As drug overdoses continue rising in the United States, one drug has emerged as the most notorious killer of our day: fentanyl. Unfortunately, those clamoring loudest about fentanyl’s death toll support policies that actually bolster its position in the illicit drug trade. First approved for U.S. medical use in 1968, fentanyl is a synthetic opioid used to counter severe pain after surgery, and chronic severe pain. Though similar to morphine or heroin, it’s 50 to 100 times more potent. Most of the fentanyl circulating on the streets doesn’t come from pharmaceutical companies. According to...
Pundits
A Veteran Explains Why People Aren’t Joining the Military
A new report from NBC news has generated a lot of discussion about the relationship between the military and American society. Especially from right-leaning commentators, much of the blame is placed on the current administration and the apparent increase of “woke” cultural initiatives and vaccine mandates. Prominent right wing personality and veteran BowTiedRanger lists three reasons: Popular gun Youtuber Iraqveteran8888 points out that people (presumably he means the rightwing where most military recruits originate) have lost faith in our institutions, largely due to the implementation...
‘Assault Weapons’ Ban: First Step on the Road to Tyranny
President Joe Biden is seeking to revive his presidency by demolishing the Second Amendment. In a televised address last Thursday, Biden called for a ban on assault weapons, which he portrayed as the epitome of evil. Vice President Kamala Harris caterwauled that assault weapons are a “weapon of war” with “no place in civil society.” Assault weapons are a “flag of convenience” for the Democrats’ circus shell game with Americans’ constitutional rights. Biden talks as if assault weapons are solely a moral issue. But once that premise is accepted, then he can move to ban vast numbers of...
Elon Musk is Angering the Right People
The Wall Street Journal reports today that Twitter’s senior management and Elon Musk are in the final stages of agreeing on terms for Musk’s proposed takeover of the social media platform. Musk had announced on April 21 that he had $46.5 billion lined up—half in cash, half financed by his bankers Morgan Stanley, Barclays, and Bank of America—for a purchase of the company. Musk was offering $54.20 per share for the takeover at a time when Twitter’s stock price was In the mid forties. This followed a spending spree that began in early 2022 and resulted in Musk owning more than 9 percent of...
Its Not Getting Better: Cops in the U.S. Still Kill Someone Every 8 Hours
It has been nearly two years since Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd. At the time, Floyd’s death would set off massive protests across the country as politicians and political pundits played lip service to Black Lives Matter and others, as they offered up their hollow support. Illustrating the extremely hollow nature of their “support” is the fact that despite all the appeals to emotion, the toothless “reform” bills, and incessant gaslighting—absolutely nothing has changed. As the fourth month of 2022 begins, American cops are keeping to their deadly numbers like clockwork. One quarter...
Hillary Clinton Wants to Turn Ukraine into Afghanistan
Former Secretary of State and failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has called to arm up an insurgency to repel Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, joining a growing number of pundits and officials suggesting that Washington should hand Russia its own costly, years-long occupation akin to the US (or indeed Soviet) experience in Afghanistan. Clinton made her case during a Monday night appearance with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, recalling that during the USSR’s invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s, resistance fighters “had a lot of countries supplying arms and advice,” which, she continued,...
The Real ‘National Emergency’ in Canada is Trudeau
On February 14, Justin Trudeau invoked emergency powers to crack down on the peaceful truckers' protest in Ottawa. The Emergencies Act became law in 1988, and it has never been used until now. The act contains “a specific definition of “national emergency” that makes clear how serious a situation needs to be before the Act can be relied upon. A national emergency is an urgent, temporary and critical situation that seriously endangers the health and safety of Canadians or that seriously threatens the ability of the Government of Canada to preserve the sovereignty, security and territorial...
1/19/22 Zaher Wahab: Afghanistan is Starving and Nobody Cares
Scott interviews Zaher Wahab of the Lewis & Clark Graduate School of Education about the economic catastrophe taking place in Afghanistan. Although the U.S. Government claimed it was working to develop Afghanistan, Wahab explains that what it really did was prop the country’s economy up until it left. Now, in the midst of the collapse, the people of Afghanistan are starving. And the American hawks and pundits, who only four months ago were screaming about the wellbeing of Afghan civilians, now don’t seem to have a care in the world for them. Wahab fills us in on this situation, its...
TGIF: Pursue Your Happiness and Forget the Rest
How about we do something novel in the new year? Let's stop worrying about the stuff most politicians, pundits, and activists want us to worry about and instead think about ourselves, our families, our friends, and whatever communities we choose to be part of. Let's forget about "the country" and the rest of the world. Let's individually pursue happiness. All I'm saying is that it's finally time for the politicians, bureaucrats, and know-it-all intelligentsia, left or right, to get out of the way and let us set our own agendas. Too self-centered? Well, too bad. Much evil results from...
For One Day, Protestors Stopped the War Machine
I’ve attended most of the major antiwar protests in Washington since 9/11. At a 2005 protest, a cop tried to whack me on the head with a wooden pole. At a 2007 protest, I snapped a picture showing George W. Bush hanging next to the U.S. Capitol. But my favorite protest was a potent little ruckus that I almost missed. On a sunny late summer day in 2013, I ambled to downtown Washington to hike with a bunch of folks who enjoyed bantering as much as I did. The route for the jaunt started on the National Mall, passing by the Smithsonian, heading toward the World War II Memorial and points...