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Ron Paul again takes viewer questions in this episode of the Liberty Report. What does he think about the "de-platforming" of Alex Jones? Tune in and see!
By Ron Paul
Are President Trump’s senior cabinet members working against him? It’s hard not to conclude that many of the more hawkish neocons that Trump has (mistakenly, in my view) appointed to top jobs are actively working to undermine the president’s stated agenda. Especially when it seems Trump is trying to seek dialogue with countries the neocons see as adversaries needing to be regime-changed. Remember just as President Trump was organizing an historic summit meeting with Kim Jong-Un, his National Security Advisor, John Bolton, nearly blew the whole thing up by making repeated references to the “Libya model” and how it should be applied to North Korea. As if Kim would jump at the chance to be bombed, overthrown, and murdered at the hands of a US-backed mob! It seems that Trump’s appointees are again working at cross-purposes to him. Last week, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that he was invoking a 1991 US law against the use of chemical weapons to announce yet another round of sanctions on Russia over what he claims is Putin’s involvement in the poisoning of a former Russian spy and his daughter in the UK. The alleged poisoning took place in March and only now did the State Department make its determination that Russia was behind it and thus subject to the 1991 sanction law. Was there new information that came to light that pointed to Russian involvement? According to a State Department briefing there was none. The State Department just decided to take the British government’s word for it. Where do we get authority to prosecute Russia for an alleged crime committed in the UK, by the way? President Trump’s own Administration is forcing him to accept the State Department determination and agree to sanctions that may well include, according to the 1991 law, a complete break of diplomatic relations with Russia. This would be a de facto declaration of war. Over unproven allegations. Trump has authority to reject the imposition of new sanctions, but with his Democrat opponents continuing to charge that he is in league with the Russian president, how could he waive sanctions just before the November US Congressional elections? That would be a windfall for the Democrats seeking to take control of the House and Senate. The only way Russia could avoid the second, most extreme round of these sanctions in November is to promise not to use chemical weapons again and open its doors to international inspections. What government would accept such a demand when no proof has been presented that they used chemical weapons in the first place? Certainly it is possible that President Trump is fully aware of the maneuverings of Bolton and Pompeo and that he approves. Perhaps he likes to play “good cop, bad cop” with the rest of the world, at the same time making peace overtures while imposing sanctions and threatening war. But it certainly looks like some of his cabinet members are getting the best of him. If President Trump is to be taken at his word, that he welcomes dialogue “without pre-conditions” with leaders of Russia, North Korea, Iran, and elsewhere, he would be wise to reconsider those in his employ who are undermining him every step of the way. Otherwise, it is hard to believe the president is sincere. Let’s hope he does choose dialogue over conflict and clips the wings of those under him attempting to push him in the other direction.
Facebook has "hired" the Atlantic Council - a NATO, US government, and foreign funded "think tank" to determine whether posts or members are authentic or whether they are "agents of a foreign power." How is it possible that US government's directly funded entities are collaborating with corporations to decide what speech is to be prohibited?
By Jacob G. Hornberger
Progressives are an audacious group. Faced with the failure and destructiveness of their socialist programs, their solution is to double down and call for even more socialism. It never occurs to them that if their original socialist program has led to failure and destructiveness, an expansion of that original socialist program is going to lead to even more failure and destructiveness. A good example of this phenomenon is healthcare. The United States once had the finest healthcare system in the world. Healthcare costs were low. In fact, most people didn’t feel the need for medical insurance except for catastrophic illnesses. Healthcare was so reasonable priced that going to the doctor was treated in much the same way as going to the grocery store. That all changed with the adoption of Medicare and Medicaid, two socialist programs enacted as part of leftist President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society. Medicare and Medicaid ended up destroying America’s free-market healthcare system. Progressives decry the ever-increasing costs of healthcare in America. They lament the fact that many Americans cannot afford health insurance to cover such costs. They decry the ever-increasing healthcare crisis in America. The problem is that they are unable to connect the dots. They fail to understand and realize that Medicare and Medicaid are the very cause of the healthcare conditions they lament. That’s why they are now calling for “Medicare for All.” Imagine that you go to a doctor for a physical examination. He concludes that you are in good health. But to make you feel even better, he prescribes a tiny dose of arsenic every day. In a month, you return to him and tell him that you’re not feeling very well. “No problem,” the doctor responds. “We just need to increase the amount of arsenic you’re taking every day.” That’s the situation with Medicare and Medicaid. In any malady that afflicts the body politic, it is critically important to get the diagnosis right because that will inevitably affect the prescribed treatment. Libertarian diagnosis: the body politic is suffering from the socialist programs known as Medicare and Medicaid and other governmental interventions into healthcare. Libertarian prescribed treatment: Separate healthcare and the state by repealing Medicare and Medicaid and ending all other governmental involvement in healthcare. This article was originally published at The Future of Freedom Foundation.
Violence in Chicago has been a problem for some time now. But it's now out-of-control with 74 people shot last week! The people committing the violence are responsible, but how has government helped to foster such an environment?
The US State Department has out of the blue decided that Russia is guilty in the case of the poisoning of a former spy and his daughter in the UK, and has slapped on yet another round of sanctions. This time the sanctions call for the president to completely break diplomatic relations with Russia.
By Chris Rossini
We live in a fascinating and infinite universe. All of the knowledge discovered about it barely scratches the surface as to what is yet to be known. We live on an amazing planet, and this too contains secrets that are totally unknown to humanity. We didn't create ourselves. Lots of people would have opted for the bodybuilder/supermodel physique if there was a choice in the matter. We know almost nothing about ourselves, how the body works, how the mind works, etc. We know some things, that's for sure; but there's much more that we don't know. Not only did we not create ourselves, but we didn't create other people either. Even if we have children; they may come through us, but they definitely don't come from us. If humanity depended on people literally creating other people, we'd be in serious trouble. We don't know what comes next with certainty, or what choices we will make in the future. We can plan with some confidence of probability, but that's as far as we can go with our plans ... probability. Even if a person has had the same cereal for breakfast for 30 years straight, and is absolutely positive in his mind that he'll have it again tomorrow, a tornado might rip through his neighborhood and force him to change his plans. We don't know what other people will choose either. A vast majority of businesses fail trying to predict what consumers will want to buy. No business plans on failing. They all think they've got a winner. But the market always has the final word, regardless of what anyone thinks. So here we are in a universe that we barely understand, and on a planet that we hardly know. We didn't create ourselves, or anyone else, and we don't know what the future holds. Now let's start to mess things up... Let's say that a person (or more commonly a group of people) are sitting around the country club bar, and they come up with a grand idea ---- They're going to mold the world, and re-make other people with the use of force. Granted they didn't make themselves, or anyone else for that matter, but they're going to re-make others to their own liking. They're going to re-make not only people ... but entire nations. And then finally ... the world! They're going to micromanage every detail, despite the fact that every detail is fundamentally unknowable. The history that they don't like will be erased. The people they don't like will be censored. The news will be the news that's approved-of. Education will be what they say it is. Everyone will hate who they're told they're supposed to hate. Does this plan sound like it lines up with reality? Lots of people live their lives attracted to this belief. It's their mission. And not just governments or so-called "deep states," or "powers behind the throne"....but regular people too. The lust for power is available to everyone. It's an error that everyone is capable of making. Power, going back to the very beginning of recorded history is seductive...but it can only be destructive. The goal is always the same, whether it be 2000 years ago, or today.....An impossible quest to re-make others. So how is one to live while so many people run around forcefully trying to re-make everyone else but themselves? Well, a good place to start is with oneself. The person in the mirror is the only person that we have the power to change. It stops there and goes no further. But how does one change? What does one change? Well, there's really only one major thing that we are in control of: our mindset....our ideas....what we choose to believe, and what we choose not to believe. Everything else follows from that. Actions always follow ideas. Since ideas are what we have the power to change, we need some kind of standard. Which ideas should we believe? Fortunately, a standard exists! Every idea that we individually believe is either true, or false. So perhaps the changes that we should each concentrate on (for ourselves) is to first identify the truth and make it a part of our psyche ... while simultaneously identifying and discarding errors in our thinking. Since there are no individuals who are all-knowing or omnipotent, it necessarily means that we're always a mixed bag. Some things that we each individually know and believe are true, while other things that we believe are in error. While we can never get rid of all errors in our thinking, we can always climb higher and higher, learning more and more truth for as long as we live. Since errors are a necessary part of the human experience, the idea of re-making others seems ridiculous and a road to nowhere. Attempting to re-make others is a HUGE error! So what about other people? Is there anything that makes sense when dealing with others? Should we have an individual "foreign policy" when dealing with others? Well (since force is out of the question) it seems that the best that can be done peacefully is to set a good example ... and to also speak the truth! To speak the truth is to peacefully give of oneself to others. Now, that doesn't mean others will happily listen to the truth with a smile, or even listen at all. Chances are excellent that they won't...and that's ok. What another person does with what they hear is their own business. They may embrace it. They may laugh it. They may chastise it. They may hate it, and try to wish it away. That's on them. The "re-makers" of the world purposefully hide the truth from others. At least your speaking up gives other people a chance. Learn the truth ... speak the truth. Being both an input ... and an output. That sounds like a much better idea than attempting to re-make other people by threatening them (or using) force. |
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