This week's episode of Five Minutes Five Issues is out. 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. read on...
British commentator, comedian, and author Russell Brand has presented a short summation of some benefits from legalizing currently illegal drugs. Brand, in a new video commentary, presents the summation in response to Stephen Glover’s Wednesday editorial in the Daily Mail that criticizes Britain’s Prince William for questioning publicly if drugs should be legalized while visiting with illegal drug users. read on...
Libya has two rival governments and parliaments, as well as several militia groups aligned to both sides, and some "independent" ones, battling to control its oil wealth.
Inexplicably for many, the only one that is recognised is called the Government of National Accord (GNA), totally unelected by the Libyan people, consisting of a handful of Ministers and headed by an architect. All of these were chosen by the UN, which also selected as Prime Minister, Faez Serraj who resides mostly in Tunis and intermittently visits Tripoli and a few other parts of Libya, dependent on the good graces of the mercenaries calling themselves Militias that get paid for their service to the GNA, underwritten for them by the UN no less. read on...
Trump was seen as a presidential candidate who would possibly move towards a less interventionist foreign policy. That hope is gone. The insurgency that brought Trump to the top was defeated by a counter-insurgency campaign waged by the U.S. military. (Historically its first successful one). The military has taken control of the White House process and it is now taking control of its policies. read on...
A new episode of Five Minutes Five Issues is out. 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. read on...
Eleven years ago, this essay argued against hate-crime laws. One argument read “People can eventually be accused of hate crimes when they use hateful speech. Hate crimes laws are a seed that can sprout in new directions.” This has now come to pass, I am sorry to say. This week, the Congress passed S. J. Res. 49, and President Trump signed it, making it part of the U.S. legal code.
The law rejects “White nationalists, White supremacists, the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis, and other hate groups…” But why? Because of their ideas? Because of their expression of these ideas? No government that stands for freedom and free speech, whose charge is to protect rights, should be singling out specific groups by name and by law declaring them as outlaws or threats because of their philosophies. If they have committed a crime, such as defamation of character or incitement to riot or riot itself, then charge them and try them. But American government has no legitimate authority to single out some of its citizens in this way. This, furthermore, is an exceedingly bad precedent. Who’s next? read on...
Last month, House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation chairman Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) met with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. This meeting led to a potential deal being brought to the White House by Rohrabacher.
Under this deal, which was reported by the Wall Street Journal, Assange would provide conclusive proof that Russia was not the source of hacked emails WikiLeaks published. In return, he would be offered a pardon, or some other assurance that he wouldn’t be prosecuted by the US for involvement in WikiLeaks. read on...
On Monday, I visited an impressive statue in a Dallas, Texas city park. The statue depicts Robert E. Lee and a fellow soldier riding their horses next to each other.
Wednesday of last week, the Dallas city council voted to remove the statue from the park, which is named after Lee and also contains a building modeled after Lee’s Virginia home. The removal process began within an hour after the vote. But, after delays due to a temporary restraining order and a vehicular crash involving the crane intended to aid in removing the statue, the statue was still present in the park on Monday. Recently erected barriers, though, blocked approaching closer to the statue than, I estimate, about seventy feet in any direction. read on...
A 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. read on...
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. read on...
