War Is Making You Poor Act – HR5353 : Rep. Grayson introduces a bill to cut separate funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and uses the money to eliminate federal income taxes on every American’s first $35,000 of income. Cosponsors of this bill include Ron Paul, Walter Jones, John Conyers, Lynn Woolsey, and Dennis Kucinich.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

04/14/2010 - Congressman Ron Paul questioned Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke at the Joint Economic Committee hearing The Economic Outlook. Topics of discussion included debt monetization, the Greece bailout, and where all that money is coming from.

Watch for yourself as Bernanke nods YES to printing $1.3 trillion out of thin air to buy mortgage backed securities.

Congress just finished voting on the bitterly contested Obama health care bill.  The mainstream media doesn’t even bat an eye over the Fed creating $1.3 trillion in a little more than a year to buy worthless debt no one else will touch.  I do not get it.  I guess we could have asked the Fed to print up a trillion dollars to pay for health care and avoided that drawn out battle in Congress.

When Bush supported the partial privatization of Social Security, the proposal was so unpopular with the public that the Republican majority in Congress never allowed it to come to a vote. Bush touched the third rail of American politics — and was promptly electrocuted. Last but not least, one of the arguments that Republicans opportunistically used to mobilize popular opposition to the Democratic healthcare bill was the claim that it would lead to cuts in Medicare for the elderly.

AARP vs. the objectivists. That’s not a fight, it’s a massacre.

There is not the slightest chance that either Social Security or Medicare will be privatized in an America where the proportion of the elderly in the electorate will continue to expand. Any attempt to means-test Social Security for the middle class, rather than the rich alone, will be quickly punished by the voters. The most that the right can do would be to use indexing tricks to allow inflation to reduce the value of Social Security, but surely progressives and centrists will be around to point this out.

via Bring it on, Ayn Rand geeks – Republican Party – Salon.com.

Mind you, this is coming from a self-confessed “former neocon”. Take that article with a grain of salt.

U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, a stalwart foe of government spending, won a blowout victory Saturday in the annual Conservative Political Action Conference presidential straw poll.

With participants naming “reducing the size of federal government” as their top issue, the 74-year old libertarian hero captured 31 percent of the 2,400 votes cast in the annual contest, usually seen as a barometer of how the GOP’s conservative wing regards their potential presidential candidates.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney finished second with 22 percent of the vote, ending a three-year winning streak at CPAC. Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin finished third with 7 percent of the vote, followed by Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty at 6 percent and Indiana Rep. Mike Pence at 5 percent.

They were followed by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who tied at 4 percent. Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, South Dakota Sen. John Thune and Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour rounded out the results.

via Rep. Ron Paul surprise winner of CPAC presidential straw poll – CNN.com.

Very doubtful that Ron Paul will be the Republican candidate for the next presidential election, but I was glad to see Palin and Gingrich didn’t rate very highly among conservatives. Also not surprised to see that RNC chairman Steele has proven to be a major disappointment with conservative Republicans.

US House Rep. Ron Paul says the CIA has in effect carried out a “coup” against the US government, and the intelligence agency needs to be “taken out.”

via Ron Paul: After ‘CIA coup,’ agency ‘runs military’ | Raw Story.

Way to risk your own life, Mr. Paul. The Establishment notices shit like that, yanno? I’ve not forgotten the Kennedy Clan’s run-ins, have you?

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The nation’s bankers have much to be thankful for as they sit down to their turkey dinners on Thursday.

At this time last year, the American financial system was near collapse, rescued only by hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars. Now the system has stabilized, and the industry is on the verge of a coup that many would have thought impossible a year ago: an escape from any major reform of financial regulations.

On Tuesday, the American Financial Services Association even held a conference call with reporters to update them on its efforts — successful so far — to torpedo plans for a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency, which would protect people from the sort of lending abuses that led to last year’s implosion.

The ASFA, a trade group of credit card issuers, auto-finance companies, mortgage lenders and others leading the fight against the CFPA, took the unusual approach on Tuesday of publicly celebrating the reform’s fading prospects.

via Bankers making turkeys out of taxpayers – washingtonpost.com.

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On The ED Show, Rep. Alan Grayson discusses the bill to audit the Fed, which passed out of the Financial Services Committee on November 20, 2009.

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Rep. Alan Grayson, on November 19, 2009, argues in support of the Paul-Grayson amendment, which would subject the Federal Reserve to a complete audit. The amendment later passed the House Financial Services Committee 43-26 as part of the underlying financial reform package.

If we actually get to look under this slimey rock, we will find ugly realities that will reverberate throughout the nation, the world, and unseat people in power from Washington to Wall Street, many may even end up in jail. Therefore, it will probably be buried, amended beyond all recognition, or never come to a full vote of the House.