My first reaction to news earlier this month that the Syrian government had been overthrown was, how much did we have to do with it; how involved was the CIA; and how much is it going to cost.

As with Saddam and Gaddafi before him, we know that Assad was no libertarian hero. But unleashing an army dedicated to establishing an Islamic state in once-secular Syria hardly seems like a good idea to me.

As with President George W. Bush’s “Mission Accomplished� moment after Saddam’s overthrow, getting rid of Assad will prove to be the easy part. Rebuilding Syrian society after the destruction of the country will cost billions and will likely be about as successful as our “liberation� of Libya, which is still a failed, terrorist-dominated state more than a decade later.

In 2017 the Los Angeles Times published an article that, sadly, speaks volumes about the insanity of our interventionist foreign policy. “In Syria, militants armed by the Pentagon fight those armed by the CIA,� read the headline. How does it make any sense that the Pentagon is fighting a proxy war with the CIA on Syrian soil? What’s worse is that the American people are forced to pay for this Pentagon versus CIA war and then forced to pay again to rebuild the country after all the destruction.

The Syrian people will feel the cost in more than just dollars.

How involved is the US government in the overthrow of the Syrian government? For the past ten years the US has controlled the areas of Syria oil and wheat production, stealing resources that we have no legal claim on. The combination of resource theft and extreme sanctions hollowed out Syrian society over the past ten years, so when the terrorists sprang forth from Idlib a few weeks ago there was little resistance.

Now instead of the relatively benign yet authoritarian rule of Assad, we have rule by the direct inheritors of the people who attacked us on 9/11. I am shocked that the mainstream media and many if not most politicians are cheering this. Ironically, some of the biggest cheerleaders for the al-Qaeda takeover of Syria are the same Members of Congress who finished their daily speeches on the House Floor with “we will never forget 9/11.� I guess they finally forgot?

The implosion of Syria, like the US-engineered implosion of Libya and Iraq, has not led to democracy, peace, and the protection of civil liberties. In each case it has produced the exact opposite. Millions dead, millions more living in misery with many seeking revenge against those who destroyed their families, their lifestyle, and their countries. Are we safer having created millions of new enemies?

President-elect Donald Trump made a statement last week about Syria, saying that this is not our fight and we should have nothing to do with it. His sentiment is the correct one, though we have unfortunately to this point had far too much to do with it. Let us hope that as president, Donald Trump will follow through with this sentiment and extract the US – the overt and covert presence – from not only Syria but the entire Middle East. This is not our fight and every single thing we have done there for the past 75 or so years has only made things worse. Time for an America first foreign policy!

Politicians and pundits spent much of last week commenting on President Biden’s pardon of his son Hunter for lying on a federal gun purchase form, failing to pay taxes, and any other offenses he may have committed over the past decade. Much of the controversy is because President Biden repeatedly pledged that he would never pardon his son.

Some have also observed that the pardon’s timeline starts the year Hunter Biden joined the board of the Ukraine energy company Burisma. This has led to speculation that President Biden is trying to block any investigation into links between his son’s business dealings and President Biden’s Ukraine policy.

What has not been widely discussed is the fact that Hunter Biden may be the only American President Biden has pardoned for violating unconstitutional federal gun and drug laws.

Hunter Biden was convicted of lying on federal Form 4473. This is a form Americans must fill out to get federal government “permission� to purchase a firearm. Specifically, Hunter Biden gave a false answer to the question, “Are you an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana or any depressant, stimulant, narcotic drug, or any other controlled substance?�

The Second Amendment forbids the federal government from limiting the ability of any American to exercise his natural right to own a firearm. Furthermore, federal drug laws are themselves unconstitutional.

The Constitution only creates three federal crimes: treason, piracy, and counterfeiting. All other crimes are under the jurisdiction of state and local governments. So, the required use of this form is a constitutional violation of the rights of Hunter Biden and all other Americans who are subjected to it when they seek to obtain a gun.

Form 4473 warns Americans that “the use or possession of marijuana remains unlawful under Federal law regardless of whether it has been legalized or decriminalized for medicinal or recreational purposes in the state where you reside.� Thus, someone could be prevented from exercising his Second Amendment right because of his activities that are perfectly legal in his state. This turns federalism on its head.

Hunter Biden was also convicted of, and pardoned for, tax evasion and the filing of fraudulent tax returns. It is hard for anyone who values liberty to get upset at those who violate the tax laws since the income tax is a form of theft by the government of people’s hard-earned income.

An outrage of Hunter Biden’s pardon is President Biden’s hypocrisy. When he served as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee in the 1990s, then-Senator Biden played a major role in getting through Congress the Brady Law that created the federal gun purchase background check system that Hunter Biden was convicted of violating. Senator Biden also was a leading drug warrior who led the fight to pass the 1994 crime bill and was a champion of mandatory minimums and other infringements of civil liberties in the name of the war on drugs. President Biden also supported hiring more IRS agents to squeeze more money from taxpayers.

Then-Senator Biden wrote large parts of the PATRIOT Act. As chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Biden also led the effort to pass the unconstitutional (and disastrous) “authorization for use of military force� against Iraq.

President Biden should spend his last month in office pardoning more Americans for violations of unconstitutional drug and gun laws. This would serve as a small gesture of atonement for a political career spent advocating policies destructive of peace, prosperity, and liberty.

The interim between a US presidential election and the swearing in of a new Administration has for most of our history been a non-eventful period where the outgoing Administration winds down operations and the incoming Administration ramps up new personnel before the inauguration.

The 20th Amendment to our Constitution was enacted in 1933 to reduce the “lame duck� period between election and inauguration to January 20th instead of March 4th. Increasing ease in travel and communications made such a long interim unnecessary. However long the transition period, it has been understood that with the new election came a new mandate from the American people and the “lame duck� outgoing administration was meant to quietly quack out its last few days in office without incident.

Then came Biden. In the period since the American people rejected Biden’s neocon interventionists in favor of Donald Trump’s promises to end the wars, the “lame duck� has run roughshod over the will of the American people. Whoever is running Biden – and the answer is unclear – has decided to “Trump proof� foreign policy to bring us to the literal brink of WWIII with Russia. And to top it off, Biden’s people this past week have again unleashed al-Qaeda linked rebels to wreak havoc in Syria!

After solidly opposing the neocon demand that Ukraine be given permission to fire US weapons deep into Russia, President Biden in the waning days of his presidency suddenly reversed course and granted permission. From back in 2022, when Russia first went into Ukraine, Biden had argued against sending offensive weaponry and US troops to fight on Ukraine’s behalf. “Make no mistake,� he said in March of that year, “that’s called World War III.�

Something about losing the popular and electoral vote has led Biden’s people to disregard the threat of WWIII and give the green light for attacks with US missiles deep into Russian territory. Why is this so different than providing tanks or bullets? These missile systems are highly complex and classified and can only be operated by US or NATO personnel. That means that American military officers are shooting American missiles into Russia – something unimaginable even in the depths of the Cold War!

Then, just days ago, we saw the sudden re-emergence of the US former proxies in Syria – extremists whose ties go back to al-Qaeda – sweep halfway through the country in what appears to be a return of Obama’s disastrous “Assad must go� policy. For five years the conflict in Syria had been more or less “frozen,� but Biden’s people have turned it up to a boil.

Why has the Biden Administration suddenly given a green light to these terrorists and how deeply is the CIA involved in stirring up new trouble in Syria? Make no mistake: these US-backed “rebels� would never have made their move without the approval of the Biden Administration.

The American people did not vote for an expansion of war, either in eastern Europe or the Middle East. A recent CBE News/YouGov poll has shown that a majority of Americans favor an end to all US military aid to Ukraine.

Upending the card table just because you lose the game not only shows blatant disregard for the “democracy� his party constantly preached on the campaign trail, but by pouring gasoline on these two very dangerous conflicts as he heads for the door President Biden puts each and every one of us in grave danger.

President-elect Trump has nominated former World Wrestling Entertainment CEO Linda McMahon for Secretary of Education. President-elect Trump promised that, if confirmed, Mrs. McMahon would “spearhead� the effort to “send education back to the states.� This has led some people to wonder if Linda McMahon may be the last Secretary of Education.

The Constitution does not give the federal government any role in education. Instead, education is left in the hands of state and local governments and private citizens. For almost 200 years American children were provided with education largely free of US government interference.

In the 1950s, a significant federal intervention in education was created as a response to fears that America was losing the “space race� to the Soviet Union and thus needed to improve science education. In this instance, the Cold War contributed to the growth of federal government involvement in education.

The Department of Education was created in 1979. Since then, presidents, both Republican and Democrat, have expanded federal funding and control of education with little or no improvement in student performance. Anger over their children being denied a year or more of education over fears of covid caused many parents to abandon government schools. Many other parents began challenging the use of schools to indoctrinate children in “woke� ideology. Some of these parents started attending school board meetings and running for school boards.

Woke education also caused more parents to abandon government schools. The key to improving education quality and stopping schools from promoting a political agenda is restoring control over education to those most concerned that children receive a quality education and who best know children’s unique needs and abilities: parents.

The best way to empower parents is to restore parents’ control over the education dollar. Fortunately, President-elect Trump has proposed adding a 10,000 dollars tax credit for homeschooling parents to the tax legislation Congress will consider next year. Tax credits should also be made available for private school tuition and any educational expenses — such as supplies, tutoring, or costs related to participation in an extracurricular activity — of parents who choose to send their children to government schools. Tax credits should also be available for donations to programs helping low-income students attend private schools. Education tax credits should be paired with cuts in the Department of Education. Americans will always spend generously on education. The question is who should control the education dollar: politicians and bureaucrats or parents.

Parents looking for a homeschooling curriculum that provides a well-rounded education that incorporates the ideas of liberty should consider my online curriculum. Instead of indoctrinating students with critical race theory, transgenderism, or neoconservatism, my curriculum provides students with a solid education in history, literature, mathematics, and the sciences. It also gives students the opportunity to create their own websites and internet-based businesses. This provides students with “real world� entrepreneurial experience that will be useful to them no matter what career path they choose.

The curriculum is designed to be self-taught, with students helping and learning from each other via online forums. Starting in fourth grade, students are required to write at least one essay a week. Students post their essays on their blogs. Students also take a course in public speaking.

The curriculum does emphasize the history, philosophy, and economics of liberty, but it never substitutes indoctrination for education. The goal is to produce students with superior critical thinking skills.

If you think my curriculum may meet the needs of your child, please visit www.RonPaulCurriculum.com for more information.

One of the most encouraging and promising things President-elect Trump said in his post-election acceptance speech was, “I’m not going to start a war. I’m going to stop wars…� We all understand that campaign promises often have a short shelf life after the election is over, but the Trump campaign’s repeated talk of peace over war at least demonstrates that he finds it a winning point to make to American voters.

Will that talk of peace turn into action in the second Trump presidency, especially with the hawks he has named to senior foreign policy positions in his incoming Administration? It is hard to say, but last week’s report that he sent Elon Musk to meet with the Iranian Ambassador to the UN would be a good sign if true. Iran has denied that any such meeting took place, and with rumors swirling of Trump talks with Putin and other world leaders it may just be a media creation.

But even if it is not true that Trump sent Musk to meet with the Iranians it would be a good idea to do so. Why Musk? Because Musk is not expected to take on a formal role in the incoming Trump Administration he can be seen as an informal advisor and friend of the President-elect. Plus, as a businessman Elon Musk speaks a different language than government diplomats.

Why meet with the Iranians? What’s there to talk about? One important topic to bring up would be claims made by Biden’s FBI that there was an Iranian plot to assassinate then-candidate Trump. As many commentators including former CIA analyst Larry Johnson have asserted, the plot as outlined in the FBI indictment seems improbable. Is it possible that deep state hawks cooked up this alleged plot to guarantee that once taking office President Trump would not be tempted to open to Iran? There is a history of terror plots cooked up by the FBI so, sadly, this cannot be discounted.

Does that mean that Iranian denials should be trusted? Of course not. But it is worth discussing.

It is widely expected that in his second term President Trump will return to the “maximum pressure� policy of his first Administration. That would be a mistake. Trump will not be stepping into the same world when he steps back into the White House. More than ever, the proxy war in Ukraine has demonstrated the futility of sanctions and pressure as a tool of foreign policy. The countries under US sanctions have increasingly joined together and formed their own pathways to trade and diplomacy without the US.

In other words, we did not isolate Russia, China, and Iran with our sanctions upon sanctions. We isolated ourselves. We are seeing this clearly with the emergence of organizations such as BRICS.

A more prosperous America requires more foreign trade, not less. Frédéric Bastiat is quoted as saying, “When goods don’t cross borders, soldiers will.� We have already seen too much of that lately. Someone wrote recently that if only Nixon could go to China, perhaps only Trump can go to Iran. Making peace with Iran would be an achievement that would reverberate across the Middle East and beyond. It would even benefit Israel to have the current near state of war with Iran turned down. War destroys, peace builds. Let’s hope for a new approach.