Adam Dick

In the days following the 9/11 attacks, Congress passed into law a 60-word sentence that set the stage for perpetual war. This 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) contains no time limits, no geographic constraints, and no exit strategy. It has effectively become a blank check for any president, at any time, to wage war without congressional consent or oversight.

According to the Congressional Research Service, the 2001 AUMF has been cited as statutory authority for unclassified military or related actions at least 41 times in 18 countries. Both President George W. Bush and President Obama used it, and now President Trump is following the same path.

That is a portion of the cogent analysis Reps Barbara Lee (D-CA) and Justin Amash (R-MI) offer in their Wednesday The Hill editorial explaining why they support repealing the AUMF that has facilitated members of the United States Congress abdicating their authority over US wars and three presidents exercising unrestrained use of military force abroad. The editorial came the day after Lee and Amash hosted a joint hearing of the United States House of Representatives Progressive Caucus and Liberty Caucus focused on exploring repealing the AUMF.

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A new episode of Five Minutes Five Issues posted on Saturday. You can listen to it, and read a transcript, below. You can also find previous episodes of the show at Stitcher, iTunes, YouTube, and SoundCloud.

Listen to the new episode here:

Read a transcript of the new episode, including links to further information regarding the topics discussed, here:

The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity welcomes you to Five Minutes Five Issues.

Starting in five four three two one.

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On Saturday, I was interviewed by hosts Joshua Bennett and Michael Anderson at KFAR radio in Fairbanks, Alaska regarding a number or issues in the news. The interview started with a discussion of the indictment of 13 Russian citizens and three companies that United States Special Counsel Robert Mueller had announced the day before. Other topics discussed in the wide-ranging interview include more aspects of the ongoing “Russiagate” investigation, the possibility of the United States government supporting a military coup in Venezuela, US sanctions against North Korea, the US government’s mass surveillance program, the drug war, rising tensions between the US and Russia, huge increases in US government spending, a gas tax increase, intervention in Syria, and the killings last week at a Florida high school.

Listen to the complete interview here (starting at time marker 6:09 after some technical difficulties):

Reprinted with permission from the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.

Watch out for a recession and more trouble for American stocks ahead, warned investing, economy, and politics writer David Stockman in a Monday interview at Fox Business. Hearing Stockman’s informative analysis about that alone should be reason enough for people concerned about the economic outlook in America or their investments to watch the interview. But, Stockman also provides in the interview compelling analysis of the role United States military spending will play in causing coming economic problems in America while failing to make Americans any safer.

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There is plenty of reason to think that regular United States courts too readily allow surveilling people and searching their homes and property. But, in the US court authorized by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), there is not even a pretense of observing Fourth Amendment restraints. The result is what many Americans who demanded a Bill of Rights be adopted in the early days of the United States sought to prevent from arising in America — routine, sweeping judicial decrees for invading people’s privacy based on little or no credible reason to suspect the people committed criminal acts.

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