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From The Mailbag

20 years

On Thursday, March 6, 2008 Congressman Ron Paul posted a 7-minute video on his website officially ending his presidential campaign. The Republican Texan, who ran on a libertarian platform, said that while he has suspended his bid for the White House, his "campaign for freedom will continue in this new phase..." calling for a convention in Washington, DC on June 21. Without defining what it was, Dr. Paul said: "I don't mind playing a key role in this revolution, but it has to be more than a Ron Paul revolution." What we have here is the rebirth of the Republican Revolution. Only, this time around, it will be a people-orchestrated revolution where the conservative voters of America, inspired by Dr. Paul, take back their nation through the House of Representatives and the US Senate.

aul Campaign spokesman Jesse Benton confirmed on Friday, Mar. 7 that Congressman Ron Paul recognized that he would not be the GOP nominee. The "...campaign," he said, "is winding down. Dr. Paul acknowledges that he will not be the nominee but will continue to travel to address supporters and encourage grassroots activism to influence the process and return the Republican Party to its traditions of limited government and personal freedom." Yet, the Texas Congressman is still campaigning in the hopes of collecting more delegates than the 45 he currently controls, believing the more delegates he secures before the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis the better chance he has of getting a primetime slot for speechmaking at the Convention on Labor Day.

In a CNN a.m. interview on American Morning, Dr. Paul admitted his chance of getting the nomination were gone. What he is attempting to do now, he said, was put his campaign in a position to participate in writing the party platform and set the direction of the Republican Party in the future. Dr. Paul also noted that he would "...not likely support John McCain unless [McCain] changes his views—particularly on foreign policy and the war in Iraq."

Ron Paul sees the next phase of the Ron Paul Revolution as a book tour to promote "The Revolution: A Manifesto." Ron Paul now has an opportunity to win an even larger prize in a race he can win. Ron Paul's task during the 11th and 112th Congress will be to protect the Constitution of the United States and assure that the uninterrupted protection of the Bill of Rights continues—not as Congressman Ron Paul, but as Speaker of the House Ron Paul. This would make Ron Paul the third most powerful person in the United States. As House Speaker, Ron Paul can be a true and effective advocate of the people.

Ron Paul possesses one characteristic no other conservative since Ronald Reagan has been able to invoke. He was able to mobilize the soldiers in the Ron Paul Revolution and keep them focused on his dream. It is a dream of the type of liberty envisioned by the Founding Fathers and the inalienable rights that were guaranteed by the US Constitution in the Bill of Rights. That is something none of the other GOP candidates were able to do. Not Mitt Romney [R-MA] nor Fred Thompson [R-TN] nor Tom Tancredo [R-CO] nor Duncan Hunter [R-CA] nor Rudy Giuliani [R-NY]—and least of all, not GOP nominee Sen. John McCain [R-AZ]. Why? Because all of them know that major concessions to the New World Order will be the rule of the day over the next four years as willing politicians—bought and paid for by special interest groups that contributed millions of dollars in legal bribes to their campaigns—weaken America even more by allowing transnational industrialists to send even more jobs to the human capital in the emerging nations, and by further opening the floodgates to allow even more millions of illegal aliens to trample US sovereignty.

Even after McCain captured the electoral votes needed to seal the nomination, Ron Paul supporters wanted the Congressman to continue a fight already lost, hoping that at the convention in Minneapolis enough McCain delegates would jump ship to allow a floor fight to pick a nominee more acceptable to the Paulites—which, of course by extension, would be Dr. Paul. Whatever else he may be, Congressman Ron Paul is a realist. He knows he lost the battle for the White House. But in fighting that battle, he set up a mechanism that will allow him to win control of the other House and kindle a true grassroots Republican Revolution based on constitutional precepts. There are 60 million conservatives in America seeking a leader who understands that the United States was created as a nation of the people, by the people, for the people—and that nation is being systemically eroded by industrialists and bankers for the industrialists and bankers in order to recreate the world into a economic smorgasbord specifically to increase their wealth as the people are reclassified as human capital—the chattel of the global elite.

The Constitution of the United States provides the blueprint of liberty for its citizens and for those who lawfully reside within its borders. It is not a doormat at our borders for foreign globalists to wipe their feet on as they enter. Nor is it an archaic set of rules for domestic utopians to manipulate because the rule of law does not conform to their view of what the world should look like. Nor is it a "get-out-of-jail-free" card for corrupt politicians. Nor is it a piggy bank for corrupt money barons who believe their wealth entitles them to special privilege and special laws that penalize their competition while providing them with blank checks on the US Treasury at the expense of the people.

When he entered the race for the White House, Congressman Ron Paul was the 27th most powerful GOP member of the House of Representatives according to Knowlegis. What troubles the political elites most about Dr. Paul is that his political philosophy closely dovetailed with the philosophy of the Founding Fathers. That philosophy was non-interventionism. From 1787 to 1917 the United States faithfully observed that policy.

During those 130 years the United States prospered economically. But it also changed for the worse. New York surpassed London as the financial capital of the world and the era of the Jacobin robber barons was born. At the end of the Civil War the mass bribing of Congressmen and Senators began as the money barons began buying politicians like penny candy to get the laws they needed to protect them from prosecution as they stole America. During that period, from 1875 to 1895 the citizen politicians discovered just how profitable politics could be. Middle class shopkeepers came to Washington as freshmen Congressmen and retired 20 to 30 years later as members of the wealthy class. To legalize the graft they took from the money barons, Congress enacted laws to protect themselves from being charged with accepting bribes by classifying the bribes they took from the money barons as "campaign contributions."

Today the media talking heads hawk the politicians who take the most graft as the "most viable" candidates since they have been blessed by the financially powerful special interest groups, lobbyists, bankers and the industrialists who control what legislation is enrolled as well as what legislation will get out of committee and onto the floor for a vote. To the lobbyists and the special interest groups while presidents can, and usually do, veto legislation which is politically or philosophically repugnant to them, Congress is the first line of defense to stop that legislation from being passed.

The leadership in both the House and Senate are acutely aware that the President of the United States and the federal court system do not possess the power to legislate. Presidential Proclamations, Executive Orders, Presidential Decision Directives cannot be construed as law since the President of the United States and the Executive Branch of government (which he manages) lacks the right to create law under the Constitution. Likewise, the job of the judicial branch is so narrowly defined that judges—including US Supreme Court Judges—are not allowed to legislate from the bench: i.e., coupling one law with another law, with the minority opinions of justices who argue why they disagree with the majority view in high court decisions, or the laws of other nation, to essentially create new law by flipflopping the original intent of the lawmakers. The whole body of law in the United States constitutionally originates, and remains, in the Congress.

The House of Representatives has a constitutional obligation to represent "the people." Sadly, that mandate has long ago been abrogated. The members of Congress—both our representatives and those of the States (the Senate) have abrogated their constitutional responsibility and have become pawns of transnational industrialists, bankers, and merchant princes who, collectively, resemble the despots of Europe who enslaved the colonists in the New World and caused a free people to cast off the shackles of serfdom from England.

If you haven't read the Declaration of Independence lately, it should be of interest to those in governance to see what set off the patriotic rabble of that day and what caused Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and Benjamin Franklin to say: "...a long train of abuses and usurpations...[designed] to reduce [the people] under absolute despotism. [In such cases] it is [the right of the people], it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new safeguards for their future security...The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over the States." It is important to note, here, that Franklin, Jefferson and Adams were talking about a foreign government that controlled the lives of the American people from a distant port. However, it is essential for our own government to turn back the pages of history and understand what that foreign government did which caused the shot "heard around the world."

That government—England—refused to consent to administer one set of laws to govern all the people. She chose instead to selectively enforce the law to benefit some people and to hamstring or punish others. That government obstructed the colonial laws regarding the naturalization of foreigners in the United States, and changed the laws concerning migration. That government obstructed justice by making judges obedient to them and abridging the laws of the colonies whenever it served the purpose of that superior government. England created a bureaucracy and sent out "hither swarms of officers to harass [the] people." England also made the colonial military independent of civilian jurisdiction, allowing them to function without the consent of that civilian authority. In addition, it deprived Americans of trials by jury; and, increasingly, transporting Americans "...beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses"—and most of all, for taxing Americans without their consent. While our central government contends that we are taxed with "our consent" since those we elect to represent us, the simple reality is when legislators are allowed to accept bribes from lobbyists for special interest groups it is not us they represent but the special interest groups. Congress has been effectively hijacked by the wealthy elite who rape America by stealing the sweat equity we invested to make this nation great.

When you examine the parallels carefully you are almost forced to conclude that this is very likely America's last chance to take back its nation or surrender to the globalists who believe world government is the gateway to Utopia. Around the corner is the complete abrogation of national sovereignty as the North American Union becomes a reality that no citizen in the United States, Canada or Mexico wants. Nor do the citizens of Central or South American want to absorbed into a hemispheric American Union in which their national identity is subverted by their more powerful northern neighbor as the regionalization of the world's economies and currencies bring the nations of the world towards the biblical world government that leads to Armageddon.

In 1994 Congressman Newt Gingrich [R-GA], the minority whip, proposed a GOP Contract With America that led to the Republican Revolution in which the Democrats—who enacted NAFTA and started the jobs drain that has not let up in over a decade—lost control of both Houses of Congress for the first time since 1952. Under the Contract With America Gingrich pledged, first, to restore accountability to Congress and end waste and fiscal abuse. Under the Contract, the laws that apply to the rest of the country would also apply to those in Congress. The plan would cut the number of House committees and limit the terms of the Chairmen of those committees thus curbing the generational power structure of the people's assembly. Assure an honest accounting of the budget through zero baseline budgeting and most of all, by requiring a three-fifths majority to enact a tax increase.

Gingrich also proposed a legislative agenda and promised to bring 10 specific pieces of legislation to the House floor for a vote within the first 100 days of the 104th Congress. The American people bought Gingrich's pledge and the voters turned control of both Houses of Congress over to the Republicans largely because the Democrats sold them out and sent their jobs packing to Mexico.

Beginning in 1995 the special interest groups and the lobbyists for big business began writing checks in the names of the members of the new majority who kept their pledge during the 104th Congress but began to get used to the graft that poured money like Katrina waters over the broken levees in New Orleans into the campaign war chests of the new movers and shakers on Capitol Hill. Graft may be an acquired taste, but it seems once a Congressman or Senator samples it, the sweet savor of money is hard to resist.

By the time the 106th Congress rolled around the GOP controlled both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. Sadly, by the Election of 2000 many of the brightest members of the Republican Revolution, who had promised they would only seek three terms (after three terms in the House and one term in the US Senate politicians, who succumb to power, become institutionalized) declined to seek reelection and the moral fiber of Congress once again became strained. By 2001 the moral majority in Congress not only forgot their pledge to the people they also forgot their conservative core values.

The previously fiscally-prudent, supply-side, free-market conservatives became pork-barrel economic liberals who easily discarded the Reaganomics of the 1980s that gave America its longest period of sustained economic growth in over 100 years. Had September 11, 2001 not happened, President George W. Bush would likely have followed his father into the history books after one term as president. The invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq would not have happened, and antiwar liberal John Kerry would not have claimed the Democratic nomination. In all likelihood, the nomination would have gone to former Vice President Al Gore, Jr. And, in the grudge rematch for the White House, the man who still believes he is destined to lead the free would would have easily overwhelmed Bush in 2004. (In the event the Democratic Convention in Denver between Aug. 25-28 deadlocks, its very possible the Democrat Party will drag Gore out of mothballs and anoint him as the party's standard-bearer for a second time (something the Democrats almost never do). Gore would likely pick from a short list that would include Sen. Richard Durbin [D-IL], Sen Evan Bayh [D-IN], Gov. Ted Strickland [D-OH] and perhaps House Speaker Nancy Pelosi [D-CA] as his running mate since, under California law, she can seek two elective offices in the same election—and because she won reelection in 2006 with 81% of the vote.

What Happened in 2006?

If you listen to the mainstream media they would have you believe that America was weary of the conflict in Iraq and wanted US troops out of Afghanistan and Iraq regardless of the ultimate consequences. The exit polls in 2006 said Americans wanted an end to a war, they thought, we could not win. The exit polls showed a clear majority of those who voted believed the number one issue was the War in Iraq. Yet, polls taken just prior to the election indicated the number one issue on the minds of Americans was sealing the border, evicting illegals and restoring jobs lost to Mexico and China by NAFTA. When you look at the exit polls you discover that roughly 61% of those polled leaving the voting precincts identified themselves as Democrats and only 35% identified themselves as Republicans.

The exit polls in 2006 were skewered because of an anomaly the media chose to ignore—about 35% of the Republican voter base—those who viewed themselves as "patriot conservatives"—sat out the election to protest the selling out of the voters by the GOP majority whom they could no longer distinguish from the Democratic minority. Democrats and Republicans competed to see who could spend more taxpayer dollars on pork that served only to guarantee that more offerings of 30 more pieces of silver were dropped into their campaign war chests. And, a large percentage of the electorate had simply had enough. Seen they couldn't see too much difference from the thief on this side compared to the thief on that side, it didn't make sense to vote for the "lesser of two evils" when the politicians on both sides looked equally evil.

In point of fact, the differences under the skin are as dissimilar as night and day. By sitting out the Election of 2006 the right surrendered to the left, which viewed their victory as a mandate to unilaterally withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan, provide welfare benefits for illegal aliens, provide universal healthcare like the failed socialized medical system found in Canada, and return America to the days of generational welfare. To accomplish this, broad new taxes will be needed. None of the current slate of presidential candidates are against taxes. It is, after all, only money—someone else's.

Fixing 2009

When Congressman Ron Paul embarked on the quest for the White House these were the things he thought about, and these were issues that troubled him. What also troubled him very much was the fact—and how well he grew to know it—unless the media anoints you as a first tier candidate you are doomed to run the silent race, and the electorate will not vote for you in numbers sufficient to prevail. No candidate can win the presidency without day-in, day-out TV news coverage. And the media only anoints those who get the nod from the crown heads of industry and banking. The fact that Ron Paul—the 5th most senior Congressman in Texas—became the top GOP presidential money-raiser in the 4th quarter of 2007 speaks volumes for the love and respect the American people have for this man.

Dr. Ron Paul has become the "can-do" man. While the merchant princes and lords of industry have placed the White House out of his grasp, Dr. Paul has captivated a nation, and those he has captivated who proudly call themselves soldiers in the Ron Paul Revolution are fighting now to give Dr. Paul the other House—on the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue—the US House of Representatives.

Dr. Paul is offering the American people a new prescription to revitalize America. The Ron Paul Revolution is phase two of the Republican Revolution. Only this time around, no empty promises. Dr. Paul's plan to revitalize prosperity in America is a four-point program that entails tax reform, spending reform, monetary policy reform and regulatory reform. The Ron Paul Prescription for Prosperity encompasses the following:

Phase one: tax reform. Reduce the tax burden on the American people by eliminating taxes that punish investment and savings. This includes job-killing corporate taxes. Eliminate taxes on dividends and savings. The basis of capitalism is saving. Americans who have learned how to put a nest egg away should not be penalized for doing so. First on a litany of programs is House Joint Resolution 23 that will reward saving over consumption. Also needed is making the Bush-43 tax cuts permanent. Even more, cutting taxes on working senior citizens is imperative. Elderly people who are forced to work to survive should be allowed to keep all of the money they earn. We should eliminate taxes on Social Security benefits. Congress needs to enact HR 191 and HR 192. These bills will amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to repeal the inclusion in gross income of Social Security benefits and they will repeal the 1993 increases in taxes on Social Security benefits enacted by the co-presidency of Bill and Hillary Clinton.

To reform our tax system, it is important to accelerate depreciation on corporate investment and enact HR 4995 to amend the tax code to reduce corporate marginal income tax rates. Job growth comes from the private sector. It takes money to create jobs. When government takes those funds in taxes job growth does not happen. On the other end of the income spectrum, government needs to eliminate taxes on tips and gratuities because taxing those at the low end of the income spectrum penalizes single parents and working students, the bulk of whose under $15K incomes is derived from tips by enacting HR 3664 to amend the Internal Revenue code to provide that tips and gratuities are not subject to income or employment taxes. Further, the Ron Paul Prescription for Prosperity calls for passage of the Mortgage Cancellation Relief Act. The bankruptcy laws enacted in 1986 penalized taxpayers who lose their homes to foreclosure by charging them a portion of the forgiven debt. The Mortgage Cancellation Relief Act would exclude those penalties. Dr. Paul believes that subprime market homeowners who bought toxic mortgages and lost their homes should not be punished a second time with a large IRS tax bill. One of key cornerstones of the Prescription for Prosperity is the Liberty Amendment, a constitutional amendment to abolish the personal income tax, estate and gift taxes.

Phase Two: spending reform. Freeze non-defense, non-entitlement spending at their current levels. Pork-laden bills should never clear Congress. Since the federal courts have ruled that the President cannot exercise the line item veto enacted and signed into law by former President Bill Clinton, pork bills have to be stopped in Congress. The United States can no longer afford to subsidize our trading partners in Europe, Asia—and in the western hemisphere because what this nation is doing is funding the unfair competition that is eroding our job base at home. Further, in a world we can reach within hours, it makes little sense to deploy half of this nation's military to permanent bases around the world. The war in Korea ended in 1953, yet 55 years later, our troops are still there. When Bill Clinton sent US troops to Bosnia in 1993 he assured the American people they would be home by Christmas. That war ended in 1995. Thirteen years later, American troops are still there. World War II ended in 1945, yet American troops are still deployed in the former battle zones in both Europe and Asia—65 years after the last cannons were fired. Add to that the costs of the military bases which are funded entirely by the taxpayers of the United States and we have to ask ourselves why the United States is footing the bill for former military allies who have become economic adversaries eager for the economic downfall of the United States?

Phase Three: monetary policy reform. Expand transparency and accountability at the Federal Reserve. Force the Fed to televise Federal Open Market Committee meetings just as the business of Congress is now televised, and force the Fed's Board of Governors to continue to make available, to the public, a weekly report on the measure of the M3 monetary aggregate and its components. The Prescription for Prosperity calls for Congress to return value to our monetary system, end the fiat system by legalizing gold and silver as a competing currency to paper money. (While it is not a facet of the Prescription for Prosperity, written into law must be a clause which stipulates that fiat debt incurred by nations not on the gold standard will always be repaid with balance of trade credits and not dollars—or bullion. Countries which are not on the gold standard have no right to expect their balance of trade payments to be rendered in gold, or that loans or grants from the United States be paid to them in gold or silver. Historically, the drains on the gold and silver reserves in the United States were perpetuated by bankers and industrialists in Europe who invested fiat capital in the United States and withdrew gold. In the end, the gold and silver that had been in the nations vaults ended up in the banks of the wealthy elite who stole the gold and gave us debt scrip in place of it.)

Phase Four: regulatory reform. In 2002, in the aftermath of a myriad of corporate scandals that brought down such industry giants as Enron, Tyco, MCI-Worldcom and Peregrine Systems and cost individual investors and pension plans hundreds of billions of dollars Congress passed the Public Company Accounting and Reform Investor Protection Act of 2002, more commonly known as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, or as its known on the Hill, Sarbox or SOX.

The law created an oversight board, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board to oversee, regulate, inspect and discipline accounting firms who audit the finances of public companies (but the law does not apply to privately owned corporations). While the bureaucrats argue that the cost-benefit of implementing is cost-effective, the companies whose products we all purchase know that the average annual cost of implement SOX is around $1.4 trillion which is passed directly onto the consumer. The business giants on Wall Street argue that Sarbanes-Oxley contributed substantially in the displacement of business from the NYSE to the London Stock Exchange and to other alternate investment markets around the world. Ron Paul's Prescription for Prosperity calls for a repeal of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 to reduce the burden its placed not on public-traded companies in the United States but small privately-held companies as well.

Further, the Prescription for Prosperity calls for laws to make it easier for community banks, savings banks and credit unions to compete so they can better serve their communities and to help people within those communities get access to credit without being hamstrung by Fed regulations that determine who is creditworthy and who is not.

Taking back Congress

The 10-term Congressman's 4-Point revitalization plan is the equivalent to Newt Gingrich's Republican Revolution. Under Gingrich's 10-Point Plan ten very specific pieces of legislation were enacted after which the tenured GOP majority in 1994 simply blended into the congressional background and became indistinguishable from the House Democrats. The Republican Revolution newbies—including former 22nd Congressional District Congressman Ron Paul ]1978-1982] who was reelected in the 14th Congressional District in 1996—fought the system and actually accomplished some good. They forced Bill Clinton to keep his campaign promise to end generational welfare by enacting it and forcing him to sign it. And, they slowed down the globalist movement to erase our borders during the Clinton years. The Republican Revolution freshmen pledged to term limit themselves to three terms and all but a few did. The voters removed the others. Sadly, all that was left by 2006 were institutionalized Congressman who had been feasting in the gilded feeding troughs of the special interest group too long. Like the generational welfare recipients at the bottom of the societal ladder, it was now the only life they knew. Accepting gratuities from the powerful money barons was as natural as assuring the voters that they still represented them.

Institutionalized members of Congress in both Houses know their real constituents are not those who drive to the voting precinct in the rain or snow to cast their vote for Congressmen and/or Senators who have pledged to support their hopes and dreams of a better life in a sovereign America. In their campaign speeches, these Congressmen and Senators pledged to be the people's advocate in fulfilling those aspirations. Instead, they become the private advocates of those who filled their campaign war chests.

When Ron Paul gave up his quest for the White House and asked his grassroots supporters to continue to support him in the voting booth, most of them, fed by the emails of other grassroots Ron Paul stalwarts, believed there might still be a chance to prevail at the convention in Minneapolis where a floor fight might convince enough McCain delegates to switch, and nominate a candidate more to the liking of conservative America. Dr. Paul was not at all coy about what he was trying to do, but it took his supporters more than a few days to embrace the idea. "We're not holding out an illusion that Ron is going to win the nomination," his National Field Director Debbie Hopper said, "It's about calling the Republican Party back to its roots." Missouri Ron Paul field leaders confirmed that when they said they were not being driven by a quest to resurrect Ron Paul's bid for the White House. The thrust of their efforts is to force the Republican hierarchy to embrace Ron Paul's Prescription for Prosperity.

Ron Paul's Prescription for Prosperity caught fire with diehard supporters who have discovered a vision of hope in the notion that there is life after death. That hope has converted the Ron Paul Revolution into a new nationwide conservative revolution that could propel Dr. Paul into the role of Speaker of the House if this movement can become the groundswell it could, and should, be. America needs an honest man leading the US Congress. America needs a 21st century version of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Ron Paul fits the bill. If the Ron Paul activists can mobilize the "sit at home" conservatives through the spring and summer and impact the primaries in what States have not yet voted on their Congressional or Senatorial races, it will be possible to dump entrenched incumbents and bring fresh faces to Washington in November—a new Republican Revolution, the Ron Paul Revolution, that can take back Congress and bring sanity back to the process of governance in the nation's capital.