Liberty Maven

Here at Liberty Maven we have posted more than a dozen articles on the ridiculous fiasco that is the Real ID Act.  It is wrong on so many levels (which have been discussed previously, so I won’t rehash those now).  Eleven states have refused to comply.

Now that Obama has taken the throne, they seem to be backing off REAL ID.  Sort of.  The results aren’t pleasing.  Instead of having our Constitutional Lawyer President denounce the clear illegality of REAL ID, the whole mess is simply going to be renamed in typical government style, with most of the heinous unconstitutional provisions kept intact.

Terrific.

They’re attempting to soften it somewhat, but for me the only true solution is to trash the whole kit and caboodle.  The Washington Post reports:

“The department’s goal is to fix, not repeal” Real ID, allowing all jurisdictions to comply by year’s end, said a DHS official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity before a formal announcement.

“If the law cannot be implemented, it is hard to claim that it increases security,” said David Quam, lobbyist for the NGA.

The new plan keeps elements of Real ID, such as requiring a digital photograph, signature and machine-readable features such as a bar code. States also will still need to verify applicants’ identities and legal status by checking federal immigration, Social Security and State Department databases.

But it eliminates demands for new databases — linked through a national data hub — that would allow all states to store and cross-check such information, and a requirement that motor vehicle departments verify birth certificates with originating agencies, a bid to fight identity theft.

Instead, it adds stronger privacy controls and limits such development to a pilot program in Mississippi. DHS would have nine months to write new regulations, and states would have five years to reissue all licenses, with completion expected in 2016.

Supporters saw a slimmer measure as better than nothing. But critics said the changes gut the law, weakening tools to fight fraud and learn whether bad drivers, drug runners or counterfeiters have licenses in more than one state.

God help us.

D o w n s i z e r – D i s p a t c h

Quote of the Day: “We have the greatest opportunity the world has ever seen, as long as we remain honest — which will be as long as we can keep the attention of our people alive. If they once become inattentive to public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, judges and governors would all become wolves.” – Thomas Jefferson

* The House bill now has 224 cosponsors
* And the Senate bill has its first cosponsor, Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina

Your pressure is working. In fact, the Federal Reserve Board has become so worried about this legislation that they’ve actually hired a lobbyist to fight it!

Let’s keep pushing…

First, find out if your House Rep. needs to be thanked for being a cosponsor, or encouraged to become one.

* Go here http://thomas.loc.gov/
* Click on the radio button for “bill number”
* Type in HR 1207
* Look for the link for cosponsors, and click on it
* See if your House Rep is listed

Then go to DownsizeDC.org’s “Audit the Fed” campaign to send a message to your Rep. and your two Senators.

If your Rep. is a cosponsor, thank him or her. If not, encourage him or her to become one, and tell your two Senators to co-sponsor S. 604.

Use your personal comments to object to the fact that…  Read More »

Ron Paul appeared on CNN yesterday morning to discuss reforming health care on American Morning. The host introduces Paul by saying that he has a “unique perspective”. Perhaps if Ron Paul’s perspective wasn’t so unique we’d be in a much better place.

Paul agrees that health care needs reform, but socialized medicine is the wrong way to go. He’d like (as you can probably guess) to free up the market for health care in order to lower costs and return health decisions to the doctor and patient rather than a third party insurance company.

Watch below for the doctor’s prescription for health care.

Most of the public is still unaware of that the gold price is currently suppressed by governments and central banks in collusion with bullion dealers. Even fewer realize that suppression of the price of gold has plenty of historical precedence. The following is the story of the London Gold Pool.

by Jake Towne, the Champion of the Constitution
Originally published on Sunday, June 14, 2009 at http://www.nolanchart.com/article6535.html

“When gold speaks, all tongues are silent.” – Italian proverb

This article will briefly review the history and aftermath of the infamous London Gold Pool. For those unfamiliar with monetary history, let me quickly establish the events framing the London Gold Pool.

In 1933, the FED’s monetary inflation caused the Great Depression which was also America’s first bankruptcy. FDR plundered the American people’s gold and one month later outlawed the private possession of gold, an illegal act that existed until 1975. From 1933 onwards, America was on a “gold bullion standard.” A “gold bullion standard” exists when gold coins are not minted and owned by the people, but large international transactions with foreigners are handled in gold bar. However, the FED, America’s central bank, continued inflating the monetary supply which debases the currency and likewise increases the foreigner’s redemption of gold.  (emblem)

Read More »

The way I see it, there are only two ways our nation will see real political change:

1. complete economic collapse, or
2. revolution

It’s clear that the status quo will be protected at all costs, so #1 is inevitable unless #2 occurs first.  Americans need to wake up to current political and economic reality, and then rise together to demand reform.  Real reform, that is, which means radical abolition of major parts of our government, not symbolic do-nothing bills with the word “reform” in the title.

As Karl Denninger pointed out in today’s Market Ticker, Iran recently had an election, the results of which were pretty obviously rigged, and as a result a large percentage of their population has taken to the streets in protest.

…2 million people, out of 70 million population (roughly), or one in thirty-five Iranians in the entire nation who took to the streets to demand justice in a simple vote.

More strikingly, Tehran has a population of roughly 12 million; this means that one in six citizens of the city are standing in that crowd.

This, despite the fact that the government there has been shooting people, has arrested the opposition party and issued an order to burn the ballots so there can be no recount.

This, despite the fact that the Iranian population does not enjoy a Second Amendment, and thus is forced to fight a rogue government with makeshift molotov cocktails, rocks and clubs, should that rogue government choose to shoot.

And this was about an election.  A President.  One man.

Meanwhile, the United States is experiencing national fraud in a large number of areas.  Nearly every Congressman violates his Oath of Office to uphold, protect and defend the Constitution on a daily basis.  The President quickly signs unconstitutional laws, while seeking more and more power for the Executive branch.  Our 401Ks are going down the pump.  The Federal Reserve has debased our currency to 4% of its original value.  Our civil liberties are disappearing quickly.  Private businesses are being nationalized at an alarming rate.  Fascism is creeping.

Where’s the outrage?  Where are the riots?  Where is the demand for change?  Sure, you hear squawks from the political fringe (such as this web site), but the vast majority of Americans need to wake up and demand real change.

As Denninger put it, “The Iranians take to the streets; we take to our couches and have another beer. Grow a pair of balls America.“

D o w n s i z e r – D i s p a t c h

Quote of the Day: “Those who predict price inflation believe that the money multiplier  will turn upward again. They just don’t know when. Those who predict price deflation believe that the money multiplier will not turn upward again… I am in the inflationist camp. But until I see a sustained reversal of the money multiplier, I will continue to predict relatively stable consumer prices.” - Gary North

It’s the speed at which dollar bills are spent — change hands.

They’re moving slow. That has a lot people bandying around the word, “deflation.”

It doesn’t make sense. As we’ve reported on several occasions, including the June 5th Downsizer-Dispatch, the Federal Reserve Bank (the FED) is counterfeiting at record levels — doubling the entire money supply in less than twelve months.

That’s inflation. So why aren’t prices exploding — increasing by 10%, 20%, 50%, or more?

The answer is found in velocity. All that new money just isn’t moving.

* You, the consumer, aren’t spending as much. Most of you are paying off your debts and reducing your spending — probably because of a loss of overtime, if not the threat or the actual loss of a job.

* And business owners aren’t borrowing as much, neither are banks as prone to lend. Both are waiting, forgoing growth and profits in favor of security.

The concept of velocity is a reminder of two very important things…

1. The federal government, the Federal Reserve, the media, whatever — all may be powerful, but you have more control than you may realize. The revolutionary act of paying off your debts, and of simply reducing your borrowing, dis-empowers the Money Monsters and their Infamous Counterfeiting Machine.

2. The key to the central banker’s power is their monopoly control of what we use for currency. If they couldn’t “print” more money (a euphemistic “catch-all” for their money creation methods), they would have much more limited ability to bailout and stimulate. Once we grasp that, we can craft the best strategy to pursue.

At Downsize DC we believe that in every situation there is a lever. Archimedes suggested that if he had a lever long enough, and a place to stand, he could move the entire Earth.

Consistent with that principle… Read More »

If you like Ron Paul but yearn for a younger Constitution-loving candidate, no better choice comes to mind than B.J. Lawson.  We at Liberty Maven were singing his praises before he handily won the inaugural Liberty Straw Poll back on September 17th by an overwhelming margin (better than 4 to 1 over the runner-up).

We rated Lawson on the Paul-O-Meter (in which we compared his policies and voting record to those of Ron Paul) and weren’t too surprised that he scored a 91 out of a possible 99 points (thus cementing his “Ron Paul Jr.” nickname).

Ron Paul himself has even campaigned for him and remarked on Lawson’s nickname by saying:

A lot of folks have begun calling B.J. Lawson the next Ron Paul. The comparison is very flattering. . . for me.

In the election BJ garnered 37% of the vote, which is quite a feat considering his district (4th) in North Carolina is strongly Democratic.

And according to the local press, BJ Lawson is planning to give it another shot.  He’ll be opposing Rep. David Price next fall.  Expect an announcement on his web site (www.lawsonforcongress.com) some time next week.

In the meantime, for more information, take a look at our interviews with BJ last year: Part 1 |Part 2 and then get ready for another money bomb.

D o w n s i z e r – D i s p a t c h

Quote of the Day: “One time in the House of Representatives told me a story about a proposition that a teacher put to a boy. He said, ‘Johnny, a cat fell in a well 100 feet deep. Suppose that cat climbed up 1 foot and then fell back 2 feet. How long would it take the cat to get out of the well?’ Johnny worked assiduously with his slate and slate pencil for quite a while, and then when the teacher came down and said, ‘How are you getting along?’ Johnny said, ‘Teacher, if you give me another slate and a couple of slate pencils, I am pretty sure that in the next 30 minutes I can land that cat in hell.’ if some people get any cheer out of a $328 billion debt ceiling, I do not find much to cheer about concerning it.” — Senator Everett Dirksen, Congressional Record, June 16, 1965

“Warnings have been issued from the Treasury that the Congressionally mandated debt ceiling of $12.1 TRILLION will most likely be breached in the second half of this year.”

This pit of borrowing doesn’t even account for the deepening currency well we reported in last Friday’s Dispatch.

The politicians are borrowing and the FED is printing at staggering rates. As their shovels continue to ominously clang and clash, the news gets worse. Again, from The Privateer…

“The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) list of troubled American banks has risen in the past three months from 1,568 banks with about $2.3 TRILLION in assets to US 1,816 banks with some $4.4 TRILLION in assets. Just who guarantees the FDIC? The US Treasury of course.”

To be more specific, you the taxpayer will dig out all of those banks.

And if past history is a guide, that FDIC list is conservative to a fault. The real number of “troubled” banks is almost certainly higher. It seems the FDIC, like most government regulatory agencies, is usually the last to know there’s a problem.

That’s not all. Relying on data from the US Federal Reserve and Congressional Budget Office (CBO), The Privateer reports…

There’s a hodge-podge of guarantees totaling $12.9 TRILLION, with…

* $8.2 TRILLION from the Fed
* $2.7 TRILLION from the US Treasury
* $2.0 TRILLION from the FDIC

On top of that, the US government has…

* Made asset purchases of $2.3 TRILLION
* Guaranteed $7.3 TRILLION worth of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Ginnie Mae debts
* Made other guarantees of $6.6 TRILLION to the US banking system.

“The sum total of all this ‘Stimulus’ is $29.1 TRILLION!” concludes The Privateer.

It would be fair to point out that not all that money has actually been spent yet. Things would have to go wrong in order to trigger those guarantees.

So we must turn to history to see if we’re doomed to the ditch. Were the bailouts an effective strategy or a sink-hole?

Read More »

It’s Friday which means it’s time for another installment of “quick hits”…

The big news this week for liberty-seekers is that Ron Paul’s bill to audit the Federal Reserve has surpassed 218 cosponsors giving it majority support in the House of Representatives. The chances in the Senate are much more in question. Bernie Sanders introduced the same legislation in the Senate. It received its first cosponsor yesterday when the brave Jim DeMint signed on to the bill. There is an effort underway to promote calling each Senator of the Banking committee in an attempt to persuade them to cosponsor S.604. The current target is Robert Bennet (R-UT). More information from Shelly Roche at BreakTheMatrix.com here.

Other news this week…

Read More »

Ron Paul’s red hot bill, HR 1207 to audit the Federal Reserve now has 222 cosponsors. The 218th, according to a press release by Paul, was Dennis Kucinich.

Washington, D.C. – Congressman Ron Paul’s Federal Reserve Transparency Act, HR 1207, has reached and surpassed the level of 218 cosponsors in the House of Representatives, which means it is now cosponsored by a majority of the members.

The 218th cosponsor was Dennis Kucinich (OH-10), and the bill has since received its 222nd cosponsor.

“The tremendous grass-roots and bipartisan support in Congress for HR 1207 is an indicator of how mainstream America is fed up with Fed secrecy,” said Congressman Paul. “I look forward to this issue receiving greater public exposure.”

Hearings on Federal Reserve transparency are expected within the next month, as part of the Financial Services Committee’s series of hearings on regulatory reform.

This is simply wonderful news, but now it becomes time to hammer on our Senators to cosponsor S604 which is HR1207′s Senate counterpart introduced by Bernie Sanders. The effort faces a stiffer battle in the Senate where Federal Reserve darlings sit on the Banking committee.

S604 currently has no cosponsors. We need a brave Senator to be the first. Jim DeMint could be that brave man. Drop him a line on Twitter: @JimDeMint and contact his office requesting he be the first brave cosponsor of S604.

UPDATE: Great News! Jim DeMint has stated (via his Twitter account) he has cosponsored S.604 in the Senate!

To Thank Jim DeMint go to his web site contact page here.