"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."
March 16, 2010 Supporting the War Instead of the Troops Last week, Congress debated a resolution directing the President to withdraw our troops from Afghanistan no later than the end of this year. The Constitution gives the power to declare war to the Congress, so it is clearly appropriate for Congress to assert its voice on matters of armed conflict. In recent decades, however, Congress has defaulted on this most critical duty, essentially granting successive presidents the unilateral (and clearly unconstitutional) power to begin and end wars at will. This resolution was not expected to pass; however, the ensuing debate and floor vote served some very important purposes.
- by Ron Paul / Texas Straight Talk
Battling the Bipartisan Consensus for War The U.S. is rarely at peace. It doesn't matter which party or which politician is in power: American military forces will be on the move, invading a Third World nation here and threatening an emerging power there.
In January 2009 Republican George W. Bush yielded to Democrat Barack Obama, and the U.S. government increased military spending and expanded the war in Afghanistan. If a Republican is elected in 2012, recent history suggests that defense outlays will grow further, as Washington attacks another nation or two.
Enthusiasm for war crosses party lines -- Robert Kagan recently wrote approvingly of the militaristic alliance between "liberal interventionist Democrats" and "hawkish internationalist Republicans" -- both groups which have never met a war they didn't want to fight. However, support for peace also is transpartisan. Such sentiments are perhaps strongest on the Democratic left, which increasingly feels disenfranchised by President Obama. A smaller contingent of libertarians, traditional conservatives, and paleo-conservatives has resisted the conservative movement's adoption of war-mongering intervention as a basic tenet.
- by Doug Bandow / Campaign For Liberty
Fed is Lender of Last Resort to the Politicians On Monday, March 15, 2010, Congressman Ron Paul appeared on MSNBC's "The ED Show" to discuss Senator Christopher Dodd's financial regulatory reform bill. Ron Paul "Once You Allow A Secret Bank To Create Money Out Of Thin Air You Allow Wars!
US Federal Reserve Dealing in Magic and Secrets Fed makes money out of thin air to solve deflation with inflation, credit crisis continues, frustrations with politicians, not healthy to have over 3 trillion in t-bills held in foreign hands, Fed fights audit legislation, Threats to the Eurozone...
The dramatic and costly undertow of deflation continues unabated, as government via fiscal policy and the Federal Reserve, by creating money and credit out of thin air, proceed to overpower this deflation with massive inflation.
Unbeknownst to most the Fed and the Treasury have been maintaining this program for the past several years, accompanied by most major countries, all of which have taken the path of least resistance rather than address the underlying problems.
The current stage of problems had to be addressed 2-1/2 years ago in what has become known as a credit crisis. This continuing crisis has been accompanied by 22-1/8% current unemployment that has resulted in a perpetual fall in tax revenues and a resultant enlargement of government deficits. We might add that this condition is being experienced by many countries worldwide, which followed America's leadership into this terrible financial and economic morass. These policies have led to massive sovereign debt policies, a hangover of the policies of 1933 and 1971.
- by Bob Chapman / The International Forecaster
Audit of Federal Reserve Inches Closer A proposal on which U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, has been working for much of the last decade is getting close to reality: an audit-the-Federal-Reserve requirement that has been approved in the U.S. House and is pending in the Senate as an amendment to a piece of financial-reform legislation.
"They're still negotiating," said a spokeswoman for the congressman's office. "We're very hopeful that it's going to be included, maybe ... by the end of next week."
She told WND that Paul would be pleased to have it pass as it stands.
The plan, now pending before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs after being approved by the House at the close of 2009, would provide for "an audit of all actions taken by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Federal reserve banks during the current economic crisis."
It provides for the Comptroller General of the U.S. to issue a report on the audit to Congress "and make such report available to the public."
- by Bob Unruh / WorldNetDaily
Dollar Bulls Beware By late 2009, as the U.S. dollar flirted with multi-year lows against most foreign currencies, big investment players crowded into trades that shorted the greenback. Commentators noted that the anti-dollar momentum had taken on a life of its own and that the trade had become too crowded. It is true that markets have a nasty tendency to move against the crowd. When a lot of traders agree on a particular trade, it's more likely that in the short-run the opposite trade will be a winner.
- by Peter Schiff / LewRockwell.com
The Census and the Welfare State The letter that Ralph Groves, director of the U.S. Census Bureau, recently sent to the American people reflects what America has become under the welfare state. Here is what the letter states in part:
"Your response is important. Results from the 2010 Census will be used to help each community get its fair share of government funds for highways, schools, health facilities, and many other programs you and your neighbors need. Without a complete, accurate census, your community may not receive its fair share."
In that one paragraph lies the plunderbund society in all it majestic glory. Everyone is supposed to feel morally obligated to answer all those intrusive questions in order to ensure that his community receives its fair share of the loot forcibly collected by the Internal Revenue Service during the course of the year, but especially on April 15.
- by Jacob G. Hornberger / Campaign For Liberty
The Stimulus Bill: One Year Later On Freedom Watch, Judge Andrew Napolitano interviews The Independent Institute's Dr. Robert Higgs concerning how government intervention prolongs economic crises.
No Recovery Until America Invests Again While most Americans are familiar with the broad ups and downs of the economy and the job market - the stuff of daily headlines - the deeper story of the continuing recession can be found buried in the statistical appendix to the 2010 report of the president's Council of Economic Advisers.
That story: a devastating decline in investment spending.
The government's data reveal that, contrary to popular belief, consumer spending held up fairly well during the recession, falling less than 2% from the fourth quarter of 2007 to the second quarter of '09.
Most of this decline was erased during the third and fourth quarters of 2009, so by the final quarter of last year real private consumption spending was less than 1% below its previous quarterly peak.
Although the drop in private consumption spending obviously contributed to the recession, the drop in private investment spending — primarily business purchases of structures, equipment, software and additions to inventories - was far more significant.
Gross private domestic investment peaked in 2006. Between the first quarter of that year and the second quarter of 2009, it fell precipitously, by nearly 34%.
- by Robert Higgs / Investors.com
The Soviet Unionization of Health Care Few of us relish paying for health care, but when we do, amazing things happen: Strangers listen to us and try to give us what we want. There's a simple economic rule that what we pay for, we control. Insurers, hospitals, doctors, nurses, and drug companies listen to us when their livelihood depends on it. The more you take the individual customer/patient out of the equation, the more power we individuals lose.
The "health-care reform" currently touted by Beltway Democrats would take a system that insulates patients from the true cost of their health care - and insulate them more. It's a scheme for spending even more of OPM (other people's money). The Soviet Union ran the granddaddy of such schemes, even putting the cradle-to-grave "right to health" in its constitution. If we are smart, we will learn from the Soviets' failed seventy-year experiment, which succeeded in putting people into early graves.
- by David R. Henderson and Charles Hooper / Future Of Freedom Foundation
Countdown to Health Insurance Nationalization The "debate" over what to do about the serious problems in the medical system has been pretty lame, with strange economics, chicanery, and demagoguery run rampant. The minority party's pitiful offerings and compromises are documented in an article I wrote here. The majority's several variations on a nationalization theme have provided grist for many other articles. (See this list.)
Watching each side's advocates on television gives one the impression that they would say anything to score points with the uncritical viewing public.
Case in point: Keith Olbermann of MSNBC.
- by Sheldon Richman / Campaign For Liberty
Do the Healthcaremongers Hold Us in Contempt? President Obama and Congress appear to be holding the American people in contempt. The Dictionary defines contempt as "Lack of respect or reverence for something; disdain; The state of mind of one who despises, the act of despising something." That seems to be the state of mind of a majority in Congress and Obama: lack of respect, reverence and actually despising the American people. It is this contempt that should propel Americans to a second -- but peaceful -- American Revolution to replace elected officials at all levels with those who believe in limited government and individual liberty by January 2013.
Despite overwhelming evidence that the vast majority of Americans are rejecting the proposed government and corporate take over of health care, Congress and the President are demonstrating their abject contempt for the American people in their determination to ram this bill through Congress and have the President sign it into law.
They fail to respect several key demonstrated proofs of America's disapproval.
- by David McKalip / Campaign For Liberty
John McCain's Attack On Liberty Anyone paying attention knows that John McCain has been a Big-Government Globalist Neocon (BGGN) for virtually his entire senatorial career. As with many BGGNs hiding out in the Republican Party, McCain likes to talk about smaller government, but his track record is littered with the promotion of one big government program after another. But, what else would one expect from a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)?
- by Chuck Baldwin / The Covenant News
Say No to GMO Corporatism This week I heard a disturbing commercial on the radio which was produced by Monsanto. If you aren't familiar with Monsanto already, they are the corporation who created Roundup weed killer and Agent Orange, the chemical which caused over 400,000 deaths and disabilities during the Vietnam War. Some of Monsanto's most recent controversies are engineering rBST (recombinant Bovine Somatotropin) or rBGH (recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone) and Genetically Modified Organisms or GMO's. These industrialized forms of food have saturated the diet of Americans for years now without consumers even noticing.
- by Carolyn Moffa / Campaign For Liberty
Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution of American Citizens On March 4th, 2010, Senator John McCain [R-AZ], Senator Joseph Lieberman [I-CT] and eight other co-sponsors introduced Senate Bill 3081, the "Enemy Belligerent Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act of 2010." This atrocious piece of legislation if passed would allow the military to detain and interrogate U.S. citizens indefinitely and without benefit of trial simply based on suspicious activity! Of course, the USA PATRIOT Act and the Military Commissions Act are already in place, and allow for egregious behavior by government against the citizenry, but this legislation takes it a step further.
Before I go into any more detail, let me preface my remarks by saying that I fully understand that this bill has simply been introduced and sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee. It has not and may not be passed. Whether it gains approval or not, the fact remains that many powerful U.S. Senators are attempting to put this into law. This point is crucial to understand before any critical thinking can take place. Although much introduced legislation has failed to come to fruition since 2001, much of it, and the most abhorrent I might add (The USA PATRIOT Act, Military Commissions Act, etc.), has been put into law. We in this country have watched our liberties be destroyed by this government, so nothing should be taken lightly concerning any new legislation proposed. Regardless if it actually becomes law or not, the fact is that many of our representatives are attempting to bring this about, and if this one fails, another will take its place.
- by Gary D. Barnett / LewRockwell.com
CPAC 2010 - Tom Woods On Thursday, February 18, 2010, historian and author Tom Woods spoke on "When All Else Fails: Nullification and State Resistance to Federal Tyranny" as part of Campaign for Liberty's activities at the 2010 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). Writer and radio host Jack Hunter ("The Southern Avenger") introduced Tom. A brief Q&A session followed the presentation.
We Are What We Watch In this seventh year of the Iraq war, two movies about Iraq competed for top honors at the 2010 Oscars. One, compelling and popular beyond belief, was a morality tale condemning the warmongering greed of the corporate state, and allowing, as movies can, the good guys to win, in victory demonstrating kindness to the misguided thieves and killers. The other, equally compelling but less popular, was also a morality tale. One can become a war addict, fulfilled and functional at the edge of man-made oblivion, but dysfunctional, confused, and empty when faced with peaceful normality. Both movies were uniquely U.S.-centric – Avatar’s militaristic state corporatism drew an angry response from some Marine Corps defenders, and The Hurt Locker simultaneously dehumanized and minimized occupied Iraqis even as it failed to address why Americans are in Iraq getting blown up in the first place.
Iraq was Bush's war, the neocon's war; seamlessly, it became Obama's war. One president and his staff of hand-picked neoconservatives decided to invade and occupy Iraq, without a declaration of war by Congress, and without congressional debate. One president and his handpicked staff, along with the help of compliant media mouthpieces and the British and Israeli governments, worked hard to sell the war and occupation to an American public that did not understand the past and could not see into the future.
That president stepped down after eight years, his only apparent nod to Constitutional propriety. Obama then proceeded to make the Iraq war his own. He has had well over a year to pull the troops out – all of them – and close the major and minor bases we built there. Instead, he has blushingly embraced his military advisors and shyly watched for signs of approval from the neoconservative wise men. Hillary Clinton could never have matched Obama as a neoconservative president; her shrill promotion of the Bush Wars before and after the Bush era have made her quite the bore. Better to have a little mystery and uncertain innocence to spice up the planned and partially executed neoconservative rape of the Middle East.
- by Karen Kwiatkowski / LewRockwell.com
Why America Should Apologize History makes at least one thing absolutely clear: regardless of the stated purposes and proffered justifications, the United States of America has been the cause and source of untold death, destruction, and damage. To say that we should not apologize for these stains on our nation's standard of liberty is not only a reflection of the individual's inadequate level of morality, but an indication that he or she might one day participate in similar atrocities.
- by Connor Boyack / LewRockwell.com
The 'Pentagon Shooter' You don't have to be a paranoid, bi-polar, pothead, nutcase to be angry with and distrust government today. That is the topic on this "The American View" radio program which broadcasts live, daily, from 11 am to Noon (EST) and is now on the Liberty News Radio Network.
- by John Lofton / The American View
The Truth about Terrorism In a recent commentary, I called 19th century insurrectionist Denmark Vesey a "terrorist," a term I define as someone who intentionally targets civilians to advance an objective or agenda. Vesey, who planned to murder every white person in Charleston in 1822, certainly fits this description, as does President Harry Truman, who dropped two atomic bombs on Japan in 1945. I made this exact same comparison in my column.
Liberals cursed my portrayal of Vesey, while thanking me for bringing up Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Conservatives cursed my portrayal of Truman, yet thanked me for my comments on Vesey.
Though liberals are generally thought of as bleeding hearts, I'm never surprised when they endorse terrorism. It's an easy philosophical leap for liberals, who view humanity through the lens of class, race, gender, and other collectivist identities, to justify the mass killing of people in the name of social justice or "progress."
In the early to mid-20th century, many American and European liberals were so sympathetic to socialism that they turned a blind eye to the atrocities being committed against the Soviet Union's civilian population by the Communist Party leadership. Millions died.
- by Jack Hunter / Campaign For Liberty
C4L@CPAC 2010 - Jack Hunter Interview Campaign for Liberty's Kevin Brett interviews writer and radio host Jack Hunter (aka "The Southern Avenger") at CPAC 2010. The interview covers topics such as real conservatism, a true conservative foreign policy, the political climate at CPAC, and the Ron Paul effect.
Conservative Leninists and the War on Terror One long-standing hallmark of Western conservative thought is the emphasis on the rule of law. Earlier generations of conservatives understood that, without such constraints, liberty would be imperiled and a free society would ultimately descend into tyranny. As Lord Acton observed, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." Even during the 20th century, most conservatives were wary of unfettered pragmatism, and they viewed with horror the assertion of Vladimir Lenin and his communist followers that the end justifies the means. To the contrary, conservatives stressed that even when the goals were worthy, the use of unconstitutional, illegal, or immoral means was not justified.
In recent years, though, a troubling number of prominent figures on the political right have seemingly abandoned that standard, especially with respect to national-security issues. Instead, their sole guiding principle appears to be whether an initiative "works"-in the sense of producing the desired result. Whether that initiative violates fundamental constitutional or moral standards is seen as irrelevant and, frankly, a somewhat quaint consideration. By embracing ruthless pragmatism, these individuals come perilously close to being conservative Leninists.
- by Ted Galen Carpenter
Real Patriots Uphold Our Values Impugning the patriotism of others is the favorite sport of flag-wrapped conservatives who have a cribbed view of love of country. These folks become apoplectic when liberals criticize war-making and are fond of telling people on the left: America, love it or leave it. That is, until the commander in chief is not one whom they voted for. Then they join Tea Parties or found organizations to throw verbal stink bombs in the direction of the president. The hypocrisy eludes them.
- by Robyn Blumner / Antiwar.com
Republican Witch-hunters Embrace Dictatorship Are there no depths to which conservatives will not sink in their ardent embrace of the war on terrorism? The latest monstrosity from the right came courtesy of Keep America Safe, a toxic organization headed by Liz Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, who recently put out a disgraceful TV ad, "Who Are the Al-Qaeda Seven?" The ad questioned the loyalty and patriotism of nine lawyers in the Justice Department who had represented prisoners at Guantánamo before joining the DoJ.
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To be fair, Liz Cheney's ad has backfired badly, drawing the ire not only of those on the left, but also of heavyweight conservatives, nineteen of whom signed a statement last week denouncing it, declaring, "We consider these attacks both unjust to the individuals in question and destructive of any attempt to build lasting mechanisms for counterterrorism adjudications," and adding that the attacks on the lawyers "undermine the Justice system more broadly," by "delegitimizing" any system in which accused terrorists have lawyers, whether that system is federal court trials or military commissions.
- by Andy Worthington / Future Of Freedom Foundation
U.S. War Criminals In our current armed conflicts, there are two U.S. drone offensives. One is conducted by our armed forces, the other by the CIA. Every day, CIA agents and CIA contractors arm and pilot armed unmanned drones over combat zones in Afghanistan and Pakistan, including Pakistani tribal areas, to search out and kill Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters. In terms of international armed conflict, those CIA agents are, unlike their military counterparts but like the fighters they target, unlawful combatants. No less than their insurgent targets, they are fighters without uniforms or insignia, directly participating in hostilities, employing armed force contrary to the laws and customs of war.
- by Gary Solis / The Washington Post
VIDEO: Controversial US Weaponary Used in Iraq: Fallujah Birth Defects, Cancer On this episode of the Riz Khan show we ask if US weapons are behind the sharp rise in birth defects in Falluja. Residents of the Iraqi city blame the surge in chronic deformities on controversial weapons used by US forces against Sunni fighters in 2004. But the US military has dismissed those allegations.
- by Global Research
U.S.-Israel flap: What comes next? Beyond salvaging faltering, narrow "proximity" talks between Israelis and Palestinians, the Obama administration's broader long-term strategy is less clear in the region and on Capitol Hill, and the week began with many key players in a kind of holding pattern, neither criticizing nor defending Obama's forceful new line. In some normally friendly quarters for the administration, the question is: what happens after the shouting dies down? In a multi-dimensional chess game in which every push on Israel is also a pull on Palestinian leaders and a ripple through the complex negotiations over Iran's nuclear program, the move has left regional experts and Congressional Democrats awaiting an explanation on where, exactly, this is headed. Some Democrats, particularly Clinton administration hands who viewed Netanyahu as deceitful and troublesome in the 1990s, defended the administration's outrage. Others wondered whether the eruption wasn't an overreaction from an administration spread too thin (early Tuesday morning US Middle East envoy George Mitchell postponed his trip to Israel
- by Ben Smith & Laura Rozen / Politico
U.S.-Israeli Tensions Escalating Quickly The crisis touched off by last week's announcement of Israel's plans to build 1,600 new homes for Jews in Arab East Jerusalem during a high-profile visit by U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden appears to be escalating rapidly. Michael Oren, Israel's ambassador to Washington and a historian who has written widely on ties between the two nations, called the growing contretemps "the worst (bilateral) crisis in 35 years" in a teleconference with other U.S.-based Israeli diplomats Saturday night, according to a number of published accounts. Twenty-four hours later, the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which advertises itself as "the most influential foreign policy lobbying organisation on Capitol Hill," issued a statement declaring the administration's condemnations of Israel's behaviour "a matter of serious concern". Netanyahu, along with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, is expected to keynote AIPAC's annual meeting here next weekend. Other voices of the so-called "Israel Lobby" issued their own broadsides
- by Jim Lobe / Inter Press Service
Israel Sandbags Its U.S. Poodle Actually, Joe set himself up. From the moment he set foot on Israeli soil, our vice president was in full pander mode.
First, he headed to Yad Vashem memorial, where he put on a yarmulke and declared Israel "a central bolt in our existence."
"For world Jewry," Joe went on, presumably including 5 million Americans, "Israel is the heart. ... Israel is the light. ... Israel is the hope."
Meeting Shimon Peres the next day, Joe confessed that when he first visited at age 29, "Israel captured my heart."
In Peres' guestbook, he wrote, "The bond between our two nations has been and remains unshakeable."
He then told Peres and the world, "There is absolutely no space between the United States and Israel when it comes to Israel's security."
As Peres spoke, Biden took notes. When Peres called him "a friend," Joe gushed, "It's good to be home."
Even at AIPAC, they must have been gagging.
- by Patrick J. Buchanan / VDare.com
Interpreting the Bible With the Bible Many end times "prophets" seek to pull out individual verses from the Bible and base all their eschatology on that one verse, ignoring the historical and biblical context. Gary Demar discusses the errors in this way of interpreting the Bible and how to avoid it.
March 11, 2010 Bleaching Out Historical Religious Expression "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's (Matt. 22:21). Secularists and strict separationists like to point to this verse to show that even Jesus opposed mixing religion and politics. We don't live under Caesar, and even if we did, Caesar would be bound to follow God's limitations on his civil office because God's image is stamped on him. Jesus would have told Caesar, "Render unto God the things that are God's."
Many modern civil governments contend that they rule at no one's discretion. Their legitimacy is self-imposed. It's no wonder that secularists attack any suggestion that might lead to the truth civil government is under God's sovereign rule and the freedoms of citizens are God-ordained and not a gift from the State. In a 1982 message, Francis Schaeffer made the following point:
We must understand something very thoroughly. If the state gives the rights, it can take them away—they're not inalienable. If the states give the rights, they can change them and manipulate them. But this was not the view of the founding fathers of this country. They believed, although not all of them were individual Christians, that there was a Creator and that this Creator gave the inalienable rights—this upon which our country was founded and which has given us the freedoms which we still have—even the freedoms which are being used now to destroy the freedoms.
- by Gary DeMar / American Vision
C4L@CPAC 2010 - Judge Napolitano Interview Campaign for Liberty's Kevin Brett interviews Judge Andrew Napolitano at CPAC 2010.
Obama's Message to Schoolchildren Ultimately, Obama's message was collectivist. But -- and here's the irony -- it was collectivist in a way that conservatives approve. They scream bloody murder if they think Obama will tell kids to support his health-care "reform." But if he tells them they should stay in school in order to help the country, they have no problem with that.
To take this a step further, I would like to suggest that any presidential address to schoolchildren is objectionable, regardless of the message. The very appearance of a president before schoolchildren carries the implicit and objectionable lesson that he is their leader. The presidency has come to symbolize "the nation." Today the occupant of that office is not merely the "chief executive" who enforces the law. He is seen as far more than that. He is seen as the embodiment of the people. Anytime anything big happens -- even if it's the death of a pop star -- the president is expected to express the people's feelings. It's as if our own private reactions to events are incomplete until he appears in public and speaks.
This, I submit, has no place in a free society. It is, in fact, a mild, democratized version of the Führer (leader) Principle. I am not saying that Obama aspires to be another Hitler (neither did George W. Bush before him). What I am saying is that the common attitude toward any White House occupant is to regard him as the pinnacle of a national hierarchy. He is The Leader. His family is even called "the first family."
That is the Führer Principle. You can see it in those who think the president is their commander in chief. Republicans said it about Bush, and I've heard at least one Democrat say it about Obama. After he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, Obama described himself as commander in chief of the country. Never mind that under the Constitution the president is the commander in chief not of the American people but only of the armed forces, which is considerably different.
In his speech Obama played on the Führer Principle when he said, "I'm working hard to fix up your classrooms and get you the books and the equipment and the computers you need to learn." He's not doing that personally, of course, but as Louis XIV of France said, "L'etat c'est moi" -- I am the state.
No parent who cherishes freedom would bring his children up to believe that a president -- any president -- is their leader. Conservatives had no objection to that message. Once again, they show their true collectivist (nationalist) colors.
- by Sheldon Richman / Campaign For Liberty
Census: A Little Too Personal Last week Congress voted to encourage participation in the 2010 census. I voted "No" on this resolution for the simple, obvious reason that the census- like so many government programs- has grown far beyond what the framers of our Constitution intended. The invasive nature of the current census raises serious questions about how and why government will use the collected information. It also demonstrates how the federal bureaucracy consistently encourages citizens to think of themselves in terms of groups, rather than as individual Americans. The not so subtle implication is that each group, whether ethnic, religious, social, or geographic, should speak up and demand its "fair share" of federal largesse.
Article I, section 2 of the Constitution calls for an enumeration of citizens every ten years, for the purpose of apportioning congressional seats among the various states. In other words, the census should be nothing more than a headcount. It was never intended to serve as a vehicle for gathering personal information on citizens.
- by Ron Paul / Texas Straight Talk
Congressman Paul discusses NationalID with Megyn Kelly
National ID Cards Won't Stop Terrorism or Illegal Immigration The US House of Representatives passed a spending bill last week that contains provisions establishing a national ID card, and the Senate is poised to approve the measure in the next few days. This week marks the American public’s last chance to convince their Senators they don't want to live in a nation that demands papers from its citizens as they go about their lives.
Absent a political miracle in the Senate, within two years every American will need a conforming national ID card to participate in ordinary activities. This REAL ID Act establishes a massive, centrally-coordinated database of highly personal information about American citizens: at a minimum their name, date of birth, place of residence, Social Security number, and physical characteristics. The legislation also grants open-ended authority to the Secretary of Homeland Security to require biometric information on IDs in the future. This means your harmless looking driver’s license could contain a retina scan, fingerprints, DNA information, or radio frequency technology.
- by Ron Paul / LewRockwell.com
Fed Audit Bitterly Opposed By Treasury The Treasury Department is vigorously opposed to a House-passed measure that would open the Federal Reserve to an audit by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), a senior Treasury official said Monday. Instead, the official said, the Treasury prefers a substitute offered by Rep. Mel Watt (D-N.C.), and would like to see it enacted as part of the Senate bill.
Asked whether he supports the House-passed measure to open the Fed to an audit, which was cosponsored by Reps. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) and Ron Paul (R-Texas), a senior Treasury official said he is intensely opposed to it.
- by Ryan Grimm / The Huffington Post
Ron Paul: Giving Fed More Power 'Makes No Sense' 03/11/10 Campaign for Liberty's Kevin Brett interviews Judge Andrew Napolitano at CPAC 2010.
China Ready to End Dollar Peg The head of China's central bank has given the strongest signal yet that the country will move away from pegging its currency to the dollar, but he said any changes would be gradual.
- by Garry White / Telegraph UK
Senate Health Care Bill Dead on Arrival, Pro-Life House Democrats Say The health care reform bill passed by the Senate on Christmas Eve appears to be dead on arrival in the House, as seven anti-abortion Democrats intend to join the ranks of lawmakers who plan to vote against the legislation, Fox News has confirmed.
Seven new no votes would be enough to kill the Senate bill, and several more fence-sitting lawmakers are under pressure from both sides of the aisle.
- by Carl Cameron / FOXNews.com
The Empire Is Broke Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) discusses the budgetary limitations that expansive U.S. foreign policy imposes on domestic programs, the Dennis Kucunich resolution (co-sponsored by Rep. Paul) that will require a House of Representatives debate on the war in Afghanistan, wrongheaded government action on the coming dollar crisis and why the peace and liberty movement is best served by setting a good example and avoiding the politics of personality.
Collapse of the American Empire: Swift, Silent, Certain Now, Harvard's Niall Ferguson, one of the world's leading financial historians, echoes Diamond's warning: "Imperial collapse may come much more suddenly than many historians imagine. A combination of fiscal deficits and military overstretch suggests that the United States may be the next empire on the precipice." Yes, America is on the edge.
Dismiss his warning at your peril. Everything you learned, everything you believe and everything driving our political leaders is based on a misleading, outdated theory of history. The American Empire is at the edge of a dangerous precipice, at risk of a sudden, rapid collapse.
- by Paul B. Farrell / Market Watch
Is Greece the Future of America? It may be possible to look into America's future. How? Watch what's going on in Greece. According to the Washington Post, "Greece needs to raise about €23 billion [more than $31 billion] in April and May to pay debts coming due. Greek officials say that either is impossible, or would require punitive interest rates - making it harder to bring the budget under control - unless Europe helps out." So the Greek government awaits a bailout from Germany and France, but first it has to impress them that it is serious about fiscal austerity.
The Greek welfare state's annual deficit is about 13 percent of its GDP and its accumulated debt is 113 percent of GDP. Meanwhile, the U.S. government's overall debt is now on track to reach 90 percent of GDP by 2020, more than $20 trillion. Just last week the Congressional Budget Office said that over the next decade, the annual budget deficit will be $1.2 trillion more than the Obama administration has guessed. The ten-year figure is now projected to be $9.76 trillion. The annual deficit is about 10 percent of GDP.
- by Sheldon Richman / Future of Freedom Foundation
Afghanistan War Debate Begins In Congress! (Finally!) pt.1 Congressman Kucinich
Ron Paul in Strong Support of Kucinich's Afghanistan Resolution Congressman Ron Paul speaks on the floor of the House in support of H Con Res 248 to bring the troops home from Afghanistan
War Versus Conservatism Congressman Duncan speaks on the House floor on March 10, 2010, about the continuing War in Afghanistan.
Why Are We Still in Afghanistan? "Conventional wisdom" among many Americans - and congress members - is that we need to be in Afghanistan to protect our national security.
Is it true?
A Little History
Before we discuss whether it is necessary for the U.S. to stay in Afghanistan, a little history might be instructive.
- by Washington's Blog / Prison Planet
Neocons Still Pushing for Iran Strikes Former CIA and DIA officer Philip Giraldi discusses the usual suspects who are calling for war with Iran, the practical limitations on the U.S. military's ability to fight a third concurrent war, the ploy of letting Israel start a war with Iran so the U.S. will be obligated to finish it, likely U.S. sponsorship of the terrorist organization (and former al Qaeda satellite group) Jundallah, birth defects in Iraq linked to depleted uranium and the terrible U.S. network news shows exemplified by NBC's Andrea Mitchell's conflicted reporting.
'4-8 Weeks Left for Diplomacy on Iran' Four to eight weeks remain to test the option of diplomatic engagement as means of stopping Iran's nuclear program before sanctions will likely be imposed, Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon told an audience of foreign military officers and government officials in Herzliya on Monday.
Speaking to dozens of participants in a terrorism and security program run by the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies, Ayalon said the "time is not yet lost" to stem Iran's nuclear ambitions, but added that "it is of the essence."
- by Yaakov Lappin, The Jerusalem Post / Information Clearing
The Rogue Nation In spite of the fact that the United States faces no enemy anywhere in the world capable of opposing it on a battlefield, the Defense budget for 2011 will go up 7.1 percent from current levels. A lot of the new spending will be on drones, America's latest contribution to western civilization, capable of surveilling large areas on the ground and delivering death from the skies. It is a peculiarly American vision of warfare, with a "pilot" sitting at a desk half a world away and pressing a button that can kill a target far below. Hygienic and mechanical, it is a bit like a video game with no messy cleanup afterwards. The recently released United States Quadrennial Defense Review reports how the Pentagon will be developing a new generation of super drones that can stay airborne for long periods of time and can strike anywhere in the world and at any time to kill America's enemies. The super drones will include some that can fly at supersonic speeds and others that will be large enough to carry nuclear weapons. Some of the new drones will be designed for the navy, able to take off from aircraft carriers and project US power to even more distant hot spots. Drones are particularly esteemed by policymakers because as they are unmanned and can fly low to the ground they can violate someone;s airspace "accidentally" without necessarily resulting in a diplomatic incident.
Washington's embrace of drones as the weapon of choice for international assassination is one major reason why the United States has become the evil empire.
- by Philip Giraldi / Antiwar.com
Those Salem Witches - I Mean, American Terrorists When Najibullah Zazi pled “guilty” to “plotting a suicide bomb attack on New York City subways with al Qaeda training” last week, the Feds assured us yet again they’d thwarted "one of the most serious terrorist threats to our nation since September 11, 2001, "as Attorney General Eric Holder put it. No wonder anyone with even a shred of decency cries for an end to the War-on-Liberty-Disguised-as-a-War-on-Terror: the case against Mr. Zazi is about as substantive as a politician's promise.
Which explains why the man has steadfastly asserted his innocence since his arrest last September – until the goons railroading him threatened his parents: "The U.S Attorney in the Eastern District did a very good job exerting pressure," crowed New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly. "[Zazi's] mother stood the chance of being arrested [on immigration charges] … he realized if he didn't cooperate his family would be significantly impacted."
- by Becky Akers / The New American
The Few, the Proud, the High School Students Thank you George Bush and the 186 Republicans in the House and 43 Republicans in the Senate who passed the No Child Left Behind Act in 2001.
Buried in Title IX – General Provisions, Part E – Uniform Provisions, Subpart 2 – Other Provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act in Section 9528 – Armed Forces Recruiter Access to Students and Student Recruiting Information, is the following provision relating to military recruiters and high school students:
- by Laurence M. Vance / LewRockwell.com
Jesse Ventura on - CNN's Larry King - Part 2 - Part 3 Jesse Ventura Discusses his New Book "American Conspiracies"
The Washington Post on 'Lunatic' 9/11 'Conspiracy Theorists' An editorial in the Washington Post yesterday slammed Japanese member of parliament Yukihisa Fujita because he "seems to think that America's rendering of the events of Sept. 11, 2001, is a gigantic hoax." His "ideas" about the terrorist attacks "are too bizarre, half-baked and intellectually bogus to merit serious discussion."
Fujita, the editorial added, is a member of "the lunatic fringe" who "have spawned a thriving subculture of conspiracy theorists at home and abroad", and "his views, rooted as they are in profound distrust of the United States, seem to reflect a strain of anti-American thought". The piece closes by suggesting that the "fact-averse" Fujita should be removed from office.
Among Fujita's "bizarre" views are "that shadowy forces with advance knowledge of the plot played the stock market to profit from it", "the fantastic idea that eight of the 19 hijackers are alive and well", and "that controlled demolition rather than fire or debris may be a more likely explanation for at least the collapse of the building at 7 World Trade Center".
Yet while serving out a hit piece against the global "9/11 Truth" movement, it is in fact the editors of the Washington Post who are demonstrably "fact-averse".
- by Jeremy R. Hammond / Information Clearing House
O'Reilly Lies Repeatedly About Study Interview with Richard Gage, Founder of Architects & Engineers For 9/11 Truth, Inc.; O'Reilly lies repeatedly about study re: Building 7. That is the topic on this "The American View" radio program which broadcasts live, daily, from 11 am to Noon (EST) and is now on the Liberty News Radio Network.
- by John Lofton / The American View
Proof that 9/11 Truthers Are Dangerous Most Americans don't know what kind of people 9/11 truthers really are. So they can't figure out whether or not they are dangerous.
Below is a list of people who question what our Government has said about 9/11.
The list proves - once and for all - that people who question 9/11 are dangerous.
- by Washington's Blog / Information Clearing House
CrossTalk on 9/11: Whodunit? In this edition of CrossTalk host Peter Lavelle asks his guests why discussion of the events of 9/11 continue to attrack so much attention but is all but banned in the media mainstream.
An Oscar for America's Hubris What a shame that the one movie about the Iraq war that has a chance of being viewed by a large worldwide audience should be so disappointing. According to press reports, members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences finally found a movie about the Iraq war they liked because it is "apolitical." Actually, "The Hurt Locker" is just the opposite; it's an endorsement of the politically chauvinistic view that the world is a stage upon which Americans get to deal with their demons no matter the consequence for others.
It is imperial hubris turned into an art form in which the Iraqi people appear as numbed bystanders when they are not deranged extras. It is a perverse tribute to the film's accuracy in portraying the insanity of the U.S. invasion-while ignoring its root causes-that the Iraqis are at no point treated as though they are important.
They never have been, at least in the American view. No Iraqi had anything to do with attacking us on 9/11, and while we are happy to have an excuse to grab their oil and deploy our bloated military arsenal, the people of Iraq are never more than an afterthought. Whatever motivates Iraqi characters in the movie to throw stones or blow themselves up is unimportant, for they are nothing more than props for a uniquely American-centered show. It is we who matter and they who are graced by our presence no matter how screwed up we may be.
- by Robert Scheer / TruthDig
Special Interests and Foreign Policy U.S. foreign policy matters, especially to other countries. Just ask the citizens of nations invaded or bombed by Washington, or suffering under American sanctions, or simply annoyed by our tendency to hector, pester and insist regarding all manner of issues, big and small.
Today Washington is deeply involved in a war in Afghanistan and ongoing civil strife in Iraq. The United States continues to threaten Iran with military action. Washington has promiscuously issued security guarantees throughout Asia and Europe. American bases and troops circle the globe; American ships and aircraft dominate the oceans and atmosphere. The price for this presence is high: at a time of budget crisis, the United States spends more, adjusted for inflation, on the military than at any point since World War II and accounts for nearly half the globe’s military spending.
So what issue is roiling Congress today? Whether the Ottoman Empire committed genocide against its Armenian subjects during World War I. It is a bizarre question. And it is being asked only because foreign policy has become yet another battlefield for influential interest groups.
- by Doug Bandow / The National Interest
U.S. Enriches Companies Defying Its Policy on Iran The federal government has awarded more than $107 billion in contract payments, grants and other benefits over the past decade to foreign and multinational American companies while they were doing business in Iran, despite Washington's efforts to discourage investment there, records show.
That includes nearly $15 billion paid to companies that defied American sanctions law by making large investments that helped Iran develop its vast oil and gas reserves.
- by Joe Becker and Ron Nixon / The New York Times
U.S. Government Confirms Sanctions Don't Work Even while employing sanctions against Iran, the U.S. government is confirming that sanctions do not work.
The Chinese government has threatened to impose sanctions on the United States if the U.S. government persists in its decision to sell weapons, including F-16s, to Taiwan. According to the New York Times, the threat was issued by a top Chinese military official, who did not specify what the sanctions would be. However, a possibility would be the wholesale dumping of U.S. government securities onto the international financial markets. Those instruments represent the enormous amounts of money that China has loaned the U.S. government to fund its enterprises in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Notwithstanding the U.S. government's steadfast insistence that its sanctions will induce Iranian government officials to submit to U.S. demands regarding its nuclear program, the U.S. government is steadfastly refusing to succumb to China's threat to impose sanctions on the United States.
- by Jacob G. Hornberger / Future of Freedom Foundation
U.S., NATO Intensify War Games Around Russia's Perimeter Along with plans to base anti-ballistic missile facilities in Poland near Russia's border (a 35 mile distance) and in Bulgaria and Romania across the Black Sea from Russia, Washington and the self-styled global military bloc it leads, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, have arranged a series of military exercises on and near Russia's borders this year.
While the White House, Pentagon and State Department pro forma identify al-Qaeda, Taliban, Iran, North Korea, climate change, cyber attacks and a host of other threats as those the U.S. is girding itself to combat, Washington is demonstrating its true strategic objectives by deploying interceptor missiles and staging war games along Russia's western and southern borders.
- by Rick Rozoff / Stop NATO
Dr. Ron Paul 3/8/2010 OSU - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 This is a speech from Dr. Ron Paul given 3/8/2010. It was a free event held near Ohio State University campus.
March 5, 2010 Restore America by Getting Government Under Control At no other point in recent decades has the political climate presented us with so great an opportunity to return our nation to prosperity and to reclaim the freedoms big government has stripped away from us.
Thanks to the tremendous growth of the Internet, as well as the unprecedented interest in the message of individual liberty kindled by such vast access to information, millions of Americans are now organizing and taking action.
In the last few years, I have had the opportunity to travel extensively throughout the country, and the unique people of each area I have visited have only deepened my conviction that no other idea can unify, excite and mobilize Americans as powerfully as the message of peace, prosperity and freedom.
- by Ron Paul / DesMoinesRegister.com
Ron Paul - Fox Business 03/03/10 On Wednesday, March 3, 2010, Congressman Paul appeared on Fox Business' "Varney & Company" to discuss the economy and the results of out of control federal spending.
My Plan for a Freedom President Since my 2008 campaign for the presidency I have often been asked, "How would a constitutionalist president go about dismantling the welfare-warfare state and restoring a constitutional republic?" This is a very important question, because without a clear road map and set of priorities, such a president runs the risk of having his pro-freedom agenda stymied by the various vested interests that benefit from big government.
Of course, just as the welfare-warfare state was not constructed in 100 days, it could not be dismantled in the first 100 days of any presidency. While our goal is to reduce the size of the state as quickly as possible, we should always make sure our immediate proposals minimize social disruption and human suffering. Thus, we should not seek to abolish the social safety net overnight because that would harm those who have grown dependent on government-provided welfare. Instead, we would want to give individuals who have come to rely on the state time to prepare for the day when responsibility for providing aide is returned to those organizations best able to administer compassionate and effective help - churches and private charities.
Now, this need for a transition period does not apply to all types of welfare. For example, I would have no problem defunding corporate welfare programs, such as the Export-Import Bank or the TARP bank bailouts, right away. I find it difficult to muster much sympathy for the CEO's of Lockheed Martin and Goldman Sachs.
No matter what the president wants to do, most major changes in government programs would require legislation to be passed by Congress
- by Ron Paul / LewRockwell.com
Operation Health Freedom Campaign for Liberty believes America's health care system is in desperate need of reform, but current proposals only cement the status quo by mandating further government interference and requiring Americans to either carry a government-approved plan or surrender more of their hard-earned money to the IRS.
There is a real alternative to yielding more power over our lives to Washington: implementing a plan centered on freedom, choice, and faith in the American taxpayers that they know how to spend their money better than some unelected bureaucrat.
In pursuit of this alternative, Campaign for Liberty is proud to unveil our Health Freedom Plan.
- by Campaign For Liberty
Followers of the Texas Congressman Represent the Real Conservative Movement When Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina was censured by various GOP county committees in his own state recently, Graham blamed it on "Ron Paul people." When Florida governor and U.S. Senate candidate Charlie Crist was defeated in a Republican straw poll by challenger Marco Rubio in December, Crist complained it was nothing more than "Ron Paul people."
At this year's 2010 Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C., there were plenty of Ron Paul people, enough to deliver the congressman a first-place victory in the annual CPAC straw poll, which has long been considered a decent gauge of the GOP's mindset.
But when Paul's victory was announced, much of the CPAC crowd booed. Those pesky Ron Paul people had struck again, it seemed. Many Republican establishment types quickly dismissed the poll. But two glaring questions remain: Who is it that Paul's critics prefer? And what kind of "people" are they?
- by Jack Hunter / Campaign For Liberty
Extremism in the Defense of Liberty Today's radicalized grassroots Right might be "extreme" in their devotion to limited government--they're also more traditionally conservative than anything the GOP has represented in decades.
Without record levels of welfare, unemployment and other government benefits as well as tax cuts last year, the income of U.S. households would have plunged by an astonishing $723 billion — more than four times the record $167 billion drop reported last month by the Commerce Department.
Moreover, for the first time since the Great Depression, Americans took more aid from the government than they paid in taxes.
The figures show the devastating results of the massive job losses last year and indicate that the economic recovery that began last summer is tenuous and has a long way to go before many Americans resume life as normal, analysts said.
- by Patrice Hill / The Washington Times
Liberal Delusions About Freedom To combat the town-hall protests that sprang up around the nation against President Obama's health-care plan, one of the favorite tactics employed by liberals was to question the sanity of the protesters. Anyone who showed up at such meetings angrily protesting Obama's plan to socialize medicine was termed a crazy.
That was especially true if a protester happened to be combining freedom of speech with the right to bear arms, as some protesters in New Hampshire and Arizona did. That drove liberals up the wall, given their deep antipathy toward gun rights and the Second Amendment.
But who really are the crazies around here? Let's examine the issue. Among the points that liberals made to buttress their claim that the protesters were crazy was the comparison that some of the protesters made between Obama's economic philosophy and that of the National Socialists under Hitler.
Indeed, according to the liberals, the notion that Obama's plan for America was socialistic was itself just crazy. After all, everyone knows that America has a free-enterprise system, one that was saved by Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, an economic program that Obama, like other liberals, extols and wishes to build upon.
Yet, let's analyze that comparison that some of the protesters were making and the insanity and irrationality that liberals claim it represents. I believe we'll find that when it comes to sanity and rationality, those protesters had a much firmer grip on reality than the liberals who are criticizing them.
- by Jacob G. Hornberger
Abortion and the Health Bill It's now becoming clear that Barack Obama is willing to put everything on the table in order to be the president who passes health-care reform. Everything, that is, except a ban on federal funding for abortion. Last September, the president promised that "no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions, and federal conscience laws will remain in place." Yet the legislation most likely to move forward in Congress would be the single greatest expansion of abortion since the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. The White House knows how to turn Mr. Obama's September commitment into legislative action. I met with senior White House officials and told them that only adding a so-called Hyde Amendment to the health-care reform bills would fulfill the president's promise to protect Americans from subsidizing abortion. The Hyde Amendment dates back to the 1970s, when congressional leaders discovered that Medicaid was paying for nearly 300,000 abortions a year. Similar amendments have been added to health-care bills ever since. When confronted by House Minority Leader John Boehner about abortion funding during the health-care summit last week, the president dropped his head and looked down at the table. How revealing
- by Charmaine Yoest / Wall Street Journal
Who Poses the Greater Threat? While American politicians and intellectuals have not reached the depths of tyrants such as Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Hitler, they share a common vision. Tyrants denounce free markets and voluntary exchange. They are the chief supporters of reduced private property rights, reduced rights to profits, and they are anti-competition and pro-monopoly. They are pro-control and coercion, by the state. These Americans who run Washington, and their intellectual supporters, believe they have superior wisdom and greater intelligence than the masses. They believe they have been ordained to forcibly impose that wisdom on the rest of us. Like any other tyrant, they have what they consider good reasons for restricting the freedom of others. A tyrant's primary agenda calls for the elimination or attenuation of the market. Why? Markets imply voluntary exchange and tyrants do trust that people behaving voluntarily will do what the tyrant thinks they should do. Therefore, they seek to replace the market with economic planning and regulation, which is little more than the forcible superseding of other people's plans by the powerful elite.
We Americans have forgotten founder Thomas Paine's warning that "Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one."
- by Walter E. Williams / Creators Syndicate
Is The Recovery Real? Happy news! The government has come up with a 5.9 percent GDP growth rate in the fourth quarter of 2009. The recession is over.
Or is it? Statistician John Williams has informed us that 69 percent of this growth, or 4.1 percentage points, is the result of inventory accumulation. That leaves a 1.8 percent growth rate, and the 1.8 percent is likely due to the underestimate of inflation and other statistical problems.
The Federal Reserve's own monetary evidence contradicts the recovery assurances from Fed chairman Ben Bernanke. The Federal Reserve continues to pour massive reserves into the banks. The monetary base, which consists of currency in circulation and bank reserves (the basis for new loans), has surged from $850 billion in 2009 to $2.2 trillion on February 24.
Despite this potential for massive new money creation, the broadest measure of money growth is still contracting. The banks are too impaired and so are consumers for the banks to create new money by making loans.
The economy, in other words, is going nowhere.
- by Paul Craig Roberts / VDare.com
Central Banks Can't Stop Global Unraveling This is what happened in Japan. This is what is happening now in America. This will surely happen in Europe as EU-crats prepare to bail out Greece and Lord knows how many other countries. A short, terrible downturn may have been turned into a decade's worth of agony or worse. Of course, it doesn't have to be that bad for everyone. We can still buy gold and silver and take delivery. We can trim our debts and streamline our finances. We can do for ourselves, all the sensible things that government - and those who stand behind it - will not.
- by The Daily Bell
David Frum: Hatchet Man for Ben Bernanke David Frum has written an article for CNN, "Ron Paul's money plan is far from golden." It is an attack on anything resembling a gold coin standard. It is therefore a defense of central banking in general and the Federal Reserve System in particular.
Who is David Frum? He is a Canadian immigrant who studied history at Yale and earned a law degree at the Harvard Law School. He has always earned a living as a journalist. He has long been employed by the neoconservative movement. He became a U.S. citizen in 2007.
In 2001, he got a job at the White House as a speech writer. It was Frum who coined at least part of the phrase, "axis of evil," which identified North Korea, Iraq, and Iran as the three most dangerous tyrannies of the decade. George W. Bush used the phrase in his State of the Union Address on January 29, 2002, his State of the Union Address after 9-11. That speech was part of his run-up for the Iraq War.
- by Gary North / LewRockwell.com
Frank Asks Bernanke to Probe Fed on Watergate, Iraq (Correct) House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank asked Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke to investigate allegations of Fed involvement in the Watergate scandal and Iraqi weapons purchases in the 1970s and 1980s.
Frank, 69, said the Fed must address the charges because "continued concern about political interference" with the Fed and "allegations about a lack of transparency." Bernanke and other Fed officials are trying to fend off a measure offered by Paul, which passed the House in December, that would open the Fed to audits of interest-rate decisions.
"These specific allegations you've made I think are absolutely bizarre, and I have absolutely no knowledge of anything remotely like what you just described,” Bernanke told Paul, a Texas Republican who wrote the 2009 book "End the Fed," during last week's hearing.
- by Scott Lanman / Business Week
Ron Paul: Fed Needs to Clear the Air on its History The Federal Reserve may grow in power under the Senate's plans for financial reform, but Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) said on Washington Unplugged today that Congress has abdicated its oversight responsibilities, allowing the Fed to funnel money to whomever it pleases -- even possibly the Watergate burglars.
Regardless of whether such a plot is true, "it gives you a good reason to audit the Federal Reserve," Paul told moderator Bob Schieffer.
- by Stephanie Condon / CBS News
Big Brother Wants to Know All About You: The American Community Survey Over the past several years, I have been barraged with emails from Americans expressing their dismay over the American Community Survey, the latest census form to hit randomly selected households on a continuous basis. Unlike the traditional census, which collects data every ten years and is now underway, the American Community Survey is taken every year at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars. And at 28 pages (with an additional 16-page instruction packet), it contains some of the most detailed and intrusive questions ever put forth in a census questionnaire. These concern matters that the government simply has no business knowing, including a person's job, income, physical and emotional health, family status, place of residence and intimate personal and private habits.
- by John W. Whitehead / The Rutherford Institute
The Department of Homeland Security's top cybersecurity official told CNET on Wednesday that the department may eventually extend its Einstein technology, which is designed to detect and prevent electronic attacks, to networks operated by the private sector. The technology was created for federal networks.
Greg Schaffer, assistant secretary for cybersecurity and communications, said in an interview that the department is evaluating whether Einstein "makes sense for expansion to critical infrastructure spaces" over time.
- by Declan McCullagh / CNET
White House Cyber Czar: 'There Is No Cyberwar' Howard Schmidt, the new cybersecurity czar for the Obama administration, has a short answer for the drumbeat of rhetoric claiming the United States is caught up in a cyberwar that it is losing. "There is no cyberwar," Schmidt told Wired.com in a sit-down interview Wednesday at the RSA Security Conference in San Francisco. "I think that is a terrible metaphor and I think that is a terrible concept," Schmidt said. "There are no winners in that environment." Instead, Schmidt said the government needs to focus its cybersecurity efforts to fight online crime and espionage. His stance contradicts Michael McConnell, the former director of national intelligence who made headlines last week when he testified to Congress that the country was already in the midst of a cyberwar - and was losing it. Schmidt's official title is cyber-security coordinator at the White House, a job he took over just before Christmas. Schmidt has no budgetary authority, but he said that doesn't make him powerless, because his office is in the White House. He's been there before as an adviser to President George W. Bush
- by Ryan Singel / Wired
Ron Paul on Alex Jones TV - Part 2 Paul Exposes CIA & Federal Reserve's Drug Running Business
Climate Scientists Plot to Fight Back at Skeptics Undaunted by a rash of scandals over the science underpinning climate change, top climate researchers are plotting to respond with what one scientist involved said needs to be "an outlandishly aggressively partisan approach" to gut the credibility of skeptics.
In private e-mails obtained by The Washington Times, climate scientists at the National Academy of Sciences say they are tired of "being treated like political pawns" and need to fight back in kind. Their strategy includes forming a nonprofit group to organize researchers and use their donations to challenge critics by running a back-page ad in the New York Times.
"Most of our colleagues don't seem to grasp that we're not in a gentlepersons' debate, we're in a street fight against well-funded, merciless enemies who play by entirely different rules," Paul R. Ehrlich, a Stanford University researcher, said in one of the e-mails.
Some scientists question the tactic and say they should focus instead on perfecting their science, but the researchers who are organizing the effort say the political battle is eroding confidence in their work.
- by Stephen Dinan / The Washington Times
Genuine American Exceptionalism on Due Process The Obama administration has made explicitly clear its intention to deny civilian trials to scores of detainees, by sending some to military commissions and imprisoning others indefinitely without any charges. And for those cases where it has deigned to provide real due process -- such as its decision to try the 9/11 defendants in a criminal court -- it is moving in the wrong direction. Obama officials are clearly signaling their intention to reverse that decision and instead place those defendants before military commissions, and yesterday, yet another piece appeared -- this time in Politico -- describing the beautiful, loving, cooperative relationship between Rahm Emanuel and Lindsey Graham, which is now "embracing a wide-ranging deal pitched by Graham that would shut down the prison [at Guantanamo]; provide funding to move detainees to Thomson, Ill.; keep the Sept. 11 trials out of civilian courts; and create broad new powers to hold terror suspects indefinitely." And the endless cavalcade of Rahm-planted, Rahm-Was-Right articles (see the latest from the Post today) invariably features his opposition to civilian trials for accused Terrorists as proof of his Centrist though mistakenly rejected wisdom.
In contrast to America's still-growing refusal to accord basic due process to accused Terrorists, consider how Pakistan treats foreigners whom it apprehends within its borders on serious charges of Terrorism:
- by Glenn Greenwald / Salon
Why Would Anyone Ever Attack America? Longtime White House Press Corps reporter Helen Thomas discusses the culture of softball political journalism, Obamas continuance of the US nuclear ambiguity policy regarding Israel and John Brennans ridiculous response to the question, Why do the terrorists attack us?
Many Voices Calling for War with Iran Wanting to go to war with Iran has created some very strange bedfellows. Leading neoconservative Daniel Pipes' assertion that President Barack Obama can salvage his presidency and get reelected by attacking Iran is about as low as it gets, suggesting as it does that an act of war can and should serve as a diversion from a failed domestic agenda. The soldiers and civilians who would inevitably die in such a conflict might not agree with Pipes that all is fair in politics. They would no doubt consider themselves betrayed and manipulated by a venal and disconnected political leadership, but no matter. It would not be a first time a neocon would consider a non-neocon casualty little more than a disagreeable statistic.
Sarah Palin is on the Pipes bandwagon, showing up at the mid-February Nashville Tea Party convention sporting an Israeli flag lapel pin and subsequently urging the president to do the right thing in supporting Israel by attacking Iran. As she put it, President Obama would improve his chances of re-election by showing people how tough he is. Pipes is at least smart enough to understand the implications of what he was saying, but Palin apparently was just parroting a line fed to her by Bill Kristol or one of her other handlers. Even Dick Cheney found the Palin line to be too much, pointing out that no one should go to war for reasons of domestic politics. Whether he actually believes that or not is unclear.
But possibly the most bizarre commentary supporting war with Iran was penned by Anne Applebaum for the Washington Post on February 23rd.
- by Philip Giraldi / Antiwar.com
U.S. Tightens Missile Shield Encirclement Of China And Russia So far this year the United States has succeeded in inflaming tensions with China and indefinitely holding up a new strategic arms reduction treaty with Russia through its relentless pursuit of global interceptor missile deployments.
On January 29 the White House confirmed the completion of a nearly $6.5 billion weapons transfer to Taiwan which includes 200 advanced Patriot anti-ballistic missiles. Earlier in the same month it was reported that Washington is also to provide Taiwan with eight frigates which Taipei intends to equip with the Aegis Combat System that includes the capacity for ship-based Standard Missile-3 interceptors.
The Aegis sea-based component of the expanding U.S. interceptor missile system already includes Japan, South Korea and Australia, and with Taiwan added China would be justified in being apprehensive.
On February 28 the U.S. House and Senate foreign affairs committees permitted the "sale to Taiwan of missiles, helicopters and ships valued at about $6.4 billion" despite weeks of protests from China. "The U.S. Defense Department wants to sell Taiwan the most advanced Patriot anti-missile system….The system, valued at $2.8 billion, would add to Taiwan's network of 22 missile sites around the country...." [1]
- by Rick Rozoff / Stop NATO
Twelve New England Towns Demand 9/11 Reinvestigation A new movement to reinvestigate the 9/11 attacks is gaining pace in the US. With major public support, 12 towns are set to decide whether to ask the federal government for a new independent probe.
New York is dubbed as the Empire State for its wealth and resources and is rightfully regarded as America's most famous city, a beacon of fashion, finance and fast paced action.
New Hampshire is the Granite State of so-called self sufficiency. Less flash and cash, most famous for hosting the first U.S. presidential primary.
New York and New Hampshire are more than 200 miles apart, but for all that distance, the two US locations intersect on one issue: the 9/11 attacks. While it was in Manhattan where three buildings fell, the people of Keene, New Hampshire are pushing for a new probe to find out why.
At 81 years old, Gerhard Bedding devotes nearly all his time to the Vote for Answers campaign. Though the movement for a new 9/11 investigation began in the Big Apple, it's seeing more success in New Hampshire.
- by Russia Today
As Predicted, Pentagon Shooting Blamed On 9/11 Truth Just two days after we warned of false flag domestic attacks that would be blamed on the federal government's political adversaries were all but inevitable, a Californian man attacked the Pentagon last night in a shooting that wounded two police officers and has since been blamed on the John Patrick Bedell's advocacy for 9/11 truth.
On Wednesday we explained how a Southern Poverty Law Center report which demonized We Are Change 9/11 truth organizations in the same breath as violent racist skinhead groups was part of a preparatory set-up for violent domestic acts that would be blamed on anti-government extremists.
We pointed out that since examples of Americans committing violence in pursuit of their political beliefs, FBI patsy Timothy McVeigh aside, were thin on the ground, organizations like the SPLC were begging for such incidents to occur in order to provide the federal government with the pretext to crack down on dissent and silence free speech on the Internet.
Low and behold, last night 36-year-old John Patrick Bedell calmly walked up to a subway station immediately adjacent to the Pentagon building, pulled out a gun and opened fire at point blank range.
- by Paul Joseph Watson / Prison Planet.com
There are five reasons that the mainstream media is worthless.
1. Self-Censorship by Journalists
Initially, there is tremendous self-censorship by journalists.
- by Snardfarker
Muslims Are Their Own Worst Enemy Muslims are numerous but powerless. Divisions among Muslims, especially between Sunni and Shi'ites, have consigned the Muslim Middle East to almost a century of Western control. Muslims cannot even play together. The Islamic Solidarity Games, a regional version of the Olympics, which were to be held in April in Iran, have been cancelled because the Iranians and the Arabs cannot agree on whether to call the body of water that separates Iran from the Arabian Peninsula the Persian Gulf or the Arabian Gulf.
Muslim disunity has made it possible for Israel to dispossess the Palestinians, for the U.S. to invade Iraq, and for the U.S. to rule much of the region through puppets. For example, in exchange for faithful service, Egypt receives $1.5 billion a year from Washington, which enables President Mubarak to buy off opposition. The opposition had rather have the money than support the Palestinians. Therefore, Egypt cooperates with Israel and the U.S. in the blockade of Gaza.
Another factor is the willingness of some Muslims to betray their own kind for U.S. dollars.
- by Paul Craig Roberts / VDare.com
It's Time for Israel's Friends To Condemn Its Acts Of Terrorism By and large a one-dimensional approach has characterised our approach to understanding the phenomenon of terrorism. However, the recent killing of a Hamas figure, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, in Dubai should make us cast our net wider to focus also on state terrorism.
The Dubai police have claimed with almost undisputed evidence that the Israeli intelligence agency, Mossad, was behind the killing. Israel has, as usual, maintained a policy of ambiguity by neither confirming nor denying Mossad's actions, although some of its political leaders, specifically the Opposition Leader, Tzipi Livni, have applauded the killing on the grounds that Mabhouh was a terrorist and deserved to be eliminated.
If it is proved beyond doubt that Mossad agents, using forged passports in the names of British, French, Irish, German and Australian citizens, perpetrated the act, the killing clearly underlines a disturbing aspect of Israeli behaviour.
It constitutes a blatant act of state terrorism, which places Israel in a position parallel to the very forces that it has unfailingly condemned as terrorist groups or networks.
- by Amin Saikal / Political Theatrics
Shaking Up Bible Prophecy End times' speculators look to the Bible for signs and wonders of the last days, then predict that the end is near because we experience the kind of natural disasters the Bible mentions. Earthquakes have always been happening--practically everyday. What make the earthquakes of the end times unique is what Gary DeMar sheds light on in today's show.
Wyoming Passes the Firearms Freedom Act Wyoming Senate passed HB95, the Firearms Freedom Act, by a vote of 30–0. (h/t Kristy Tyrney, Wyoming10A.org) The bill states: "A personal firearm, a firearm action or receiver, a firearm accessory, or ammunition that is manufactured commercially or privately in the state to be used or sold within the state is not subject to federal law or federal regulation, including registration, under the authority of congress to regulate interstate commerce." The Wyoming House already passed the bill last week, and it will now be transmitted to Governor Freudenthal's desk for signature. In 2009, both Tennessee and Montana passed the Act into state law. Last week, Utah's Governor Herbert made that state the 3rd.
- by Michael Boldin / LewRockwell.com
Hooray For Starbucks The major news media was replete with reports over the weekend that the coffee company, Starbucks, "has no problem with customers packing heat while placing their orders. The coffee giant says it won't take issue with gun owners who take advantage of 'open carry' laws and bring firearms into their restaurant." To tell you the truth, I'm not sure why this is even considered "newsworthy." Perhaps because Starbucks is a Seattle-based company that caters to the "yuppie" crowd? Maybe because the anti-gun national news media is shocked and chagrined at Starbucks' statement? Who knows?
- by Chuck Baldwin / NewsWithViews
CPAC 2010 Liberty Forum On Thursday, February 18, hundreds of freedom activists gathered at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel for "Liberty Forum 2010," one of C4L's featured events at this year's Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). Speakers included C4L President John Tate, historian (and Forum emcee) Tom Woods, Judge Andrew Napolitano, and Congressman Ron Paul.
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