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Will Artsakh (Karabagh) be the tomb of Erdoğan ?, by Thierry Meyssan

Posted by M. C. on October 7, 2020

In accordance with his family’s ideology, he put his opponents under the greatest burden, for example, attributing the Khojaly massacre (1992, more than 600 victims) to “Armenian terrorists”, even though it was a black operation during an attempted coup in his country; in any case, this allowed him to present in a biased manner the actions of ASALA (Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia) in the 1970s and 1980s

https://www.voltairenet.org/article211009.html

by Thierry Meyssan

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict certainly had its origins in the dissolution of the USSR, but it was revived by the will of the Turkish president. It is unlikely that he took this initiative without first referring it to Washington. This is also what President Saddam Hussein did before invading Kuwait, falling by ambition into the trap set for him and causing his downfall. Voltaire Network | Paris (France) | 6 October 2020 عربيDeutschελληνικάEspañolfrançaisitalianoNederlandsPortuguêsрусскийTürkçeJPEG - 71.3 kbOn his Twitter account, President Erdoğan wrote on the day of the outbreak of hostilities: ” – During the phone calls we had today, a wise and resolute stance, the “one nation, two states” approach, once again testifies, as I mentioned to Ilham Aliyev, the President of Azerbaijan, that Turkey will continue to strengthen its cooperation with its Azerbaijani brothers. – As we call on the Armenian people to defend their future against their domination and those who use them as puppets, we call on the whole world to support Azerbaijan in its struggle against occupation and oppression. – The international community, which was unable to provide a necessary and sufficient response to Armenia’s provocative aggression, is once again showing its double game. The trio from Minsk, which has maintained its negligent attitude for about 30 years, is unfortunately far from being solution-oriented. – By adding a new attack to the previous ones against Azerbaijan, Armenia has once again shown that it is the biggest threat to peace and tranquility in the region. The Turkish Nation supports its Azerbaijani brothers with all its means, as always. »

A very ancient conflict, frozen for the past 30 years

The Turkish people define themselves as descended from the “children of the wolf of the steppes”, i.e. as descendants of the hordes of Genghis Khan. It is composed of both “one people and two states”: Turkey and Azerbaijan. The political rebirth of the former automatically engenders the arrival of the latter on the international scene.

Of course this political renaissance does not mean a resurgence of the violence of the barbarian hordes, but this past has nonetheless forged mentalities, despite the efforts of many politicians who, for a century, have been trying to normalize the Turkish people.

In the last years of the Ottoman era, Sultan Habdulhamid II wanted to unite the country around his conception of the Muslim faith. He therefore ordered the physical elimination of hundreds of thousands of non-Muslims. This was supervised by German officers who acquired during this genocide an experience that they later put at the service of Nazi racial ideology. The Ottoman policy of purification was pursued on a larger scale by the Young Turks at the beginning of the Republic, particularly against the Orthodox Armenians [1].

Murder being an addiction, it reappeared sporadically in the behavior of the Turkish armies. Thus, in March 2014, they escorted hundreds of jihadists from the al-Nosra Front (al-Qaeda) and the Army of Islam (pro-Saudi) to the city of Kessab (Syria) to massacre the Armenian population. The jihadists who participated in this operation were today sent to kill other Armenians in Karabagh.

These massacres ceased in Azerbaijan during the brief Democratic Republic (1918-20) and the Soviet period (1920-90), but resumed in 1988 with the collapse of Moscow’s power.

Precisely during the Soviet period, in accordance with Joseph Stalin’s policy of nationalities, an Armenian region was joined with Azerbaijan to form a Socialist Republic. Thus when the USSR was dissolved, the international community recognized Karabakh not as Armenian but as Azeri. The same mistake was made in the rush in Moldova with Transnistria, in Ukraine with Crimea, in Georgia with South Ossetia and Abkhazia. A series of wars immediately followed, including that of Nagorno-Karabakh. These are cases where international law developed from an error of appreciation at the beginning of the conflicts, as in Palestine, which was not rectified in time, leading to inextricable situations.

Westerners intervened to prevent a general conflagration. However, the example of Transnistria attests that it was a step backwards in order to better jump: thus the United States resorted to the Romanian army to try to annihilate the nascent Pridnestrovie [2].

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE, then CSCE) created the “Minsk Group”, co-chaired by the United States, France and Russia, to find a solution, which it never did: Russia did not want to choose between its former partners, France wanted to play the important game, and the United States wanted to maintain a conflict zone on the Russian border. The other conflicts, created at the dissolution of the USSR, were deliberately fuelled by Washington and London with Georgia’s aggression against South Ossetia in 2008 or the EuroMaydan coup d’état aimed, among other things, at expelling Russians from the Crimea in 2014.

The attack on the Republic of Artsakh (Karabagh) by Azerbaijan and Turkey was justified by the speech of Azeri President Ilham Aliyev at the UN General Assembly on September 24. [3] His main idea was that the Minsk Group had qualified the status quo as unacceptable, but that “statements are not enough. We need action. He could not have been clearer.

In accordance with his family’s ideology, he put his opponents under the greatest burden, for example, attributing the Khojaly massacre (1992, more than 600 victims) to “Armenian terrorists”, even though it was a black operation during an attempted coup in his country; in any case, this allowed him to present in a biased manner the actions of ASALA (Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia) in the 1970s and 1980s. He pointed out that four Security Council resolutions ordered the withdrawal of Armenian troops, playing on the homonymy between the Armenian population of Karabagh and the neighboring state of Armenia; one way of ignoring the fact that the Council also enjoined Azerbaijan to organize a referendum of self-determination in Karabagh. It accused, not without reason, the new Armenian Prime Minister, Nikol Pashinyan, of being one of the men of the speculator Gorge Soros, as if this erased what had gone before.

The conflict can only end after a referendum of self-determination, the outcome of which comes as little surprise. For the time being, it benefits those who, like Israel, sell arms to the aggressor.JPEG - 29.9 kb The Turkish, Azeri and Pakistani armies display their unity against the Armenians.

For Erdoğan, one war too many?

Having said this, let us analyze the current conflict from another angle, that of international balances, keeping in mind that the Turkish army is already illegally present in Cyprus, Iraq and Syria; that it violates the military embargo in Libya and now the cease-fire in Azerbaijan.

Baku is organizing itself to postpone the inevitable deadline even further. Azerbaijan has already obtained the support of Qatar, which also supervises the financing of jihadists in this field of operations. According to our information, at least 580 of them have been sent from Idleb (Syria) via Turkey. This war is expensive and KKR, the powerful company of the US-Israeli Henry Kravis, seems to be involved as it is still involved in Iraq, Syria and Libya. As in the destabilization of communist Afghanistan, Israeli weapons could be routed through Pakistan. In any case, in Turkey, posters flourish placing side by side the flags of the three countries.

Even more astonishing, President Aliyev received the support of his Belarusian counterpart, Alexander Lukashenko. It is likely that he is acting in agreement with the Kremlin, which could herald a more visible Russian support for Orthodox Armenia (Russia, Belarus and Armenia are all members of the Eurasian Economic Union and the Collective Security Treaty Organization).

Strangely, Shiite Iran has not taken a position. Yet, although ethnically Turkish, Azerbaijan is the only other Shia people in the world because it was part of the Safavid empire. President Hassan Rohani had included it in his plan for a Shia Federation presented during his second election campaign. This withdrawal gives the impression that Tehran does not wish to enter into conflict with Moscow, which is officially neutral. All the more so since Armenia plays a non-negligible role in the circumvention of the US embargo against Iran.

On the Armenian side, the diaspora in the United States is lobbying intensely in Congress in order to make President Erdoğan -whose country is a member of NATO- responsible for the conflict before an international tribunal.

In the case of a tacit agreement between Moscow and Washington, this war could be turned diplomatically against President Erdoğan, now unbearable to the Big Two. Like Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, who brutally changed from valet of the Pentagon to public enemy No. 1 when he thought he had the authorization to invade Kuwait, the Turkish president may have been encouraged to take the blame.

Thierry Meyssan

Translation
Roger Lagassé

Article licensed under Creative Commons

The articles on Voltaire Network may be freely reproduced provided the source is cited, their integrity is respected and they are not used for commercial purposes (license CC BY-NC-ND).

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Trump’s Getting COVID Could Be Good News For Him, And The Country – Issues & Insights

Posted by M. C. on October 7, 2020

Yes, a lot of people have died with COVID-19. But as we’ve reported here many times, the death count “from” COVID-19 is almost certainly exaggerated, because the Centers for Disease Control is counting every death with COVID-19. And even based on the CDC’s counting method, the trend line is moving in the right direction.

Trump could use his own recovery to point out that — even accepting that more than 200,000 have died from COVID-19 — the data clearly show that the vast majority of the population has nothing to worry about from this disease .

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/10/06/trumps-getting-covid-could-be-good-news-for-him-and-the-country/

by I & I Editorial Board

I&I Editorial

Almost as soon as President Donald Trump announced that he had tested positive for COVID-19, the left erupted in cheers, stopping only to suggest he was faking it to get out of future debates.

Pundits everywhere speculated on the impact of Trump’s illness on the presidential race, with most of the comments along the lines of: “Will Trump’s presidency be a casualty of COVID-19?”

There’s another possibility. That this turn of events will not only benefit Trump but could help snap the country out of its COVID-mania, which treats every case as a death sentence.

Here’s why.

In all likelihood, Trump will recover just fine. “Over the past 24 hours, the president has continued to improve,” his physician, Dr. Sean Conley, said Monday.

Trump’s return to the White House after suffering what, by all indications, were not terribly serious health effects, will let him boast that he beat COVID-19.

He will also be able to claim that he was right not to hide in the basement, or act like a scared rabbit when he’s out in public, like a certain Democratic presidential candidate. The contrast is not going to help Joe Biden’s campaign.

More importantly, it will be an opportunity for Trump to counter all the scaremongering that Biden and his army of sycophants in the press are engaged in. They want to keep the public in a state of panic about the coronavirus because they think it’s hurting Trump’s reelection chances. So they regard every coronavirus infection as a terminal case and ignore any fact that gets in the way of their doom-and-gloom narrative.

Yes, a lot of people have died with COVID-19. But as we’ve reported here many times, the death count “from” COVID-19 is almost certainly exaggerated, because the Centers for Disease Control is counting every death with COVID-19. And even based on the CDC’s counting method, the trend line is moving in the right direction.

Trump could use his own recovery to point out that — even accepting that more than 200,000 have died from COVID-19 — the data clearly show that the vast majority of the population has nothing to worry about from this disease .

That’s because the risk of dying from it is almost entirely among the aged and those with other serious health problems.

According to the CDC, 57% of the deaths are among those 75 and older. (Trump is 74.)

In Trump’s age group, the case fatality rate is 5.4%, according to the CDC. But the risk falls off the cliff among those under age 70. It’s 0.5% for those 50-69, 0.02% for those 20-29, and 0.003% for those 19 and younger.

What’s more, CDC data show that 94% of those who died from COVID-19 had other serious health problems that contributed to their deaths. In only 6% of deaths was virus listed as the only cause of death.

Nearly half of those who died, for example, also had influenza and pneumonia; 34% suffered respiratory failure; one-fifth had hypertension.

Not only that, but those who died from COVID-19 had, on average, almost three of the different health problems CDC names as contributing to deaths, a review of CDC data shows.

(By the way, while Trump is overweight, obesity has been a contributing factor in only 3.7% of COVID-19 deaths.)

That’s not to dismiss these deaths as insignificant. Not at all. But the data clearly show that the risk of the disease is almost entirely isolated among the very sick and very old. That information isn’t getting out. Trump could force it into the public.  

The fact that these sorts of data aren’t common knowledge has everything to do with the biased coverage from the press. After all, any good news regarding the virus might benefit Trump, so it must be avoided.

Of course, Trump could take a turn for the worse. We hope that doesn’t happen. No one should want the president to fall gravely ill.

Our hope is that he has a speedy recovery, gets back on the campaign trail and, as a result, sets an example for the country that we can stop panicking about COVID-19 and get back to some semblance of normalcy.

— Written by the I&I Editorial Board

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#23 – “The Balance of Trade Deficit Requires Government Action” – Foundation for Economic Education

Posted by M. C. on October 7, 2020

Neither the mercantilists of yesteryear nor those who fuss about the trade deficit today have ever satisfactorily answered this fundamental question: Since each and every trade is “favorable” to the individual traders, how is it possible that these transactions can be totaled up to produce something “unfavorable”?

https://fee.org/articles/23-the-balance-of-trade-deficit-requires-government-action/

Lawrence W. Reed
Lawrence W. Reed

The Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) is proud to partner with Young America’s Foundation (YAF) to produce “Clichés of Progressivism,” a series of insightful commentaries covering topics of free enterprise, income inequality, and limited government.

Our society is inundated with half-truths and misconceptions about the economy in general and free enterprise in particular. The “Clichés of Progressivism” series is meant to equip students with the arguments necessary to inform debate and correct the record where bias and errors abound.

The antecedents to this collection are two classic FEE publications that YAF helped distribute in the past: Clichés of Politics, published in 1994, and the more influential Clichés of Socialism, which made its first appearance in 1962. Indeed, this new collection will contain a number of essays from those two earlier works, updated for the present day where necessary. Other entries first appeared in some version in FEE’s journal, The Freeman. Still others are brand new, never having appeared in print anywhere. They will be published weekly on the websites of both YAF and FEE: www.yaf.org and www.FEE.org until the series runs its course. A book will then be released in 2015 featuring the best of the essays, and will be widely distributed in schools and on college campuses.

See the index of the published chapters here.

#23 – “The Balance of Trade Deficit Requires Government Action”

(Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this essay was published in The Freeman in December 1998.)

I have a dirty little secret. It’s about a nagging problem I have had for a long time. It just never seems to go away. Heretofore, I have not wanted to admit to this problem in public because the newspaper headlines remind me monthly that this sort of thing is bad and embarrassing.  But I’m going to come clean, hoping that maybe someone out there can help me.

My problem is this: I have a trade deficit with J.C. Penney. That’s right. Year after year, I buy more from J.C. Penney than J.C. Penney buys from me.

In fact, J.C. Penney has never yet bought anything at all from me. It’s been a one-way street right from the day I got my credit card in the mail. And I don’t expect that this is going to change any time soon because the retail chain shows no interest in buying my chief export, which is columns like this one. It just doesn’t seem fair.

I’ve actually considered several options. Each one would probably reduce or eliminate my trade deficit with J.C. Penney, but some wise guy always points out new problems that each of these scenarios might create:

1. I could get Congress to force the company to buy enough of my articles to offset what I spend in its stores. But the more J.C. Penney buys from me, the less it will be able to buy from others, which will only increase their trade deficits.

2. I could get Congress to force J.C. Penney to cut its prices so that I won’t have to spend as much to get what I want. I thought that might at least reduce my deficit, but at lower prices I might actually be tempted to buy more. Or J.C. Penney might come under fire from the antitrust people for dumping its goods below cost.

3. I could simply quit buying from J.C. Penney. That would really teach them a lesson. But then, doggone it, I like what I’ve been buying from them. If I boycott them, wouldn’t that be like cutting off my nose to spite my face?

d12e9117613a1599144490-donate-thankyou-landscape.png

Join us in preserving the principles of economic freedom and individual liberty for the rising generation

Of course, I don’t really mean any of this. As an economist, I know that there’s a fourth option here and it’s the only one that makes any sense: I should ignore this “problem” and never pay any attention again to whatever the trade situation is between J.C. Penney and me, except to pay my bills on time. America as a whole should do essentially the same thing. If we fired the people in Washington, D.C., who compile the balance of trade numbers, the so-called problem will go away.

Every month, the U.S. Commerce Department releases the official “balance of trade” figures showing the difference between the value of merchandise that enters the country and the value of merchandise that leaves the country. If imports exceed exports, America has a trade deficit, which sets off alarm bells in Washington. If exports are greater than imports, we’re all supposed to celebrate because that’s a trade surplus.

By this logic, draining the country of all goods and accepting none from abroad would be the best possible trade news. We wouldn’t be able to celebrate, however, because we’d all starve. But at least the government’s books would register one heck of a trade surplus.

The balance of trade numbers, by the way, represent a very incomplete picture of trade. They attempt to measure merchandise only, but traders exchange many other things, too. If a Canadian businessman sells Americans lumber, he earns dollars but he doesn’t have to buy merchandise with them. He might instead invest in real estate, purchase securities (government or private), or contract for certain services. Those things don’t get counted in the “balance of trade.”

Progressives aren’t the only ones who get hung up on this trade-deficit thing and then favor pseudo-solutions to a non-problem. It’s a throwback to the less enlightened times of sixteenth-century mercantilists. They argued that a nation must never buy more from foreigners than it sells to them because that would produce an “unfavorable balance of trade” that would have to be settled by an outflow of gold or silver. The mercantilists wrongly assumed that gold and silver were the real wealth of a nation, not goods and services. They were also wrong to render value judgments about other people’s trading activities. The fact is that there can be nothing “unfavorable” about voluntary trade from the point of view of the individuals actually doing the trading, otherwise they would not have engaged in it in the first place.

The principle that both sides benefit from trade is readily visible when it involves two parties within a country; it somehow becomes confused when an invisible political barrier separates the parties. Neither the mercantilists of yesteryear nor those who fuss about the trade deficit today have ever satisfactorily answered this fundamental question: Since each and every trade is “favorable” to the individual traders, how is it possible that these transactions can be totaled up to produce something “unfavorable”?

Scottish economist Adam Smith was among the first to at­tack the notion that exports are good and imports are bad. He pos­tulated a “harmony of interests” in trade, by which both parties to an exchange benefit. With the excep­tion of obvious fraudulent prac­tices, which are minimal in number and a responsibility of the courts, there can be nothing “unfavorable” about voluntary trade from the point of view of the individuals do­ing the trading, otherwise those in­dividuals would not have engaged in it.

To return to my initial example, I benefit when I buy from J.C. Penney or I wouldn’t keep doing it. The folks at J.C. Penney benefit as well because they would rather have my money than the stuff they sell me. We’re both better off because we have a trade relationship, which is why neither party ever complains about it. This would be no less true if J.C. Penney happened to be a company from Japan or Uganda.

Ultimately, the dollars that go abroad to pay for imports will come back to buy American exports. But even if they didn’t—in other words, even if goods come here and dollars go there to simply stuff foreign mattresses—Americans with their supposedly harmful trade deficit would have the better end of the deal. We would get goods like electronics and automobiles, and foreigners would be stuck with slips of paper decorated by pictures of dead American politicians.

Forget the trade deficit. We should occupy ourselves with more important things, like the next sale at J.C. Penney.Lawrence W. ReedPresidentFoundation for Economic Education

Summary

  • Each of us as individuals has a “balance of trade” with other individuals, but none of us cares about the numbers; we care about the goods and services we’re trading for.
  • Balance of trade figures count only merchandise. They leave out a huge chunk of world trade involving other things, from real estate to securities to services.
  • No trades are deemed as anything but “favorable” by those engaged in the trading, so how can anyone add all those trades up and arrive at something “unfavorable”?
  • For further information, see:

“The Balance-of-Payments Deficit: Not to Worry” by David R. Henderson: http://tinyurl.com/k998d3s

“The Trade Deficit Is Debt? It Just Ain’t So!” by Donald J. Boudreaux: http://tinyurl.com/qg2hp4w

“A Deficit of Understanding” by Donald J. Boudreaux: http://tinyurl.com/mb8lnlg

“Tax Cuts Cause Trade Deficits and Currency Depreciation?” by Joseph Salerno: http://tinyurl.com/owq9qlg

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How empire is destroying the American republic – Responsible Statecraft

Posted by M. C. on October 6, 2020

McCrystal’s deployment of anti-terrorism technology to manipulate domestic political opinion during an election is surely incompatible with republican values. One would have thought that the McCrystal revelation would have generated more controversy as it comes on the heels of the astonishing abuse of another anti-terrorism tool, NSA surveillance, by FBI agents who submitted phony warrants to the FISA court in order to frame Trump campaign operatives. 

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2020/10/05/how-empire-is-destroying-the-american-republic/

Written by
William Smith

Many American hawks fail to grasp one of the most axiomatic rules of history: when a republic becomes an empire, it is no longer a republic.

For all their concern about spreading democracy abroad, many hawks show a decidedly noticeable failure to recognize that imperial adventures weaken republican government at home. The devolution from republic to empire has a number of causes, some practical and some cultural, with most on display in our current politics. 

On a practical level, the massive national security commitment necessary to maintain an empire tends to overwhelm the republican safeguards against unnecessary wars. In recent decades, for example, the national security state has gone to war in numerous countries — Libya and Syria are only two examples — on the basis of an Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) that was enacted by Congress to sanction attacks on the perpetrators of 9/11.

The use of that AUMF to justify wars unrelated to 9/11 made these wars blatantly unconstitutional. Yet it is apparent that most of Congress is now a mere appendage of the national security state and no longer protects its constitutional prerogative to sanction war as this would require difficult votes as well as jeopardize the largesse bestowed by defense contractors. Madison’s famous argument in Federalist #51 that, in a republic with separated powers, one branch of government would “resist encroachments of the others” becomes obviated in an empire. Empires tend to ignore republican rules. 

The other practical difficulty of maintaining a republic when it aspires to empire is that the technologies created to fight wars abroad end up undermining republican government at home. In imperial Rome, the legions themselves became a threat to domestic order; in the present U.S. the domestic attacks are more subtle. 

Numerous media reports indicate, for example, that an anti-Trump PAC, Defeat Disinfo, is employing retired Army General Stanley McCrystal to deploy a Defense Department-developed Artificial Intelligence (AI) tool to counter candidate Trump’s social media posts and to create “counter-narratives” using a network of “paid influencers.” The AI technology was developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to counter the propaganda of terrorist groups overseas. The culture of our present officer corps seems a long way from that of General George Marshall who once remarked to Eisenhower, “I may make a thousand mistakes in this war, but none will be the result of political meddling!”

McCrystal’s deployment of anti-terrorism technology to manipulate domestic political opinion during an election is surely incompatible with republican values. One would have thought that the McCrystal revelation would have generated more controversy as it comes on the heels of the astonishing abuse of another anti-terrorism tool, NSA surveillance, by FBI agents who submitted phony warrants to the FISA court in order to frame Trump campaign operatives. 

As observers from both parties have noticed, military technology and tactics have bled into domestic policing with local police departments deploying armored vehicles and drones. One need not be a Trump partisan, nor a rabid libertarian, to conclude that the technologies developed to maintain the American empire are now being used to undermine our republican traditions. 

Tufts law professor Michael Glennon has concluded that the national security state has in fact grown so large that the “Madisonian” branches of government — the presidency, Congress and the courts — are no longer in charge of national security policy. Glennon asserts that we now have a “double government” in which policy decisions are made by “a largely concealed managerial directorate, consisting of the several hundred leaders of the military, law enforcement, and the intelligence departments and agencies of our government” who “operate at an increasing remove from constitutional limits and restraints, moving the nation slowly toward autocracy.” Despite his clear desire to do so, Trump’s inability to extricate us from Afghanistan is confirmation that the Madisonian branches of government no longer determine policy.

The rise of a double government was captured perfectly in a Tweet by Michael McFaul, an Obama national security official, who commented that, “Trump has lost the Intelligence Community. He has lost the State Department. He has lost the military. How can he continue to serve as our Commander in Chief?” To those with an imperial outlook, the President serves at the pleasure of those who run the empire, not the voters. To Michael McFaul, the unelected members of the foreign policy establishment determine the legitimacy of elected leaders. 

While legal breakdowns and the technologies of American empire are overwhelming our republican traditions, the much deeper problem is that American leaders have eschewed a constitutional culture and adopted an imperial culture. 

Republican institutions cannot operate unless its leaders embody a certain temperament or “constitutional personality.” They must demonstrate measured and restrained habits even with political opponents. They will seek common ground and compromise. They would, in Hamilton’s words, “withstand the temporary delusion” of popular pressures and engage in “more cool and sedate reflection.”  

In foreign policy, this constitutional temperament would, in Washington’s words, “observe good faith and justice toward all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all” and “nothing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded.”  In other words, republics have leaders of a certain quality and type, leaders who demonstrate restraint not only in domestic politics but on the world stage. 

Contrast this constitutional temperament with our current crop of leaders. In domestic politics, we have fierce, vituperative and irrational partisanship. There is no spirit of compromise and no willingness to show good faith with political opponents. Our politics, as Hobbes said of the state of nature, exhibit “a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death.” In foreign policy, the imperial personality shows itself in “maximum pressure” campaigns, an “inveterate” antipathy toward Russia, and chest-thumping assertions of American exceptionalism. The constitutional personality exhibits a certain humility; the imperial personality exhibits none. 

Removing the practical dangers of empire would be hard, but not impossible. Restoring congressional authority in matters of war and peace and banning the domestic use of military and intelligence technologies are both achievable goals for those wishing to restore republican values. However, the imperial culture of our national security elites flows out of a will to power that is, at root, a character flaw. Changing laws is easy compared with improving character. 

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Comey’s Amnesia Makes Senate Session Unforgettable – Antiwar.com Original

Posted by M. C. on October 6, 2020

Flawed process? Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz pinpointed no few than 17 “serious performance failures” related to the four FISA warrant applications on Page. Left unsaid is the fact that Horowitz’s investigation was tightly circumscribed. Basically, he asked the major players “Were you biased?” And they said “No.”

https://original.antiwar.com/?p=2012341079

by Ray McGovern

Former FBI Director James Comey testified to Congress last Wednesday that he did not remember much about what was going on when the FBI deceived the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Court into approving four warrants for surveillance of Trump campaign aide Carter Page.

Few outsiders are aware that those warrants covered not only Page but also anyone Page was in contact with as well as anyone Page’s contacts were in contact with – under the so-called two-hop surveillance procedure. In other words, the warrants extend coverage two hops from the target – that is, anyone Page talks to and anyone they, in turn, talk to.

At the hearing, Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Lindsay Graham reviewed the facts (most of them confirmed by the Department of Justice inspector general) showing that none of the four FISA warrants were warranted.

Graham gave a chronological rundown of the evidence that Comey and his “folks” either knew, or should have known, that by signing fraudulent FISA warrant applications they were perpetrating a fraud on the court.

The “evidence” used by Comey and his “folks” to “justify” warrants included Page’s contacts with Russian officials (CIA had already told the FBI those contacts had been approved) and the phony as a three-dollar bill “Steele dossier” paid for by the Democrats.

Two Hops to the World

But let’s not hop over the implications of two-hop surveillance, which apparently remains in effect today. Few understand the significance of what is known in the trade as “two-hop” coverage. According to a former NSA technical director, Bill Binney, when President Barack Obama approved the current version of “two hops,” the NSA was ecstatic – and it is easy to see why.

Let’s say Page was in touch with Donald Trump (as candidate or president); Trump’s communications could then be surveilled, as well. Or, let’s say Page was in touch with Google. That would enable NSA to cover pretty much the entire world. A thorough read of the transcript of Wednesday’s hearing, particularly the Q-and-A, shows that this crucial two-hop dimension never came up – or that those aware of it, were too afraid to mention it. It was as if Page were the only one being surveilled.

Here is a sample of The New York Times’s typical coverage of such a hearing:

“Senate Republicans sought on Wednesday to promote their efforts to rewrite the narrative of the Trump-Russia investigation before Election Day, using a hearing with the former F.B.I. director James B. Comey to cast doubt on the entire inquiry by highlighting problems with a narrower aspect of it.

“Led by Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee spent hours burrowing into mistakes and omissions made by the FBI when it applied for court permission to wiretap the former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page in 2016 and 2017. Republicans drew on that flawed process to renew their claims that Mr. Comey and his agents had acted with political bias, ignoring an independent review that debunked the notion of a plot against President Trump.”

Flawed process? Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz pinpointed no few than 17 “serious performance failures” related to the four FISA warrant applications on Page. Left unsaid is the fact that Horowitz’s investigation was tightly circumscribed. Basically, he asked the major players “Were you biased?” And they said “No.”

Chutzpah-full Disingenuousness

Does the NYT believe we were all born yesterday? When the Horowitz report was released in early December 2019, Fox News’ Chris Wallace found those serious performance failures “pretty shocking.” He quoted an earlier remark by Rep. Will Hurd (R,TX) a CIA alumnus:

“Why is it when you have 17 mistakes — 17 things that are misrepresented or lapses — and every one of them goes against the president and for investigating him, you have to say, ‘Is that a coincidence’? … it is either gross incompetence or intentionality.”

Throughout the four-hour hearing on Wednesday, Comey was politely smug – a hair short of condescending.

There was not the slightest sign he thought he would ever be held accountable for what happened under his watch. You see, four years ago, Comey “knew” Hillary Clinton was a shoo-in; that explains how he, together with CIA Director John Brennan and National Intelligence Director James Clapper, felt free to take vast liberties with the Constitution and the law before the election, and then launched a determined effort to hide their tracks post election.

Trump had been forewarned. On Jan. 3, 2017, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), with an assist from Rachel Maddow, warned Trump not to get crosswise with the “intelligence community,” noting the IC has six ways to Sunday to get back at you.

Three days later, Comey told President-elect Trump, in a one-on-one conversation, what the FBI had on him – namely, the “Steele Dossier.” The media already had the dossier, but were reluctant (for a host of obvious reasons) to publish it. When it leaked that Comey had briefed Trump on it, they finally had the needed peg.

New Parvenu in Washington

After the tête-à-tête with Comey on Jan. 6, 2017, newcomer Trump didn’t know what hit him. Perhaps no one told him of Schumer’s warning; or maybe he dismissed it out of hand. Is that what Comey was up to on Jan. 6, 2017?

Was the former FBI director protesting too much in his June 2017 testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee when he insisted he’d tried to make it clear to Trump that briefing him on the unverified but scurrilous information in the dossier wasn’t intended to be threatening?

It took Trump several months to figure out what was being done to him.

Trump to NYT: ‘Leverage’ (aka Blackmail)

In a long Oval Office interview with the Times on July 19, 2017, Trump said he thought Comey was trying to hold the dossier over his head.

“…Look what they did to me with Russia, and it was totally phony stuff. … the dossier … Now, that was totally made-up stuff,” Trump said. “I went there [to Moscow] for one day for the Miss Universe contest, I turned around, I went back. It was so disgraceful. It was so disgraceful.

“When he [Comey] brought it [the dossier] to me, I said this is really made-up junk. I didn’t think about anything. I just thought about, man, this is such a phony deal. … I said, this is – honestly, it was so wrong, and they didn’t know I was just there for a very short period of time. It was so wrong, and I was with groups of people. It was so wrong that I really didn’t, I didn’t think about motive. I didn’t know what to think other than, this is really phony stuff.”

The Steele dossier, paid for by the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign and compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele, includes a tale of Trump cavorting with prostitutes, who supposedly urinated on each other before the same bed the Obamas had slept in at the Moscow Ritz-Carlton hotel.

Trump told the Times: “I think [Comey] shared it so that … I would think he had it out there. … As leverage.”

Still Anemic

Even with that lesson in hand, Trump still proved virtually powerless in dealing with the National Security State/intelligence community. The president has evidenced neither the skill nor the guts to even attempt to keep the National Security State in check.

Comey, no doubt doesn’t want to be seen as a “dirty cop,” With Trump in power and Attorney General William Barr his enforcer, there was always the latent threat that they would use the tools at their disposal to expose and even prosecute Comey and his National Security State colleagues for what the president now knows was done during his candidacy and presidency.

Despite their braggadocio about taking on the Deep State, and the continuing investigations, it seems doubtful that anything serious is likely to happen before Election Day, Nov. 3.

On Wednesday, Comey had the air of one who is equally sure, this time around, who will be the next president. No worries. Comey could afford to be politely vapid for five more weeks, and then be off the hook for any and all “serious performance failures” – some of them felonies.

Thus, a significant downside to a Biden victory is that the National Security State will escape accountability for unconscionable misbehavior, running from misdemeanors to insurrection. No small thing.

Sen. Graham concluded the hearing with a pious plea: “Somebody needs to be held accountable.” Yet, surely, he has been around long enough to know the odds.

Given his disastrous presidency, either way the prospects are bleak: no accountability for the National Security State, which is to be expected, or four more years of Trump.

Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. His 27-year career as a CIA analyst includes serving as Chief of the Soviet Foreign Policy Branch and preparer/briefer of the President’s Daily Brief. He is co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). This originally appeared at Consortium News.

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Eric Clapton backs Van Morrison’s call to ‘save live music’ – The Irish News

Posted by M. C. on October 6, 2020

It would be easier and less controversial if they put cardboard people in the seats and added fake applause.

You know, what makes US sports so great.

Fortunately Clapton and Morrison are made of better stuff.

https://www.irishnews.com/news/northernirelandnews/2020/09/30/news/eric-clapton-backs-van-morrison-s-call-to-save-live-music–2081959/

SUZANNE MCGONAGLE

LEGENDARY musician Eric Clapton has joined Sir Van Morrison’s campaign to ‘save live music’.

The three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame said he shared the concerns of the Belfast crooner about the impact current Covid-19 restrictions are having on the live music industry.

Clapton said he believes if action is not taken “live music might never recover”.

It comes after Van Morrison launched a campaign to save the music industry and is donating profits from his new collection of anti-lockdown songs to musicians impacted by measures he claims do “more harm than good”.

Money from downloads of Born To Be Free, As I Walked Out and No More Lockdown will be distributed by his arts charity, the Van Morrison Rhythm and Blues Foundation.

But the musician (75) has faced criticism for his trio of protest songs calling for an end to rules aimed at stopping the spread of coronavirus.

The Stormont health minister Robin Swann described the lyrics as “dangerous”, while a Belfast councillor called the singer to be stripped of the freedom of the city following his controversial intervention.

Now Clapton has voiced his support for Van Morrison’s efforts to find solutions so venues can reopen at full capacity.

“It is deeply upsetting to see how few gigs are going ahead because of the lockdown restrictions,” he said.

“There are many of us who support Van and his endeavours to save live music, he is an inspiration.

“We must stand up and be counted because we need to find a way out of this mess.

“The alternative is not worth thinking about. Live music might never recover.”

Last week Van Morrison debuted his new tracks during three consecutive and socially distant shows at the London Palladium as he released the first of his three new anti-lockdown songs, Born To Be Free.

“Thanks to everyone who came to the Palladium shows and who have supported the new single,” he said.

“The gigs were great and proved that live performance can operate safely.

“Now we need the government to ease restrictions further and instill confidence that venues are safe and enjoyable places to be for everyone.”

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The Fight for Free Speech – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on October 6, 2020

Tyrants everywhere, from the Nazis to the communists, started out supporting free speech rights. Why? Because speech is important for the realization of leftist goals of command and control. People must be propagandized, proselytized and convinced. Once leftists have gained power, as they have in most of our colleges and universities, free speech becomes a liability. It challenges their ideas and agenda and must be suppressed.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/10/walter-e-williams/the-fight-for-free-speech/

By Walter E. Williams

The violence, looting and mayhem that this nation has seen over the last several months has much of its roots in academia, where leftist faculty teach immature young people all manner of nonsense that contradicts commonsense and the principles of liberty. Chief among their lessons is a need to attack free speech in the form of prohibitions against so-called hate speech and microaggressions. Here are examples of microaggressions: “You are a credit to your race.” “Wow! How did you become so good in math?” “There is only one race, the human race.” “I’m not racist. I have several black friends.” “As a woman, I know what you go through as a racial minority.”

It is a tragic state of affairs when free speech and inquiry require protection at institutions of higher learning. Indeed, freedom in the marketplace of ideas has made the United States, as well as other Western nations, a leader in virtually every area of human endeavor. A monopoly of ideas is just as dangerous as a monopoly in political power or a monopoly in the production of goods and services.

We might ask what is the true test of a person’s commitment to free speech? The true test does not come when he permits people to say those things he deems acceptable. The true test comes when he permits people to say those things that he deems offensive. The identical principle applies to freedom of association; its true test comes when someone permits others to voluntarily associate in ways that he deems offensive.

While free speech has been under attack, we are beginning to see some pushback. More than 12,000 professors, free speech leaders and conservative-leaning organization leaders have signed “The Philadelphia Statement.”

The 845-word document says in part: “Similarly, colleges and universities are imposing speech regulations to make students ‘safe,’ not from physical harm, but from challenges to campus orthodoxy. These policies and regulations assume that we as citizens are unable to think for ourselves and to make independent judgments. Instead of teaching us to engage, they foster conformism (“groupthink”) and train us to respond to intellectual challenges with one or another form of censorship. A society that lacks comity and allows people to be shamed or intimidated into self-censorship of their ideas and considered judgments will not survive for long. As Americans, we desire a flourishing, open marketplace of ideas, knowing that it is the fairest and most effective way to separate falsehood from truth. Accordingly, dissenting and unpopular voices — be they of the left or the right — must be afforded the opportunity to be heard. They have often guided our society toward more just positions, which is why Frederick Douglass said freedom of speech is the ‘great moral renovator of society and government.’”

The recognition of the intellectual elite attacking free speech is not new. In a 1991 speech, Yale University President Benno Schmidt warned: “The most serious problems of freedom of expression in our society today exist on our campuses. The assumption seems to be that the purpose of education is to induce correct opinion rather than to search for wisdom and to liberate the mind.”

Tyrants everywhere, from the Nazis to the communists, started out supporting free speech rights. Why? Because speech is important for the realization of leftist goals of command and control. People must be propagandized, proselytized and convinced. Once leftists have gained power, as they have in most of our colleges and universities, free speech becomes a liability. It challenges their ideas and agenda and must be suppressed.

Attacks on free speech to accommodate multiculturalism and diversity are really attacks on Western values, which are superior to all others. The indispensable achievement of the West was the concept of individual rights, the idea that individuals have certain inalienable rights that are not granted by government. Governments exist to protect these inalienable rights. It took until the 17th century for that idea to arise and mostly through the works of English philosophers such as John Locke and David Hume. And now the 21st century campus leftists are trying to suppress these inalienable rights.

The Best of Walter E. Williams Walter E. Williams is the John M. Olin distinguished professor of economics at George Mason University, and a nationally syndicated columnist. To find out more about Walter E. Williams and read features by other Creators Syndicate columnists and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page.

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The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity : Trump and Biden Squabble While America Burns

Posted by M. C. on October 6, 2020

Jo Jorgensen

http://ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2020/october/05/trump-and-biden-squabble-while-america-burns/?mc_cid=a154d3db1b&mc_eid=4e0de347c8

Written by Ron Paul

President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden spent most of last week’s first Presidential debate trading insults and interrupting each other. The result was a debate with very little discussion of actual issues or policies.

In one of the evening’s few substantive exchanges, President Trump rightly criticized Vice President Biden for saying he would listen to the “scientists” in determining whether to lock down the country. President Trump also acknowledged that the lockdowns were a harmful over-reaction that needs to end.

Unfortunately, President Trump once again pledged that Covid vaccines would soon be available. This raises the specter of a repeat of the swine flu debacle where a vaccine rushed into production for political purposes caused more deaths than the swine flu itself. President Trump also raised concerns about mandatory Covid vaccinations by suggesting the military would be in charge of vaccine distribution.

Vice President Biden vehemently denied he was a socialist, while championing increased spending, taxes, regulations, expanded Obamacare, and a modified “Green New Deal.” Biden may not consider himself a socialist, but if his economic plans were implemented it would take America further down the road to socialism — and serfdom.

President Trump also denounced socialism, while bragging about his own big government policies such as tariffs, massive spending increases, and plans to maintain the “popular” provisions of Obamacare.

One topic that did not come up was gun control. This may have been because both candidates support infringements on the Second Amendment. Joe Biden was chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee when it passed gun control measures like the assault weapons ban and the “Brady Bill.” President Trump has not only banned bump stocks by executive order, which President Obama refused to do because his Attorney General correctly determined that the President lacks the authority to do so, but has enthusiastically endorsed “red flag” laws. These laws allow law enforcement to, as President Trump put it, “take the guns first worry about due process later.”

The Congressional Budget Office has projected that the federal debt will exceed the gross domestic product next year and reach 195 percent of GDP by 2050! This report was issued before this week’s revelation that the federal debt reached record levels of $27 trillion.

This is the biggest threat to our national security, but it was unmentioned during the debate. This is not surprising since few in the political or media elite understand the debt crisis well enough to give it the attention it deserves. Although if Biden wins and Democrats seize control of the Senate, Republicans will likely remember they are supposed to be against big spending and debt.

One critical area that could have led to an interesting exchange was monetary policy. Biden has called Trump’s tweets attacking the Fed as an assault on Fed’s independence, as if the Fed were ever free from political pressure. President Trump has gone from supporting a fed audit, criticizing low interest rates, and supporting the gold standard, to pushing the Fed to adopt the insane policy of zero interest rates

The debate is the latest evidence the two major parties will not on their own restore our lost liberties. Those who want to roll back the welfare-warfare state should avoid focusing on political parties or personalities. Instead we must focus on spreading the ideas of liberty among our fellow citizens and building a liberty movement that puts principles of liberty above partisanship.


Copyright © 2020 by RonPaul Institute. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit and a live link are given.
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Police Officers Threaten to Quit If the Public Keeps Demanding Accountability | Mises Wire

Posted by M. C. on October 5, 2020

Indeed, it’s even a well-established legal principle in this country that police are under no obligation to protect the taxpayers. Meanwhile, when police open fire on unarmed members of the public, officers frequently walk free, and some even continue to get paid.

https://mises.org/wire/police-officers-threaten-quit-if-public-keeps-demanding-accountability?utm_source=Mises+Institute+Subscriptions&utm_campaign=a40e73a93b-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_9_21_2018_9_59_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8b52b2e1c0-a40e73a93b-228343965

Ryan McMaken

Faced with an armed assailant at the Parkland school shooting in 2018, sheriff’s deputy Josh Stambaugh ran away and hid while children were gunned down. He was later fired for his lack of action, but last month arbitrators ruled that Stambaugh must be rehired by the sheriff’s department, and he will likely receive more than $100,000 in back pay. In 2018, at the time of his firing, Stambaugh earned $152,000 in base pay and overtime. It looks like he’ll soon be back on the payroll “protecting and serving” the community.

When faced with unarmed suspects, however, some police officers are quite a bit more enthusiastic. For example, when Mesa, Arizona, officer Philip Brailsford gunned down a crawling, sobbing, and unarmed man in a hotel hallway, he paid no price beyond losing his job. He was acquitted in the shooting and was soon thereafter rehired by the police department so he could claim a $31,000-per-year-for-life pension.

It is cases like these which help explain the growing popularity of police reform efforts in recent years. The public is becoming increasingly aware of the fact that police don’t face sanctions for doing nothing to protect the public from violence. Indeed, it’s even a well-established legal principle in this country that police are under no obligation to protect the taxpayers. Meanwhile, when police open fire on unarmed members of the public, officers frequently walk free, and some even continue to get paid.

Some of this is a result of aggressive police unions, which make it extremely difficult to fire law enforcement officers like Stambaugh. State laws also have been enacted to protect police from any personal liability, far above and beyond what is enjoyed by any worker in the private sector. In short, the deck has long been stacked in favor of both police agencies and individual police officers.

In response to incidents like those involving Stambaugh and Brailsford, and countless similar cases, Colorado in 2020 passed new police reform measures. The legislation is designed to end police immunity in some cases, to mandate the use of body cameras, limit when an officer can shoot a fleeing suspect, and rein in police unions.

As we’ve noted here at mises.org, many of these reforms should have been enacted long ago.

But many police officers are apparently less than thrilled with the reforms, and police agencies are claiming they’ve been unfairly targeted, while “warning” the public that few people will now want to become law enforcement officers.

In August, for example, the Denver Post reported that more than two hundred law enforcement officers in the state had retired or resigned since the new police reform law had passed. It was strongly implied that much of this was a result of the law’s passage.

The Post article contends many law enforcement officers are quitting especially because they object to potentially being held personally liable for misconduct. The state’s reform allows for officers to be sued personally and held liable for 5 percent of any judgment or settlement against them or $25,000, whichever is less.

“I don’t want myself and my family at risk,” one police officer—a veteran who’s enjoyed a taxpayer-funded paycheck for thirty years—complained. A sheriff’s deputy claimed police are leaving because they’re being unfairly targeted by “politics” and lamented, “Who wants to be a cop anymore?”

Meanwhile, the Durango Herald, a paper in southern Colorado, reports that police say the new accountability law is “too much for them and their families.”

But there is unlikely to be a shortage of police due to “too much” accountability.

In the case of Durango, for instance, local police supervisors note “enrollment numbers are up despite current liability concerns. Last year, there were 16 or 17 cadets, but there are 20 or 22 people enrolled for the fall.” And the Post story admits the number of separations statewide is only “slightly higher” than the average. The total also included officers who were fired.

Moreover, men and woman who work in private security have never enjoyed the sorts of special legal protections that police do. This is in spite of the fact that private security work may be even more hazardous than police work. Yet, somehow, these private firms manage to find willing workers.

Nationwide, the median annual pay for police officers is well above the median overall wage. According to a 2015 report from the Marshall Project, “In 25 of 50 states, [law enforcement officers] are paid 150 percent or more of the median salary—and that’s not including their pension or the hefty sums they are provided for clocking overtime and buying equipment and uniforms.”

Nor is police work remarkably dangerous. Law enforcement isn’t in the top twenty dangerous professions and is less dangerous work than being a crossing guard, a truck driver, or a farm worker. That is, police work often pays more than many jobs that are more dangerous.

Whether or not these comparisons apply to specific police departments and sheriff’s departments in Colorado depends on local conditions, of course. But claims that police officers will be forced to quit en masse as a result of added accountability fit into a dubious national narrative. In this narrative police departments will lose their most heroic members because the police are being unfairly targeted by a public that doesn’t properly appreciate them.

As Slate reported last week:

Law enforcement officials have met calls for defunding police and protests against police violence with an implicit threat: be careful what you wish for. More officers are quitting in frustration at the lack of respect, police officials often tell the press, and public safety will surely suffer. This summer, reports of cops quitting en masse have popped up across the country: Colorado, North Carolina, Georgia, Illinois, and New York City, a major center of the 2020 demonstrations.

But there’s as of yet no evidence that a mass exodus of officers will happen or is likely to happen. After all, many of the separations we hear about are officers who are retiring, and many of these were hired during the “hiring spree” in police departments during the 1990s. It’s now been more than twenty-five years for many of these officers, and it’s only natural that they’re now more than happy to retire as policing faces more scrutiny. Staff members who need to show up to earn a living, on the other hand, may find that private sector jobs—or other kinds of government employment—don’t exactly come with all the perks of being a police officer.

Nor should it be assumed fewer police officers will mean higher crime. After all, the data shows that in spite of more officers and bigger budgets in recent decades police agencies haven’t actually improved their performance.

But if police reforms such as those in Colorado are causing some officers to quit, it would seem that’s all to the good. Those officers who are most adamant about quitting when faced with added accountability are exactly the ones we’d want to leave. Those who assume they’re most likely to be on the losing end of a police brutality case aren’t exactly the sorts of people we need to stick around. Author:

Contact Ryan McMaken

Ryan McMaken (@ryanmcmaken) is a senior editor at the Mises Institute. Send him your article submissions for the Mises Wire and The Austrian, but read article guidelines first. Ryan has degrees in economics and political science from the University of Colorado and was a housing economist for the State of Colorado. He is the author of Commie Cowboys: The Bourgeoisie and the Nation-State in the Western Genre.

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CDC To America: ‘Cancel Traditional Thanksgiving!’

Posted by M. C. on October 5, 2020

The Centers for Disease Control have released a “helpful” set of guidelines for upcoming holidays. Celebrating Halloween or Thanksgiving as we did in the “old normal” is out of the question. Consider a “virtual” Thanksgiving, they recommend. Also today, CNN tells us there is NO RETURN to normal, and if you want to return you may be mentally ill. Also – Why is CIA Director Haspel blocking declassification of documents critical to understanding “Russiagate”? Also, as discussed on today’s program, get your copy of Dr. Paul’s BRAND NEW mini-book, “The End of Unearned Opulence” with a $50 donation to the Ron Paul Institute. For a $100 donation, Dr. Paul will hand-sign it. This is a LIMITED TIME offer!

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