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.”
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.
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:
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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.
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.
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.
Speaking this week with host Kennedy at Fox Business, US House Member Thomas Massie (R-KY) insisted that Donald Trump’s performance as president should be judged according to whether Trump adheres to the nonaggression principle that Massie describes as “the heart of libertarian principles.” Massie proceeded in the interview to define briefly the nonaggression principle as that “you don’t attack somebody if they don’t attack you.”
In a Thursday video commentary at the Fox News website, Judge Andrew Napolitano discusses the relationship between local government powers and United States government powers that will be on display should Donald Trump, as president, seek to deport large numbers of illegal immigrants. If Trump attempts to implement such deportations, intergovernmental conflict would be expected due to resistance by numerous local governments, including the governments of several of the largest population American cities, that have declared themselves sanctuary cities.
Local governments going their own way in this instance, Napolitano suggests, would be exercising an important check that is built into the American political system to ensure that the US government cannot steamroll individual rights.
During consideration of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) in the spring, the proposal that women be required to sign up with Selective Service just as are men started on a roller coaster ride in the United States Congress. That ride had a couple more turns this week. On Tuesday, a United States Senate and House of Representatives conference committee, which was creating a compromise version of the NDAA because the two bodies had passed differing bills, released a final bill that leaves out such a requirement. Then, on Thursday, the Obama administration announced support for requiring women to register with Selective Service.
A 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.
Starting in five four three two one.