The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity
The Ron Paul Peace and Prosperity Institute
Subscribe to the Institute View Us on YouTube Follow Us On Twitter Join Us on Facebook Join Us at Google Plus

Search Results

for:

Adam Dick

Sandra Bland is Everyman

Thursday July 23, 2015

undefined

Waller County District Attorney Elton Mathis is characterizing Sandra Bland — who died last week in a jail in the Texas county — as being “very combative” and “not a model person” during the traffic stop that led to her arrest and incarceration. His disparaging assessment appears to be far from the truth.

Recently released dashboard camera video of Bland’s arrest shows that throughout her ordeal on a Texas roadway Bland behaved appropriately and much as would many other ordinary people in a similar situation. Bland’s response may even have been more muted than average considering the infuriating nonsense she had to deal with — an out-of-control cop pulling her over for changing lanes without using a turn signal and then proceeding, for no good reason, to force her out of her car, throw her to the ground, handcuff her, and send her off to jail.

Bland’s response to the police harassment and brutality is commendable. Unless you accept the police-state mindset that Mathis’ comments suggest, you can’t help but admire Bland boldly standing up to a cop who literally had the power of life and death in his hands on that Texas roadway.
read on...

If You Want to Get Rid of ‘Racist Flags,’ How About Starting with the American Flag?

Wednesday June 24, 2015

undefined

It looks like open season has been declared on the battle flag of Army of Northern Virginia, which is commonly referred to as the Confederate battle flag. But, if you are looking for a flag to ban as racist, you might as well start with the American flag.

After all, the American flag is associated with the United States government that sanctioned slavery from the enactment of the US Constitution in 1789 to the addition of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution in December of 1865 — months after the end of the war with the Confederate States. The CS government, in comparison, existed for less than five years, with slavery legal the entire time.

The American flag flies now for a government whose drug war and larger law enforcement system is responsible for black Americans being harassed, arrested, and incarcerated in extraordinary numbers. Remember the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution makes an exception to allow slavery as “a punishment for crime.” This is an exception that has been employed much in America recently, with the number of people incarcerated in prisons and jails growing five-fold in the last thirty years.
read on...

The Prosecution of Dennis Hastert and the Government's War on Cash

Saturday June 13, 2015

undefined

Back on March 31, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) announced what many media reports heralded as a big rollback in the use of structuring allegations to justify seizing assets from individuals. Yet, here we are less than three months later with the DOJ prosecuting former US House of Representatives Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) for two crimes — structuring and lying to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) about why he employed structuring.

Despite the DOJ’s March 31 talking points used to allay people’s worries about the US government punishing people for the nonviolent action of moving cash in or out of their own accounts in a manner the US government disapproves, the Hastert prosecution shows that business as usual continues at the DOJ. In fact, the willingness of the DOJ to undertake this very high-profile prosecution where there is no alleged crime beyond structuring and lying about structuring may well indicate an escalation in the US government’s structuring crackdown.

According to the DOJ, Hastert faces punishment of up to 10 years in prison and a $500,000 fine if he is convicted. It is thus hard to argue that Hastert is in a better position than the many people whose money has been seized because of structuring allegations but who can choose to just walk away with a significant monetary loss. Hastert’s legal bills are mounting to defend himself against the DOJ that can spend without restraint in pursuit of a conviction. Even if Hastert can beat the charges or make a deal so he can walk free, his financial loss will be very high.
read on...

Lawrence Wilkerson: Iran ‘Win-Win’ Announced but Many Congressional Republicans Still Want War

Monday April 6, 2015

Speaking Friday on MSNBC with host Ed Schultz, Lawrence Wilkerson described the announced framework for a nuclear agreement with Iran as setting up a “win-win” agreement for the parties with importance on the level of the opening of relations between China and the United States during the Nixon administration. But, Wilkerson, a Ron Paul Institute advisor who served as chief of staff for Secretary of State Colin Powell, cautions that many congressional Republicans are still seeking war on Iran. If the agreement unravels, Wilkerson predicts the region around Iran will become much more dangerous.
read on...

After HIV Spike, Drug Warrior Governor Grants Limited Temporary Needle Exchange

Monday March 30, 2015

undefined

Indiana Governor Mike Pence on Thursday issued an executive order (EO 15-05) declaring a “public health disaster emergency” in Scott County in southeastern Indiana due to an epidemic of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in the county. The extraordinary measures allowed under the executive order include permitting the Scott County Board of Health to seek the state government’s permission to design and administer a short-term needle exchange program for the sole purpose of suppressing the HIV epidemic in Scott County.

The Republican governor’s executive order further says that all 79 HIV cases the Indiana State Department of Health has confirmed in Scott County since December “directly relate to intravenous drug use.” According to the executive order, no more than than five confirmed HIV cases, irrespective of how transmitted, are expected yearly in the county.

If you are in one of Indiana’s 91 other counties and wish to access new, clean needles to protect yourself from infection, tough. (Less than half of one percent of Indiana residents live in Scott County.) Yet, people outside Scott County will be no less dead or debilitated because of infections they receive from using old, dirty needles.
read on...

Ron Paul Rewind: 2007 Presidential Exploratory Committee Announcement

Tuesday March 24, 2015

The media are abuzz with chatter about the “early announcement” by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) of his candidacy for United States president. Back on March 12, 2007, Ron Paul, then a Republican US House Member from Texas, announced his entry into the 2008 presidential race in an in-depth C-SPAN Washington Journal interview. 

On February 19, 2007 Paul had announced the formation of his presidential campaign exploratory committee, with the bold declaration that “I reject the notion that we need a president to run our lives, plan the economy, or police the world.”
read on...

Ron Paul Rewind: Iran Sanctions Are ‘One More Step to Another War We Don’t Need’

Tuesday March 10, 2015

A week after a joint session of the United States Congress gave repeated standing ovations to Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as he scaremongered Americans regarding Iran and as legislation to impose yet more sanctions on Iran is being pushed in the Congress, it is a good time to revisit then-Rep. Ron Paul’s August 1, 2012 speeches on the US House of Representatives floor in opposition to US sanctions on Iran. Paul’s observations, including that sanctions are “one more step to another war that we don’t need,” are as true now as they were nearly three years ago.
read on...

The Washington Post’s Gross Mischaracterization of Ron Paul’s Message

Monday February 23, 2015

undefined

Irrespective of the commonly held view that the Washington Post is the newspaper of record of America or at least of United States politics, David A. Fahrenthold’s January 25 Washington Post article purporting to report on Ron Paul’s participation the previous day at a Ludwig von Mises Institute event provides anything but an accurate record. Instead, Fahrenthold’s article presents a gross mischaracterization of Paul’s message. 

Before the widespread use of the Internet, people could be more easily hoodwinked by distortions such as those in the Washington Post article. Unless other major media contested the hogwash, there would be little chance that many people would encounter a response that sets the record straight. In contrast, today people can often protect themselves from such disinformation by viewing on the internet material that discloses the truth — in this case the video of Paul’s speech posted on the Mises Institute website and the January 8 editorial by Paul quoted in the Post article.

If you were to rely on the Washington Post for your understanding of Paul’s message and his Mises Institute speech, here is some of the impression you would be given. First, should you search for “Ron Paul” on the Washington Post website, you will see that the brief promotion for the article declares Paul’s “gloom and doom.” Next, when you click through the link to the article, you will see at the top of the article a photograph of Paul with a caption proclaiming “Ron Paul’s pessimistic attitudes.” Then, reading Fahrenthold’s article, you will come across Fahrenthold’s claim that Paul “has embraced a role as libertarianism’s prophet of doom.”
read on...

Fed Asset Seizures Rollback Less Than Advertised

Sunday January 18, 2015

undefined

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.

Holder’s order terminated immediately on Friday a portion of the US government’s Equitable Sharing Program. The program has funneled billions of dollars to local police departments via seizures of people’s cash and property without any demonstration required of a relation between the person deprived of the assets, or the assets themselves, and criminal activity.
read on...

NYPD Union Leader: Reducing Marijuana Arrests is “Beginning of the Breakdown of a Civilized Society”

Sunday November 9, 2014

undefined

Reported efforts to begin following through on New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s 2013 election promise to reduce marijuana arrests in the city has distressed Sergeants Benevolent Association police union President Ed Mullins. Mullins is quoted Wednesday in the New York Post lamenting that “If the current practice of making arrests for both possession and sale of marijuana is, in fact, abandoned, then this is clearly the beginning of the breakdown of a civilized society.”

The city’s apparent move to reduce the number of marijuana arrests comes soon after an October joint report of the Drug Policy Alliance and the Marijuana Arrest Research Project publicized that the number of marijuana possession arrests in New York City were on track to remain the same under de Blasio’s leadership, or even increase, compared to arrests under Michael Bloomberg, the preceding mayor.

Of course, the truth is that there is nothing civilized about arresting people and throwing them in jail for making the choice to use, buy, or sell marijuana. Such choices have been tolerated or accepted in much of the world for centuries and were legal under United States law for the majority of the nation’s history. US legal prohibitions and punishments were imposed in the 20th century, including with the enactment of laws such as the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 and marijuana’s inclusion in schedule one of Controlled Substances Act of 1970, thus applying the most expansive level of prohibition to actions involving the plant. In contrast, looking further back to the origins of the US, we find that Founding Fathers grew hemp on their farms, including George Washington at Mount Vernon and Thomas Jefferson at Monticello.
read on...

Subscribe

Authors

Tags