Ron Paul Claims Chairmanship of Monetary Policy Subcommittee, Prepared to Subpoena Fed | FavStocks, Dec. 8, 2010:
"Proving that on occasion the little guy can occasionally win, Ron Paul announced tonight that he will be named Chairman of the Monetary Policy Subcommittee.
"When asked if he would take over chairmanship of the subcommittee, Paul replied 'The chairman of the financial services subcommittee, Spencer Bachus, has told me today verbally that I will be the chairman of that subcommittee. He was the one who appointed me as the ranking member and he is sticking to his guns and that I will have responsibility of that committee.'
"When asked about subpoenas and 'audit the Fed', Paul went on to say that he can issue subpoenas but would need agreement from the chairman as well as speaker" (ie, from both Bachus and John Boehner).
Update, Dec. 10 - I learned today that Paul's announcement had been made on Andrew Napolitano's FBN show, Freedom Watch -- another coup for the Judge and his show.
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Will The Tea Parties Fight For Ron Paul?
Will The Tea Parties Fight For Ron Paul?: by Walt Thiessen (libertarian)
Nolan Chart, Tuesday, December 7, 2010
"With the Republicans taking control of the House of Representatives in January, many opponents of the Federal Reserve thought that Ron Paul as chairman of the House Subcommittee for Domestic Monetary Policy and Technology would be a slam dunk. After all, he has, by far, the most seniority of any Republican on the committee. Yet, already there are reports that incoming speaker John Boehner is trying to find a way to keep it from happening....
"Rep. Boehner's house office phone number in Washington, DC is (202) 225-6205. I suggest that those people who want to see Ron Paul get the chairmanship of that committee should call his office Wednesday and make their wishes clear in a civil, responsible manner."
Nolan Chart, Tuesday, December 7, 2010
"With the Republicans taking control of the House of Representatives in January, many opponents of the Federal Reserve thought that Ron Paul as chairman of the House Subcommittee for Domestic Monetary Policy and Technology would be a slam dunk. After all, he has, by far, the most seniority of any Republican on the committee. Yet, already there are reports that incoming speaker John Boehner is trying to find a way to keep it from happening....
"Rep. Boehner's house office phone number in Washington, DC is (202) 225-6205. I suggest that those people who want to see Ron Paul get the chairmanship of that committee should call his office Wednesday and make their wishes clear in a civil, responsible manner."
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Ron Paul-like anti-TSA bills in NJ Senate
EXCLUSIVE: Ron Paul-like anti-TSA bills in NJ Senate - Newark Essex County Conservative | Examiner.com: "Senator Doherty's bills actually amend New Jersey's current statutes specifically to bring the actions of individual Transportation Security Administration agents under those statutes, and also create a brand-new statute. Specifically:
- Bill TSA-1 provides that touching the genitals or the breasts (the 'junk') during a body search is a third-degree sexual assault unless the subject of the search is under arrest or in prison, or the actor has a lawful warrant....
- Bill TSA-2 is a brand-new statute that directly forbids the TSA to use any sort of body-image scanner, including the terahertz ('millimeter-wave') scanner(s) in use at Newark Liberty International, to screen any passenger, flight officer, or flight attendant.... The fine for operating such a scanner would be $1000 each instance.
- Bill TSA-3 provides that creating or viewing a body-scan image that includes the "junk" will be a pornography offense, unless the person involved is under arrest, or an inmate, or the TSA has a warrant, or the subject (or the parent or guardian if the subject is a minor) has provided written permission....
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Ron Paul: Wikileaks should not be stopped
Rep. Ron Paul: Wikileaks should not be stopped | The State Column:
"Representative Ron Paul said Friday that Wikileaks founder Julian Assange should not face prosecution for his distribution of nearly 250,000 classified and Top Secret documents.
"Representative Ron Paul said Friday that Wikileaks founder Julian Assange should not face prosecution for his distribution of nearly 250,000 classified and Top Secret documents.
"Mr. Paul came to the defense of Mr. Assange after Attorney General Eric Holder said the Justice Department was studying whether to charge Assange with a crime for releasing thousands of leaked government documents.
"Mr. Paul told [Andrew Napolitano, on "Freedom Watch" on] Fox [Business] News that the notion of prosecuting Mr. Assange for the release of information is disturbing and it should not be pursued.
'In a free society we’re supposed to know the truth,' Mr. Paul said. 'In a society where truth becomes treason, then we’re in big trouble. And now, people who are revealing the truth are getting into trouble for it.'" (Beltway Confidential reports that Dr. Paul also tweeted that quotation.)
Saturday, December 4, 2010
North Korea: The invisible gulag
The Invisible Gulag | World Security Network - by Jonathan Kay, National Post:
December 10, 2010 - "The world remains pock-marked by countries that still insist on calling themselves 'communist.' But in reality, Joseph Stalin's totalitarian dream of exterminating the individual human spirit survives in only one tiny corner of the world: North Korea....
"North Korea is a giant prison. Worse than a prison, in fact, because prisoners in normal countries don't have to forage for wild grass, or catch rats, to stay alive. For most Westerners, who aren't permitted to see this real-life Mordor with their own eyes, the country's horrors are so vast that they lie in a surreal place beyond our political imaginations. North Korea seems less an actual country than a sort of sovereign theme park dedicated to the glorification of evil....
"Norbert Vollertsen, a blond middle-aged German doctor, first travelled to North Korea in 1999, as part of his charity work with an international NGO. Taking shifts in a Pyongyang emergency room, he was horrified by the scenes he witnessed. Even patients with treatable diseases such as diabetes and tuberculosis lay dying on gurneys. Meanwhile, the medication that had been sent from Germany to save their lives was on sale for American dollars at a special Pyongyang store reserved for foreign diplomats.
"One day, Vollertsen saw a line-up in front of his hospital. He learned that a tractor-factory worker had been severely burned by molten metal, and that the people queuing up were donating pieces of their own skin so that the man could be saved.... Vollertsen made the fateful decision to join the line-up....
"A week later, Vollertsen was asked to make another skin donation. But this time, when he showed up at the hospital, North Korean TV cameras filmed the whole thing. The event was broadcast on the country's (only) newscast, and Vollertsen was celebrated as a national hero.... The regime even awarded him the "North Korean Friendship medal" and -- more importantly -- a driver's licence that permitted him to roam the North Korean countryside unimpeded. No Western journalist has ever had such access....
"Nothing Vollertsen had seen in Pyongyang prepared him for the even more piteous scenes he witnessed in the rural provinces.
"All around were desolate landscapes -- the forests having been chopped down for firewood. Starvation was rampant: Most peasants survived on bags of donated rice from the West (which the North Korean government claimed to be a form of 'tribute' delivered from fearful Western powers)....
"The patients Vollertsen treated in children's clinics were scarcely more animated than corpses. He recalled to me one particularly haunting specimen -- an emaciated 12-year-old whose striped pajamas, reminiscent of a Nazi concentration camp prisoner, struck a grim historical chord with Vollertsen. 'He looked straight into my eyes,' the German doctor remembers, 'so full of sorrow and despair. No future. No hope. Nothing. It reminded me of the photos of the people you see at the Washington Holocaust museum.'"
Read more: https://web.archive.org/web/20130417005739/http://www.worldsecuritynetwork.com/Koreas/National-Post/The-Invisible-Gulag
December 10, 2010 - "The world remains pock-marked by countries that still insist on calling themselves 'communist.' But in reality, Joseph Stalin's totalitarian dream of exterminating the individual human spirit survives in only one tiny corner of the world: North Korea....
"North Korea is a giant prison. Worse than a prison, in fact, because prisoners in normal countries don't have to forage for wild grass, or catch rats, to stay alive. For most Westerners, who aren't permitted to see this real-life Mordor with their own eyes, the country's horrors are so vast that they lie in a surreal place beyond our political imaginations. North Korea seems less an actual country than a sort of sovereign theme park dedicated to the glorification of evil....
"Norbert Vollertsen, a blond middle-aged German doctor, first travelled to North Korea in 1999, as part of his charity work with an international NGO. Taking shifts in a Pyongyang emergency room, he was horrified by the scenes he witnessed. Even patients with treatable diseases such as diabetes and tuberculosis lay dying on gurneys. Meanwhile, the medication that had been sent from Germany to save their lives was on sale for American dollars at a special Pyongyang store reserved for foreign diplomats.
"One day, Vollertsen saw a line-up in front of his hospital. He learned that a tractor-factory worker had been severely burned by molten metal, and that the people queuing up were donating pieces of their own skin so that the man could be saved.... Vollertsen made the fateful decision to join the line-up....
"A week later, Vollertsen was asked to make another skin donation. But this time, when he showed up at the hospital, North Korean TV cameras filmed the whole thing. The event was broadcast on the country's (only) newscast, and Vollertsen was celebrated as a national hero.... The regime even awarded him the "North Korean Friendship medal" and -- more importantly -- a driver's licence that permitted him to roam the North Korean countryside unimpeded. No Western journalist has ever had such access....
"Nothing Vollertsen had seen in Pyongyang prepared him for the even more piteous scenes he witnessed in the rural provinces.
"All around were desolate landscapes -- the forests having been chopped down for firewood. Starvation was rampant: Most peasants survived on bags of donated rice from the West (which the North Korean government claimed to be a form of 'tribute' delivered from fearful Western powers)....
"The patients Vollertsen treated in children's clinics were scarcely more animated than corpses. He recalled to me one particularly haunting specimen -- an emaciated 12-year-old whose striped pajamas, reminiscent of a Nazi concentration camp prisoner, struck a grim historical chord with Vollertsen. 'He looked straight into my eyes,' the German doctor remembers, 'so full of sorrow and despair. No future. No hope. Nothing. It reminded me of the photos of the people you see at the Washington Holocaust museum.'"
Read more: https://web.archive.org/web/20130417005739/http://www.worldsecuritynetwork.com/Koreas/National-Post/The-Invisible-Gulag
Friday, December 3, 2010
Weigel : "ALEC: The Libertarian Powerhouse that No One Covers"
ALEC: The Libertarian Powerhouse that No One Covers:
"'I've learned a few things,' said Daniel Knodl, a second-term assemblyman from Wisconsin. 'For example, I hadn't heard about this idea of forming interstate compacts to opt out before.' He was referring to a fairly new spin on the compact idea, being pushed first by libertarian think-tankers in Texas, that would have states declaring a federal government intervention illegal, forming a compact with another state that was taking the same approach, and forcing a legal showdown with the government."
"'I've learned a few things,' said Daniel Knodl, a second-term assemblyman from Wisconsin. 'For example, I hadn't heard about this idea of forming interstate compacts to opt out before.' He was referring to a fairly new spin on the compact idea, being pushed first by libertarian think-tankers in Texas, that would have states declaring a federal government intervention illegal, forming a compact with another state that was taking the same approach, and forcing a legal showdown with the government."
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Picture added to Dance Wikipedia article
I'm pleased to report that the above picture, from my Libertarian Party days, has been added to the "George Dance (politician)" article at Wikipedia. The photo, "George Dance in June 1987," is by Maureen Dance, and is licenced under a Creative Commons CC-BY-SA 3.0 licence.
On a related note, The Political Animal's Metaweb widget is now working properly: clicking either the "more" or "Wikipedia" links takes one to the current Wikipedia page, so current that it already contains the above picture.
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