Adam Dick

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.

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.

Commenting Wednesday in a Sky News panel discussion, Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity Advisory Board Member Dennis Kucinich questioned how President Barack Obama planned to pay for the “wish list” of government programs Obama presented in the State of the Union speech of the previous night while the US spends trillions of dollars on empire.

“Where’s the money gonna come from?” asks Kucinich when questioned by host Martin Stanford about the community college proposal promoted in Obama’s Tuesday evening speech. Kucinich proceeds in his response to blame Obama’s pursuit of wars at a cost of trillions of dollars for standing the way of proposals like those on the wish list:

The president has throughout his term prosecuted wars that will end up costing trillions of dollars, and he is still reaching forward with a foreign policy that is going to be very expensive, with America continuing to be the policeman of the world.

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

While headlines in Yahoo News and Raw Story blare, respectively, “U.S. attorney general bans asset seizure by local police” and “No more asset seizure: Eric Holder bans controversial ‘war on drugs’ tactic,” the truth is that United States Attorney General Eric Holder on Friday changed US Department of Justice policy in a manner that will result in at most a small rollback of asset seizures.

It is true that there appears to be a rollback in the police state for a change. The catch is that the rollback is nowhere near the monumental change that some people in the media are trumpeting. The many and broad exceptions in Holder’s order all but swallow the announced headline-garnering rollback. Depending on how the order is interpreted and implemented, it may provide almost no asset seizure relief.

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

If the statement issued Wednesday by US House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) is an indication of how the US House and Senate — both now under Republican leadership — will respond legislatively to the killings in Paris last week, expect expanded authorization and funding for US military action and other intervention the world over.

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