|
Last week's false Ukraine assertion that Russia had attacked Poland was a big wake-up call for many. Some European media outlets flatly declared Ukraine's president Zelensky to be "dangerous." With another $50 billion in the pipeline, will Washington finally blink and stop the war madness? Former CIA Officer Phil Giraldi joins today's Liberty Report.
By Walter E. Block
I recently travelled from New Orleans to Lake Jackson, Texas. One thing struck me as I contemplated this trip. Should I drive instead? True, it would take about a six-hours by car, but when you add up all the modern air travel hassles – the demand that you arrive there two and sometimes even three hours before take-off, the groping, the compulsory masking (well, they’ve lightened up on that a bit, but who knows for how long), picking up and then dropping off a rental car, an entirely different aggravation– it is a close call. I suppose I’m a masochist, and a lazy one, since I chose air travel. Something else struck me en-route, even though I had experienced this several hundred times in the past. I became fully aware for the first time of this this strange Transportation Security Administration arrangement. If you have a first-class air ticket (I didn’t; I’m not like the mayor of New Orleans who flies first class at taxpayer expense) the TSA gives you far better “service” than if you don’t. Well, the “service” is about the same, but you get to wait on a much shorter line than your inferiors, the poorer hoi polloi. Yes, there are some exceptions to the general rule that first-class passengers are richer than those who fly in the back of the plane. Frequent flyers get upgrades. But even those who often gad about in the skies, even paid for by their employers, are not exactly on the bread lines. Isn’t this system a bit strange, then, when you come to think about it? It is as if government judges ruled in favor of the wealthy, not because they had a better case, or, even, better lawyers, but simply because of their greater wherewithal. It would be akin to a system where cops gave traffic tickets to the drivers of 20-year-old Fords, and not to those with new BMWs -- for engaging in the exact same moving violation. It resembles nothing so much as if public school teachers awarded higher marks to students from richer families even though they scored equally on the exam (I suspect they already do just that in behalf of certain demographic groups, but don’t get me started on that). This TSA practice is even more curious because the government is now run by the regressives (I refuse to call them “progressives”; if that is what their socialist nostrums amount to, I want no part of progress.) This system would not be justified for any type of government. The constitution mandates that the state treat all citizens equally. It is especially galling for the government to place its big fat thumb on the richer side of the balance wheel for air travelers, but it must be especially problematic for our egalitarian friends. Of course, in the free society, there would be private police forces in charge of airplane safety. The TSA would be privatized. These private organizations could, if they wished, give expedited service to first class passengers. Then the market would determine whether this bundling was a good idea or not. It might well be so. After all, high class restaurants offer free valet parking services. McDonalds and Burger King provide nothing of the sort. We expect this sort of thing from free enterprise. But when the government emulates this practice, it seems highly problematic. After all, at least the myth is that the state should treat us all equally, without favoring any of us. Ok, ok, pregnant women and the physically handicapped (not the “differently abled”) get better parking spots, and this doesn’t seem to stick out like a sore thumb as does this TSA practice of favoring first class passengers. 
By Ron Paul
Last week the world stood on the very edge of a nuclear war, as Ukraine’s US-funded president, Vladimir Zelensky, urged NATO military action over a missile that landed on Polish soil. "This is a Russian missile attack on collective security! This is a really significant escalation. Action is needed," said Zelensky immediately after the missile landed. But there was a problem. The missile was fired from Ukraine – likely an accident in the fog of war. Was it actually a Russian missile, of course, that might mean World War III. But Zelensky didn’t seem to be bothered by the prospect of the world blown up, judging from his reckless rhetoric. While Zelensky has been treated as a saint by the US media, the Biden Administration, and both parties in Congress, something unprecedented happened this time: the Biden Administration pushed back. According to press reports, several Zelensky calls to Biden or senior Biden Staff went unanswered. When US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan finally returned Zelensky’s call, he is reported to have said, “tread carefully” on claims Russia was behind the missiles landing in Poland. The Biden Administration went on to publicly dispute Zelensky’s continued insistence that Russia shot missiles into NATO-Member Poland. After two days of Washington opposition to his claims, Zelensky finally, sort of, backed down. We’ve heard rumors of President Biden’s frustration over Zelensky’s endless begging and ingratitude for the 60 or so billion dollars doled out to him by the US government, but this is the clearest public example of the Biden Administration’s acceptance that it has a “Zelensky problem.” Zelensky must have understood that Washington and Brussels knew it was not a Russian missile. Considering the vast intelligence capabilities of the US in that war zone, it is likely the US government knew in real time that the missiles were not Russian. For Zelensky to claim otherwise seemed almost unhinged. And for what seems like the first time, Washington noticed. As a result, there has been a minor – but hopefully growing – revolt among conservatives in Washington over this dangerous episode. Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene introduced legislation demanding an audit of the tens of billions of dollars shipped to Ukraine – with perhaps $50 billion more in the pipeline. The resolution currently has eleven co-sponsors. Rep. Matt Gaetz has publicly stated that he would not vote for one more dollar for Ukraine. Others, like US Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ), have gone even further. In a recent Tweet Rep. Gosar called US support for Ukraine a “corrupt money-laundering operation.” As the fallout from the recent collapse of the FTX crypto exchange points to possible political corruption, his claims may prove to be accurate. When Sen. Paul introduced an amendment to the massive aid package to Ukraine calling for someone to audit the funds, he was ridiculed and attacked. Some seven months later, his position appears far more accepted. And that’s a good thing. When the Ukraine war hysteria finally dies down – as the Covid hysteria died down before it – it will become obvious to vastly more Americans what an absolute fiasco this whole thing has been. Hopefully Republicans will accelerate that process when they take the House in January. It cannot come too soon!
Those who could never "structure" the world, have no chance of "restructuring" it. Those who could never "set" our world in place, have no chance of "resetting" it either. The idea that human beings (or their technologies) can control the world and everything in it, is both illogical and dangerously irrational. The problem is not in proving why ideas like the "Great Reset" cannot work. That's the easy part. The problem is in limiting the amount of economic damage and human suffering that such reckless pursuits needlessly cause.
One thing you will not see is the mainstream media looking into failed crypto-exchange/ponzi scheme FTX. Why? It's founder, Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) was the second largest Democrat Party donor after George Soros. SBF's parents were part of the financial deep state. And, to top it all, FTX was involved in sending millions of dollars to Ukraine. If this were a Republican scheme, the NYT and WaPo would be all over it, but because it was to the benefit of the Democrats and Ukraine, it remains just a...conspiracy theory.
After a Ukrainian S-300 missile struck Polish territory - killing two civilians - the Ukrainian president immediately claimed that Russia attacked a NATO member country and that NATO must act without hesitation against Russia. In other words, launch WWIII. Was he lying? Meanwhile, a lame duck Congress is expected to vote another possibly $50 billion for the bottomless Ukraine money pit. Will Republicans finally stand up?
Writing in Responsible Statecraft today, Connor Echols effectively makes the depressing case that no matter which party controls Congress, it's always the war party in the driver's seat. Also today: So...the FBI had infiltrated the "Jan. 6th insurrectionist" groups months before Jan. 6th? What did they know and when did they know it? Also...what happened to the antiwar left?
It has been nearly a week since 2022 election day in the US. Despite the endless propaganda that "vote counting takes time," the fact is there is no reason why hundreds of thousands of votes still have not been counted. Anomalies abound. What's broken and how can it be fixed?
By Stratton J. Davis
There is one characteristic common in Americans that may ensure their doom in the fight against the current inflation they are facing: their own willful ignorance. While it has been stressed by many (including this aurhor) that economic shutdowns imposed by the Federal and State governments, along with historic mass money printing by the Federal Reserve during the CoronaVirus hysteria were the main catalysts for the inflation we have today, another driving factor for this current inflation has been largely ignored: the stimulus checks. These checks became popular during the CoronaVirus hysteria when President Trump signed the COVID relief bill back in December 2020, starting the trend of and setting the tone for more spending, taxing and printing in the name of economic “relief.” On these checks, Jeff Deist writes: “These pumped more than $5 trillion directly into the economy in the form of payments to government, payments to households, unemployment benefits, employer payroll loans, cash subsides to airlines and countless other industries, and a host of grab-bag earmarks which had nothing to do with COVID.” While many people praised these stimulus checks and saw them as the greatest gift ever given to them by their government, what these checks actually ended up causing was, you guessed it, more inflation! Robert Aro writes: “The thought of receiving ‘free money’ from the government may initially sound appealing. But eventually the money mirage stops and society discovers these government giveaway programs carry grave consequences such as currency debasement, and therefore, more poverty.” Americans have discovered these grave consequences, however they have not the slightest idea about their consequences. After all, if they did, then they may realize that inflation is the expansion of the money supply, then they could at least think twice before being in favor of something like this: 
So, what is the way to go if you are looking to fight against inflation and actually win? Well, it is all about reversing the trend set by our Federal government of spending, taxing and printing money. Economist Henry Hazlitt spells it all perfectly in a chapter of his 1960 book What You Should Know about Inflation appropriately titled “The Cure For Inflation.”
On spending and taxing, Hazlitt writes: “It is next to impossible to avoid inflation with a continuing heavy deficit. That deficit is almost certain to be financed by inflationary means—i.e., by directly or indirectly printing more money. Huge government expenditures are not in themselves inflationary—provided they are made wholly out of tax receipts, or out of borrowing paid for wholly out of real savings. But the difficulties in either of these methods of payment, once expenditures have passed a certain point, are so great that there is almost inevitably a resort to the printing press. Moreover, although huge expenditures wholly met out of huge taxes are not necessarily inflationary, they inevitably reduce and disrupt production, and undermine any free enterprise system. The remedy for huge governmental expenditures is therefore not equally huge taxes, but a halt to reckless spending.” So, as logic follows, of course huge deficit spending by the government necessitates endless money printing by their central bank. They have to keep belly of the beast full somehow. Of course, the Biden administration knows this. In September, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget published this article, which states: “We estimate the Biden Administration has enacted policies through legislation and executive actions that will add more than $4.8 trillion to deficits between 2021 and 2031, or nearly $2.5 trillion when excluding the effects of the American Rescue Plan. This is on top of the trillions of dollars we were projected to borrow before President Biden took office…Of the non-interest deficit increases, about $3 trillion is from legislation – including a net $1.6 trillion passed on a partisan basis and $1.4 trillion passed on a bipartisan basis. Another $1.1 trillion comes from executive actions…In total, the Biden Administration has added $4.8 trillion to deficits over the 2021-2031 period as a result of legislative and executive actions. With inflation at a 40-year high and debt headed for record levels, substantial deficit reduction will be needed to put the country on a sustainable fiscal course.” As for taxes, it was expected that Biden would be as tax-happy as the rest of the clowns that were once President. Though it must be remembered that the most sinister tax of all is inflation. It is a hidden tax on the poor for what government does and plans on doing. This just goes to show that the government literally does not care about us average, everyday Americans. They will do whatever they can to keep and expand their power, even if it screws us over in the long run while driving society closer to collapse. However, dwelling on this sad reality will not bring us any closer to our goals in the fight against inflation. So, let us see what Hazlitt has to say about money printing: “On the monetary side, the Treasury and the Federal Reserve System must stop creating artificially cheap money; i.e., they must stop arbitrarily holding down interest rates. The Federal Reserve must not return to the former policy of buying at par the government’s own bonds. When interest rates are held artificially low, they encourage an increase in borrowing. This leads to an increase in the money and credit supply. The process works both ways—for it is necessary to increase the money and credit supply in order to keep interest rates artificially low. That is why a ‘cheap money’ policy and a government-bond-support policy are simply two ways of describing the same thing. When the Federal Reserve Banks bought the government’s 2½ per cent bonds, say, at par, they held down the basic long-term interest rate to 2½ per cent. And they paid for these bonds, in effect, by printing more money. This is what is known as ‘monetizing’ the public debt. Inflation goes on as long as this goes on.” As said before, it is almost impossible for this to happen by government decree. The Federal Reserve’s endless money printing finances their empire. Even if the dollar is in decline and said empire is crumbling, they will keep themselves under the delusion that they are still number one, and they will act like it while making sure that we and the rest of the world stay fooled by the same delusion. To wrap up this chapter, Hazlitt simply reminds us of how terrible inflation is: “Inflation, to sum up, is the increase in the volume of money and bank credit in relation to the volume of goods. It is harmful because it depreciates the value of the monetary unit, raises everybody’s cost of living, imposes what is in effect a tax on the poorest (without exemptions) at as high a rate as the tax on the richest, wipes out the value of past savings, discourages future savings, redistributes wealth and income wantonly, encourages and rewards speculation and gambling at the expense of thrift and work, undermines confidence in the justice of a free enterprise system, and corrupts public and private morals.” While there is a great chance the government will never reverse the trend and a set a tone opposite of the one that gives us endless spending, taxing and printing of our money for their evil ventures, there are ways we can help ourselves during this inflationary madness. This author has recently written on how to protect ourselves from inflation by adopting a strategy of financial defense, and living a lifestyle of self-sustainability. This time it will be stressed that Americans should not be so naive about what the government is actually doing when they claim to be so kind and generous with their actions, as they do with the stimulus checks. It will also be stressed that Americans should educate themselves more on real economics, like that professed by the Austrian School, and then start to pay attention more to the economic consequences they have to suffer along with their fellow citizens because of their own government’s measures and manipulative malpractice. This article was originally published at The Societal Scope.
By Ron Paul
Those searching for an explanation of why there was no “red wave” giving Republicans huge gains in Congress in this year’s midterm election should compare this year’s election with the midterm election of 2010. In 2010, Republicans gained a net 63 House seats. While Republicans then did not gain control of the US Senate, they did gain six Senate seats. These Republican victories in 2010 were propelled by the Tea Party and the liberty movement. These movements became prominent during the waning days of the Bush administration. The liberty movement was advanced by grassroots supporters of my 2008 presidential campaign. The liberty movement’s focus was, and is, on restoring constitutional government in all areas, ending our interventionist foreign policy, and changing our monetary policy by auditing and ending the Federal Reserve and legalizing alternative currencies. Early on, the Tea Party largely focused on opposition to the 2008 bank bailouts. There was overlap between the liberty movement and the Tea Party as many members of both groups fought for auditing and ending the Fed, ending bailouts, and preventing Congress from passing Obamacare. Many Republican candidates in 2010 appealed to Tea Party voters by not just promising to repeal Obamacare. They also promised to work to restore limited, constitutional, fiscally responsible government in all areas. In contrast, in 2022 the average Republican candidate offered little in the way of a substantive agenda. In fact, few Republicans called for reversing President Biden’s massive spending increases, much less for restoring the federal government to its constitutional limitations. Despite the controversy over new critical race theory and transgender related policies in government schools, there has not been a renewed push to shut down the Department of Education. Many Republican candidates in the 2022 midterm election also failed to make an issue out of their Democratic opponents’ support for mask and vaccine mandates and other instances of covid tyranny. Those who did oppose the covid tyranny, such as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and my son Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, won landslide victories. The Tea Party’s success in forcing the Republican Party to focus on a more pro-liberty, limited government agenda was short lived. Soon after the 2010 election, the Republican establishment returned to its big spending ways. Spending and debt continued to rise under President Trump and a Republican Congress. Republicans even failed to deliver on their signature promise: repealing Obamacare. The 2010 midterm election showed that people will respond to candidates offering serious pro-liberty ideas and policies. However, the Tea Party’s rise and fall also shows the danger facing ideological movements that become too close with one political party. These movements will start pulling their punches when one of “our team” begins casting bad votes. The argument goes that we must support big government Republicans or we get REALLY big government Democrats. Fortunately, the liberty movement has remained committed to principles. As the failure of the welfare-warfare state to deliver peace and property — and the failure of the Federal Reserve to fulfill its mandate of ensuring stable prices and low unemployment — become clear, more Americans will join the liberty movement. Support for the liberty movement will accelerate when the inevitable economic meltdown occurs. This meltdown will be precipitated by a collapse in the dollar’s value and the rejection of the dollar’s world reserve currency status. It will bring the end of the welfare-warfare state and the fiat money system. Hopefully, the liberty movement will ensure the welfare-warfare state and fiat money system are replaced by a return to limited constitutional government, individual liberty, and peace. |
Archives
October 2024
 
 
 
 
|
RSS Feed