Rep. Walter Jones Challenges McConnell and Boehner on Giving Obama Fast Track Authority

Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC), while a guest last week on the Laura Ingraham Show, criticized United States Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) for supporting giving President Barack Obama “fast track” authority for potential international agreements including the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Jones says giving fast track authority — sometimes called trade promotion authority — to the president is “absolutely a threat on our Constitution, on our sovereignty.”

Noting that McConnell and Boehner are regularly complaining about Obama’s actions, Jones asks if the two congressional leaders have “lost their minds” in seeking to hand over to Obama more power that the Constitution says belongs in the legislative branch of government. Jones, a Ron Paul Institute Advisory Board member, explains:

When you allow a president to have the authority to bring before Congress the issue but not allow Congress to debate, to amend, or to change the agreement, then that in itself is not what the Constitution intended for this country….

All you’re doing is giving away our constitutional responsibilities. And for me it is just laughable, to be honest with you, Laura, that McConnell and Boehner who constantly complain … about President Obama, they want to give him this authority. Have they lost their minds?

Continue reading at the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.

Upcoming: Ron Paul’s New Book on War

Ron Paul revealed Thursday that he is preparing for publication a new book he has written about war. Paul made the revelation at the conclusion of a wide-ranging foreign policy interview on the Scott Horton Show.

The former United States House of Representative member and presidential candidate discloses in the interview that his new book concerns the issue of war and is “written from a personal viewpoint.” Paul says the book addresses his experience as a child during World War II and the question “How did I become so antiwar?”

Continue reading at the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.

Andrew Napolitano: IRS Commissioner Apologizing for Seizing Bank Accounts Is Not Enough

Judge Andrew Napolitano, speaking with Neil Cavuto on Fox Business, explained that United States Internal Revenue Service Commissioner John Koskinen‘s apology last week regarding the US government routinely seizing bank accounts based on the mere suspicion that the money in the accounts may be related to a crime is not enough to rectify the constitutional violation. Napolitano charges that “Congress is the culprit” for passing legislation allowing the seizures and that Congress is doing nothing to repeal the seizures authorization.

Continue reading at the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.

Don’t Trust Obama’s Rhetoric – His War Authorization Allows Fighting by US Ground Troops

The proposed Authorization for Use of Military Force that President Barack Obama submitted to Congress on Wednesday would allow United States ground troops to engage in battle around the world. No matter what aspirations Obama may declare regarding limiting the use of US ground troops, the proposed AUMF places little to no restraint on their use in the ISIS War.

Obama spoke truthfully in his statement announcing his AUMF proposal when he said, “The resolution we’ve submitted today does not call for the deployment of US ground combat forces to Iraq or Syria.” Though truthful, Obama’s comment is deceptive because it leaves out some important information. Left unsaid is the fact that the proposed AUMF authorizes Obama and the next US president to deploy ground troops worldwide at their discretion.

The proposed AUMF, should it become law, gives the president and his successor the broad power “to use the Armed Forces of the United States as the President determines to be necessary and appropriate against ISIL and associated persons or forces…” anywhere in the world for three years after the AUMF’s enactment. The AUMF also contains one provision purportedly limiting the use of US ground troops. This provision states that the broad power given to the president “does not authorize the use of the United States Armed Forces in enduring offensive ground combat operations.”

A quick, uncritical read of the proposed AUMF may suggest that the “enduring offensive ground combat operations” provision in the AUMF means the AUMF bars US ground troops from engaging in battle. However, further consideration reveals the AUMF may be used to justify unlimited use of US ground troops.

Continue reading at the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.

Lawrence Wilkerson: Resist ‘Warmonger’ John McCain’s Call to Arm Ukraine

Interviewed Tuesday on the Real News Network, Ron Paul Institute Academic Advisor Lawrence Wilkerson warned that following the advice of “warmongers like Senator John McCain and his cohorts” to “arm majorly” the Ukraine government is “probably one of the fastest ways” to deepen, widen, and make more profound the Ukraine crisis.

Wilkerson, a professor at the College of William & Mary and former US Army colonel, explains in the interview with host Sharmini Peries the disadvantageous position the US would be entering by choosing military escalation:

We’re 6,000 miles — depending on what part of us you want to look at — we’re a long way away.

Let me just add that that makes the problem, the military problem, significant. And I frankly cannot believe that former military people in some respects are talking about this in the way they are. Putin is operating on what we in the military call interior lines. We would be operating on the opposite of that. What that means, in very basic terms, is he’s got a few kilometers to go — difficult, to be sure — over land, and he can reinforce and he can put major force to bear. We have got how many miles? Two, three thousand miles of water to go over, and we’ve got lots of land to get through, too, once we come to a friendly port.

This is not a thing we want to get involved with, because he owns all the escalatory chips. He owns the military situation.

Continue reading at the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.

In Praise of Grover Cleveland

Jesse Ventura released this week his new podcast conversation with Ron Paul. It is a pleasure to hear Ventura engage Paul in an unrushed, wide-ranging examination of United States wars and foreign policy, with some discussion of other matters including marijuana and the economy thrown in the mix. One particularly intriguing portion of the conversation comes near the end when Ventura asks Paul — a three-time presidential candidate — a fun, rapid-fire set of questions about what Paul would do as president. Ventura seems surprised, as likely are many listeners, when Paul answers that Grover Cleveland is the president Paul would most like to use as a model for a Paul presidency.

Paul and Ventura’s exchange regarding Cleveland, who served two terms as president in 1885-1889 and 1893-1897, follows:

Ventura: Now, question five: The president you’d most want to model yourself after?

Paul: Grover Cleveland.

Ventura: Grover Cleveland? That’s interesting. Why?

Paul: Well, he was an old-fashioned conservative Democrat; he was a noninterventionist overseas; he was a very, very strong gold standard person; and he vetoed more bills than anybody else — and he did it based on principle. So, he was in many ways the last, you know, libertarian-type president. There were others that had leanings, but he was the best over a long period of time.

Continue reading at the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.

Ron Paul Warns of Mandatory E-Verify Dangers

Ron Paul, who served in the US House of Representatives as a Republican from Texas, submitted comments on Wednesday to the Immigration and Border Security Subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee warning of many dangers that may arise from making E-Verify a mandatory component of hiring under US law. Mandatory E-Verify is one of the “tough on illegal immigration” proposals being considered in Congress.

Paul, who is the founder and chairman of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity, includes in his detailed discussion of mandatory E-Verify dangers the following synopsis:

Mr. Chairman, mandatory E-Verify violates the Constitution.  More importantly, requiring every American “show their papers” in order to obtain federal permission to hold a job is incompatible with a free society.  Mandatory E-Verify will also deprive Americans of job opportunities through false positives while providing politicians and others with opportunities to use the information in the database to harass their political and other enemies.  Furthermore, there is no way a future Congress can be restrained from increasing the uses of the E-Verify system or syncing it to other databases to complete a massive, universal data system that could seal the transformation of America into a total surveillance state.

Continue reading at the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.

 

Andrew Napolitano: In a Free Society You Can Reject the Vaccination ‘Scientific Orthodoxy’

From California State Senator Richard Pan (D-Sacramento) proposing legislation to prevent parents of children attending government or private schools from making their own decisions regarding vaccinations, to American Conservative Senior Editor Rod Dreher suggesting the US government should mandate vaccinations, vaccination orthodoxy enforcers are out en masse this week. Fortunately for freedom, Judge Andrew Napolitano has written a new editorial emphatically challenging their threat to individual rights and defending constitutional limitations on the US government’s power.

Continue reading at the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.

The Horrible Foolishness of Sanctions: Ron Paul Talks to Lew Rockwell

The momentum in the United States government seems to be behind piling more and more sanctions on countries with abandon. In opposition to this trend, Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity Founder and Chairman Ron Paul and RPI Advisory Board Member Lew Rockwell present in Rockwell’s latest podcast an in-depth discussion of the dangers sanctions pose.

Here is a sample of the sanctions-happy US government in action during just the last two months:

  • Obama imposing further sanctions on North Korea via a January 2 executive order purportedly in response to the dubious claim that North Korea hacked Sony Pictures Entertainment emails; and
  • A large, bipartisan majority in the US Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee approving on Thursday new Iran sanctions legislation.

Continue reading at the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.

To Stop Tracking of Car Movements, States Can End License Plate Requirement

Despite Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Ranking Member Patrick Leahy (D-VT) of the Senate Judiciary Committee expressing concern about the US government using a license plate tracking system to monitor vehicle movements in America, we should not expect the US Congress to pass any significant rollback of the mass spying program. As we have seen with the US government’s telecommunications mass spying program administered largely by the National Security Agency, a large-scale effort to defeat any significant rights-protecting legislative response should be expected. Further, only insignificant to counterproductive “reform” legislation — portrayed deceptively as a major rollback — will likely be pushed through the legislative process.

If Congress will not act to protect the people’s rights, who then can limit the license plate tracking program? State governments can. Without license plates, there can be no US government license plate tracking program. A state government can protect individuals from the US government’s snooping by ending the state’s requirement that license plates be displayed on automobiles. In taking this action, a state would also protect people from spying and tracking by private individuals and entities, as well as by state and local government police, bureaucrats, and contractors.

Continue reading at the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.