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.
Listen to the new episode here:
Read a transcript of the new episode, including links to further information regarding the topics discussed, here:
The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity welcomes you to Five Minutes Five Issues.
Starting in five four three two one.
Hello, I am Adam Dick, a Ron Paul Institute senior fellow.
Let’s start.
Issue one.
Teresa Welsh reported at McClatchy last week that the United States military, in a conservative estimate, dropped 26,171 bombs overseas in 2016, which is 3,027 more than the year before. Welsh writes that an estimated over 12,000 bombs were dropped in Iraq and over 12,000 in Syria as well, plus 1,337 in Afghanistan, nearly 500 in Libya, 34 in Yemen, and 14 in Somalia.
These numbers are not, however, the complete story on US involvement in bombings. For example, the US, in addition to dropping bombs, has been assisting Saudi Arabia and other allied nations wage war against Yemen, including via aerial refueling of those nations’ military aircraft.
Issue two.
“Had a licensed permit holder been one of those people standing right behind him, he’d have gotten one shot off and somebody would’ve pulled a gun out and shot him.” That is a comment of Florida State Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Greg Steube (R-Sarasota), quoted Tuesday at the Orlando Sentinel regarding the shooting last week at the Fort Lauderdale, Florida airport.
Last month, Steube introduced legislation that includes an expansion of where individuals with state carry licenses may carry handguns in Florida. His legislation, SB 140, removes airport passenger terminals from the places where state law prohibits licensees from carrying.
Should his legislation appear to be on a course to become law in Florida, it will be interesting to see how the US government responds.
Issue three.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has written much addressing vaccination safety and challenging actions of pharmaceutical companies and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) related to vaccines. Kennedy announced Tuesday, after meeting with President-elect Donald Trump, that Trump had asked him to be chairman of a US government commission on vaccination safety and scientific integrity.
Issue four.
Starting with the states of Colorado and Washington in November of 2012, recreational marijuana legalization has been approved by popular vote in eight states and the District of Columbia. No state or territory government, though, has yet legalized via a bill passing in the legislature and being signed by the governor. Will the territory of Guam be the first to do so? On Tuesday, Guam Governor Eddie Calvo introduced in the Guam legislature a bill that would legalize marijuana in the territory.
Issue five.
Last week I wrote at the Ron Paul Institute website regarding Rep. Dana Rohrabacher’s plan to bring a congressional delegation to Russia. In my article, I mentioned the Washington Post article in which Rohrabacher was quoted regarding the trip.
Here is something about the Washington Post article that I did not mention in my article: In the first sentence of the Post article, Rohrabacher is referred to as “a longtime enthusiast of Russian President Vladimir Putin.”
No information is provided in the Post article to support this characterization. The Characterization appears to be yet another attempt, common in the Post, to imply that someone favoring better US relations with Russia is disloyal to America.
Similar characterizations are regularly attached to President-elect Donald Trump in the Post as well.
In November, the Washington Post published an article promoting the existence of “a sophisticated Russian propaganda campaign that created and spread misleading articles online with the goal of punishing Democrat Hillary Clinton, helping Republican Donald Trump and undermining faith in American democracy.” To support this conclusion, the article pointed to a list of over 200 websites that an anonymous group identified as “peddlers of Russian propaganda during the election season.” The Ron Paul Institute’s website, along with other well-know websites such as the Drudge Report, made the list.
A comment by then-President Thomas Jefferson in an 1807 letter comes to mind. Jefferson wrote:
Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle.
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That’s a wrap.
Transcripts of Five Minutes Five Issues episodes, including links to related information, are at the Ron Paul Institute blog.
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