In March, I wrote about how coronavirus fear and government crackdowns undertaken in the name of countering coronavirus could be expected to prevent some drug war rollback measures from being included on November general election ballots. Qualifying such measures for inclusion on voters’ ballots typically requires the collection of many signatures, something that is harder to accomplish when there is widespread fear of coronavirus and expansive government mandates restricting people’s activities.
Continue readingSaturday, I returned as a guest at the Patriot’s Lament show at KFAR radio of Fairbanks, Alaska. The one-hour interview with hosts Joshua Bennett and Michael Anderson is focused almost entirely on the coronavirus crackdowns people have been suffering under for the last six month in Alaska where Bennett and Anderson live, in Texas where I live, and across America.
Watch the complete interview here.
Reprinted with permission from the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.
Walter Block, like the Energizer Bunny of television adverts, keeps going and going and going. Block, a professor of economics at Loyola University in New Orleans, Louisiana, wrote Tuesday at lewrockwell.com that he has reached the milestone of having authored 600 publications in refereed journals and law reviews.
Continue readingThe Republican Party of Texas executive committee has taken a heroic action that could serve as an example for Republican and Democratic parties across America. It has adopted, by a 54 to 4 vote, a resolution clearly and emphatically demanding that Texas Governor Greg Abbott immediately end all the liberty-repressing measures that, over the last six months while the state legislature has been in recess, Abbott has imposed unilaterally in the name of countering coronavirus.
The rebuke and demand of the resolution are particularly strong given that they come from Abbott’s own party.
Continue readingRon Paul has joined with other eminent political figures from around the world in endorsing a letter from Lawyers for Assange to several government officials of Great Britain. The letter makes the case for the immediate release of Julian Assange of WikiLeaks and the termination of the extradition proceedings against him.
Continue readingSo you want to avoid the mask mandates, long lists of grim rules, administrators demanding strict adherence to these rules, and prison-like conditions that have become the norm at many university campuses in the name of countering coronavirus? You may choose to be an online-only student and stay away from your university’s campus and the repression that you would find there. It sounds like a good idea. But, this plan may not always work. The repression may find you off campus as well.
Continue readingEarlier this month, I wrote about a bill including marijuana legalization that United States House of Representatives Democratic leadership had planned to bring to the House floor for a vote this month. The bill — the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement (MORE) Act (HR 3884), I noted, appears to have no chance of being approved in the Republican majority US Senate or of receiving a signature from President Donald Trump. This is because the virtually “Democrats only” bill includes race-based provisions and marijuana business subsidies that are anathema to many Republicans, including those who favor legalization.
Continue readingThe Cato Institute came out Tuesday with its Pandemics and Policy collection of coronavirus-and-pandemics-related articles described as purposed to “provide policymakers with an actionable guide to policies that can harness [old‐fashioned American ingenuity] and foster a resilient society capable of meeting the challenges ahead.” Among the articles is “Balancing Tradeoffs between Liberties and Lives” by Cato Institute Director of Economic Studies Jeffrey Miron and Cato Institute Senior Fellow Peter Van Doren.
Continue readingRemember President Donald Trump saying he wanted things to open up in America by Easter? Oh well. Throughout most of America, the coronavirus crackdowns are continuing strong five months after Easter. And United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Robert R. Redfield said Wednesday at a US Senate subcommittee hearing that “regular life” will not begin to return until, he predicts, the “late second quarter, third quarter” of next year — around the middle of 2021.
Why the long wait? Redfield says the wait is so a coronavirus vaccine can be distributed and injected around America first.
Continue readingMany state fairs across America were canceled this year. The reason offered: coronavirus.
It should be no surprise that among the states where an annual state fair did occur this year is South Dakota. South Dakota is the state whose governor — Kristi Noem — has resisted, more than has any other governor across America, the temptation to use coronavirus as an excuse to exercise dictatorial powers.
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