A new Cold War? RPI Academic Advisor Mark Almond joins Peter Lavelle and guests to debate whether a new Cold War is brewing, pitting the West against Russia. The US media is hysterical in its attacks on Russia, says Peter Lavelle, even more strident than he remembers during the original Cold War. Prof. Almond points out that although the West’s ideological argument against Russia has disappeared — in some ways Russia is more capitalist than some of the European countries that join with the US to criticize it — the russophobia has become even stronger. All guests agree that there is a remote, but terrifying, possibility that the new Cold War may turn hot if the West continues to push the “Berlin Wall” toward Moscow. Watch this very important episode of Crosstalk:

As Ukraine spins out of control, US Secretary of State John Kerry speaks out of both sides of his mouth — telling the opposition that it has full US support, while warning that “outside powers” should not get involved in the political crisis. RPI Director Daniel McAdams is on RT today to discuss this US disconnect on Ukraine:

Ron Paul keynote speech at Mises Circle Houston last week. He speaks on war and peace and the police state. The original tea party was very soon co-opted by warmongers. Our role is to educate ourselves and to help educate others. Listen to this inspiring speech!

RPI Chairman Daniel McAdams is on RT Television today discussing the worsening situation in Ukraine. McAdams strongly criticizes the foreign intervention into the unrest and says foreign diplomats encouraging violent protest deserve some of the blame for the bloodshed:

RPI Academic advisor John Laughland gives us the real story behind those “democracy” protests in Ukraine:

As of last year, the mischief of the surveillance state finally made it onto the public radar. President Obama’s recent speech describing the new NSA “reforms” displayed very clearly that he and the government are not backing down. Government sees this merely as a PR issue. Their task is to propagandize as is necessary to restore “confidence.”

Public resistance may have taken in root in 2013, but the battle to bring this crucial issue into the foreground began a very long time ago.

Watch Dr. Paul take on the surveillance state way back in 1984:

Last year, debate “moderators” from Fox News had a hard time understanding the difference between legitimate spending on defending the U.S. versus the wasteful spending on the military empire. Dr. Paul explained it with passion and in true smackdown form, leaving the warmongers on stage, and in the audience, speechless.

Enjoy!

As 2013 draws to a close, let’s pause to recall some important developments for the cause of liberty – some of which you already know well, and others you’ll be hearing about for the first time.

Edward Snowden. After sitting on the Bush-era warrantless wiretapping story for 18 months, the New York Times revealed a portion of the surveillance activities of the US government in 2005. Thanks to Edward Snowden, we now know that the National Security Agency’s spying activities vastly exceeded anything we heard about in the media.

The Snowden revelations served two functions from the point of view of public enlightenment. First, the regime in DC was once again exposed as untruthful, even sinister. But second, the bipartisan condemnation of Snowden on the part of the political establishment – both Nancy Pelosi and John McCain denounced him, unsurprisingly – reminds us that there is, after all, one party: the state party. Whatever cosmetic differences separate politicians otherwise, when push comes to shove, they rally to one another in the face of a truth-teller.

New President for the Mises Institute. At the end of 2013 the Mises Institute named Jeff Deist, former as chief of staff to Ron Paul, as its new president. Jeff is a significant  figure in so many ways – smart, well spoken, principled, and knowledgeable about money, banking, the Fed, and indeed the entire edifice of Austrian economics.

“Ron Paul’s congressional staff viewed the Mises Institute as our intellectual home,” Jeff recalls. “We applied Austrian principles and scholarship to virtually everything Ron did as a member of Congress. I’m honored to join an organization Ron has enthusiastically supported from the very beginning, and excited about dedicating myself to furthering the Austrian message.”

Ron, for his part, says he’s thrilled that Jeff “is fighting for liberty again.”

Obamacare. Everybody knows about the Obamacare fiascoes – the useless website and “if you like your plan, you can keep it” chief among them. But what a disaster the rollout of this program has been for the regime, which hates nothing more than looking ridiculous and incompetent, and being the butt of the people’s jokes. Meanwhile, supporters of the president think they’re helping matters by casually pointing out that of course the president knew he was lying when he said people could keep health plans they liked; he had to lie to them in order to get this program passed.

It’s rare to encounter such refreshing candor from the political and media classes.

The Austrian School. Meanwhile, interest in the Austrian School continues to grow, and demands for our resources and services have never been greater. Our Austrian Economics Research Conference, which attracts the best scholars from around the world working in the Austrian tradition, promises to be among our best ever, with an illustrious list of named lecturers and scores of papers advancing the Austrian School in new and exciting ways.

The Great Deformation. David Stockman’s gripping book The Great Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America is more than a devastating blow to the conventional narrative of the financial crisis and the geniuses who supposedly put things right. It is a sweeping, revisionist account of 20th-century US history, bristling with insights and little-known history. Imagine reading a book on 20th-century America without a systematic pro-Fed bias, and without the usual deference to the “great presidents.” I reviewed it for LRC. I urge you to read it.

The growth in peace and noninterventionist sentiment. Polls show the public growing war weary, and consistently less convinced of the need for the US government to involve itself in this or that part of the world. This wonderful result owes nothing to Obama and the so-called progressives who follow him.

The Obama years proved what most people had long suspected: the leftist so-called peace movement had been a trick all along. Their outrage was selective: only aggression perpetrated by Republican presidents was worthy of protest, or sometimes even of notice. To observe Obama’s supporters defend the Libya intervention, and try to show how very different it was from Bush’s interventions, was to be reminded of how many people seriously believe the real conflict in America is between the red team and the blue team.

You’d think the Democrats would have learned something when the crazed John McCain said he had more in common with Obama on foreign policy than with some members of his own party, but Obama voters turned out to be not nearly as far from McCain as they pretended to be.

So it is not to the Left that we may attribute this wonderful polling data. Once again, it’s Ron. Everyone suddenly sounded like Ron when the debate over the Syria intervention arose. And the neocons still can’t get a war going with Iran. Ron is winning, which means the cause of peace is winning.

Ron was the one who kept bringing up foreign policy again and again in the 2008 and 2012 primary seasons, and for decades before. His arguments ranged from the pragmatic to the intensely moral. Intervention itself is a good portion of the reason the US government is despised around the world. An open-ended policy of intervention will contribute to the country’s financial ruin. Intervention could well result in the triumph of even less friendly regimes than before.

Today, who can doubt even one of these statements, for which Ron was pilloried not so long ago?

Ron was the only candidate in recent memory to speak of the human toll of the US war machine. Dead Iraqis don’t vote, and the constituency one must appeal to in a GOP primary has not distinguished itself by a profound concern for the fate of enemy civilians, so Ron took this stance on principle alone. This, and not meticulously parsing his words to please the general public, is how Ron secured himself a place in history.

And incidentally, how many times can a man be vindicated in his lifetime? Ron predicted the housing bubble and collapse on the House floor all the way back in 2001. (His opponents, by contrast, were oblivious to the very end – Herman Cain gave the economy a clean bill of health just one week before the Panic of 2008 set in.) Ron warned about government surveillance and the curtailment of civil liberties, and was told he was being paranoid. Today, even right-wing radio is outraged at revelations of what the NSA has been doing. And Ron said the foreign policy of McCain would be counterproductive, not to mention enormously expensive in terms of money and lives. In 1974, Ron was speaking out about the Fed, and where its evils would lead. Today, Ron is joining our board.

No one in his right mind denies any of this any longer.

The Ron Paul Channel. This year witnessed the launch of still another Ron Paul initiative: the Ron Paul Channel. Of all his current projects, this is the one dearest to his heart. Here is unfiltered, 100 octane Ron Paul. It’s Ron’s take on the news, plus guests whom the mainstream would rather ignore. And the channel is about to expand to welcome new contributors and programming, all chosen and guided by Ron.

The Ron Paul Homeschool Curriculum. In tandem with the book, Ron’s homeschool curriculum was announced this year. Ron said in a recent interview with the Mises Institute, “The curriculum I’ve designed, and which I refer to in the book, is more than just history and economics. It’s math and the sciences, it’s literature, it’s writing, it’s public speaking, it’s learning how to start your own business, and above all, it’s learning how to learn. All of these are skills that will serve a young person well. If a substantial number of libertarian young people have these skills, I believe things begin to change.” Check out Ron’s column “Why This Homeschool Curriculum Matters to Me.”

The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity. Ron was especially pleased this year to be able to found an organization dedicated to peace and international understanding, and opposed to the juvenile propaganda of the Bush/Obama axis of evil. The Institute’s executive director is the brilliant Daniel McAdams, who advised Ron on foreign affairs and civil liberties issues from 2001 until 2012. Daniel and his colleagues keep us informed about the state of the world from a noninterventionist perspective. But my favorite part of the Institute’s website is “Neocon Watch.”

Ron and Daniel hope to sponsor a summer school for students who support peace and oppose the war machine.

The School Revolution: A New Answer for Our Broken Education System. Ron also found time to publish another book this year, this one on how to carry the Ron Paul Revolution forward. Education, naturally, is the key. Technology has pushed costs lower than before, and is mounting the greatest challenge to the existing education bureaucracy ever posed. We have a critical opportunity to seize, and Ron lays it out step by step.

The Tom Woods Show. Tom Woods, whom you may know from his books, his public speaking, or his YouTubes, now has a weekday podcast that covers a vast array of topics. If there’s an argument against libertarianism, you can bet Tom has a show in response to it. Here are the first 65 episodes, one of which is an interview with me.

Thanks for making 2013 another great year for Liberty! Happy New Year!

Reprinted from LRC with permission.

Despite Colorado implementing on January 1 the legal sale and purchase of marijuana for recreational use, marijuana growers, vendors, and purchasers in Colorado will continue looking over their shoulders concerned that US government police may bust them for violating federal marijuana prohibition. In June, 2011 Rep. Ron Paul joined Rep. Barney Frank as the lead Republican cosponsor of Frank’s Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act (HR 2306). Paul took the introduction of the bill as an opportunity to discuss with Larry Kudlow on CNBC the need to end the US government’s marijuana prohibition and war on drugs:

Six years ago today, on Dec. 18th 2007, Dr. Paul was a guest on Morning Joe. Watch him tackle every major war going back to Woodrow Wilson’s terrible decision to drag the U.S. into World War I:

Joe Scarborough: You had an interesting comment about the Iraq War. Condoleeza Rice, obviously, last night went over to Iraq. She’s there right now. A lot of people are waking up to that news. And you commented that you’re not one of these people who are against the war because you think it was mishandled. You were saying you can’t manage a bad war. Is that right?

Ron Paul: That is exactly the point. Bad wars, when you start it yourselves, when you go in there without a declaration, you don’t know who the real target it. There’s no real enemy. It becomes a political war. Actually one of the reasons we went in there and gave the President this authority was to enforce UN resolutions.

No, you can’t manage that, and some of that candidates now who voted for the war are complaining that “Oh it’s just being mismanaged. I can manage this war much better.” No, you’re exactly right, it’s overall policy, it’s foreign policy. I want the foreign policy of the Founding Fathers, the foreign policy of George Bush in the year 2000. The humble foreign policy and no nation building. No policing of the world. That’s what I want. That’s what the American people want. And besides, we can’t afford this foreign policy anymore. We’re going broke, and we have to quit before it collapses on us.

Joe Scarborough: Let me ask you about other wars; whether you supported them or not. Again, just so people have a better understanding of your view of foreign policy. What about the first Gulf War? Did you support or oppose that?

Ron Paul: No I did not because there was no declaration, we weren’t attacked, our national security was not threatened. That was a regional war that should not have involved us.

Joe Scarborough: What about Bosnia & Kosovo?

Ron Paul: Absolutely opposed to it, and all the Republicans almost opposed to that. They even had a suit against Clinton, and that’s what George Bush ran against. They thought that was way too much.

Joe Scarborough: What about Vietnam & Korea? Do you think those wars should not have been fought?

Ron Paul: Absolutely not. Once again, the same arguments: undeclared wars, our national security was not threatened, we didn’t win the wars, a lot of men were killed, and it cost us a lot of money. We’re still in Korea. It makes no sense whatsoever.

Joe Scarborough: World War II?

Ron Paul: World War II would be hard to avoid. But you have to understand why World War II was fought, and it was because of World War I. That was a continuation of one war, and we should not have gotten into World War I. Wilson dragged us into that war. The war was almost over and there was a stalemate, and he wanted to participate in the Versailles Treaty, and that was the disaster.

The Versailles Treaty, for instance, designed this modern Iraq, and created the problems that we’re facing today because of that. But World War I really led to Hitler, and then World War II.

Joe Scarborough: So over the past century, the only war that you would say America should have been involved with would have been World War II?

Ron Paul: That was the only one that was justified because we were attacked viciously, and then Germany declared war against us. But if you look at the overall policy, it could have been prevented by us having a wiser foreign policy earlier on.

Dec. 17 – RPI Director Daniel McAdams is on RT Television discussing the Ukraine visit of Sen. John McCain and the strong US and EU intervention in Ukraine affairs.

Two years ago today, the FoxNews Iowa Presidential Debate took place, and the subject of Iran was discussed. Dr. Paul had to defuse the nuclear warhawk Michele Bachmann.

Watch the clip below, or you can read the transcript after the video:

Bachmann: “Iran will take a nuclear weapon. They will use it to wipe our ally Israel off the face of the map, and they’ve stated that they will use it against the United States of America. Look no further than the Iranian Constitution which states unequivocally that their mission is to extend jihad across the world and eventually to setup a worldwide Caliphate. We would be fools and knaves to ignore their purpose and their plan.”

Paul: “Obviously I would like to see a lot less nuclear weapons. I don’t want Iran to have a nuclear weapon. I would like to reduce them, because there would be less chance of war. But to declare war on 1.2 billion Muslims, and say all Muslims are the same, this is some dangerous talk.

Yeah there are some radicals, but they don’t come here to kill us because we’re free and prosperous. Do they go to Switzerland and Sweden? I mean, that’s absurd! If you think that is the reason, we have no chance of winning this. They come here, and the CIA has explained it to us that they come here and they want to do us harm because we’re bombing them.

What in the world is this about the drone being in Iran? And we’re begging and pleading on how we’re going to start a war to get this drone back? Why were we flying a drone over Iran? Why do we have to bomb so many countries? Why do we have 900 bases in 130 countries? And we’re totally bankrupt! How are you going to rebuild a military when we have no money? How are we going to take care of the people?

So I think this wild goal to have another war, in the name of defense, is the dangerous thing. The danger is really us overreacting. We need a strong national defense, and we need to only go to war with a declaration of war, instead of carelessly flouting it and starting these wars so often.

Bachmann: “And the problem would be the greatest underreaction in world history if we have an avowed madman who uses that nuclear weapon to wipe nations off the face of the Earth. We have an IAEA report that just recently came out that said literally that Iran is within just months of being able to obtain that weapon. Nothing could be more dangerous than the comments we just heard.”

Paul: “There is no UN report that said that. It’s totally wrong. That is not true. They produced information that led you to believe that, but they have no evidence, there has been no enrichment of these bombs.”

Bachmann: “And if we agree with that, the United States people could be at risk of our national security.”

Paul: “If she thinks we live in a dangerous world, she ought to think back when I was drafted in 1962 with nuclear missiles in Cuba. And Kennedy calls Kruschev and talks to him, and we don’t have a nuclear exchange. And you’re trying to dramatize this, that we have to go and treat Iran like we’ve treated Iraq, kill a million Iraqis and eight thousand Americans have died since we’ve gone to war. You cannot solve these problems with war. You can solve the problems if we follow our Constitution and go to war only when we declare the war, go in and win them and get ‘em over with. Instead of this endless fighting, and this endless attitude that we have enemies all around the world.

Bachmann: “But as President, I stand on the side of peace for the American people.”