Last month, United States Attorney General Jeff Sessions sent a letter to congressional leaders urging them to oppose Congress again including in Department of Justice appropriations legislation a provision intended to stop, through a restriction on the use of appropriated money, the US government from arresting and prosecuting people for actions that comply with state medical marijuana laws, even if those actions violate US drug laws. Some people are reacting to Sessions’ letter, which was revealed this week, with condemnation of Sessions and the Trump administration for departing from Obama administration policy that showed increased leniency in regard to marijuana. But this claim appears to misrepresent the Obama administration’s marijuana history.
Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC) and his legislation (HR 1666) to end the US government’s war in Afghanistan were the subject of a short and informative report on WNCT-TV in Greenville, North Carolina this week. “Here we are sworn by the Constitution to have the responsibility to debate to send our young men and women to die in war, and we don’t do it,” Jones states in the television report. Jones further notes that the costs of America’s longest war continue to increase despite the Congress failing to even debate the war since 2001, stating that, 16 years after the Afghanistan War began, “we’ve spent almost a trillion dollars, 2,000 Americans have been killed, 20,000 wounded.”
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.
Interviewed Thursday at RT regarding United States actions in opposition to Syrian and allied military forces in Syria, libertarian communicator Ron Paul argued that the US should have respected Syrian sovereignty and kept out of the country. Refraining from intervening, Paul suggests, would have better aided the progress of an effort to deescalate the war in Syria. Further, says Paul, US intervention in Syria, as in many other countries, undermines American national security.
Here is a quote from a May 26 speech: “Many experts, including professionals in our intelligence and security services, have pointed out the connections between wars that we have been involved in or supported or fought in other countries, such as Libya, and terrorism here at home.”
Who said this? You might guess Ron Paul. It does sound very much like the sort of explanation of blowback that Paul frequently offers in relation to United States foreign interventions. But, the quote is not from Paul. The quote is from a speech by Jeremy Corbyn four days after the killing of over 20 people at a concert in Manchester, England attended largely by teenage and younger individuals.
Corbyn is the leader of the British Labour Party. Over the past few weeks, his party has continued to reduce the lead of the ruling Conservative Party in polling for Britain’s June 8 general election. Whether or not Corbyn’s party wins the most seats in the House of Commons, Corbyn is showing, as Paul has in America, that, contrary to the fretting of many pundits, being upfront about blowback and opposing wars is not a political liability.
All the talk of President Donald Trump golfing led me to watch again this great Dinosaur Jr. video.
Ron Paul holds the top place in a Newsmax list of the 100 most influential libertarians released Thursday. “Perhaps no one has done more to bring the libertarian platform into the national spotlight than Ron Paul,” begins the description of Paul in the list.
Since his last presidential campaign and retirement from the United States House of Representatives several years ago, Paul has kept busy communicating his ideas and commenting on the news. Paul has done so via means including his weekly column and his 2015 book Swords into Plowshares, as well as by hosting the Ron Paul Liberty Report each weekday and serving as chairman of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity (RPI).
Talking about RPI, several members of the RPI Advisory and Academic Boards — Water Block, Robert Higgs, Thomas Massie, Andrew Napolitano, and Lew Rockwell — are keeping Paul company on the most influential libertarians list.
Reprinted with permission from the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.
The Texas state House of Representatives is scheduled to consider Thursday HB 81, legislation that would decriminalize marijuana in the state.
The legislation, should it become law, will prevent the incarceration of people solely for possessing one ounce or less of usable marijuana. While HB 81 would protect such individuals from a criminal conviction and prison time, police would be able seize their marijuana and issue them a citation that may lead to the imposing of an up to $250 fine.
The Texas House of Representatives approved a resolution (SJR 2) on Thursday requesting that the United States Congress call a new constitutional convention — the first since the Constitutional Convention of 1787 that resulted in the drafting of the current US Constitution to replace the then-in-operation Articles of Confederation. The state Senate had already approved a constitutional convention resolution, and Texas Governor Greg Abbott, in a Thursday statement, indicated his support.
It is not just the Texas government that is requesting a new constitutional convention. Jonathan Tilove reported Thursday at the Austin American-Statesman that ten other states have made requests similar to the Texas request that Congress call a constitutional convention to propose an amendment or amendments related to a few particular listed goals. The number is higher for state legislatures requesting a constitutional convention to propose a US balanced budget amendment.
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.