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Ron Paul Institute by Adam Dick Dec 11, 2024 It is bad enough that the United States government year after year spends enormous sums and violates rights in abandon to continue fighting in America its war on drugs — a war it has been losing and will continue to lose. Unfortunately, the US government keeps pursing its war on drugs abroad as well. A new report out this month from the Drug Policy Alliance and Harm Reduction International relates that since 2015 the US government has allocated almost 13 billion dollars to “counternarcotics activities” internationally. That is on average over a billion dollars a year. The Report titled “A World of Harm” also provides details about how this spending has resulted in many negative outcomes in regard to the liberty and health of people around the world while financially benefiting connected companies. Bad results of US drug war spending abroad is highlighted in the report through discussion focused on US counternarcotics activities in the Philippines, Colombia, and Mexico.

Ron Paul Institute by Jacob G. Hornberger Dec 11, 2024 Having watched the great drug-war Netflix documentaries Narcos and Narcos Mexico and the excellent drug-war drama La Reina del Sur, I wasn’t too interested in watching another drug-war-related series. But when I realized that the Apple TV+ documentary “Cowboy Cartel” revolved around my hometown of Laredo, Texas, where I lived almost half my life and practiced law for 8 years, I couldn’t resist watching it. While I can recommend Narcos and Narcos Mexico and La Reina del Sur (The English version is The Queen of the South), I can’t recommend “Cowboy Cartel”, except if you want to be reminded of what an exercise of inanity the war on drugs is — and a deadly and destructive inanity at that. Another valuable lesson from the Cowboy Cartel is that you can see how obtuse federal officials are who are waging the drug war. The series revolves around a new, young FBI agent named Scott Lawson whose first duty assignment is Laredo. Attempting to find a niche for himself among all the other federal agents in Laredo, including the FBI, DEA, ICE, and Homeland Security, who, along with the Border Patrol, have turned Laredo into a veritable police state, Lawson starts delving into a money-laundering operation involving the purchase, sale, and racing of quarter-horses. The operation is being run by the most ruthless and brutal drug cartel in the history of Mexico, the Zetas, whose base is Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, which is just across the Rio Grande from Laredo.

Mises Wire Joseph Solis-Mullen 12/10/2024 The “loss of China” to communism in 1949 was a pivotal moment in American foreign policy, for the fall of the Nationalist government (Kuomintang, KMT) led by Chiang Kai-shek to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) under Mao Zedong marked a significant shift in the geopolitical landscape of Asia. It was quickly followed by the outbreak of war in Korea, and indeed Washington’s calculations regarding the peninsula became closely entangled with their calculations regarding the new regime in Beijing. This article examines the Truman administration’s policies regarding China and Taiwan before the outbreak of the Korean War, the strategic calculations involved, the impact of domestic political pressures, particularly McCarthyism, on US foreign policy, and their relevance to today. Following World War II, the civil war in China between the Nationalists and the Communists, interrupted by the Second Sino-Japanese War, reignited. Despite substantial American support, the Nationalists were unable to maintain control. Dean Acheson, Secretary of State under President Harry S. Truman, detailed the reasons for this failure in his statement on August 5, 1949. In it, Acheson pointed out that the Nationalist government’s collapse was due to internal decay, lack of popular support, and military ineptitude, not the inadequacy of American aid, writing: “The reasons for the failures of the Chinese National Government do not stem from any inadequacy of American aid The fact was that the decay which our observers had detected had fatally sapped the powers of resistance of the Kuomintang.” Indeed. The United States had provided nearly $2 billion in grants and credits to the Nationalist government post-V-J Day, and this his aid was aimed at stabilizing China and curbing the spread of communism; however, the Nationalist forces were plagued by corruption and a lack of will to fight, resulting in large quantities of US-supplied military equipment falling into Communist hands.

Mises Wire J.R. MacLeod 12/11/2024 During his 2024 presidential campaign Donald Trump repeatedly and in grave terms highlighted the possibility of the US dollar losing its world reserve currency status. This occurred at summits with business leaders at the New York and Chicago Economic Clubs.

Posted By: Tyler Durden via ZeroHedge David Sacks is a arch-Technocrat who was part of the so-called PayPal Mafia that was founded by Peter Thiel. As a venture capitalist, he was an angel investor in companies like Facebook, Uber, SpaceX, Palantir Technologies, and Airbnb. Now, he will be Trump's czar on AI and Crypto policy. https://www.technocracy.news/trump-taps-arch-technocrat-david-o-sacks-for-a-i-crypto-czar/

By Laurence M. Vance December 11, 2024 President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to be the administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has withdrawn. This is one agency that Trump shouldn’t nominate anyone to lead. The selection of Florida Hillsborough County sheriff Chad Chronister was opposed by many Republicans. Chronister “has a long and sordid history of making the exact sort of decisions that have contributed to widespread distrust in law enforcement. He arrested a pastor who defied the lockdowns during the pandemic, has used his office to promote the political agenda of the gay and transgender movement, and has refused to enforce Florida’s laws prohibiting employers from hiring illegal immigrants.” Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky) said Chronister “should be disqualified for ordering the arrest a pastor who defied COVID lockdowns.” Drug warrior that he is, Trump will no doubt nominate someone else to lead the agency, but he shouldn’t. The DEA is one of the most unconstitutional, evil, and unnecessary agencies of the federal government.

Mises.org By Ryan McMaken December 11, 2024 In late November, the seemingly dormant civil war in Syria reignited and Syrian rebel groups began a new drive across western Syria. At first, the rebels captured Aleppo and Hama, and then moved on to the capital Damascus, finally toppling the Assad regime. The fall of the Assad regime—the last secular Arab regime—represents a victory for Islamist, terrorist insurgents and their allies. These terrorists’ allies, most especially the US and the State of Israel. Washington began to publicly and actively pursue this in 2013 when then-President Barack Obama declared that Assad “must go” during a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Then, as now, the US was being repeatedly pulled into regional conflicts in the service of the Israeli state. Tel Aviv wanted a puppet regime installed in Syria that would facilitate Israeli land grabs in southern Syria.