an existential threat to the country as opposed to the very thing that defines us as a free people.</p>
<p>McQuade captures the theoretical divide over free speech, though she is clearly voicing a view that is increasingly popular among law professors. She advances views of free speech that I have discussed in prior academic writings and the new book as “functionalist.” These views allow for greater trade offs between free speech and overriding social or political priorities.</p>
<p>For some of us, free speech is a human right. In that sense, I am undeniably a free speech dinosaur who believes that the solution for bad speech is better speech. Rather than continue down the slippery slope of censorship under the guise of disinformation, we can allow citizens to reach their own conclusions in an open and robust debate.</p>
<p>The alternative is often to use transparently biased judgments over what is “misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation” (MDM). The government has used this rationale to coordinate censorship in what it has called the “MDM space.”</p>
<p>For example, within DHS, Jen Easterly, who heads the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, extended her agency’s mandate over critical infrastructure to include “<a href="https://judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/republicans-judiciary.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/cisa-staff-report6-26-23.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">our cognitive infrastructure</a>.” The resulting censorship efforts included combating “malinformation” – described as information “based on fact, but used out of context to mislead, harm, or manipulate.” I <a href="https://jonathanturley.org/2023/05/11/turley-testifies-on-censorship-in-homeland-security-hearing/">testified earlier</a> on this effort.</p>
<p>McQuade’s book will certainly add to the scholarship in this area. However, her view is painfully familiar for many of us in academia.</p>
<p><em>Reprinted with permission from <a href="https://jonathanturley.org/2024/03/01/msnbc-legal-analyst-free-speech-could-be-americas-achilles-heel/" data-type="link" data-id="https://jonathanturley.org/2024/03/01/msnbc-legal-analyst-free-speech-could-be-americas-achilles-heel/">JonathanTurley.org</a>.</em></p>
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