President Donald Trump released this week his budget proposal that includes increasing by five percent United States military spending. However, Ron Paul Institute Academic Board Member and retired Army Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson argues in a Tuesday The Real News interview that the US government would do well to cut a trillion dollars over ten years — about 100 billion dollars a year — from its national security budget, a budget Wilkerson notes is about twice the 700-plus billion dollars Defense Department budget. read on...
So the news is filled with reports over the last 24 hours of misguided efforts of semi-wealthy parents, who were busted in an FBI sting, getting their not so bright children into elite colleges and universities via bribes.
But the real bribes go on. That is the government payments to colleges and universities to promote government lines of propaganda.
Four hundred thousand dollars was given to Yale women’s soccer team coach, Rudolph “Rudy” Meredith, to get a girl into Yale via the backdoor as a "soccer student." But it is a mere pittance compared to the serious scam. Yale University received approximately $480 million in federal funds in 2015, for example. read on...
A new episode of Five Minutes Five Issues is posted. 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 remarkable recent article in Bloomberg reports on the real plan for last month's showdown over US "aid" for Venezuela blocked at the Colombian border. According to the report, the US plan was for some 200 heavily armed exiled Venezuelan military officers from the Colombian side of the border were to over-run the Venezuelan militia guarding their side of the border. Shockingly, the US government neglected to notify its ally Colombia of what would certainly result in a massive escalation of existing tensions between the two countries and it wasn't until the last minute when the Colombian government got wind of the plan and put the kibbosh on it. read on...
A Wednesday Public Radio East report by Valerie Crowder presents some fond recollections of the principled political efforts of Ron Paul Institute Advisory Board Member Walter Jones who died last month while serving in his 13th term in the Unites States House of Representatives as a Republican from North Carolina. read on...
Ron Paul Institute Academic Board Member Walter Block has some clear advice regarding what the United States government should do about “evil dictators” around the world: Ignore them. After all, Block, an economics professor at Loyola University and prominent libertarian scholar, writes in a Tuesday lewrockwell.com blog post, there is “no country, no groups of individuals with the power, or the intention,” to invade or conquer America. read on...
With the expansion of state governments’ crackdown on vaccination exemptions facing significant obstacles after, in 2015, California eliminated nearly all vaccination exemptions for children in government schools, private schools, and day care, Alex Newman writes at The New American that Scott Gottlieb, the head of the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA), has been publicly suggesting the US government mandate that states restrict or eliminate vaccination exemptions for children. read on...
Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree to make Russia’s withdrawal from the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty official. Russia continues to insist that they have not been in breach of the treaty, despite repeated accusations from US leaders. Daniel McAdams of the Ron Paul Institute joins Scottie Nell Hughes to discuss the development and other US foreign policy blunders around the world, which McAdams traces to the influence of National Security Advisor John Bolton. read on...
It took 45 years after the 1933 termination of the United States government’s alcohol prohibition for the US government to legalize beer home brewing and, then, another 35 years until in 2013 the last two American states legalized home brewing. In comparison, of the ten states where recreational marijuana has been legalized, only the Washington state government prohibits home growing of marijuana, and for years the US government has backed off from prosecuting people complying with the liberalized state marijuana laws. read on...
To successfully get the bill to the White House, identical versions need to pass in both the House and the Senate. Last year this was impossible because the former House leadership kept changing the rules to duck votes. This year, it may depend on whether or not they can keep Israel out of it. read on...
