Tag Archives: Ron Paul

Ron Paul Implosion: End The Fed To Technology Revolution…

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The Pauls have lost all credibility with me.

Read their latest missive, blogged at EPJ

And reported here at Forbes: “Ron Paul Takes Up Internet Freedom with New Technology Revolution.”

They’ve abandoned the financial battle.

I guess the financial coup of 2008, completed in 2010, is now sealed and cordoned off from prosecution. Last month, as if to confirm that, the White Queen (the City)  took down the Black Knight (Gupta) that had infiltrated the highest ranks of her court, while the White Bishop (Lloyd Doing-God’s Work Blankfein) was witness for the prosecution.

“End the Fed,” which  Rand Paul converted to” Audit the Fed,” is over.

The Pauls have now skipped forward to their new, new project –  the  “Technology Revolution.”

I  never thought that much of “End the Fed,” because, as I’ve blogged previously, the elites can manufacture money from other places besides the Fed, like the BIS and the reconstituted IMF.

But, apparently,  End the Fed doesn’t even work as a popular slogan any more.

So, what do I think about the new campaign?

I think it will be about as effective as their “End the Fed” campaign, which is to say, not effective at all.

See my comment at The Daily Bell in 2010:

Posted by Lila Rajiva on 11/23/10 11:55 AM
Daily Bell: “But by pursuing his strategy, he has made his opponents look like fools and perhaps altered the course of history.”

Lila: Let’s hope. Personally, I agree with Doug Casey on this:
“As a lone voice, his father was a breath of fresh, more principled air, but he didn’t change anything at all that I can see”

(Doug Casey on Presidents, LRC)

But it will be a great platform for the Pauls to sell books, promote ideas and launch political careers for their family members.

I only hope it won’t be done on the backs of idealistic young people. There were many who put change they could hardly spare in a tough economy into the Paul’s war chest.

The new campaign, which dubs itself  “The Internet Versus The Machine” is obviously a rebranding campaign to move young people away from what Forbes calls “the archaic” (they mean arcane) issues of finance.

Instead, the Pauls will focus on the hip world of the net.

Forbes:

“Young people have been a driving force in the Paul campaign, and the focus on internet freedom should only bolster that support.”

I’m going to call foul on that.

Their new “campaign” is in support of the Technology Revolution on the Internet?

Last I looked the tech revolution has been around for a while, getting on quite well without the Pauls.

One part of  the new project is going to be defending big business from attempts by consumers to scrutinize their data collection.

I kid you not. Here is Buzzfeed on the subject.

“The Pauls also take a stand for the growing industry known (and widely criticized) as “big data.”

“They deride the notion that “private sector data collection practices must be scrutinized and tightly regulated in the name of ‘protecting consumers,’ at the same time as government’s warrantless surveillance and collection of private citizens’ Internet data has dramatically increased.”

So does this mean that Ron Paul is going to be fighting to prevent European governments or NGOs  like EFF or Asian governments from scrutinizing Google’s data collection practices?

Remember that I just blogged that Google’s CEO Larry Page should be arrested for privacy violations and espionage against foreign governments?

I was being satirical about US surveillance of foreign CEO’s and money-managers.

For instance, in the Galleon -Gupta cases, the government used wire-taps whose authorization was obtained pre-textually in violation of the defendants’ constitutional rights.

I don’t recall that the Pauls said a word about that, although the Galleon insider case has dominated the financial media for a couple of years now, and is directly tied via Rajaratnam’s funding of Tamil charities to  issues like terrorist money-laundering  with which Paul adviser Bruce Fein – once employed by an alleged front group for the Tamil Tigers –  is intimately connected.

A recent Washington Post article described how the military is outsourcing surveillance in Africa to private contractors (with little accountability, significant cost over-runs, and little to show for the expense).

Densely populated China and India are both locked in battles with the West for access to resources and agricultural lands.  Indian and Chinese companies compete with American and European countries on the African continent.  China and India have also complained about American corporate espionage.  American companies in turn complain about IP theft from the Indians and Chinese.  Meanwhile the US government itself is involved in IP theft through its pervasive global surveillance.  Where does data collection for corporations end and espionage for the state begin, anyway? Where does the government end and the private sector begin, when private companies are outsourced arms of the government and the government is the enforcement arm of the companies?

Ron Paul is not oblivious to the complexities of all this. He is far too shrewd.

Rajat Gupta’s conviction shows evidence in my opinion of being a  set up by the government, with some arm-twisting from Goldman Sachs. Likely it was an important blow in the  covert psy war against India, an ostensible US ally, about which I blogged here (“Coconut Imperialism”and here, “Educating the Gentoos In India”)

The obvious response from foreign governments (such as India) would be to treat American CEO’s the same way and wire-tap them.

So, is it just coincidental that the Pauls suddenly abandon their financial campaign (which never involved a word against Goldman Sachs), and suddenly rush to head off any animosity toward Google?

On their silence on G Sachs, here is a comment I made (one among many) below the same Daily Bell article:

Posted by Lila Rajiva on 11/23/10 11:40 AM

@Pisano.

Why would it distract him?
How hard is it to say, unequivocally, “Goldman Sachs and several other banks, are involved in corrupt actions and should be investigated and prosecuted.”

There. Back to “business.”

He certainly had no problem drawing a hard line over relatively trivial things like a monument to Rosa Parks. If he was really afraid of distraction, why would he make a fuss over something like that, and then on something crucial, suddenly go silent?

Why doesn’t he state clearly – “9-11 needs to be investigated. There is credible evidence that there was some kind of conspiracy involving intelligence agencies, US and foreign.”

I like Ron Paul and want to believe the best of him.

But this excuse doesn’t hold water for two seconds.”

This looks like more material to add to the mounting evidence (see  here) that Paul fronts for financial interests.

Perhaps he cannot avoid doing it, as I’ve said.

But there’s no need to be suckered into what could well be a counter-attack against foreign governments who defend themselves against espionage by Google/Facebook/Hotmail/Skype/TOR and the rest of the government-corporate spy sector, by couching the issue as a defense of the private sector.

That explanation also takes care of Paul’s pandering to the left.

The financial world (which controls the media) is left-leaning, in contrast to non-financial businesses.  Paul’s recent moves make quite a bit of sense when understood that way.  He acts to co-opt the brand of libertarianism appropriately called the Marxism of the right by deploying what seem to be ideologically inflexible positions in the service of  larger imperial goals.

So, I have to ask. Will the two Pauls now be collecting money from young people to defend multi-billion dollar multinationals like Google from scrutiny by the governments on which they spy?

I mean, if you phrased that in the appropriately anti-state way, there will be enough libertarian lemmings who’ll rush to defend Google, I’m sure.

This theory might explain why the financial media, usually so vocal in defense of insider-trading, when it’s done by Michael Milken or Ivan Boesky, is suddenly so quiet  about South Asian insider-trading not a tenth as bad.

Does it also explain why large parts of the alternative press  have had nothing but praise for Julian Assange, another front for western financial interests? And why the Pauls have promoted Assange?

Talk about Trojan horses.

Big corporations cannot be analyzed separately from government.

When the state outsources its spying to corporations, for someone to argue that the state should not limit corporate surveillance because it’s engaged in surveillance itself is confused, at best, and downright misleading, at worst.

Especially when it comes from seasoned politicians like the Pauls.

Parts of the government are scrutinizing the private sector. Often they’re right to.

Other parts of government are much worse than the private sector when it comes to privacy violation.

Those parts of the government are often most incestuously allied with corporations. This is the corporate-state or intel-industrial complex that produces programs like Echelon.

So it’s quite bizarre for the Pauls to claim that Microsoft (or Google or Apple) are pure private-sector entities, when they gain market share directly because of concrete government actions on their behalf and because of endemic and pervasive state-created judicial/legal/financial corruption.

One more thing.  Microsoft wasn’t prescient at all about the net, as the Pauls claim in their new manifesto.

It was way behind. Gates himself admitted it.

There is, finally, another reason why the Pauls may have turned their attention to protecting Big Data,

It looks like Big Data is bankrolling him.

Here’s Reason’s Brian Doherty, making the point:

“With Peter Thiel, founder of the controversial “big data” company Panantir, having made a $2.6 million investment in the (somewhat feckless in the end) superPAC “Endorse Liberty” during campaign season, perhaps the Paul machine sees this as a cause that can energize both grassroots and big money.”

And that’s all  I want to say now about this turn of events until I learn a bit more what is really going on.

But, if you were waiting to see Ron Paul libertarianism implode, it happened this week.

Support HR 5444: The Private Option Health Care Act

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A message from Ron Paul (May 29) urging you to support The Private Option Health Care Act:

Dear Friend of Liberty,

Unlike the statists in Washington, the freedom movement
understands that our health care is too important to be left to
the whims of politicians and bureaucrats. Continue reading →

Ron Paul: Governments Never Want Peace

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Ron Paul:

“Meanwhile, it is rumored by the Financial Times, AFP and others that Greece may spend more than it saves from austerity measures on arms deals with Germany, France and the US as a potential condition of receiving bailout funds.

If true, it is certainly not unprecedented for the global military industrial complex to benefit from deals made by their friends in the central banking community. After all, war is the health of the state. The last thing big government proponents want is for peace to break out in the world.”

Vote Against Dodd Bill, Corker-Merkley Provision

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Fed Privately Audits Senate to Kill Audit; What You Can Do
Mish Shedlock, May 4, 2010

A bill sponsored by Ron Paul and Alan Grayson to thoroughly audit the Fed, passed the House. However in a brazen move that ought to offend the sensibilities of every citizen, the Fed is lobbying Senate members to water down the bill so that it is meaningless. Continue reading →

Ron Paul Smeared As Muse Of Anti-Semitic White Supremacist Killers

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Update:

“President Clinton weighed in that  “legitimate” comparisons can be drawn between today’s grass-roots anger and resentment toward the government and the right-wing extremism 15 years ago.”

Actually, I think the Clinton statement was a pretty fair one, all in all. It didn’t equate “right-wing extremism” with tea-party goers and anti-government activists (as the SPLC did) and it did give room for people to voice their opinions, without having to “be nice.” It cautioned, correctly, that people should stop short of advocating violence.

Any discussion of the Confederacy, said the ex-Prez, should always include a mention of slavery, which doesn’t sound like an onerous requirement to me. So too any discussion of “Islamicism” should also include a complete list of  US interventions in the said Islamicist state, right?

In short, more balance and less polemics. I hope I’ve always tried to do that on this blog.
The only thing is, can we hope the government will live up to this standard and stop short of advocating violence, say, in Iran, or in Michigan…or anywhere else?

ORIGINAL POST

Thanks to David Kramer at LRC blog, for this slimy listing by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) of Ron Paul among the “enablers’ of the “Patriot” movement, which, if you didn’t know by now is code to our dear leaders and their cohorts for “Nazi right-wing (definitely Christian)  loons-who-share-milk-shakes-‘n-training-manuals- with- OsamaJohnPatrickBedellDavidKoreshRandyWeaver-bin Laden” :

1. Michele Bachmann 2. Glenn Beck 3. Paul Broun 4. Andrew Napolitano 5. Ron Paul

On the page following, you can see what a smear this is. There’s a list of incidents making up a “Patriot” timeline (love those quotation marks) that starts with President Bush’s “New World Order” remark. (He said it, didn’t he?) and is dotted with references to anti-Semitism, white supremacy and violent acts.

Note that when “cultists” or militia members are murdered, the word used is “killed” or “left dead.” When a federal agent is killed, the term is “murdered.”

Et Tu, Ron Paul?

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Victor Aguilar at Axiomatic Theory of Economics voices a silent worry I’ve been having recently (apologies if this upsets libertarians and Paul fans, among whom I still count myself):

Note: I don’t know who Aguilar is, have never heard of him, don’t endorse any of his views, since I don’t know them, and only post this because he seems to echo a recent fear of mine about the promotion of Zarlenga and Zarlenga-esque ideas in all sorts of venues, including what I always thought of as the libertarian Daily Bell.

“Stephen Zarlenga writes:

Infrastructure repair would provide quality employment throughout the nation.  There is a pretense that government must either borrow or tax to get the money for such projects.  But it is a well enough known, that the government can directly create the money needed and spend it into circulation for such projects, without inflationary results.

First, incorporate the Federal Reserve System into the U.S. Treasury.

Second, halt the banks privilege to create money by ending the fractional reserve system.

Third, spend new money into circulation on infrastructure, including education and healthcare.

Ron Paul (2009, pp. 204-205) writes:

While a gold standard would be a wonderful thing, we shouldn’t wait for one before we end the Fed…  An end to the money-creating power and a transfer of remaining oversight authority from the Fed to the Treasury would be marvelous steps in the right direction.

Aguilar:

So we see that Ron Paul’s proposal is essentially the same as that of Stephen Zarlenga and his man in Congress, Dennis Kucinich. Like Paul, Zarlenga also believes that a gold standard is a wonderful thing, provided that it does not have to actually be implemented.  Since Paul has no concrete plans for implementing a gold standard, he and Zarlenga are united in their desire to incorporate the Federal Reserve System into the U.S. Treasury as quickly as possible.

The only difference is that, once the Federal Reserve System is incorporated into the U.S. Treasury, Paul vaguely hopes that Timothy Geithner will freeze the money stock while Zarlenga hopes that Geithner will spend new money into circulation on infrastructure.  If I had to guess, I would say that Geithner, once given this enormous power, is more likely to spend the money, though not necessarily on infrastructure, than to freeze the money stock.

Ron Paul (2009, 203) writes,

“In an ideal world, the Fed would be abolished forthwith and the money stock frozen in place.”

Aguilar:

Idyllic is the right word.  There is no reason for Paul to think that Geithner will do this for him.  The Secretary of the Treasury is appointed by the President and the President panders to the voters.  And they certainly do not want the stock of money frozen.  If infrastructure is the new word for pork, then they want nothing more than to get some.

“If there’s anything worse than a secret Federal Reserve, it’s Congress controlling it,” says Sen. Jim DeMint, Republican of South Carolina.  I agree.  I dislike the United States having a central bank (I advocate free banking) but, given the existence of the Fed, I certainly would not put it in the hands of a bunch of squirrelly politicians.

Richard C. Cook writes:

I worked with Steve [Zarlenga] on his first draft of the American Monetary Act. The time came when Steve and I began to meet with Congressman Dennis Kucinich, briefing him and others in Washington on monetary ideas.

So much has happened since then. So many more people have become aware of the evils of the debt-based monetary system. We have seen Congressman Ron Paul ignite a national wave of revulsion against the Federal Reserve System. There is now even hope that the American Monetary Act might be introduced on the floor of Congress.”

Aguilar:

As for eliminating the Fed and giving the Treasury Department free rein to print money, I have already examined Zarlenga’s proposal in my 2008 paper and I specifically spoke of Cook here.  There is no need to duplicate that material here just because Ron Paul has joined them….”

My Comment:

What this tells me is that there can be collaborations with the left on civil liberties and foreign policy, but not on economic freedom, which, for me, actually precedes political freedom.

My money represents my work and my time…and my work and my time represent my life. Through them my engagement in the world unfolds. They are how I come to understand the world in the most real way.

Not in the superficial and  arrogant way that one “understands” the world only to meddle in it, as someone from the political class would. To them, the world is a black-box they engineer.

Hands off my world. Hand off my money. Hands off my work. Hands off my life.

I support Ron Paul, because I believe him to stand for these things and to fight for these things. If, ultimately ,for some reason can’t…. then for me at least there is no need to endorse any one else’s platform. It would be better to forget politics, since obviously there’s no one else who’s even broaching these issues. It’s that simple.

If Aguilar turns out to be right about this, then, regretfully, I’ll have to become a “mere” libertarian. With a small ‘l’. I’d sooner look to an alliance of counter-parties to the US government to teach the banking mafia the hard lesson they need in economics and justice than follow even libertarians blindly down a dead-end.

Ron Paul: Fight Draconian Biometric ID In US

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A message from Ron Paul and the Campaign for Liberty:

“This is getting to be like a bad movie. You know the ones where the villain, dead and buried more times than you can count, somehow mysteriously reappears in a place you don’t expect him? Well, here comes… a new fight over a biometric national ID card — and if you don’t have the card, you can’t work.

Right now, freedom-stealing statists Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY), banding together with other statists from both parties, are scheming to sneak a massive power grab into a new “immigration reform” bill.

This bill is a statist’s dream — “amnesty” for illegal immigrants and a biometric ID card for virtually everyone else.

That’s right. Instead of controlling the border and enforcing the rule of law, these statists want to control you.

That’s why it’s vital you sign the petitions to your Senators IMMEDIATELY. http://www.chooseliberty.org/NationalId3.aspx?pid=3

You see, a National ID scheme — complete with biometric tracking technology — is embedded in the new “Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill” being pushed by Senators Graham and Schumer, as well as other Big Government members from both parties.

And if passed, the “Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill” would require a new National ID card that would:

*** Include biometric identification information, such as fingerprints, retinal scans or scans of veins on the back of hands. Depending on the technology used, the ID card could easily
be used as a tracking device;

*** Be required for all U.S. workers regardless of place of birth, and make it illegal for anyone to hold a job in the United States who doesn’t obtain the ID card;

*** Require all employers to purchase an “ID scanner” to verify the ID cards with the federal government. Every time any citizen applies for a job, the government would know –– and you can bet it’s only a matter of time until “ID scans” will be required to
make even routine purchases, as well.

Of course, the most dangerous part of the bill is the biometric tracking technology which would allow federal bureaucrats to track our every move.

Allowing our government to have this much “prying power” in our lives will ultimately result in the TOTAL loss of freedom.

This is exactly the type of battle that often decides whether a country remains free, or continues down a slide toward tyranny.

Government goon squads with all our personal information — information they do not need and constitutionally should not have — is a recipe for disaster for our nation.

You see, once “well-meaning” government bureaucrats know exactly how we live our lives, it won’t be long until they try to run them.

In fact, it will only be a matter of time until they spend their workdays making sure you and I don’t go anywhere we “shouldn’t,” buy anything we “shouldn’t,” read anything we “shouldn’t,” eat
anything we “shouldn’t” or smoke anything we “shouldn’t.”

You see, this fight isn’t really about immigration. Whatever you think of that fight, it’s simply being used as cover.

If there is good news in this fight, thanks to the help of grassroots citizens like you, it’s that we’ve been able to render the Big Government politicians’ REAL ID nearly toothless in more than two dozen states.

Now, the statists are growing nervous. They know Americans are FED UP with their mad rush to take over our health care system, expand Federal Reserve power and regulate and control every aspect of our lives.

We’re FED UP with trillion dollar deficits. We’re SICK AND TIRED of radical schemes like Cap and Tax.
We’re done with their out of control spending on foreign affairs and nation building all over the globe.
They also see that our anger is producing results. Many of their schemes are failing.

Rallies are growing in strength. Candidates are rising up in state after state to say “Enough!”
So the statists are trying a bipartisan “backdoor” scheme to impose more control on American citizens.
They’re hoping that after months of Big Media mouthpieces decrying the “poisonous and partisan politics” in Washington, the American people will jump for joy at the sight of a Democrat from
liberal New York and a Republican from conservative South Carolina “working together to solve our immigration mess.”

Well, you and I know better. After all, liberty activists can hardly find two Senators with
bigger vendettas against the liberty movement than Senator Chuck Schumer and Senator Lindsey Graham. Senator Graham himself has very publicly denounced the limited government R3VOLUTION launched by Dr. Ron Paul. He’s stated that we’re not welcome in HIS party. And now, he’s proving why the one who should not be welcome in any party that values freedom is LINDSEY GRAHAM.
That’s why it’s up to you and me to FIGHT back.

Unfortunately, the only way to DEFEAT a new National ID card is to contact Americans from coast-to-coast and explain EXACTLY what’s at stake.

They’re not going to get the real story from the media. It’s up to you and me to reach them.
Already, I’ve prepared email blasts, blog posts and other internet activities to alert liberty-loving Americans to the National ID scheme included in the new “Comprehensive Immigration
Reform Bill.”

But that’s not all. Campaign for Liberty staff tells me if I pull out all the stops, there’s an additional twelve million folks I can reach through our mail and phone programs. And finally, if I can raise the resources, I’d also like to run hard-hitting newspaper, radio and TV ads in New York and South
Carolina, explaining to the citizens of those states exactly what Senators Schumer and Graham are up to.

With all the battles we’ve faced over the past several months to save AUDIT THE FED and stop ObamaCare, I simply don’t have the resources to do everything. So please sign the petition and chip in with a quick contribution of $5, $10 or even $25 IMMEDIATELY!

http://www.chooseliberty.org/NationalId3.aspx?pid=3

You see, this isn’t a fight we can afford to lose. Passage of the National ID card would virtually guarantee the last vestiges of freedom we enjoy as Americans would be seriously
jeopardized.

And if you and I don’t defeat it, who will? There is already a strong, “bipartisan coalition” developing,
and the American people barely know what’s going on.

So I have to ask you — in addition to your signed petition — can I count on you to help out with a $5 or more donation?
http://www.chooseliberty.org/NationalId3.aspx?pid=3

Sincerely,

John F. Tate

President

P.S. Embedded in Senators Lindsey Graham’s and Chuck Schumer’s “Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill” is the groundwork for a National ID card — complete with biometric tracking technology
— for everyone with a job in America. If passed, it would require every American to obtain the card to
work legally in the U.S. — and you can bet it will only be a matter of time until they’re required even for simple purchases.

So please sign the petition and help out with a quick contribution of $5, $10, $25 or whatever you can afford right away.

http://paracom.paramountcommunication.com/ct/4099816:6090536223:m:3:187725201:99DF108C4BE0121D524C70E176DF1CFF

Ron Paul On Fed Coverup Of Watergate, Saddam Funding

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Statement of Congressman Ron Paul
United States House of Representatives
Statement for the Record
February 25, 2010

Madame Speaker, I would like to enter into the record the following letter from Professor Robert D. Auerbach, a professor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas. This letter provides additional information regarding remarks I made at yesterday’s Financial Services Committee Humphrey-Hawkins hearing, remarks which Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke categorized as “bizarre.”

I thank Congressman Ron Paul for bringing to the public’s attention the Federal Reserve coverup of the source of the Watergate burglars’ source of funding and the defective audit by the Federal Reserve of the bank that transferred $5.5 billion from the U.S. government to Saddam Hussein in the 1980s. Congressman Paul directed these comments to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke at the House Financial Services Hearing February 24, 2010. I question Chairman Bernanke’s dismissive response.

BERNANKE: “Well, Congressman, these specific allegations you’ve made I think are absolutely bizarre, and I have absolutely no knowledge of anything remotely like what you just described.”

The evidence Congressman Ron Paul mentioned is well documented in my recent book, Deception and Abuse at the Fed (University of Texas Press: 2008). The head of the Federal Reserve bureaucracy should become familiar with its dismal practices.

First, consider the Fed’s coverup of the source of the $6300 in hundred dollar bills found on the Watergate burglars when they were arrested at approximately 2:30 A.M. on June 17, 1972 after they had broken into the Watergate offices of the Democratic Party. Five days after the break-in, June 22, 1972, at a board of directors’ meeting of officials at the Philadelphia Fed Bank, it was recorded in the minutes [shown on page 23 of my book] that false or misleading information had been provided to a reporter from the Washington Post about the $6,300. Bob Woodward told me he thought he was the Washington Post reporter who had made the phone inquiry. The reporter “had called to verify a rumor that these bills were stolen from this Bank” according to the Philadelphia Fed minutes. The Philadelphia Fed Bank had informed the Board on June 20 that the notes were “shipped from the Reserve Bank to Girard Trust Company in Philadelphia on April 3, 1972.” The Washington Post was incorrectly informed of “thefts but told they involved old bills that were ready for destruction.”

The Federal Reserve under the chairmanship of Author Burns not only kept the Fed from getting entangled in the Watergate coverup, which the Fed’s actions had assisted, it allowed false statements about bills the Fed knew were issued by the Philadelphia Fed Bank to stand uncorrected. Blocking information from the Senate and House Banking Committees [letters shown in my book, Chapter 2] and issuing false information during a perilous government crisis imposed huge costs on the public that had insufficient information to hold the Fed officials accountable for what they had withheld from the Congress. Had the deception been discovered the Fed chairmen following Burns may have been forced to rapidly implement some real transparency to restore the Fed’s credibility. That would have reduced or eliminated many of the lies, deceptions, and corrupt practices that are described in my book.

The second subject brought up by Congressman Ron Paul is the exposure of faulty examinations of the Federal Reserve of a foreign bank in Atlanta, Georgia through which $5.5 billion was sent to Saddam Hussein that a Federal Judge found to be part of United States active support for Iraq in the 1980s.
On November 9, 1993, several federal marshals brought a prisoner, Christopher Drogoul, into my office at the Rayburn House Office Building of the U.S. House of Representatives. The marshals removed the manacles. Drogoul took off his jump suit and changed into a shirt, tie, and business suit. He immediately looked like the manager of the Atlanta agency with domestic headquarters in New York City of Banca Nazionale. Drogoul had come to testify about a “scheme prosecutors said he masterminded that funneled $5.5 billion in loans to Iraq’s Hussein through BNL’s Atlanta operation. Some of the loans allegedly were used to build up Iraq’s military and nuclear arsenals in the years preceding the first Gulf War.”[1]

Drogoul’s “‘off book’ BNL-Atlanta funding to Iraq began in 1986 as financing for products under Department of Agriculture programs.”[2] The loans allegedly had been authorized by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Since Drogoul told the committee he was merely a tool in an ambitious scheme by the United States, Italy, Britain and Germany to secretly arm Iraq in their 1980-88 war, the testimony was politically contentious and unproven. He was sentenced in November 1993 to 37 months in prison and he had already served 20 months awaiting his sentencing hearing.

U.S. District Judge Ernest Tidwell found that the United States had actively supported Iraq in the 1980s by providing it with government-guaranteed loans even though it wasn’t creditworthy. The judge said such policies “clearly facilitated criminal conduct.”[3]

Gonzalez was drawn to Drogoul’s answer about the Fed examiner who had visited his Atlanta operation. Gonzalez said that:

“At the November 9, 1993 Banking Committee hearing I asked Christopher Drogoul, the convicted official of the Banca Nazionale Del Lavoro agency branch in Atlanta, Georgia, how the Federal Reserve Bank examiners could miss billions of dollars of illegal loans, most of which ended up in the hands of Hussein.

Mr. Drogoul stated:

“The task of the Fed [bank examiner] was simply to confirm that the State of Georgia audit revealed no major problems. And thus, their audit of BNL usually consisted of a one or two-day review of the state of Georgia’s preliminary results, followed by a cup of espresso in the manager’s office.”

Gonzalez was appalled at the of lack of effective examination of a little storefront bank and also appalled by the gifts exchanged by officers of the New York Federal Reserve and the regulated banks in New York City where the main U.S. office of BNL was located. A description of what followed is in my book.

The Fed voted in 1995 to destroy the source transcripts of its policy making committee that had been sent to National Archives and Records Administration. Chairman Alan Greenspan had the committee vote on this destruction, telling the members: “I am not going to record these votes because we do not have to. There is no legal requirement.” (p. 104 in my book.) Greenspan thus removed any fingerprints on this act of record destruction. Donald Kohn, who is now Vice Chairman of the Board of Governors at the Federal Reserve, answered some questions I had sent to Chairman Greenspan about this destruction. Kohn replied in a letter on November 1, 2001 to me at the University of Texas that they had destroyed the source records for 1994, 1995 and 1996, they did not believe it to be illegal and there was no plan to end this practice. That is one reason why the Federal Reserve audit supported by Congressman Ron Paul is needed. The Fed must stop destroying its records.

[1] Marcy Gordon, “Banker Imprisoned in BNL Case Tells Story to House Committee,” The Associated Press, November 9, 1993.

[2] U.S. Newswire: “Former Executive of Atlanta Agency of Italian-Owned Bank Pleads Guilty to Conspiracy”, from U.S. Department of Justice, Public Affairs, June 2, 1992.

[3] Peter Mantius, “Drogoul given 37 months Judge in BNL case also blasts actions of U.S. prosecutors,” The Atlanta Journal and Constitution, December 10, 1993, Section A, p. 12.

Robert Auerbach is Professor of Public Affairs at the Lyndon Baines Johnson School of Public Affairs, The University of Texas at Austin. He was an economist with the House of Representatives Financial Services Committee during the tenure of four Federal Reserve Chairmen: Arthur Burns, William Miller, Paul Volcker, and Alan Greenspan. Auerbach also served as an economist in the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Domestic Monetary Affairs during the first year of the Ronald Reagan administration and as a financial economist with the U.S. Federal Reserve System. Auerbach has been a professor of economics at the American University in Washington, D.C. (1976-83), and a professor of economics and finance at the University of California-Riverside (1983-93). He has written numerous articles, and two textbooks in banking and financial markets. He received two Masters degrees in economics, one from the University of Chicago and one from Roosevelt University, where he studied under Abba Lerner, and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago, where he studied under Milton Friedman.

Why The Establishment Is Attacking Ron Paul

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“If the guy is such a sure loser in 2012, why all the attacks? In his quiet way, Paul must have tapped into something. And you can get an idea of that something from what Pat Buchanan wrote the other day about the CPAC poll.

After asking “how do conservatives justify borrowing hundreds of billions yearly from Europe, Japan and the Gulf states — to defend Europe, Japan and the Arab Gulf states?” Buchanan answered his own question by making the case that such policies are not conservative at all.

“Ron Paul’s victory at CPAC may be a sign the prodigal sons of the right are casting off the heresy of neoconservatism and coming home to first principles,” Buchanan concluded.

Buchanan has put his finger on why the unemotional Texas congressman produces such an emotional reaction. The party establishment has to dread the prospect of a candidate who can unite the youthful libertarian conservatives with the Buchananite America-first types. Such a character might win a plurality running against Romney, Huckabee and neocon Barbie doll Sarah Palin.

And Paul might have the most money of them all, thanks to the support of those young voters who actually understand how the internet works. I suspect this is what all the shouting is about, even though the subject of it all never raises his voice.”

Paul Mulshine, NJ Star Ledger, via Lew Rockwell.

Ron Paul: No Military Occupation Of Haiti

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(Via David Kramer LRC blog, January 21, 2010 09:32 PM)

Statement of Congressman Ron Paul,  United States House of Representatives Statement in Opposition to H Res 1021, Condolences to Haiti, January 21, 2010

I rise in reluctant opposition to this resolution. Certainly I am moved by the horrific destruction in Haiti and would without hesitation express condolences to those who have suffered and continue to suffer. As a medical doctor, I have through my career worked to alleviate the pain and suffering of others. Unfortunately, however, this resolution does not simply express our condolences, but rather it commits the US government “to begin the reconstruction of Haiti” and affirms that “the recovery and long-term needs of Haiti will require a sustained commitment by the United States….” Continue reading →