<iframe width="640" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/j_genUuV3bA?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Tuesday
RON PAUL ON TUESDAY THE 28TH - 9PM EASTERN
Ron Paul will have a copy of President Obama's speech in advance -- you can expect Ron Paul to roll through a revolving door of political punch-lines and in-depth critique, raising questions and concerns that Americans deserve to know about.
When Obama brings up healthcare during his State of the Union address, he will defend it, but Ron Paul will interpret what Obama's is really saying and more importantly, what he is not saying.
Tune in and be a part of the conversation that matters most to Americans. Ron Paul's job is to make sure you are a well-informed American who digs deep to find the truth -- this is a perfect opportunity to watch him read between the lines and sift through the agendas and non-accomplishments of the Obama administration.
Come watch tonight's State of the Union with Ron:
http://ronpaulchannel.com/SOTU
Monday
EVERY WEEK SHOULD BE SCHOOL CHOICE WEEK by RON PAUL
National School Choice week takes place from January 26 to February 1, and during this week education freedom activists around the country will be participating in events highlighting the need for parental control of education. I wholeheartedly endorse National School Choice Week, as parental control of education is a prerequisite for a free and prosperous society.
When government usurps control of education from parents, education can easily become indoctrination. Centralized, top-down models of education are also doomed to failure as there is no way a bureaucrat in DC can design an education system capable of meeting the needs of every child in the country. The failure of centralized education is shown by the correlation between American students’ declining tests scores and the growth of federal control over American schools. Education reforms that further, or expand, the Department of Education will prove fruitless. The only effective education reform is to restore parental control over education.
The key to restoring parental control is to give parents back control over the education dollar. This means shutting down the Department of Education and returning the money currently spent promoting schemes like “common core”. Ideally, this would be accomplished by eliminating all federal taxes on American families. However, if the political support for outright abolition of federal taxes is not available, education tax credits can also serve as an effective way of getting control over education back into the hands of the people. Unlike taxpayer-funded vouchers, private tax credits do not open the door to government control of education. This is because tax credits allow parents to use their own money on their children’s education, rather than relying on funds provided by the federal government. Since “he who pays the piper calls the tune,” federal funding of education—whether in the form of federal grants or taxpayer-funded vouchers—inevitably means schools will spend more time trying to please federal bureaucrats than parents.
One educational model that I am particularly interested in is homeschooling. Many of the most devoted and most effective advocates of liberty I have worked with come from homeschooling families. This might be because many homeschooling families have personal experience with government harassment, ranging from having to comply with government regulations to being threatened with the loss of their children for the “crime” of homeschooling. It is ironic that government would attempt to force homeschoolers to conform to its regulations considering that homeschoolers constantly out-perform their public school-educated peers.
In order to encourage the growth of homeschooling I have developed my own homeschool curriculum. The Ron Paul Curriculum consists of a rigorous program of study in history, economics, mathematics, and the physical and natural sciences.
Older students will also have the opportunity to get practical experience creating and running their own on-line businesses. Frequent written assignments will ensure students have the maximum opportunity to develop strong communication skills.
Giving my strong belief in liberty, the history and economics curriculum will provide a good grounding in liberty, including the principles of Austrian Economics. However, the drafters of the curriculum took great care to never sacrifice intellectual rigor and accuracy.
Education is one of those things that is simply too important to be left to the government. The best way to ensure quality education is to ensure that parents have the ability to pick the education option that best fits their child’s unique needs and abilities. Everyone who wishes to see America remain a free and prosperous society has an interest in parental control of education.
You can find out more information about my homeschool curriculum here. You can get a copy of my book The School Revolution here.
When government usurps control of education from parents, education can easily become indoctrination. Centralized, top-down models of education are also doomed to failure as there is no way a bureaucrat in DC can design an education system capable of meeting the needs of every child in the country. The failure of centralized education is shown by the correlation between American students’ declining tests scores and the growth of federal control over American schools. Education reforms that further, or expand, the Department of Education will prove fruitless. The only effective education reform is to restore parental control over education.
The key to restoring parental control is to give parents back control over the education dollar. This means shutting down the Department of Education and returning the money currently spent promoting schemes like “common core”. Ideally, this would be accomplished by eliminating all federal taxes on American families. However, if the political support for outright abolition of federal taxes is not available, education tax credits can also serve as an effective way of getting control over education back into the hands of the people. Unlike taxpayer-funded vouchers, private tax credits do not open the door to government control of education. This is because tax credits allow parents to use their own money on their children’s education, rather than relying on funds provided by the federal government. Since “he who pays the piper calls the tune,” federal funding of education—whether in the form of federal grants or taxpayer-funded vouchers—inevitably means schools will spend more time trying to please federal bureaucrats than parents.
One educational model that I am particularly interested in is homeschooling. Many of the most devoted and most effective advocates of liberty I have worked with come from homeschooling families. This might be because many homeschooling families have personal experience with government harassment, ranging from having to comply with government regulations to being threatened with the loss of their children for the “crime” of homeschooling. It is ironic that government would attempt to force homeschoolers to conform to its regulations considering that homeschoolers constantly out-perform their public school-educated peers.
In order to encourage the growth of homeschooling I have developed my own homeschool curriculum. The Ron Paul Curriculum consists of a rigorous program of study in history, economics, mathematics, and the physical and natural sciences.
Older students will also have the opportunity to get practical experience creating and running their own on-line businesses. Frequent written assignments will ensure students have the maximum opportunity to develop strong communication skills.
Giving my strong belief in liberty, the history and economics curriculum will provide a good grounding in liberty, including the principles of Austrian Economics. However, the drafters of the curriculum took great care to never sacrifice intellectual rigor and accuracy.
Education is one of those things that is simply too important to be left to the government. The best way to ensure quality education is to ensure that parents have the ability to pick the education option that best fits their child’s unique needs and abilities. Everyone who wishes to see America remain a free and prosperous society has an interest in parental control of education.
You can find out more information about my homeschool curriculum here. You can get a copy of my book The School Revolution here.
WELFARE, WELFARE AND WONDER WOMAN - HOW CONGRESS SPENDS YOUR MONEY by RON PAUL
Supporters of warfare, welfare, and Wonder Woman cheered last week as Congress passed a one trillion dollar “omnibus” appropriation bill. This legislation funds the operations of government for the remainder of the fiscal year. Wonder Woman fans can cheer that buried in the bill was a $10,000 grant for a theater program to explore the comic book heroine.
That is just one of the many outrageous projects buried in this 1,582 page bill. The legislation gives the Department of Education more money to continue nationalizing education via “common core.” Also, despite new evidence of Obamacare’s failure emerging on an almost daily basis, the Omnibus bill does nothing to roll back this disastrous law.
Even though the Omnibus bill dramatically increases government spending, it passed with the support of many self-described “fiscal conservatives.” Those wondering why anyone who opposes increasing spending on programs like common core and Obamacare would vote for the bill, may find an answer in the fact that the legislation increases funding for the “Overseas Continuing Operations” — which is the official name for the war budget — for the first time since 2010. This $85 billion war budget contains $6 billion earmarked for projects benefiting Boeing, Lockheed-Martin, and other big defense contractors.
Ever since “sequestration” went into effect at the beginning of last year, the military-industrial complex’s congressional cheering session has complained that sequestration imposed “draconian cuts” on the Pentagon that will “decimate” our military — even though most of the "cuts" were actually reductions in the "projected rate of growth." In fact, under sequestration, defense spending was to increase by 18 percent over ten years, as opposed to growing by 20 percent without sequestration.
Many of the defenders of increased war spending are opponents of welfare, but they are willing to set aside their opposition to increased welfare spending in order to increase warfare spending. They are supported in this position by the lobbyists for the military-industrial complex and the neoconservatives, whose continued influence on foreign policy is mystifying. After all, the neocons were the major promoters of the disastrous military intervention in Iraq.
While many neocons give lip service to limiting domestic spending, their main priority remains protecting high levels of military spending to maintain an interventionist foreign policy. The influence of the neocons provides intellectual justification for politicians to vote for ever-larger military budgets — and break the campaign promises to vote against increases in spending and debt.
Fortunately, in recent years more Americans have recognized that a constant defense of liberty requires opposing both war and welfare. Many of these Americans, especially the younger ones, have joined the intellectual and political movement in favor of limiting government in all areas. This movement presents the most serious challenge the bipartisan welfare-warfare consensus has faced in generations. Hopefully, the influence of this movement will lead to bipartisan deals cutting both welfare and warfare spending.
The question facing Americans is not whether Congress will ever cut spending. The question is will the spending be reduced in an orderly manner that avoids inflecting massive harm on those depending on government programs, or will spending be slashed in response to an economic crisis caused by ever-increasing levels of deficit spending. Because politicians are followers rather than leaders, it is ultimately up to the people what course we will take. This is why it is vital that those of us who understand the dangerous path we are currently on do all we can to expand the movement for liberty, peace, and prosperity.
That is just one of the many outrageous projects buried in this 1,582 page bill. The legislation gives the Department of Education more money to continue nationalizing education via “common core.” Also, despite new evidence of Obamacare’s failure emerging on an almost daily basis, the Omnibus bill does nothing to roll back this disastrous law.
Even though the Omnibus bill dramatically increases government spending, it passed with the support of many self-described “fiscal conservatives.” Those wondering why anyone who opposes increasing spending on programs like common core and Obamacare would vote for the bill, may find an answer in the fact that the legislation increases funding for the “Overseas Continuing Operations” — which is the official name for the war budget — for the first time since 2010. This $85 billion war budget contains $6 billion earmarked for projects benefiting Boeing, Lockheed-Martin, and other big defense contractors.
Ever since “sequestration” went into effect at the beginning of last year, the military-industrial complex’s congressional cheering session has complained that sequestration imposed “draconian cuts” on the Pentagon that will “decimate” our military — even though most of the "cuts" were actually reductions in the "projected rate of growth." In fact, under sequestration, defense spending was to increase by 18 percent over ten years, as opposed to growing by 20 percent without sequestration.
Many of the defenders of increased war spending are opponents of welfare, but they are willing to set aside their opposition to increased welfare spending in order to increase warfare spending. They are supported in this position by the lobbyists for the military-industrial complex and the neoconservatives, whose continued influence on foreign policy is mystifying. After all, the neocons were the major promoters of the disastrous military intervention in Iraq.
While many neocons give lip service to limiting domestic spending, their main priority remains protecting high levels of military spending to maintain an interventionist foreign policy. The influence of the neocons provides intellectual justification for politicians to vote for ever-larger military budgets — and break the campaign promises to vote against increases in spending and debt.
Fortunately, in recent years more Americans have recognized that a constant defense of liberty requires opposing both war and welfare. Many of these Americans, especially the younger ones, have joined the intellectual and political movement in favor of limiting government in all areas. This movement presents the most serious challenge the bipartisan welfare-warfare consensus has faced in generations. Hopefully, the influence of this movement will lead to bipartisan deals cutting both welfare and warfare spending.
The question facing Americans is not whether Congress will ever cut spending. The question is will the spending be reduced in an orderly manner that avoids inflecting massive harm on those depending on government programs, or will spending be slashed in response to an economic crisis caused by ever-increasing levels of deficit spending. Because politicians are followers rather than leaders, it is ultimately up to the people what course we will take. This is why it is vital that those of us who understand the dangerous path we are currently on do all we can to expand the movement for liberty, peace, and prosperity.
CONGRESS DEFERS TO PRESIDENT ON NSA REFORM by RON PAUL
Congress’s decline from the Founders’ vision as “first among equals” in government to an echo chamber of the unitary executive, has been a slow but steady process. In the process we have seen a steady stream of unconstitutional wars and civil liberties abuses at home. Nowhere is this decline more evident than in the stark contrast between the Congressional response to intelligence agencies’ abuses during the post-Watergate era and its response to the far more serious NSA abuses uncovered in recent years.
In 1975, Senator Frank Church (D-ID) convened an historic select committee to investigate the US intelligence services for possible criminality in the wake of Watergate. Thanks in part to reporting by Seymour Hersh and others, abuses by the CIA, NSA, and FBI had come to light, including the monitoring of US peace activists.
The Church Committee played its proper Congressional role, checking the power of the executive branch as it had been spiraling out of control since the 1950s and the early CIA covert action programs. The Committee sought to protect US citizens against abuses by their government after those abuses had come to light through leaks of secret government documents.
The parallel to the present NSA scandals cannot be ignored. What is completely different, however, is that Congress is today acting as an advocate for the executive branch’s continuing abuses, and as an opponent to the civil liberties of US citizens. Not only has Congress – with a precious few exceptions – accepted the NSA’s mass spying program on American citizens, it has actually been encouraging the president to continue and expand the program!
Where once there was a Congressional committee to challenge and oppose the president’s abuse of power, today the president himself has been even allowed by a complacent Congress to hand pick his own NSA review commission!
Are we really expected to believe that a commission appointed by the president to look into the activities of the president’s intelligence services will come to anything more than a few superficial changes to give the impression of real reform?
One of the president’s commission recommendations is that the NSA cease holding our phone records and demand that the private phone companies retain those records instead – for the NSA to access as it wishes. This is supposed to be reform?
The president will make a speech this Friday to tell the rest of us which of the suggestions made by his own commission he will decide to implement. Congress has no problem with that. Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) admitted last week that Congress has no intention of asserting itself in the process. “It’s my hope that [Obama will] do as much as he can through the executive process because the legislative process will be difficult, perilous and long.”
Senator Church famously said back in 1975:
In 1975, Senator Frank Church (D-ID) convened an historic select committee to investigate the US intelligence services for possible criminality in the wake of Watergate. Thanks in part to reporting by Seymour Hersh and others, abuses by the CIA, NSA, and FBI had come to light, including the monitoring of US peace activists.
The Church Committee played its proper Congressional role, checking the power of the executive branch as it had been spiraling out of control since the 1950s and the early CIA covert action programs. The Committee sought to protect US citizens against abuses by their government after those abuses had come to light through leaks of secret government documents.
The parallel to the present NSA scandals cannot be ignored. What is completely different, however, is that Congress is today acting as an advocate for the executive branch’s continuing abuses, and as an opponent to the civil liberties of US citizens. Not only has Congress – with a precious few exceptions – accepted the NSA’s mass spying program on American citizens, it has actually been encouraging the president to continue and expand the program!
Where once there was a Congressional committee to challenge and oppose the president’s abuse of power, today the president himself has been even allowed by a complacent Congress to hand pick his own NSA review commission!
Are we really expected to believe that a commission appointed by the president to look into the activities of the president’s intelligence services will come to anything more than a few superficial changes to give the impression of real reform?
One of the president’s commission recommendations is that the NSA cease holding our phone records and demand that the private phone companies retain those records instead – for the NSA to access as it wishes. This is supposed to be reform?
The president will make a speech this Friday to tell the rest of us which of the suggestions made by his own commission he will decide to implement. Congress has no problem with that. Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) admitted last week that Congress has no intention of asserting itself in the process. “It’s my hope that [Obama will] do as much as he can through the executive process because the legislative process will be difficult, perilous and long.”
Senator Church famously said back in 1975:
In the need to develop a capacity to know what potential enemies are doing, the United States government has perfected a technological capability that enables us to monitor the messages that go through the air… We must know, at the same time, that capability at any time could be turned around on the American people, and no American would have any privacy left... There would be no place to hide…. I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return.”Have we reached that point? Let us hope not. Real reform begins with the repeal of the PATRIOT Act and of the 2001 Authorization for the use of military force. If we keep our eye on that goal and not allow ourselves to become distracted with the president’s phony commissions we might force Congress to listen.
IRAQ: THE 'LIBERATION' NEOCONS WOULD RATHER FORGET by
Remember Fallujah? Shortly after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the US military fired on unarmed protestors, killing as many as 20 and wounding dozens. In retaliation, local Iraqis attacked a convoy of US military contractors, killing four. The US then launched a full attack on Fallujah to regain control, which left perhaps 700 Iraqis dead and the city virtually destroyed.
According to press reports last weekend, Fallujah is now under the control of al-Qaeda affiliates. The Anbar province, where Fallujah is located, is under siege by al-Qaeda. During the 2007 “surge,” more than 1,000 US troops were killed “pacifying” the Anbar province. Although al-Qaeda was not in Iraq before the US invasion, it is now conducting its own surge in Anbar.
For Iraq, the US “liberation” is proving far worse than the authoritarianism of Saddam Hussein, and it keeps getting worse. Last year was Iraq’s deadliest in five years. In 2013, fighting and bomb blasts claimed the lives of 7,818 civilians and 1,050 members of the security forces. In December alone nearly a thousand people were killed.
I remember sitting through many hearings in the House International Relations Committee praising the “surge,” which we were told secured a US victory in Iraq. They also praised the so-called “Awakening,” which was really an agreement by insurgents to stop fighting in exchange for US dollars. I always wondered what would happen when those dollars stopped coming.
Where are the surge and awakening cheerleaders now?
One of them, Richard Perle, was interviewed last year on NPR and asked whether the Iraq invasion that he pushed was worth it. He replied:
Last month the US shipped nearly a hundred air-to-ground missiles to the Iraqi air force to help combat the surging al-Qaeda. Ironically, the same al-Qaeda groups the US is helping the Iraqis combat are benefiting from the US covert and overt war to overthrow Assad next door in Syria. Why can’t the US government learn from its mistakes?
The neocons may be on the run from their earlier positions on Iraq, but that does not mean they have given up. They were the ones pushing for an attack on Syria this summer. Thankfully they were not successful. They are now making every effort to derail President Obama’s efforts to negotiate with the Iranians. Just last week William Kristol urged Israel to attack Iran with the hope we would then get involved. Neoconservative Senators from both parties recently introduced the Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act of 2013, which would also bring us back on war-footing with Iran.
Next time the neocons tell us we must attack, just think “Iraq.”
According to press reports last weekend, Fallujah is now under the control of al-Qaeda affiliates. The Anbar province, where Fallujah is located, is under siege by al-Qaeda. During the 2007 “surge,” more than 1,000 US troops were killed “pacifying” the Anbar province. Although al-Qaeda was not in Iraq before the US invasion, it is now conducting its own surge in Anbar.
For Iraq, the US “liberation” is proving far worse than the authoritarianism of Saddam Hussein, and it keeps getting worse. Last year was Iraq’s deadliest in five years. In 2013, fighting and bomb blasts claimed the lives of 7,818 civilians and 1,050 members of the security forces. In December alone nearly a thousand people were killed.
I remember sitting through many hearings in the House International Relations Committee praising the “surge,” which we were told secured a US victory in Iraq. They also praised the so-called “Awakening,” which was really an agreement by insurgents to stop fighting in exchange for US dollars. I always wondered what would happen when those dollars stopped coming.
Where are the surge and awakening cheerleaders now?
One of them, Richard Perle, was interviewed last year on NPR and asked whether the Iraq invasion that he pushed was worth it. He replied:
I've got to say I think that is not a reasonable question. What we did at the time was done in the belief that it was necessary to protect this nation. You can't a decade later go back and say, well, we shouldn't have done that.Many of us were saying all along that we shouldn’t have done that – before we did it. Unfortunately the Bush Administration took the advice of the neocons pushing for war and promising it would be a “cakewalk.” We continue to see the results of that terrible mistake, and it is only getting worse.
Last month the US shipped nearly a hundred air-to-ground missiles to the Iraqi air force to help combat the surging al-Qaeda. Ironically, the same al-Qaeda groups the US is helping the Iraqis combat are benefiting from the US covert and overt war to overthrow Assad next door in Syria. Why can’t the US government learn from its mistakes?
The neocons may be on the run from their earlier positions on Iraq, but that does not mean they have given up. They were the ones pushing for an attack on Syria this summer. Thankfully they were not successful. They are now making every effort to derail President Obama’s efforts to negotiate with the Iranians. Just last week William Kristol urged Israel to attack Iran with the hope we would then get involved. Neoconservative Senators from both parties recently introduced the Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act of 2013, which would also bring us back on war-footing with Iran.
Next time the neocons tell us we must attack, just think “Iraq.”
Wednesday
WHAT I THINK........VALENTIN MANDRASESCU
Former US Representative and spiritual leader of American libertarians, Ron Paul decided to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Federal Reserve system by publishing an essay demanding its abolition.
Ron Paul’s crusade against the Federal
Reserve has been going on for several decades. He made several
attempts to initiate a Senatorial audit of America’s central bank
but has never found enough support even among the members of his own
Republican party. Now, the former US Representative for Texas’
14th and 22nd congressional districts continues his battle against
the Federal Reserve by publicly criticizing its failures that hurt
the US economy.
Ron Paul is concerned by the fact that Americans don’t want to recognize that “Fed’s growth from a quasi-agent of the Treasury Department intended to provide an elastic currency, to a de facto independent institution that has taken complete control of the economy through its central monetary planning.”
The Federal Reserve botched its stated mission. America’s “private central bank” was created with the stated goal of preventing financial crisessuch as the Panic of 1907. History proves that the Fed failed multiple times. The Great Depression, the recession of 1973-1975 and the recent financial crisis of 2008 happened on Fed’s watch and its critics argue that the central bank’s actions have exacerbated the damage done to American and global economies. Ron Paul points out that the Federal Reserve monetary policy has long term negative effects: “Now we are reaping the noxious effects of a century of loose monetary policy, as our economy remains mired in mediocrity and utterly dependent on a stream of easy money from the central bank.”
Few American politicians have the courage to say that the Fed does its best to generate profits for a selected group of big banks even if those profits hurt the society as a whole. The former Representative of Texas is one of such politicians. “We know that the Fed’s inflationary monetary policy continues to reap profits for Wall Street while impoverishing Main Street”, he wrote in his essay published by the Free Foundation.
It is a safe bet that nobody in Washington would dare to dismantle the Federal Reserve but when the second wave of the crisis generated by the Fed’s policies hits the US, they won’t be able to say that nobody tried to warn them about the imminent disaster.
Ron Paul is concerned by the fact that Americans don’t want to recognize that “Fed’s growth from a quasi-agent of the Treasury Department intended to provide an elastic currency, to a de facto independent institution that has taken complete control of the economy through its central monetary planning.”
The Federal Reserve botched its stated mission. America’s “private central bank” was created with the stated goal of preventing financial crisessuch as the Panic of 1907. History proves that the Fed failed multiple times. The Great Depression, the recession of 1973-1975 and the recent financial crisis of 2008 happened on Fed’s watch and its critics argue that the central bank’s actions have exacerbated the damage done to American and global economies. Ron Paul points out that the Federal Reserve monetary policy has long term negative effects: “Now we are reaping the noxious effects of a century of loose monetary policy, as our economy remains mired in mediocrity and utterly dependent on a stream of easy money from the central bank.”
Few American politicians have the courage to say that the Fed does its best to generate profits for a selected group of big banks even if those profits hurt the society as a whole. The former Representative of Texas is one of such politicians. “We know that the Fed’s inflationary monetary policy continues to reap profits for Wall Street while impoverishing Main Street”, he wrote in his essay published by the Free Foundation.
It is a safe bet that nobody in Washington would dare to dismantle the Federal Reserve but when the second wave of the crisis generated by the Fed’s policies hits the US, they won’t be able to say that nobody tried to warn them about the imminent disaster.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
