Rep. John J. Duncan, Jr., in a speech Wednesday on the House of Representatives floor, quoted several prominent conservatives to help make the case that “there has been nothing conservative about our policy of permanent, forever, endless war in the Middle East.” In the speech, Duncan quotes, in turn, thought-provoking comments from Thomas Sowell, David Keene, Jon Utley, Peggy Noonan, and William F. Buckley, Jr. read on...
The days of the United States House of Representatives leadership blocking debate and a vote on the ISIS War appear to be coming to an end. On Thursday, Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA), along with Reps Walter Jones (R-NC) and Barbara Lee (D-CA), introduced, pursuant to the War Powers Resolution, a privileged resolution (H.Con.Res. 55) intended to force the House to debate and vote within 15 days on withdrawing US armed forces from Iraq and Syria.
Upon the resolution’s introduction, Reps. McGovern and Jones (a Ron Paul Institute Advisory Board member) spoke for 26 compelling and informative minutes on the House floor regarding the resolution they had introduced, as well as their frustration with the US war in Iraq and Syria and the failure of Congress to meet its responsibility to debate and vote on that war. read on...
By a vote of 67-32 the Senate today passed the USA FREEDOM Act, just days after the expiration of key elements of the USA PATRIOT Act. The FREEDOM Act is billed as a bill to reform the unconstitutional and recently-ruled illegal bulk collection of Americans' telecommunications, but in fact it is a whole new level of attack on civil liberties. read on...
The congressional push to promote national ID cards worldwide continues, and it looks like the legislative vehicle — the Girls Count Act (S 802) — will likely be sent this week to President Barack Obama to be signed into law without recorded votes in the US Senate or House of Representatives.
In November, the House of Representatives approved by a voice vote HR 3398, a previous version of the Girls Count Act. That 2014 bill would, as detailed in a Ron Paul Institute Congress Alert, define it as the policy of the US government to encourage other nations to require all citizens to have national identity cards, as well as direct the US government to work with multinational organizations and private entities on imposing registration, identification, and documentation laws on people around the world. But, then the 113th Congress ended without the Senate taking action on the bill. read on...
While arrogant morons dominate the staffs of Capitol Hill–and the rest of the state–there are a few who are principled. One writes me about how sick he is of the Patriot Act show... read on...
The House GOP leadership talks a lot about "reining in" President Obama's abuse of executive powers; yet last week they blocked two amendments to the 2015 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would have rolled back President Obama's power to violate our civil liberties and unilaterally keep US troops involved in overseas military actions. read on...
The US House of Representatives on Friday again voted to pay for war on the Islamic State (ISIS) without ever having a debate and vote on the authorization of the war. This result is par for the course given the House leadership is well practiced in manipulating House rules to scuttle efforts by Reps. Walter Jones (R-NC) and James McGovern (D-MA), as well as by other House members, to ensure that the legislative branch fulfills its constitutional responsibility to decide when the US government uses military force.
By barring war debates and votes, the House leadership ensures the continued legislative rubber-stamping of the wars the executive branch unilaterally pursues.
The authorization of funding for the ISIS War that the House approved Friday is included in the massive National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2016 (HR 1735) that covers funding authorization for the Department of Defense generally. This leaves any representative who voted for the legislation with the ability to deny responsibility for the ISIS War by saying he voted for the NDAA just to advance some combination on other provisions in the bill. read on...
Speaking Tuesday on the United States House of Representatives floor, Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC) again urged Congress to exercise its constitutional responsibility by debating and voting on if the United States government will continue militarily intervening in Afghanistan for nine more years.
Referring to Afghanistan as “well known by historians as the graveyard of empires,” Jones, a Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity Advisory Board member, details the high cost in thousands of US troops killed, tens of thousands more US troops wounded, and hundreds of billions of dollars spent by the US government in the first 14 years of the Afghanistan War. Jones proceeds to note that a new bilateral security agreement President Barack Obama has entered into with Afghanistan “ties us — our nation — to a failed policy for another nine years.” read on...
There is no doubt that the US government engages in extraordinary military and “national security” spending. In February, a Washington Post article cited an International Institute for Strategic Studies report ranking US “defense spending” at four and a half times that of China (the next biggest spender), close to matching China and the next 13 nations combined, and more than a third of the total defense spending of all nations. As explained by Ron Paul Institute Academic Board Member Robert Higgs, even such calculations far understate US national security spending by focusing on the Department of Defense base budget while neglecting to include significant expenses including, for example, separately allocated war spending and US Department of Energy spending on the nuclear weapons program.
Despite this vast spending dwarfing that of other nations around the world, Alexander Bolton reports in the The Hill on Saturday that a bipartisan group of US Senators is focusing on gaining Senate approval for increased military spending beyond 2011 Budget Control Act (BCA) limitations when appropriations legislation is considered later this year. read on...
Is fast track being fast tracked? George Zornick at the Nation today suggests that the fast track authority for President Barack Obama to enter the United States into the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a massive, wide-scope international agreement, may soon be rushed through Congress without adequate opportunity for Congress members and the American people to consider the matter. This circumvention of regular process in Congress and of public scrutiny should not be a surprise given that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) support the granting of this presidential power that Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC), a Ron Paul Institute Advisory Board member, calls “absolutely a threat on our Constitution, on our sovereignty.” read on...
