PoliticalAction.com Blog

Dear Citizen,

For more than a year we’ve been talking to you about the impact of the upcoming election. Now we want to hear from you.

Will you help determine the course our country takes after November 6?

The elections, now less than a week away, will impact whether small businesses and job creators have the certainty they need to invest, hire and grow our economy, or if they continue to be sidelined by regulations, tax uncertainty, and mandated decisions made by the government about their business.

As the U.S. Chamber President and CEO Tom Donohue said, “If we get the business people and those who support and believe in American enterprise and economic freedom out to vote, we’re going to be better off no matter what.”

Do you plan to vote in the November 6th Elections?

America’s job creators need your help getting out the vote in the last days of the election.

We’ll see you at the polls.

Sincerely,

Rob Engstrom
Senior Vice President and National Political Director
U.S. Chamber of Commerce

Texas Straight Talk – A Weekly Column
Rep. and Presidential Candidate Dr. Ron Paul

If you thought the “Transportation Security Administration” would limit itself to conducting unconstitutional searches at airports, think again. The agency intends to assert jurisdiction over our nation’s highways, waterways, and railroads as well. TSA launched a new campaign of random checkpoints on Tennessee highways last week, complete with a sinister military-style acronym–VIP(E)R—as a name for the program.

As with TSA’s random searches at airports, these roadside searches are not based on any actual suspicion of criminal activity or any factual evidence of wrongdoing whatsoever by those detained. They are, in effect, completely random. So first we are told by the U.S. Supreme Court that American citizens have no 4th amendment protections at border crossings, even when standing on U.S. soil. Now TSA takes the next logical step and simply detains and searches U.S. citizens at wholly internal checkpoints.

The slippery slope is here. When does it end? How many more infringements on our liberties, our property, and our basic human rights to travel freely will it take before people become fed up enough to demand respect from their government? When will we demand that the government heed obvious constitutional limitations, and stop treating ordinary Americans as criminal suspects in the absence of probable cause?

The real tragedy occurs when Americans incrementally become accustomed to this treatment on the roads just as they have become accustomed to it in the airports. We already accept arriving at the airport 2 or more hours before a flight to get through security; will we soon have to build in an extra 2 or 3 hours into our road trips to allow for checkpoint traffic?

Worse, some people are lulled into a false sense of security and are actually grateful for this added police presence! Should we really hail the expansion of the police state as an enhancement to safety? I submit that an attitude of acquiescence to TSA authority is thoroughly dangerous, un-American, and insulting to earlier freedom-loving generations who built this country.

I am certain people will complain about this, once they have to sit in stopped traffic for a few extra hours to allow for random searches of cars. However, I am also certain it merely will take another “foiled” plot to silence many people into gladly accepting more government mismanagement of safety.

Vigilant, observant, law-abiding, gun-owning citizens defend themselves and stop crimes every day before police can respond. That is the source of real security in America: the 2nd Amendment right to defend oneself. The answer is for people to be empowered to protect themselves. Yet how many weapons might these checkpoints confiscate? Even when individual go through all the legal hoops of licensing and permits, the chances of harassment or outright confiscation of weapons and detention of citizens when those weapons are found at a TSA checkpoint is extremely high.

Disarming the highways and filling them full of jack-booted thugs demanding to see our papers is no way to make them safer. Instead, it is a great way to expand government surveillance powers and tighten the noose around our liberties.

by Rep. Ron Paul | Texas Straight Talk
August 1, 2011

One might think that the recent drama over the debt ceiling involved one side wanting to increase or maintain spending with the other side wanting to drastically cut spending, but that is far from the truth. In spite of the rhetoric being thrown around, the real debate is over how much government spending will increase. No plan under serious consideration cuts spending in the way you and I think about it. Instead, the cuts being discussed are illusory and are not cuts from current amounts being spent, but cuts in prospective spending increases. This is akin to a family saving $100,000 in expenses by deciding not to buy a Lamborghini and instead getting a fully loaded Mercedes when really their budget dictates that they need to stick with their perfectly serviceable Honda.

But this is the type of math Washington uses to mask the incriminating truth about the unrepentant plundering of the American people. The truth is that frightening rhetoric about default and full faith in the credit of the United States being carelessly thrown around to ram through a bigger budget than ever in spite of stagnant revenues. If your family’s income did not change year over year, would it be wise financial management to accelerate spending so you would feel richer? That is what our government is doing, with one side merely suggesting a different list of purchases than the other.

In reality, bringing our fiscal house into order is not that complicated or excruciatingly painful at all. If we simply kept spending at current levels, by their definition of cuts that would save nearly $400 billion in the next few years, versus the $25 billion the Budget Control Act claims to cut. It would only take us five years to cut $1 trillion in Washington math just by holding the line on spending. That is hardly austere or catastrophic.

A balanced budget is similarly simple and within reach if Washington had just a tiny amount of fiscal common sense. Our revenues currently stand at approximately $2.2 trillion a year and are likely to remain stagnant as the recession continues. Our outlays are $3.7 trillion and projected to grow every year. Yet we only have to go back to 2004 for federal outlays of $2.2 trillion, and the government was far from small that year. If we simply referred to that year’s spending levels, which would hardly do us fear, we would have a balanced budget right now. If we held the line on spending and the economy actually did grow as estimated, the budget would balance on its own by 2015 with no cuts whatsoever.

We pay 35% more for our military today than we did 10 years ago for the exact same capabilities. The same could be said for the rest of the government. Why has our budget doubled in 10 years? This country doesn’t have double the population or double the land area or double anything that would require the federal government to grow by such an obscene amount.

In Washington terms a simple freeze in spending would be a much bigger cut than any plan being discussed. If politicians simply cannot bear to implement actual cuts to actual spending, just freezing the budget would give the economy the best chance to catch its breath, recover and grow.

Texas Straight Talk
Rep. Ron Paul (R) – TX 14

The remarkable confluence of recent events has brought unprecedented but very welcome attention to both U.S. monetary policy and the global political economy in general. First, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke recently announced that the Fed would embark upon another round of monetary easing by purchasing $600 billion worth of U.S. treasury debt. This amounts to admission that markets have run out of patience with our profligacy and therefore our own central bank literally must serve as the buyer of last resort for treasury debt.

Second, World Bank President Robert Zoellick openly suggested that gold could play a helpful role in the global monetary system by serving as reference against more volatile fiat currencies. This is almost heresy coming from a neoconservative globalist like Mr. Zoellick. It hints at an obvious but unspoken truth that is anathema to politicians and central bankers alike, namely, that gold could be viewed as money.

Finally, Mr. Obama attended the G20 summit in South Korea last week and found a very chilly reception for his vision of American economic policy. Mr. Obama argued for continued worldwide stimulus via continued debasing of the U.S. dollar to bolster American exports. Several powerful European and Asian finance ministers however rejected this approach out of hand as nothing short of a currency war. They are committed to austerity measures at home and don’t want to let the U.S. simply monetize its past sins at their expense.

All these events culminated in a tremendous amount of political and media scrutiny aimed at the Fed. Ordinary Americans are demanding answers and accountability and they are putting heat on their political representatives in Washington to end the cozy independence from congressional oversight the Fed has enjoyed for so long.

In the 35 years I have been studying, speaking and writing about monetary policy I have never before seen Congress or the financial press pay much attention to the Fed. Monetary policy has always been considered boring on Capitol Hill, something left to remote policy wonks far away from the den of presidential or congressional politics. Congress always has been eager to leave Fed governors well alone with no oversight or accountability as long as they played along and papered over the growing budget deficits.

But it’s amazing what a global economic meltdown will do to the political and media landscape. In just two short years the Fed has become the hot topic and a lightning rod for criticism. While it is gratifying to see so many formerly uninterested politicians, economists, talk show hosts and pundits suddenly rally to attack the Fed, one can only wonder whether they truly understand that central banking is inherently incompatible with our Constitution and a free market economy.

In other words, it’s not enough to show outrage at the latest Fed action or argue about the relative merits of Mr. Bernanke compared to his predecessors. To reclaim our dollar and our economy Americans must oppose central banking per se. Fiat currencies cannot be reformed or managed. They are fundamentally subject to ruinous debasement courtesy of the political and ruling class. History shows that this is true in all nations, at all times.

Originally posted on RonPaul.com on April 3, 2009
It has become even more relevant since last year.

http://www.ronpaul.com/2009-04-03/ron-paul-and-barney-frank-introduce-hemp-farming-legislation-hr-1866/

A federal bill was introduced yesterday that, if passed into law, would remove restrictions on the cultivation of non-psychoactive industrial hemp. The chief sponsors of HR 1866, “The Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2009,” Representatives Barney Frank (D-MA) and Ron Paul (R-TX), were joined by nine other U.S. House members split between Republicans and Democrats.

“It is unfortunate that the federal government has stood in the way of American farmers, including many who are struggling to make ends meet, from competing in the global industrial hemp market,” said Representative Ron Paul during his introduction of the bill yesterday before the U.S. House. “Indeed, the founders of our nation, some of whom grew hemp, would surely find that federal restrictions on farmers growing a safe and profitable crop on their own land are inconsistent with the constitutional guarantee of a limited, restrained federal government. Therefore, I urge my colleagues to stand up for American farmers and co-sponsor the Industrial Hemp Farming Act,” concluded Paul.

“With so much discussion lately in the media about drug policy, it is surprising that the tragedy of American hemp farming hasn’t come up as a ‘no-brainer’ for reform,” says Vote Hemp President, Eric Steenstra. “Hemp is a versatile, environmentally-friendly crop that has not been grown here for over fifty years because of a politicized interpretation of the nation’s drug laws by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). President Obama should direct the DEA to stop confusing industrial hemp with its genetically distinct cousin, marijuana. While the new bill in Congress is a welcome step, the hemp industry is hopeful that President Obama’s administration will prioritize hemp’s benefits to farmers. Jobs would be created overnight, as there are numerous U.S. companies that now have no choice but to import hemp raw materials worth many millions of dollars per year,” adds Steenstra.

U.S. companies that manufacture or sell products made with hemp include Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps, a California company who manufactures the number-one-selling natural soap, and FlexForm Technologies, an Indiana company whose natural fiber materials are used in over two million cars on the road today. Hemp food manufacturers, such as French Meadow Bakery, Hempzels, Living Harvest, Nature’s Path and Nutiva, now make their products from Canadian hemp. Although hemp now grows wild across the U.S., a vestige of centuries of hemp farming here, the hemp for these products must be imported. Hemp clothing is made around the world by well-known brands such as Patagonia, Bono’s Edun and Giorgio Armani.

There is strong support among key national organizations for a change in the federal government’s position on hemp. The National Association of State Departments of Agriculture (NASDA) “supports revisions to the federal rules and regulations authorizing commercial production of industrial hemp.” The National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) has also passed a pro-hemp resolution.

Numerous individual states have expressed interest in and support for industrial hemp as well. Sixteen states have passed pro-hemp legislation, and eight states (Hawaii, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Montana, North Dakota, Vermont and West Virginia) have removed barriers to its production or research. North Dakota has been issuing state licenses to farmers for two years now. The new bill will remove federal barriers and allow laws in these states regulating the growing and processing of hemp to take effect.

“Under the current national drug control policy, industrial hemp can be imported, but it can’t be grown by American farmers,” says Steenstra. “The DEA has taken the Controlled Substances Act’s antiquated definition of marijuana out of context and used it as an excuse to ban industrial hemp farming. The Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2009 will return us to more rational times when the government regulated marijuana, but allowed farmers to continue raising industrial hemp just as they always had.”

More information about hemp legislation and the crop’s many uses can be found at www.VoteHemp.com.

Statement of Congressman Ron Paul
United States House of Representatives
Statement Introducing HR 1866, Industrial Hemp Farming Act
April 2, 2009

Madam Speaker, I rise to introduce the Industrial Hemp Farming Act. The Industrial Hemp Farming Act requires the federal government to respect state laws allowing the growing of industrial hemp.

Eight States–Hawaii, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Montana, North Dakota, Vermont, and West Virginia–allow industrial hemp production or research in accord with state laws. However, federal law is standing in the way of farmers in these states growing what may be a very profitable crop. Because of current federal law, all hemp included in products sold in the United States must be imported instead of being grown by American farmers.

Since 1970, the federal Controlled Substances Act’s inclusion of industrial hemp in the schedule one definition of marijuana has prohibited American farmers from growing industrial hemp despite the fact that industrial hemp has such a low content of THC (the psychoactive chemical in the related marijuana plant) that nobody can be psychologically affected by consuming hemp. Federal law concedes the safety of industrial hemp by allowing it to be legally imported for use as food.

The United States is the only industrialized nation that prohibits industrial hemp cultivation. The Congressional Research Service has noted that hemp is grown as an established agricultural commodity in over 30 nations in Europe, Asia, North America, and South America. The Industrial Hemp Farming Act will relieve this unique restriction on American farmers and allow them to grow industrial hemp in accord with state law.

Industrial hemp is a crop that was grown legally throughout the United States for most of our nation’s history. In fact, during World War II, the federal government actively encouraged American farmers to grow industrial hemp to help the war effort. The Department of Agriculture even produced a film “Hemp for Victory” encouraging the plant’s cultivation.

In recent years, the hemp plant has been put to many popular uses in foods and in industry. Grocery stores sell hemp seeds and oil as well as food products containing oil and seeds from the hemp plant. Industrial hemp is also included in consumer products such as paper, cloths, cosmetics, and carpet. One of the more innovative recent uses of industrial hemp is in the door frames of about 1.5 million cars. Hemp has even been used in alternative automobile fuel.

It is unfortunate that the federal government has stood in the way of American farmers, including many who are struggling to make ends meet, competing in the global industrial hemp market. Indeed, the founders of our nation, some of whom grew hemp, would surely find that federal restrictions on farmers growing a safe and profitable crop on their own land are inconsistent with the constitutional guarantee of a limited, restrained federal government. Therefore, I urge my colleagues to stand up for American farmers and cosponsor the Industrial Hemp Farming Act.

Dear Citizens,

Harry Reid is determined to pass his extremist agenda, no matter what it costs America.

First, he voted to give special tax breaks and Social Security benefits to Illegal Aliens. Then, he smiled and clapped when the President of Mexico attacked Arizona for their tough new immigration law. Now, Reid has introduced a new plan that introduces AMNESTY for illegal immigrants.

And it’s all at YOUR expense.

You will pay for every penny of his policies. Not a faceless individual from another state, or the mythical “rich” that Reid thinks will easily pay for his “trillions” in spending.

It will be you and your children.

No wonder Harry Reid and his Democrat cronies are planning one of the largest tax increases in United States history this year when they roll back the Bush tax cuts! They’re going to need all that money to pay for their extreme agenda.

We have just one chance to defeat him and keep our money. That chance is right now. Recent polls have me leading Harry Reid and show that I can defeat him. Will you support our final push in these last few weeks before the November Election?

I’ve launched a new TV ad to get this message to every resident of Nevada. Believe me, it’s expensive. That’s why we set a $1 million dollar online fundraising goal for September. Thankfully, we blew past that goal this week so we are now hoping to raise $1.5 million. Will you help me?

In a just a few short weeks, one of two things will happen. Either I will win in November and we’ll get to work on rolling back the government health care takeover that Reid passed, extending the Bush tax cuts, and reducing the size of the Federal Government.

Or Harry Reid will win and we’ll all be spending the holiday season deciding what items we’ll be cutting back on in order to pay for his tax increases and bloated federal spending. Will it be that extra dinner out with your spouse? Will it be something even more serious, like braces for your kids? Those the are the kinds of ugly choices that Harry Reid will be forcing Americans to make if he is re-elected.

Those decisions aren’t pleasant. But those are the decisions we face.

While Harry Reid hangs out in the Ritz in DC planning how he’ll spend your money, we have to face the real decisions back home. Will you stand with me and make SURE this doesn’t happen? Will you help me make sure Reid’s agenda isn’t passed at OUR expense?

Let’s win this together.

For the cause,

Sharron Angle, Republican Nominee for U.S. Senate, Nevada

P.S. Win or lose in a few weeks I’ll be living in Nevada, paying taxes here and watching many of my friends fight to obtain or keep a job. We must not stand by while Reid robs us of what we have left. Will you stand with me?

Paid for by Friends of Sharron Angle

Dear Friend of Liberty,

Power-hungry statists are never satisfied.

Now they’re attempting to use a massive egg recall to shove S. 510, the so-called “Food Safety Modernization Act,” down our throats.

S. 510, through a patchwork of rules and regulations on the food “industry,” will throw America’s heartland under the government-subsidized corporatist bus as it crushes local and community producers of healthy food.

Contact your senators today to tell them to oppose S.510!

Like Cap and Tax, which will guarantee higher energy bills during these rough economic times, S. 510 will further drive up the costs of living by adding more layers of bureaucracy on food production – ensuring you pay more to meet an essential need.

Congress certainly won’t be the one tightening its belt. Section 401 of S. 510 authorizes nearly $1 billion to grow the FDA’s reach and calls for almost 4,000 new bureaucrats to be hired in fiscal year 2010 alone.

This onerous new law will apply harshly to reputable food producers like the independent family farm, where the free market works every day to provide the public with healthy choices.

Meanwhile, Big Agriculture will continue to use its well-entrenched connections to make sure it escapes serious scrutiny.

The statists have worked to replace “credible evidence” with “reasonable probability” in the U.S. Code, giving the FDA power to invade, quarantine, or shut down private property in search of any foodborne illness.

They also changed “presents a threat of serious adverse health consequences or death to humans or animals” to “is adulterated or misbranded.” What exactly constitutes adulterated? That glass of raw milk? An FDA bureaucrat will decide.

It gets worse.

The bill also grants blanket authority for federal agencies to impose international guidelines and standards on domestic food producers – giving agencies authority to harmonize all American food production and processes in line with the globalist Codex.

It should be noted that Senators Tom Harkin (D-IA), Mike Enzi (R-WY), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Judd Gregg (R-NH), Chris Dodd (D-CT), and Richard Burr (R-NC) coordinated to reach a “bipartisan” agreement to forge ahead with the otherwise stalled bill.

If you are a constituent of any of these senators, they especially need to hear from you.

Big Brother and Big Agriculture are combating the truly modern way to improve food safety by targeting the rapidly growing number of food producers who, through the free market, provide diversity and give us choices.

The establishment is pushing for more consolidation and is looking to control your food choices to make it happen. Don’t stomach another round of tyranny. Contact your senators today.

In Liberty,

John Tate

President

P.S. Gluttonous statists are drooling to pass not only this bill, but other assaults like DISCLOSE and Cap and Tax. If you are able, please chip in $10 today so Campaign for Liberty can stay on the offensive against any infringements on our freedoms. Use the “Share” button below to forward this message to your friends and family.

Oh yes, those legislative busybody scanners are at it again, mandating that full body imaging x-ray devices be installed in every airport in the nation by 2013, under the illusory premise of increasing safety.

This is another unconstitutional tactic that Americans are overwhelmingly opposed to, but that doesn’t bother Senator Bob Bennett (R-Utah) and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) who introduced S. 3536, the Securing Aircraft From Explosives Responsibly: Advanced Imaging Recognition Act of 2010, (SAFER AIR Act). “To enhance aviation security and protect personal privacy, and for other purposes,” is the leading line of the SAFE AIR bill text.

The goal of the bill must be “for other purposes,” because there will be no personal privacy when more and more travelers, both adults and children, are singled out for an extra security check that is in reality a revealing sneak peek at their anatomy, minus their clothes. Spending millions and millions of taxpayer dollars on more machines will do little to “enhance aviation security,” either, as it as already been established that the Detroit bomber’s explosives would not have been detected by such a machine, and even firecrackers have been missed.

The facts remain the same: Having a complete stranger view your almost-naked body is a violation of your privacy and civil rights guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment. Adult and child images have been saved on these machines, even though DHS policy already forbids such practices. A weak reiteration of this policy in new legislation will have zero effect in curbing existing abuses and securing these images that are recorded and stored in the machines — machines that also have the ability to transfer those images at the click of a button. And transfer them they will, between themselves, as it says in the text of the bill:
“An image produced using advanced imaging technology that shows personal or nonstandardized images shall be transferred using a secure connection to a location that enables an employee of the Department of Homeland Security to view the image without risking the exposure of the image to the public.”

There is also the question of health concerns over the radiation exposure, especially for frequent fliers, or anyone with medical problems, prostheses, etc.

Oh sure, the bill contains pathetic attempts to include privacy clauses. One section forbids TSA personnel from having cameras near the machinery, but they really wouldn’t need this precaution because apparently the screeners are adept at saving and transferring nude images generated by these devices, having practiced on 35,000 of them already. Passengers specially picked for extra attention can always opt out of the machine scanning and instead choose the ever popular personal groping session by a person of the same sex, if one is available.

Best thing to do with this legislation is contact your senators and tell them to throw out S. 3536 when it comes before them for the sake of real privacy, health, safety, and freedom.

Currently S. 3536 sits in the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee. Urging the committee members to drop the legislation now would save a lot of time and trouble down the road.

Thanks,

Your friends at The John Birch Society

Texas Straight Talk
Rep. Ron Paul (R) – TX 14

Last week the National Bureau of Economic Research published a report on the effect of civilian casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq that confirmed what critics of our foreign policy had been saying for years. The killing of civilians, although unintentional, angers other civilians and prompts them to seek revenge. This should be self-evident. The Central Intelligence Agency has long acknowledged and analyzed the concept blowback in our foreign policy.

It still amazes me that so many think that attacks against our soldiers occupying hostile foreign lands are motivated by hatred toward our system of government at home, or by the religion of the attackers. In fact, most of the anger toward us is rooted in reactions towards seeing their mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, and other loved ones, being killed by a foreign army. No matter our intention, the violence of our militarism in foreign lands causes those residents to seek revenge if innocents are killed. One does not have to be a Muslim to react this way – just human.

Our battle in Afghanistan resembles the battle against the many-headed Hydra monster in Greek mythology. According to former General Stanley McChrystal’s so-called insurgent math, for every insurgent killed, ten more insurgents are created by the collateral damage to civilians. Every coalition attack leads to six retaliatory attacks against our troops within the following six weeks, according to the NBER report. These retaliatory attacks must then be acted on by our troops, leading to still more attacks, and so it goes. Violence begets more violence. Eventually more and more Afghanis will view American troops with hostility and seek revenge for the deaths of a loved one. Meanwhile we are bleeding ourselves dry militarily and economically.

Some say if we leave, the Taliban will be strengthened. However, those who make that claim ignore the numerous ways our interventionist foreign policy has strengthened groups like the Taliban over the years. I have already pointed out how we serve as excellent recruiters for them by killing civilians. Last week I pointed out how our foreign aid to Pakistan specifically makes it into the Taliban’s coffers. And of course we provided the Taliban with aid and resources in the 1980s when they were our strategic allies against the Soviet Union.

For example, our CIA supplied them with stinger missiles to use against the Soviets, which are strikingly similar to the ones now allegedly used against us on the same battlefield according to the Wikileaks documents. As usual, our friends have a funny way of turning against us. Manuel Noriega and Saddam Hussein are also prime examples. Yet Congress never seems to acknowledge the blowback that results from our interventionism of the past.

Our war against the Taliban is going about as well as our War on Drugs or our War on Poverty, or any of our government’s wars. They all tend to create more of the thing they purport to eradicate, thereby dodging any excuse to draw down and come to an end. It is hard to image even winning anything this way. We have done enough damage in Afghanistan, both to the Afghan people and to ourselves. It’s time to reevaluate the situation. It’s time to come home.