Ron Paul: 'What we need is more WikiLeaks'
By Stephen C. Webster
December 04, 2010
-- Popular *Texas Republican Congressman Ron Paul is no stranger to
breaking with his party, but in a recent television appearance the
libertarian-leaning Rep. went even further than any member of Congress in
defending whistleblower website WikiLeaks.
Speaking to Fox Business host Judge Napolitano on Thursday about recent
revelations at the Federal Reserve, Paul's typical candor showed through.
"What we need is more WikiLeaks about the Federal Reserve," he said. "Can
you imagine what it'd be like if we had every conversation in the last 10
years with our Federal Reserve people, the Federal Reserve chairman, with
all the central bankers of the world and every agreement or quid-pro-quo
they have? It would be massive. People would be so outraged."
Paul, a longtime critic of the US Federal Reserve, is the incoming chairman
of a House subcommittee on monetary policy. His most recent book, titled
"End the Fed," takes aim at central banks the world over, blaming fiat money
systems and fractional reserve banking for the world's increasingly volatile
economies.
"In a free society we're supposed to know the truth," Paul insisted. "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.
He added: "This whole notion that Assange, who's an Australian, that we want
to prosecute him for treason -- I mean, aren't they jumping to a wild
conclusion? [...] I mean, why don't we prosecute *The New York Times* or
anybody that releases this?"
The Texas congressman echoed his message from Fox Business in a
twitter post<http://twitter.com/RepRonPaul/status/10716266021003264#>early
Friday.
"In a free society, we are supposed to know the truth," he wrote. "In a
society where truth becomes treason, we are in big trouble."
Many Republicans have called for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, an
Australian, to be prosecuted under the US Espionage Act, or for his site
to be deemed a "foreign terrorist organization. The Department of Justice
said it was looking into who leaked the massive caches of documents
to Assange and whether or not he could be prosecuted.
The site experienced a series of domain take-downs Friday, but was
back online via an IP address, with mirrors popping up across Europe.
Data released by the Federal Reserve on Wednesday showed that
foreign banks were among the biggest recipients of some $3.3
trillion in emergency loans offered by the US central bank amid the
2008 financial crisis.
More than $290 billion worth of mortgage securities were sold to Deutsche
Bank, a German lender. Credit Suisse, a Swiss bank, got more than $287
billion in mortgage bonds. Corporations like Caterpillar, General Electric,
Harley Davidson, McDonald's, Verizon and Toyota also relied the programs.
This video was broadcast by Fox Business on Thursday, Dec. 2, 2010, as
snipped by MoxNews <http://www.youtube.com/user/MOXNEWSd0tCOM>.
***
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/12/06-8
Institutional Insanity
by Ralph Nader
CommonDreams.org: December 6, 2010
If there was a mental health hospital for institutions the Republican Party
and its top leaders would be admissible as clinically insane. Their bizarre
wackopedia seems to contain no discernible boundaries. Repeatedly, these
corporate supplicants oppose any measure, any regulation, any legislation
that will directly help workers, consumers, the environment, small taxpayers
and even investor-shareholders.
There are some exceptions. Since these Republican politicians eat, some did
vote for the long-delayed food safety bill last week so that e-coli does not
enter their intestines to disrupt the drivel drooling from their daily
repertoire.
The Republicans get away with countless absurdities for at least two
reasons. One is that their nominal opponents are the spineless, clueless,
gutless Democrats (with a few notable exceptions) who present themselves as
uncertain waverers, dialing for the same corporate dollars as the
Republicans chase. The other is the political reporters who dwell on
questions directed toward tactics and horseraces that the dimmest of
Republicans can handle easily.
Take the evasive next Speaker of the House, Ohio Republican John Boehner.
I've lost count of the times he said the recent health care law would "kill
jobs in America, ruin the best health care system in the world, and bankrupt
our country." I don't recall one reporter asking him to be specific on these
claims. Instead, the questions focused on Capitol Hill timing and tactics.
Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate, makes similar
declarations such as: "I've said over and over again, you don't raise taxes
in a recession." Really? Of all previous presidents, only Only George W.
Bush did not raise taxes but actually reduced them in wartime. But don't
expect a reporter to ask McConnell whether he thinks the children and
grandchildren should be sent the bill for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Or
if he thinks repealing the Bush tax cuts on the rich would help reduce the
deficit.
How many times have you heard the Republicans demand cutting the national
deficit? Probably as often as they did nothing when George W. Bush piled up
trillions of dollars in red ink. Now that Obama is president, they rarely
get specific about just how they are going to do this, other than jumping on
Medicare (where corporate fraud is indeed rampant and untreated by them) or
social security which is solvent for another 30 years.
For most Republicans, it is never about cutting the bloated military
budget-ridden with corporate crime and fraud and burdened with massive
redundancies that keep the military-industrial complex that President
Eisenhower warned about deep in profitable government contracts.
Nor do the Republicans go after the corporate welfare budget-the hundreds of
billions of dollars per year of subsidies, giveaways and handouts to
domestic and even foreign corporations. Except for Ron Paul and a very few
others, that is. (See: http://www.taxpayers.org and
http://www.goodjobsfirst.org)
Another assertion made in this year's mid-term elections by Republican
candidates for Congress all over the country is that: "Government does not
create jobs, only the private sector does." Let's see. Government not only
creates jobs, taxpayers have paid trillions of dollars for research,
development and tax credits that are given over to build entire industries.
These include the semi-conductor, computer, aerospace, pharmaceutical,
biotech, medical device and containerization industries, to name a few.
The Pentagon created the job-producing Internet, for example. When the
government funds public works or expands the armed forces, millions of jobs
are created.
Will there be one reporter who challenges this Republican nonsense, often
expressed in press interviews on cell phones while driving on highways in
cars with seat belts and air bags either based on taxpayer-funded research,
directly paid for, or regulated into being through the government?
Mute Democrats and mindless reporters make insane Republicans possible.
Bringing these cruel descendants of Lincoln's Party down their ladder of
generalities is to become concrete, to give substantiating examples that
will either show that they have no clothes or that they prefer mink.
The American people deserve to have reporters ask one question again and
again: "Senator, Representative, Governor, President, would you be specific,
give examples and cite your sources for your general assertions?"
For instance, especially Republicans regularly roar their demand for "tort
reform." A reporter could ask for clarification such as: "Sir, do you mean
by 'tort reform' giving more access to the courts to millions of excluded
Americans who get nothing for injuries and illnesses recklessly caused by
manufacturers, hospitals, and other wrongdoers, or do you mean further
restricting the law designed to afford these people compensation for their
harms? (See: http://www.centerjd.org)
The same demand for concreteness can be directed to the dittoheads who cry
out against "over-regulation." Where? Over Wall Street? For health and
safety requirements that are either weak when issued, technically obsolete
or rarely enforced? (See: http://www.progressivereform.org)
Bringing these well-greased pontificators down their abstraction ladder to
where people live, work, overpay, bleed and suffer is a major step forward
so the sovereignty of the people can begin exercising itself.
Ralph Nader is a consumer advocate, lawyer, and author. His most recent
book - and first novel - is, Only The Super-Rich Can Save Us. His most
recent work of non-fiction is The Seventeen Traditions.
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