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Real Education Reform Leaves the Government Behind

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Among the items awaiting Congress when it returns from its August break is reconciling competing House and Senate bills reauthorizing No Child Left Behind. These bills passed early this spring. Each bill is being marketed as a huge step toward restoring state and local control over education. However, an examination of both bills shows that both provide local schools with only limited relief from a few federal mandates.

The biggest problem with these so-called reform bills is that they do not significantly reduce federal education spending. Congress and the executive branch use the promise of “free” money — which they have taken from the American taxpayer — to convince state and local governments to allow the federal government to control the classrooms. The only way to protect American schoolchildren from schemes like Common Core is to repeal, not replace, the federal Department of Education.
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Why Do We Lament A-Bombs But Not Firebombs?

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All war is a crime. There is no such thing as a “good war.” As the great Benjamin Franklin said, “there is no good war; and no bad peace.”

We are now in the midst of the annual debate over the atomic bombing of Japan by the United States. Seventy years ago this week, the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, killing or injuring some 140,000 people. A few days later, a second atomic weapon was dropped on Nagasaki, causing 80,000 casualties.  Most of the dead in both cities were civilians.

Passionate debate has raged ever since between those who condemn the nuclear bombing of almost defenceless Japan as a war crime, and those who insist the attacks spared the US and its allies having to invade fight-to-the-death Japan.

I don’t know the answer to this question.
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US Intelligence Confirms US Support for ISIS

Former Defense Intelligence Agency head Gen. Michael Flynn is not backing down from his claims that elements of the US government were aware of and supported the rise of jihadists in Syria as a means by which to overthrow its president, Bashar Assad. As the US moves ever closer to a full-out invasion of Syria the lack of media interest in Flynn's story is reminiscent of the one-sided (pro-war) coverage of the run up to the 2003 Iraq War. More on the disturbing new revelations in a special edition of the Ron Paul Liberty Report...
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My Dreams Seek Revenge: Revisiting Hiroshima One More Time

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I’ve visited Hiroshima many times.


There is a Japanese jail not far from the Hiroshima Peace Park, and in my guise as a diplomat working in Japan, one of my jobs was to visit Americans in jail, typically young men and women who’d smoked a little weed in drug-conscious Japan.

I’d check up on their welfare, pass messages to and from home for them, that kind of thing. There were always enough of these folks in Hiroshima for at least quarterly visits, and I always took the opportunity to visit the Peace Park, the Atomic Dome and the museum. You’ve seen them all in photos many, many times.

The thing that always struck me about Hiroshima was simply being there. The train pulled into the station under an announcement that you had arrived in Hiroshima. It was another stop on the bullet train’s long run from Osaka to Fukuoka, so they called out the name as if it was just another stop. I’d get off the train, step out into the sunlight — that sunlight — and I was in Hiroshima. I had the same feeling only once before, taking a bus out of Munich and having the driver announce the next stop as Dachau. Somehow such names feel wrong being said so prosaically.
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Hiroshima at 70: Have We Learned Anything?

Seventy years after the atomic incineration of Hiroshima, have we progressed beyond the idea of viewing civilians as fair game in a war waged by their leaders? Yes and no, finds the Ron Paul Liberty Report. On one hand public opinion has gradually shifted away from the idea that the bomb was necessary -- with the majority of young people in a recent poll viewing the atomic bombing of Japan unnecessary. On the other hand, through sanctions and drone "signature strikes" civilians are still being targeted. Today's Liberty Report also features Ron Paul reading from his new book, Swords into Plowshares, a section remembering the reaction in his house when the first atomic bomb was exploded...
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Ron Paul Takes On The War Party

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Many years ago Ron Paul published a collection of his speeches to Congress regarding foreign policy in a book titled 
A Foreign Policy Of Freedom. That book illustrated Paul’s unique consistency as a Congressman to stand strong against the military industrial complex during his many years as a representative. Time and time again when the hawks would sweep in banging the drums of war, Ron Paul would stand up and refute their arguments with common sense and wisdom from our nation’s founders.

A Foreign Policy Of Freedom was always my key go to reference for arguments with people asking why I “oppose the next war before it starts.” I have always said that a little history goes a long way and showing how the same manipulative tricks and propaganda have been used over and over by the “War Party” (Democrats and Republicans) over the years illustrates just how important it is to have a big picture perspective of current events.

The only problem with A Foreign Policy Of Freedom is that, being a collection of speeches, it was choppy and not well organized. Now, Ron Paul has taken all of the experience and wisdom from his previous works and years in Congress and released a very articulate and cohesive case for peace and freedom with his newest book Swords Into Plowshares.
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US Drone War Accelerates - Victims Unknown

The US drone war not only continues, but accelerates. More than 5,000 have been killed since 2009 in Obama's drone attacks and still the US has no idea how many of them might be innocent civilians. In fact, the US does not even bother to target only suspected terrorists. Instead, it targets patterns of behavior called "signatures." A male of military age is therefore considered a legitimate target. Does such an approach really keep us safe? Today's Liberty Report takes a look at this disturbing new form of US warfare...
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Power in the Service of Power

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It’s been a bad month for the angst-ridden US ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power. Last week, she was “outraged” by Russia’s veto at the UN Security Council of an international criminal court into the downing of Malaysian airliner MH17 over eastern Ukraine.

Three weeks prior, Power was again “outraged” by Russia’s veto of a draft resolution to declare the mass killing at Srebrenica during the Bosnian War in 1995 a “genocide.”

On Srebrenica, Power said:
“Russia’s veto is heartbreaking for those families and it is a further stain on this council’s record.”
On the latest MH17 veto, the American ambassador fulminated:
“When people see Russia’s hand up on something like this, when the whole world is united that when a civilian airliner goes up in smoke and so many families are affected, it is in all of our interests, our collective interests to see that justice is done.”
Leave aside Power’s assertion that “the whole world is united” over the crashed airliner, which was apparently shot down near the city of Donetsk, in eastern Ukraine in July 2014, with the loss of all 298 people onboard.
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Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and My Lai Were All War Crimes

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On the 70th anniversary of the US government’s nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there are still people coming out in favor of the bombings. They’re saying that since the bombings shortened the war by bringing a quick surrender of Japan in World War II, the targeting of those two cities was morally and legally justified, especially since it saved the lives of US soldiers who would have been killed in an invasion of Japan.

If those killings were justified, then was it wrong for the Army to criminally prosecute Army Lt. William Calley for killing innocent people at My Lai during the Vietnam War? Couldn’t the same have been said of his actions — that by killing the residents in that Vietnamese village, who were considered to be communists, he was helping to bring the war to a speedier end? Why was Calley treated as a war criminal rather than praised and glorified, as President Truman has been for targeting the residents of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

The reason that Calley was prosecuted was that it is a war crime for a soldier to intentionally kill innocent civilians.

This might come as a shock to some people, but in war there are rules. If a soldier violates those rules, he is subject to criminal prosecution. The adage “anything goes” does not apply to war, not even if enemy soldiers are violating the rules.
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Ron Paul Plays Hardball

When are the neocons and the hawks going to stop getting us into more trouble, MSNBC's Chris Matthews asked Ron Paul during an appearance on Hardball. "Well I wish they'd look at reason and look at what is happening," replied Paul, but "I think it's unfortunately going to stop when we go broke and there's nothing left and then the people will find out that it is a total failure."
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