Let's Save the Country with Ron Paul

X-posted this morning as there are so many little-l Libs in this community. Welcome! Right out of the playbook, hot off the presses this morning from LP HQ:
--------------

Once again, the Libertarian Party is the only mainstream party in America.

A new poll from the independent firm Rasmussen Reports finds what Libertarians have said for years – Americans trust their own judgment on economic issues more than that of President Obama and Congress.

Rasmussen reports this week that sixty (60) percent of voters say they trust their own judgment on economic issues more than President Obama’s. Only 30 percent trust Obama more. Distrust of Obama is even higher now than it was when the same question was asked in February. Then, 49 percent trusted their own judgment more than Obama’s, while 39 percent trusted Obama more.

According to Rasmussen, Republicans trust themselves more than Obama by a 75% to 19% margin. The findings for voters not affiliated with either major party are virtually identical. But Democrats are much more closely divided, with nearly half trusting the president more.

Rasmussen also finds 74 percent of Americans trust their own judgment more than that of the average member of Congress when it comes to economic issues facing the nation. Only 13 percent trust the average Congress member’s judgment more, while 12 percent are not sure who knows best.

Distrust of Congress is higher among independents than it is among Republicans and Democrats. Seventy-nine (79) percent of independents trust their own economic judgment more than Congress, higher than Republicans at 77 percent and Democrats at 69 percent.

Libertarians are the only party to agree.

Libertarians opposed the first round of Republican bailouts of banks, opposed Democrat bailouts of automakers and has opposed both older parties’ consistent record of economic meddling that has brought economic collapse and higher unemployment.

Libertarians were also early and consistent opponents of the Obama “stimulus” package. Sold as a means of keeping unemployment below eight percent, new figures from the Labor Department find Americans are now suffering from a 26-year high record of 9.4 percent unemployment.

That’s why Libertarians have a better idea. Restrain government to its role of policing fraud and force in economic transaction, cut taxes on investments, repeal unneeded and often anti-competitive regulations and free up America’s employers to create the jobs Americans need.

Will you help Libertarians spread that message – a message neither Democrats or Republicans will support? Learn more. Join the party at www.lp.org. Donate. Spread the word.

Gettin' the word out as requested... ;-)

Hello all fellow Paulites,

I am happy to announce that a new pro-Paul minimalist government protest page has started on twitter.  It is growing fast and wholly grassroots.

http://twitter.com/BlogavadGita

Cross posted to the natural living site as well. Rest of the article HERE: http://www.prisonplanet.com/ron-paul-warns-swine-flu-scare-will-be-used-as-precedent-for-more-big-government.html
along w/ the original 70's gov promo video encouraging people to take the vaccine - which ultimately paralyzed several hundred people.
-----------

“Step back and think for a minute before rushing and panicking” is the message coming from Texas Congressman Ron Paul who has warned that the swine flu scare will once again be used as a precedent for big government intrusion.

“It makes me think back to 1976, the first year I served in the Congress,” Paul has said in a video update. “We had a vote on the swine flu. Back then there was panic, they said it was going to sweep the nation and they rapidly came up with some flu shots and the government was going to inoculate everybody and save the world from this disaster.”

“It turned out that our instincts were correct.” the Congressman, also a medical physician, commented. “Not only did we think that the government should be involved in making medical decisions… but the flu came, the flu went and one person died, except for those individuals that died from getting the flu vaccine.”

Earlier this week we reported on the events of 1976, highlighting the fact that this last significant outbreak of swine flu in the U.S. originated at the army base at Fort Dix, New Jersey.

President Gerald Ford and then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld (a man who has long standing intimate ties with the big pharma companies that have and will reap millions in profits from these scares) instituted a mass nationwide vaccination program. More than 40 million people were vaccinated. However, the program was stopped short after over 500 cases of Guillain-Barre syndrome, a severe paralyzing nerve disease, were reported. Officially 30 people died as a direct result of the vaccinations, though the real figure is generally thought to have been much higher.

At the time Congressman Ron Paul was one of only two representatives to vote down the vaccination program. His comments were recorded in the book Swine Flu Expose, by Eleanora I. McBean, Ph.D., N.D.

Paul described the move as “a shocking misuse of funds …and an evil political maneuver”, “blatant advertising efforts to panic the people into taking Swine Flu shots will fail.” Paul said.



Other - since I'm up late calling Asia job hunting, I listen to George Noory on Coast to Coast AM. Last Night he had all the Swine Flu experts - biologists to alternative media. They succinctly think this is bioengineering to rid us of Hispanic folks and a tactic to divert attention from what's really going on. I'm not a conspiracy theorist but given history repeating itself, will be it is a diversion ploy and will NOT be taking anything other than more vitamins - EVEN when traveling via plane to Asia in 2 1/2 weeks.

|-P

If it actually passes and the US Fed is audited, I don't think it will end it. There needs to be a further push. An audit will be light or about as useful as the 9/11 commission report. It could even end up being a push for further regulation. However, recall that things never turn out as we see them but generally better than envisioned.

Never say never. The Central bank has been defeated repeatedly before in US History alone. This one is also less than 100 years old. It can be done. My firm opinion is that it's just the beginning of the fight.
------------------

Monetary Policy and The State of the Economy hearing before the Committee on Financial Services, U.S. House of Representatives, February 15, 2006

Chairman OXLEY. The gentlelady yields back. The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Paul.

Dr. PAUL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, and welcome, Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I was very pleased with what you said about your support for transparency, and I want to ask a question dealing with that. Also, at the bottom of page 8, you said something that I thought was very important, where you said that the Federal Reserve, together with all other central bankers, has found that successful policy depends on painstaking examination of a broad range of economic and financial data, and I also think that’s very important. There is a famous quote by an economist, which I’m sure you’re familiar with, that inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon. And likewise, another famous economist from the 20th Century, and I’ll paraphrase this, said that monetary authorities deliberately confuse the issue of inflation by talking only about price increases. Yet it’s the price increases which are merely the inevitable consequence of inflation. This is done on purpose to distract from the real cause, which is the increase in the quantity of money and credit. And I notice in your report to the Congress, you do report M2, and it went up last year at four percent. And M3 was not mentioned, other than the fact that it won’t be reported any more. M3, interestingly enough, went up twice as fast, and M3 is going up probably more than two times as fast as the GDP. And this is information that I consider important and I know a lot of other economists consider important. And I find it rather interesting and ironic that one of the reasons that the Federal Reserve has given – of course, this was before you were the chairman – for this change is the fact that it costs money; it costs too much money. Now that is really something in this day and age, especially since the Federal Reserve creates their own money and their own budget and they have essentially no oversight, and all of a sudden it costs too much money to give us a little bit of information. So that to me is a bit ironic that this information will not be available to us. And my question to you is, would you ever reconsider this policy of denying this information to the Congress just so that we have another tool to analyze what’s going on with monetary policy? It seems like with your support for transparency, this should be something that you would heartily support.

Mr. BERNANKE. Congressman, first, you’re absolutely right. We do look at a wide variety of indicators, and money aggregates are among those indicators. In particular, M2 has proven to have some forecasting value in the past, and I think the slowdown this year is consistent with the removal of accommodation that’s been going on. In regard to your references to M3, a still broader measure of money, we have done, and I’m now speaking about the Federal Reserve before my arrival, but we have done periodic analyses of the various data series that we collect to see how useful they are. And our research department’s conclusion was that M3 was not being used by the academic community, nor were we finding it very useful ourselves in our internal deliberations. Now it’s not just a question of our own cost; although, of course, we do want to be fiscally responsible on our own budget, but it’s also I think important for us to recognize the burden that’s placed on banks that have to report this information. And so when we can reduce that burden, we would like to do so. And that was one of the considerations in the decision that was made about M3. Would we reconsider it? If there were evidence that this was an informative series and that it was useful to the public and to the Federal Reserve in forecasting the economy, naturally we would look at it again. There’s nothing dogmatic going on here.

Dr. PAUL. If the Congress expressed an interest in receiving this information, would you take that into consideration?

Mr. BERNANKE. If there was broad interest in the Congress in receiving this information, we would look at it. But, again, Congressman, remember, it’s a burden on the reporting banks to provide the information, and we are trying to reduce that burden as much as we can.

Dr. PAUL. But, of course, this has been available to the financial community for a lot of years, and for some people it’s very important to measure what you’re doing. If the money supply is important, which a lot of people believe it is, and it causes the inflation, this to me seems like we’re taking information about the money supply and literally hiding it from the people. And I yield back.

The source is known to be unbiased despite the name.
-------------
from the April 15, 2009 edition

- Print this <http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0416/p02s04-ussc.html#>
- Letter to the Editor
- Republish
- Email and share
- E-mail newsletters<http://www.csmonitor.com/newsletters/signup?x=0&y=0>
- RSS <http://www.csmonitor.com/rss>

Atlanta - They came to public squares and parks across the country by the
hundreds and thousands on Tax Day, April 15, hoping for nothing less than a
second American revolution. Their "tea parties" are part of a burgeoning
national movement, they said – a nonpartisan wave of Americans outraged by
Washington's profligacy and its intrusion into every aspect of daily life.

And yet ... only a whisper in the mainstream press, they complain.


To tea partyers, the disconnect points up the wide divide between elite
media and the population at large. To others, any downplaying of the
protests is just a symptom of the broader reordering of the media world.

The hold that a few media conglomerates have held on the dissemination of
news is quickly vanishing. Blogs and upstart websites like
HuffingtonPost.com are providing a wider array of voices and viewpoints. The
decidedly liberal HuffingtonPost, for instance, sent 1,800 "citizen
journalists," toting iPhones and laptops, to cover the tea parties. In
response to such "competition," traditional newsrooms are beginning to shift
their mind-sets, too, using Web-based networking sites like Twitter to try
to become more immediate and relevant to people across the US.

In that vein, Wednesday's Tea Party protests are a kind of D-Day for
alternative journalism.

"Today is one of those days that may lead to more awareness that this is a
great tool and a great way to connect with people," says Jen Reeves, a new
media specialist at the Missouri School of Journalism in Columbia. "It's
fabulous that more media outlets are looking in and peering in."

The mainstream media have, to some extent, questioned the real grass-roots
aspect of the tea-party movement. New York Times columnist Paul Krugman
called it "astroturf" in a column this week – implying that political and
corporate forces lie behind it. Critics say that mainstream and blogosphere
ideologues are both acting as "parasites on a populist movement," skewing
the truth and overstepping the bounds of responsible reporting in the
process.

Cable news channel Fox News has jumped on the bandwagon, at times blurring
the line between promotion and coverage as two of its top-ranked
personalities – Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck – get set to cover Wednesday's
events, according to Media Matters for America, a liberal media watchdog
group in Washington.

"[Partisan news organizations] are normalizing conspiracy theories and
making hysteria more palatable," says Erikka Knuti of Media Matters, noting
what she calls a "hysteria ... about socialism, fascism, and a new world
order."

Fox News grandstanding aside, the enduring momentum of the tea-party
movement, which began in February, underscores real grievances, which
participants say the mainstream media have largely ignored – providing an
opportunity for alternative, Web-based news sources.

"Who's actually reporting on this?" says Michael Patrick Leahy, a
Nashville-based blogger and tea-party organizer who will appear today on
PJTV, a Web-based, right-leaning news channel. If there is slight media
coverage of the tea parties, he says, "we may well look back historically
and determine that April 15th, 2009, is the day the mainstream media died."

While the tea-party protests may reveal hypocrisy on both sides of the
blogosphere, the coverage of on-site citizen reporters should be welcomed,
not feared, by mainstream media organizations, says Ms. Reeves. If news
organizations ignore or downplay such events, they risk missing the
conversation that Americans are having day to day.

The growth of information is an organic process, she says. "I feel as if
journalists – if we don't try to learn how it works – we are missing a
backchannel of life."

directly from Ron Paul's homepage at the House: www.house.gov/paul and just in time for our lovely tax day... did you get yer but out to a protest tea party even if just for a few minutes end o' day? do tell. ours was H U G E here in vegas - larger than our mass walk down the strip for ron paul last January before he took 2nd in state in our primary.


FINALLY it is time to make some headway... now that something of the media is also starting to take notice, oh, but except CNN - see below... what a farce. she didn't even let the guy get a word in. yep. we're all crazy... sure. normal looking people. that's what they said in California until they passed prop 13, no more property taxes...

------------

Taxes are the issue this week as Americans struggle to make the April 15th deadline to file their returns. It is a good time to contemplate the effects of big government and what it does to our country. The income tax is one of the most egregious encroachments on our liberties today. It is a form of involuntary servitude, which was supposed to have been outlawed by the 13th Amendment.

Tax Freedom Day is defined as the day when the nation as a whole has theoretically earned enough income to fund its annual federal tax burden. For all of the days of the year before this day, you are a slave to government. For 2009, Tax Freedom Day will come on April 13th. Almost a century ago in 1910, before the mistakes of 1913-namely the inception of the Federal Reserve and our current income tax, Tax Freedom Day was January 19th, signifying a mere 5% tax burden. Somehow, our country functioned just fine.

If calculated to include government spending and the deficit, rather than just collections, Tax Freedom Day would actually fall on May 29. The annual deficit adds to the growing debt of future generations and adds insult to injury to those that struggle to make this economy work. It is a slap in the face that this is not enough to prevent this crushing governmental burden from falling on the next generation.

For months now, Washington has been desperately throwing taxpayers’ money at various programs to stimulate us out of the recession, to no avail. Seeing hard-earned money confiscated from the people and spent in such wasteful ways, such as the recent bailouts, is almost too much to bear. Getting rid of the income tax altogether, while very beneficial, may be a while in coming. In the meantime, I am fighting for every tax cut or tax credit possible.

I can think of no better economic stimulus than letting people keep their money and spend it how they see fit. For this reason, I am an original cosponsor on a bill that would give Americans a two month employment and income tax holiday, while taking unused TARP money back from the Secretary of the Treasury and putting it in the Social Security trust fund instead.

In addition, I have recently introduced the Child Health Care Affordability Act. If passed this legislation would provide parents with a tax credit of up to $500 for health care expenses of dependent children. I have also re-introduced the Tax Free Tips Act, which would make tips exempt from federal income and payroll taxes. I am also an original cosponsor of a bill that would make permanent the deduction of state and local sales taxes. My bill HR 162 exempts Social Security benefits from income tax.

These are just a few of the many tax related bills I am fighting for in Congress, but without a corresponding cut in the size of government, which I am also fighting for, we are simply adding to the future tax burden of our children.

Is anyone going to any Tea Party demonstrations? I would be interested in going since I have never really been to a protest or demonstration before. What better thing to protest than taxes? I do not know if my area has a Tea Party but I heard from someone on my F-List that Glenn Beck is covering the Tea Party demonstration in San Antonio, 90 miles away.

It now has 39 sponsors. Take 3 minutes of your life to watch this update from the Campaign for Liberty, direct from Ron Paul himself. Make em' open the books.

It's good to hear momentum is finally turning out way. Crisis = opportunity, hopefully finally reforming our monetary system.

Ron Paul on Young Turks

This is a cut/paste from the 1st of two emails recd today from different libertarian and Ron Paul groups. What a crock... and to think Missouri was ranked fairly high on the personal freedom index score (next post).

Rain hard on these A33holes!
---------------
Paul, Barr and Baldwin supporters on "list" in Missouri

Posted: 12 Mar 2009 02:59 PM PDT
In response to this: http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?t=183388

This has been confirmed via telephone by Officer Hotz who spoke with Catherine Bleish and confirmed they "stand by everything the documents say" and that "militias are a threat as MO officers have been killed by militia members"

To help MO citizens develop a strategic plan of action in response to this - please call in immediately following the Liberty Restoration Hour (www.restoretherepublicradio.com) at 8pm central to help with plans. Make this go vira, please.

Conference Dial-in Number: (641) 715-3625

Participant Access Code: 999525#


peace, love and liberty,
Catherine Bleish

Press Release

For Immediate Release

Liberty Restoration Project responds to Document released by Mo. Division of Drug and Crime Control/ Missouri Information Analysis Center
( Read more )

IMAGINE
by Ron Paul
Texas Straight Talk
Mon, Mar 9th, 2009 12:00:00 am

Original Source: Texas Straight Talk

Imagine for a moment that somewhere in the middle of Texas there was a large foreign military base, say Chinese or Russian. Imagine that thousands of armed foreign troops were constantly patrolling American streets in military vehicles. Imagine they were here under the auspices of "keeping us safe" or "promoting democracy" or "protecting their strategic interests."

Imagine that they operated outside of US law, and that the Constitution did not apply to them. Imagine that every now and then they made mistakes or acted on bad information and accidentally killed or terrorized innocent Americans, including women and children, most of the time with little to no repercussions or consequences. Imagine that they set up check points on our soil and routinely searched and ransacked entire neighborhoods of homes. Imagine if Americans were fearful of these foreign troops, and overwhelmingly thought America would be better off without their presence.

Imagine if some Americans were so angry about them being in Texas that they actually joined together to fight them off, in defense of our soil and sovereignty, because leadership in government refused or were unable to do so. Imagine that those Americans were labeled terrorists or insurgents for their defensive actions, and routinely killed, or captured and tortured by the foreign troops on our land. Imagine that the occupiers’ attitude was that if they just killed enough Americans, the resistance would stop, but instead, for every American killed, ten more would take up arms against them, resulting in perpetual bloodshed. Imagine if most of the citizens of the foreign land also wanted these troops to return home. Imagine if they elected a leader who promised to bring them home and put an end to this horror.

Imagine if that leader changed his mind once he took office.

The reality is that our military presence on foreign soil is as offensive to the people that live there as armed Chinese troops would be if they were stationed in Texas. We would not stand for it here, but we have had a globe straddling empire and a very intrusive foreign policy for decades that incites a lot of hatred and resentment towards us.

According to our own CIA, our meddling in the Middle East was the prime motivation for the horrific attacks on 9/11. But instead of re-evaluating our foreign policy, we have simply escalated it. We had a right to go after those responsible for 9/11, to be sure, but why do so many Americans feel as if we have a right to a military presence in some 160 countries when we wouldn’t stand for even one foreign base on our soil, for any reason? These are not embassies, mind you, these are military installations. The new administration is not materially changing anything about this. Shuffling troops around and playing with semantics does not accomplish the goals of the American people, who simply want our men and women to come home. 50,000 troops left behind in Iraq is not conducive to peace any more than 50,000 Russian soldiers would be in the United States.

Shutting down military bases and ceasing to deal with other nations with threats and violence is not isolationism. It is the opposite. Opening ourselves up to friendship, honest trade and diplomacy is the foreign policy of peace and prosperity. It is the only foreign policy that will not bankrupt us in short order, as our current actions most definitely will. I share the disappointment of the American people in the foreign policy rhetoric coming from the administration. The sad thing is, our foreign policy WILL change eventually, as Rome’s did, when all budgetary and monetary tricks to fund it are exhausted.

Ticker says 9.30 minutes. Not a bad watch. (embedded below)

And below, his latest quick read (1 page) "Stop Intervening in the Economy" statement read before the House Financial Services Committee, Humphrey Hawkins Hearing, February 25, 2008

http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul510.html

Ducktales and the federal reserve. Bailout!

Want to Understand the Crisis? Then Read This Book

by Ron Paul


This is Congressman Paul’s foreword to Thomas Woods’ new book, Meltdown: A Free-Market Look at Why the Stock Market Collapsed, the Economy Tanked, and Government Bailouts Will Make Things Worse, a New York Times bestseller as of March 1.

Many Americans are looking to the new administration to solve our economic problems. Unfortunately, that is probably a vain hope. Although we were promised "change," we are likely to get a continuation of the same superficial economic fixes that have damaged so many economies in the past, and that will only delay the return of prosperity.

These fixes are based on the false belief that the free-market economy has failed. But it is not the market that has failed. It is intervention into the market that has failed. The Federal Reserve and its manipulation of money and interest rates have failed. None of this can be blamed on the free market, but that isn’t stopping newspaper columnists from doing so anyway.
( Read more )