Adam Dick

In a Tuesday interview with Real News Network host Paul Jay, Ron Paul Institute Academic Board Member and former United States Army Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson started off acknowledging that companies’ billions of dollars a year of weapons sales to Saudi Arabia “massively” influence US foreign policy.

Over the remainder of the fascinating eight-minute interview, Wilkerson, who served as chief of staff for former Secretary of State Colin Powell, proceeds to discuss how government policy is fashioned to benefit military-industrial complex companies. Wilkerson provides as an example a tens of billions of dollars air defense system for the Gulf Cooperation Council governments, with Lockheed Martin the top contractor. Wilkerson chillingly concludes:

So, this is crucial to the number one defense contractor on the face of the earth — Lockheed Martin. And, if it’s crucial to Lockheed, it’s crucial to us.

Continue reading at the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.

Interviewed Thursday on Fox Business, Ron Paul predicted that there will be “a lot more” blowback along the lines of the killings in Paris last week if the US, France, and other nations do not cease their interventionist, militaristic foreign policies. In particular, Paul criticizes the United States government’s “foreign policy of constant occupation, bombing, and killing people, and eliciting this hatred toward us.” Terminating such a foreign policy, Paul explains, is the key to preventing violent retaliation.

Continue reading at the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.

On Monday, Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX) introduced in the United States House of Representatives a resolution (H.Res. 525) calling on President Barack Obama “to work closely with other North Atlantic Treaty Organization [NATO] members to invoke Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty in response to the Paris attacks.”

Article 5 in the NATO treaty deals with member nations taking action in response to an attack on another NATO member.

Poe is chairman of the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade in the House Foreign Affairs Committee — the committee to which Poe’s resolution has been referred for consideration.

Continue reading at the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.

It is not even a man bites dog story. Instead, it is just a man barks at dog story. Yet, for one National Football League (NFL) player it is a story that threatens to conclude with his incarceration.

Oakland Raiders Linebacker Ray-Ray Armstrong’s alleged barking at a dog on Sunday may cost him thousands of dollars in fines and several years in prison. Why you ask? Because Armstrong is alleged to have barked at a police dog, and, in this age of SWAT, some dogs are protected by the law much more than are ordinary people.

Continue reading at the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.

Some people came to the defense of school cop Ben Fieldes who last week yanked a student in a Spring Valley High School math class in South Carolina out of her seat and attached desk, hurled her across the classroom floor, and arrested her. They said Fields’ actions were justified because the student was occupied with her cell phone instead of participating in the class. Now comes news from the College of DuPage in Illinois that school cops can do pretty much the same thing to a student who is participating in class.

Former DuPage student Jaclyn Pazera filed a lawsuit this week against the college. The lawsuit is in response to two school cops, caught on video, yanking her from her seat and attached desk, pinning her to the ground, and handcuffing her while she was attempting to participate in her philosophy class at the college last year.

Continue reading at the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.