President Obama will officially restore full diplomatic relations with Cuba today, in what is one bright spot in his otherwise not very encouraging foreign policy. Talks with Iran are the other positive. But as always, the devil is in the details. State-to-state relations are one thing, but for really “normal” relations what is needed is person-to-person relations. That means an end to the embargo and the travel ban. Let’s hope that is on its way soon and that Congress doesn’t obstruct the reversal of this half-century disaster. More on US-Cuba relations on today’s Ron Paul Liberty Report:

With their plans for regime change in Syria not working out as planned, the neocons are desperately looking around for another hare-brained scheme to sell. From recently floated trial balloons, it looks like they are looking to push a tactical alliance with al-Qaeda to defeat Assad and ISIS. Did they forget about 9/11? More in today’s Liberty Report:

Our phones are tapped by the government, the police are militarized and viewing us as the targets, our free speech rights are being trampled daily. Is there any hope to return to a constitutional government that does not have the power to restrict our civil liberties? Yes there is, says Rutherford Institute President John Whitehead, but we must turn off the television and educate ourselves. Please watch Mr. Whitehead on a very special episode of the Ron Paul Liberty Report:

As the Greeks and the European bureaucrats and bankers continue wrestle over who is going to pay an unpayable debt, Ron Paul wonders just how long before the US Federal Reserve is called to put the US on the hook. After all, the Fed pumped trillions into Europe after the 2008 crisis. The dollar must be kept the world’s reserve currency at all costs, which partly explains US militaristic foreign policy. The Greece crisis today on the Liberty Report:

This week US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, who comes to the Pentagon straight from the military-industrial complex, announced that 40,000 NATO troops and untold heavy military equipment would be deployed on the Russian border to deter Russian “aggression.” Meanwhile, the US seeks to ramp up wars in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and Afghanistan. On top of it we learn this week that the US treats its “friends” much as it treats its enemies — American spooks have been listening in to the phone calls of the last three French presidents. How long can this last? Until we go broke? Tune in to the Liberty Report for more:

If there ever was a “poster child” for the absurdity of the drug war, the case of Shona Banda must be it. Suffering from an extreme case of Crohn’s disease, the relief she found was from cannabis oil. When her 11-year old son made the mistake of mentioning in school the medicinal benefits his mother had received from ingesting the oil, the state swooped in and took away the child and brought the mother up on charges. She faces more than 30 years in prison for the non-crime of treating her own medical condition. Today on the Ron Paul Liberty Report:

Recent police killings of unarmed individuals and the recent tragedy in South Carolina are horrific and they result in obsessive 24/7 media coverage. Isn’t it strange that the thousands killed and maimed as a result of our aggressive foreign policy worldwide do not get nearly the same level of scrutiny? Is Stalin correct that mass killing is easier to ignore than a handful of individual cases? Or was Secretary of State Madeline Albright correct when she said that 500,000 dead Iraqis from US sanctions was “worth it” — in other words just collateral damage or a mere statistic in the move to be rid of Saddam? Today’s Ron Paul Liberty Report takes a look at these awkward questions:

This week on the Ron Paul Liberty Report, Ron Paul discussed with guest Lew Rockwell their many years working to advance liberty, as well as their shared optimism for the future. For people new to libertarian ideas, the engaging conversation is a good starting point for obtaining a feel for the fight for liberty in America since the 1970s and an understanding of the contributions made by Paul and Rockwell in that fight. For anyone brought down by the relentless advance of leviathan government, watching the interview may provide a jolt of assurance that there is hope for the cause of liberty.

Many people are familiar with Rockwell because of his work as the chairman of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, or because of his much-visited news and commentary website lewrockwell.com. But, before all that, Rockwell was Paul’s chief of staff in the House of Representatives. In the interview Paul and Rockwell discuss their first meeting in the 1970s. Also addressed in the interview are Rockwell becoming seminal Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises’ editor at a young age and later working in Paul’s House of Representatives office.

Looking back at his time working for Paul in the House, Rockwell relates Paul’s “steadfastness” in reaction to demands for more government intervention. Rockwell provides an example from when President Ronald Reagan attempted to lobby Paul to support increasing military spending:

Ronald Reagan once called you to try to get you to vote for military spending. Despite Reagan’s reputation, he wasn’t, of course, lobbying you for less spending; he was lobbying you for more spending, especially military spending to kill people. You didn’t budge. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t twist your arm. Your arm was untwistable. This was true of Newt Gingrich. It was true of all the Republican leaders — the big guys in the Republican Party in the House and the Senate, otherwise in the country. They couldn’t make you do the wrong thing. So, I’ve always thought, that’s the way a man should be; we should all strive to try to be a Ron Paul.

Asked by Paul to “compare where the freedom movement was in the ‘70s compared to today,” Rockwell responds that he thinks there has been “huge progress.” While Rockwell notes that the media and the government are full of “bad guys,” “liars,” and “cheats,” he says that people can now on the internet bypass all of that and seek out news on websites such as ronpaulinstitute.org. While on the surface we see the growth of menacing government powers, Rockwell explains that there is great reason for optimism, stating:

You would absolutely get the impression that we’re sunk, that the bad guys have won everything, they control everything. But, actually, underneath that — especially among young people — and Ron you have been the most powerful reason for this, there is a huge difference, huge progress. I remember so strongly back the last time you ran for president the Pew Research people did a poll of young people who supported you, and they wanted to know what was the key issue. And in those days you were being demeaned as ‘oh, [the young people] just want to smoke pot.’ So it turned out the key issue for young people was war and peace. They were against the wars. They wanted peace. And that’s why they loved you.

One way Paul and Rockwell continue to work together to advance liberty is through the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity where Paul is the chairman and Rockwell is an Advisory Board member. Paul is also a member, with Rockwell, of the Mises Institute Board of Directors.

Watch the complete Ron Paul Liberty Report interview here:

At a Mises Institute event in November of last year, Paul further explored “a tremendous growth in the ideas of liberty” over the last thirty years and Paul’s reasons for optimism that “the militarism of big government is coming to an end.” You may read about and watch that speech here.

At the Ron Paul Liberty Report’s YouTube page you can find many episodes of the show, including episodes featuring fascinating interviews with guests including Jacob Hornberger, Michael Scheuer, and Peter Van Buren.

After covert CIA backing of Radio Free Europe and other organizations was exposed in the 1970s, a group of neoconservatives decided to create a new kind of CIA to do in the open that which had been done in secret: the National Endowment for Democracy. More than 30 years later, even though the Cold War is a distant memory, the NED is still a $100 million per year, taxpayer-funded worldwide “regime change” operation. Yesterday’s death of one of the masterminds of the NED should perhaps prompt Americans to again wonder why they are being forced to finance such dangerous and counterproductive government-funded bureaucracies.

Yesterday the House voted down H. Con. Res. 55, which would have forced President Obama to withdraw US troops from Iraq and Syria by year’s end without Congressional authorization. Congressional leaders clearly have no interest in asserting their Constitutional prerogatives. Meanwhile on the same day, US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter was telling the House Armed Services Committee that plans to train fighters in Iraq and Syria are failing because no one is signing up. Is this not an argument for an end to US involvement in the region? Tune in to today’s Ron Paul Liberty Report:

Not long ago anyone who suggested that neo-Nazis were involved in the US-backed government in Ukraine would be ridiculed as a conspiracy theorist. Then last week the US House voted to prohibit funding to the Azov Battalion because of its neo-Nazi ideology. As NATO makes plans to station thousands of troops and tons of heavy military equipment right on Russia’s border, the Ron Paul Liberty Report takes a look at who exactly is escalating tensions in eastern Europe:

Born 800 years ago today, the magna carta was in essence the result of a rebellion against the unchecked power of the executive to take a country to war and then stick the citizens with the bill. What can we learn from that rebellion and how can we put it to use to preserve and defend our own liberty against a modern unchecked executive power? Today’s Ron Paul Liberty Report takes a look: