Friday, November 20, 2009
Ron Paul’s Amendment To Audit The Federal Reserve Approved
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A key House panel approved the Paul-Grayson Amendment by an overwhelming 43-26 Thursday afternoon, which will give watchdogs new authority to audit the Federal Reserve.
Here is a summary of the Paul-Grayson Amendment:
Dear Financial Services Committee Colleague:
It is encouraging to see the issue of Federal Reserve transparency receiving so much attention during this current markup. Today we plan to offer an amendment to the Financial Stability Improvement Act that expands on the many extant proposals to enhance Federal Reserve transparency. Our amendment is based on HR 1207, the Federal Reserve Transparency Act, which has broad bipartisan and grassroots support. The bill is cosponsored by 309 Members of Congress, including all Financial Services Committee Republicans and 13 Financial Services Committee Democrats.
* Exempts unreleased transcripts and minutes from meetings of the Board and FOMC to address the Fed’s concerns that free and open debate in their meetings would be stifled.
* Sets a 180-day time lag for release of details of market actions the Fed has undertaken, to address the Fed’s concerns that Congress or GAO is second-guessing its actions.
* Removes boilerplate language that allowed GAO to make recommendations on monetary policy and adds a section stating that nothing in the amendment shall be construed as interference in or dictation of monetary policy to the Fed.
* Sets a 180-day time lag for release of details of market actions the Fed has undertaken, to address the Fed’s concerns that Congress or GAO is second-guessing its actions.
* Removes boilerplate language that allowed GAO to make recommendations on monetary policy and adds a section stating that nothing in the amendment shall be construed as interference in or dictation of monetary policy to the Fed.
Unlike proposals that target the Fed’s 13(3) facilities, the Paul/Grayson amendment opens up the entire $2 trillion Federal Reserve balance sheet to a GAO audit. The Fed’s recent purchases of nearly $800 billion in mortgage-backed securities (MBS) have occurred under the MBS Purchase Program, authorized under section 14(b) of the Federal Reserve Act. This program, which is expected to reach a size of $1.25 trillion, would remain exempt from audit even if all the current 13(3) audit proposals were to go into effect. Targeting facilities that are in the process of being drawn down and that are authorized under a specific subsection of the Federal Reserve while allowing other facilities to spring up in their place is counterproductive to true transparency. All purchases and loans that appear on the balance sheet should be subject to audit, without loopholes for the Fed to evade scrutiny.
More importantly, the Paul/Grayson amendment does not create any additional burdens. Some competing proposals, while making a good effort at expanding the number of 13(3) facilities open to audit, take a step backwards by imposing new restrictions on GAO that are more burdensome than the restrictions currently written into law. We cannot accept these new restrictions. Unlike competing proposals, this amendment amends existing restrictions on GAO audit authority, a necessary precondition for a complete audit. Competing proposals leave these restrictions in place, and even add new ones.
We also reject the false dichotomy between transparency and independence. The Paul/Grayson amendment would achieve the necessary transparency of the trillions of dollars of Fed interventions while keeping Congress from directly intervening in the decision-making process. Independence should not be synonymous with secrecy. We urge our colleagues to support the Paul/Grayson amendment.
Sincerely,
Ron Paul, Member of Congress
Alan Grayson, Member of Congress
Alan Grayson, Member of Congress
Obama Allies Want New Tax To Pay For Cost Of Protecting Afghan Opium Fields, Bribing Taliban
http://www.prisonplanet.com/
Despite the fact that 36 per cent of income tax already goes to national defense
Not content with savaging American taxpayers with two huge new financial burdens during an economic recession, in the form of health care reform and cap and trade, close allies of Barack Obama have proposed a new war surtax that will force Americans to foot the bill for the cost of protecting opium fields in Afghanistan, paying off drug lords, and bribing the Taliban.
Warning that the cost of occupying Afghanistan is a threat to the Democrats’ plan to overhaul health care, lawmakers have announced their plan to make Americans pay an additional war tax that will be taken directly from their income, never mind the fact that around 36 per cent of federal taxes already go to paying for national defense.
“Regardless of whether one favors the war or not, if it is to be fought, it ought to be paid for,” the lawmakers, all prominent Democratic allies of Obama, said in a joint statement on the “Share The Sacrifice Act of 2010 (PDF),” reports AFP.
The move is being led by the appropriately named House Appropriations Committee Chairman Dave Obey, Representative John Murtha, who chairs that panel’s defense subcommittee; and House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank.
The tax would apply to anyone earning as little as $22,600 per year in 2011.
The proposal is described as “heavily symbolic” with little chance of passing, but it once again illustrates the hypocrisy of an administration that swept to power on the promise of “change” to the Neo-Con imperial agenda and a resolve to reduce U.S. military involvement overseas. In reality, there are more troops in Iraq and Afghanistan now under Obama that at any time during the Bush administration.
At the height of the Bush administration’s 2007 “surge” in Iraq, there were 26,000 US troops in Afghanistan and 160,000 in Iraq, a total of 186,000.
According to DoD figures cited by The Washington Post last month, there are now around 189,000 and rising deployed in total. There are now 68,000 troops in Afghanistan, over double the amount deployed there when Bush left office.
What precisely would this extra tax be used to pay for? Namely, bribing the Taliban, paying off CIA drug lords, and protecting heroin-producing opium fields.
Numerous reports over the past two weeks have confirmed that the U.S. military is paying off the Taliban with bags of gold to prevent them from attacking vehicle convoys, proving that there is no real “war” in Afghanistan, merely a business agreement that allows the occupiers to continue their lucrative control of record opium exports while they finalize construction of dozens of new military bases from which to launch new wars.
The Afghan opium trade has exploded since the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, following a lull after the Taliban had imposed a crackdown. According to the U.N., the drug trade is now worth $65 billion. Afghanistan produces 92 per cent of the world’s opium, with the equivalent of at least 3,500 tonnes leaving the country each year.
This racket is secured by drug kingpins like the brother of disputed president Hamid Karzai. As aNew York Times report revealed last month, Ahmed Wali Karzai, a Mafia-like figure who expanded his influence over the drug trade with the aid of U.S. efforts to eliminate his competitors, is on the CIA payroll.
As Professor Michel Chossudovsky has highlighted in a series of essays, the explosion of opium production after the invasion was about the CIA’s drive to restore the lucrative Golden Crescent opium trade that was in place during the time when the Agency were funding the Mujahideen rebels to fight the Soviets, and flood the streets of America and Britain with cheap heroin, destroying lives while making obscene profits.
Any war surtax will merely go straight to maintaining the agenda that Obama inherited from Bush, the continued looting of Afghanistan under the pretext of a “war on terror” that, as revelations about bribing the Taliban prove, doesn’t even exist.
CLIMATE BOMBSHELL: Hacker leaks thousands of emails showing conspiracy to “hide” the real data on manmade climate change
http://www.prisonplanet.com/
James Corbett
A hacker has leaked thousands of emails and documents from the Climate Research Unit at East Anglia University that appear to show how climate change data was fudged and the peer review process skewed to favor the manmade climate change hypothesis.
The link to the data appears to have been posted to a number of climate science websites yesterday by an anonymous hacker or insider going by the name “FOIA,” an apparent allusion to the Freedom of Information Act in the United States. One of the first sites where the 62 MB file was posted was The Air Vent. It was soon picked up by Watts Up With That, Climate Auditand other climate science sites.
The information contained in the leaked emails and documents are as shocking as they are damning of the scientists who have been most vocal about the manmade global warming scare. Some of the excerpts include this email, purportedly from Phil Jones to researchers including Michael Mann of “Mann’s hockey stick” fame:
| From: Phil Jones To: ray bradley ,mann@xxxxxxxxx,mhughes@ Subject: Diagram for WMO Statement Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1999 13:31:15 +0000 Cc: k.briffa@xxxxxx,t.osborn@ Once Tim’s got a diagram here we’ll send that either later today or first thing tomorrow. I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.Mike’s series got the annual land and marine values while the other two got April-Sept for NH land N of 20N. The latter two are real for 1999, while the estimate for 1999 for NH combined is +0.44C wrt 61-90. The Global estimate for 1999 with data through Oct is +0.35C cf. 0.57 for 1998. Thanks for the comments, Ray. Cheers Phil |
And this excerpt in which researchers appear to discuss ways to discredit James Saiers of the Geophysical Research Letters journal because he seems to be sympathetic to climate realists:
| M, This is truly awful. GRL has gone downhill rapidly in recent years. I think the decline began before Saiers. I have had some unhelpful dealings with him recently with regard to a paper Sarah and I have on glaciers — it was well received by the referees, and so is in the publication pipeline. However, I got the impression that Saiers was trying to keep it from being published. Proving bad behavior here is very difficult. If you think that Saiers is in the greenhouse skeptics camp, then, if we can find documentary evidence of this, we could go through official AGU channels to get him ousted. Even this would be difficult. How different is the GRL paper from the Nature paper? Did the authors counter any of the criticisms? My experience with Douglass is that the identical (bar format changes) paper to one previously rejected was submitted to GRL. T. |
According to Investigate magazine out of Australia, Dr. Phil Jones has now confirmed that these emails do appear to be real.
The importance of this information will not be lost on The Corbett Report’s audience, as a recent interview I conducted with Tim Ball discussed the very issue of the Climate Research Unit and Phil Jones’ intense secrecy regarding their data:
Unsurprisingly, there has so far been deafening silence on this issue in the controlled corporate media, but in light of the upcoming Copenhagen Treaty talks, it is imperative that we have a true and open debate about climate change before we make potentially world-changing decisions based on this science. It is up to all of us to push this story and its staggering implications into the mainstream.
Suzanne Somers speaks out against the conventional cancer industry: mammograms, chemotherapy vs. alternative cures
http://www.naturalnews.com/
 Wednesday, November 18, 2009by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger Editor of NaturalNews.com (See all articles...) (NaturalNews) As the author of the New York Times bestseller, "Knockout: Interviews with doctors who are curing cancer," Suzanne Somers is making waves across the cancer industry. Her powerful, inspired message of informed hope is reaching millions of readers who are learning about the many safe, effective options for treating cancer that exist outside the realm of the conventional cancer industry (chemotherapy, surgery and radiation). Recently, Suzanne Somers spoke with NaturalNews editor Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, to share the inspiration for her new book Knockout. "People are just starving for some new information... for other options, for hope in [treating]cancer," she explained. The full interview with Suzanne Somers is available as a downloadable MP3 file from NaturalNews.com:http:// In it, Somers explains why she's so concerned about the current course of the cancer industry: "In 2010, cancer will be the biggest killer in the world. I fear for everybody walking into the present cancer protocol. It's going to make billions and billions of dollars for the industry, which is already a $200 billion-a-year business. It's going to bankrupt families. It causes expensive deaths. It emaciates people and they die anyway. Why not look into the options that are offered in Knockout? Why not look into Dr. Burzynski out of Houston? Why not look into Dr. Gonzalez in New York or Dr. Forsythe out of Nevada? [They] have a different protocol that doesn't require harsh chemicals or degrading the body." In the interview, Suzanne also explains the limitations of chemotherapy and why the cancer industry has failed the people: "There are only three kinds of cancer that respond to chemotherapy: Testicular cancer, childhood leukemia, some lymphomas including Non-Hodgkin's," she says. "For all of us who have raised money marching, going to black-tie fundraisers, we've thrown billions and billions of dollars at pharmaceutical companies and the FDA to find a cure, and it has failed. They do not have a cure." Mammograms causing more harm than goodIn the NaturalNews interview, Somers also discusses the problems with mammograms. When asked for her thoughts on the US government's sudden change in position that now says women under 50 should never receive mammograms, Somers explained:"I have information so shocking in Knockout about mammograms that I have been reluctant on television to even bring it up, because to say anything negative about mammograms is going against the gold standard. So I was thrilled when I saw this report yesterday. Nobody's saying the real truth [about the harm caused by mammograms]. They don't want to open Pandora's Box ...you mean a lot of the women who faithfully had mammograms got their cancer from mammograms?" What's in the "Knockout" bookSuzanne Somers' book presents a collection of interviews from leading doctors who have developed and now apply natural cancer therapies to patients, producing outstanding results. To gather information for her book, Somers explains, "I called doctors, I interviewed their patients, I talked to hundreds of people, I interviewed science writers, PhDs, neuroscientists, nutritionists... even the scientific advisory board of Life Extension." |
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