Jacob Hornberger Announces Run for Libertarian Party Presidential Nomination

In April, I wrote that it looked like Future of Freedom Foundation President Jacob Hornberger may run for president of the United States. As I noted then, many people familiar with the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity (RPI) have read some of Hornberger’s articles at the RPI website or watched one of his speeches at an RPI event. Here is an update: On Saturday, Hornberger announced he is seeking the Libertarian Party’s presidential nomination.

Continue reading

Ed Thompson’s 2002 Fight Against Marijuana Prohibition

Reading a Wednesday article by Kyle Jaeger at Marijuana Moment, a quote from a Wisconsin state Assembly member who is a sponsor of a marijuana decriminalization bill struck me. Rep. David Crowley states at Twitter that the legislation “should have been passed years ago – but thanks to the inaction of our legislature, [Wisconsin] is now an island of antiquated drug policy in a sea of decriminalization.”

The quote brought to mind the years 2001 and 2002 when I was in Wisconsin to help Ed Thompson with his governor campaign. Thompson, who ran as a Libertarian, made the legalization of medical marijuana a key campaign issue and supported recreational marijuana legalization as well.

Continue reading

Lawrence Wilkerson: Protecting Syrian Oil Is Not the Reason US Troops Are Staying in Syria

Protecting Syrian oil that accounts for just 0.2 percent of world reserves is not the reason United States troops are staying in Syria, argues retired Army Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson in a new interview at MSNBC. Instead, says Wilkerson, who was chief of staff for Secretary of State Colin Powell in the George W. Bush administration, the offered oil protection rationale is a “manufactured reason.”

Continue reading

Hyping Israel Criticism as Antisemitism

“A Hotbed for Hate: A Comprehensive Dossier of Antisemitism at Columbia University and Barnard College Since the 2016-2017 Academic Year.” This title of a new report by Alums for Campus Fairness makes it sound like antisemitism is widespread and intense at the two New York City educational institutions. That message is amplified in this second sentence of the report: “These campuses are arguably the most prominent settings for university-based antisemitism in the United States.”

However, reading through the report, you find that most the incidents presented as antisemitic activities are something else altogether — activities critical of the Israel government.

Continue reading

Marijuana Legalization Countrywide in Canada, then Mexico, then the United States

A year ago this month, countrywide marijuana legalization was implemented in Canada. Also a year ago this month, the transition team of then-President-elect and current President of Mexico Andrés Manuel López Obrador announced marijuana legalization discussion was on the agenda of a trip to Canada by high-level Obrador administration members. Now, a year later, it looks like the Mexico national legislature is prepared to approve countrywide marijuana legalization soon, maybe even this month.

Next up, the United States government adopts countrywide legalization.

Continue reading

Donald Trump, ‘Isolationist’

On Tuesday, I wrote about Bill Weld, who is running for president in the Republican primary, criticizing President Donald Trump for causing the United States to “retreat into isolationism,” with “isolationism” being used as a substitute for a foreign policy of nonintervention. Weld is not the only politician recently making this bizarre accusation about Trump. It appears from reporting by Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin that this week former United States President George W. Bush did so as well.

Continue reading

Bill Weld, Champion of Foreign Intervention

Ron Paul, who had been the 1988 presidential nominee of the Libertarian Party, spent much time in his 2008 and 2012 Republican primary presidential runs criticizing US intervention overseas and promoting following a noninterventionist foreign policy. Some people might expect Bill Weld would do the same thing in his current Republican primary challenge to President Donald Trump. Weld was, after all, the 2016 Libertarian nominee for vice president. However, as Weld made crystal-clear in his October 8 editorial at Foreign Affairs, Weld aspires to oversee as president a foreign policy that is solidly interventionist.

Continue reading

Libertarians for the Drug War?

Kyle Jaeger, in a Marijuana Moment article last week discussing answers to a drug war question from a March Cato Institute poll, suggests that a substantial percentage of libertarians, even higher than among liberals, support continuing the drug war. Yet, when you look at the poll question at issue, a much different alternative interpretation becomes evident.

Continue reading

Pinning an ‘Antisemite’ Label on President Trump

In a Friday The Intercept editorial, Mehdi Hasan wrote that President Donald Trump “and his acolytes” have been “banging their anti-Semitic drum in plain sight” since United States House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s September 24 announcement of an impeachment inquiry in regard to Trump. But, Hasan then offers no substantial evidence to back this bold claim.

Continue reading