Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross spoke this week at the Milken Global Conference in Beverley Hills. He recalled the scene at Mar-a-Lago on April 6, when the summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping was interrupted by the strike on Syria. read on...
Welcome to this week's episode of the RPI blog, "Five Minutes, Five Issues." 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...
Just three days after Turkish warplanes killed at least 20 US-backed Kurdish fighters along the Turkey-Syria border as well as several Kurdish peshmerga troops on Mount Sinjar in northwestern Iraq, footage posted by Syrian activists showed the US has deployed troops and APCs in the contested region, in a move that could potentially drag the US in a conflict where it already finds itself mediating between two so-called US ally forces in the proxy war against Syria. read on...
Last week, someone posted at Twitter comments attacking Ron Paul. The comments absurdly labeled Paul — who has spent decades arguing for peace, free markets, and liberty — as adhering to “xenophobia” and promoting both “anti-trade conspiracy theories” and “a hideous corruption of libertarian ideas.” read on...
President Trump's about-face on Syria has left many of his supporters reeling. Repeatedly on the campaign trail -- and over the past several years -- he has mocked President Obama's decision to get involved in a "regime change" project in Syria. He correctly warned Obama back in 2013 that if you attack Syria, "very bad things will happen." In his first several weeks in office the president has gone from praising Syrian President Assad for his fight against ISIS and al-Qaeda, to agreeing that "Assad can stay," to suddenly resurrecting the Obama mantra of "Assad must go!" All in a matter of two weeks! 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...
US officials have repeatedly vilified WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange over the past several years, and intermittently called for his assassination, but just now appear to be nearing a decision to file charges against him, accusing him of crimes for involvement in the whistleblower organization. What the charges might be remain a matter of speculation, as Assange’s lawyer says they’ve heard nothing from the Justice Department. CIA chief Mike Pompeo, however, suggested the charges could be speech related, insisting Assange doesn’t get “First Amendment freedoms” because he isn’t American. read on...
According to a study carried out by British researchers back in the 1990s, the number of psychopaths in any given population is one percent. In the case of Britain that means that there are roughly 600 thousand psychopaths in that country alone. The problem is that such people tend to struggle hard for influence and power over other people, in order to be able to intimidate, bully and/or harass those who happen to find themselves in positions and situations in which they depend on those psychopaths, either as their subordinates, employees or family members. read on...
On Tuesday, I was a guest for the second time on Joe Cristiano’s Liberty Talk Radio show. Cristiano is a well-informed and thoughtful talk show host. He adeptly handles interviews, ensuring they are both entertaining and educational. The Tuesday interview begins with an in-depth discussion of the war on drugs before shifting to a discussion of Donald Trump’s performance as president. Spoiler alert, Cristiano and I are not very pleased with Trump’s actions so far, though I do point to a couple bright spots. read on...
Libertarian communicator and former presidential candidate Ron Paul examined President Donald Trump’s foreign policy regarding Russia in an in-depth discussion last week with host Sophie Shevardnadze on the RT show SophieCo. Paul says in the interview that he had been pleased with Trump’s campaign statements supporting improving United States relations with Russia and expresses concern about the Trump administration’s sudden shift away from this objective. read on...
