According to Bloomberg News, the House Financial Services Committee today, in a 43-26 vote and a second voice vote, attached a Fed-audit amendment to legislation creating a council of regulators to monitor systemic risk.

According to Dr. Paul, the bill, HR 3996, if passed, will grant sweeping new powers to the Federal Reserve. However, at least with his amendment attached, it won’t be acting in secret anymore.

The panel’s vote increases the possibility that Congress will reverse the ban on audits of interest-rate decisions. The broader bill on financial regulation is subject to a vote by the committee, then must be approved by the House and Senate and signed into law by President Obama.

The effort to audit the Federal Reserve was spearheaded by the Campaign for Liberty, but many RLC members have participated in letter writing campaigns and in-person protests in support of the bill (HR 1207).  In September, the California GOP adopted a resolution by RLC members to support HR 1207.

The bill has over 300 co-sponsors in the House and over 30 co-sponsors in the Senate.

The Alameda County Republican Party (ACRP) in California has a history of hostility, lawsuits, and in-fighting. But the November 17th monthly meeting is shaping up to be a war zone.

Last week, the ACRP Executive Committee gave their approval (4 ayes, 1 no, 1 abstain) to a resolution that would make a non-interventionist foreign policy the official position of the county party.

To pass, the resolution must receive 2/3rds approval from County Committee members at the November 17th meeting in San Leandro.

The county party is lead by RLC member Jerry Salcido, and most of its officers are also RLC members.  Looking at the Alameda County GOP Central Committee, I see at least 12-15 RLC members, too.  I guess we’ll find out if we have a majority on November 17.

Hopefully other county Republican Parties also consider adopting this proposed resolution.

Alameda County Republican Party — Proposed Resolution
Submitted by: Walter Stanley III, David LaTour, and Jerry Salcido

“Whereas, our foreign policy of the past century is deeply flawed and has not served our national security interests; and

Whereas, the terrorist threat is a predictable consequence of our meddling in the affairs of others and has nothing to do with us being free and prosperous; and

Whereas, propping up repressive regimes in the Middle East endangers America and our allies; and

Whereas, occupying countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan and bombing Pakistan is directly related to the hatred directed toward us; and

Whereas, losing over 6,000 American Military personnel in the Middle East since September 11, 2001 is not a fair trade off for the loss of nearly 3,000 American citizens, no matter how many Iraqi, Pakistani and Afghan people are killed or displaced; and

Whereas, torture, even if referred to as “enhanced interrogation techniques” is self-destructive and produces no useful information and that contracting it out to a third world country or a corporation is just as evil; and

Whereas, war and military spending is always destructive to the economy; and

Whereas, war time spending is paid for through the deceitful process of inflating and borrowing; and

Whereas, war time conditions always undermine personal liberty; and

Whereas, we as small government conservatives see our government’s interventionist foreign policy providing the greatest incentive to expand the government; and

Whereas, the only logical, conservative position is to reject military intervention and managing an empire throughout the world; and

Whereas, the official positions for going to war are almost always based on lies and promoted by war propaganda in order to serve special interests; and

Whereas, the quest for empire eventually destroys all great nations; and

Whereas, our aggressive foreign policy and seemingly permanent presence in other countries throughout the world has served to weaken our national defense at home; and

Whereas, the borders’ of Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan are more secure than our own borders here at home; and

Whereas, our foreign policy has nothing to do with national security and never changes from one administration to the next; and

Whereas, Christianity teaches peace and not preventive wars of aggression; and

Whereas, diplomacy is superior to bombs and bribes and the illusion of protecting America; and

Whereas, the aggressive foreign policy of so called “neo-conservatives” is anything but conservative and has wasted more than $1 trillion on nation building and billions more on foreign aid; and

Whereas, there is a strong tradition of non-interventionism in the Republican Party that is exemplified by the legacy of Senator Robert Taft and the Old Right.

Therefore, BE IT RESOLVED, that the Alameda County Republican Party supports a non-interventionist foreign policy as advocated by George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, and believes costly undeclared wars and the occupation of other countries only serves to weaken our national defense and strengthen the resolve along with the ranks of our enemies.

Kentucky U.S. Senate challenger Dr. Rand Paul, son of RLC Advisory Board member Texas Congressman Ron Paul, is now leading his opponent, former Democrat and Secretary of State Trey Grayson.  A solid analysis is provided from a local Kentucky news station:

In February, the Missouri Information Analysis Center (MIAC), a “fusion center” that “collects intelligence from both the local agencies and the DHS and uses these combined sources to analyze threats and better combat terrorism and other criminal activity”, labeled some Ron Paul supporters and other constitutionalists as militia members.

Last week, Missouri RLC Board member Mike Ferguson appeared on FOX News’ “Freedom Watch” with Judge Napolitano to discuss the status of the MIAC and its report.

See Mike and the Judge below:

Dr. Rand Paul, who is running in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate against Attorney General and former Democrat Trey Greyson, was the featured guest at an event hosted by Republican Liberty Caucus members in Kentucky.

This event occurred in Georgetown (near Lexington), Kentucky this past Saturday. It was hosted by RLC activist Sheryl Ford and longtime Kentucky RLC Coordinator Michael Moreland helped organize it.

This is the second time in the month of October that Dr. Paul has met with RLC members. The first was in Northeast Florida, where Dr. Paul met with the Florida RLC Chairman and other RLC members at an event hosted by one of his former medical school classmates.

The videos of Dr. Paul’s remarks to RLC members in Georgetown are as follows. Special thanks to our RLC volunteers in Kentucky for making this event a tremendous success!

Part 1:

Part 2:

At its Convention on Saturday, the California Republican Party adopted the following resolution:

Whereas, the California Republican Party applauds transparency and accountability in government and rejects government secrecy involving monetary policy that impacts the entire economy; and

Whereas, serious discussions of proposals to oversee and audit the Federal Reserve are long overdue; and

Whereas, the Federal Reserve can enter into agreements with foreign governments and foreign central banks and the United States Congress is prohibited from overseeing these agreements; and

Whereas, the California Republican Party believes agreements made by the Federal Reserve with foreign powers and foreign banking institutions should be subject to Congressional oversight; and

Whereas, the United States Constitution, gives the United States Congress the authority to coin Money and regulate the value thereof and does not give Congress the authority to delegate control over monetary policy to a central bank; and

Whereas, auditing the Federal Reserve will allow Congress to assert its constitutional authority over monetary policy and help to protect the value of the United States dollar;

Therefore, BE IT RESOLVED, that the California Republican Party, in defense of the United States Constitution, STRONGLY URGES the representatives of the 111th United States Congress to support the Federal Reserve Transparency Act of 2009 as set forth in H.R. 1207 and S. 604.

The Alameda and Sonoma County Republican Parties recently submitted a resolution in support of auditing The Federal Reserve to the California Republican Party.  The resolution was introduced by two RLC supporters, Jerry Salcido and Michael Erickson.

In addition, RLC-endorsed Congressman Tom McClintock, Assemblyman and U.S. Senate candidate Chuck DeVore, and Congressional candidates John Dennis, Paul Smith and Jon del Arroz have all thrown their support behind the proposed resolution.  In fact, Chuck Devore even spoke passionately on behalf of the resolution before California GOP delegates.

RLC members — such as Matthew Heath, John Dennis, David Latour, Walter Stanley, and David Ewing — were the primary movers and shakers pushing for resolution adoption. More information on the resolution is available HERE.

Congratulations!

In the past several days, Congressman Ron Paul has been featured on two television debates (on Larry King Live) with proponents of the Democrat health care plans pending in Congress.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee is asking Republican voters for their opinions on who should be the Presidential nominee in 2012.

Take their poll and let them know.

The following article is from RLC Adviser Ron Paul’s weekly column, Texas Straight Talk.

Political philosopher Richard Weaver famously and correctly stated that ideas have consequences. Take for example ideas about rights versus goods. Natural law states that people have rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. A good is something you work for and earn. It might be a need, like food, but more “goods” seem to be becoming “rights” in our culture, and this has troubling consequences. It might seem harmless enough to decide that people have a right to things like education, employment, housing or healthcare. But if we look a little further into the consequences, we can see that the workings of the community and economy are thrown wildly off balance when people accept those ideas.

First of all, other people must pay for things like healthcare. Those people have bills to pay and families to support, just as you do. If there is a “right” to healthcare, you must force the providers of those goods, or others, to serve you.

Obviously, if healthcare providers were suddenly considered outright slaves to healthcare consumers, our medical schools would quickly empty. As the government continues to convince us that healthcare is a right instead of a good, it also very generously agrees to step in as middle man. Politicians can be very good at making it sound as if healthcare will be free for everybody. Nothing could be further from the truth. The administration doesn’t want you to think too much about how hospitals will be funded, or how you will somehow get something for nothing in the healthcare arena. We are asked to just trust the politicians. Somehow it will all work out.

Universal Healthcare never quite works out the way the people are led to believe before implementing it. Citizens in countries with nationalized healthcare never would have accepted this system had they known upfront about the rationing of care and the long lines.

As bureaucrats take over medicine, costs go up and quality goes down because doctors spend more and more of their time on paperwork and less time helping patients. As costs skyrocket, as they always do when inefficient bureaucrats take the reins, government will need to confiscate more and more money from an already foundering economy to somehow pay the bills. As we have seen many times, the more money and power that government has, the more power it will abuse. The frightening aspect of all this is that cutting costs, which they will inevitably do, could very well mean denying vital services. And since participation will be mandatory, no legal alternatives will be available.

The government will be paying the bills, forcing doctors and hospitals to dance more and more to the government’s tune. Having to subject our health to this bureaucratic insanity and mismanagement is possibly the biggest danger we face. The great irony is that in turning the good of healthcare into a right, your life and liberty are put in jeopardy.

Instead of further removing healthcare from the market, we should return to a true free market in healthcare, one that empowers individuals, not bureaucrats, with control of healthcare dollars. My bill HR 1495 the Comprehensive Healthcare Reform Act provides tax credits and medical savings accounts designed to do just that.

Since 1991, the Republican Liberty Caucus has existed as a fairly small caucus within the Republican Party. Since around 2006, the RLC has continued to grow and assert more influence on internal Party politics — including party elections and general elections.

When then-relatively unknown Congressman Ron Paul announced his bid for President in January of 2007, he came to the Republican Liberty Caucus for support. That support was provided.

Dr. Paul’s campaign gained momentum primarily through the Presidential debates, when he was able to differentiate himself from the others running through his consistent message of reduced government and restoration of individual freedoms.  Contrast is always needed in campaigns, and Paul’s stark contrast to the rest of the pack provided the incentive for disenfranchised, liberty-loving Americans to join our movement for a free America.

Last month, financial expert Peter Schiff addressed attendees at the Libertarian Party Convention in Connecticut.

Mr. Schiff eloquently explained the Republican Liberty Caucus strategy and urged the audience to find liberty-loving Republican candidates to support.