Liberty Maven

D o w n s i z e r – D i s p a t c h

That’s just a little over $30,000 per year.

Clearly the banking lobby is satisfied with Mr. Watt’s performance.

Last Friday, Rep. Ron Paul reported that our Federal Reserve Transparency Act (HR 1207) was “gutted” in Rep. Watt’s subcommittee.

In defense of Rep. Watt, however, it’s not totally his fault. His district is the most obviously gerrymandered in North Carolina, following I-85 like a snake from Charlotte to Winston Salem. It is overwhelmingly Democratic, and his re-election has never been seriously challenged. Why should he represent the people when he is electorally invincible?

While we may not be able to hold Rep. Watt accountable, we can fight back. His attempt to eviscerate HR 1207 must be approved by the full Financial Services committee.

We can block that approval, and restore the original bill. It is especially important that each member of the Financial Services committee hear from their constituents the clear message that Rep. Watt’s proposed changes are unacceptable. And you must act now because . . .

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D o w n s i z e r – D i s p a t c h

The latest example is the 1,900 page healthcare monstrosity the House leadership unveiled last week. They want a vote on it this week!

I believe they’re overreaching, and helping to build our movement.

Please send Congress a letter demanding that they introduce and pass DownsizeDC.org’s Read the Bills Act.

This is what I wrote in my personal comments . . .

Congress passed the Patriot renewal bill in 2006, only to discover later that someone had inserted a provision allowing the President to appoint U.S. Attorneys without Senate approval. This year, Congress passed the stimulus bill with the AIG bonuses.

Nearly everyone in Congress was shocked when they learned what they had passed. This happened because Congress didn’t read these bills before they voted on them. This is irresponsible.

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D o w n s i z e r – D i s p a t c h

“The State is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else.” — Frederic Bastiat, French economist of the 19th Century

“How did I go bankrupt? Two ways. Slowly, and then all of a sudden.” — paraphrased from “The Sun Also Rises” by Ernest Hemingway

“May you live in interesting times.” — a proverbial Chinese curse

• Retained, and in some cases expanded, all the Bush-era policies — the wars, the PATRIOT Act, warrantless spying, REAL ID, imprisonment without due process, extraordinary rendition, etc.
• Begun to extend the already existing foundations for a future socialist state with things like direct government ownership of businesses, the health care bill, cap and trade, and a host of other measures big and small

Put the Bush and Obama policies together, sprinkle in a couple more terrorist attacks, and one or two more state-caused financial calamities, and you have a recipe for . . .

• The destruction of American liberty
• The blossoming of a Leviathan State

Read the signs . . .

We are living through a Statist revolution.

Statism is a mindset that prefers coercion to cooperation. Statists love the State because they are blind to its fundamental nature . . .

• The State is a monopoly that you cannot easily fire, replace, or even control
• Everything the State does relies on coercion

If you decide that . . . Read More »

D o w n s i z e r – D i s p a t c h

We’re pleased to welcome BJ Lawson to the pages of the Downsizer-Dispatch as a Commentator.

Here’s BJ’s first call to action . . .

Your success promoting the Audit the Fed bills has scared the banking cartel into offering a fake alternative, the so-called Federal Reserve Accountability Act (S 1803).

Please send Congress a letter opposing S 1803, and favoring the real Audit the Fed bill, S 604.

You can use my letter to Congress as a guide to your own . . .

I want my Senators to oppose S 1803, and support S 604 instead. I also want my House Rep. to reject any attempt to foster a bill similar to S 1803 in that chamber.

S 604 would perform a real audit of the Federal Reserve, but S 1803, the so-called Federal Reserve Accountability Act, would actually help the Fed avoid accountability! It would . . .

* Severely limit the scope of any audit,
* Set unreasonable time-frames that will delay or postpone certain audits indefinitely,
* Permit some audits to be performed only one year after a program has been terminated.

Give me a break!

It should be perfectly obvious to any reasonable person that active Federal Reserve programs need the most accountability. And what about programs that are never terminated? Focusing audits on terminated programs is like closing the proverbial barn door after the cow is gone, while giving on-going programs a permanent pass.

Frankly, it seems to me that S 1803 is a fraud designed to preserve the status quo while fooling some Americans into thinking you’ve enacted a real reform. Where did this idea come from anyway? The banking lobby?

You politicians constantly claim that citizens who aren’t doing anything wrong have nothing to fear from their government. Well, if the Federal Reserve isn’t doing anything wrong then it too has nothing to fear. S 1803 actually enhances my suspicion that the Federal Reserve is probably doing lots of bad things!

The cure for this is transparency.

The self-serving political claim that Federal Reserve transparency would disrupt the financial markets is simply wrong. Financial markets require honesty and transparency for the efficient allocation of capital, and for systemic stability. The lack of transparency for Federal Reserve actions is actually the source of market disruption, and creates constant chaos in our international financial relationships.

Please audit the Fed! And make sure it’s a real audit, not a fake one.

Believe me, I’m paying close attention to how you represent me.

END OF SAMPLE LETTER

You can send your letter to Congress using the DownsizeDC.org Educate the Powerful System.

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D o w n s i z e r – D i s p a t c h

D o w n s i z e r – D i s p a t c h

However, the bill also included a provision to cover-up the prisoner abuse crime we told you about last week.

This cover-up provision couldn’t have passed on its own merits. That’s why the Congressional leadership attached it to the completely unrelated DHS funding bill.

We must force Congress to stop combining unrelated legislation into one bill. Protest what they did with the cover-up measure and tell your representatives to introduce and pass DownsizeDC.org’s One Subject At A Time Act (OSTA).

Here’s what I wrote in my personal comments . . .

The Homeland Security Appropriations Act (H.R. 2892) is a perfect example of why we need OSTA. The prisoner abuse cover-up law it contained had absolutely nothing to do with the funding or activities of the DHS (Department of Homeland Security).

Those opposed to the cover-up measure had an ethical responsibility to oppose the bill as a whole. There was no urgency to pass this bill. Congress could have funded the DHS at current levels with a continuing resolution. That’s why I think a vote for H.R. 2892 was really a vote for the prisoner abuse cover-up.

Those who voted for this bill failed in their duty to uphold the law. Those who failed to protest the inclusion of the cover-up bill in unrelated legislation are likewise guilty. But it gets worse . . .

Jameel Jaffer notes that this law also paves the way for my government to hide nearly everything related to military activities during the Bush years.

I also believe this cover-up will put our troops in greater peril than if the photographic evidence of prisoner abuse was revealed. America’s enemies will say that . . .

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D o w n s i z e r – D i s p a t c h

Our own James Wilson has analyzed this issue on our blog.

The good news is that President Obama isn’t going to Copenhagen to sign a treaty, but he may sign a proposal that could lead to a treaty at a later date. The Copenhagen proposal is designed to create an international scheme to control carbon emissions (and the entire world economy in the bargain).

President Obama wants to have the “cap and trade” (cap and tax) bill passed before he goes to Copenhagen.

Our goal should be to send him to Denmark empty-handed.

Cap and trade should be defeated because . . .

• It hasn’t worked in Europe
• It probably isn’t the best way to control carbon emissions, assuming you believe that’s important
• The climate models that supposedly justify cap and trade have been consistently wrong

Cap and trade needs 60 votes to come to the floor in the Senate. If we can stop that from happening now then there’s no way that 67 Senators will come together later to ratify a treaty for the same purpose, especially if that treaty cedes American sovereignty to international organizations.

We must defeat cap and trade. We must send Obama to Denmark empty-handed.

Please send Congress a letter opposing cap and trade.

You can use my letter to Congress as a guide . . .

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D o w n s i z e r – D i s p a t c h

Please send Congress a letter objecting to any further funding for REAL ID.

You can copy what I said in my letter to Congress . . .

I’m upset that Congress just appropriated $60 million for the REAL ID national identification scheme. I’ve asked you repeatedly to repeal REAL ID, and replace it with nothing. I’m repeating my request today.

I do not want a centralized national ID system. It lays the foundation for a police state, and will do little or nothing to improve security. Instead, it will subject me to increased risk of identity theft, and eventually entangle me in new Congressional schemes to do things like control my health care decisions.

I also object because the REAL ID Act was passed under false pretenses. It was rejected three times by the U.S. Senate, and was only enacted because it was added to a larger bill containing funding for disaster relief and Iraq. REAL ID never could have passed on its own merits, but now that we have it, we can’t seem to get rid of it. But you, as my representative, can do something about this . . .

Please introduce legislation to repeal REAL ID and replace it with nothing. I’m paying close attention to how you represent me.

END OF SAMPLE LETTER

You can send your letter to Congress here.

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D o w n s i z e r – D i s p a t c h

Even so, we must keep asking such questions. The more we ask, the more nervous Congress will become. Eventually, they will be forced to either answer our questions or admit publicly that they don’t care what the Constitution says.

We believe Congress’s refusal to answer our questions underscores the need for the Enumerated Powers Act (EPA). We urge you to demand that Congress pass this bill.

Since we last resported on the EPA in September, the House has increased the number of co-sponsors from 48 to 52, and the Senate increased its co-sponsor list from 21 to 22.

You can find House co-sponsors of the EPA here.

And co-sponsors of the Senate version are here.

If any of your House or Senate representatives has co-sponsored the bill, send them your congratulations and urge those who haven’t to do so.

In my personal comments, I also asked more questions . . .

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D o w n s i z e r – D i s p a t c h

Send Congress another letter telling them to break the Federal Reserve’s monopoly control over your money.

My sample letter to Congress gives you three new facts you can use for this purpose . . .

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