‘Common Core’ Nationalizes and Dumbs Down Public School Curriculum

Lake Jackson, Texas

In addition to shredding civil liberties, launching a utopian global war for democracy, and going on a spending spree that would make LBJ blush, the so-called “conservative” Bush administration dramatically increased federal control over education via the “No Child Left Behind” act. During my time in Congress I heard nothing but complaints about this law from teachers, administrators, and, most importantly, students and parents. Most of the complaints concerned No Child Left Behind’s testing requirements, which encouraged educators to “teach to the test.”

Sadly, but not surprisingly, instead of improving education by repealing No Child Left Behind’s testing and other mandates, the Obama administration is increasing national control over schools via the “Common Core" initiative. Common Core is a new curriculum developed by a panel of so-called education experts. The administration is trying to turn Common Core into a national curriculum by offering states increased federal education funding if they impose Common Core’s curriculum on their public schools. This is yet another example of the government using money stolen from the people to bribe states into obeying federal dictates.

Critics of Common Core say it “dumbs down” education by replacing traditional English literature with “informational texts”. So students will read such inspiring materials as studies by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, the EPA’s “Recommended Levels of Insulation,” and “Invasive Plant Inventory” by California’s Invasive Plant Council. It is doubtful that reading federal reports will teach students the habits of critical thinking and skepticism of government that the Founders considered essential to maintaining a free republic.

Like Obamacare, Common Core (now dubbed “ObamaCore” by some) has sparked a backlash in the states, leading some to propose legislation forbidding state participation in the scheme. I hope these efforts lead to states not just opting out of Common Core, but out of No Child Left Behind and all other federal education programs as well.

Parents can also effectively “opt out” of programs like Common Core by seeking alternatives to government education. It is no coincidence that, as federal control over education increases, the quality of public education has declined and more parents have chosen to homeschool.

To support these parents, I have established my own homeschool curriculum. Unlike Common Core, we do not dumb down any of our offerings. Instead, the goal is to provide students with a rigorous education in history, math, English, foreign languages, and other core subjects necessary to a well-rounded education. Unlike the top-down model of nationalized education, the homeschool curriculum is deigned to encourage maximum input from parents and students. While the curriculum will reflect my belief, and interest, in Austrian economics, libertarian political theory, and the history of the struggle against state power, the curriculum is being carefully designed to not show bias toward any one religion. I hope all parents of any faith—or no religious belief at all—will feel comfortable using the curriculum.

I believe it is important for those of us concerned with education and liberty to fight our battles locally. We must oppose further encroachment on the autonomy of local public schools and work to roll-back existing interference, while encouraging and supporting the growth of homeschooling and other alternative education movements. The key to restoring quality education is to replace the bureaucratic control of education with a free-market in education. Parents should have the freedom to select the type of education that best suits their child’s unique needs.

Ron Paul

Who Is Ron Paul?

Arp Report

Filer, Idaho

The destruction of our Constitutional Republic is accelerating!  We are rapidly becoming a socialist, third world country which will be controlled by bureaucrats in a tyrannical United Nation’s world government.   

            The unscientific EPA is bureaucratically implementing the United Nation’s Agenda 21 (Sustainable Development).  New regulations on coal-fired power generation plants to lower Carbon Dioxide emissions will cost millions and 20% are expected to shut down. This will raise our power bills unnecessarily while we subsidize unsustainable wind and solar.  This is based on the man-caused global warming hoax (see www.petitionproject.org). CO2 is not a pollutant, but needed by plants to produce the food we eat and the oxygen we breathe!

           

            Exercise of our first, second and fourth amendment rights are nearly gone, while federal IRS bureaucrats plead the fifth amendment to cover their guilt.

            Trade agreements like NAFTA and membership in the World Trade Organization have moved millions of  jobs overseas.  Our trade deficit is now $500 billion per year. Proposed trade agreements with the European Union and Pacific Rim nations will destroy our independence .

            The Gang of Eight immigration reform bill will reward lawbreakers and cost an estimated $6.3 trillion over 10 years.  It mandates a national ID card with our photo and creates a biometric database on every American.  Employers will be required to purchase an ID scanner to verify the ID cards.  It is estimated that in addition to the 11 million who will get amnesty almost immediately another 22 million will come into the US in just 10 years.

            The United Nation’s Small Arms Treaty could disarm Americans.  Registration (background checks) at the federal level will lead to confiscation.  Every country that has registered its guns has lost its freedom.  It is a must for dictators to have an unarmed population.

            Our students are being indoctrinated to be green, global citizens under various United Nation’s programs coming through the unconstitutional Department of Education.  Common Core is the latest socialist UN indoctrination program coming into our schools today.  Each student will have an extensive data base created starting at kindergarden.  We have kicked God out of the classroom and replaced Him with Marx and Darwin.  

            ObamaCare is a socialist’s bureaucratic dream of controlling people’s health. Death panels are coming and much higher premiums are already here.  Thousands will lose full time employment as companies try to avoid paying high cost health insurance. Other companies will not expand to avoid ObamaCare's nightmare rules and regulations.

            Eventually the United Nations’s bureaucrats will control everything.  We must get out of the tyrannical United Nations by passing H.R. 75.  If liberty and freedom are destroyed in America, the world will be in darkness.

A concerned citizen,

Adrian L. Arp, Ph.D.

The IRS’s Job Is To Violate Our Liberties

Lake Jackson, Texas

“What do you expect when you target the President?” This is what an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) agent allegedly said to the head of a conservative organization that was being audited after calling for the impeachment of then-President Clinton. Recent revelations that IRS agents gave “special scrutiny” to organizations opposed to the current administration’s policies suggest that many in the IRS still believe harassing the President’s opponents is part of their job.

As troubling as these recent reports are, it would be a grave mistake to think that IRS harassment of opponents of the incumbent President is a modern, or a partisan, phenomenon. As scholar Burton Folsom pointed out in his book New Deal or Raw Deal, IRS agents in the 1930s where essentially “hit squads” against opponents of the New Deal. It is well-known that the administrations of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson used the IRS to silence their critics. One of the articles of impeachment drawn up against Richard Nixon dealt with his use of the IRS to harass his political enemies. Allegations of IRS abuses were common during the Clinton administration, and just this week some of the current administration’s defenders recalled that antiwar and progressive groups alleged harassment by the IRS during the Bush presidency.

The bipartisan tradition of using the IRS as a tool to harass political opponents suggests that the problem is deeper than just a few “rogue” IRS agents—or even corruption within one, two, three or many administrations. Instead, the problem lays in the extraordinary power the tax system grants the IRS.

The IRS routinely obtains information about how we earn a living, what investments we make, what we spend on ourselves and our families, and even what charitable and religious organizations we support. Starting next year, the IRS will be collecting personally identifiable health insurance information in order to ensure we are complying with Obamacare’s mandates.

The current tax laws even give the IRS power to marginalize any educational, political, or even religious organizations whose goals, beliefs, and values are not favored by the current regime by denying those organizations “tax-free” status. This is the root of the latest scandal involving the IRS.

Considering the type of power the IRS excises over the American people, and the propensity of those who hold power to violate liberty, it is surprising we do not hear about more cases of politically-motivated IRS harassment. As the first US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall said, “The power to tax is the power to destroy” — and who better to destroy than one’s political enemies?

The US flourished for over 120 years without an income tax, and our liberty and prosperity will only benefit from getting rid of the current tax system. The federal government will get along just fine without its immoral claim on the fruits of our labor, particularly if the elimination of federal income taxes are accompanied by serious reduction in all areas of spending, starting with the military spending beloved by so many who claim to be opponents of high taxes and big government.

While it is important for Congress to investigate the most recent scandal and ensure all involved are held accountable, we cannot pretend that the problem is a few bad actors. The very purpose of the IRS is to transfer wealth from one group to another while violating our liberties in the process, thus the only way Congress can protect our freedoms is to repeal the income tax and shutter the doors of the IRS once and for all.

Ron Paul

Who Is Ron Paul?

The Freedom Between Your Ears

Buhl, Idaho

Jack Wayne Chappell

Greenmail. Not too many people know what that is. Greenmail is the same as Blackmail, except in Jon Marvel’s case, it’s legal. Twenty million dollars worth of legal, in the case where El Paso Corp, the nation’s largest pipeline company, agreed to put up that much money to preserve ‘sagebrush habitat’.

Most anyone who knows anything at all about western lands knows that sagebrush is a high volume drinker of range water, and a toxic plant to grazing mammals. In the western U.S. there are over four hundred million acres of the stuff, in linear square miles. My new term for the environmentalists, in bureau-speak, is ASA, which stands for Actual Surface Area. Triple the size of the sagebrush slopes, and it’s closer to seven hundred million acres of sagebrush (in actual surface area).

We need more sagebrush they say, to save the sage hens that do eat sagebrush leaves, which is only part of their diet. True, sagebrush is non-toxic to certain birds, and does contribute to holding together a watershed, but when sagebrush overgrows, it is a terrible fire hazard. A rangeland covered with sagebrush begs for an intensely hot fire that destroys not only habitat, but all kinds of wild and domestic animals.

But, Green Mail is the capital of the day. El Paso Corp kicks $20 million to Captain Marvel, and presto, there’s no threat of lawsuit or litigation from his court. Doesn’t have the first damned thing to do with saving habitat, or a sage hen. It has to do with money and political power, and that is all.

Back during the spotted owl controversy of the late eighties, many private timber companies were funneling greenmail checks to environmental groups, because all or most of their timber holdings were on deeded ground. So, when they helped lock up timber on public lands, it made their private timber stands that much more valuable.

In fact, during the ‘Redwood Summer’ of 1989, a timber broker out of San Mateo, California wrote the Earth First eco-terrorists a check for a million dollars to finance their ‘Redwood Summer’ protests, weed orgies, and sabotage attacks. That particular broker was selling timber from Texas and South America, so if he could help shut down the mills in the Pacific Northwest, he would fill the gap in the market and cash in millions more. That’s how Greenmail works.

It would no way come as a surprise if some curious journalist discovered that certain ranches grazing livestock on BLM and Forest Service land have been paying money to Marvel’s Group, to make sure they don’t get sued or have their permits cut.

Now you know what ‘Greenmail’ is; and very few of our highly lauded Congressmen or state legislators are motivated to do one flipping thing about it. They don’t even want to broach the subject. That’s because the Congress is chock full of lawyers, and the lawyers are milking the American people to the tune of trillions.

Today’s headline news is all about Benghazi and assorted other Obaminations, but you rarely hear any old radio or TV host talk about Greenmail, or how much America’s future relies upon the colossal amount of resource wealth being squandered on public lands out west.

In ASA, in ‘Designated Wilderness’ alone, there’s a land mass nearly four times the size of the nation called Iraq. Add in all the ‘Wilderness Study Areas’ which of course is de-facto wilderness, and you’re talking about a nearly incalculable mass of resource wealth.

Meanwhile, the lawyers are slurping up the eco-soup like drunken sailors at an oriental orgy. The cost of frivolous environmental lawsuits from a myriad of ecology groups runs into the billions every year, the government cuts these eco-groups checks to pay their attorney fees, and John Q taxpayer has always got to pick up the tab.

Marvel’s group gets fed from both ends. Not only do the taxpayers cover his attorney fees, but certain corporations (and likely some private companies) ship him pipelines filled with greenmail to keep him off their backsides. Three cheers for Kermit the Frog! Kermit is a hero of modern day environmental socialism, and the lawyers must love him dearly. We are subsidizing Sesame Street, and Kermit is a political powerhouse.

Will Rogers said: “Every time a lawyer writes something, he is not writing for posterity, he is writing so that endless others of his craft can make a living out of trying to figure out what he said. ‘Course, perhaps he hadn’t really said anything. That’s what makes it hard to explain.”

www.futurityartswest.com

FBI Gun Collection

fbi.gov

Firearms That Help Solve Crimes

04/12/13

If every gun tells a story, the FBI’s reference firearms collection could fill a very, very large book. The inventory of more than 7,000 firearms—curated over 80 years—contains just about every make and model, from John Dillinger’s Prohibition-era revolver to the modern battlefield’s M16 and almost everything in between.

Housed at the FBI Laboratory in Quantico, Virginia, the racks of weapons are not a musty exhibit of museum pieces, though some rare items would certainly qualify. Rather, the ever-expanding collection is a hands-on reference catalog for the Lab’s firearms examiners to study, take apart, reassemble, and test fire to support investigations. By maintaining a working library of virtually every handgun and rifle—along with a database of their unique toolmarks—examiners are able to identify and substantiate for investigators what weapons may have been used in criminal acts.

	The Collection Begins The gun collection was created in 1933, a year after the FBI launched the Technical Crime Laboratory, a forerunner to today’s FBI Lab. The new Lab’s mission was to apply a scientific standard to criminal investigations—collecting fingerprints, shoe treads, typefaces, and handwriting samples and comparing them against reference collections of known samples. Gathering known samples of firearms was a logical next step for the Lab, and on October 1, the reference collection officially began.

“Oftentimes this collection is used in active cases in comparing known samples from our collection with question samples from the field,” said John Webb, a firearms examiner in the Lab’s Firearms/Toolmarks Unit. “Often, an investigator will receive a part of a firearm or a firearm that isn’t functional. We can take that and compare it with our reference collection, determine what isn’t functioning, and repair it so we can obtain the test fires we need to conduct examinations with bullets and cartridge cases.”

Most of the firearms come from closed investigations, though some are purchased and still others arrive as donations. In most closed cases, guns that were held as evidence in court are sent back to the Lab, where examiners can add them to the reference collection (whole or in parts) or have them destroyed. By continuously adding new pieces to the collection, the FBI aims to have a duplicate of every firearm. Sometimes a case could hinge on linking a firearm component to a similar part on a reference gun.

“The collection has been extremely useful in criminal cases, not only for an examiner’s experience and education in handling nearly every firearm case that comes into the Laboratory,” said Webb, “but it has been directly responsible for assisting to solve crimes.”

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The collection goes beyond firearms and includes accessories like suppressors, magazines, and muzzle attachments, as well as grenade and rocket launchers. Another reference collection, the standard ammunition file, catalogs more than 15,000 types of commercial and military ammunition.

While the breadth of the firearms collection is noteworthy, the historic provenance of some of the weapons shows it’s a truly unique cache. Here you will find John Dillinger’s .45-caliber revolver, Ma Barker and her gang’s arsenal, and “Pretty Boy” Floyd’s Colt 1911. There’s an old Thompson submachine gun hidden in a guitar case, and a pistol hidden in the cut pages of a rare first edition ofGone with the Wind.

These aren’t the most important weapons in the collection, however. Examiners will tell you the single most important piece—in a collection that spans more than a century of firearms history and ingenuity—is the one that helps investigators close a case on any given day. The same philosophy has informed the Lab’s meticulous stewardship of the collection for eight decades.

“We are only a small part of this collection,” Webb said. “It was here long before I was, and it will be here long after I’m gone.”

New Mom’s Guide to Childproofing Your Baby’s Bedroom

http://www.gonannies.com

Bringing a new baby home for the first time is an exciting moment in any woman’s life. In the weeks leading up to the grand arrival, however, the sheer volume of baby-preparation items on your to-do list can be staggering. One of the most important things on that list is making sure that your baby’s room is properly childproofed so that it’s truly the soothing sanctuary a nursery is intended to be.

Get Started Early

Before your baby is born, or when she’s still a very small infant, baby-proofing can seem like a task that’s easily put off. After all, it’s not like a newborn is particularly mobile, right? Actually, knocking out your childproofing chores before the baby arrives or when she’s still very small is a good idea. Babies reach milestones more quickly than you realize and time will be at a premium from the moment you bring your new baby home. Making sure that her room is safe, even when she’s too young to properly explore it, is a smart move.

Skip the Cutesy Bedding

Choosing the bedding and décor scheme for your new baby’s nursery is one of the high points when it comes to preparing for your bundle of joy’s arrival. Thick blankets, fluffy pillows and plush toys, however, are actually discouraged strongly by the American Academy of Pediatrics, and entire cities have banned crib bumpers due to their link to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. If you just can’t resist creating a nursery worthy of a magazine layout, remember to remove everything from the crib before putting your new baby down for a nap.

Keep Window Treatments Safe

Making sure that the sun isn’t shining on your baby’s small, delicate face while he’s trying to sleep is an admirable effort, but you’ll also want to make sure that his crib is situated far enough from windows that he can’t access it, and that the cords on the window treatments are properly secured. Dangling cords and tie-backs can present a strangulation risk when your baby gets older, so this is one baby-proofing step you certainly don’t want to miss.

Double-Check Used Baby Gear

Baby items are expensive, and a fully-stocked nursery requires a lot of them. There’s nothing wrong with saving money by opting for second-hand gear or with preserving a sense of tradition by using heirloom items. What you will want to do, however, is ensure that all of those items meet modern safety guidelines and that any paint on them isn’t lead-based.

Choose Low-VOC Paint

The wall color of any room sets the tone for the entire space, so it’s natural that you’ll want to start painting the nursery as soon as possible. Making sure that your baby won’t be exposed to potentially hazardous chemicals needs to be a priority, though. Choosing paints that are low in volatile organic compounds is advised, as the chemicals found in traditional paint have been linked to everything from asthma to certain types of cancer.

Cover Electrical Outlets

Electrical outlets are fascinating to little ones, and they’re incredibly dangerous. Making sure that all the outlets, especially those that are within Baby’s reach, are outfitted with childproofing covers is the most effective method of ensuring that she doesn’t hurt herself.

Avoid Furniture with Sharp Edges

There’s a reason why the lines on most nursery furniture are rounded. When your baby starts crawling and eventually learning to walk, he’ll encounter his share of falls along the way. Colliding with a hard, rounded surface is still likely to be painful, but not as harmful as landing on a sharp corner that can cut into delicate skin.

Keep Cords Out of Reach

If you’ll be plugging lamps and other electrical items into the wall outlets, be sure that all of the cords are properly secured. It’s easy for a baby to pull these things down onto himself when he’s looking for leverage to stand or simply curious about what will happen when a cord gets a sharp tug. Placing cords behind furniture so that Baby’s inquisitive fingers aren’t able to access them and securing loose ones so that they’re not dangling attractively is wise.

Install Window Guards

The last thing you want is for a fire escape route out of your baby’s room to be blocked, but you also don’t want him to take a tumble out of an open window. Even a fall from a first-floor window can be dangerous for such a small person, so consider the installation of window guards on any window that isn’t part of your fire escape plan.

Anne Laurie

JESUS CAN SET THE CAPTIVE FREE

Iloilo, Philippines

Recently, I was sitting in Sunday school with the children I picked up from my route, here in Iloilo City, Philippines. We listened as the teacher, through flannel graph, told the story from Acts 12:3-17. She told how King Herod threw Peter in prison.

Perhaps King Herod was going to kill Peter like he did James (see verse 2), but the Bible says “prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto God for him.”

That night, an angel came and set Peter free. He went to the house of Mary, mother of John Mark, where many were gathered together praying. You all know the story: he knocked, and Rhoda came to the door of the gate.

She was so excited! It was Peter: the very one the Christians were praying for at that moment. She ran inside and told everyone that Peter was at the gate, but forgot to let him in. They said she was crazy but she continued to tell them of Peter’s arrival. Meanwhile, poor Peter keeps on knocking. Finally, they opened the door, and the Bible says they were “astonished” to see him. The Bible says they were “astonished.”

As I sat there with the children from my route, listening to the Bible story, I couldn’t help but think of the “prisons” we make for ourselves, and how God wants to deliver us from those prisons. Some prison walls I built around myself in the past were caused by self-pity, selfishness, envy, gossip, pride, idolatry (anything I put between me and God), covetousness (which is idolatry according to Colossians 3:5), impatience, anger, bitterness, disobedience, being ungrateful, not being submissive, being unkind, worldliness, an unloving heart, an unforgiving heart, and unbelief. I imprison myself with my sin.

The prison security for Peter was on high alert. The Bible says four quaternions of soldiers were guarding him. That means 16; four at a time, according to the Matthew Henry Commentary. He was even sleeping between two soldiers when the angel rescued him. Guards were put to death when prisoners escaped, so you can be sure these men took guarding seriously. If you’ll look at verse 19, you’ll see that Herod indeed put the guards to death.

Guess what? That strong prison (and the many dedicated guards) was nothing against the prayers of the Christians. Were these Christians mighty prayer warriors? I wonder. After all, when God answered their prayers and Peter showed up at the gate, they didn’t even believe it. Maybe they only had mustard seed-sized faith; but God still honored what faith they did have. An angel had delivered Peter from prison once before (see Acts 5). Did they not think that God could do it again? I’m often guilty of this. God will do something great in my life, but the next time the devil throws something at me, I forget how the Lord delivered me before. I will let the sin of fear, self-pity, anger, or unbelief paralyze me. Sometimes my faith is mustard seed-sized; yet God still loves me, and He still delivers me.

A few years ago when I was visiting our home church, First Baptist Church of Hammond, Indiana, I was privileged to go with Mrs. Caroline Daniel and some other ladies to visit in the women’s prison.

First, we sang, prayed, and gave a Bible lesson. Afterwards, we broke into small groups. We talked and prayed with the women. Some needed to hear the plan of salvation, while others wanted to share their burdens. Many cried, as they asked me to pray for their children or parents. They seemed so tough when they first walked in, but by the time they left, many were in tears.

I never asked the women why they were in prison, but I know they were in prison because of sin. Maybe they stole, did drugs, or killed someone. It’s easy for us to sit in judgment, but in God’s eyes, are the sins of stealing, drugs, and murder any worse than the secret sins I hide in my heart?

You may be thinking that most, if not all of those women deserved to be there. You’ve probably heard the saying, “If you don’t want to do the time, then don’t do the crime!” I couldn’t help feeling sorry for them though. It must be awful to live in prison. You’ve probably heard the saying, “If you don’t want to do the time, then don’t do the crime!” I do know it’s awful to live in the prison I make for myself. If I don’t want to live in prison, I can’t let sin get a foothold in my life. It’s so easy to let those “little” sins creep in, and then justify them. I find myself judging others when I see them sin, but when it’s me, of course it’s different! Sometimes it’s so easy to believe Satan’s lies isn’t it? In fact, maybe God thinks my “little” sins are even worse than the ones committed by those women in prison.

Our church, Iloilo Baptist Church, has a prison ministry. I have been down to the Iloilo prison, to visit the women there. I remember quite some time ago, leading a young lady to the Lord at the prison. I asked her if I could bring her anything and she said, “meat.” Their food was pretty bad and she desperately wanted some meat. She was also longing for reading material. On my next visit, I took her a Bible and some beef. I could get on a jeepney and go anywhere I wanted. I could go to the market and buy any food I wanted. I could go to the store and buy something to read. I had freedom, and I never wanted to take that for granted.

Are you in prison? The Lord Jesus is a great Liberator! He can set the captive free. He can break the prison bars. He can rescue us from those strong prison walls we have built in our lives because of sin. Oh, what a Savior! When He sets us free, we are free indeed!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Becky Martin

Becky Martin is the wife of Missionary Rick Martin. She and her husband have faithfully ministered to the people in Iloilo, Philippines for nearly forty years. She is a godly wife, mother and grandmother.

What No One Wants to Hear About Benghazi

Lake Jackson, Texas

Congressional hearings, White House damage control, endless op-eds, accusations, and defensive denials. Controversy over the events in Benghazi last September took center stage in Washington and elsewhere last week. However, the whole discussion is again more of a sideshow. Each side seeks to score political points instead of asking the real questions about the attack on the US facility, which resulted in the death of US Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.

Republicans smell a political opportunity over evidence that the Administration heavily edited initial intelligence community talking points about the attack to remove or soften anything that might reflect badly on the president or the State Department.

Are we are supposed to be shocked by such behavior? Are we supposed to forget that this kind of whitewashing of facts is standard operating procedure when it comes to the US government?

Democrats in Congress have offered the even less convincing explanation for Benghazi, that somehow the attack occurred due to Republican sponsored cuts in the security budget at facilities overseas. With a one trillion dollar military budget, it is hard to take this seriously.

It appears that the Administration scrubbed initial intelligence reports of references to extremist Islamist involvement in the attacks, preferring to craft a lie that the demonstrations were a spontaneous response to an anti-Islamic video that developed into a full-out attack on the US outpost.

Who can blame the administration for wanting to shift the focus? The Islamic radicals who attacked Benghazi were the same people let loose by the US-led attack on Libya. They were the rebels on whose behalf the US overthrew the Libyan government. Ambassador Stevens was slain by the same Islamic radicals he personally assisted just over one year earlier.

But the Republicans in Congress also want to shift the blame. They supported the Obama Administration’s policy of bombing Libya and overthrowing its government. They also repeated the same manufactured claims that Gaddafi was “killing his own people” and was about to commit mass genocide if he were not stopped. Republicans want to draw attention to the President’s editing talking points in hopes no one will notice that if the attack on Libya they supported had not taken place, Ambassador Stevens would be alive today.

Neither side wants to talk about the real lesson of Benghazi: interventionism always carries with it unintended consequences. The US attack on Libya led to the unleashing of Islamist radicals in Libya. These radicals have destroyed the country, murdered thousands, and killed the US ambassador. Some of these then turned their attention to Mali which required another intervention by the US and France.

Previously secure weapons in Libya flooded the region after the US attack, with many of them going to Islamist radicals who make up the majority of those fighting to overthrow the government in Syria. The US government has intervened in the Syrian conflict on behalf of the same rebels it assisted in the Libya conflict, likely helping with the weapons transfers. With word out that these rebels are mostly affiliated with al Qaeda, the US is now intervening to persuade some factions of the Syrian rebels to kill other factions before completing the task of ousting the Syrian government. It is the dizzying cycle of interventionism.

The real lesson of Benghazi will not be learned because neither Republicans nor Democrats want to hear it. But it is our interventionist foreign policy and its unintended consequences that have created these problems, including the attack and murder of Ambassador Stevens. The disputed talking points and White House whitewashing are just a sideshow.

Ron Paul

Who Is Ron Paul

The Freedom Between Your Ears

Buhl, Idaho

The commandment that says ‘thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor’ is a good one to bear in mind when writing a story about an alleged crime. As we all know, that commandment is set aside all day every day, all night every night, all around the globe.

Well paid liars abound, and well placed lies have been creating mountains of mischief since long before Moses came down from the mountain. In Shakespeare’s play ‘Much Ado About Nothing’, there was whole herd of hullaballoo over a naughty lie that was told about a young maiden. Yes, they made the play into an uproariously funny movie.

We poor, silly humans have to swim through oceans of lies from the time we barely learn to talk. There’s an old adage that says, ‘Don’t believe anything you hear and only half of what you see.’

If we all adhered to that adage, nobody would learn or know anything. Fortunately, there are also oceans of truth around the globe to help offset what Ayn Rand once called the ‘daily bromide’.

The other day I sent an email claiming that I’d rather be up in the mountains, camped beside a creek with a dog and a fishing pole than be bouncing all over the west writing a story about something that happened clear back in 1981.

Wishes be derned, there is a moral obligation to yield to. Somebody needs to write this story, and apparently I’m the only one who has it. So, when I tell my readers that history has recorded the Claude Dallas case bass-akwards, that what is known is mostly fiction − well, that’s not only because the truth is a little hard to stomach − it is also because there are political forces who want that history to be skewed in favor of the government.

In large, any given person’s version of the truth, is the truth the way that person sees it. But, when someone tells an intentional lie in a case like this one, that lie can cause a lot more mischief than the plain and simple truth.

It’s one thing to bear false witness, and another to propose an inquiry. This column is not making any outrageous claims, or attempting to defame anyone’s character. However, there is information available from very reliable sources indicating that the media lied, the recorded history is largely false, and that certain witnesses who testified at the trial were close enough to lying in teeth that an inquiry is more than warranted.

Very often the media gets things all wrong on purpose, and so does history. A good example of this can be found in the movie called ‘Tombstone’. In that movie, Johnny Ringo is portrayed as a vicious killer, and one of the deadliest pistols in the west.

According to most historians, Johnny Ringo was never known to have killed anyone. Yet, because of media mischief, the lion’s share of people who have heard of Johnny Ringo think he was bloodthirsty gunman and quick draw artist.

There are many other cases where the popular perception is absurd, but if the Good Lord’s willing and the creek don’t rise, the history of the Claude Dallas case will be retold, and told straight.

To that end, a group of old cowboys, Zeb Bell, the famous rodeo announcer and radio and television host, Dan Gill, a local professional shooter (cameraman), Waddie Mitchell, a well known cowboy poet, myself and others – we’re all mulling over the possibility of heading out on the Owyhee Rangelands this September to do an accurate docudrama that we can pitch to a bigger network.

Anyone interested in participating in this proposed excursion is welcome to drop me a line at jackwaynechappell@gmail.com. Of course, an excursion like this one requires a lot of palaver before anything gets done, but if the palavering is well recorded, that in itself will be fun!

Meanwhile, summertime is nearing the horizon, and that means gearing up for the Gooding Rodeo, so you all have plenty to do. Let’s hope this year’s show is the biggest and best-est of them all. Happy trails!

www.futurityartswest.com

Federal Reserve Blows More Bubbles

Lake Jackson, Texas

Last week at its regular policy-setting meeting, the Federal Reserve announced it would double down on the policies that have failed to produce anything but a stagnant economy. It was a disappointing, but not surprising, move.

The Fed affirmed that it is prepared to increase its monthly purchases of Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities if things don’t start looking up. But actually the Fed has already been buying more than the announced $85 billion per month. Between February and March, the Fed’s securities holdings increased $95 billion. From March to April, they increased $100 billion. In all, the Fed has pumped more than a half trillion dollars into the economy since announcing its latest round of “quantitative easing” (QE3) in September 2012.

Although many were up in arms when the Fed said it would buy $600 billion in government debt outright for the previous round, QE2, all seems quiet about the magnitude of QE3 because it doesn’t come with huge up-front total price tag. But by year’s end the Fed’s balance sheet could hit $4 trillion.

With no recovery in sight, where’s all this money going? It is creating bubbles. Bubbles in the housing sector, the stock market, and government debt. The national debt is fast approaching $17 trillion, with the Fed monetizing most of the newly issued debt. The stock market has been hitting record highs for the past two months as investors seek to capitalize on the Fed’s easy money. After all, as long as the Fed keeps the spigot open, nominal profits are there for the taking. But this is a house of cards. Eventually, just like in 2008-2009, the market will discipline the bad actions of the Fed and seek to find the real normal.

In the meantime, real families are suffering. While Wall Street and the government take advantage of access to the Fed’s new “free” money, the Fed claims there is no inflation. But who hasn’t paid higher prices at the grocery store, the gas pump, for tuition, for insurance? It’s bad enough that household incomes have stagnated, but real purchasing power has declined so much that one in seven Americans, 47.3 million people, are on food stamps. Five million are collecting unemployment insurance with 21.5 million afflicted by unemployment according to the government’s own figures. That’s 13.9 percent -- close to double the 7.5 percent unemployment number reported last week.

We are certainly not in a recovery. We don’t see the long unemployment and soup kitchen lines like in the Great Depression, but that’s just because the lines are electronic now.

It is not surprising the Fed has decided to hand the American people more of the same failed policies. But it is disappointing. We know what the real solution is: allow the marketplace to work. Allow entrepreneurs the chance to create instead of stifling innovation with arbitrary regulations. Allow interest rates to rise to equal the risks in the economy. Allow bad debts to be liquidated so we can build on a firm foundation. Stop printing money to benefit the government and big banks. Restore sound money to the economy and the American people. Sound money is the bedrock for prosperity and the best check on big government and crony capitalism.

Ron Paul