Adam Dick

Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC) delivered a powerful speech Wednesday on the floor of the United States House of Representatives advocating ending the US government’s ongoing war in Afghanistan. In the speech Jones challenges President Barack Obama’s claim that the Afghanistan War has ended. Jones supports the challenge by noting that thousands of US troops remain in Afghanistan, US taxpayers’ dollars continue to be spent in Afghanistan for military intervention, and the US and Afghanistan governments have recently entered into a bilateral security agreement purposed to keep US troops in Afghanistan.

Jones’ speech is part of his continuing effort to end America’s longest war.

Despite Obama’s insistence otherwise, the Afghanistan War continues in the new year. As Kia Makarechi argues in Vanity Fair, the so-called ending of the Afghanistan War in December is more properly characterized as a “re-branding” given that over 10,000 US troops remain in the country with a newly expanded 2015 combat mission.

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

A handful of bipartisan members of the US House of Representatives, in a short Tuesday afternoon session preceding the State of the Union speech, passed by voice vote a resolution (H.Res. 37) using the killings in Paris on January 7-9 to justify war. In particular, the resolution reaffirms the US government’s commitment to fighting the Global War on Terror, praises France for its foreign interventions in the Middle East and Africa, and calls on the governments of all nations “to join a global effort to combat violent extremist ideologies and terrorist groups.”

This is the first House vote following through on House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) desire, expressed the day of the killings at the Paris office of Charlie Hebdo, to use the killings to justify the US recommitting to fighting wars around the world.

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

Ron Paul is a well-known opponent of the militarization and nationalization of local police in America. Yet, he cautions against looking at this development in isolation. On the Alex Jones Show on Tuesday, Paul discussed the economic policies of the US government and the provocations by people such as Al Sharpton that have, together with the nationalization of militarization of police, helped create a very dangerous situation in US cities.

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

Join the Ron Paul Revolution!

Austin Petersen is back with a new article criticizing Ron Paul and non-interventionist foreign policy. Read at Target Liberty my brief comment regarding Petersen’s new article, and find there a link to my July article addressing earlier criticism of Paul by the self-described “hard-core libertarian.”

It seems unlikely that the current members of the United States House of Representatives will effectively rise up against their Democrat and Republican leaders to require that the House be run in a fair and honest manner. Yet, the potential of more Republican members opposing on Tuesday the reelection of Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) as speaker of the House than the 12 Republican representatives who chose not to vote for Boehner in 2013 is helping bring to light the crooked process by which “the people’s House” so frequently operates.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) on Saturday lifted the veil some on corrupt House process, explaining in a press release why he will join other Republican House members in voting against Boehner’s reelection as speaker. Massie, who joined the House in November of 2012, states:

During my first two years as a congressman I discovered a significant source of the dysfunction.  I watched the House Leadership:

• Schedule a fiscal crisis in a lame duck session on the last legislative day before Christmas to get maximum leverage over rank and file members,

• Mislead members into thinking that a vote on an unpopular bill was postponed, only to then conduct a rushed voice vote on the $10 billion unfunded spending measure with fewer than a dozen members present,

• Give members less than 72 hours to read bills over 1,000 pages long, and

• Remove members from committees simply because they voted for the principles upon which they campaigned.

Massie thus presents a disturbing though incomplete list of instances of procedural corruption.

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