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Campaign for Liberty Chairman Ron Paul recently penned an op-ed for Fox Business News, objecting to the proposal that the Federal Reserve begin issuing its own cryptocurrency. Dr. Paul also reiterated his opposition to the Federal Reserve’s real-time payment system. Under Dr. Paul’s leadership, Campaign for Liberty continues to be the driving force letting the American people know the truth about the Federal Reserve by passing Audit the Fed. Please join our efforts. You can read Dr. Paul’s op-ed here and below: Ron Paul: No, cryptocurrency is not something the Fed should be getting its 'hands around' By Ron Paul PayPal is perhaps the best way ever designed to move money al from one person to another. Yet it started in failure. In his book, “Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future,” founder Peter Thiel explains that PayPal was originally intended to allow owners of PalmPilots to beam money to each other. That idea did not work, but it evolved into using similar technology on eBay auctions. The point is that PayPal was a private company competing in the market economy. That meant it was subject to market discipline. It had to develop an effective product or it would go out of [...]

The U.S. House is in session from Tuesday through Friday. The news will be dominated by the House Judiciary Committee’s impeachment hearings. The main bill on the House calendar is H.R. 4, which restores requirements that certain states receive pre-clearance from the Justice Department before changing their voting laws. The Supreme Court has struck down the Voting Rights Act’s original pre-clearance provision as an “extraordinary measure to address an extraordinary problem” -- the problem being state laws designed to deprive minorities of the right to vote. The court ruled that the extraordinary circumstances that justified the pre-clearance requirement no longer existed, so continuing the requirement, which imposed on a state’s authority to set its own election laws, was no longer needed. This bill is aimed at allowing the Justice Department to nullify voter ID laws. The House will also consider H.R. 2534, which clarifies that someone who gives someone else “inside information” can be prosecuted for insider trading if they knew the information was improperly shared and was used for profit. For an Austrian-libertarian critique of insider trading laws, see here. The House will also consider H.Res. 326, which expresses the sense of the House in support of a ”two-state solution” to the Irsaeli-Palestinian conflict [...]

The 50-year US war on drugs has been a total failure, with hundreds of billions of dollars flushed down the drain and our civil liberties whittled away fighting a war that cannot be won. The 20 year “war on terror” has likewise been a gigantic US government disaster: hundreds of billions wasted, civil liberties scorched, and a world far more dangerous than when this war was launched after 9/11. So what to do about two of the greatest policy failures in US history? According to President Trump and many in Washington, the answer is to combine them! Last week Trump declared that, in light of an attack last month on US tourists in Mexico, he would be designating Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. Asked if he would send in drones to attack targets in Mexico, he responded, “I don't want to say what I'm going to do, but they will be designated.” The Mexican president was quick to pour cold water on the idea of US drones taking out Mexican targets, responding to Trump’s threats saying “cooperation, yes; interventionism, no.” Trump is not alone in drawing the wrong conclusions from the increasing violence coming from the drug cartels south of the [...]

This week, Americans will gather around the table to eat turkey, stuffing, pumpkin pie, and no doubt argue about politics and football with their relatives. Most Americans believe they are carrying on a tradition began by the Pilgrims who had the first Thanksgiving dinner to celebrate their prosperity. The truth is that the first Thanksgiving was more of a last meal for Pilgrims who where facing famine. Not coincidentally they where also practicing a form of socialism. It was only after they adopted a system based on private property and free exchange that they had something to be thankful for. Rciahrd Mayburfy writing as Mises.com, explains: It is also very deceiving. This official story is nothing like what really happened. It is a fairy tale, a whitewashed and sanitized collection of half-truths which divert attention away from Thanksgiving's real meaning. The official story has the Pilgrims boarding the Mayflower, coming to America, and establishing the Plymouth colony in the winter of 1620–21. This first winter is hard, and half the colonists die. But the survivors are hard working and tenacious, and they learn new farming techniques from the Indians. The harvest of 1621 is bountiful. The pilgrims hold a celebration, and give thanks to [...]

The most shocking thing about the House impeachment hearings to this point is not a “smoking gun” witness providing irrefutable evidence of quid pro quo. It’s not that President Trump may or may not have asked the Ukrainians to look into business deals between then-Vice President Biden’s son and a Ukrainian oligarch. The most shocking thing to come out of the hearings thus far is confirmation that no matter who is elected President of the United States, the permanent government will not allow a change in our aggressive interventionist foreign policy, particularly when it comes to Russia. Even more shocking is that neither Republicans nor Democrats are bothered in the slightest! Take Lt. Colonel Vindman, who earned high praise in the mainstream media. He did not come forth with first-hand evidence that President Trump had committed any “high crimes” or “misdemeanors.” He brought a complaint against the President because he was worried that Trump was shifting US policy away from providing offensive weapons to the Ukrainian government! He didn’t think the US president had the right to suspend aid to Ukraine because he supported providing aid to Ukraine. According to his testimony, Vindman’s was concerned over “influencers promoting a false narrative of Ukraine inconsistent with the [...]

Yesterday, the Senate passed the Continuing Resolution funding the government through December 20 and reauthorizing Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act until March. The vote was 74-20. You can see that vote here. Congratulations to Representative Thomas Massie (R-KY) for being the only member of Congress to oppose S. 1838. This bill requires the State Department to report on whether Hong Kong is “sufficiently autonomous” from China to justify U.S. special treatment of Hong Kong under U.S. law, with a particular emphasizes on civil rights in Hong Kong. The law also requires the Department of Commerce to report on China’s use of Hong Kong to evade U.S. export controls (protectionism) and requires the president to take action to protect U.S. citizens if Hong Kong passes a law subjecting U.S. citizen to extradition to China, which is odd because there’s no real threat of this occurring. This bill is an attempt for the U.S. Congress to get involved in the conflict between China and a protest movement in Hong Kong (which is being abated by the U.S. regime change machine). You can see the vote here. Now something that happened in the Senate on November 7.  Senators Pat Toomey (R-PA) and Ted Cruz (T-TX) went to [...]

Before getting to this week’s schedule, here’s a look at what happened last Friday. The House passed H.R. 4863, legislation reauthorizing the Export Finance Agency (previously known as the Export-Import Bank), by a vote of  235-184. Thirteen Republicans voted for it, while four Democrats voted against it. You can see the vote here. This week, the House is in session from Monday through Thursday. The big vote of the week was a “continuing resolution” extending government funding through December 20. This sets up a showdown over the budget right before Christmas. Historically, these showdowns just before the holidays are disastrous for supporters of limited government, as legislators are anxious to go home for the holidays, so they will vote for whatever spending bill is placed before them—usually without even reading it. As discussed here, the bill also extends the USA Freedom Act until March 15, 2020. The bill also repealed a 2015 rescission of transportation funds, increasing spending by $76 billion dollars. Since the bill text was unveiled on Monday, the House had to waive the rule requiring bills be  available online three days before being voted on. House leadership tried to avoid having a roll-call vote on the rule by getting unanimous consent to move to [...]

Late yesterday, Campaign for Liberty learned that House leadership attached a provision to the Continuing Resolution (CR) extending the USA Freedom Act (the phony "reform" that replaced Section 215 of the so-called PATRIOT Act) until March 15, 2020. The CR must pass Congress this week to avoid a government shutdown. And leadership is rushing this bill to the floor -- in violation of House rules -- to vote on it today. Why is Congress in such a hurry to extend the misnamed USA Freedom Act? Well, the “official” explanation is to give Congress more time to work on a “compromise” reform bill. But it’s more likely the surveillance state’s congressional lackeys are delaying the final vote until closer to the election -- so representatives will be too scared of being smeared as “soft on terror” to vote against renewing this unconstitutional program. So please call your U.S. Representative immediately at 202-224-3121 and tell them to vote NO on the Continuing Resolution. And please spread the word about this vote on social media and make sure your pro-liberty friends and family know they should contact their representatives. Congress should not need five months to determine whether or not to renew the USA Freedom Act. Eighteen years after a panicked [...]

Lost in the media’s obsession with the impeachment circus last week was Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s testimony on the state of the economy before the Joint Economic Committee. In his testimony, Chairman Powell warned that when the next recession inevitably occurs, the US Government’s over $23 trillion debt would prevent Congress from increasing spending to revive the economy. Powell also said that the Fed’s current low interest rate policies would prevent the Fed from using its traditional methods of increasing the money supply and further lowering interest rates to jump-start economic growth in a recession. Hopefully, Powell is correct that when the next recession hits the Federal Reserve and Congress will be unable to “stimulate” the economy with cheap money and new spending. Interest rates are the price of money and, as with all prices, government manipulation of interest rates distorts the signals regarding market conditions. Artificially low interest rates lead to malinvestment and the creation of bubbles. Recessions are a painful but necessary correction that allows the economy to cleanse itself of these distortions. When the Federal Reserve and Congress try to stimulate the economy, they introduce new distortions, making it impossible for the economy to heal itself. Fiscal and [...]

In just a few hours, the U.S. House of Representatives will vote on H.R. 4863, legislation reauthorizing the Export-Import Bank and renaming it the Export Financing Agency. . . Congress may be changing its name, but they aren’t changing its function. The Export Finance Agency will continue to put taxpayers on the hook for loans to some of America’s biggest and most politically powerful corporations to subsidize their exports. Even worse, H.R. 4863 increases the amount the Export Finance Agency can lend to these multinational corporate welfare queens. The Export Finance Agency’s defenders say the program is necessary to create jobs by financing projects that could not otherwise get financing. . . But as anyone who understands economics knows, if a program cannot get funding in the free market, then it does not deserve funding. And even a pro-Export Financing Agency thinktank has admitted the agency does not create jobs; instead, it “. . . merely redistributes jobs across the economy rather than create more overall jobs.” But programs like the Export Finance Agency do more than just redistribute jobs. . . By taking resources out of the private sector to give to government programs, the Export Finance Agency empowers politicians, [...]