Last week, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced the city had eliminated charges for phone calls made by inmates in city jails. Karen Matthews of the Associated Press reported that New York City, with this elimination of fees that had been 50 cents for the first minute and five cents for each additional minute, is the first major American city to eliminate inmates’ phone call fees.
This is a welcome move against what I described in an October of 2013 Ron Paul Institute article as “phone system monopolies that charge inmates’ families and friends exorbitant rates to communicate with their incarcerated loved ones.”
Interviewed Monday by host Stuart Varney at Fox Business to present the libertarian view on United States tariffs on imports from China, Paul answered that libertarians dislike tariffs. Paul further noted the Constitution allows the use of tariffs to raise revenue “but not for fighting trade wars” — the purpose they are being put to in regard to China.
Continue readingLast year, the growing, sale, and possession of marijuana became legal countrywide in Canada. Mexico President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who has been considering marijuana legalization for his country as well, last week released a plan supportive of ending the war on drugs altogether in Mexico.
Continue readingIt looks like people in Colorado, the state that along with Washington led the way in marijuana relegalization via ballot measure votes in 2012, will soon have significantly expanded legal choices for how they obtain and where they use marijuana. Kyle Jaeger reports at Marijuana Moment that the state Senate approved two marijuana bills this week, one legalizing delivery of medical and recreational marijuana to homes and the other legalizing the creation of “hospitality spaces” where marijuana may be consumed. These hospitality spaces could be connected to or separate from places where marijuana is legally sold.
Continue readingSince he left the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) where he had been in charge the “bin Laden unit,” Michael Scheuer has made it his mission to educate people about the dangers of United States intervention abroad. Interviewed this week by host Rick Sanchez at RT regarding recent events in Venezuela and the United States government’s effort to overthrow the Venezuela government, Scheuer presents a clear argument for nonintervention there and elsewhere.
Continue readingWith his veto this week of legislation intended to end United States military support for the war on Yemen, President Donald Trump may have ensured his defeat to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) in the 2020 presidential election. That is an argument political commentator Patrick J. Buchanan persuasively presents in a new editorial.
Continue readingJacob Hornberger appears to be laying the groundwork for a 2020 presidential run as a Libertarian. That is the subject of a Monday article at Independent Political Report that notes Hornberger, who is the president of the libertarian Future of Freedom Foundation (FFF), “is visiting many, if not all, the Libertarian Party state conventions” and has produced a new website jacobforliberty.com. That website looks like a campaign website, though it does not outright declare Hornberger is running for office.
Continue readingIn a new interview at Boston Herald Radio, United States House of Representatives Rules Committee Chairman Jim McGovern (D-MA) said he expects the House, in the next few weeks, will approve by “an overwhelming vote” legislation requiring the US government to respect states’ marijuana legalization. “We need to make sure that our federal laws do not obstruct what states are doing,” declared McGovern.
Continue readingA new episode of Five Minutes Five Issues is out. 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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Yesterday, I wrote about Twitter restricting public access to the past Twitter posts of Christine Assange, the mother of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, as well as preventing her from making new posts at her Twitter account. Today, it appears Twitter has removed those limitations.
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