Live Blogging The House Hearing On Ron Paul's Bill (HR 1207) To Audit The Federal Reserve (Testimony Begins @ 9 AM EST)
And you think you've waited a long time for this day. Dr. Ron Paul has waited an entire 30-year career to have this moment. Let's establish a few preliminary facts. The hearings before the House Financial Services Committee chaired by Barney Frank will begin at 9 am, eastern time. Please read the following carefully.
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- HR 1207 To Audit the Fed has 295 co-sponsors, guaranteeing passage from the House.
- Congressman Paul had never previously had more than 16 co-sponsors for similar bills he has introduced virtually every session since he arrived in Congress.
- The senate companion bill has 28 co-sponsors, though Senator Bernie Sanders said yesterday that he is confident it will pass. Still, please take the time to contact your senator NOW.
- The bill itself is 3 pages in length, beautiful in its simplicity. The stimulus bill was several thousand pages.
- There are 2 scheduled witness: Scott Alvarez, General Counsel for the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors, and Dr. Thomas Woods, jr. economist from The Mises Institute and disciple of the free-market Austrian School of Economics.
- The evil Scott Alvarez's prepared testimony can be viewed HERE.
- And the benevolent Dr. Thomas Woods' testimony can be viewed HERE.
- The phone number for the office of Fed general counsel Alvarez is 202-452-3583.
- Since Alzarez does NOT want you to know what the Fed does with YOUR MONEY, we think you should call his office repeatedly today and tell his assistant just how you feel about her rat bastard boss, and Fed transparency. His number again is 202-452-3583.
- His number again, is 202-452-3583.
- Ron Paul's new book, 'End The Fed' can be purchased HERE through Amazon for only $12.86. Help make it a #1 NY Times Bestseller by purchasing it NOW.
- Dr. Paul's son, Dr. Rand Paul is running for the U.S. Senate in Kentucky. You may visit his website HERE. Make a donation for truth if you are able.
- The video link for the hearing is HERE. I will be live-blogging the testimony.
We'll see you here at 9 AM.
The hearing has begun...Our notes are inside...refresh the story every few minutes to see updates.
Opening statements:
Barney Frank: Hey Ron Paul isn't the only one who wants a Fed audit...I've wanted it for awhile...and anyone who says otherwise, is just plain stupid.
Ron Paul: We've been fighting for this for many years...and nothing happened...but now I'm Mr. popular and everyone loves me...where were you fools last Fall when I was running for President...American people are the difference this time...look forward to a positive hearing..
Melvin Watt: Damn, this bill is popular...my constituents won't stop bugging me about it...3 issues...by the way, where are the doughnuts?...of course we don't want control of monetary policy...
Spencer Bacchus: You fools better not invoke regulation 13:3...I've said bailout 3 times in 60 seconds...the Fed OWNS all the damn debt...they are buying (monetizing) more than 50% of all the debt offered...one gov't agency bailing out another...who is going to bail out the US government...?
BF: Interrupts...you're wasting time for your whole side Bacchus...
Hensarling: "This is not your father's Federal Reserve...their powers must be constrained...serial institutional bailouts are not good...Ron Paul is god, basically, and the rest of you should recognize it..."
Grayson: The Fed needs to be accountable to the American people...this is not a left-rght issue...it's an American issue...this bill was first introduced in 1983, when I was still in school...Ron Paul never gives up...
Jenkins: I love accountability...if anyone says otherwise, they're a Commie...
Frank: Nothing in here about 13:3
Alvarez Speaks: (I thought it was a female at first...work on the voice, Alvarez)..."We're already very transparent...we DON'T NEED THIS STINKIN' BILL...you people are crazy...we're giving you more info than we've ever given anyone...we give Congress plenty of details except...and GAO is already up our Tucchus with their audits...14 audits underway...voice getting higher again...really, you clowns just want to control monetary policy, and we aren't going to give you that chance...markets will crash...you are all evil...where are the doughnuts..?...your audit will chill internal debate...and no one will borrow at the discount window anymore...stop crashing our party...
Frank: Did the Bush-Paulson criminal regime agree with your treatment and approach to the AIG bailout and Bear Stearns bailout...you used 13:3 with Bush's support...did you feel that your independence was under threat by that behavior..?...
Ron Paul: "How did you fools become the arbiters of 'public interest'...?"
Ron Paul: "What exactly are you hiding?"
Alvarez: "Stop asking so many quetions..."
Watt: "I know absolutely NOTHING about the internet...http, colon, dot, underscore, html, umm, umm, umm...the difference between a CPA audit and a GAO audit, I presume GAO doesn't require numbers..."
Alvarez: "GAO audits really are a pain in the ass, and now you fools want to get involved with an actual audit of the numbers...that's not fair or cool at all, bros..."
RECESS for a House vote
Since Alzarez does NOT want you to know what the Fed does with YOUR MONEY, we think you should call his office repeatedly today and tell his assistant just how you feel about her rat bastard boss, and Fed transparency. His number again is 202-452-3583.
Hearings RESUME
Unknow Rep: "Like a bad doctor who hides info from his patient...wht the hell are you guys hiding?"..."What about these foreign central bank swaps...are these CB's then required to buy Treasuries...helping us fund our debt...?..."
Alvarez: "We provide updates on our website, damnit, stop asking abou this....as far as our balance sheet, you have no idea..."
Moore: "Tell us about the freaking collateral...HAVE YOU LOST MONEY?"
Alvarez: "The collateral is basically all trash, but we haven't lost a dime...as far as you know..."
Brad Sherman: "When you push TARP 2 on Congress, telling us that otherwise we'll be eating rats in the street, should we fall for your lies again...?
Sherman: "Tell me about the damn collateral...what is legal under 13:3...?"
Ron Paul: "Time to talk about the Fed's mandate...and failure...stable dollar, stable prices, full employment...nothing but FAILURE...this doesn't make any sense...we need more oversight and transparency, NOT more power to the Fed!"
Ron Paul: "These deal with foreign central banks...we have to know about this...it's our responsibility...the Fed should not be destroying the dollar...you are a government unto yourselves!"
Unknown Fed apologist: "Why the bait and switch with Congress on TARP...supposed to remove assets but instead you decided to inject capital instead"
Alvarez: "That was Paulson and Treasury who made that decision...not us..."
Garrett: "We already have the authority to second-guess the FED, do we not...?...So what you're saying is that we can second guess you as long as we don't have all the facts..."
Garrett: " Are the Fed governors truly independent...?..."
Alvarez: "If you audit us then it will squelch deate and discussion among Fed Governors...ooh, scary."
Foster: "I'm concerned about Fed archiving...are you destroying documents...?..."
Alvarez: "Not that you know of..."
Michell Bachman: "Let's talk about the Bloomberg case...FOIA request for transparency..."
Alvarez: "We WILL BE APPEALING BOTH RULINGS NEXT WEEK..."
Editor's note: F YOU, Alvarez! Stop fighting our search for truth...you cannot stop the people
Bachmann: "Your discount window excuse (that banks won't use it for fear of stigma)...I'm not buying it"
Editor's Note: Bachmann doesn't know finance.
Barney Frank: Fed official have appeard before us 28 times in the past 12 months...so in fairness, they do make themselves available for testimony...
Wilson: "Give me some history on the Fed...some background...how many banks in the Fed?...how are the FED governors approved...?
Alvarez: "They have 14 year terms..."
Wilson: "Back to Ms. Bachmann's Qs on 13:3...what does it take to enact 13:3...what type of exigent circumstances need to exist?...did this occur with Bear Stearns?...Describe the process involving 13:3 and Bear."
Alvarez: "13:3 needs 5 votes to be put into place...we convened a board meeting..."
Wilson: "Was there a meeting about 13:3 and Lehman?"
Alvarez: "oh, hell yeah, we were meeting about Lehman..."
Hensarling: "Let's talk more about the discount window and the STIGMA...what might we be missing here because there was no stigma for TARP participants...?..."
Editor's Note: Hensarling is extremely impressive...
Alvarez: "Blah, Blah, Blah...TARP was different than the discount window issue..."
Hensarling: "Let's tak more about when you choose to enact 13:3..."
Alvarez: "Whenever we want to..."
Hensarling: "Before giving AIG all that money, why not get Resolution Authority so that you could negotiate instead of paying PAR?
Alvarez: "We couldn't..."
Barney Frank leaves to go vote...
Ron Paul: "I'm back from voting and you're lucky because I now have lots of time and Qs..."
Ron Paul: "Let's talk about the Fed's involvement in GOLD MARKETS as well as teh CB currency SWAP agreements..."
Grayson: " Has the Federal Reserve ever tried to manipulate the stock market?..."
Alvarez: "Not that I'm aware..."
Grayson: "Is it within the Fed's legal authority to manipulate the markets?"
THIS IS BEAUTIFUL...GRAYSON IS PLAYING WITH THIS TOOL
Grayson: "That's not what I said...YES or NO?"
Grayson: "Does the Fed actually possess all teh GOLD on their balance sheet"
Alvarez: "I believe so..."
GRAYSON IS RIPPNG THIS GUY...WOW...I CAN"T KEEP UP....
Grayson: "Who executes the Fed's trades...is there front-running of these trades...or insider trading...?
Alvarez: "Primary broker dealers..."
Alvarez: " JP Morgan"
Grayson: "Shouldn't we be allowed to aduit this?"
Grayson: "WHO GOT THE MONEY?"
Grayson's TIME HAS EXPIRED...SIMPLY AWESOME PRFORMANCE
Royce: "Let's talk about the issue of Moral Hazard"
Alvarez: " We have it under control...trust us..."
Royce: "Volcker is King...why are you not paying attention to what he says about boom-bust cycles and increased Moral Hazard?"
TIME RUNS OUT...NO ANSWERS FROM ALVAREZ
Realtively boring discussion with unknown Congressman...
Now, a 2nd boring discussion in a row...Grayson was phenomenal...Does the Fed influence the stock market?...a question we have all wanted answered for so long...does the the PPT work to boost stock prices? His questions about possible front-running of Fed trades by JP Morgan and other broker-dealers were unexpected by me...He hit the guy with a hammer, and then kept hitting...i can't wait to get that portion of video...
ALVAREZ is now gone...
From MISES we now have Thomas Woods, jr...he is reading his opening statement...wow, this guy is good...great delivery...excellent use of sarcasm...he just took a nice swipe at Goldman...mentions that 75% of American people support an AUDIT OF THE FED...
Watt: He's not happy AT ALL about the sarcasm displayed by Woods...this is getting snippy...he thinks Woods was political but he completely misses the point...Woods is anti-political and anti-Fed...
Ron Paul: "Let's talk about Fed secrecy and its effect on policy...does the secrecy encourage confidence or is it the opposite...does Fed secrecy hurt confidence?"
Woods: "Without a doubt it hurts confidence...and then he provides several examples..."
Now in a much longer, philosophical discussion of the Fed, secrecy, policy...plus a nice mention of how the FED owns the economics profession...
Barney Frank: He takes a shot at Woods for the sarcasm and attempts again to demonstrate that he BARNEY FRANK, has supported an audit of the Fed since the time of Christ and even before...WOW, he just spent 90 seconds talking about how he should get credit...this is the 2nd time he has tried to demonstrate his support...this is getting extremely snippy...this will be another great video clip...now an interruption about audience props...i wonder what it was...some kind of sign...
Michelle Bachmann: Wonders why and how the FED could possibly be fighting transparency...why is the FED panicked, she wonders?...
Woods: He won't speculate with any concrete examples...but he hints that they must be doing some really questionable things...but he makes the correct point that "how are we supposed to know, since they won't tell us?"
Bachmann: "I am concerned with the Fed's balance sheet, teh overnight loans, the collateral...it makes a lot of us very nervous..."
Bachmann: "Would it be prudent for Congress to tighten up 13:3 and limit their scope of possible action...would this be prudent?...i was shocked when I finally read 13:3 after TARP was passed...i think it's frightening to learn how powerful the FED's potential scope of behavior..."
BRAD SHERMAN's TURN: Discussing 13:3...says that ALVAREZ's testimony was SCARY...any loan in any amount would be allowed under 13:3 just as long as the FED board was comfortable with the terms of the loan..."are these trillions in loans really safe and secure...what is the collateral...?"
The hearings have now concluded...the final 5 minutes were a free discussion between Sherman, Paul and Woods...really good stuff but impossible to transcribe...
Thanks for following along...
Hope you enjoyed the show...
Thanks for helping to spread the word and create awareness.
Sep 25, 2009 at 4:29 AM
Reader Comments (58)
The movement is winning..........
When we have both Ron Paul Republicans and Ron Paul Democrats- it looks like the Courageous young Rep. Grayson is turning into one such fellow! LET'S SUPPORT HIM (if he has also stood for freedom on other issues).
Time to send out the eviction notices....
I have a great idea. We should make an eviction notice. Make it notarized by the petitions of the people from the districts of each congress member that did not support this bill. Send it to them and then endorse someone to run against that member when re-election time comes around.
$1 dollar per signature can be sent to the CFL or something.
The goal is to get 1,000,000 signatures per congress member to be spent on donations towards people like Rand Paul and such so when the time comes for a CFL member runs they can have 1,000,000 each to start off with.
http://www.thomasewoods.com/contact/
Tom should've brought up the Huffington Post article entitled "Priceless: How the Federal Reserve Bought the Economics Profession." There you go: bought and paid for. Just because Bawney Fwank doesn't want it to be true doesn't mean it isn't. Mentioning it out loud is rather unbecoming in the house of representatives but then the congressmen themselves have disgraced that house by allowing things to get so far away from constitutional sanity.
Member's who aren't cosponsors!
Ken_ Liberty_Roars
Focus on calling these guys. I am going to leave a message to a few of these guys this evening for them to come into the office to in the morning. Their contact info can be found from the link above. These are taken from the list of shame.
FC** Rep. Maxine Waters [D CA-35]
FC** Rep. James Himes [D CT-4]
FC** Rep. Ron Klein [D FL-22]
FC* Rep. Bill Foster [D IL-14]
FC* Rep. Luis Gutiérrez [D IL-4]
FC* Rep. Melissa Bean [D IL-8]
FC* Rep. Barney Frank [D MA-4]
FC* Rep. Michael Capuano [D MA-8]
FC* Rep. Stephen Lynch [D MA-9]
FC* Rep. Gary Peters [D MI-9]
FC* Rep. Keith Ellison [D MN-5]
FC* Rep. William Clay [D MO-1]
FC* Rep. Emanuel Cleaver [D MO-5]
FC* Rep. Melvin Watt [D NC-12]
FC* Rep. Paul Hodes [D NH-2]
FC* Rep. Nydia Velázquez [D NY-12]
FC* Rep. Carolyn Maloney [D NY-14]
FC* Rep. Carolyn McCarthy [D NY-4]
FC** Rep. Gary Ackerman [D NY-5]
FC* Rep. Gregory Meeks [D NY-6]
FC* Rep. Steve Driehaus [D OH-1]
FC* Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy [D OH-15]
FC* Rep. Paul Kanjorski [D PA-11]
FC* Rep. Gwen Moore [D WI-4]
Debra Medina for Texas Governor 2010!
Rand Paul for US Senate in Kentucky!
Ron Paul 2012, Join or Die!
-- Anisha
“Complacent ignorance is the most lethal sickness of the soul.”
-- Plato
"Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it." -- Joseph Goebbels
"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they attack you, then you win!"
GANDHI
"Is Anybody Out There?"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXaXV2OZmLw&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.peterrivera.com%2Fis_anybody_mp3.html&feature=player_embedded
Keep Ron in your thoughts throughout the day, and keep a positive attitude so perhaps we can send some positive karma his way, he is leading the good fight,
In the beginning of a change the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot.
~Mark Twain
Alvarez is... a.... terrorist
(((((((( A new kind of political system )))))))
For all of history we've argued over fully rewarding the best and brightest vs. redistributing wealth for the overall good of society.
Ever notice how many true geniuses in the arts and sciences are actually quite generous people. The real givers of their intelligence and work efforts are often quite egalitarian.
It is the financial class of hucksters and swindlers, the management bullies who must control everything, and the political class who harbor the envious, the liars, and the insecure who are the bane of a society.
The argument has been wrong from the beginning. We could have a nearly uptopian society if we simply killed the elites of politicans, big business CEOs, and bankers. These people are not the gifted, but rather the grifters.
If we simply allowed that any crime by a politican, banker, or business executive incurred an automatic and immediate death penalty we would within 50 years have a utopia of plenty, prosperity and peace.
Instead we let the evil ones arbitrate for us the huge mess they themselves have made of the world.
http://www.campaignforliberty.com/
HR 1207 - Audit the Federal Reserve
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYiHE35kCQI
Frank needs to be removed from government. he assisted this economy collapsing
END THE BANKING CARTEL / IT CARES ONLY FOR ONE THING ITSELF
Dear All,
There is no bill more important to the fate of the U.S. economy and with it the fate of the American people (read Labor and all workers who exchange 9-2-5 time for money) than HR-1207.
You must understand exactly why the oligarch capitalist elite of both parties are terrorified of this bill – including those elite within the Democratic party. It will completely destroy their control and guidance on broad investment in the United States, and their duplicitous trades off that overseas, think labor arbitrage, etc.
http://libertymaven.com/2009/09/24/look-whos-testifying-during-ron-pauls-hr1207-hearing-tomorrow/7435/