Five Minutes Five Issues: Punishing Russia, Israel Brouhaha, Marijuana Delay, Troops Suicides, Torture Report

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.

Continue reading

Listen Live Saturday to My Fairbanks, Alaska Radio Interview

On Saturday, I will return to Alaska airwaves as a guest on Fairbanks, Alaska talk radio show Patriot’s Lament. The interview with hosts Joshua Bennett and Michael Anderson on KFAR 660 AM will start at 10:00 a.m. Pacific time.

You can listen to the interview live here. And you can call in to the show at (907) 458-8255.

Given my times as a guest on the show before, I expect to participate in an hour or more of lively discussion on Saturday regarding a wide variety of topics. With the interview occurring on New Year’s Eve, there will be some looking back at events of this year and some predictions for the year that is about to begin.

Why Lew Rockwell is Optimistic the Drug War Will End

Look to the war on drugs to understand why the United States has become “a prison state,” says Lew Rockwell in a new video interview with Future of Freedom Foundation President Jacob Hornberger. And, says Rockwell, look to educational efforts and state governments’ “nullification” of US drug laws for indications why drug prohibition will end.

While Rockwell notes there are powerful interests fighting to perpetuate the war on drugs, Rockwell also declares in the interview his optimism that educational efforts will help increase public support for ending drug prohibition. Pointing to states “nullifying” US government anti-drug laws through actions including medical and recreational marijuana legalization, Rockwell says “we have every reason to be optimistic” that the drug war “will eventually come to an end.”

Continue reading

Five Minutes Five Issues: Faithless Electors, ‘Russian Hack,’ Avenue Strategies, Pelosi Vote, Electoral College

A new episode of Five Minutes Five Issues posted on Friday. 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.

Continue reading

Ron Paul: Purported Russian Hack in US Election is Insignificant Compared to What US Does Overseas

“I think it’s politics more than anything else,” says former House of Representatives Member Ron Raul (R-TX) regarding calls for an investigation of purported hacking by the Russian government influencing the United States presidential election. Interviewed Wednesday on Fox Business, Paul continues that, even if Russia did what is alleged, Paul does not think it “made any difference.”

Paul — providing perspective on the matter — notes that the US government is interfering with elections around the world “all the time.” Paul also suggests reviewing the history of US government involvement in foreign countries, including “how many countries we invaded, how many people we have killed in order to have our guy in.” Looking to this history, Paul concludes, “we don’t have much room for condemning anybody else.”

Continue reading

Ron Paul Rewind: John Birch Society 50th Anniversary Speech

Pema Levy, in a Monday Mother Jones article, wrote that Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-SC), who President-elect Donald Trump has picked to be director of the Office of Management and Budget, spoke in July at a dinner held by a chapter of the John Birch Society in Mulvaney’s home state. Levy suggests Mulvaney presenting a speech at the dinner should be troubling when she asserts that the John Birch Society “has long been exiled from mainstream conservatism.”

Continue reading

Philippines President Duterte Using China Leverage to Strike Better Aid Deal with Donald Trump?

United States foreign aid dollars, and even police training, have been supporting for several months large-scale systematic street executions of supposed drug dealers and users in the Philippines. Now, Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, who has promoted the escalation of the drug war in the country since his election in the summer, is expressing his dislike for the US government’s Millennium Challenge Corporation postponing a decision on renewal of potentially several hundred million dollars in US aid to the Philippines government in order to review “concerns around rule of law and civil liberties.”

Duterte sounds angry from his comments in response. And he may be angry. But, Duterte’s comments also may be designed to place him in a good position to strike a more advantageous US aid deal with President-elect Donald Trump.

Continue reading

Five Minutes Five Issues: Police Militarization, Canada Marijuana, CIA Chorus, Vermont Pardons, Year End

A new episode of Five Minutes Five Issues posted on Friday. 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.

Continue reading

Donald Trump Meets with Judge Andrew Napolitano Regarding Supreme Court Nomination

Judge Andrew Napolitano, who serves on the Ron Paul Institute Advisory Board in addition to being the senior judicial analyst at Fox News, met for an hour Thursday with President-elect Donald Trump at Trump Tower in New York City. Napolitano related in an interview with Fox Business host Stuart Varney that “the vast bulk of what” Trump and Napolitano “spoke about was the intellectual, ideological, temperamental qualities that [Trump] should seek in a replacement for Justice [Antonin] Scalia” whose place on the court has remained vacant since Scalia died in February.

Continue reading

Don’t Just Legalize Marijuana, End the Entire Drug War

Voters approving marijuana legalization in four more states on November 8 took another bite out of the drug war in America. Still, in regard to other drugs, the drug war rages on. Also, many state and local governments, as well as the United States government, continue to fight a war on marijuana.

I had the opportunity to discuss this situation in detail with hosts Joshua Bennett and Michael Anderson at KFAR radio in Fairbanks, Alaska in November. The discussion includes consideration of related matters, including the right of people to consume drugs, use of the drug war to expand government power, special interests that oppose efforts to roll back parts of the drug war, and practical benefits of drug legalization.

Listen here to the complete interview, in which I also discuss with the hosts matters including the 2016 presidential election and what Donald Trump’s victory may mean for US intervention overseas and respect for liberty in America:

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