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This Wednesday afternoon, Ron Paul joined John McManus, David Bruckner, Mary Ruwart and Jim Babka for an insightful discussion of the latest political and economic developments, including the “Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act”, a bill that would expand the 1969 US federal hate crime law to include crimes motivated by a victim’s actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability.

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuU-T_Di4cQ (Ron Paul)
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEqQUixeKd0 (Ron Paul)
Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dQhaKoy0Yc
Part 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XebHG6DRsSI
Part 5: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMx06t3gTzQ
Part 6: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEPvB1NOqbk

Channel: Fox News Strategy Room
Show: Freedom Watch
Host: Judge Andrew Napolitano
Date: 7/1/2009

Transcript of Ron Paul’s appearance

Judge Andrew Napolitano: Joining me now from the great state of Texas is Congressman Ron Paul. Congressman, I know you’re on vacation this week, though knowing you, you’re just working in Texas instead of in Washington. Welcome back to Freedom Watch.

Ron Paul: Thank you, Judge. Good to be with you.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: Thank you. The House of Representatives passed this legislation [HR 1913, Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009, April 29, 2009, by a vote of 249–175, with support from 231 Democrats and 18 Republicans] and like they sometimes do, they inserted language in there which arguably could be used to stifle hostile or aggressive political speech on the airwaves or, as the legislation says, implicating interstate commerce. Meaning I could say something hostile and putting the mail or put it in FedEx or say something hostile over the Internet or on Fox News, and if the government doesn’t like it, it could come after me. Is freedom of political speech endangered if the Senate passes this and the President signs it into law?

Ron Paul: Oh, it is very much in danger and it’s getting worse. It’s not brand new, it’s just accelerating. I think it started a long time ago when the courts and the legislative bodies decided that speech was not one thing; there was commercial speech and political speech. Once it was accepted that you could regulate commercial speech anytime you please, the next step was political speech, and that’s what we’re moving into.

And some in this country happen to believe that the left tend to be better on civil liberties and protection of the first amendment, but I don’t think it was the extreme right that was promoting this type of legislation. It met with the acceptance by many on the right as well.

But I think it’s lack of understanding, lack of desire and no real effort to protect freedom of speech. I think they have forgotten the fact that individuals have a right to speak out; it should be protected. The job of the government should be to protect speech, not to regulate it.

And I think another thing that happened over the years has been that we started seeing rights as being collective. Then you have group rights, you have rights by belonging to a sexual group, gay groups, and by race, and it shouldn’t be that way. It should be individuals and once they start protecting [groups] it undermines the whole principle of this and we can’t have it. (more…)

by George F. Smith

If Ron Paul succeeds in getting the Fed audited, the consequences could be far-reaching. Assuming the audit isn’t rigged to protect the guilty, as a similar bill was in 1978, the Fed will need every obfuscating Keynesian to testify and write editorials on its behalf, to reassure the public that monetary matters really are best left to the gods who rule us, such as Ben Bernanke and Timothy Geithner. Monetarists, too, would likely join the “Save the Fed” crusade, perhaps arguing that even a great free market economist like Milton Friedman considered the Fed useful for preventing and curing recessions.

But the really appetizing part of auditing the Fed is knowing what stands behind it. The Fed is a racket at heart, a con game writ large — what else can you call an organization with the exclusive privilege of printing money in the trillions and handing it over to friends? But if this is true, what does that say about the state, the organization that created and sanctions it? Is the Fed an honest mistake in the state’s otherwise undying efforts to preserve our liberty, or might it be a key component of a bigger racket?

Without the power of the state, there would be no proposal to audit the Fed because there would be no Fed to audit. Like any cartel, it exists to protect its members from market retribution, and only the police power of the state can make us shoulder that burden. A bill to audit the Fed could by force of logic become a state audit, much like the investigations of the 1972 Watergate burglary exposed the grinning skull behind the government’s public persona. During a Fed audit, for example, would it not be reasonable to ask why the people’s elected representatives continue to support a banking system that secretly steals wealth from their countrymen and other dollar holders? Or are we to take the naïve position that most elected officials really are clueless about the Fed’s policy of currency debasement and the effects such policies have had in history? (more…)

In today’s op-ed in the Washington Times, Ron Paul unmasks the brilliantly shallow propaganda mantra “If we don’t fight them over there, they will fight us over here” as a false choise that has been foisted upon the country by a small neoconservative elite that has come to power in both the Democratic and Republican parties.

As an alternative, Ron Paul proposes a non-interventionist foreign policy that is based on these five pillars:

1. American sovereignty from global and globalist institutions

2. a strong national defense
3. strict adherence to the Constitution
4. leading the world by example, not aggression
5. refraining from meddling in the affairs of other countries.

Read Ron Paul’s full op-ed here.

In Monday’s interview with Rod Grams on the Jason Lewis Show, Ron Paul talks about recent bills in Congress, the Obama administration, the Federal Reserve, central banking and HR 1207.

Show: Jason Lewis Show
Host: Rod Grams
Date: June 29, 2009

Rod Grams: We got a special guest on the line with us tonight, and that is Congressman Ron Paul of Texas. Congressman, great to talk with you again. Thanks so much for taking time. I know you are always squeezed for time, but thanks for taking time for us tonight.

Ron Paul: Nice to be with you, thank you.

Rod Grams: I think you recently gave a speech at the Cato Institute dealing with the Federal Reserve and a bill that you have introduced, but before we get there I would like to ask you just a couple of quick questions. What do you think of the direction this Congress is going?

Ron Paul: Well, so far I think it is very bad news. I mean I can’t imagine that anybody with common sense would do what we are doing here in the Congress, at least the majority party. I guess the only good thing one could say about it is that it has almost completely unified the Republicans and they have at least awakened once again to their conservative ideals and they are opposing some of this stuff. I have complained that they didn’t do a very good job when they were in charge. At least, you know, I thought the Republican Party held up pretty good against this recent environmental bill and tax bill [cap and trade]. So I don’t know whether they will be doing as well with Medicare, but when it came the taxes and regulations and spending and deficits, I think we’re in big trouble.
(more…)

Just like Republicans now oppose economic socialism and nationalized healthcare, they should also speak out against perpetual war and unsound money, is the message of Ron Paul’s latest video update.

Date: 6/29/2009

Ron Paul: Last week in the House of Representatives was not a very good time for the Republic. The big bill last week that was passed narrowly so, was the Cap and Trade. The vote was 219 to 212. There were 8 Republicans that voted for the bill and some people suppose that, oh if all of those Republicans only have voted correctly and voted against that bill, it would have gone down. But that’s not necessarily so.

There were 44 Democrats that voted against the package. And they were on line to switch their vote if they had to. So the only thing the 8 votes by the Republicans did to vote against the package was give more leniency to the Democrats who would have been in political trouble if they had voted for it.

So, this is a system that is generally known in Washington how voting works. But it was interesting. One Democrat talked to me, a friend of mine and he was I asked him, “Are you going to vote on this bill?” and he said, “I’m going to vote for the bill”. And he sort of whispered and said, “But I sure hope it doesn’t pass”. I asked, “What do you mean? You’re going to vote for it and you hope it doesn’t pass?” He said, “Yeah, I have to do that”. And I asked, “Are there any others Democrats who are going to be voting for it and they really don’t like the bill?” And he said, “Oh yeah, about 15 or 20 of them”. But that’s unfortunately the way the system works.

But I thought the Republican Party did a pretty good job in standing up against this bill. They were outraged over what Cap and Trade will do. It’s going to be a real detriment to our economy, it’s going to be very costly and push up energy prices and who knows how many unintended consequences that we’ll run into down the road. Of course, it has to pass the Senate, but if it does get past the Senate obviously Obama will sign this bill.

But the fact that the Republicans did a very good job proves the point that they are pretty good at trying to limit government size when they’re out of office, when they have no responsibility. Because a year or so ago this wouldn’t have been same message that they the Republicans revealed last week.

But they’re also gearing up for fighting against national health care, socialized medicine, and I think that is very good too. And they express this outrages which is very justified. But my problem with all this is that they don’t show any outrage in other areas.

Why is there no outrage with the perpetuation of war, the expansion of the war in Afghanistan, the movement of the fighting into Pakistan? Just last week we authorized $680 billion for the military, and believe me, very little of that will provide true national defense for us.

And there is no outrage over the national security courts. One of the outrages of the previous administration were the secret courts and permanent detention without court hearings, these military tribunals. They’re going to be continued and to me there should be outrage. It’s interesting that some Democrats who are outraged over this, they vote for the Cap and Trade, and the Republicans who were outraged over Cap and Trade vote for perpetual war and this permanent unlimited detention without hearings in court.

So that’s were our real problem is and we have to try to get the people to put this together. Now, the legal justification for unlimited detention which Obama is planning to perpetuate with an executive order is that the legal experts have explained that if there is no law prohibiting the president from writing an executive order, therefore it must be okay.

Now that is absolutely bizarre that a president can do anything he wants, unless the Congress writes a law that says you can’t do it. So everything is legal except that which is prohibited by law by the Congress. What good is the constitution? The constitution is supposed to hold Congress and the courts and the president in check. So this is the reasons it marches on and I would think there would be a lot of Democrats and a lot of progressives and a lot of anti-war people and civil libertarians that should be outraged over what Obama is doing in the military, foreign policy, civil liberties area.

And of course, I would like to see the day when the Republicans who are rightfully and truly outraged over the economic tragedy that we’re facing with this weak economy, and then the administration piling on with Cap and Trade and socialized medicine… why we can’t put that outrage together and say, “Look, why don’t we just follow the constitution and get back to our senses and balance our budget and have sound money.”

That is what we need, and hopefully we will wake up and the people in this country will have enough influence in Washington to finally bring this expanding government that literally is undermining our own liberties.

Ron Paul hasn’t announced a decision yet whether he is going to run for President in 2012. If he runs, who should he choose as his running mate?

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In his latest column, Ron Paul attacks the cap and trade bill (HR 2454) as an unnecessary and wasteful effort to apply a big government solution to the disputed problem of “global warming”, while at the same time causing additional harm to the economy. As similar policies in Spain have shown over the past decade, such efforts lead to capital flight and job losses and made the country less competitive in the global economy. — tmartin

Download the column as an MP3 file here (3:38 minutes).

Cap and Trade Will Lead to Capital Flight

by Ron Paul

In my last column, I joked that with public spending out of control and the piling on of the international bailout bill, economic collapse seems to be the goal of Congress. It is getting harder to joke about such a thing however, as the non-partisan General Accounting Office (GAO) has estimated that the administration’s health care plan would actually cost over a trillion dollars. This reality check may have given us a temporary reprieve on this particular disastrous policy, however an equally disastrous energy policy reared its ugly head on Capitol Hill last week.

The Cap and Trade Bill HR 2454 was voted on last Friday. Proponents claim this bill will help the environment, but what it really does is put another nail in the economy’s coffin. The idea is to establish a national level of carbon dioxide emissions, and sell pollution permits to industry as the Catholic Church used to sell indulgences to sinners. HR 2454 also gives federal bureaucrats new power to regulate a wide variety of household appliances, such as light bulbs and refrigerators, and further distorts the market by providing more of your tax money to auto companies.

The administration has pointed to Spain as a shining example of this type of progressive energy policy. Spain has been massively diverting capital from the private sector into politically favored environmental projects for the better part of a decade, and many in Washington apparently like what they see. However, under no circumstances should anyone serious about economic recovery emulate an economy that is now approaching 20 percent unemployment, where every green job created, eliminated 2.2 real jobs and cost around $800,000 each!

The real inconvenient truth is that the cost of government regulations, taxes, fees, red tape and bureaucracy is a considerable expense that has to be considered when companies decide where to do business and how many people they can afford to hire. Increasing governmental burden directly causes capital flight and job losses, as Spain has learned. In this global economy it is easy enough for businesses to relocate to countries that are more politically friendly to economic growth. If our government continues to kick the economy while it is down, it will be a long time before it gets back up. In fact, jobs are much more likely to go overseas, compounding our problems.

And for what? Contrary to claims repeated over and over, there is no consensus in the scientific community that global warming is getting worse or that it is manmade. In fact over 30,000 scientists signed a petition recently directly disputing the claims on which this policy is based. Legitimate environmental claims should instead be directed towards the public sector. The government, especially the military, is the most serious polluter in the country, and is exempt from most EPA regulations. Meanwhile Washington bureaucrats have classified the very air we exhale as a pollutant and have gone unchallenged in this incredible assertion. The logical consequence is that there will come a time when we will have to buy a government permit just to emit carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from our own lungs!

The events on Capitol Hill last week just demonstrate Washington’s audacity in manufacturing problems just so they can expand government power to solve them.

When asked by Rep. John Duncan on Thursday about the fact that a majority of Congress is co-sponsoring Ron Paul’s HR 1207 bill to audit the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke responded:

Ben Bernanke: “My concern about the legislation is that if the GAO is auditing not only the operational aspects of the programs and the details of the programs but making judgments about our policy decisions would effectively be a takeover of policy by the Congress and a repudiation of the Federal Reserve would be highly destructive to the stability of the financial system, the dollar and our national economic situation.”

While many viewers interpreted Bernanke’s statements as a “threat”, we would not rule out the possibility that he was merely stating an opinion that is indeed shared by many economists who grew up under the notion that the autonomy of the Federal Reserve and its mission to centrally manage the economy is sacrosanct and not open to debate.

Fortunately, times have changed and serious questions are being raised as to…

• what the Federal Reserve has been up to in recent years,
• its role in the current economic crisis and the creation of the housing bubble through artificially low interest rates,
• its secret agreements with foreign powers and foreign banking institutions with no oversight whatsoever
• its disastrous effect on the dollar, which lost 96% of its value since the Fed was established in 1913
• whether the Fed should have as much unchecked power as it currently does, and
• the safest way to abolish the Fed if it is established that it has in fact outlived its usefulness.

It’s interesting to consider what happened when President Andrew Jackson tried to abolish one of the Fed’s predecessor banks, the Second Bank of the United States, during his second term (1833 – 1837):

Jackson believed that his reelection was a mandate from the people to break the power of what he called “this hydra of corruption,” the Second Bank of the United States. To accomplish this, Jackson decided to withdraw government money from the bank to pay current expenses and to deposit future government revenues in selected state banks. These banks were called pet banks. Jackson appointed Roger B. Taney of Maryland as secretary of the treasury to carry out this policy after his two previous secretaries refused.

Bank President Biddle and his congressional supporters, led by Clay and Webster, were determined to save the bank. Biddle used the bank’s money to buy political favors. In 1834 the Senate passed a resolution of censure against Jackson and refused to confirm Taney’s appointment to the Cabinet. Biddle said, “This worthy President thinks that because he has scalped Indians and imprisoned Judges he is to have his way with the bank. He is mistaken.”

Biddle began to restrict credit and call in loans from state banks. Business leaders pleaded with Jackson to approve the bank and end the crisis. However, Jackson placed the blame for the panic on the doorsteps of Biddle’s bank and advised all callers to “Go to Nicholas Biddle.” Biddle’s reply was: “All the other banks and all the other merchants may break, but the Bank of the United States shall never break.”

In this struggle for power, Biddle was doomed to defeat. Jackson rallied public opinion behind him, and Biddle was pressured into restoring credit and loans. All he had proved was that Jackson was correct in his contention that a private monopolistic bank, independent of government regulation, should not be entrusted with public finances. Jackson won his greatest political victory, and the Second Bank of the United States passed out of existence when its charter expired in 1836.

Emphasis added – Source

This Tuesday Glenn Beck interviewed Sen. Jim DeMint, who recently became the first co-sponsor of S 604, the companion bill of Ron Paul’s Audit the Fed bill (HR 1207).

Show: Glenn Beck Program
Host: Glenn Beck
Date: 6/23/2009

Transcript

Glenn Beck: Why would we consider it’s sane to give new powers to the Federal Reserve? Yeah, you’re right. It’s not. Republican Senator Jim DeMint is here with us. Senator, how are you, sir?

Jim DeMint: Hey, Glenn, I’m doing great.

Glenn Beck: So help me out. Why in our wildest dreams would we consider giving the Fed, which there’s no transparency whatsoever, more powers to regulate our economy?

Jim DeMint: Well, I’m glad you’re bringing this up and Ron Paul has the right idea on this. The Federal Reserve is supposed to be an independent agency that guarantees the value of our money by managing the money supply, but it has gotten involved in so many other things, regulating our banks, making it harder for them to lend money and at the same time, the Treasury is pushing TARP funds into the banks. They’re starting to monetize our debt, which is basically printing more money than we’ve every printed before. (more…)

This Wednesday afternoon, Ron Paul joined Lew Rockwell, Gary Johnson, David Boaz, Wayne Allyn Root, Shelly Roche, Michael Shanklin for an insightful discussion of Obama’s healthcare plan, the revolt in Iran, as well as other political and economic developments.

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-mRdPJGWsE (Ron Paul)
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8UqwDbQsLQ (Ron Paul)
Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWw2xrc_kZI
Part 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WNJ4QEJAqU
Part 5: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAxqUvNg5Xc
Part 6: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxnxsHBdaFI

Channel: Fox News Strategy Room
Show: Freedom Watch
Host: Judge Andrew Napolitano
Date: 6/24/2009

Transcript of Ron Paul’s appearance

Judge Andrew Napolitano: It’s my great pleasure to introduce one of America’s great defenders of freedom in Congress and elsewhere. Congressman Ron Paul joins us from our nation’s capital. Congressman Paul, welcome to Freedom Watch.

Ron Paul: Thank you, Judge.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: Also joining us is my dear friend and mentor Lew Rockwell, founder of the Ludwig von Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama, a research and educational center, a classical liberalism and Austrian economics, familiar to many of you. Lew.

Lew Rockwell: Judge, it’s great to be with you.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: Welcome back to the show. Thank you. Congressman Paul, first to you. What is your greatest fear if the President’s healthcare proposals become law?

Ron Paul: Well, if we don’t get some modification, what you will see is the cost of medical care skyrocketing. At the same time, there will be price controls placed on it and then you’ll have scarcity and the quality of care will go downhill.

The only saving grace could be if they allow something to be put in there where you can opt out of the system and take care of yourself. Although it would be a disaster trying to put 80 or 90 percent onto the government, if you’re allowed to opt out, at least, there would be a little bit of hope to keep a little bit of strings tied on the Federal government. Right now, it doesn’t look really good for the patient. (more…)

“Why in the world should this much power be given to a Federal Reserve that has the authority to create $1 trillion secretly?” Ron Paul asked a standing room-only crowd today at the Cato Institute.

Paul was on a panel of speakers, including Gilbert Schwartz, former associate general counsel to the Federal Reserve, to discuss a new bill that will audit the Fed for the first time in its history. This comes at a time when the Fed’s balance sheet has almost tripled, from just over $800 billion before the financial crisis to almost $2.3 trillion now.

“We will only win when the people wake up and realize that transparency is what we need,” said Paul. “When we know exactly what’s happening, there will be monetary reform.”

Listen to Ron Paul’s speech below:

Download the speech as an MP3 file here.

Listen to the entire event:

Download the event as an MP3 file here.

Transcript of Ron Paul’s speech:

Caleb Brown: This is a Cato special podcast. I’m Caleb Brown. Republican congressman and two-time presidential candidate Ron Paul wants to audit the Federal Reserve, arguing that Americans need to know more about the Central Bank, especially given the dramatic increases in the size of the bank’s balance sheet. He spoke at the Cato Institute on June 24, 2009. The full event is available at Cato.org.

Ron Paul: Thank you very much. It’s a real delight to be here and, of course, I’m pleased to come here and discuss a subject that fascinates me and it’s been an interest of mine for not a couple of years, but quite a few decades. As a matter of fact, it was the monetary issue that first got me interested in running for Congress back in the 1970s and some of you here may even remember the 1970s and they were rather hectic. If you don’t remember them, you’ve probably had read about them and they were very hectic, and I was fascinated with the fact that the Austrian free market economists predicted early on in the 1960s that the Bretton-Woods arrangement would never last, and it failed, and then that led into chaos in the 1970s. (more…)

Ron Paul’s bill to audit the Federal Reserve (HR 1207) now has 245 co-sponsors, and the numbers keep growing! At the same time, HR 1207’s companion bill in the Senate, S 604, is beginning to attract its first co-sponsors!

This is history in the making, and victory is within reach. Imagine what will happen if HR 1207, The Federal Reserve Transparency Act, comes up for vote in Congress! With more than 55% of the House of Representatives already co-sponsoring this bill, it has real potential to pass — BUT only if we educate and rally the people to support it and get our Congresspeople to put it to vote and pass it.

Step 1: Your Representative

If your representative is not on the following list of HR 1207 co-sponsors, call their offices, write to them, email them. Let them know they need to support HR 1207. If you live in their district, let them know. Go to their office.

Capitol Switchboard: (202) 224-3121

Enter your zip code to contact your representative:

HR 1207 Co-Sponsors (as of 6/26/2009)

Rep Abercrombie, Neil [HI-1] – 2/26/2009
Rep Aderholt, Robert B. [AL-4] – 5/6/2009
Rep Adler, John H. [NJ-3] – 5/6/2009
Rep Akin, W. Todd [MO-2] – 3/19/2009
Rep Alexander, Rodney [LA-5] – 3/10/2009
Rep Altmire, Jason [PA-4] – 5/20/2009
Rep Austria, Steve [OH-7] – 5/6/2009
Rep Bachmann, Michele [MN-6] – 2/26/2009
Rep Bachus, Spencer [AL-6] – 4/29/2009
Rep Baldwin, Tammy [WI-2] – 4/21/2009
Rep Barrett, J. Gresham [SC-3] – 4/28/2009 (more…)

Openly supporting the Iranian revolt could have unintended consequences, says Ron Paul in this interview on Radio America. Our support might well unify Iran against America, rather than uniting it with the revolutionaries. That’s why the US should not openly take sides in the violent dispute. At the same time, Ron Paul would not prevent individual Iranian Americans who want to fight for the revolution to get involved themselves.

Download the interview as an MP3 file here (7:40 minutes).

Date: 6/23/2009
Channel: Radio America

Greg Corombos: This is Greg Corombos of Radio America reporting for WorldNetDaily. My guest at this time is Texas Congressman Ron Paul, a Republican representing the lone star state’s 14th congressional district. He is a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and he was a 2008 presidential candidate. He want to get his thoughts today as a member of that critical House Foreign Affairs Committee on the latest developments and unrest inside Iran and Congressman, thanks so much for being with us.

Ron Paul: Thank you. It’s good to be with you.

Greg Corombos: Information is difficult to get out of Iran at this point. Really, the social networks are the best avenues since the Iranian government has put a clamp especially on foreign media with limited reports, limited camera work and so forth. What do you make of the Iranian government’s response to these pro-democracy demonstrators?

Ron Paul: Well, you know, it’s hard to figure it out like you say it’s hard to get the really good information and exactly know what’s going on. I guess, any government that has unrest in their country and there’s upheaval and governments react in the traditional manner no matter where you are.

But I think that generally speaking, most people are pretty excited about the fact that maybe at the grassroots level, the Iranian people are getting a little bit tired of what they’ve been putting up with, so hopefully that will work out for the better. (more…)