Author: Campaign For Liberty Blog

By kconstantine

It is my great honor to report that the Utah Republican Party has unanimously passed a resolution in support of HR1207 and S604!  Earlier last year, the Salt Lake County Republican Party passed a similar resolution with only 1 Nay vote.

Utah’s entire delgation, save 1 (Democratic Representative Jim Matheson), have signed on as co-sponosres to either the House or Senate version of the bill and it is receiving tremendous support from Utah State Legislators.

The text of the resolution:

RESOLUTION OF THE UTAH REPUBLICAN PARTY STATE CENTRAL COMMITTEE
IN SUPPORT OF HR 1207 (THE FEDERAL RESERVE TRANSPARENCY ACT OF 2009) AND ITS COMPANION BILL, S 604 (THE FEDERAL RESERVE SUNSHINE ACT OF 2009)

WHEREAS, we, as Members and Representatives of the Utah Republican Party applaud transparency and accountability in government and reject government secrecy involving monetary policy that impacts the entire economy; and

WHEREAS, serious discussions of proposals to oversee and audit the Federal Reserve are long overdue; and

WHEREAS, the Federal Reserve can enter into agreements with foreign governments and foreign central banks and the United States Congress is prohibited from overseeing these agreements; and

WHEREAS, we, as Members and Representatives of the Utah Republican Party, believe agreements made by the Federal Reserve with foreign powers and foreign banking institutions should be subject to Congressional oversight; and

WHEREAS, the United States Constitution, gives the United States Congress the authority to coin Money and regulate the value thereof; and

WHEREAS, auditing the Federal Reserve will allow Congress to assert its constitutional authority over monetary policy and help to protect the value of the United States dollar;

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that we, the Members of the Utah Republican Party State Central Committee, in defense of the United States Constitution, STRONGLY URGE the members of the 111th United States Congress to support the Federal Reserve Transparency Act of 2009 and its companion bill, the Federal Reserve Sunshine Act of 2009.

Submitted by: Kurtis Constantine, Salt Lake County Secretary.

Co-Submitted by: Thomas Wright, Salt Lake County Chairman; Rick Votaw, Salt Lake County Vice Chairman; Robert Wright, Salt Lake County Treasurer.

A similar Resolution was passed by the Salt Lake County Executive Committee with unanimous consent and recommended to the Salt Lake County Central Committee on August 13, 2009.
A similar Resolution was passed by the Salt Lake County Central Committee (with only one dissenting vote) and recommended to the Utah State Central Committee on September 17, 2009.

By Adam de Angeli

When Mike Stark for Firedoglake asks Sen. Carl Levin whether he is concerned that Bernanke isn’t focusing enough on maintaining maximum employment, the Senator responded, “That’s not been one of the questions I’ve focused on. I’ve focused on other issues.”

Straight from the horse’s mouth: “Who cares whether Bernanke’s doing his job or unemployment is out of control.”

Editor’s note: Levin went on to vote for both cloture and final confirmation.

By Matt Hawes

The Senate is poised to vote on Ben Bernanke’s renomination today, and we still have an excellent chance to prevent it from going through and to urge a vote on S. 604 before Bernanke or any other chairman is confirmed.

Keep the calls, emails, and faxes going!

And be sure to check out C4L President John Tate’s new op-ed on Tucker Carlson’s Daily Caller: “Audit the Fed, Bernanke confirmation can wait.”

When Ron Paul reintroduced his bill in February 2009 to audit the Federal Reserve, conventional wisdom predicted that the legislation would once again fail to gain any traction.

But conventional wisdom also failed to predict the economic crisis.

In less than a year since its introduction, H.R. 1207, which Campaign for Liberty refers to as simply the “Audit the Fed Bill,” has gained over 300 co-sponsors in the House of Representatives, and its companion bill, S. 604, has received the support of more than one-third of the Senate. A slightly modified version of H.R. 1207 even passed the House as an amendment to Barney Frank’s financial regulatory reform bill….

Read the rest.

Update: Although Bernanke cleared cloture (77-23) and the final vote for confirmation (70-30), the fact that we just witnessed a massive public debate over nominating a Fed chairman is a very big victory.  Fed chairmen routinely sail through.  The attention isn’t completely off the Fed, either.  They’ve never faced as much criticism as they have over the past year, and it’s up to us to keep the pressure on.

By Matt Hawes

A reporter from Examiner.com covered Dr. Paul’s talk last night at Loyola University on “The Case Against the Fed.”

BALTIMORE, Md. – While President Obama was giving the State of the Union address to Congress Wednesday night, one Congressman was absent giving a speech of his own at Loyola University: Ron Paul (R-Tex.).

“We scheduled ours before the other guy scheduled his speech,” Paul remarked to a laughing audience. “So I had to cancel… but I don’t feel like I’ll be missing a whole lot.”…

Read the rest.

By Matt Holdridge

This via CampusReform.org and the Indiana Standard, a student paper that is “dedicated to the free exchange of ideas and the proliferation of conservative and libertarian thought…”. 

I don’t believe his(sic) has sufficient academic credibility, on the basis of some discussion with Economics professors.”

That came from a person actively involved with Indiana University’s guest lecture program following a campus organization’s request to invite a speaker to the University. The person lacking the “sufficient academic credibility” is a man named Thomas Woods whose academic pedigree features undergraduate study at Harvard and doctoral completion at Columbia. Granted, Dr. Thomas Woods is not a professor at any university and fancy Ivy League degrees hardly suffice as academic credentials to guest lecture at a top-tier University such as Indiana, but why would the Indiana University Department of Economics professors and the Indiana University Union Board Lectures Committee refuse to host a two-time New York Times bestselling author and Mises Institute Senior Scholar?

You can read the rest of the article here.

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Unlike Indiana University, Campaign for Liberty is sponsoring Tom’s lecture “When All Else Fails: Thomas Jefferson, Nullification & State Resistence to Federal Tyranny” on February 18 at CPAC in Washington, DC.

Our discounted tickets to CPAC are going extremely fast, so click here to reserve your space!

By Walter Scott Hudson

Skimming the State of the Union address from last night, these tidbits stood out:

This recession has also compounded the burdens that America’s families have been dealing with for decades, the burden of working harder and longer for less, of being unable to save enough to retire or help kids with college.

…

For these Americans and so many others, change has not come fast enough. Some are frustrated; some are angry. They don’t understand why it seems like bad behavior on Wall Street is rewarded, but hard work on Main Street isn’t, or why Washington has been unable or unwilling to solve any of our problems.

Actually, many people are angry because they do understand why Wall Street gets bailed out while Main Street is bowled over. Many people are angry because they do understand why they work harder and longer for less. Many people have woken up to the hidden tax of inflation perpetuated by the Federal Reserve System and enabled by Congress. Many people are wise to the good cop / bad cop routine bankers and politicians have played with the purchasing power of their dollar. Many people get that printing fiat currency ad infinitum and racking up the national debt is unsustainable and tantamount to a regressive tax against the poor and middle class. Many people understand, as President Ronald Reagan famously said, “Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem.”

Tomorrow, I’ll visit Tampa, Florida, where workers will soon break ground on a new high-speed railroad funded by the Recovery Act. There are projects like that all across this country that will create jobs and help move our nation’s goods, services and information.

Fortunately, many people understand such job-creation is illusory. Who is left to cover the cost of maintenance once these projects are complete? Where will these jobs go after completion? By touting this “accomplishment,” President Obama counts on people not differentiating production from subsidization and not understanding the fact they pay for the Recovery Act with the reduced purchasing power of their dollar.

[Healthcare] is a complex issue. And the longer it was debated, the more skeptical people became. I take my share of the blame for not explaining it more clearly to the American people. And I know that with all the lobbying and horse-trading, this process left most Americans wondering, “What’s in it for me?”

This is an amazingly arrogant sentiment. Obama here presumes the only reason people are skeptical of his proposed health care reform is because they do not understand it. Aside from demeaning the intellectual capacity of the electorate, Obama’s presumption precludes the possibility people do understand his proposed reform and simply disagree with it on principle. Equally disturbing is his implication Americans only care “what’s in it for them,” precluding the possibility people are concerned how expanding their own entitlement might result in effects beyond today and themselves. Does it not stand to reason, if Americans were truly fixated on narrow self interest, they would overwhelmingly support their own entitlement? Does it not stand to reason opposition to such entitlement reflects concern over long-term sustainability?

Put another way, Obama’s sentiment might read, “I know it’s hard for you folks to comprehend, but I’m trying to take care of you.” Such an attitude is unbecoming a public servant. The burden is not on President Obama to explain his plan, and on We the People to listen, but on him to listen to us.

Originally posted at Fightin Words.

By Matt Hawes

Yahoo is running an AP piece today that analyzes several of the president’s statements and checks them against what has actually happened or is projected to happen.  The results aren’t pretty.

Read the article here.

By minnesotachris

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3KASQhrQtA

By AeroNumen

Saw this today, check it out! Great beat, great message!

By minnesotachris

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lsp3T0wcJdE

By Anthony Gregory

Not in the constitutionalist sense, obviously, but few people are. Indeed, the respect for America First, limited government, the rule of law and free enterprise that people sometimes use to define conservatism has been out of favor for a long time. Ron Paul is rarely described as one himself anymore.

As Lew Rockwell pointed out at the wonderful Campaign for Liberty rally in Minneapolis:

I for one no longer believe that Bush has betrayed conservatives. In fact, he has fulfilled conservatism, by completing the redefinition of the term that began many decades ago with Bill Buckley and National Review. Think of it realistically. What does conservatism today stand for? It stands for war. It stands for power. It stands for spying, jailing without trial, torture, counterfeiting without limit, and lying from morning to night.

There comes a time in the life of every believer in freedom when he must declare, without any hesitation, to have no attachment to the idea of conservatism.

This might seem over the top to some folks. There are good people who call themselves conservatives, including some great friends of C4L. But consider: Conservatism for hundreds of years referred to supporters of the Old Order—militarism, royalty, statism, and so forth. It is tyranny and despotism that are old, classic, ancient and traditional. Liberty is a relatively new development. Even in America, going back to the founding we see many liberties better respected, yet the existence of slavery, theocratic law and other unspeakably gross assaults on individual freedom rendered that era so far from perfect that it is worth looking forward, rather than backward, in considering our political philosophy and agenda.

There is a sense in which modern conservatism—or, as some call it in general terms, neoconservatism—has simply reverted back to what it was before World War II: an embrace of the state, especially the warfare state, and collectivism on issues of personal conscience, with an emphasis on corporatism rather than the radical program of liberated markets.

The Progressive Movement of the early 20th century was also, in a significant sense, a strain of conservatism. They sought to use the power of the state to conserve market share for big businesses, conserve respect in the Lincolnian nation-state, and the like. Lincoln too was a form of conservative.

And so is Obama. Consider what he’s done. He has entrenched the Bush foreign policy and detention policy into the bipartisan fabric of American political life. He has served to prop up Wall Street, keep housing prices high, maintain the bureuacracy, and shore up every dead political institution created in 20th century  America. He has offered a much-delayed “freeze” on spending—except for on Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and the military, which is akin to the campaign promises we often hear from self-proclaimed conservatives. He is trying his best to keep the discredited modern American system of statism, corporate welfarism and empire from collapsing under its own weight.

Again, there is another definition of conservative that means, rather, support for liberty, small government and constitutional law. There is also a meaning of liberal that goes back centuries, and has a venerable tradition from the Levellers and Founding Fathers to the Austrian economists and today’s libertarians that is also perhaps worth salvaging. But if liberalism has been coopted in the last century, conservatism was always a flawed and situational political program at best. So I say, insofar as we can credibly call Obama a liberal, we can just as easily, maybe more easily, call him a conservative. And what better way to rile his constituents than to point out the bitter truth?

Update: The parts of the welfare state Obama vows his “spending freeze” won’t apply to are the ones conservatives also tend to favor most, since they have been around a long time and also because, arguably, the conservatives have always had a big hand in championing.

By Matt Holdridge

Dear Senator,

Please take action today and push for a vote on Audit the Fed, S. 604!

If you are not cosponsoring Audit the Fed, I expect you to sign on in support of finding out what the Fed has done with trillions of our dollars.

I will make sure your constituents know of your action or inaction on this issue.

You must vote “no” on cloture for Chairman Bernanke until after there is a vote on Audit the Fed. No vote should be taken on Ben Bernanke’s confirmation, or the nomination of anyone else for Fed Chairman, until Audit the Fed has received a public, up or down vote.

The real issue here is not the Fed chairman himself. It is the need for complete transparency.

Sincerely,

Mr. Matthew Holdridge

By Matt Hawes

According to Politico, a senior Obama administration official cannot believe that Ben Bernanke’s confirmation is in doubt – leading him to ask “Is the minority leader Ron Paul?”

Read the article here.

It looks like the cloture vote will come tomorrow, and Harry Reid needs 60 vote to proceed.  Keep those calls going!

By Matt Hawes

Dr. Paul will be interviewed on Fox Business’ Cavuto tonight at 6pm eastern.  The interview should come right at the top of the hour.

Update:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbVqZSjW5hE

By Matt Hawes

The Huffington Post’s Ryan Grim reports on concerns that critical information about the Federal Reserve’s actions in bailing out AIG is being withheld during Bernanke’s confirmation process.

A Republican senator said Tuesday that documents showing Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernake covered up the fact that his staff recommended he not bailout AIG are being kept from the public. And a House Republican charged that a whistleblower had alerted Congress to specific documents provide “troubling details” of Bernanke’s role in the AIG bailout.

Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.), a Bernanke critic, said on CNBC that he has seen documents showing that Bernanke overruled such a recommendation. If that’s the case, it raises questions about whether bailing out AIG was actually necessary, and what Bernanke’s motives were….

Read the rest.

And keep those calls to the Senate going!  So many people are already shocked that Bernanke’s confirmation has been as much of a fight as it’s turned into.  Let’s turn up the pressure!

By Matt Hawes

Nearly 1,000 (or more!) gathered at the Sheraton Atlanta on Friday, January 15 to kick off our Atlanta Regional Conference.  Our “Freedom Celebration” featured speakers including Congressman Ron Paul, Tom Woods, C4L President John Tate, Bobby Franklin, and Valerie Meyers.

Link to playlist: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=8C315D1C2886BA2D

By Matt Hawes

Masking more stimulus legislation under the title of a “jobs bill” does not make the idea any better, as Dan Mitchell explains in this latest Center for Freedom and Prosperity video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=985C0uh1HKA

By Doug Bandow

The Obama Administration wants to freeze discretionary spending–except for the military.

Reports CNN:

The proposed freeze, which could help position Obama in the political center by sharpening his credentials on fiscal discipline, would exempt the budgets of the departments of Defense, Homeland Security, and Veterans Affairs, along with some international programs.

“We are at war, and we’re going to make sure our troops are funded adequately,” one of the senior officials said.

Precisely how does this differ from the Bush administration?  So much for “change” in Washington.

Apparently the more things “change,” the more they stay the same!

Doug Bandow, American Conservative Defense Alliance

By Jeff Greenspan

Right on the heels of the Maricopa County Republican Party passing the Audit the Fed resolution by 92% in favor to 8% against, I am happy to report that the Arizona Republican Party passed the same resolution (text and results here) by acclimation.  Folks, that means it was passed unanimously!

As it stands today, all elected Republicans in federal office have supported Audit the Fed, except for Senator Jon Kyl. 

The largest county Republican party in the state (and the 5th largest in the nation) passed a resolution in favor and now the state Republican party has passed a resolution in favor.

How did this happen?  Become a Local Coordinator, complete the Local Coordinator online bootcamp and find out!

By Matt Hawes

Congressman Paul will return to CNN’s Larry King Live tonight to debate Robert Reich.  Still uncertain about hit time, but the show starts at 9 pm eastern.

Update:  Thanks to Marc!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNFBOGhF1b0