Tom Woods

On February 11 I’ll be speaking in Washington state, about an hour outside Seattle, for the first time since 2009. Please help spread the word, and I hope to see you there!

The great Bob Murphy on the culprits.

The days of college kids paying $200 for a textbook may be numbered, thanks to Apple’s recently announced initiative for iPad textbooks, with multimedia capabilities, for $14.99. Any professor can design such a text, and Apple will give him a 70% royalty — six to seven times what an author usually receives. (Thanks to Gary North.)

A bill has been introduced into the Virginia legislature that would in effect nullify the indefinite detention provision of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Numerous other states are contemplating similar initiatives.

Read about NDAA nullification, and on the historical, constitutional, and moral grounds for state nullification, I make bold to recommend this text.

It’s now or never. Reignite the excitement of the Revolution by stealing the show.

(1) “The Tea Party’s key issues have been bailouts, debt, and spending. Mitt and Newt both supported the TARP bailouts. The whole people were against those bailouts, and the elites were for them. When the chips were down, Mitt and Newt sided with the New York Times and the cable news networks against you. Do you expect them to behave differently next time?

“I have opposed every bailout, every time. Does anyone here doubt my resolve? Given my consistent record over three decades, does anyone doubt those bailouts will stop cold under a President Paul?

“Newt boasts of his great accomplishments. But the Brookings Institution had it right when they said his Contract with America in 1994 was a lot of piddling around the edges, and represented no real threat to the status quo.

“You want a real threat to the status quo? You’re looking at him.

“On spending, everyone pretends to want to cut spending. How many times are we going to let them get away with fooling Republican voters? Who else on this stage has laid out a specific, line-by-line budget showing $1 trillion in savings in the first year? If you want to be lied to about spending cuts that never come — as has happened repeatedly under Republican rule, I am sorry to have to point out — and if you don’t care that your country is going bankrupt, don’t vote for me. Vote for one of them. But if you want someone who isn’t some slick talker, and who won’t ever back down, our campaign welcomes you with open arms.”

(2) “We can’t afford the knee-jerk intervention overseas anymore. And I am unconvinced that this policy is motivated by protecting us from radical Islam. Nobody seemed to mind that our party’s last nominee favored interventions in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Russia on behalf of Islamic forces. How about staying out of these conflicts, given that our government’s crazy foreign policy has succeeded only in cultivating radical Islam everywhere it has touched?

“Our campaign has received twice as much money in donations from active-duty military than all other Republican candidates combined, and I’ve been endorsed by the former head of the CIA’s Osama bin Laden unit, who says the other candidates are feeding you propaganda instead of the truth.

“Mitt Romney’s top donors are Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse, and Morgan Stanley. Mine are the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force.

“I don’t know what part of ‘we are broke’ my opponents do not understand, but their grandiose plans to remake the world, which are the very opposite of what a conservative would propose, are even crazier when we’re on the verge of bankruptcy. Newt thinks bankruptcy is a actually good time to outfit a mission to Mars. Now I admit that might be worth the investment, but only if he wants to take Congress and the president with him.”

(3) “Tonight the media would like to entertain you with another episode of the Mitt and Newt Hour. Each will accuse the other of deviating from conservative principles, and each will be right. The fact is, these two are so close in philosophy you can hardly slide a credit card between them.

“It will be obvious during this debate, given how much time to speak these two men will receive, that the media has already decided what your choices for president should be. Since when do you trust the media with deciding who should be president? The very fact that they obviously favor the two gentlemen to my left is reason enough to hold them in suspicion.

“I am the one they fear. I am the one who will shut down the federal gravy train once and for all. They know I mean business, and that I’m not just giving pretty speeches. That’s why they ridicule and ignore me.

“And that’s exactly why I urge you to support me.”

Just received an advance copy of Kevin Gutzman’s James Madison and the Making of America. It’s a featured selection of the History Book Club for February, an honor in itself. But the blurbs on this thing are especially impressive; endorsements of this book come from people who can boast Pulitzer Prizes, prestigious university posts, and important scholarly contributions of their own (e.g., the editor of the Papers of George Washington predicts this book will become the standard biography of Madison).

Gutzman is not a hagiographer of Madison, as so many treatments of his subject have been, but neither is he unfair to the man. I can’t wait to spend time with what promises to be an important and absorbing book. Pre-order yours now!

Ron Paul Republican and smart and likeable guy John Dennis will run against Nancy Pelosi this year.

Conservative ex-CIA guy Philip Giraldi makes the case.

At least the Internet allows the consumer to get revenge. Exhibit A: Mish.

Reason #7,284 that empire is not conservative. (Thanks to Jeff J.)