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Why Is Peter Hotez Afraid To Debate RFK, Jr.?
Click on the headline to read the full story from Ron Paul Institute
![]() ![]() Why Is Peter Hotez Afraid To Debate RFK, Jr.? Click on the headline to read the full story from Ron Paul Institute
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![]() ![]() ![]() Governments worldwide are trying to replace cash with CBDCs, and people worldwide are starting to wake up, but we need a lot more. A CBDC is a government-run crypto-token that replaces the national currency with a tracking ledger—a list of who owns what—that lets government surveil, control, and mandate every dollar you spend. They could prevent you from buying the wrong thing, whether raw milk or gas stoves, or self-defense. They could stop you from donating to the wrong person, as we saw with the Canadian Truckers. They could even force you to buy whatever a government bureaucrat tells you to. On top of the Soviet-style surveillance state, a CBDC is an existential threat to the banking system, to the US dollar and would give central planners push-button control over every element of your life. Popular Pushback against CBDCs Last week, the right-leaning Austrian Freedom Party lodged a protest against the current left-wing government ignoring a referendum on the right to use cash after an overwhelming 530,000 Austrians signed a referendum petition. With CBDCs being pushed worldwide in the face of widespread public opposition, I think we’ll see more clashes over protecting the people’s right to save, and to spend, anonymously with cash—something we’ve had for a long time and taken for granted but now under threat of being seized into a CBDC, a giant balance sheet the government can surveil and manipulate at will, turning your money into an allowance. In fact, a recent poll found that Americans overwhelmingly reject a CBDC, and opposition rises as they learn more about it. For example, opposition doubles when people learn a CBDC can be used to freeze the bank accounts of political protestors, it rises to even more when they learn a CBDC allows governments to monitor your spending, and it rises to 74% when they learn a CBDC lets government control your spending. Cholera polls better. So why do governments keep pushing CBDCs when voters hate them? Simple: CBDCs are irresistible to governments who would dearly love to monitor and control every dollar you spend and every word you speak—think of the opportunities for social engineering, reparations, or a China-style social credit system. Meanwhile, punishing political opponents with a CBDC means controlling speech. This means permanent job security for politicians who serve the deep state first with the people as an afterthought. How Governments Use “Pilots” to Build CBDCs The easiest to stop a CBDC is, of course, to make sure your government doesn’t start one. Unfortunately, central banks worldwide—8, at last count, starting with China—are running CBDC "pilots," allegedly for research, that build fully-functioning CBDCs without authorization. These should be stopped for the same reason governments shouldn't be "piloting," say, tools to mass-censor political speech. The people control the government, not the other way around, and we tell them what they're allowed to "pilot.” ![]() (Bigger) By the way, central banks can run these pilots without authorization because they're self-funding—they print their own budgets with their basement money printers. Meaning in many countries, central banks do what they like, free of the power of the purse that controls most of government. In fact, many central banks, including the Fed, are largely exempt from Freedom of Information requirements where the government has to tell the people what it's up to. As Murray Rothbard put it, the Fed has less Congressional oversight—meaning less voter oversight—than the CIA. This means central banks will do what they like until Congress very specifically tells them not to do it—I mean spelled out like central bankers are five-year-olds, including blanket CBDC bans even when they try to sneak one in by running it through banks or contractors. CBDC pushers are building them using central bank machinery that's immune to voters. It's up to us to make our representatives stop them before we're locked in a digital cage that none of us voted for. Next Step after Pilots: Forcing People to Use the CBDC Worldwide, so far there have been two major implementations of a CBDC. The first was China, which has never met a totalitarian technology it doesn't love. The second was Nigeria. In 2021 the Nigerian government pushed out its CBDC, the eNaira. Almost nobody used it—uptake was about 0.5%, pretty rough in a population that is among the most crypto-savvy in the world: over a third of Nigerians own Bitcoin, and over half use crypto. So it's not the technology, Nigerians just really hate CBDCs. Given this pathetic showing, the Nigerian government turned to hardball. First, they mandated discounts for paying in CBDC, then redesigned the physical currency to flush out informal cash. Finally, they went nuclear, limiting cash withdrawals from ATMs to $40 per day to force people into the CBDC and achieve a "100% cashless economy." Now, the informal cash-based economy in Nigeria is an enormous share of output. It's life or death for Nigeria's 200 million people because it's the only part outside government control, so it's also the only part of Nigeria's economy that actually works. Meaning, of course, that the cash limits led to complete chaos. People couldn't buy groceries, stores couldn't stock shelves, gas stations ran out of fuel in the largest oil-producing country in Africa. Nigeria was rocked by widespread riots, including burning down banks and even central bank branches. By the way, the American-backed contractor who built Nigeria's CBDC, asked about the cash limits and the riots they caused, praised the restrictions as a "creative option" that he expects to happen in other countries that impose CBDCs. Making Nigeria a cautionary tale. What’s Next As much as people worldwide hate CBDCs, governments worldwide love them: Between the totalitarian surveillance and control, and the godlike central planning of a CBDC, they will not stop until voters make them stop. Some Republicans have been proactive on the CBDC threat: Senator Mike Lee has introduced a Senate bill to ban all forms of CBDCs, while governors like Ron DeSantis have moved to ban CBDCs in his state of Florida. As for other countries, most voters still don’t grasp the threat CBDCs represent to their financial freedom and human rights even as rogue “pilots” spread like mushrooms. Time is running out to stop them. [Originally published stonge.substack.com.] Reprinted with permission from Mises.org. Voters Hate CBDCs. Why Do Governments Keep Pushing Them? Click on the headline to read the full story from Ron Paul Institute Harvard Poll: 55 Percent of the Public View the Trump Indictment as 'Politically Motivated'6/19/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() A Harvard/Harris poll is bad news for Attorney General Merrick Garland and the Justice Department. The poll shows that 55% of Americans believe Trump’s indictment is politically motivated and 56% believe that it constitutes election interference. The poll captures the level of distrust for the Justice Department and further demonstrates what I described yesterday as the failure of Merrick Garland at the midpoint of his tenure as Attorney General. The view of the case appears to be worsening. Now there is less than a majority viewing the indictment as well-founded and justified. The poll shows that 83% of Republicans and 55% of Independents view the indictment as a political exercise. Not only do 56 percent view it as election interference but only 44 percent see it as “the fair application of the law”: The poll is also bad news for Biden. Some 65 percent believe Biden “mishandled” classified material while 72 percent take that view with Clinton’s email scandal. The Justice Department and the media appear to have “lost the room” with the American people. They are primarily appealing to Democrats who (at 80%) support the indictment. The FBI and the Justice Department made this perception worse through continual leaks to the media and allegedly staging the photo above after the raid on Mar-a-Lago. By his own measure, Garland has failed to restore the credibility and trust in the Justice Department. It now appears worse than when his predecessor, Bill Barr, was in office. It is also an indictment of the media. After years of “advocacy journalism” and biased reporting, the public now tunes out the media. This is a strong indictment with troubling allegations and evidence. Yet, it does not matter because the media long ago lost much of the country with one-sided, unrelenting coverage. It also means that this case could conceivably never see a jury unless Special Counsel Jack Smith succeeds in pushing for a speedy trial before the election. A majority of the public now supports a pardon for Trump if he is convicted. With these polls, the pressure of other Republican candidates to pledge a pardon is likely to increase. Indeed, as suggested in another column, Biden may want to consider a pledge to commute any sentence to try to defang this building election issue. Reprinted with permission from JonathanTurley.org. Harvard Poll: 55 Percent of the Public View the Trump Indictment as 'Politically Motivated' Click on the headline to read the full story from Ron Paul Institute ![]() ![]() ![]() Most people agree that we are closer to nuclear war than at any time since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Some would even argue that we are closer now than we were in those fateful days, when Soviet missiles in Cuba almost triggered a nuclear war between the US and the USSR. In those days we were told that we were in a life-or-death struggle with Communism and thus could not cede a square foot of territory or the dominoes would fall one-by-one until the “Reds” ruled over us. That crisis was very real to me, as I was drafted into the military in the middle of the US/USSR standoff over Cuba and we could all feel how close we were to annihilation. Fortunately, we had a president in the White House at the time who understood the dangers of nuclear brinkmanship. Even though he was surrounded by hawks who could never forgive him for aborting the idiotic Bay of Pigs Cuba invasion, President John F. Kennedy picked up the telephone for a discussion with his Soviet counterpart, Nikita Khrushchev, which eventually saved the world. Historians now tell us that President Kennedy agreed to remove US missiles from Turkey in exchange for the Soviets removing missiles from Cuba. It was a classic case of how diplomacy can work if properly employed. It is all too clear that we do not have a John F. Kennedy in the White House today. Although we no longer face a Soviet empire and communist ideology as justification for taking a confrontational tone toward Russia, the Biden Administration is still dragging the US toward a nuclear conflict. Why are they putting us all at risk? The same old “domino theory” that was discredited in the Cold War: If we don’t fight Russia down to the last Ukrainian, Putin will soon be marching through Berlin. This all started with Biden promising to only send uniforms and medical supplies to Ukraine for fear of sparking a Russian retaliation. From there we went to anti-tank missiles, multiple-rocket launchers, Patriot missiles, Bradley fighting vehicles, and millions of rounds of ammunition. The Biden Administration announced last week that it would send depleted uranium ammunition to Ukraine, which poisons the earth for millennia to come. Rumors are that long-range ATACMs missiles are to be delivered soon, which could strike deep into Russia. Apparently, F-16 fighter jets are also on the way. The escalation rationale from Washington, we are told, is that since the Russians have not directly retaliated against NATO for NATO’s direct support of Ukraine’s war machine, we can be sure they never will respond. Is that really a wise bet? It is clear to many that US-built F-16 fighters taking off from NATO bases with NATO pilots attacking Russians in Ukraine – or even Russia itself – would be a declaration of war on Russia. That means World War III – something we managed to avoid for the whole Cold War. Congress is silent – or compliant – as we lurch forward toward disaster for no discernable US strategic goal. Biden – or whoever is actually running the show – is forging straight ahead. As we move into the US presidential election cycle one thing is clear: we desperately need a peace president to do for us what JFK did for the US during the Cuba crisis. Hopefully it won’t be too late! We Need a Peace President Click on the headline to read the full story from Ron Paul Institute ![]() ![]() ![]() On June 4/5 the Ukrainian military launched its long announced counteroffensive in southeast Ukraine. Ten days later there is no significant progress. This is not the outcome the war propagandists expected: [General Petreus] spoke about the situation in Ukraine to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.Back in reality the lead elements of the Ukrainian attack got slaughtered. They 'culminated', i.e. lost their ability for further attacks, in less than a day: The men of Ukraine’s 37th Brigade were freshly trained and armed with Western-supplied weapons, tasked with an initial push through Russian-occupied territory in the early days of a long-awaited counteroffensive.Whoever trained those units made grave mistakes: For the first hour and a half of the 37th’s assault near Velyka Novosilka, the Russians bombarded the unit with nonstop shelling that penetrated their AMX-10 RC armored vehicles, according to Grey, another soldier in the battalion who spoke on the condition that he be identified only by his call sign. The armored vehicles, sometimes called “light tanks,” were not heavy enough to protect the soldiers, Grey said, and had to be positioned behind them instead of in front.The AMX-10 isn't a tank and can not be used as one. It is a wheeled light reconnaissance vehicle built by France 50 years ago to dominate insurgents in its former African colonies. One of its main features is to have a good speed when in reverse gear. This to bail out as soon as serious counter forces are detected. The Ukrainian counterattack is now stuck in the Russian defense security zone, miles away from the real defense lines. This was predictable. As the US Field Manual 100-2-1 described the Soviet army in defense (pg 93ff): When the defense is established before contact with the enemy, the Soviets establish a security echelon up to 15 kilometers forward of the main defensive area. The elements which make up the security echelon come from the division's second echelon. A security force of up to battalion size may be deployed in front of each first echelon regiment.The Ukrainian army used at least four brigades for its attack. At least two of those were from the 12 brigade reserve that had been built up for the counterattack. With losses of some 30% those involved were seriously mauled for little to no gain: The Russians are trying to inflict as many casualties and destroy as many vehicles as possible in a battle zone ahead of the main defensive line, depleting Ukrainian forces before they reach it. In effect, it turns the area in front of the main defense line into a kill zone. ... If the Russian strategy proves effective, Ukraine could lose too many of its newly trained troops — which number in the tens of thousands — and too many tanks and infantry fighting vehicles to breach the main line. Even if they get that far, the forces might be too weakened to stream south and help accomplish a major objective: severing the so-called land bridge that connects Russia to the occupied Crimean Peninsula. This would be done by reaching the Sea of Azov, about 60 miles away. The Ukrainian forces were obviously not trained for this. They also attacked in too many places. The map at the top shows attack arrows in 7 places and four main directions. One or two attack directions, with more concentrated forces, might have created better results. The Russian President Putin recently described the Ukrainian casualties: I will not give the number of personnel losses. I will let the Defence Ministry do it after it runs the numbers, but the structure of losses is unfavourable for them as well. What I mean to say is that of all personnel losses – and they are approaching a number that can be called catastrophic – the structure of these losses is unfavourable for them. Because as we know, losses can be sanitary or irretrievable. Usually, I am afraid I may be off a little, but irretrievable losses are around 25 percent, maximum 30 percent while their losses are almost 50/50. This is my first point.Since the start of the counterattack the Russian daily report has listed a total of some 10,500 Ukrainian casualties. A second large attempt to cross the Forward Edge of the Battle Area (FEBA) with the remaining Ukrainian forces is expected, but is unlikely to have a better outcome. The long promoted Ukrainian counterattack is likely to end with high Ukrainian losses and no gains. This then will soon become a huge political problem: As he heads into next year’s reelection campaign, Biden needs a major battlefield victory to show that his unqualified support for Ukraine has burnished US global leadership, reinvigorated a strong foreign policy with bipartisan support and demonstrated the prudent use of American military strength abroad.There is little the Biden administration can do to change the grim picture. Congress will likely prevent it from openly using the US military in Ukraine. The European NATO allies have now seen what the Russian army can do to its enemies. They will not be eager to see the same done to their own troops. That leaves negotiations as the only way out. The question for Russia is when and with whom. Talks with only Ukraine, a mere US proxy with no real say, would be insufficient. It is the US government that must agree to a new security architecture in Europe. The Russian conditions for peace will be harsh and it will still take a lot of time, and many dead Ukrainians, until the US agrees to them. Reprinted with permission from Moon of Alabama. On The Failure Of The Ukrainian Counterattack Click on the headline to read the full story from Ron Paul Institute ![]() ![]() ![]() Japanese internment camps, US, WWII. Czech President Petr Pavel just took anti-Russian xenophobia to a new level, saying this week that he's in favor of Russians living in Western countries being "monitored" by authorities, akin to what happened with Japanese people living in the United States during World War II. "All Russians living in Western countries should be monitored much more than in the past because they are citizens of a nation that leads an aggressive war," Pavel told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in a fresh interview published on Thursday. In the comments he actually directly invoked the historical example of people of Japanese descent being monitored and placed in internment camps during WWII as comparable to what should happen to Russians, defending it as the "cost of war". "I can be sorry for these people, but at the same time when we look back, when the Second World War started, all the Japanese population living in the United States were under a strict monitoring regime as well," he said. "That’s simply a cost of war." ![]() Czech President Petr Pavel Pavel in the interview clarified that by "monitoring" he means "being under the scrutiny of the security services." Following the Pearl Harbor attack by Japan in 1941, the US has sent some 120,000 Japanese then living in the US to prison camps, with up to half of these being children. In the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan issued a formal apology while President Biden in February called it "one of the most shameful periods in American history." As for Russians, the Ukraine war has resulted in everything from Russians being banned from many international sporting competitions to cancelations of operas featuring Russian composers, to even attacks on Russian restaurants and tea rooms. For many in the West, the one form of racism which is "OK" is discrimination against Russians just for having Russian ethnicity or nationality, apparently. Last year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky urged Western governments to implement a blanket ban on all Russian travelers, given his rationale that the "whole population" of Russia was responsible for the invasion. Reprinted with permission from ZeroHedge. Czech President Wants West To 'Monitor' Russians Like Japanese During WWII Click on the headline to read the full story from Ron Paul Institute ![]() ![]() ![]() Occam's razor is not a one-size-fits-all problem-solving principle, but it’s often times the most helpful philosophical approach to tuning out the noise and focusing on the most important facts to reconstruct what actually happened. And if we engage the Occam’s razor principle, the truth about covid hysteria appears undeniable. If we remove the convoluted narratives being spun by the pseudoscience-heavy professions that are virology, epidemiology, and “public health,” the answer is clear to any rational thinker. Yes, it was just the flu, bro. ![]() (Bigger) At the onset of the covid hysteria era, the “experts” took pains to tell us that this was no ordinary viral outbreak, but a “novel” virus situation that required a novel response, through the infamous “measures” that resulted in the destruction of civilization. Why was this seasonal respiratory infection outbreak different than any other seasonal respiratory infection outbreak? First, we were told that the novel virus carried unique symptoms for those burdened by the disease. But there were no unique symptoms for those burdened by the disease. According to the CDC, flu symptoms include “fever, cough, sore throat, runny or stuffy nose, body aches, headache, chills and/or fatigue.” According to the CDC, covid symptoms include fever, cough, sore throat, runny or stuffy nose, body aches, headache, chills and/or fatigue. The most common “novel” symptom that was promoted was a temporary mitigation of taste and smell. Weird. Must be a bioweapon or something, right? Wrong. The loss of taste and smell is common for any and all upper respiratory tract infections. Then they told us that this was different from flu season because it was a novel coronavirus. This bolstered the fear element because, despite being in the same family as the common cold, there was no way it could be “just the flu, bro.” Well, structurally speaking, it is a coronavirus versus an influenza virus. Yet prior to the establishment of the covid testing industrial complex (which brought in over $100 billion a year at its peak), flu was almost always diagnosed by the symptoms, not by a PCR test, and again, covid symptoms are virtually identical to flu symptoms. During the Wuhan hysteria, the “experts’ tried to convince us that this virus is clearly much more lethal AND contagious than the flu (which is logically improbable if not impossible), citing the weird Wuhan Zombieland situation that was clearly being manipulated by various state actors, for reasons unknown. Yet the most reputable and cited scientists early on hypothesized that there was little to no difference in lethality between covid and the flu, and they turned out to be correct. There were no novel symptoms. There was no novel treatment. There was nothing significantly alarming or threatening about this “bioweapon” to 99+% of the population. The covid era may go down in the history books as a pandemic of the century, but this is entirely based on the most widespread government-incentivized statistical fraud known to man. ![]() We witnessed the fastest roll up of power in human history, all based on the premise that there was something novel when no such novel situation existed, other than the claim that the virus was novel, but no novel actions were needed. The best explanation for covid is that it was just the flu (not in virological terms but in how the annual respiratory season is understood), repackaged to appear much scarier. Trillions of dollars in waste and fraud, and billions of damaged lives later, I suppose you can say that the mission was accomplished, but at a devastating toll to humanity. It’s worth remembering this when watching all of the geopolitical noise over the lab leak debate. A flu-like virus was not responsible for wrecking society and sending millions into poverty and famine. No, that was the work of the people in charge of society. Flu season was just recategorized as covid, and there was nothing particularly unique about it. It really was just the flu, bro. Reprinted with permission from The Dossier. Subscribe and support here. It really was just the flu, bro Click on the headline to read the full story from Ron Paul Institute ![]() ![]() ![]() Unless you are over the age of 45 you likely do not have living memory of the Kremlin “Watching” that accompanied major Soviet holidays. The term “Kremlin Watching” refers to the practice of examining photos like the one above to assess political status in the Soviet Government by identifying the men who occupied the most prominent positions on the viewing stand above Lenin’s tomb. In this photo from 1965 you can see (from left to right) Anastas Mikoyan, Marshal of the Soviet Union Rodion Malinovsky, Leonid Brezhnev and Alexei Kosygin commemorating the 20th anniversary of victory over the Nazis. CIA analysts were keen to look at these line ups in trying to assess who was up and who was on their way out in wielding political power. Brezhnev and Kosygin held the reins of power. Those were the good old days. The CIA warned Ukraine not to destroy Nord Stream months before an attack on the gas pipelines, after receiving a tip from Dutch military intelligence, according to media reports.Politico is not the only one spreading this fable; other more prominent outlets, including the Washington Post, New York Times and Reuters, also piled on Zaluzhny. The media is eager to carry the CIA’s water and shift blame for the attack from the US, which according to Sy Hersh’s excellent reporting, hatched and carried out the sabotage. So why is Zaluzhny being made the scapegoat? I can think of several reasons. For starters Zaluzhny is perceived as the guy to blame for the unfolding disastrous Ukrainian counter offensive. The BBC did a slick job this week of sticking the shiv into Zaluzhny’s back by crediting him as the mastermind of the Ukrainian offensive: Ukraine’s long-awaited attempt to take back the territories in the east and south of the country, occupied by Russia for the past 18 months, is now in full swing.Zaluzhny already was under a cloud with rumors circulating over the past month that he suffered serious wounds from a Russian artillery barrage and is no longer capable of exercising command. If someone has to be punished ordering the destruction of Nordstream it is best to saddle the General who is no longer relevant militarily and is physically unable defend himself with the onus for this act of economic terrorism. Zaluzhny, fair or not, has the misfortune of being in the wrong place and the wrong time. Sort of reminds me of the movie, Throw Momma from the Train. Instead of Danny DeVito’s character plotting to terminate his horror of a mother, played by Anne Ramsey, we have Vladimir Zelensky — with the backing of Washington, D.C. — putting the crosshairs on Zaluzhny. If Zaluzhny is still intact, both mentally and physically, then I am pretty confident he can read the tea leaves and realizes he has a big, fat target painted on his back and will try to figure out a strategy to reassert his authority or salvage his reputation. In any event, the last thing an army in the midst of offensive operations needs is the distraction of its leader being savaged by Western media as the guy responsible for destroying Nordstream. Zaluzhny is strangely silent in the face of this outrageous allegation. Why is that? Reprinted with permission from Sonar21.com. Welcome to 21st Century Kremlin Watching with a Ukrainian Twist Click on the headline to read the full story from ![]() ![]() ![]() We have minimum low regard for Donald Trump, and not merely because he is a bombastic lout and world historic megalomaniac. His policies were terrible, too. The Federal budget and debt exploded on his watch; the Fed printed money recklessly even as he demanded more; and the free market was kicked hard in the pants by his immigration and trade policies, the unforgivable Covid Lockdowns and the Trump-inspired mass vaccination campaign for an untested gene therapy that he rushed to market via what history will characterize as the cruelly named Operation Warp Speed. Moreover, we hope against the odds that somehow the Donald will stumble fatally during the course of the GOP primary season, thereby paving the way for at least a half-assed Republican like Ron DeSantis to become the nominee. After all, a nominee who is not Trump is the only real hope of blocking another term for the present occupant and semi-comatose sock-puppet of the Washington ruling class. Still, the indictment of America’s leading opposition candidate for President in 2024 is a road way, way too far. Indeed, the existential threat to Democracy that was foolishly ascribed to the January 6th yokels’ riot in the US Capitol is, in fact, embedded in the utterly bullshit criminal case filed by the Deep State apparatchik who was appointed Special Prosecutor by the nation’s malefic Attorney General, Merrick Garland. In a word, the criminal prosecution of an ex-president and current election front-runner entails a super-heavy burden of proof. It needs be predicated upon a damn serious crime and demonstrable threat to America’s national security or core democratic processes. That’s because the present circumstance inherently involves a balancing act between enforcement of the law, on the one hand, and the sanctity of free elections and the absolute need for political neutrality by the agencies of the state and most especially the machinery of justice, on the other. By contrast, the Jack Smith indictment is the very opposite. It’s self-evidently an exercise in prosecutorial “I gotcha” and an utterly misplaced and inappropriate attempt to demonstrate that nobody is above the law, even its fine points and gray areas. Based on the flimsy content within the four walls of the indictment itself there is no earthly reason why this indictment should have been handed down against a retired president—except to remove a political rival from contention banana republic style. In truth, this action by the weaponized Biden Justice Department amounts to a present day variation of the aphorism immortalized by Stalin’s security chief, Levrenti Beria: “Show me Donald Trump and I’ll show you the crime”. That is to say, the indictment does not accuse Trump of using the classified documents in his possession for any untoward purpose. He is not accused of selling them for money or passing them along to his alleged buddy, Vlad Putin, or even to undermine domestic political opponents. No, the alleged crime is that he illegally possessed documents with “classified markings” and stored them improperly at various times in a ballroom, bathroom and storage room at Mar-a-Logo. So the crime wasn’t illicit use but custodial sloppiness, and that’s only the half of it. Apparently, the Donald was not the only sloppy housekeeper. Here is a photo of some of the boxes in question after they were stacked on a White House parking lot at the time Trump vacated the Oval Office. There are a bunch of staffers and moving crews standing around, but no armed patrols to safeguard the purportedly sacred national security secrets allegedly contained in the boxes. ![]() So, yes, they were not spirited out of the White House in the dead of night. They were simply dumped there in broad daylight by White House staff, where they were loaded on trucks in plain view and subsequently flown to Mar-a-Logo. As it happened, these hundreds of boxes were mainly stuffed with newspaper clippings, White House memos, photos, menus and sundry other communications, intermixed with what turns out to be a tiny portion— 337 documents—- containing “classified markings”. It is utterly clear from the complete silence of the indictment on the matter of the original shipment that this admixture was not the result of some surreptitious effort to sneak classified documents out of the White House in January 2021. They were simply a collection of the Donald’s treasured working papers—just like the ones that used to be piled high in his New York real estate HQ— that had been boxed up and sent out to the parking lot for loading on a truck. Indeed, this indictment is known as a “speaking indictment” owing to the photos, detailed narratives and endless trivia contained in its 44 pages. All this material is designed to convict Trump in the court of public opinion long before the actual trial. But when it comes to the unspoken (by the MSM) heart of the matter—the evidently innocent circumstances by which these documents got to Mar-a-Lago in the first place—we have a proverbial case of the dog that didn’t bark. To wit, purportedly crucial national security documents are held to have just walked out the White House door. But when it comes to a potential illicit purpose for that undisputed fact there is no sinister-sounding DOJ narrative, no accusations, no tick-tock style trivia contained elsewhere in the indictment. For instance, did Donald Trump personally and knowingly select these classified documents and order them to be interspersed among newspaper clippings and photos in order to sneak them out of the White House? On that crucial question we get just crickets. Moreover, there is good reason why this is so. In 2012, Judicial Watch tried to force former President Bill Clinton to turn over dozens of interview tapes he kept from his presidency and stored in a sock drawer. Clinton claimed the tapes were personal and the court sided with him. Judge Amy Berman Jackson, an appointee of President Barack Obama, went so far as to argue that the court had no way to second-guess a president’s assertion of what is and isn’t personal. “Since the President is completely entrusted with the management and even the disposal of Presidential records during his time in office, it would be difficult for this Court to conclude that Congress intended that he would have less authority to do what he pleases with what he considers to be his personal records,” Jackson wrote.Indeed, unless you were attempting to manufacture a crime, the evident fact is that the Donald wanted his documents boxed up and sent to Mar-a-Logo and didn’t know about or bother with the official procedures. And no one in the White House said you can’t do that because if they had, Jack Smith’s smash-mouth prosecutors would have threatened someone with a 20-year gig in Uncle Sam’s hospitality suite, who would have coughed it up to the DOJ cops forthwith. As it is, therefore, what surely constituted a single-digit fraction of the several tons of paper sent to Mar-a-Lago contained “classified markings” because no one sorted them out, not because Trump was trying to break the law. Moreover, “classified markings” can refer to a range of security clearances including confidential, secret, top secret and also declassified papers that still have their security markings. And in the case of the Donald’s document trove that would especially be the case. After all, he had the undisputed power to declassify them—even without official documentation—when they were being boxed up and to treat them as personal, not official, documents. Did he do this? Again, crickets in the indictment. And this gets us to the whole sanctimony about “classified documents”. These are not sacred texts in any way, shape or form. They do not deserve either reverence or the harshest applications of the law because the entire national security classification system is the instrument by which the Warfare State escapes the rule of law and democratic accountability. The system has become so rotten with abuse, excess and deceit that it should be treated with contempt, not as an excuse to arrest a former president for mishandling a relatively small number of these endlessly generated documents as amplified below. In fact, at the present time there are believed to be a billion documents in existence carrying these “classified markings”. It is estimated that each year more than 50 million new documents are given “classified markings” of one level or another. And the overwhelming aim is not to keep secrets from real enemies and threats to America’s homeland security because there are actually few of these; the purpose is to keep the Congress and the American public in the dark about the machinations of the Warfare State. Needless to say, it was the infinitely expansive nature of the national security classifications system that enabled a “Where’s Waldo” fishing expedition by the FBI, once it got wind of the classified documents at Mar-a-Lago from the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). That the DOJ/FBI was then festering with partisan, anti-Trump bias at the highest levels should have been self-evident from the get-go. After all, the entire RussiaGate witch-hunt ending in the Mueller nothing-burger wasn’t even remotely a legitimate exercise in law enforcement. But once Trump’s staff voluntarily delivered the initial batch of documents containing 197 papers with “classified markings” on January 17, 2022 to NARA, the proverbial Deep State went into high gear. Just 14 days later NARA referred the case to DOJ on February 9th, yet there is no indication that any of the 69 documents marked “confidential” or the 98 marked “secret” or the 30 marked “top secret” had been misused by Trump in any way, or that the documents had actually done anything except rest in the boxes originally dumped on the White House parking lot per the photo above. Still, by March 30, 2022 based on the initial batch of documents alone the DOJ launched a criminal investigation. It then quickly convened a Grand Jury on April 26th and issued a subpoena on May 11th for documents based on no evidence whatsoever that any of these 197 documents voluntarily delivered by Trump’s office had been misused. In effect, a “Where’s Waldo” hunt was now underway to find something on which to base a criminal charge. But based on the gleeful and context-free MSM reporting on Trump’s arraignment you can’t find even a hint of the Where’s Waldo part. Yet to backtrack, it needs be recognized that in the first instance this whole affair was triggered by an apparently routine National Archives and Records Administration communication to Trump’s operation. The NARA is supposed to receive all presidential records when a president or vice president leaves office, and in this case it indicated a belief that some official documents—possibly contained in the above piles— were missing and that the archives needed them back. After several months of to and fro communications with the NARA, Trump’s staff had sent 15 boxes of documents from Mar-a-Lago to the archives in January 2022. These boxes contained the aforementioned 197 classified documents, of which just 15% were marked top secret. We emphasis the “top secret” items because the lower classifications come a dime a dozen in the CYA-oriented security agencies. For instance, in one of the cables leaked by Chelsea Manning an official had marked details of wedding rituals in the Russian region of Dagestan as “confidential”. It seems, however, that most such mundane details were already well known in a region of more than three million people, and had been for centuries. So at most just a handful of documents with “classified markings” of all levels contained in the returned boxes had any potentially meaningful bearing on national security. But read the indictment as carefully as you please, and there is no indication whatsoever that this first batch of 30 “top secret” documents from the Waldo hunt implicated Trump in any kind of nefarious or dubious plot. Next, the FBI later learned that Trump had more government documents, but rather than simply ask for them it weaponized-up per the above described sequence of steps, issuing a subpoena commanding their return. In response in June 2022 Trump’s lawyers turned over a packet that included another 38 classified documents, including 17 marked top secret. Again, the indictment alleges no nefarious implications with respect to these documents, either. So by this point the Where’s Waldo search of tons of paper produced 47 “top secret” documents, none of which apparently implicated any risk to national security. Had the latter actually been the case, you can be sure that Smith’s “gotcha” speaking indictment would have made a big deal of it. In any event, the FBI apparently concluded that Trump had not fully complied with the subpoena and still had even more classified documents. Waldo had to be in there somewhere! So that’s when they went full retard on the weaponization front, actually obtaining a search warrant for his Mar-a-Lago property in August and stormed into the joint in Mafia bust fashion. Folks, that’s damn near the crime itself. After finding 235 documents with “classified markings” during the first two forays and just 47 top secret ones with zero untoward implications, they manhandled an ex-president without any justification whatever. This time they found another 102 so-called classified documents, of which just 17 were marked top secret. But here’s the thing: With a total of 64 top secret documents from the search, the indictment cites only two instances where they were allegedly misused. And in one instance, the misuse is surely a joke and in the other case the DOJ got the wrong crime. As regards the joke, at a September 2021 meeting with a representative of his own political action committee, the indictment notes the following: During the meeting, TRUMP commented that an ongoing military operation in Country B was not going well. TRUMP showed the PAC Representative a classified map of Country B and told the PAC Representative that he should not be showing the map to the PAC Representative and to not get too close. The PAC Representative did not have a security clearance or any need-to-know classified information about the military operation.For crying out loud! Did his man–who apparently squinted at the map—have a photographic memory, and what did he do with this flash look at the map, anyway? Apparently nothing—or the indictment would have had guns blaring out the treasonous misuse. The other implied misuse is even more preposterous. During July 21, 2021 Trump gave an interview in his office at The Bedminster Club to a writer and a publisher in connection with a then-forthcoming book. Two members of Trump’s staff also attended the interview, which was recorded with Trump’s knowledge and consent. As it turns out, however, Trump exposed the real criminal. A few days before the session the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Mark Milley, had told the press that Trump had wanted to bomb Iran and that he had stopped the Donald from doing so. To the contrary, it was the Donald’s recollection—true or not—that the boot had been on the other foot. Per the transcript of the recording, Trump told his audience-- TRUMP: Well, with [the Senior Military Official]—uh, let me see that, I’ll show you an example. He said that I wanted to attack [Country A]. Isn’t it amazing? I have a big pile of papers, this thing just came up. Look. This was him. They presented me this—this is off the record, but—they presented me this. This was him. This was the Defense Department and him.Let’s see. Had Congress passed a declaration of war against Iran? Had it even debated the matter in any coherent way? Then again, exactly why is Iran even a threat to America’s homeland security? Do they have nuclear weapons, a program to develop them or a fleet of ICBMs or nuclear submarines or long range bombers to deliver them? Obviously, the answer is “no” in all cases. So why was there even a plan to bomb Iran? In short, what would actually be criminal would be bombing of Iran without a declaration of war and for no valid reason of homeland security. At the end of the day, Tucker Carlson hit the nail on the head on his third Twitter show earlier this week. The Donald had the gall to question the War Party in February 2016 during the GOP primary debates and they have been determined to put him in jail ever since. Alas, this indictment is such a threadbare “gotcha” job that its true purpose to disable the leading opposition candidate for the 2024 election is plain as day. Unlike the ballyhooed January 6th riot, this is a true insurrection against American democracy, the likes of which we have never before experienced as a nation. Reprinted with permission from David Stockman's Contra Corner. Subscribe here. The Trump 'Gotcha' Indictment Click on the headline to read the full story from Peace and Prosperity ![]() ![]() ![]() Some foreign policy myths are so entrenched and tenacious that no amount of evidence seems able to dislodge them. An especially prominent one in recent years is that Donald Trump was Vladimir Putin’s puppet and adopted shameful policies that appeased Moscow. The latest example of that pervasive smear was an article by Peggy Noonan in the May 18, 2023, edition of the Wall Street Journal. In that piece, Noonan manages to regurgitate nearly every stale myth about Trump being too cozy with Putin, even though she endorsed the findings of John Durham’s investigation that there was woefully insufficient evidence to justify either the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane Investigation or the subsequent Mueller Commission probe. "I have no reason to doubt the Durham report," she stated, "but it’s still curious that Trump treated Putin so gently." Her principal (almost sole) piece of evidence about such gentle treatment was Trump’s indiscreet comments during the press conference following the May 2018 summit meeting with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki. When asked a classic "gotcha" question by Associated Press correspondent Jonathan Lemire about alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election, Trump clumsily tried to finesse the query. Noonan observes that "Mr. Trump took that moment to denounce the FBI, implying the bureau was incompetent or corrupt. He then said he had been told by the director of national intelligence Dan Coats, that Russia had interfered. But Mr. Putin denied it: "He just said it’s not Russia." Trump added that "President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today." Noonan favorably quotes ultra-war hawk Sen. John McCain that Helsinki was "one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president in memory." Trump obviously did not deserve high marks for his management of the press conference. A smarter, more experienced political leader would simply have fended off Lemire’s question by stating that he "obviously" was not going to discuss such a sensitive diplomatic and security issue in a public setting. Instead, Trump blundered ahead and gave his political adversaries valuable ammunition. Nevertheless, two important points need to be made about the Helsinki summit being meaningful evidence that the US president was a Russian agent or at least a Putin patsy. First, most summits are notorious for their sugar-coated, cordial statements. It is doubtful that Richard Nixon truly meant the compliments that he paid to communist tyrants Zhou Enlai and Mao Zedong during his famous 1972 trip to China. It is even less likely that Jimmy Carter was sincere in his New Year’s Eve toast to the Shah of Iran. Carter gushed that "Iran, because of the great leadership of the Shah, is an island of stability in one of the more troubled areas of the world. This is a great tribute to you, Your Majesty, and to your leadership and to the respect and the admiration and love which your people give to you." Later, he asserted: "The cause of human rights is one that also is shared deeply by our people and by the leaders of our two nations." The reality was that the Shah’s regime was one of the worst human rights violators in the world, and Carter was fully aware of that fact. Yet he was willing to ignore the obvious as part of the diplomatic blather that routinely accompanies summits. Trump’s efforts to soothe Putin at Helsinki was not a marked departure from the usual practice. Second, and more important, Trump’s actions as president thoroughly debunk the notion that he was doing Putin’s bidding. To the contrary, Washington’s stance toward Russia became more hardline and confrontational throughout the Trump years. The administration terminated US adherence to the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty and the Open Skies agreement, even though continuing both measures were high priority items for Moscow. Trump even attempted to reach an agreement with Warsaw to establish a permanent US military base (a "Fort Trump) in Poland, and US operational military cooperation with several East European members of NATO noticeably increased. It was Washington’s policy toward Ukraine, however, that became the epitome of the Trump administration’s confrontational, provocative behavior toward Russia. The United States began to train Ukrainian troops and send multiple arms shipments to Kyiv. Those moves constituted a notable escalation, since Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, had steadfastly declined to make either move. Trump also authorized joint military exercises (war games) with US and Ukrainian forces and encouraged other NATO members to do the same. There is even evidence that US intelligence agencies collaborated with the Ukrainian counterparts to launch cyberattacks on Russian targets. If such actions constituted appeasement and reflected the behavior of a Putin puppet, the Russian president had one incredibly disobedient puppet. The reality is that Trump was an anti-Russia hawk, and that his administration’s policies made relations between Washington and Moscow more hostile and confrontational. Indeed, Trump helped pave the way for America’s current risky proxy war against Russia in Ukraine. It is well past time that the "Trump was Putin’s puppet" myth be given an emphatic burial. Reprinted with permission from Antiwar.com. The Big Lie That Won’t Die: Trump as Putin’s Puppet Click on the headline to read the full story from |
Ron Paul
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