From California State Senator Richard Pan (D-Sacramento) proposing legislation to prevent parents of children attending government or private schools from making their own decisions regarding vaccinations, to American Conservative Senior Editor Rod Dreher suggesting the US government should mandate vaccinations, vaccination orthodoxy enforcers are out en masse this week. Fortunately for freedom, Judge Andrew Napolitano has written a new editorial emphatically challenging their threat to individual rights and defending constitutional limitations on the US government’s power. read on...
President Obama may have told Congress and the American people in his state of the union address that the American combat mission in Afghanistan is over, but that claim is a bit disingenuous, to put it charitably.
To be sure, the military presence has been reduced, and only 9,800 troops remain in Afghanistan. However, the incoming Secretary of Defense, Ashton Carter, already indicated a willingness to slow down or possibility reverse the ongoing drawdown, should security conditions “degrade." read on...
Jordan's King Abdullah reacted emotionally to a video showing the apparent immolation of a Jordanian fighter pilot shot down over Syrian airspace. The Jordanian leader promised to fight ISIS, who killed the pilot, until his military ran "out of fuel and bullets." His vows of revenge even included quoting Clint Eastwood to US lawmakers.
When he arrived back in Jordan from Washington, where he happened to be when the pilot was killed, he swiftly executed three prisoners in an apparent demonstration of resolve. read on...
President Obama's plan to send as many as 1,000 US military personnel to train the "moderate" rebels seeking to overthrow Syrian president Assad may have run into yet another rough patch. There has been a steady stream of US-backed "moderates" signing on with either ISIS or al-Qaeda (often taking their US-provided weapons with them) and it looks like another flock has flown the coup.
The Harakat Hazzm group had been on the receiving end of Washington's largesse due to its status as a "non-jihadist" faction fighting to overthrow Assad. It was created last year and had ties to the US-created Free Syrian Army. read on...
Speaking on RT yesterday, RPI executive director Daniel McAdams wonders whether President Obama spoke a bit too freely in his recent CNN interview. In the interview, the president told CNN that the US government had "brokered a deal to transition power in Ukraine." This admission that the US was playing a role in the February, 2014 coup flies in the face of the dominant west narrative, which is that the overthrow of the Yanukovych government was solely a popular uprising. read on...
Ukraine heats up and the US continues pointing fingers away from its own actions. Max Boot and the neocons want us to go harder and faster against Russia. What might we expect from recent developments in Greece - wither the EU? RPI's Daniel McAdams again joins Jay Taylor to chew on latest international developments. Watch below or listen to the audio file here. read on...
The momentum in the United States government seems to be behind piling more and more sanctions on countries with abandon. In opposition to this trend, Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity Founder and Chairman Ron Paul and RPI Advisory Board Member Lew Rockwell present in Rockwell’s latest podcast an in-depth discussion of the dangers sanctions pose. read on...
Addressing the news that a non-profit Muslim organization in Texas is offering to privately settle disputes on a voluntary basis between those who see Sharia law as binding, Judge Andrew Napolitano points out that privatized justice should be welcomed in the United States among those who reject state meddling in private affairs. read on...
Despite Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Ranking Member Patrick Leahy (D-VT) of the Senate Judiciary Committee expressing concern about the US government using a license plate tracking system to monitor vehicle movements in America, we should not expect the US Congress to pass any significant rollback of the mass spying program. As we have seen with the US government’s telecommunications mass spying program administered largely by the National Security Agency, a large-scale effort to defeat any significant rights-protecting legislative response should be expected. Further, only insignificant to counterproductive “reform” legislation — portrayed deceptively as a major rollback — will likely be pushed through the legislative process. read on...
A quick review of the Sunni vs. Shia split and how that drives violence in the Middle East. What does the ascendence of a Shia insurgency to power in Yemen last week mean for the balance in the region, especially with the death of the Saudi king? read on...
