Julian Assange and WikiLeaks have not just been targeted by the United States government in response to their publishing of US government secrets. They have also been subjected to false reporting in the media.
In an email sent to media organizations on Sunday, WikiLeaks details that, due to “a pervasive climate of inaccurate claims about WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, including purposeful fabrications planted in large and otherwise ‘reputable’ media outlets,” Wikileaks is providing in the email a list of false and defamatory claims about WikiLeaks and Assange for journalists and publishers “to ensure they do not spread and have not spread falsehoods about WikiLeaks or Julian Assange.” A Reuters report counts a total of 140 items in the email’s “Defamation List.”
A year into legal recreational marijuana sales in California, the volume of sales is far less than many people, and the state government, expected. The reason for low sales numbers is not that people stopped liking marijuana. The missing expected sales are still being made, but in the black market. Because “California is regulating and taxing the hell out of cannabis” in the legal market, it is hard “for legal suppliers to compete with the state’s longstanding, extensive, and highly developed black market,” writes Jacob Sullum in a Friday Reason article.
Continue readingA 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.
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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.
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Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican presidential nominee who will be sworn in as a United States Senate member from Utah on Thursday, wrote a Tuesday Washington Post editorial very critical of President Donald Trump. Romney warns in his anti-Trump torrent, “The alternative to US world leadership offered by China and Russia is autocratic, corrupt and brutal.”
Continue readingPresident Donald Trump would do well to listen to Rudy Giuliani, one of Trump’s Russiagate investigation lawyers, concerning the propriety of prosecuting Julian Assange of WikiLeaks who has lived in the Ecuador embassy in London since 2012 to avoid extradition to the United States. Interviewed Sunday at the Fox News show Fox & Friends, Giuliani made it clear that he believes Assange should not be prosecuted for the publishing of US government information. Assange took part in First Amendment-protected activity, Giuliani explains, as did the New York Times and the Washington Post decades earlier when they published the US government’s Pentagon Papers containing many revelations about US activities related to the Vietnam War.
Continue readingCome the swearing in of members of the new United States Congress on January 3, Rep. John J. Duncan, Jr. (R-TN), who is one of the longest-serving Republican members of the House of Representatives and among the House’s strongest peace advocates, will be beginning his retirement from political office. Duncan spoke on the House floor in a short December 21 speech focused on the importance of ending US military intervention abroad. Quoting the Bible, Duncan concludes his final House floor speech with this advice: “seek peace and pursue it.”
Continue readingDonald Trump’s presidency is a “mixed bag.” That is the assessment of libertarian communicator and former presidential candidate Ron Paul in a recent interview with Larry King at King’s Ora TV show Politicking.
Continue readingThe military-industrial complex revolving door keeps revolving. Sunday morning, President Donald Trump announced in a Twitter post that he plans to replace outgoing Secretary of Defense James Mattis, temporarily at least, with current Deputy Secretary of Defense Patrick M. Shanahan. Shanahan will assume the job on January 1 — two months before the departure date Mattis had proposed. Before taking on their current government jobs, Mattis and Shanahan worked for two of the largest military contractors — Mattis as a General Dynamics board of directors member and Shanahan as a Boeing senior vice president.
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.
Continue readingIn a new interview at RT, Ron Paul, who ran for United States president three times with a pro-peace platform, commended as “very good” President Donald Trump’s decision announced on Wednesday to remove US troops from Syria. Paul further notes that the US government’s intervention in Syria has lacked “a moral or a constitutional justification.”
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