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House Chooses New Cold War With Russia – Article by Ron Paul

House Chooses New Cold War With Russia – Article by Ron Paul

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The New Renaissance Hat
Ron Paul
December 7, 2014
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Last week the US House voted overwhelmingly in favor of an anti-Russia resolution so full of war propaganda that it rivals the rhetoric from chilliest era of the Cold War. Ironically, much of the bill condemns Russia for doing exactly what the US government has been doing for years in Syria and Ukraine!

For example, one of the reasons to condemn Russia in the resolution is the claim that Russia is imposing economic sanctions on Ukraine. But how many rounds of sanctions has US government imposed on Russia for much of the past year? I guess sanctions are only bad when used by countries Washington doesn’t like.

The resolution condemns Russia for selling weapons to the Assad government in Syria. But the US has been providing weapons to the rebels in Syria for several years, with many going to terrorist groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS that the US is currently bombing!

The resolution condemns what it claims is a Russian invasion of Ukraine (for which it offers no proof) and Russian violation of Ukrainian sovereignty. But it was the US, by backing a coup against the democratically elected Yanukovich government in February, that first violated that country’s sovereignty. And as far as a military presence in Ukraine, it is the US that has openly sent in special forces and other military advisors to assist the government there. How many times have top US military and CIA officials visited Kiev to offer advice and probably a lot more?

The resolution condemns Russia for what it claims are attempts to “illicitly acquire information” about the US government. But we learned from the Snowden revelations that the NSA is spying on most rest of the world, including our allies! How can the US claim the moral authority to condemn such actions in others?

The resolution attacks Russian state-funded media, claiming that they “distort public opinion.” At the same time the bill demands that the thousands of US state-funded media outlets step up their programming to that part of the world! It also seeks “appropriate responses” to Russian media influence in the rest of the world. That should be understood to mean that US diplomats would exert pressure on foreign countries to shut down television networks like RT.

The resolution condemns what it claims is Russia’s provision of weapons to the Russian-speaking eastern part of Ukraine, which seeks closer ties with Russia, while demanding that the US government start providing weapons to its proxies on the other side.

As I have said, this is one of the worst pieces of legislation I can remember. And trust me, I have seen some pretty bad bills. It is nothing but war propaganda and it will likely lead to all sorts of unintended consequences.

Only ten Members – five from each party – opposed this reckless resolution. Probably most of those who voted in favor did not bother to read the bill. Others who read it and still voted in favor may have calculated that the bill would not come up in the Senate. So they could vote yes and please the hawks in their districts – and more importantly remain in good graces of the hawks who run foreign policy in Washington – without having to worry about the consequences if the bill became law.

Whatever the case, we must keep an eye on those Members of Congress who vote to take us closer to war with Russia. We should thank those ten Members who were able to resist the war propaganda. The hawks in Washington believe that last month’s election gave them free rein to start more wars. Now more than ever they must be challenged!

Ron Paul, MD, is a former three-time Republican candidate for U. S. President and Congressman from Texas.

This article is reprinted with permission from the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.

Moving Toward War in Syria – Article by Ron Paul

Moving Toward War in Syria – Article by Ron Paul

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The New Renaissance Hat
Ron Paul
August 6, 2012
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Last week the House passed yet another bill placing sanctions on Iran and Syria, bringing us closer to another war in the Middle East. We are told that ever harsher sanctions finally will force the targeted nations to bend to our will.  Yet the ineffectiveness of previous sanctions teaches us nothing; in truth sanctions lead to war more than they prevent war.

Until last year, Libyan sanctions were touted as a great success story.  The regime would change its behavior. Yet NATO bombed the country anyway.

Last week we learned that President Obama signed an intelligence “finding” directing the CIA to covertly assist rebels in Syria. The administration seems determined to fight yet another war in Syria that has nothing to do with American national interests.
We already know that a similar “finding” was signed under the latest Bush administration directing US intelligence to undermine the Iranian government and promote regime change there. Neoconservatives have long demanded that we overthrow the Syrian government before moving on to war against Iran.  This bellicosity continues regardless of which party is in the White House.

In Syria we see once again we see how our interventionist policies backfire and make us less secure.  Recent news reports point to ties between the Syrian opposition and al-Qaeda (and other extremist groups).  A recent article in the Guardian, a British newspaper, exclaimed that, “Al-Qaida turns tide for rebels in battle for eastern Syria.”  The article quotes an al-Qaeda leader in Syria saying that he meets with the main US-backed Syrian rebel organization, the Free Syrian Army, “almost every day.”  So by promoting civil war in Syria we end up fueling al-Qaeda.

According to another recent press report, German intelligence services estimate that nearly 100 terrorist attacks have been committed by al-Qaeda or related organizations in Syria over the past six months. Last month a suicide bomber in Syria killed a defense minister and several top government officials. The US government, which has been fighting a “War on Terror” for more than a decade now, refused to condemn that act of terrorism.

This raises the question of whether the US administration is supporting the same people in Syria that we have been fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed these same concerns earlier this year when asked whether the US has been reluctant to arm the Syrian rebels. She answered, “To whom are you delivering them? We know al-Qaida. Zawahiri is supporting the opposition in Syria. Are we supporting al-Qaida in Syria?”

That is a very good question.  It clearly demonstrates that the United States has no business at all being involved in the Syrian civil war. In the 1980s we supported a resistance movement in Afghanistan that later gave birth to elements of al-Qaeda and the Taliban. When will we learn our lesson and stop intervening in conflicts we don’t truly understand, conflicts that have nothing to do with American national interests?

Representative Ron Paul (R – TX), MD, is a Republican candidate for U. S. President. See his Congressional webpage and his official campaign website. 

This article has been released by Dr. Paul into the public domain and may be republished by anyone in any manner.

Audit the Fed Moves Forward! – Article by Ron Paul

Audit the Fed Moves Forward! – Article by Ron Paul

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The New Renaissance Hat
Ron Paul
July 31, 2012
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Last week the House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed my legislation calling for a full and effective audit of the Federal Reserve.  Well over 300 of my Congressional colleagues supported the bill, each casting a landmark vote that marks the culmination of decades of work.  We have taken a big step toward bringing transparency to the most destructive financial institution in the world.

But in many ways our work is only beginning.  Despite the Senate Majority Leader’s past support for similar legislation, no vote has been scheduled on my bill this year in the Senate.  And only 29 Senators have cosponsored Senator Rand Paul’s version of my bill in the other body.  If your Senator is not listed at the link above, please contact them and ask for their support.  We need to push Senate leadership to hold a vote this year.

Understand that last week’s historic vote never would have taken place without the efforts of millions of Americans like you, ordinary citizens concerned about liberty and the integrity of our currency.  Political elites respond to political pressure, pure and simple.  They follow rather than lead.  If all 100 Senators feel enough grassroots pressure, they will respond and force Senate leadership to hold what will be a very popular vote.

In fact, “Audit the Fed” is so popular that 75% of all Americans support it according to this Rasmussen poll.  We are making progress.

Of course Fed apologists– including Mr. Bernanke– frequently insist that the Fed already is audited.  But this is true only in the sense that it produces annual financial statements.  It provides the public with its balance sheet as a fait accompli: we see only the net results of its financial transactions from the previous fiscal year in broad categories, and only after the fact.

We’re also told that the Dodd-Frank bill passed in 2010 mandates an audit.  But it provides for only a limited audit of certain Fed credit facilities surrounding the crisis period of 2008.  It is backward looking, which frankly is of limited benefit.

The Fed also claims it wants to be “independent” from Congress so that politics don’t interfere with monetary policy.  This is absurd for two reasons.

First, the Fed already is inherently and unavoidably political.  It made a political decision when it chose not to rescue Lehman Brothers in 2008, just as it made a political decision to provide liquidity for AIG in the same time period. These are just two obvious examples.  Also Fed member banks and the Treasury Department are full of former– and future– Goldman Sachs officials.  Are we really to believe that the interests of Goldman Sachs have absolutely no effect on Fed decisions? Clearly it’s naïve to think the Fed somehow is above political or financial influence.

Second, it’s important to remember that Congress created the Fed by statute.  Congress therefore has the full, inherent authority to regulate the Fed in any way– up to and including abolishing it altogether.

My bill provides for an ongoing, thorough audit of what the Fed really does in secret, which is make decisions about the money supply, interest rates, and bailouts of favored banks, financial firms, and companies.  In other words, I want the Government Accountability Office to examine the Fed’s actual monetary policy operations and make them public.

It is precisely this information that must be made public because it so profoundly affects everyone who holds, saves, or uses US dollars.

Representative Ron Paul (R – TX), MD, is a Republican candidate for U. S. President. See his Congressional webpage and his official campaign website. 

This article has been released by Dr. Paul into the public domain and may be republished by anyone in any manner.

Inflation is a Monetary Phenomenon – Article by Ron Paul

Inflation is a Monetary Phenomenon – Article by Ron Paul

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The New Renaissance Hat
Ron Paul
July 18, 2012
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Later this month Congress will have an unprecedented opportunity to force the Federal Reserve to provide meaningful transparency to lawmakers and taxpayers. HR 459, my bill known as “Audit the Fed,” is scheduled for a vote before the full Congress in July. More than 270 of my colleagues cosponsored the bill, and it has the support of congressional leadership. But its passage in the House of Representatives is only the beginning of the battle, as many Senators and the President still don’t see the critical need to have a national discussion about monetary policy.

The American public now senses that the Fed’s actions, especially since 2008, are enormously inflationary and will cause great harm to the American economy in the long run. They are beginning to understand what so many economists still don’t understand, which is that inflation is a monetary phenomenon, and rising prices are merely a symptom of that phenomenon.  Prices eventually rise when the supply of US dollars (paper or electronic) grows faster than the available goods and services being chased by those dollars.

This fundamental truth has been thoroughly explained by Milton Friedman and many others, so today’s Keynesian economists have no excuse for their claims that “inflation is under control.”  Ordinary Americans don’t need a PhD simply to look at the Fed’s balance sheet and understand the staggering amount of money creation that has occurred in recent years. They know it will have harmful consequences for all of us eventually.

I’ve spoken at length about inflation, and how Fed money creation is effectively a tax. Every dollar created out of thin air dilutes the value of the dollars in your pocket and your savings in the bank. But the truth is that we are only beginning to see the results of the Fed’s dramatic increase in the money supply. As former Fed Chair Alan Greenspan himself explained last week to Larry Kudlow, most of the dollar deposits created by the Fed via successive rounds of “quantitative easing” remain on the balance sheet of Fed member banks. Because of very rational economic fears, banks are not lending, businesses are not expanding, and individuals are shedding debt. So, the trillions of dollars created by the Fed since 2008 remained largely undeployed. When those dollars eventually make their way into the world economy, prices across all sectors of the economy are likely to rise dramatically.

The true evil of inflation is that newly created money benefits politically favored financial interests, especially banks, on the front end. Over time, however, the net result of monetary inflation is always the devaluation of savings and purchasing power. This devaluation discourages saving, which is the key to capital accumulation and investment in a healthy economy. Inflation also tends to hurt seniors and those living on fixed incomes the most.

For decades the Fed has operated without any meaningful oversight whatsoever, resulting in the loss of savings, loss of purchasing power, and loss of quality of life for all Americans. It causes individuals and businesses to make bad decisions, misallocating their capital because market signals have been distorted. It causes financial ruin by engineering the inevitable boom and bust cycles that so many erroneously blame on capitalism. And it does all this in secrecy, to the benefit of the financial and political classes. It is time to Audit the Fed, as a first step toward ending its unchecked power over our money and economic fortunes.

Representative Ron Paul (R – TX), MD, is a Republican candidate for U. S. President. See his Congressional webpage and his official campaign website. 

This article has been released by Dr. Paul into the public domain and may be republished by anyone in any manner.

Audit the Fed Headed for the House Floor! – Article by Ron Paul

Audit the Fed Headed for the House Floor! – Article by Ron Paul

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The New Renaissance Hat
Ron Paul
July 4, 2012
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Last week supporters of Federal Reserve transparency had a major victory when the House Committee on Government Oversight and Reform passed my Audit the Fed bill, HR 459 unanimously with all major audit provisions intact.  This clears the way for a House floor vote expected sometime in late July, and with a whopping 263 cosponsors, the chances of it passing have never looked better!  This is an unprecedented opportunity for transparency into how the currency of the United States is handled, and mishandled by the Federal Reserve.  It is more important than ever that my colleagues in the House and Senate understand what this legislation does and why it is so important.

The Federal Reserve is an enormously destructive and unaccountable force in both the U.S. economy and the greater global economy. Federal Reserve policies affect average Americans far more than fiscal, spending, and tax policies legislated by Congress; indeed the Fed “spends” more than Congress when it creates trillions of new dollars on its balance sheet to bail out favored financial institutions.

For several decades the Fed has relentlessly increased the supply of U.S. dollars (both real and electronic) and kept interest rates artificially low. These monetary policies punish thrift, erode the value of savings, and harm older Americans living on fixed incomes and the poor. The Fed’s expansion of the money supply, combined with artificially low interest rates, creates destructive cycles of malinvestment. This results in housing, stock market, and employment booms and busts that destroy lives.

While the Fed was created by Congress, current law prohibits Congress from fully auditing the Fed’s monetary policy – the Fed actions that impact Americans the most. The Fed’s financial statements are audited annually, but the Fed’s monetary policy operations are exempt from audit. Congress’ investigative arm, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), currently is prohibited by law from examining discount window and open market operations; agreements with foreign governments and central banks; and Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) directives. It is precisely this information that should be made public.

The audit mandated in the Dodd-Frank Act focused solely on emergency credit programs, and only on procedural issues rather than focusing on the substantive details of the lending transactions. Most of the data on its other activities, such as open market operations and discount window lending, have only been published as a result of lawsuits—not because of Congressional action.  Dodd-Frank requires this information to be disclosed going forward, but with a two year time lag and with GAO restricted to auditing only the procedural components of any programs. H.R. 459 grants GAO and Congress access without special exemptions and ensures that ALL of the Fed’s lending actions will be subject to oversight.

Also, given the Fed’s establishment of dollar swap agreements with foreign central banks (which lent up to $600 billion at a time in 2008), and the increasing economic uncertainty surrounding Spain, Greece and the European Union, the Fed’s continued financial assistance to Europe should not be exempt from public accountability and Congressional oversight. H.R. 459 brings transparency to the Fed’s agreements with the European Central Bank and other foreign entities.

H.R. 459 does not limit the focus of the audit, making a full audit finally possible. An entity that controls the value and purchasing power of the dollar should not be permitted to operate in the dark without oversight by Congress and accountability to the people. The Fed needs transparency and H.R. 459 would provide it. We now have this opportunity to ensure solid passage of HR 459 on the House floor, then the Senate floor and have it promptly signed into law.

Representative Ron Paul (R – TX), MD, is a Republican candidate for U. S. President. See his Congressional webpage and his official campaign website. 

This article has been released by Dr. Paul into the public domain and may be republished by anyone in any manner.

CISPA is the New SOPA – Article by Ron Paul

CISPA is the New SOPA – Article by Ron Paul

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The New Renaissance Hat
Ron Paul
April 24, 2012
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Earlier this year, strong public opposition led by several prominent websites forced Congressional leaders to cancel votes on two bills known in Washington as “SOPA” and “PIPA.”  Both of these bills threatened search engines and websites with possible shutdowns if the Justice Department deemed them insufficiently cooperative with our phony “war on terror,” or if they were merely accused of copyright infringement.  Fortunately the American public flooded Capitol Hill with phone calls and Congressional leaders dropped both bills.

But we should never underestimate the federal government’s insatiable desire to control the internet.  Statists of all parties, persuasions, and nationalities hate the free, unbridled flow of information, ideas, and goods via the internet.  They resent the notion that ordinary people can communicate and trade across the world without government filters or approvals.  So they continually seek to impose controls, always under the guise of fighting terrorism or protecting “intellectual property” rights.

The latest assault on internet freedom is called the “Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act,” or “CISPA,” which may be considered by Congress this week.  CISPA is essentially an internet monitoring bill that permits both the federal government and private companies to view your private online communications with no judicial oversight–provided, of course, that they do so in the name of “cybersecurity.”  The bill is very broadly written, and allows the Department of Homeland Security to obtain large swaths of personal information contained in your emails or other online communication.  It also allows emails and private information found online to be used for purposes far beyond any reasonable definition of fighting cyberterrorism.

CISPA represents an alarming form of corporatism, as it further intertwines government with companies like Google and Facebook.  It permits them to hand over your private communications to government officials without a warrant, circumventing well-established federal laws like the Wiretap Act and the Electronic Communications Privacy Act.  It also grants them broad immunity from lawsuits for doing so, leaving you without recourse for invasions of privacy.  Simply put, CISPA encourages some of our most successful internet companies to act as government spies, sowing distrust of social media and chilling communication in one segment of the world economy where America still leads.

Proponents of CISPA may be well-intentioned, but they unquestionably are leading us toward a national security state rather than a free constitutional republic.  Imagine having government-approved employees embedded at Facebook, complete with federal security clearances, serving as conduits for secret information about their American customers.  If you believe in privacy and free markets, you should be deeply concerned about the proposed marriage of government intelligence gathering with private, profit-seeking companies.  CISPA is Big Brother writ large, putting the resources of private industry to work for the nefarious purpose of spying on the American people. We can only hope the public responds to CISPA as it did to SOPA back in January.  I urge you to learn more about the bill by reading a synopsis provided by the Electronic Frontier Foundation on their website at eff.org.  I also urge you to call your federal Senators and Representatives and urge them to oppose CISPA and similar bills that attack internet freedom.

Representative Ron Paul (R – TX), MD, is a Republican candidate for U. S. President. See his Congressional webpage and his official campaign website. 

This article has been released by Dr. Paul into the public domain and may be republished by anyone in any manner.