America Is a Great Country, but Its Attitude Overseas Needs Work

by Ivan Eland

Since World War II, America has conducted an interventionist foreign policy that is atypical historically. Most Americans are oblivious to data that clearly show that the United States has been the most aggressive nation in the world during the postwar period — in fact, it was the most aggressive even during the Cold War when its arch-nemesis, the Soviet Union, was still around.
When confronted with such facts, both policymakers and the American public just assume that such intervention was justified because America was (and always seems to be) “in the right.” Yet a closer analysis of U.S. government behavior should throw such suppositions into question.

Western Hypocrisy and the Russian Election

We preach “democracy” and practice oligarchy

by Justin Raimondo

Vladimir Putin wasn’t the only one with tears in his eyes as he exulted in his presidential election victory and shouted “Glory to Russia!” The entire American punditocracy, to say nothing of the Brits, responded as one with accusations the election had been fixed, confidently predicting a “crackdown” on “dissent” as the Russian leader resumed the office he had never really left.
Yet there is very little to these claims of fraud. Of course, in every election ever held anywhere there have been “irregularities,” such as are commonplace in our very own Chicago. There is some evidence the Russian parliamentary elections were somewhat less than honest – the 99 percent pro-Putin vote in Chechnya, of all places, was particularly suspect – although no one has gone so far as to say Putin’s United Russia party actually lost.

Will Iran Be Attacked?

The Money Rules

by PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

Washington has made tremendous preparations for a military assault on Iran. There is speculation that Washington has called off its two longest running wars–Iraq and Afghanistan–in order to deploy forces against Iran. Two of Washington’s fleets have been assigned to the Persian Gulf along with NATO warships. Missiles have been spread amongst Washington’s Oil Emirate and Middle Eastern puppet states. US troops have been deployed in Israel and Kuwait.
Washington has presented Israel a gift from the hard-pressed american taxpayers of an expensive missile defense system, money spent for Israel when millions of unassisted americans have lost their homes. As no one expects Iran to attack Israel, except in retaliation for an Israeli attack on Iran, the purpose of the missile defense system is to protect Israel from an Iranian response to Israeli aggression against Iran.

Jeff Opdyke

How You Could Make 150% Gains as Silver Soars to $75

Say goodbye to George and Abe. Andrew and Ben, too.
After nearly 1,400 years of use, paper-money is fading away. That means the men who populate your wallet – George Washington, Abe Lincoln, Andrew Jackson and Ben Franklin – are on their way out.
In their place, a new kind of currency is emerging – digital currency.
You don’t see it yet on a widespread level, but digital currency is spreading rapidly across other parts of the world and will soon hit a wallet – and a cell phone – near you.

Living Your Financial Life Through Your Cell Phone

Consider Africa, for a moment. What Americans think of as a cauldron of famine, pestilence, corruption and genocidal war is also the birthplace of a financial revolution. You can see it in action every day at the Flomu General Store, in a village near Kenya’s border with Uganda.

Disabling America: The Unintended Consequences of the Government's Protection of the Handicapped by Greg Perry

Nashville: WND Books, 2004. 240 pp. $17.99 (hardcover).

For the purpose of “helping” the disabled, President George H. W. Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act into law in 1990. In Disabling America, Greg Perry tells us that the “ADA infiltrates the lives of average Americans in ways far beyond what we usually think—wheelchair signs in parking lots and grab bars in public restrooms” (p. 2). And as the book shows, the ADA affects virtually everything in the private sector.

Daniel Wahl

In 1997, John Lilly went to hear Steve Jobs speak in Building 4 of Apple’s headquarters, taking a seat in the auditorium among many of his colleagues.

Steve Jobs shows off the white iPhone 4 at the 2010 Worldwide Developers Conference

Credit: Matthew Yohe

“It was a tough time at Apple,” he remembers. “[W]e were trading below book value on the market—our enterprise value was actually less than our cash on hand. And the rumors were everywhere that we were going to be acquired.”1

Exclusive: Dems Incite Death Threats Against Limbaugh

by Dan Riehl 9 hours ago

Conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh is being targeted by multiple death threats after President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party ignored his apology for controversial remarks and continued to single him out for rebuke. The assault has become so nakedly partisan and opportunistic that even HBO host Bill Maher--who recently donated $1 million to Obama's Super PAC--has called it a witch hunt with intimidation as its goal.

Federal Judge: Citizens Need Not Ask Permission to Exercise 2nd Amendment Rights. Michael Tennant

A federal judge struck down a Maryland law requiring individuals to prove that they have “good and substantial reason” for seeking a handgun carry permit from the state.
“A citizen may not be required to offer a ‘good and substantial reason’ why he should be permitted to exercise his rights,” wrote U.S. District Judge Benson Everett Legg. “The right’s existence is all the reason he needs.”

Ben Smith Releases Selectively Edited Obama Race Video. Joel Pollak

Earlier today, Buzzfeed’s Ben Smith announced on Twitter that video researcher Andrew Kaczynski had released “the mysterious Harvard/Obama/race video that the Breitbart folks have been talking about.”

New York Prostitution Ring Provided Minors For Wealthy Elitists

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com

Yet another elitist pedophile ring has been exposed with the bust of 44-year-old mother of four Anna Gristina, charged with running a prostitution ring out of a New York apartment that relied on police protection to provide wealthy clients with minors for sexual encounters.

Gristina’s list of customers “included powerful politicians, top-law enforcement, influential lawyers, bankers, entertainment execs and Fortune 500 businessmen, as well as several ultra-wealthy European clients,” reports the New York Post.

Breitbart and the CIA’s Heart Attack Gun

Kurt Nimmo
Prison Planet.com

Andrew Breitbart’s media empire undoubtedly posed a threat to the establishment. From the takedown of New York Rep. Anthony Weiner to the outing of the USDA’s Shirley Sherrod and very public revelations about the seamy underside of ACORN, Breitbart was considered a thorn in the side of the liberal establishment.
Breitbart and the CIAs Heart Attack Gun 22shane.xlarge1

Senators Frank Church and John Tower examine a CIA poison dart gun that causes cancer and heart attacks. But it was his promise to release information that would critically damage Barack Obama prior to an election that really grabbed the attention of the establishment and possibly led to his assassination.

‘Mancow’ Muller: Breitbart Was Murdered

Chicago radio host says Breitbart’s death was a warning shot and that others are in danger
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com

Contrary to today’s release of edited and seemingly innocuous footage that shows Barack Obama making a speech at Harvard in 1991 and has already been in the public domain for years, Chicago radio host Erich “Mancow” Muller told the Alex Jones Show today that his friend Andrew Breitbart had in fact planned to release information that would “destroy Barack Obama” on March 1st, hours after his untimely death.

Life with the Fed: Sunshine and Lollipops?

By Tom Woods

We have heard the objection a thousand times: Why, before we had a Federal Reserve System the American economy endured a regular series of financial panics. Abolishing the Fed is an unthinkable, absurd suggestion, for without the wise custodianship of our central bankers we would be thrown back into a horrific financial maelstrom, deliverance from which should have made us grateful, not uppity.

Let's Admit Enacting Medicare Was a Mistake

By Jacob Hornberger

The ongoing fiasco in healthcare shows why it was so wrong to have enacted Medicare in the first place.
For one thing, Medicare reflects perfectly the mindset of dependency that the welfare state has inculcated in the American people, who have been born and raised under a culture of welfare-statism. All too many Americans are absolutely convinced that they could not survive without Medicare. The thought of repealing, not reforming, Medicare is so terrifying to them that they cannot even rationally discuss the subject. In their minds, if Medicare were repealed, elderly parents and grandparents would soon be dying in the streets of untreated infections and illnesses.

Obama's Company Store

By Bonnie Kristian

You load sixteen tons, what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt. Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go -- I owe my soul to the company store. "Sixteen Tons," made popular by Tennessee Ernie Ford

Written about the infamous (though perhaps mostly mythical) truck system of the West Virginia mining industry, "Sixteen Tons" is beginning to sound eerily like American health care, thanks to the upcoming individual mandate to purchase insurance, a prominent feature of Obamacare.

The Beauty of Trade at the Grand Bazaar

By Doug French

The Grand Bazaar in Istanbul has been a beehive of mutually beneficial exchanges for 550 years. Americans may think of Rodeo Drive or Madison Avenue when they think shopping, but while everyone pays the sticker price in America, price tags are rare at the Grand Bazaar.
Show any interest in an item at one of the 4,300 shops in the bazaar and the proprietor or store employee will engage you immediately. If English is your language and he doesn't speak it, in seconds someone will appear who does. This shopping experience isn't anything like a leisurely stroll through Walmart, where you only occasionally spot blue-smock- and big-button-wearing employees.

At the Mercy of the State

By Tom Parker

In September 2002 a mild-mannered telecommunications engineer was flying home from family holiday when he was abducted by government agents and plunged into months of torture and abuse for information he did not possess.
It sounds like the plot of an Alfred Hitchcock movie. An innocent abroad caught up in an international conspiracy, which, try as he might, he cannot not make sense of. This actually happened to a Canadian citizen called Maher Arar.

Will the Real John Maynard Keynes Please Stand Up?

Much debate about economic policy today can be described as taking place between Keynesians and anti-Keynesians.
The latter is made up of an uneasy coalition of Austrians and Chicago-inspired monetarists. The former looks to John Maynard Keynes, who, in his landmark book The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money, argued that developed economies were prone to "liquidity traps" — in which monetary policy becomes exhausted, and governments must resort to deficit spending to stimulate the economy.

Mexico: The Rot Deepens. by Ted Galen Carpenter

Events in Mexico seem to be conspiring to validate fears that the country could become a “failed state.”

The latest policy and public-relations disaster for President Felipe Calderón’s government occurred on February 20. Inmates at the state prison in Apodaca, not far from Mexico’s main industrial city, Monterrey, staged a riot. It turned out that most of the rioters were members of the increasingly powerful Zetas drug cartel. They used the riot to kill forty-four members of the rival Gulf cartel, then escaped from the prison. Mexican authorities immediately launched an investigation of the guards who were on duty at the time, suspecting (with good reason, given their total inability or unwillingness to prevent the bloodshed) that at least some of them colluded with the Zetas cartel.

Why Ron Paul Matters. by Edward H. Crane

The controversy surrounding decades-old newsletters to which GOP presidential aspirant Ron Paul lent his name is regrettable. First, it is regrettable because the sometimes bigoted, intolerant content of those newsletters is inconsistent with the views of the congressman as understood by those of us who know him. Yet, while Mr. Paul disavows supporting those ideas, he refuses to repudiate his close association with their likely source, Lew Rockwell, head of the Alabama-based Mises Institute.

Second, the New York Times editorialized recently that these unsavory writings "will leave a lasting stain on ... the libertarian movement." That is wishful thinking on the part of the Times, but it adds to the background noise surrounding Mr. Paul's candidacy, obscuring the real libertarian policy initiatives that have made his candidacy the most remarkable development of the 2012 campaign.
Ron Paul's libertarian campaign has traction because so many Americans respond to his messages:

Who's to Blame for Washington Gridlock. by Jeffrey A. Miron

A last minute deal may have ended the standoff between Democrats and Republicans, but it is still hard to know whether to laugh or cry over this latest adventure in political theater.

The policy stalemate that preoccupied Washington in recent days was over whether to extend last year's reduction in the payroll tax from 6.2% to 4.2%. The House voted to extend it for one year and the Senate for two months, but neither chamber wanted to accept the other's bill.
The House GOP dropped its opposition to the Senate bill Thursday evening. But even if the House approves the short-term payroll tax cut extension Friday, Congress will likely have to revisit the issue before two months are out.

The Ron Paul Revolution Continues. by Christopher Preble

For most of this campaign season, an unassuming septuagenarian has been striking terror in the hearts of the Republican establishment. Much as he did in 2008, Ron Paul has exposed a rift within the Republican Party between small-government, anti-war libertarians and big-government, pro-war neoconservatives. Although Paul has yet to win a plurality in any state, he more than doubled his 2008 vote percentage in Iowa and tripled it in New Hampshire. He retains an enthusiastic following, particularly among younger voters. And he will make a lasting mark on the Republican Party, and the United States, if his followers remain active in politics after he leaves the scene. Whether they will do so, as well as which party they will call home, remains very much in doubt.

Hitting the Ceiling. by Michael D. Tanner

If you liked last year’s battle over raising the debt ceiling, just get ready for the fight to come.

Last summer’s agreement, you will recall, raised the federal government’s debt limit from $15.194 trillion to $16.394 trillion in exchange for promised future reductions in spending. Until recently, the consensus has been that federal borrowing will bump up against the new limit sometime between late November of this year and early January 2013.
But buried in President Obama’s 2013 budget was the news that the national debt will hit $16.334 trillion by the end of fiscal year 2012, or September 30, 2012. This is just $60 billion below the current debt limit. Since the federal government is continuing to borrow at a rate of over $130 billion a month, we will likely reach the debt ceiling by mid-October — before Election Day.

Obama Is More Vulnerable Than Republicans Think: By Ramesh Ponnuru

Real Clear Politics has President Barack Obama leading Mitt Romney, the likely Republican presidential nominee, by 4.6 percentage points in its poll average. Pollster.com gives Obama a similar lead. The bettors at Intrade.com give the Democrats a 60 percent chance of retaining the White House.
And Republicans are growing more pessimistic. George Will of the Washington Post thinks they should throw in the towel.
The conventional wisdom has moved substantially in the president’s favor in recent weeks, but the underlying circumstances of the election have not. The Republicans still have a good shot at winning the presidency.
Start with Obama’s poll numbers, which are mediocre. His job-approval rating has been trending upward since October, but is still below 50 percent. More people disapprove than approve of his performance on health care and on the economy -- two issues likely to be critical in the election. A Gallup/USA Today poll recently found that among swing-state voters, Romney is actually beating Obama. (As is Rick Santorum.) Even in state polls that have Obama ahead, his numbers are weak: He’s below 46 percent in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida and Iowa. And almost 60 percent of Americans believe the country is “on the wrong track,” which typically doesn’t bode well for an incumbent president.

Inconclusive Tuesday

by E.M. | WASHINGTON, DC

SUPER TUESDAY is supposed to be the day when a party’s leading presidential candidate can deliver a fatal blow to his rivals. So it was for the Republicans in 2000 and 2008, at any rate, when George Bush and John McCain cemented their nominations. Yet this year Super Tuesday was a shadow of its former self, in several ways. For one thing, only ten states voted, compared to 21 in 2008. The big day also came later this time around, in March instead of February. And most importantly, it did not deliver the knockout punch that Mitt Romney, the Republican front-runner, would have liked.
Mr Romney dominated the night, by any measure. He won six states, including a narrow victory in Ohio, a big bellwether. He also won the most delegates, the true measure of progress towards the nomination. He now has roughly three times the delegates of his closest rival, Rick Santorum, and is almost a third of the way towards the 1,144 delegates needed to prevail.

Opinion: Rush's Ruin?

Washington Holds Line on Drug Legalization

Opinion: Is Conservatism Becoming Obsolescent?

The Mind in the Oval Office

By Tevi Troy

It is a shame that future presidents will not be able to benefit from James Q. Wilson’s personal wisdom and guidance, as so many of them did for the past four decades.

James Q. Wilson is no more, and the conservative intellectual establishment has suffered a terrible loss. While Professor Wilson is and will continue to be justly remembered and celebrated for his impressive and important body of scholarship, he has also served another key role over the last four decades—as an adviser to every Republican president since Richard Nixon.

By Tino Sanandaji

The American Left is far more interested in northern Europe than it is in southern Europe, despite the fact that southern Europe constitutes the majority of the population of the core 15 European Union members. Why?

A century or so ago, German sociologist Max Weber observed that Protestant countries in northern Europe tended to outperform the Catholic and Orthodox countries in the south of the continent. Weber believed that the northerners had a stronger work ethic, were thriftier, and possessed more of what is today called “social capital.” Though Weber attributed these differences to Protestantism itself, we should note that countries did not randomly convert to Protestantism. The roots for the cultural differences might very well go even deeper.

By Steve Conover

The 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries gave us statesmen who articulated and demonstrated the proper priorities for defense and its funding: preventing future wars requires vigilant investment in defense capabilities.

The debate over defense spending is teetering around a tipping point: should it be more about spending, or more about defense? The former seems to have gained the edge for now, with a preponderance of politicians on both sides spending more time talking about fiscal spending cuts, deficits, and debt than about national security goals, strategies, and threats.

Economics: A Million Mutinies Now

By Arnold Kling

There are now so many versions of ‘what's wrong with the economics profession’ that, with apologies to V.S. Naipaul, I could describe the state of economics as one of a million mutinies.

In August of 2008, Olivier Blanchard, a dean of establishment economics (now serving as chief economist at the International Monetary Fund), produced a working paper that surveyed the field of macroeconomics. He described what he saw as a stable consensus, concluding with the pronouncement, “The state of macro is good.”¹

James Q. Wilson’s Moral Sense

By Peter Wehner

Professor Jim Wilson was, for many of us, a strong beacon light. He dispelled darkness with nearly every word he wrote.

With the death of James Q. Wilson earlier today, America has lost a towering intellectual figure. The mind reels when thinking about the issues Professor Wilson wrote about with such precision, intelligence, originality, and elegance: crime and human nature; drug legalization, science, and addiction; moral character; benevolence; free will; families and communities; race; business ethics and capitalism; American government; democracy and the Islamic world; and much more.

A Few Words About Abortion. by Andrew P. Napolitano

Last week marked the 39th anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court decision that permitted abortions. Prior to that case, abortion was regulated by each state, and most of them prohibited it unless two physicians could certify that the baby growing in the mother's womb would likely result in the death of the mother. Even the states that permitted abortions when the pregnancy was caused by rape or incest, an extremely rare occurrence, did not permit it after the sixth month of pregnancy.

Economy Squeezed as Debt Accelerates. by Ron Paul

Senator Jeff Sessions, ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee has pointed out that our per capita government debt is already larger than Greece's. Per person, our government owes over $49,000 compared to $38,937 per Greek citizen. Our debt has just reached 101% of our Gross Domestic Product. Our creditors see this and have quietly slowed down or stopped their lending to us. As a result, the Federal Reserve has been outright monetizing debt as a way to patch things together and keep the economy on life support a little longer. There is rapidly shrinking demand for our debt, and confidence in the dollar is falling. This phenomenon is hidden only by the fact that confidence in all other fiat currencies is falling faster.

If Catholics Adhere to Their Traditions, They Will Vote for Ron Paul. by Walter Block

For whom should Catholics vote in the Republican primary? Who should they support this November? If this community stands by its principles, there is an overwhelming case for favoring Congressman Paul.

Pro life

Dr. Paul has delivered 4,000 babies. Early in his medical career, he was shocked at the inhumane way our society treats these youngest members of our species. He was particularly horrified by partial birth abortions. This obstetrician-gynecologist is just about the staunchest pro-life advocate this side of the pope himself. Romney has waffled on this issue, as he has on pretty much every question, and the less we say about Obama’s views on this matter, the better. Paul’s dedication to the human person is not limited to babies. He opposes the death penalty, and his anti-imperialism war positions are perfectly congruent with his pro-life philosophy.

Ron Paul and the Election of 2012. by Walter Block

How is Ron Paul doing so far, in the election of 2012? One way to look at this is via the table below:

Results for U.S. Republican Presidential Primaries
~	State	Gingrich	Paul	Romney	Santorum	reporting
02/07	CO	12.8%	11.8%	34.9%	40.3%	100%
02/07	MO	-	12.2%	25.3%	55.2%	100%
02/07	MN	10.8%	27.1%	16.9%	45.0%	99%
02/04	NV	21.1%	18.8%	50.1%	10.0%	100%
01/31	FL	31.9%	7.0%	46.4%	13.3%	100%
01/21	SC	40.4%	13.0%	27.8%	17.0%	100%
01/10	NH	9.4%	22.9%	39.3%	9.4%	100%
01/03	IA	13.3%	21.4%	24.5%	24.6%	>99%
Source: AP

Here, it does not look as if the Congressman from Texas is doing all that well. No outright winner. A string of thirds and fourths. Is he about to be tailed out of the election? Is he about to be turfed off, by the mainstream media that would like nothing better? Not a bit of it.

No Easy Fix for Gas Prices by Peter Schiff

This month, as unleaded gasoline prices increased for 17 consecutive days (to a national average of $3.647 per gallon – up 11% thus far this year) and West Texas Intermediate crude joined Brent crude in breaking through a $100 per barrel level, energy prices emerged as a full blown political issue. While President Obama conveniently claimed that rising prices were the consequence of an improving economy (they're not, and it isn't) Republican fingers began to point sanctimoniously at current drilling policies. And while none of the accusers had any idea why prices were actually going up, the award for the most dangerous 'solution' must go to Bill O'Reilly at Fox News. The master of the "No Spin Zone" announced that high pump prices could be permanently brought down by a presidential order to restrict exports of refined gasoline. Not only does Mr. O'Reilly's idea demonstrate contempt for the U.S. Constitution but it also displays a thorough lack of economic understanding.

Why Buy the Cow?. by Peter Schiff

The communist revolutions in the 20th century sought to nationalize the wealth generated by privately held industries back to the "exploited" workers on whose backs the profits were supposedly derived. America has made the rejection of this idea and its support of free market principles the centerpiece of its economic narrative. However, as a result of our current and proposed tax policies towards corporate shareholders, our government collects a portion of industrial output that would inspire envy in even the most rabid Bolshevik.

Will Foreign Loans Make Us Rich?

by Henry Hazlitt

[Will Dollars Save the World? (1947). Henry Hazlitt had left the New York Times in an ideological disagreement over postwar economic policy. Once he left, he was free to speak his mind on the important issues of the day, among which was the Marshall Plan. Arguing against the idea of putting postwar Europe on the US dole, Hazlitt made the case that aid would forestall rather than generate economic recovery.]

One of a number of posters created by the Economic Cooperation Administration, an agency of the US government, to sell the Marshall Plan in Europe.

Note the pivotal position of the American flag.

Krugman and British Austerity

by Sean Rosenthal

In a recent New York Times op-ed piece called "The Austerity Debacle," columnist Paul Krugman notes how policies in Britain have failed to bring about an economic recovery. In doing so, he contends that the British government's decision to "slash spending" has led to a slower economic recovery as measured by real GDP growth than during the Great Depression. However, as will be shown, the present British government has implemented insignificant spending reductions and continues to run large budget deficits while the British government of the Great Depression followed "austerity" measures much more closely than the present government. Therefore, so far as unrelated historical events provide any evidence, the historical evidence in Britain supports the view that spending cuts bring about larger economic recoveries than deficit spending does.

Obama’s very small stick

President’s strong rhetoric on Israel rings hollow

By THE WASHINGTON TIMES

President Obama meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday, March, 5, 2012, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

President Obama says he has Israel’s back. The question now is whether anyone believes him.
On Monday, at a White House meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Mr. Obama reiterated his recent pro-Israel line. “The bond between our two countries is unbreakable,” he declared. “And as I’ve said to the prime minister in every single one of our meetings, the United States will always have Israel’s back when it comes to Israel’s security.”

BARRASSO: Strategic Petroleum Reserve is for emergencies - not political disasters

Obama raid on reservoir would be nothing more than campaign trick

By Sen. John Barrasso

Illustration by Alexander Hunter for The Washington Times

With the price of gas rising, Americans are feeling pain at the pump and President Obama is feeling the heat. Three years of his failed energy policies have done nothing to give America energy security. About the only quick fix the president has available is to tap the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

Wednesday, March 7, 2012