Liberty Maven

D o w n s i z e r - D i s p a t c h

Quotes of the Day:
“In some cases, members clearly signed on without reading or understanding the implications of what they were signing on to . . . (referring to H.Con.Res 362)”
– Jim Fine, Legislative Secretary for Foreign Policy, Friends Committee on National Legislation

“I agree that this (H.Con.Res. 362) should not be our policy, and I regret the fact that I did not read this resolution more carefully.”
– Congressman Barney Frank

Subject: Congress will not authorize a naval blockade of Iran

We’ve won another victory — this time in our fight against H.Con.Res. 362. This House resolution would have urged President Bush to impose a naval blockade on Iran, bringing the U.S. to a state of undeclared war with that nation.

The House Democratic leadership has decided to NOT bring the resolution to a vote.

This looks like it is a final victory. If any resolution comes to the floor in the next Congress it is unlikely to include the naval blockade.

This victory is due entirely to public pressure. DC Downsizers were a major part of that pressure. Massive public protest led five co-sponsors of the resolution to officially withdraw their names from the bill, while other co-sponsors flipped and voiced strong opposition to the naval blockade provision.

Jim Fine, the Legislative Secretary for our coalition partner, the Friend’s Committee, puts it this way, “None of us at FCNL can remember another time when five members withdrew from a resolution they had agreed to cosponsor.”

H.Con.Res. 362 is also another demonstration of the need for Downsize DC’s “Read the Bills Act.” Many of the co-sponsors were unaware of what they were committing to, because they hadn’t read the resolution before agreeing to support it. Your pressure helped make them aware of their error.

Pressure works, as long as there’s enough of it, applied relentlessly for a long enough time. We need to keep up the pressure, on all fronts. Which means . . .

We need to continue to pressure Congress on old issues as we also prepare for a long fight on the host of government interventions surrounding the Big Bailout. We must not allow old transgressions to be forgotten, and become locked in place, because the politicians have diverted our attention to their latest set of crises.

For instance, let’s not lose sight of our fight to repeal the REAL ID Act. It’s been a few weeks since we’ve pressured Congress on this issue. They may think we’ve forgotten about it. Let’s show them that we haven’t forgotten, and that we will never relent until we get what we want. Send a message right now asking Congress to repeal the REAL ID Act.

Tell Congress that you will not submit to a national identification card loaded with highly sensitive personal bio-metric information. You can send your message using our Educate the Powerful System.

[...]

Congratulations on your latest victory, and thanks for being a part of the growing Downsize DC army.

Jim Babka
President
DownsizeDC.org, Inc.

D o w n s i z e r - D i s p a t c h
is the official email list of DownsizeDC.org, Inc. & Downsize DC Foundation

When I heard William “BJ” Lawson speak for the first time in person I said to myself, “This is the Ron Paul Republican who can win”. Then I checked out his opponent David Price and immediately thought, “I know Lawson can win.” At first glance, the problem is the heavily Democratic North Carolina district he is in, but if you dig a bit deeper, Lawson is the perfect candidate for a district of this kind. He is not your normal present day Republican. Lawson has the ability to attract those on all sides of the political spectrum much like Ron Paul did during his own campaign.

Below you will discover the Liberty Maven rankings for BJ Lawson on the Paul-O-Meter, where candidates and current lawmakers can be rated on how closely they are in line with Dr. Ron Paul on the issues. To learn about the Paul-O-Meter methodology please see this article. You may also assign your own rankings or request a candidate be added to the system.

Continue reading to see if BJ Lawson truly deserves the moniker “Ron Paul Jr.”

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You laughed at him. You made fun of him. You called him extreme, a gadfly, a kook, and many other trite terms of marginalization. His only crime was the truth in stark contrast to every calculated, vacuous platitude uttered by his Republican opponents. Now I can’t help but imagine Ron Paul sitting in his easy chair surrounded by gold and silver bullion smiling knowingly saying, “Who’s laughing now, bitches?!”

No, that isn’t Ron Paul’s style, as we learned from the debate where Paul whispered, “Make, fun buddy”, under his breath in reaction to yet another moronic insult emanating from somewhere between Mitt Romney’s sculpted sideburns. Ron Paul is a man deserving of integrity and respect at work in the sea of extreme buffoonery that is Washington DC.

Nothing illustrates such an assertion better than the last few weeks of having to listen to every pundit and politico tell us why we all had to fall in line behind a bailout bill that no one wanted to pass and no one was sure would work.  But the sky was falling and the wolf was around the bend so pass it we must. America, our government didn’t listen to us. We have no representation anymore. The last vestige of capitalism is nearing death. We are on the road to economic slavery.

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In the following pages, I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments and common sense; and have no other preliminaries to settle with the reader, other than that he will divest himself of prejudice and prepossession, and suffer his reason and his feelings to determine for themselves; that he will put on, or rather that he will not put off, the true character of a man, and generously enlarge his views beyond the present day. - Thomas Paine

Originally published October 5, 2008 at http://www.nolanchart.com/article5111.html

Reader - Imagine you are in a room, alone with 20 American soldiers for one day.  At sunset, all their bodies thud to the floor, stone dead.  At dawn, 20 more enter the room and again die at sunset. It repeats every day for 7 years.   It will repeat tomorrow.  This is what I know of their story, their sad statistics.

Amid all the talk about the economy and election, Americans have forgotten the casualties of the War on Terror.  This is your  reminder.

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Did you know that 18 American war veterans die every day? And did you know that Veteran’s Affairs has no idea why? And did you know….

by Jake, the Champion of the Constitution

Originally published October 5, 2008 at http://www.nolanchart.com/article5114.html

Reader - The following has an excerpt from my previous post for background. It grew to be too long and too off topic so I created a separate article.  Personally I view the topic to be extremely important as it appears that our government is covering up the suicide deaths of our veterans.   Read on and decide for yourself. Although the CBS report of cover-up is not new, some of my research I do not believe is published, and I will refer this article to the CBS reporter who previously wrote about this issue.

I want to start by noting that there are also staggering levels of suicides by American military veterans. Per this 2007 email from Dr. Ira Katz, the Veteran’s Affairs Head of Mental Health:

“There are about 18 suicides per day among America’s 25 million veterans. This follows from CDC findings that 20% of suicides are among veterans. It is supported by the CBS numbers. Veteran Affair’s own data demonstrate 4-5 suicides per day among those who receive care from us.”

(CBS 2008 Article) (CBS 2007 Article) (Katz Email from CBS)

To do the calculation at 18 suicides per day, in the 7-year span of the Global War on Terror approximately 46,000 veterans have committed suicide.

Well how can CBS claim Katz is covering-up?  I thank them for bringing this to public attention, but as it appears they failed to see that a criminal investigation was started, I have to question their integrity.  Surely fraud and intent to deceive on such a topic like the below would be seen as worthy of at least forcibly and immediately removing Dr. Katz from his office?  Apparently, there was not enough public outrage.  From this February 2008 email aptly headed “FW:Not for the CBS News Interview Request” Katz wrote:

Shh!  Our suicide prevention coordinators are indentifying about 1000 suicide attempts per month among the veterans we see in our medical facilities.  Is this something we should (carefully) address ourselves in some sort of release before someone stumbles on it?

Cover-up here? No, no, no cover-up here.  Move on, move on people.  There is nothing to see here.   NOTHING TO SEE HERE!!  Please disperse and do not watch that 30-second video, it will completely rot your mind and cause laughter.

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After watching the first two so-called main stream party debates it is quite refreshing to hear a candidate give very direct answers to the questions he is asked. Bob Barr did that during his 6 minutes on NPR yesterday. Instead of talking around the problem and answering direct questions with subterfuge like McCain, Palin, Obama, and Biden, Barr answers with precision. That must almost be enough for some people to vote for the guy even if they disagree with him.

Check out the interview over at the Bob Barr campaign blog.

Ron Paul was interviewed by Alan Colmes on FOX Radio this evening. They discussed the bailout and some rather detailed positions by Ron Paul on what can be done to help fix the economic problems we face. Of course, both Alan and Ron agreed that the good Doctor’s solutions are probably too fundamental to be implemented any time soon. Towards the end of the interview Colmes asks Ron Paul if he will run for President again. Listen below for the answer.

Listen to the the Ron Paul - Alan Colmes Interview [MP3]

The US House Committee on Foreign Affairs chaired a meeting published as “Defeating al-Qaeda’s Air Force: Pakistan’s F-16 Program in the Fight Against Terrorism.” The Champion of the Constitution reports on what this meeting covered, what it really demonstrated, and how it connects with the dream of Ron Paul, Dwight Eisenhower, myself and who knows? perhaps even you.

by Jake, the Champion of the Constitution
Originally published September 30, 2008 at http://www.nolanchart.com/article5060.html

As you can see for yourself at this house.gov page, Congress did indeed call this meeting entitled “Defeating Al-Qaeda’s Air Force: Pakistan’s F-16 Program in the Fight Against Terrorism.” While I suppose if someone taught the neocon clerk or sub-committee chairman Gary Ackerman (D-NY) proper punctuation the title could be arranged to reflect the meeting contents much better, the first thing I want to note is the international consternation this title caused and the general geopolitical situation. Then I will summarize the meeting from my point of view  - I did listen to the entire two-hour proceeding, which you can watch here, and give you my unbiased (grin grin) conclusion.

The Pakistan Situation

The Times of India, the Press Trust of India and Pakistan’s PakTribune were all highly interested and yet confused by the title of the meeting. While the meeting is of fairly high relevance to both Pakistan and India, most of the American public is either ignorant or don’t-give-a-damn (yours truly and the Reader excepted :). And I can see why, there are so many nations the US government does international arms contracts - Israel and most of the Middle East, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, Pakistan, parts of Europe, ex-Soviet republics (like Georgia) and pretty much anywhere else people want to buy weapons to deter or kill others it is hard to keep track. Hey, everyone DOES know the United States of America is the world’s top international arms dealer by a long shot right?

The general geopolitical situation with Pakistan is that we are committing acts of war against this sovereign nation in what amounts to a just another undeclared war of terror. As I documented in “The Next American War of Terror in Pakistan Continues - Marriot Hotel Bombing Portends Blowback Event on American Soil“, the New York Times and Financial Times reported that Bush issued secret orders to start attacking Pakistan without governmental permission. However, in the same article is the vehement public stance of the Pakistani military’s army chief, Pervez Kiyani, which is to not allow foreign troops onto its soil and defend Pakistan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity “at all cost.” The Pakistanis have no choice if you understand this nation’s political situation which I tried to explain in my July article “Utter Chaos in Afghanistan and Pakistan as Barack Obama Sanctions Preemptive War”

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Note: This superb commentary regarding the current status of the two party system was submitted by Doug Lasken, an accomplished freelance author and English teacher in Los Angeles, California.

Where’s A Good Party?

by Doug Lasken

Perhaps the best adjective to describe our presidential conventions is “noisy.” You’d think, from the impact, that the noise was generated by a good percentage of the population, but the conventioneers at both events are just a tiny group that knows how to get heard.

One has to admit it’s been a good show this time because disapproval of President Bush is so widespread and profound that defeating his party is highly motivational, while die hard Republicans are motivated to salvage their banner. The fact is, though, that vast numbers of Americans view the two party system as a transparent scam, and they are looking for something better.

In a nutshell, the parties don’t stand for any clear-cut principles or practices.

The traditional wisdom, of course, is that Democrats hold the rich to their obligations to the little guy, oppose unnecessary war and want a sustainable, pleasant planet earth.

Republicans are supposed to believe in an independent mindset that thrives in a free marketplace unfettered by intrusive government. They are “fiscal conservatives,” advocates of a government run like a frugal household in which expenditures do not exceed income, and they believe in “family values” (a vague concept involving caring about one’s family).

It’s all bunk. Neither party represents any of those things.

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Ron Paul was on the radio with Glenn Beck this morning. They discussed the bailout legislation and how it may or may not affect the United States. Both lamented the push towards globalism and the truly frightening prospect of an authoritative central bank for the world. He specifically mentions that he fears a coming “dark ages” due to the stripping of individual liberty through centralized control of money.

Ron Paul also delves into the inner workings in the House of Representatives on how these types of bills get pushed through Congress. He derides the practice of Congressional leadership accusing colleagues of not being “team players” when it comes to voting on the bills.

In an especially interesting moment, Paul tells Beck… “You may not like this, but it means our empire has to end.” Beck then attempts to clarify his position as being more in line with Paul’s thinking than Paul may think. The audio is almost 16 minutes long.

Listen to the interview [MP3]