Ron Paul Liberty Report, 05/12/26
Source: Ron Paul Liberty Report
“US Has Lost In Iran. Now Comes The Pain.” (05/12/26)
Capitalists of the World Aren’t Uniting Against Workers
Source: Cato Institute
by Scott Lincicome
“Behold a right-left mind-meld on the economy. For decades, the thinking goes, corporations have captured a larger share of national income at workers’ expense. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D‑Massachusetts) says this is because ‘American workers don’t have enough power.’ On the populist right, meanwhile, this lamentable trend has happened as companies have ‘fattened profit margins by outsourcing their workforces.’ It’s a tidy narrative but mostly wrong.” (05/12/26)
https://www.cato.org/commentary/capitalists-world-arent-uniting-against-workers
Trump heads to China for summit with Xi
Source: The Guardian [UK]
“Donald Trump is due to arrive in Beijing on Wednesday evening, the first visit to China by a US president in nearly a decade, as he seeks to mend power and prestige weakened by the war in Iran. Trump will bring tech leaders, including Elon Musk of Tesla and Tim Cook of Apple, and plans for headline-grabbing deals. … neither side appears eager to allow the Iran crisis to derail broader diplomatic and economic engagement in the first of four potential meetings between Trump and Xi over the next year. The two countries remain locked in a fragile tariff truce reached last autumn after tensions threatened to erupt into a full-scale trade war. Trump has long complained about China’s trade surplus with the US, while Beijing has bristled at American export controls and sanctions.” (05/13/26)
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/may/13/trump-china-summit-xi-jinping-talks
A $1.5 Trillion Military Budget Is a Gift to the Grifters
Source: Antiwar.com
by Ron Paul
“Last week ‘Secretary of War’ Pete Hegseth insulted Americans by claiming that a 50 percent increase in the US military budget – from an incomprehensible one trillion dollars to an impossible one and a half trillion – was a ‘fiscally responsible investment.’ ‘Thanks to President Trump’s $1.5 trillion defense budget, this War Department has moved from bureaucracy to business,’ he said last Thursday. In a way he was right, though. The huge increase is much more about ‘business’ than what is needed to protect the United States from potential invasion. But it isn’t the kind of ‘business’ that most supporters of free markets would applaud. On the contrary, this is the business of transferring massive amounts of wealth from the struggling middle and working classes to the well-connected Beltway elite based on lies and scare tactics.” (05/11/26)
The Good Fight, 05/11/26
Source: Yascha Mounk
“Al Roth on Why People Should Be Free to Sell Their Kidneys.” (05/11/26)
NM: US regime seeks to steal Catholic pilgrimage site for “border security”
Source: AOL
“The federal government has filed a civil action against the Catholic Diocese of Las Cruces and the treasurer of Doña Ana County, seeking possession of Mount Cristo Rey for border enforcement activities. The suit, an eminent domain action, seeks [to steal] roughly 14.2 acres of land that consists of Mount Cristo Rey and the surrounding area. … The Diocese says it intends to fight this attempt to condemn Mount Cristo Rey and take it over under the ‘First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.’ The Diocese says this property is part of a holy site. Atop the mountain sits a 29-foot-tall limestone statue of Jesus Christ ‘that serves as a shrine to thousands of faithful in the El Paso and Southern New Mexico area.’ The shrine is also the site of annual pilgrimages, the Diocese said.” (05/12/26)
https://www.aol.com/news/federal-government-seeks-condemn-mount-203950164.html
The “Security” Case for Trump’s Ballroom: A Win-Win Proposal
Source: Garrison Center
by Thomas L Knapp
“Senate Republicans, the Associated Press reports, plan to give the Secret Service $1 billion for ‘security upgrades’ to president Donald Trump’s (supposedly $400 million, supposedly donation-funded) White House ballroom project. After an assassination attempt outside the Washington Hilton ballroom hosting the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in April, Republicans began boosting the ballroom itself as a presidential safety solution. Every time the president ventures forth to environments inhabited or surrounded by the hoi polloi, they point out, the Secret Service has to create bespoke environments within otherwise open facilities to ensure that he’s not shot at, yelled at, glared at, or annoyed. Better to keep him in a facility that’s controlled 24/7 for his safety and convenience. That’s fair, and it occurs to me that, done rightly, adding a secure ballroom to the White House could benefit not just presidential security but public convenience.” (05/11/26)
US inflation hits 3.8%, outpacing wage growth for the first time since 2023
Source: NBC News
“Inflation surged to 3.8% in April, its highest level in nearly three years, according to data released Tuesday, as the war in Iran causes a ripple effect across the economy and energy prices surge. As inflation continues to accelerate, it’s eating into Americans’ wages at a rapid clip. April’s inflation rate means that prices are now rising faster than wages for the first time since 2023, which could exacerbate the affordability crisis that has already been gripping consumers. … The overall rise in inflation was in line with what was expected by economists. On a month-over-month basis, inflation rose 0.6%. Core inflation, which excludes food and energy costs also rose 0.4% from the month prior, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said. That rise was higher than what had been expected by economists.” (05/11/26)
https://www.nbcnews.com/business/economy/april-inflation-data-iran-war-rcna344586
Are markets coercive?
Source: Politics, Philosophy & Economics
by Matt Zwolinski
“Are markets coercive? Contemporary debate is dominated by two answers. The first, longstanding among defenders of free markets, holds that voluntary exchange is non-coercive by definition: coercion enters the picture only when rights are violated. The second, revived from Robert Hale’s 1923 essay and embraced today by progressive legal scholars and post-liberal conservatives alike, holds that markets are pervasively coercive because property rights backed by state power constitute a system of mutual coercion. Both answers fail, but the Halean answer fails in the more interesting way.” (05/11/26)
Hegseth adds four billion to Iran war cost estimate, says Trump can do anything he wants
Source: New York Times
“The Pentagon on Tuesday put the cost of the war on Iran at ‘closer’ to $29 billion, roughly $4 billion more than two weeks ago, during testimony by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth at a pair of hearings on the Pentagon’s $1.5 trillion budget request. But the new $29 billion figure, offered by the department’s comptroller, does not include the cost of repairs to U.S. facilities damaged by Iranian attacks. Pressed on the administration’s failure to seek authorization from Congress to continue fighting Iran, Mr. Hegseth told senators that President Trump had ‘all the authorities necessary’ to resume attacks if he so chooses.” (05/11/26)