President Donald Trump released this week his budget proposal that includes increasing by five percent United States military spending. However, Ron Paul Institute Academic Board Member and retired Army Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson argues in a Tuesday The Real News interview that the US government would do well to cut a trillion dollars over ten years — about 100 billion dollars a year — from its national security budget, a budget Wilkerson notes is about twice the 700-plus billion dollars Defense Department budget.
Continue readingA new episode of Five Minutes Five Issues is posted. 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.
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A Wednesday Public Radio East report by Valerie Crowder presents some fond recollections of the principled political efforts of Ron Paul Institute Advisory Board Member Walter Jones who died last month while serving in his 13th term in the Unites States House of Representatives as a Republican from North Carolina.
Continue readingRon Paul Institute Academic Board Member Walter Block has some clear advice regarding what the United States government should do about “evil dictators” around the world: Ignore them. After all, Block, an economics professor at Loyola University and prominent libertarian scholar, writes in a Tuesday lewrockwell.com blog post, there is “no country, no groups of individuals with the power, or the intention,” to invade or conquer America.
Continue readingWith the expansion of state governments’ crackdown on vaccination exemptions facing significant obstacles after, in 2015, California eliminated nearly all vaccination exemptions for children in government schools, private schools, and day care, Alex Newman writes at The New American that Scott Gottlieb, the head of the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA), has been publicly suggesting the US government mandate that states restrict or eliminate vaccination exemptions for children.
Continue readingIt took 45 years after the 1933 termination of the United States government’s alcohol prohibition for the US government to legalize beer home brewing and, then, another 35 years until in 2013 the last two American states legalized home brewing. In comparison, of the ten states where recreational marijuana has been legalized, only the Washington state government prohibits home growing of marijuana, and for years the US government has backed off from prosecuting people complying with the liberalized state marijuana laws.
In this way, freedom is being recognized more quickly under marijuana legalization than it was under alcohol legalization. But, the number of states that include prohibition of home grow in their laws generally ending marijuana prohibition may increase. In particular, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is proposing marijuana legalization that includes, consistent with a recently revealed request from some large marijuana companies, a ban on home grow.
College of William & Mary Professor Lawrence Wilkerson describes the current effort of the Donald Trump administration to overthrow the Venezuela government and oust Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro as a continuation of the United States effort begun in 2002, when Wilkerson was chief of staff for Secretary of State Colin Powell in the George W. Bush administration, to overthrow the government of Maduro’s predecessor Hugo Chávez. Over those 17 years, Wilkerson asserts, the real reason for the US intervention has been to help the rich, not the oft-repeated excuse of seeking to promote democracy and freedom.
Continue readingOver the last few years, there has been action in the United States Congress regarding whether or not to expand Selective Service registration requirements and any potential military draft to include women as well as men. Much of the support for this move has been explained as an effort to advance “equality.”
It looks like the US courts may beat the US legislative branch to expanding this realm of submission to government dictates to include women. Gregory Korte reported Sunday at USA Today that US District Judge Gray H. Miller declared Friday in a court case decision “that the all-male military draft is unconstitutional, ruling that ‘the time has passed’ for a debate on whether women belong in the military.”
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.
It is great to see exuberant praise for Walter Block, a Loyola University economics professor and Ron Paul Institute Advisory Board member, at Loyola University’s The Maroon on Sunday. In an editorial, Loyola student Nathan Fryzek offers several reasons fellow students should enroll in one of Block’s classes, including the “main reason” that Block’s classes “are just so darn fun.”
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