George Washington University Law Professor Jonathan Turley, at a Wednesday hearing of Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-KY) Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Federal Spending Oversight and Emergency Management, presented written testimony arguing that a proposed authorization for use of military force (AUMF) sponsored by Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-TN) (S.J.Res 59) “would literally put our endless war on autopilot.”
On Monday, the United States Supreme Court, in the case Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, decided in favor of a bakery that the Colorado state government sought to require to design and create a custom wedding cake to celebrate a same-sex marriage. The court’s narrow basis for its resolution of the matter means that we can expect to see more cases dealing with similar issues moving through American courts.
In December, as a guest at the Ron Paul Liberty Report, I discussed the case with hosts Ron Paul and Daniel McAdams. In the discussion, Paul addressed the heart of the matter, saying that the bakery’s refusal to design and create the cake “is a property rights issue” and that “as long as force and violence is not used … owners should have the right to use their property as they see fit.”
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.
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Premier libertarian communicator Ron Paul, in an interview Tuesday with host Dan Dicks at Press For Truth, called the effort to eliminate cash an “attack on individual freedom.” Restricting and discouraging the use of cash, suggests Paul, has always been a goal of statists as a means to reduce individuals’ independence. “A cashless society is very, very dangerous,” continues Paul.
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.
What would Ron Paul do if he were president? Alex Jones asked the former United States House of Representatives member and three-time presidential candidate this question in a Wednesday interview at the Alex Jones Show. Veto the spending bills, bring the US troops home from overseas, and investigate the Federal Reserve and curtail its power are actions included in Paul’s answer. But, Paul also cautions that a president who took such bold actions would likely be impeached with bipartisan support.
Despite United States Congress members insisting that Congress debate and vote on US military actions overseas, congressional leadership has chosen inaction, allowing military actions unilaterally pursued by the executive branch to continue unrestrained. And, when, this year, consideration has begun to move forward on an authorization for use of military force (AUMF), it is in the form of legislation (S.J.Res. 59) sponsored by Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-TN) that would rubber-stamp the US government’s existing wars and sweepingly authorize the executive branch to choose to pursue much more additional military action across the world.
How did we reach this situation so far removed from the US Constitution’s dictate that Congress alone decides if the US goes to war, as well as what is the scope of any such wars? Constitutional scholar Louis Fisher examines this question in detail in his article “Unconstitutional Wars from Truman Forward” in the latest issue of the Center for the Study of Statesmanship’s journal Humanitas.
“American exceptionalism” is a phrase frequently rolled out in support of United States interventions abroad, including US military attacks. So it would likely surprise many people to hear that Ron Paul, the former US House of Representatives member and presidential candidate known for his advocacy for a noninterventionist foreign policy, declared in a panel discussion this week at the TRT World show The Newsmakers that he is a supporter of American exceptionalism. However, there is a catch. Paul defines the American exceptionalism he supports differently than the way that phrase is commonly defined by people who desire the US to be an empire or the policeman on the world.
Ron Paul and interviewing legend Larry King had a provocative discussion last week on King’s Politicking show at RT. The prominent libertarian communicator, who founded the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity in 2013 after leaving the United States House of Representatives, talked with King about a variety of topics running from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s ongoing investigation to the US government’s interventionist foreign policy.
Throughout, Paul provides interesting insights. Here are some samples from the discussion.
Polling suggests approval of state ballot measures in upcoming elections this year that would cause the number of states with legal medical marijuana to grow by three and with legal recreational marijuana to grow by one. Absent earlier legislative action in other states, recreational marijuana legalization approval in Michigan would make it the tenth state with such legalization, and medical marijuana legalization in Oklahoma and Utah, as well as Missouri where petition signatures for ballot measures have not yet been counted and verified, would bring the total number of states with legal medical marijuana up to 33. Tom Angell discusses in a Thursday Forbes article the polling indicating substantial majority support in these states for the respective forms of legalization the ballot measures include.
The movement of states to roll back marijuana prohibition, via ballot measures as well as bills approved by state legislatures and signed into law by governors, is a very important development for advancing respect for liberty in America. First, it significantly limits the war on drugs in America. That war on drugs has been a basis for the expansion of government power at the expense of people’s liberty and safety. Restraining or ending the war on marijuana in a state does not eliminate the war on many other drugs or all the terrible consequences of the broader drug war. But, it does provide relief from a portion of the broader drug war’s harms.