Adam Dick

A handful of bipartisan members of the US House of Representatives, in a short Tuesday afternoon session preceding the State of the Union speech, passed by voice vote a resolution (H.Res. 37) using the killings in Paris on January 7-9 to justify war. In particular, the resolution reaffirms the US government’s commitment to fighting the Global War on Terror, praises France for its foreign interventions in the Middle East and Africa, and calls on the governments of all nations “to join a global effort to combat violent extremist ideologies and terrorist groups.”

This is the first House vote following through on House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) desire, expressed the day of the killings at the Paris office of Charlie Hebdo, to use the killings to justify the US recommitting to fighting wars around the world.

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

Ron Paul is a well-known opponent of the militarization and nationalization of local police in America. Yet, he cautions against looking at this development in isolation. On the Alex Jones Show on Tuesday, Paul discussed the economic policies of the US government and the provocations by people such as Al Sharpton that have, together with the nationalization of militarization of police, helped create a very dangerous situation in US cities.

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

Join the Ron Paul Revolution!

Austin Petersen is back with a new article criticizing Ron Paul and non-interventionist foreign policy. Read at Target Liberty my brief comment regarding Petersen’s new article, and find there a link to my July article addressing earlier criticism of Paul by the self-described “hard-core libertarian.”

It seems unlikely that the current members of the United States House of Representatives will effectively rise up against their Democrat and Republican leaders to require that the House be run in a fair and honest manner. Yet, the potential of more Republican members opposing on Tuesday the reelection of Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) as speaker of the House than the 12 Republican representatives who chose not to vote for Boehner in 2013 is helping bring to light the crooked process by which “the people’s House” so frequently operates.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) on Saturday lifted the veil some on corrupt House process, explaining in a press release why he will join other Republican House members in voting against Boehner’s reelection as speaker. Massie, who joined the House in November of 2012, states:

During my first two years as a congressman I discovered a significant source of the dysfunction.  I watched the House Leadership:

• Schedule a fiscal crisis in a lame duck session on the last legislative day before Christmas to get maximum leverage over rank and file members,

• Mislead members into thinking that a vote on an unpopular bill was postponed, only to then conduct a rushed voice vote on the $10 billion unfunded spending measure with fewer than a dozen members present,

• Give members less than 72 hours to read bills over 1,000 pages long, and

• Remove members from committees simply because they voted for the principles upon which they campaigned.

Massie thus presents a disturbing though incomplete list of instances of procedural corruption.

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

Dennis Kucinich, the former Democratic United States House of Representatives member from Ohio and two-time presidential candidate, pins blame for Democrats’ 2014 midterm elections “debacle” on Democrat politicians in the last eight years advancing war and the national security state. Kucinich’s analysis is presented Thursday in a Common Dreams article by Deidre Fulton.

Kucinich explains in the article how Democrats in Washington, DC participating in building the national security state and putting “a nation on the war path” helped cause the poor electoral performance of the party in the 2014 midterm elections:

“The debacle of 2014 had its roots in 2006,” he explained, referencing the Democratic takeover of both the U.S. House and Senate during the final midterm election of the Bush presidency. “Here we are, 8 years later: more war, government which has turned into a national security state, an economy that has decoupled itself from Main Street, and America’s position in the world—again, a nation on the war path. I don’t care where you go and talk to people, individually or in small groups—as I’ve been doing—you find apprehension about where we’re at, and you find a sharp contrast between the security which is defined across the land as human security, and security that is defined as guns and exotic weapons inside the Beltway.”

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