Lawrence Wilkerson, a former Army colonel and chief of staff for Colin Powell at the United States Department of State, expressed this week strong criticism of the US government adding more and more nations to its enemies list. Speaking with host Paul Jay at the Real News Network this week, Wilkerson, who is a professor at the College of William & Mary, concludes that, even with the large amount of money the US spends on the military, it is “utterly beyond our capacity to deal with all these enemies” that the US has generated.
Kevin D. Williamson’s Sunday National Review editorial “Word Games” may lead readers to believe that people who criticize neoconservatives or the deep state are presenting anti-Semitic arguments or are anti-Semitic. The editorial does not conclude that all people who present such criticisms are anti-Semitic. But, a take-away for some readers will be that challenging the deep state or neoconservatives indicates a person is likely, or should be assumed to be, anti-Semitic.
Ron Paul, the prominent libertarian communicator and three-time US presidential candidate, declared this week in a Fox Business interview that it is “fantastic” that WikiLeaks revealed on Tuesday thousands of US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) documents and files. Speaking with host Kennedy, Paul further says that the information exposed “indicates that liberty is in big trouble” and states his concern about there having been insufficient media coverage of the information.
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.
The concentration of power in the United States presidency has had a good run over the last few decades. This concentration of power is evident in presidents pursuing war after war without the constitutionally-required congressional declaration of war or even a congressional vote on an authorization for use of military force (AUMF). It is also evident in presidents using executive orders and regulations to bypass the legislative process.
President Barack Obama was up-front about his desire to use expansive executive power to bypass the Congress when he said before a Cabinet meeting in January of 2014, “I’ve got a pen, and I’ve got a phone.” The pen, Obama explained, he could use to “sign executive orders and take executive actions and administrative actions” without any involvement of Congress. The phone, he said, he could use to build support for his unilateral actions.
Yet, there does appear to be significant disapproval of increasing presidential power. Pew Research Center poll results indicate large majorities of Americans questioned in August and February said that it is too risky to give US presidents more power to deal directly with many of the country’s problems.
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.
The Trump administration announced Monday its support for an additional 54 billion dollars in spending for military and national security programs in fiscal year 2018 and a 30 billion dollar bump for such spending in fiscal year 2017. Meanwhile, 54 billion dollars in spending decreases in other areas in fiscal year 2018 are being put forward as an offset.
The story the White House is promoting is that, because of the offsetting cuts, the 54 billion dollars in additional spending will not increase United States government spending in the first fiscal year of Donald Trump’s presidency over the amount of Obama administration spending. This story is likely fiction, not reality.
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.
Radio and television talk show host Alan Colmes, who died on Thursday, interviewed Ron Paul several times over the years. Colmes’ interviews with Paul were always interesting, in large part due the research, thoughtfulness, and intelligence Colmes could be counted on to demonstrate in his questions and comments. Watch here Colmes interview Paul in 2015 regarding foreign policy and Paul’s book Swords into Plowshares: A Life in Wartime and a Future of Peace and Prosperity:
Reprinted with permission from the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.
The Trump administration’s rescinding of the May 2016 US government guidelines directing schools regarding their bathroom and locker room policies is “a win for the Constitution.” This is the conclusion of Fox News Senior Judicial Analyst and former New Jersey state judge Andrew Napolitano in a Thursday morning interview at Fox News.
Napolitano, who is a Ron Paul Institute Advisory Board member, elaborates:
The concept … of federal bureaucrats telling local school boards how to construct the school, how to build bathrooms, and how to run the school finds no comfort in the Constitution whatsoever. If anything is local and should be out of the hands of the feds, it’s the education of children.