I would like to take this opportunity to say something that is both profound and memorable. The trouble is, only three inaugural addresses are remembered today, Lincoln’s second inaugural and John F. Kennedy’s only inaugural. Lincoln said these words: “With malice toward none, with charity to all.” Those are fine words. Franklin Roosevelt said, “The only thing we have to fear is … fear itself.” If unemployment were at 25%, the way it was in 1933, that would scare just about anyone. Finally, Kennedy said: “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.” I especially like the first sentence.

I have in front of me a piece of paper. I wrote it this morning. Let me read it to you.

Executive Order 13,601: An executive Order Revoking all Previous Executive Orders. I, Ron Paul, do hereby declare null and void all previous Presidential executive orders. Signed: Ron Paul, January 20, 2013.

I will run my office with these rules:

First, I will veto any bill that I think is not authorized by the Constitution. If Congress overrides my veto, that is Congress’s responsibility. They call me “Dr. No.” That’s who I am. Second, I plan to close hundreds of American military bases in foreign nations. They will be auctioned off, with the money going to reduce the federal deficit. I will announce the first action no later than March 1 of this year. Third, I will ask Congress to mandate a complete audit of the Federal Reserve System annually by the Government Accountability Office. I want to know where the government’s gold is and who has legal title to it. Fourth, this afternoon, I will order the Joint Chiefs of Staff to plan the removal of all troops from Afghanistan this year, preferably by June 30. Fifth, I remind the voters and the world that anyone with the power to fix the nation by political action has the power to destroy the nation by political power. I am not here to make America better. I am here to veto laws that will hinder American citizens from making America better. I am here to help keep the federal government from making America worse. Read more at www.garynorth.com

Richard’s post, “Obama’s Ennabling Act,” raises some interesting questions regarding the significance of the recently passed National Defense Authorization Act, and its probable impact, that I believe merit further discussion. The editorial issued on December 17 by the editors of Taki’s Magazine, “The Government v. Everyone,” represents fairly well the shared consensus of critics of the NDAA whose ranks include conservative constitutionalists and left-wing civil libertarians alike. While I share the opposition to the Act voiced by these critics, I also believe that Richard is correct to point out the questionable presumptions regarding legal and constitutional theory and alarmist rhetoric that have dominated the critics’ arguments.

Wholesale abrogation of core provisions of the U.S. Constitution is hardly rare in American history. The literature of leftist or libertarian historians of American politics is filled with references to the Alien and Sedition Act, Lincoln’s assumption of dictatorial powers during the Civil War, the repression of the labor movement during WWI, the internment of the Japanese during WW2 and so forth. Mainstream liberal critics of these aspects of American history will lament the manner by which America supposedly strays so frequently from her high-minded ideals, whereas more radical leftist critics will insist such episodes illustrate what a rotten society America always was right from the beginning.

Meanwhile, conservatives will lament how the noble, almost god-like efforts of the revered “Founding Fathers” have been perverted and destroyed by subsequent generations of evil or misguided liberals, socialists, atheists, or whomever, thereby plunging the nation into the present dark era of big government and moral decadence. These systems of political mythology not withstanding, a more realist-driven analysis of the history of the actual practice of American statecraft might conclude that such instances of the state stepping outside of its own proclaimed ideals or breaking its own rules transpire because, well, that’s what states do. Read more at www.alternativeright.com

Top US scientists have defended their bid to stop details of a mutant bird flu virus from being published and called for global co-operation to ward off an uncontrollable pandemic.

Meanwhile, scientists involved in the experiments said they were co-operating with government officials and the editors of the journals Science and Nature to pare down their research for publication in the coming weeks.

The controversy arose when two separate research teams — one in the Netherlands and the other in the United States — separately found ways to alter the H5N1 avian influenza so it could pass easily between mammals.

Until now, bird flu has been rare in humans, but particularly fatal in those who do become ill. H5N1 first infected humans in 1997 and more than half of those infected died, for a total of 350 deaths. Read more at www.smh.com.au

As unlikely as it might have seemed to professional politicians and talking-head media stars just a few weeks ago, Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul is now regarded as a real threat to win the Iowa caucuses on January 3, just one week before the New Hampshire primary. And the reaction of party leaders to that would not be pretty, said columnist Timothy Carney of the Washington Examiner.

“The Republican presidential primary has become a bit feisty, but it will get downright ugly if Ron Paul wins the Iowa caucuses,”  Carney wrote in Monday’s column. “The principled, antiwar, Constitution-obeying, Fed-hating, libertarian Republican congressman from Texas stands firmly outside the bounds of permissible dissent as drawn by either the Republican establishment or the mainstream media.”

Vilification of Paul appears the likely weapon of choice by the party leaders and media elites if Paul’s popularity with voters continues to grow. A victory in Iowa, followed by a strong showing in New Hampshire could make the slender and sprightly 76-year-old retired obstetrician the kind of elephant most unwelcome in establishment Republican circles — the elephant in the room that can’t be ignored. Read more at www.thenewamerican.com

The year 2011 has been a tough one for Sino-United States ties. And 2012 does not look like it’s going to be a good year either, with a presidential election year in the United States. For both the Democratic and Republican parties, bashing the Chinese economic, military and freedom-averse menace will probably be a campaign-trail staple.

China, as it approaches a leadership transition, wants to avoid friction. However, the United States appears to welcome it and, in the election year, might even incite it.

The US, under the Obama administration and thanks in large part to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s team at the State Department, has been quite adept in putting China at a geopolitical disadvantage in Europe, Africa and Asia.

It is a valid question, however, to ask whether all this diplomatic and military tail-twisting is the best way to advance America’s interests - which are meat and potatoes economic concerns, rather than pie-in-the-sky security scenarios, as Clinton made clear in her manifesto, America’s Pacific Century: Read more at www.atimes.com