Then you might be a terrorist, says the police state. Oh, and people who pay cash are also "suspicious."

I recently mentioned here the deadliest sniper in U.S. history. Huff Post is running an excerpt from his book American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History.  Here is his absolutely warped view of the war in Iraq:

Savage, despicable evil. That's what we were fighting in Iraq. That's why a lot of people, myself included, called the enemy "savages." There really was no other way to describe what we encountered there. People ask me all the time, "How many people have you killed?" My standard response is, "Does the answer make me less, or more, of a man?" The number is not important to me. I only wish I had killed more. Not for bragging rights, but because I believe the world is a better place without savages out there taking American lives. Everyone I shot in Iraq was trying to harm Americans or Iraqis loyal to the new government.

And why were they trying to harm Americans? Could it be because Americans invaded and occupied their country?

At the National Prayer Breakfast yesterday, Obama argued that his efforts to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans, promote health insurance reform, help families with college tuition, and send troops to prevent human rights abuses in Uganda were grounded in his faith. That's funny, my opposition to raising taxes on the wealthy, socialized medicine, welfare for college students and their parents, and sending troops anywhere is grounded in my faith.

Said the president: "I think to myself, if I’m willing to give something up as somebody who’s been extraordinarily blessed, and give up some of the tax breaks that I enjoy, I actually think that’s going to make economic sense. But for me, as a Christian, it also coincides with Jesus’ teaching that 'for unto whom much is given, much shall be required.'" True, but it is God that does the requiring, not the United States government. For more on Christianity and libertarianism, see my ASC lectures "The Myth of the Just Price" and "Is Libertarianism Compatible with Religion?"

Bush, of course, was not any better—talking about his Christian faith while launching two wars. See my analysis of Bush's Christian faith here.

The government's no-fly list has doubled in the past year to 21,000 "known or suspected" terrorists, including 500 Americans. In a free society, only the airlines would maintain a no-fly list. Just as the owner of any business could include or exclude anyone he decided for any reason. In a free society. You know, the kind of society that Americans think they have because they are proud to be Americans because at least they know they're free and similar BS.

Anti-immigrant conservatives cheer.

Reyes Jimenez's son and three daughters are now living in foster care in Phoenix, and are awaiting possible adoption. Reyes Jimenez is back in Mexico, her parental rights terminated by an Arizona judge, and she cries when she remembers the raid that began it all.

"My daughters were calling, 'Mommy, my Mommy,'" said Reyes Jimenez. "I felt destroyed. I felt like I would never see my girls, even worse [the baby] was so small. I had just bought her cradle and her stroller."

I can hear the advocates for despotism in the name of combating immigration already: "The woman was a lawbreaker. This is sad, but she broke the law."

I can only quote Saint Augustine and Saint Thomas Aquinas: "An unjust law is no law at all." But alas, those who advocate for for such forms of despotism need not have any regard for the morality of such laws since the foundational philosophy of anti-immigration activists is nothing more sophisticated than "We must support big government or immigrants will come here and support big government."

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Look at all of the land "we" own. Okay, it's actually "owned" by the Federal government—but aren't "we the people" the government?

(Click on the map for a larger image. The red coloring is not the actual land "owned" by the Federal government in each state. It's just a visual representation of the percentage.)

[Thanks to Mark Fee]

... of conservative warmongers and police statists is coming soon to CPAC.

Some old friends of mine work for Newt, and they read LRC (for education, not just opposition research). So here's a message for their boss.

Newt, you're undoubtedly aware that a lot of primary voters are voting for you, not because you are their first choice, but because they want to stop Rockefeller Romney. Some of them (far too many, frankly), are Ron Paul fans who voted for you in Florida, or who are thinking of voting for you in the future.

Newt, your organizing talents are few, and your hired goons got out of hand in Florida, assaulting a Ron Paul supporter and Florida citizen at one of your appearances -- which was not a Gingrich rally, but a polling station on public property.

Newt, they broke his bones and assaulted him. And it appears that you're blowing it off.

Newt, believe me, you need to apologize, quickly and publicly, to Eddie Dillard, the victim of your rogue employees. Pay his medical expenses and fire your staff imbeciles. If you don't, and if those employees are still on your campaign payroll come Monday, Newt, you're toast. You are toast.

Take a deep breath, Newt, come down to earth, and apologize. Fire the jerks and carry on. Blow it off, and you are, as they say back on campus, "history."

Your friend,

Chris

I discovered to my horror not long ago that the caucus date for Kansas, where I live, is March 10, when I'll be at the Mises Institute's Austrian Scholars Conference. But if I can't be at the caucus, I can at least fire up and offer advice to caucus goers, which I'll be doing right here in Topeka on Monday night, and then in Washington state on February 11.

Still wish I could have given a caucus speech for Ron Paul....

If you would like a concrete instance of zero credibility of the U.S., I suggest you read this detailed account of how the U.S. dealt with Iran on one proposal and on how it sandbagged Turkey and Brazil.

Less than 10 years ago, the U.S. was, on paper anyway, against starting a war without being attacked. It was against aggression. Then came Bush 2. Then came preemptive war. Then came unprovoked attacks on Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya. Clinton's bombing in Yugoslavia and sanctions on Iraq were aggressions that led up to outright military attacks.

Now policy experts and Washington figures speak euphemistically of "preventive war," and they send the term aggression down the memory hole. They delete it, as in this document, which is concerned with only one thing, the success or failure of "preventive war" on Iran in achieving some goal like ending Iran's nuclear program or ending the regime now in power. The rightness or wrongness of aggression initiated by the U.S. does not even come up. Washington is oblivious to the very serious consequences of ignoring the moral aspects of its decisions. Perhaps I am naive, but I admit being shocked to see how quickly moral capital has been dissipated and uncivilized actions that violate rights have risen into acceptance in America. This deterioration in the respect for rights internationally is mirrored by a similarly shocking and like deterioration domestically. Such declines are plentiful historically. That's no surprise. The speed of it is what surprises me. How quickly it is that people abandon morality and/or change their concept of what is right and wrong. How quickly they abandon a long-accepted moral compass.

Writes Jack Douglas:

"I don't normally speculate much about techno-futurism because there is such a mass of swarming technologies being developed worldwide and the most important ones are the ones you cannot foresee from here—the real earth shattering "breakthroughs." We can see that drones and swarming [watch the chilling video], etc., are developing very rapidly and the trends look explosive—exponential, almost straight up, as they see it.

But there are now massive defenses developing and more will explode, as always happens in weaponry and peaceful tech. The Iranians just showed us a simple one they used to take control of the most top-secret U.S. super-drone, land it, and do a complete reverse engineering for them and their allies.

The futurists seem not to realize that swarming is an ancient "conventional" tactic of bees, hyenas, and human horse warfare and guerillas. The Romans were largely stymied and stopped in their march E. by the swarming Scythian horse tactics and others. The war band guerillas in the N. hit them with swarms they could not see coming in the great forests. The American guerillas hit Gentleman Johnny and his red coats and Indians from all sides—swarming out of the forests and then melting away, cutting down trees to slow his supply wagons, etc. They drove him bats and cut away his splendid forces so they were an easy target in later, big battles—Saratoga—that stopped the Brit plan to divide the colonies and defeat them piecemeal.

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Thank you so much for your enthusiastic support for LRC in 2011. Not only did our traffic increase by 19.8% over the previous best year, 2010, but we had our best year, by far, on Amazon. Your purchases go a long way toward keeping the lights on here. It's also heartwarming to receive so many messages about how much the site means to you, and how it has been a factor in making lives better, not just intellectually and physically, but by strengthening our spirit of independence.

Here are the top sellers on Amazon last year.  As you can see, they're indicative of what may be an "LRC lifestyle":

Iodine;
Iodoral;
Vitamin D3 5000;
Barefoot fitness and casual shoes;

And the #1 product overall?
The subversive 100 Watt Incandescent Lightbulb.

The year's 4 best-selling books:

Liberty Defined: 50 Essential Issues That Affect Our Freedom, by Ron Paul;
The Primal Blueprint 21-Day Total Transformation: A step-by-step gene reprogramming action plan, by Mark Sisson;
Rollback:  Repealing Big Government Before the Coming Fiscal Collapse, by Thomas E. Woods, Jr.;
It Is Dangerous To Be Right When the Government Is Wrong: The Case for Personal Freedom, by Andrew P. Napolitano.

And there is still time to join a great teacher—Tom DiLorenzo—in examining a forbidden topic: the libertarian tradition of secession and states rights. But psst: don't tell the NY Times. The course, which is just $95, starts tonight. Sign up!

Guess who is the largest holder of U.S. government debt? China? Don't be a silly goose. Try again. Come on...come on...come on...you can do it...you can do it. Give up? Okaaaaaaaay. Here it is:

1. Federal Reserve and Intragovernmental Holdings

U.S. debt holdings: $6.328 trillion

That’s right, the biggest single holder of U.S. government debt is the Federal Reserve system. The Fed's system of banks and other U.S. intragovernmental holdings accounted for a stunning $6.328 trillion in U.S. Treasury debt in September 2011 (the most recent number available). The amount is an all-time high as the Federal Reserve continues to expand its balance sheet, partially to purchase U.S. government debt securities.

Do ya think that Dave and Ev are fans of Keynes, or of Mises? Come on...come on...come on...you can do it......you can do it...

"The Bipartisan Policy Center's National Security Project called yesterday for providing Israel with 200 GBU-31 bombs and two or three KC-135 aerial refueling tankers. Israel has a different variant of the bunker buster and about a dozen aerial tankers, which would be needed to enable Israeli warplanes to strike targets in Iran, according to a report by the group." This is cited here.

General Charles Wald participated in the Bipartisan Policy Center's report. He wrote "While we do not advocate an Israeli military strike, we believe a more credible Israeli threat can only increase the pressure on Iran to negotiate." This is two-faced doubletalk. How else can such a threat be construed? It's saying we demand that you negotiate and you must accede to what we want, or else we will have Israel bomb you. But so-called "negotiation" under the threat of a gun held to one's head is not good-faith negotiation at all. Such threats and negotiation are incompatible.

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Warmongers who want war with Iran are very persistent. The flow of pro-war "news" items (really expressions of pro-war sentiments and arguments) in recent weeks, here and in Israel, is similar to the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld-Rice-Powell lying propaganda campaign leading up to the unprovoked U.S. attack on Iraq. This flow is heavy and is designed to create public support for a war of aggression on Iran.

Today there is an item from the Bipartisan Policy Center. These "policy" groups form and spring up to promote their views. Their official sounding names, designed to cull respect, are ruses. They are front organizations that are really meaningless in terms of objectivity or having in mind the interests of the general public or Americans at large. They are creatures of Washington and power and special interests. (I view Washington's interests generally as being opposed to the properly-understood interests, and certainly the rights, of most Americans.)

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Their pay will be frozen for another year. But they have still been getting step increases averaging $1,303 during the freeze.

Whatever his faults, MLK did oppose the immoral Vietnam War. BHO took Bush's war and expanded it.

Even with three wives, he will never catch up to Ron Paul's 55 years of marriage to one woman.

Thanks in advance to all who plan to protest the NDAA and its suspension of habeas corpus outside your congresscriminal’s office tomorrow from 12 noon–7 PM. I deeply and personally appreciate your strong stance for freedom.

Evelyn de Rothschild thinks a One World Currency would be best (:20). Of course it would be best—for him and Master Dave. (By the way, I'm pretty sure that this is not the One World Currency that Master Ev is talking about.) Towards the end of this self-promotion video (2:16), he brings up another one of his favorite One World Government topics: climate change.

Peter M. Lawrence writes that sanctions give leaders enhanced control over restricted supplies, which enhances their powers of patronage. He mentions Idi Amin and Uganda as an example. After finishing my article, I thought of the usual negative which is that leaders are able to blame internal problems that they may be responsible for on the sanctions. They also can rally the people around an enemy who has created the sanctions. These negatives increase the power of the existing regime, rather than weaken it. Let's not forget the oil-for-food program that Saddam Hussein used to his benefit. That program was a follow-on to sanctions and meant to ameliorate them.

After already regulating alcohol, tobacco, and trans fats, guess what is being recommended that Big Daddy Government should regulate for our "health"?

Sugar. SUGAR!! Yes, Big Daddy Government should regulate sugar because it's a "toxin."

"Sugar and other sweeteners are, in fact, so toxic to the human body that they should be regulated as strictly as alcohol by governments worldwide, according to a commentary in the current issue of the journal Nature by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF)."

The researchers propose regulations such as taxing all foods and drinks that include added sugar, banning sales in or near schools and placing age limits on purchases. ["taxing all foods and drinks that include added sugar"—Taxing? No!! Really??!!]

Here's my favorite quote:

"sucrose, an even mix of glucose and fructose found in high-fructose corn syrup and in table sugar made from sugar cane and sugar beets — has been as detrimental to society as alcohol and tobacco." [emphasis mine]

You and I both know that the biggest toxin that has been "detrimental to society" is the institution of government.

Linda Perlstein, writing in Newsweek, is entranced to find that well-to-do urban liberals are homeschooling, too, and loving it.

My blog of yesterday [Re: Herr Panetta's Diktat] brought the following e-mail response from Fr. Seraphim Bell, Chairman of the Department of Missionary Work, of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia:

"I was interested in your post on the Lew Rockwell site about the White Rose  movement. It is very timely for many reasons. You might be interested to know that this weekend in Berlin, Alexander Schmorell, one of the five students who formed the White Rose movement, is being canonized as a martyred saint by the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia. Together with his friend, Hans Scholl, Alexander wrote the fifth leaflet "Aufruf an alle Deutschen!" (Appeal to all Germans!)"

E-mails rarely bring tears to my eyes, but this one did. I wish that I had the time and the money to fly to Berlin for this weekend.

Sen. Susan Collins [R-ME] has introduced legislation “that could force the Transportation Security Administration to commission an independent study” of the risks its porno-scanners pose to our health (far be it from the senator to honor her oath of office and abolish the TSA because it violates the Constitution).

“Collins said she was motivated to introduce the bill by the daughter of a constituent who had a miscarriage after undergoing an airport security screening. ‘We will never know for certain the cause of this family’s loss,’ Collins said in a statement. ‘But they believe in their hearts the backscatter is to blame.’” Umm, Susie? Way, way, way too feeble. A child has died: you can do better than yet another study.

And through it all, “TSA Chief John Pistole has repeatedly defended the safety of the agency's screening machines…”

Pretend you’re a politician (yeah, I know: hard to do unless you own a sociopath’s imagination) in Nazi Germany. Do you focus on the millions of people your cronies are murdering? Or do you instead obsess about where they’re buying the barbed wire and Zyklon B for the extermination camps? Do you worry over the unutterable evil you’ve unleashed or whether the kommandants are patronizing good German firms?

Now pretend you’re a politician in the Amerikan Empire. Do you focus on the millions of people your cronies are molesting, or where the TSA buys bracelets memorializing — what else? — 9/11?

“U.S. Rep. Chris Murphy, founder and co-chairman of the congressional Buy American Caucus,” is also a Demopublican from Connecticut craving a promotion to the Senate. Based on his appalling economic ignorance, immunity to the glaringly obvious, and self-righteous hypocrisy, I predict he’ll achieve his ambition, too. Here’s his excoriation of John Pistole, Head Pervert at the TSA, over the $17,500 that dimwit squandered to outfit his thugs with bracelets: “By awarding this contract to a company who imported the items from China — a country with questionable labor practices, a dismal record of human rights violations and a manipulated currency — your agency denied American workers the opportunity to manufacture these commemorative bracelets with pride here in the United States.”

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Back in 2002 or 2003, I went to see Ron Paul make a speech at the University of Colorado in Boulder. He was flown in by the College Libertarians to discuss the PATRIOT Act, the newly-created Department of Homeland Security and matters of war and peace.

Fewer than 100 people were there. Afterward, I briefly talked to Paul. There wasn't much of a wait to do so. Paul was there to do what he always does: spread the message of liberty. Unfortunately, not very many people were listening back then.

(photo of the Denver event from dailypaul.com)

Today, 1,200 people showed up for his event at Colorado State University today, and another 1,150 showed up for his talk in Denver. Perhaps another 1,000 showed up to see him in Colorado Springs.

I drove over to the Denver rally at lunch time, and managed to find a parking space about five blocks away from the Renaissance Hotel. I parked behind a car with a veteran's license place that said "LBRTY." Inside I found a room packed with more than 1,000 people who had come to cheer a man who denounces war, the state, and paper money.

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Jason Bennett clued me into this from Beck. It probably won't stay there, so I quote it: "Iran planning attack on U.S. soil: Reason #388372 why diplomacy alone doesn’t work — despite Obama’s butt kissing diplomacy, Iran still is reportedly planning terror attacks on U.S. soil." He links to something called The Blaze. It has the same misleading editing as the misleading Fox News piece. It says "The U.S. intelligence community believes that Iran is prepared to launch terrorist attacks inside the United States in response to perceived threats from America and its allies, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told the Senate Tuesday morning in an open hearing." No, that's not what Clapper said. Clapper's written testimony does not say terrorist attacks concerning the threat from Iran that he raises. It simply says "an attack" and "future attacks." And, in addition, he says "in response to real or perceived U.S. actions that threaten the regime." Another thing — Clapper said that what the Iranians actually might do depended on "their perceptions of U.S. threats against the regime." It seems to me that fairly subtle changes in words, small additions and subtractions, alter meaning quite substantially. Beck has sensationalized Clapper's testimony and made the Iranians seem bent on terror attacks here. This suits his bias, but it's warmongering and irresponsible.

I don't watch or read Beck, but then I don't watch any television whatever and haven't done so for decades. When I catch bits and pieces of such shows at various establishments, it seems to me that these pundits are living in another world, another quite crazy world.

The young guy who outed ACORN as the fraudulent and criminal organization that it is, James O'Keefe, has uncovered how very, very easy it is to commit vote fraud. He was being discussed on a talk radio show this morning where the guest on the show described how James got the names of several dead people in New Hampshire and posed as them on election day. He was not asked for an I.D. They just asked him his name, which was on the list of voter rolls. He didn't vote, but just walked away, having proven how easy it would be for someone to stuff the ballot boxes with the "votes" of dead people.

The best way to get news is to read actual testimony, reports, transcripts, and speeches. The worst way is to read headlines, unless you like to be subjected to distortions and misunderstandings. In between, one can read news reports and then blogs, comments, and editorials about news reports.

No matter what one reads, the next step is to think about the matter and place it in perspective based on important factors, past events, past news, past communications, history, and so on.

Case in point: the testimony of Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper today. See here for his actual testimony in written form. Most important is that he said clearly that Iran is not building nuclear weapons and CIA chief David Petraeus said the same thing, and the latter said he had met with the head of Mossad to convey his view. This portion of his testimony was not reported in the Boston Herald article. Instead, it pieced together two unconnected parts of his testimony and left the impression that Iran was making enriched uranium in order to conduct an attack on the U.S.!! See here. This is disgracefully poor reporting and utterly misleading.

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The potential for East-West conflict over Iran is that Russia and China have both given strong indications of being on Iran's side. With China, there is this report. The level of Chinese support goes beyond words and economic sanctions. It goes to military aid and prospective military support. Several high-level officials in Russia have criticized sanctions as well as any attack in quite strong language, suggesting "catastrophe" and unknown but large ramifications. The West's sanctions are backfiring already as Iran arranges oil sales in non-dollar currencies. They are backfiring by creating support for Iran among states outside of Europe and the U.S.

A Senate committee is going to report out a bill that increases the sanctions on Iran within a few days. These sanctions are really on various enterprises and companies too and take aim at Iran's economy. It won't be long before the Senate passes the bill because this is bipartisan. The House has already passed its version. The psychopathology of power and empire dominates the U.S. government.

India has already defied the EU's sanctions. China is on the same course. Russia has called these sanctions a severe mistake. Brazil and Turkey have previously been against U.S. sanctions on Iran. The rest of the world can undercut the West's economic sanctions.

Re the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Kirk Myers makes the further correct point that the U.S. is in violation of it. The NPT says:

"All the Parties to the Treaty undertake to facilitate, and have the right to participate in, the fullest possible exchange of equipment, materials and scientific and technological information for the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. Parties to the Treaty in a position to do so shall also co-operate in contributing alone or together with other States or international organizations to the further development of the applications of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, especially in the territories of non-nuclear-weapon States Party to the Treaty, with due consideration for the needs of the developing areas of the world."

Glenn Greenwald's article about Leon Panetta's open admission that the President can order the murder of anyone — even Americans — upon the CIA's and the president having declared such a person to be a "terrorist," ends on the most disturbing question: Why do so few people even care? That Republican GOP candidates — except one — and various neocon voices applaud the assertion of such authority is predictable: Those who long for power over others want no limitations placed on their actions. To suggest outmoded "due process" considerations — such as formal charges and a trial — is to deny that the monopoly on the use of violence (which defines the state) might have limits! Meanwhile, those of us who compare modern America with Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia continue to be labeled "paranoid extremists." It is all the more remarkable that our current president asserts the same kind of "due-process-free" power to kill that once sent percaled Ku Klux Klansmen in search of their enemies!

There is a most powerful book that ought to be read by everyone — particularly those of Tom Brokaw's "greatest generation" who still like to pretend that they fought in WWII to end tyranny. It is Milton Mayer's They Thought They Were Free, a post-WWII study of the responses of ordinary Germans to the question "What was it like living under Nazi tyranny?"

I have just finished the writing of another book, to be titled  The Wizards of Ozymandias. The book is dedicated to "the memory and the spirit of Sophie and Hans Scholl and the White Rose, who reminded us what it means to be civilized." The young people who worked, peacefully, within Nazi Germany to resist Nazism were unceremoniously guillotined by government officials who, not unlike their modern American counterparts, acted to kill their version of "terrorists." It would be pointless for members of this administration, the Republicans who want only to replace Obama with their unrestrained power, or the neocons, to bother reading Mayer's book. For the rest of us, however, it might provide the antidote that answers Greenwald's closing question.

The American Accent Quiz. Have you taken it?

Obama is committing a reasonable number of murders, he claims.

"Every war in which the United States has engaged since 1815 was waged in the name of democracy. Each has contributed to that centralization of power which tends to destroy that local self-government which is what most Americans have in mind when they acclaim democracy."

— Felix Morley, Freedom and Federalism (1959), p. 121.

"There is one modern political writer who saw very clearly that military centralization is helpful in undermining a federal republic. His name was Adolf Hitler. Chapter 10 of Volume II of Mein Kampf, which is devoted to an indictment of German Federalism as an obstacle to the triumph of national socialism, is well worthy of current attention by those who do not realize that a concentration of power can be used for evil as well as for good — and is perhaps much more likely to be used for evil than for good."

— Felix Morley, Freedom and Federalism (1959), p. 142.

To learn more about freedom, federalism, states' rights, and their relation to the growth of government, consider taking my four-week online Mises Academy course on "Freedom and Federalism: The Libertarian States' Rights Tradition." The first class is this Thursday at 7:30 – 9:00 PM Eastern Time. Still plenty of time to sign up.

Tuesday night, Revolution PAC will once again offer live video coverage of primary results as they come in. Ron Paul isn't expected to do well in Florida, of course, but you'll still want to tune in for Ron Paul news and analysis you won't get from the mainstream media, plus live interviews with Jim Rogers, Peter Schiff, "Blue Republican" Robin Koerner, and Paul supporters on the ground in Florida.

Watch the live video at this link from 6 to 9:30 p.m. Central Time on Tuesday.

We got a great response to our South Carolina coverage — which drew more than 20,000 viewers with very little advance publicity — but we were just getting ramped up then; look for the show to get bigger and better tomorrow and as the primary season goes on.

Here is a journalist who says, amazingly, that Ron Paul actually wants to become the next president of the US. And not only that; he also states, even more amazingly, that Ron Paul CAN win the election. And, if that don't beat all, this journalist goes even further out on the limb and mentions a strategy that can lead to this result. Along the way, he debunks the oft made claim that there is a "ceiling" of support for Dr. Paul, way below the level needed to win. A magnificent journalistic effort. Will the New York Times soon be trumpeting this sort of analysis? Don't bet on it.

RTs Alyona Minkovski does what none of the Banksters-controlled MSM talking heads do: She rips apart current Offense Secretary Leon Panetta on his Fascist "rationale" of why a U.S. Murderer-in-Chief can murder any human being without due process so long as the Murder-in-Chief deems such person a "terrorist" or "enemy combatant." Here's the Glenn Greenwald essay she refers to.

[Thanks to Bill Wood]

So, Ron Paul is a "utopian," but other candidates who dream of statehood for the moon, expanded police-state powers, wars against the rest of the world, nuking nations that pose no threat to America, and generating wealth by the printing of more money, fail to attract the attention of this comic-page visionary? Where are Mutt and Jeff now that we need them?

Bill: Just for the record, Garry Trudeau was a member of the Scroll and Key secret society when he attended Yale University. Though not as well known as Yale's no-longer-secret Skull & Bones secret society, it was established as Skull & Bone's competitor. I'm sure that there is enough Establishment go-along-to-get-along philosophy at Scroll and Key for us to presume that Trudeau is just another Establishment sock puppet for Rothschild-Rockefeller Inc.

In this cartoon attacking Ron Paul, Garry Trudeau claims that a society in which government is not controlling everything is "utopian." However, since Trudeau is a self-proclaimed "Progressive" who believes that government can and should be telling us what to eat, what to wear, what to believe, and where we should live (and not abuse its powers), I wonder if he believes that our own society is Utopia, or if he believes that we will achieve Utopia when government secures enough power.

Snoop Dogg posted this on his Facebook. Some humorless folks might be turned off, but I don't think this will hurt the campaign nearly as much as some people fear. Virtually no one is attacking Ron for his position on marijuana, a position that a majority of Americans now hold. Rather, his far more controversial views on the welfare-warfare state draw the most criticism, yet those are very important for him to stress regardless. But I'm glad people are recognizing he's the only major candidate in over thirty years – or perhaps ever – to call for ending the drug war.

Writes Jack Douglas:

"There are now so many phony "Private Secret Police" forces in the U.S. and around the world, and so many official secret-secret armies and secret-known armies, that all kinds of false flag, treasonous, or merely corrupt activities become very high probability events. Blackwater and CIA secret-secret units working through private corporate units abroad are far more likely to do such Black Ops for hire or out of ideological conviction than CIA regulars working in Virginia and attending PTA meetings at night. They are also far more likely to become dangerous to their secretly nominal paymasters in D.C.

We now face far worse dangers like these than ever before. The CIA murders, planned murders, etc., exposed by the Church Comm. were actually being "run" in secret ways from the White House. I think we'll see far more atrocities over the years ahead from these far more independent Black Ops units.

As I say, we live in an age of Borgias—actually far worse, since Cesar and Lucretia Borgia never imagined running terrorist rendition, torture, and murder ops worldwide.

This is one of America's terrifying "Gifts" to  our world today. The U.S. had help in producing this horrendous situation we face worldwide. The Soviets and Nazis started much of it, but the U.S. has spread it worldwide and almost every day murders people secretly around the world by Drone Murders, Black Ops, False Black Flag Ops, Puppet Proxy Ops, etc. Every time the Mossad murders an Iranian scientist or Arab politician sleeping in a hotel in Dubai, they do so with "blanket" or "tacit" U.S. approval and financial support through Israel and often with secret U.S. help, we must assume. The U.S. began this a half century ago when the CIA and UK units secretly overthrew the new Iranian democracy and installed the terrorist Shah's Savak to murder the supporters of freedom in Iran. It is now worldwide and obvious every day. Right now the CIA and other U.S. secret units are working furiously to support the efforts of the totalitarian Army forces of Egypt to quash the freedom movements, the terrible Saudi totalitarianism, the murder of Shia in Bahrain by the puppet king supported by Saudi Arabia, and on and on."

I am always amused at the people who like to contrast "self-interest" with the "public interest." When former FCC chairman Newton Minow opined that "the public interest is not what interests the public," he gave away the fraudulent nature of the game. A colleague of mine still insists — after a good twenty years of our discussing the subject — that people can act altruistically. "Give me one example," I ask, "just one. We have numerous and varied interests we pursue, and we act only in anticipation of being better off afterwards than if we had not acted," I tell him. "In other words, all volitional action is self-interest motivated." I'll have to ask my friend if he has become a speech-writer for Soros.

George Soros admits there is not much of a difference between Romney and Obama. (No!! Really??!!)

“Well, look, either you’ll have an extremist conservative, be it Gingrich or Santorum, in which case I think it will make a big difference which of the two comes in,” he said. “If it’s between Obama and Romney, there isn’t all that much difference except for the crowd that they bring with them.”

Though the Bolshevik billionaire George Soros anguishes:

But he acknowledged that a major difference between Romney and Obama would be their potential Supreme Court nominations and their stance on taxation.

“That is the big difference, and that has led my hedge fund community to abandon Obama in favor of any Republican because they don’t like to be taxed,” Soros explained. “I personally believe that when it comes to policy, you shouldn’t be pursuing self-interest, but the public interest. And I think that the income differentials are too wide and ought to be narrowed.” [Georgy-Porgy, if you're feeling "guilt" over the exorbitant income you earn, here's your chance to give more to your beloved government without even waiting for it to raise your income taxes.]

[Thanks to Charles D Frohman]

The Weekly Standard complains that the collapse of British imperialism threatens its hold on the Malvinas Islands off the coast of Argentina.

As usual, British "principle" boils down to money — in this case, oil. But wait, there's more: We recall that Prime Minister Thatcher threatened to use nuclear weapons against Argentina in 1982. One wonders, why threaten a nuclear holocaust, when the celebrated "Iron Lady" had placidly and peacefully returned British colonies in Hong Kong and Rhodesia to communist regimes?

Alas, the hatred lies deeper. For the Brits, communists were merely the competition. Catholics are the enemy — and so, in its death throes, England tenaciously holds on to her colonies in Catholic countries: Northern Ireland, Gibraltar, and Argentina.

There's a joke about Irish Alzheimer's — you forget everything but the grudges. As Britain sinks into the mire, it forgets everything but its blind, ancient hatred.