The wailing sound you heard last Thursday was the chorus of the Beltway warmongers shrieking in despair at President Trump’s suggestion that there was no reason for the United States to be spending one trillion dollars on “defense.”“…[O]ne of the first meetings I want to have is with President Xi of China and President Putin of Russia, and I want to say let’s cut our military budget in half. And we can do that, and I think we’ll be able to do that,” the President told reporters.With this statement, President Trump blew up one of the biggest myths of our time, particularly among Republicans, that spending more on the military is essential to keeping us safe. There is a vast and well-funded network of political and industrial interests that depend on maintaining that myth, from the weapons

My first reaction to news earlier this month that the Syrian government had been overthrown was, how much did we have to do with it; how involved was the CIA; and how much is it going to cost.As with Saddam and Gaddafi before him, we know that Assad was no libertarian hero. But unleashing an army dedicated to establishing an Islamic state in once-secular Syria hardly seems like a good idea to me.As with President George W. Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” moment after Saddam’s overthrow, getting rid of Assad will prove to be the easy part. Rebuilding Syrian society after the destruction of the country will cost billions and will likely be about as successful as our “liberation” of Libya, which is still a failed, terrorist-dominated state more than a decade later.In 2017 the Los Angeles Times

Politicians and pundits spent much of last week commenting on President Biden’s pardon of his son Hunter for lying on a federal gun purchase form, failing to pay taxes, and any other offenses he may have committed over the past decade. Much of the controversy is because President Biden repeatedly pledged that he would never pardon his son.Some have also observed that the pardon’s timeline starts the year Hunter Biden joined the board of the Ukraine energy company Burisma. This has led to speculation that President Biden is trying to block any investigation into links between his son’s business dealings and President Biden’s Ukraine policy.What has not been widely discussed is the fact that Hunter Biden may be the only American President Biden has pardoned for violating unconstitutional

The interim between a US presidential election and the swearing in of a new Administration has for most of our history been a non-eventful period where the outgoing Administration winds down operations and the incoming Administration ramps up new personnel before the inauguration.The 20th Amendment to our Constitution was enacted in 1933 to reduce the “lame duck” period between election and inauguration to January 20th instead of March 4th. Increasing ease in travel and communications made such a long interim unnecessary. However long the transition period, it has been understood that with the new election came a new mandate from the American people and the “lame duck” outgoing administration was meant to quietly quack out its last few days in office without incident.Then came Biden. In

President-elect Trump has nominated former World Wrestling Entertainment CEO Linda McMahon for Secretary of Education. President-elect Trump promised that, if confirmed, Mrs. McMahon would “spearhead” the effort to “send education back to the states.” This has led some people to wonder if Linda McMahon may be the last Secretary of Education.The Constitution does not give the federal government any role in education. Instead, education is left in the hands of state and local governments and private citizens. For almost 200 years American children were provided with education largely free of US government interference.In the 1950s, a significant federal intervention in education was created as a response to fears that America was losing the “space race” to the Soviet Union and thus needed to

One of the most encouraging and promising things President-elect Trump said in his post-election acceptance speech was, “I’m not going to start a war. I’m going to stop wars…” We all understand that campaign promises often have a short shelf life after the election is over, but the Trump campaign’s repeated talk of peace over war at least demonstrates that he finds it a winning point to make to American voters.Will that talk of peace turn into action in the second Trump presidency, especially with the hawks he has named to senior foreign policy positions in his incoming Administration? It is hard to say, but last week’s report that he sent Elon Musk to meet with the Iranian Ambassador to the UN would be a good sign if true. Iran has denied that any such meeting took place, and with rumors

Two days after Donald Trump became the first American since Grover Cleveland to win nonconsecutive presidential elections, the Federal Reserve announced a quarter percent cut in interest rates. Following this announcement, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell held a press conference where he said that he would not comply with any presidential request that he step down before his term ends in May of 2026.Powell claimed that the president lacks the legal authority to fire the Fed chairman. So, if President Trump tells Chairman Powell “you’re fired,” Powell could bring suit asking a court to review Trump’s action.President Trump and Chairman Powell are at odds over President Trump’s desire to require the Federal Reserve to consult with the president before changing interest rates or

This presidential campaign season may be one of those turning points in history for reasons good and bad. Anyone watching the one debate between the Republican and Democratic Party candidates would not have come away with the view that this was a great battle of competing principles and visions for the future. It was a campaign of name-calling and bullets, where one candidate avoided discussing ideas at all costs – and even avoided the media at all costs. Where the other candidate dodged two attempted assassinations while throwing red meat rhetoric to an understandably angry population.It was a campaign where, more than ever, the mainstream media completely abandoned any idea of being a neutral source of information and instead jumped into the ring on the side of one candidate. In the one

Public opinion polls consistently show the economy is one of the top issues, if not the top issue, for American voters. This may strike some as odd, since official government statistics show low unemployment and declining price inflation, suggesting the Federal Reserve has engineered a “soft landing” bringing down inflation without causing a recession. So why the concern over the economy? One reason is more people are realizing government economic figures hide the truth about the economy.“Recession Since 2022: US Economic Income and Output Have Fallen Overall for Four Years” is a Brownstone Institute research paper by Dr. E.J. Antoni, a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, and Dr. Peter St. Onge, a fellow with the Mises Institute. It details how the federal government understates

When you take on the role of the world’s policeman, don’t be surprised when countries who cannot fight their own wars call “911.” That is exactly what is happening to the United States on two fronts and it is bankrupting our country, depleting the military that should serve our own national interest, and threatening to drag the US into World War III.Last week, Ukraine’s “president” Vladimir Zelensky publicly presented his “Victory Plan.” It was delusional: immediate NATO Membership for Ukraine, NATO strikes against incoming Russian missiles, and permission to use Western long-range missiles for strikes deep into Russia including Moscow and St. Petersburg.The real intent was not hard to understand. Ukraine is on the verge of losing its war with Russia and is desperate to draw the United

Following Hurricane Helene, many private helicopter pilots launched their own search and rescue missions. One would think government officials would welcome the help of these volunteers, but instead they harassed them and even threatened to arrest them!For example, one private helicopter pilot rescued an individual stranded by Helene. Unfortunately, he was threatened with arrest if he flew his helicopter back into the impacted area to save someone left behind on the earlier flight.In a video shared by comedian and political commentator Jimmy Dore, Jonathan Howard, a member of the Florida State Guard and volunteer for the nonprofit group Aerial Recovery, discussed how the government took credit for the rescue of an 11-day-old baby even though the rescue was done totally by volunteers. Mr.

Over the weekend, the Commander of the US Central Command (CENTCOM), General Michael Kurilla, arrived in Israel to “coordinate” with the Israeli military and plan a military strike against Iran. Think about that for a moment: one of the highest-ranking officers in the US military is planning a war in a foreign country against another foreign country which will be fueled by American weapons, American intelligence, and American tax dollars.Did that foreign country – Iran – attack the United States or threaten Americans? No, it did not. What did Iran do to warrant a CENTCOM commander bringing the weight of the US military into play to plan a war – possibly WWIII? It retaliated against Israeli airstrikes including the assignation of a Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran.It was the Israeli

Many investors, businesses, and consumers cheered the Federal Reserve’s first interest rate cut since March of 2020. The Fed’s 50 basis points interest rate reduction was larger than many Fed watchers anticipated and was followed by suggestions that there are more rate cuts on the way.A drop in borrowing costs following the Fed’s rate reduction can help make people more optimistic about the general economy and their own financial situation. The uptick in consumer sentiment could help Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris who has lagged behind Republican nominee former President Donald Trump on the matter of which candidate is seen as better on economic issues.Even before the Fed’s rate cut, President Trump and pro-Trump commentators were suggesting that a rate cut

Last week the world narrowly escaped likely nuclear destruction, as the Biden Administration considered Ukraine’s request to allow US missiles to strike deeply into Russian territory. Russian president Vladimir Putin warned, as the request was being considered, that because these missiles could not be launched without the active participation of the US military and NATO, Russia would consider itself in a state of war with both NATO and the US should they be launched. It was a Cuban Missile Crisis on a massive scale.Thankfully, permission was reportedly not granted by Washington to hit deep inside Russia, but as we have seen throughout this war, a weapons system is often first denied and then eventually granted to Washington’s proxies in Kiev. We should not rest easy even if nuclear war has

Last weekend several hundred of us gathered in Washington, DC, at the Ron Paul Institute conference to again proclaim our dedication to the cause of liberty and our opposition to constant US government assaults on that liberty. Our collaborators included old friends like Judge Andrew Napolitano, who explained that the Bill of Rights was not added to the Constitution to grant Americans liberties, but to recognize liberties already existing for all persons – regardless of nationality – by virtue of their humanity.That is why the US government was purposely or unwittingly in the wrong when it tried to argue that Wikileaks founder Julian Assange did not have the privilege of our First Amendment protections because he is not American. He has these freedoms because he is human.Our rights and

The Penn Wharton Budget Model, a think tank headquartered at the University of Pennsylvania, recently released a study claiming former President Donald Trump’s economic plans would add about four trillion dollars to the national deficit over ten years while Vice President Kamala Harris’s economic plans would add about two trillion dollars.Vice President Harris would increase the deficit largely through expanding refundable tax credits such as the child tax credit. Low-income Americans can qualify for refundable tax credits even if they have less federal tax liability. So this proposal includes a welfare program disguised as a tax credit. Vice President Harris also proposes spending 40 billion dollars on an “innovation fund” to increase the supply of “affordable” housing. Another of the

Just as the Harris/Walz campaign was looking for a boost from the content-free Democratic National Convention last week, real drama broke out that pulled the country’s attention back toward Republican candidate Donald Trump. Rumors had been swirling for days that Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. might suspend his independent run for the White House and endorse Donald Trump and on Friday he did just that.In his powerful speech explaining the decision, RFK, Jr. made it clear that suspending his run was difficult, as was leaving a Democratic Party that has been almost synonymous with the name “Kennedy” for many decades. On both issues RFK, Jr. explained that he was guided by principles and values over party orientation and the fluff that has increasingly come to characterize American electoral

Former President and current Republican Presidential Nominee Donald Trump recently renewed his criticisms of the Federal Reserve. He suggested that, if he returns to the White House next year, he will push Congress to pass legislation giving the president at least a say in the Fed’s decisions regarding interest rates.The Great Money Bubble…Stockman, David A.Best Price: $2.31Buy New $9.46(as of 09:07 UTC – Details)President Trump thinks that because he “made a lot of money” in business he has “a better instinct” as to what interest rates should be than do the members of the Federal Reserve Board. President Trump may have better instincts regarding how markets operate than Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and Powell’s colleagues, but that does not make President Trump any more

As the UK descends into tyranny, where just re-Tweeting something the government doesn’t like can land a person a multi-year jail sentence, Americans are wondering, “can it happen here?” After all, we have the guarantees of the First Amendment.But while we shake our heads at UK authorities jailing people for their social media posts this past week, we should not kid ourselves. The answer is that silencing dissent can happen here and it is happening here.Here are just three recent examples of how the “deep state” or the permanent government is conspiring to restrict political dialogue in the United States.First is the revelation that former US Representative and former US presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard has been placed under the bizarrely named “Quiet Skies” program. As reported by

Last week the national debt reached 35 trillion dollars, a mere seven months after the debt reached 34 trillion dollars. To put this in perspective, the national debt first reached one trillion dollars in October of 1981, almost 200 years after the Constitution’s ratification!The fact that the government was adding one trillion dollars in debt in little over half a year was not deemed worthy of comment by President Biden, Vice President Harris, and most other US politicians. This is not surprising since the national debt has not been a central issue in DC since the days of the Tea Party movement. The Tea Party’s efforts to focus attention on the debt resulted in a bipartisan deal that made minuscule spending cuts. In fact, most of the cuts were not real cuts. They were just reductions in

What is the Mises Institute?

The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard. Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.

We can all probably agree that this has been one of the strangest Julys in memory. From the attempt on Trump’s Life to the Republican National Convention to the bizarre “coup” against Biden in the Democratic Party. With all this, it’s easy to forget some truly momentous events that happened this month.For example, the Supreme Court recently handed down three decisions of particular interest to defenders of individual liberty and limited, constitutional government. In two of these cases, the court limited the ability of federal agencies to exercise legislative and judicial authority. Unfortunately, in the third one the court refused to protect free speech from government officials.In the case of Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, which dealt with federal regulations requiring commercial

The 2024 Republican platform promises that, if Donald Trump returns to the White House and Republicans gain complete control of Congress, they will reduce inflation. The platform contains some proposals, such as reducing regulations and extending the 2017 tax reductions, that may help lower prices in some sectors and spur economic growth. However, the GOP platform does not address how the Federal Reserve’s enabling of spendaholic politicians contributes to price inflation.Other than an obligatory promise to cut “wasteful” spending, and a pledge to eliminate the Department of Education, the Republican platform is largely silent on proposals to reduce federal spending.The GOP’s apparent desire to increase military spending is a disappointment to those of us who hoped the increased skepticism

Just days after the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump, theories are flying from all directions. Many who ridiculed the “conspiracy theories” of conservatives are now suggesting the whole event was a set-up to boost Trump in the polls ahead of the election. Others suggest it was the “deep state” or even foreign actors who organized it.Former US Navy Seal and founder of Blackwater, Erik Prince, claims that “The fact that [the Secret Service] allowed a rifle armed shooter within 150 yds to a preplanned event is either malice or massive incompetence.” He went on to observe that, “unaccountable bloated bureaucracies continue to fail us as Americans,” adding that “unserious and unworthy people in positions of authority got us to this near disaster. Merit and execution must

There were plenty of surprises in last week’s presidential debate. For one, Americans who rely on the mainstream media for their news learned that they had been lied to for the past three years about President Biden’s capability to do the job he was elected to do.The realization that the media has been lying for years about Biden is a positive development, as, hopefully, thoughtful Americans might begin wondering what else the media has been lying about. For example, they will find out that the media has been lying to them for years about Russia and Ukraine and about the Middle East and elsewhere. They will find out that our hyper-interventionist foreign policy does not make us safer and more free, but the opposite.Unfortunately for most Americans, foreign policy is something that happens

Donald Trump recently promised that, if he wins the November election, he will support eliminating taxes on tips as part of his proposal to renew and expand the 2017 tax cuts. This tax law change would be a long overdue boost for millions of Americans.Tips often comprise a substantial portion of the earnings of waiters and waitresses, as well as of other service-sector employees. However, unlike regular wages, a service-sector employee usually has no guarantee of, or legal right to, a tip. Instead, the amount of a tip usually depends on how well an employee satisfies his customers. Since the amount of taxes one pays increases along with the size of tips, taxing tips punishes workers for doing a superior job!Many service-sector employees are young people trying to make money to pay for

Why does it seem the Pentagon is far better at spending money than actually putting together a successful operation? The failed “Operation Prosperity Guardian” and the disastrous floating Gaza pier are but two recent examples of enormously expensive initiatives that, though they no-doubt enriched military contractors, were incapable of meeting their stated goals.Prophets of War: Lockh…Hartung, WilliamBest Price: $10.13Buy New $14.99(as of 02:45 UTC – Details)To great fanfare, last December the Pentagon announced the launch of Operation Prosperity Guardian, a joint US/UK military operation to halt the Yemeni Houthi disruption of Israel-linked commercial shipping through the Red Sea. The Houthis announced their policy in response to civilian deaths in Israel’s war on Gaza, but when the US

American Compass, a think tank promoting a conservatism lacking even a rhetorical commitment to free markets, recently called for Republicans to support tax increases. The organization claims a GOP embrace of higher taxes will enable the uniparty’s left (Democratic) and right (Republican) wings to create a deficit reduction plan balancing tax increase with spending cuts.

I’ve long criticized our current US justice system – on all levels – as becoming much more about political justice than blind justice. The bizarre trial and conviction of former President Donald Trump last week on 34 felonies only reinforces my concerns.The New York District Attorney, Soros-backed Alvin Bragg, has been notorious for downgrading felony charges against others to misdemeanor charges. According to a recent article in the Daily Mail, Bragg had downgraded 60 percent of felony cases to lesser charges, resulting in violent criminals being released on the streets and a crime wave across New York City.But when it came to Donald Trump, Bragg lurched in the other direction, upgrading what normally would have been misdemeanor charges against anyone else to 34 felony charges against the

President Biden recently raised taxes on American consumers and businesses and may have hastened the end of the dollar’s world reserve currency status. President Biden did this by increasing tariffs on Chinese imports.Specifically, President Biden raised tariffs on products including Chinese-produced steel and aluminum and many components imported from China for use in manufacturing electric vehicle batteries. Tariffs on Chinese-made semiconductors are rising from 25 to 50 percent while tariffs on Chinese-made electronic vehicles are rising from 25 percent to an astounding 100 percent.Of course, the costs of these tariffs will be borne by Americans wishing to purchase electric cars and American electric car manufacturers that use material imported from China. These new tariffs thus

According to new reports from the Social Security and Medicare trustees, Social Security and a Medicare fund that pays for hospital expenses will both begin running deficits in 2035 and 2036. Disappointingly, but not surprisingly, Congress was too preoccupied spending billions more on military aid for foreign countries and banning TikTok to pay attention to the looming bankruptcy of the two largest federal entitlement programs.Many in Congress no doubt believe they can ignore the impending bankruptcy of Social Security and Medicare because they can count on the Federal Reserve to do the “dirty work” of cutting real benefits and raising taxes. This result can be produced via the hidden, and regressive, “inflation tax.”The Federal Reserve makes the debt-financed welfare-warfare state

The ink was barely dry on President Biden’s signature transferring another $61 billion to the black hole called Ukraine, when the mainstream media broke the news that this was not the parting shot in a failed US policy. The elites have no intention of shutting down this gravy train, which transports wealth from the middle and working class to the wealthy and connected class.

Reuters wrote right after the aid bill was passed that, “Ukraine’s $61 billion lifeline is not enough.” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell went on the Sunday shows after the bill was passed to say that $61 billion is “not a whole lot of money for us…” Well, that’s easy for him to say – after all it’s always easier to spend someone else’s money!

Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, was far

President Biden’s campaign will continue using the popular social media site TikTok even though the president supported a provision in the military aid bill he recently signed forcing TikTok’s parent company ByteDance to sell TikTok within 270 days. If ByteDance does not sell TikTok within the required time, TikTok will be banned in the USA. Biden’s continued use of TikTok to reach the approximately 150 million American TikTok users, is not the only example of hypocrisy from politicians who support the TikTok ban.The TikTok ban was driven by claims that, because ByteDance is a Chinese company, TikTok is controlled by the Chinese government and, thus. is helping the Chinese government collect data on American citizens. However, the only tie ByteDance has to the Chinese government is via a

When future historians go searching for the final nail in the US coffin, they may well settle on the date April 20, 2024.On that day Congress passed legislation to fund two and a half wars, hand what’s left of our privacy over to the CIA and NSA, and give the US president the power to shut down whatever part of the Internet he disagrees with.The nearly $100 billion grossly misnamed “National Security Supplemental” guarantees that Ukrainians will continue to die in that country’s unwinnable war with Russia, that Palestinian civilians will continue to be slaughtered in Gaza with US weapons, and that the neocons will continue to push us toward a war with China.It was a total victory for the war party.The huge spending bill is all about politics for Biden, yet so many Republicans simply went

What is the Mises Institute?

The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard. Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.

House Speaker Mike Johnson betrayed liberty and the Constitution by making a full-court press to get a “clean” reauthorization of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance (FISA) Act through the House.

Even Republican stalwarts like current Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell are starting to notice that something is shifting in the party. While McConnell announced recently that he would step down as Republican leader in the US Senate, in an interview last week he was adamant that he would continue to serve out his term in the Senate with one purpose in mind: “fighting back against the isolationist movement in my own party.”He sounds worried.What McConnell deems to be “isolationism” had for much of our history been called America’s traditional foreign policy. There have been major exceptions, but until the emergence of the neoconservatives starting in the late 1970s we largely adhered to the words of John Quincy Adams that America, “goes not abroad, in search of monsters to

Last month, the US Senate passed a resolution saying the over 34 trillion dollars (and growing) national debt threatens national security. A few days later, a bipartisan majority of the Senate voted for a 1.2 trillion dollars spending bill. In addition to the usual increases in war and welfare spending, the bill funds gender transitioning for minors without parental consent and red flag laws, which allow law enforcement to seize an individual’s firearms without due process.Before passage of the latest spending bill, the Congressional Budget Orifice (CBO) released a report predicting that the national debt would exceed the prior record of 106.4 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2028. Interest payments on the national debt are estimated to reach 870 billion dollars

This weekend’s late-night spending vote in Congress seems like another in an endless series of sequels to a bad suspense movie. Just at the brink of “disaster,” just before the stroke of midnight, Congress pulls off a miracle and passes an omnibus bill to save us from a “government shutdown!”The heroes have saved the day!Unfortunately, this latest sequel is as bad as the previous ones, as the American people are left with a massive $1.2 trillion dollar spending package to add to our already $34 trillion in debt. Military spending will, of course, be increased yet again, as the military-industrial complex demands more of our wealth to feed its ever-increasing appetite. And if this military spending increase is not enough, Congressional leadership is promising another huge supplemental bill

President Biden may have recently made history as the first president to discuss snack chips in the State of the Union message. He used snack chips to illustrate the phenomenon of shrinkflation. Shrinkflation occurs when businesses reduce the amount of goods sold in order to avoid raising prices. President Biden pointed out that businesses hope that, since both the price and the size of the package remain the same, most consumers will not notice they are getting fewer chips, cookies, or whatever other product has been affected by shrinkflation.President Biden called on Congress to pass legislation, sponsored by so-called moderate Senator Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, to crack down on companies that reduce the amount of a good in a package. Biden and his congressional allies and media

Last week President Biden delivered a dark and angry speech meant to convince the low percentage of Americans who still feel positive about his presidency that everything is fine and will only get better if he is re-elected for a second term.Unfortunately we have come a long way from the optimism of a Ronald Reagan, who won a second term partially on the popularity of his “Morning in America” campaign commercials.

According to the Federal Reserve, credit card delinquencies increased by 50 percent in 2023, while consumer debt grew to 17.5 trillion dollars. A recent survey by Clever Real Estate found that three in five Americans have credit card debt and that 23 percent of Americans increase their credit card debt every month. The survey also found that 48 percent of Americans (including 59 percent of millennials) use credit cards for essential living expenses.The overreliance on credit cards and the accompanying increase in consumer debt are consequences of our fiat money system. Since Richard Nixon severed the last link between the dollar and gold in August of 1971, the dollar’s value has declined by 87 percent based on the government’s understated Consumer Price Index numbers. This means that even

In a recent CNN interview, the normally very confident US Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland sounded a little desperate. She was trying to make the case for Congress to pass another $61 billion dollars for the neocons’ proxy war project in Ukraine and she was throwing out the old slogans that the neocons use when they want funding for their latest war.Asked by CNN whether she believes that Congress will eventually pass the bill, Nuland responded that she has confidence that, “we will do what we have always done, which is defend democracy and freedom around the world…”What Nuland is attempting here is what the neocons always do. They try to wrap their terrible policies up in the American flag and sell it to the American people as something reflective of “our” values. If you oppose

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

ATO’s post–Cold War history is that of an organization far past its “sell-by” date. Desperate for a mission after the end of the Warsaw Pact, NATO in the late 1990s decided that it would become the muscle behind the militarization of “human rights” under the Clinton Administration.
Gone was the “threat of global communism” which was used to justify NATO’s 40-year run, so NATO re-imagined itself as a band of armed Atlanticist superheroes. Wherever there was an “injustice” (as defined by Washington’s neocons), NATO was ready with guns and bombs.
The US military-industrial complex could not have been happier. All the Beltway think tanks they lavishly fund finally hit on a sure winner to keep the money pipeline flowing. It was always about money, not security.
The test run for NATO as human

Last week the House passed legislation increasing the debt ceiling. The bill was supported by all but four Republicans. For some Republicans, this was the first time they had ever voted for a debt ceiling increase. Perhaps the reason they did so this time was because the legislation also promised to reduce federal spending by $4.5 trillion over the next decade. Most of those spending reductions are achieved by rolling back Fiscal Year spending to 2022 levels and then limiting increases in spending to one percent for the next ten years. The bill also returns unspent COVID relief money to the US Treasury and eliminates President Biden’s student loan forgiveness programs.
Perhaps the most significant part of the bill is the REINS Act. This legislation requires congressional approval of any

While we were being distracted by the ongoing Russia/Ukraine war – and Washington’s increasing involvement in the war – tremendous developments in the Middle East have all but ended decades of US meddling in the region. Peace is breaking out in the Middle East and Washington is not at all happy about it!
Take, for example, the recent mending of relations between Saudi Arabia and formerly bitter adversaries Iran and Syria. A China-brokered deal between the Saudis and Iran has them re-establishing full diplomatic relations, with the foreign ministers of both countries meeting in Beijing last week. It is the highest level meeting between the two countries in seven years.
Additionally, Riyadh is expected to invite Syria back into the Arab League and Syrian president Assad may attend the next

The failure of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) on March 10 was the second largest bank failure in US history. Just two days following SVB’s collapse, Signature Bank joined the record books as the third largest bank failure in US history. First Republic Bank also seemed on the edge of collapse until Bank of America, Citigroup, and other big banks agreed to jointly fund a bailout for it.
Major Swiss bank Credit Suisse was also teetering on the brink when it received a 54 billion dollars line of credit from the Swiss UBS Group last week. Now, UBS is in the process of buying Credit Suisse. Politicians, regulators, and financial “experts” all rushed to assure us these problems were all caused by factors unique to the individual banks and were not a sign of a systemic weakness in the banking system.

Nearly a year ago, former New York Times Journalist Alex Berenson was permanently banned from Twitter for writing the following lines about the Covid shot: “It doesn’t stop infection. Or transmission. Don’t think of it as a vaccine.

It’s easy to see why, according to a new Harris poll, 71 percent of Americans said they do not want Joe Biden to run for re-election. As Americans face record gas prices and the highest inflation in 40 years, President Biden admits he could not care less.

President Joe Biden has unveiled a three-part plan to fight inflation — or at least make people think he is fighting inflation. One part of the plan involves having government agencies “fix” the supply chain problems that have led to shortages of numerous products.

For those of us who value liberty, these past two years have been a bad dream. It seems like we fell asleep in early 2020 and woke up in 1984! They said that if we just put on a mask and stayed home for two weeks, we’d be able to return to normal. The two weeks came and went and instead of going back to normal they added more restrictions.

If the Senate follows the House of Representatives’s lead and passes the Immunization Infrastructure Modernization Act (HR 550), Americans who do not get the recommended number of covid vaccines can look forward to receiving a text like this: “This is Dr. Anthony Fauci. According to government records you have not yet received your monthly covid booster shot. Until you prove you are following vaccine protocols, your vaccine passport will be revoked, resulting in loss of your privilege to work, worship, and visit your family.”
According to the bill’s chief sponsor, New Hampshire Representative Ann Kuster, HR 550 will “bolster and quicken our nationwide vaccine rollout” by “improv[ing] and expand[ing] information-sharing between state and federal governments, as well as public and private

Today [August 15] marks 50 years since President Richard Nixon closed the “gold window,” ending the ability of foreign governments to exchange United States dollars for gold. Nixon’s action severed the last link between the dollar and gold, giving the U.S. a fiat currency.

Reading Jonathan Culbreath’s “Modern Monetary Theory for Conservatives” one can’t help but think of Murray Rothbard’s quip that “it is not a crime to be ignorant of economics … but it is totally irresponsible to have a loud and vociferous opinion on economic subjects while remaining in this state of ignorance.“
Culbreath’s case for modern monetary theory (MMT) rests on an ignorance of basic economic principles regarding the role of money in a free market economy. Money—whether precious metals, fiat currency, crypto, or some other good—is more than the unit of account that makes exchange possible. Money is also a key part of the equation of the price system, which allows market participants to discover the highest use of goods and services as determined by the demonstrated preferences

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Those who voted for the omnibus to avoid a shutdown fail to grasp that the consequences of blindly expanding government are far worse than the consequences of a temporary government shutdown, writes Ron Paul.This audio Mises Daily is narrated by Dianna Keiler.