I used to be one. I'm now officially unenrolled.
"Ron Paul delegates fight GOP on ouster" by Stephanie Ebbert | Globe Staff, July 30, 2012
Sixteen Republicans elected to represent Massachusetts at the national convention in Tampa next month have filed a formal challenge with the Republican National Committee, saying they were unfairly disqualified based on state GOP leaders’ concerns about their fealty to presumptive presidential nominee Mitt Romney.
It feels like dictatorship to me.
Related: Massachusetts Stripping Ron Paul of Delegates
Boston Globe Endorses Ron Paul
Yeah, but then they retracted it.
The group of delegates — originally supporters of Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul — were elected in April caucuses at which they unexpectedly defeated many of Romney’s chosen delegates, but they have been since disqualified by state party officials.
“In short, the Massachusetts Republican Party changed the rules,” the delegates wrote in a letter to the national committee.
The filing sets off a formal but uphill process for the would-be delegates, who hope to convince national party officials that they are being unfairly excluded from the Republican National Convention, to be held Aug. 27-30 in Tampa. An RNC committee is expected to consider the challenge by mid-August, but the party is not expected to make a decision until the week before the convention.
Any appeal to that decision could be considered by the convention’s credentials committee when the event begins.
The legal counsel for the Republican National Committee could not be reached on Friday and a committee spokeswoman declined to comment. A spokesman for the Massachusetts Republican Party referred calls to the RNC.
“This matter is currently before the RNC and we await their decision,” spokesman Tim Buckley said.
In their letter, the so-called liberty delegates say they were duly elected in April, but disqualified after failing to provide timely affidavits pledging their support to Romney. They argue that the affidavits were not called for in state or federal rules and they received them “less than one week before an arbitrary deadline” to return them notarized — during the Memorial Day weekend.
Some met the deadline, but others missed it and many filed a different version of the affidavit, promising only to follow the state's rules, rather than pledging their support to Romney by name.
As a result, the state GOP decided there was just cause to disqualify the group of delegates. They replaced the elected delegates with 16 others, some of whom had been defeated at the caucuses and others who had not run, according to the challenge, leading liberty candidates to cry foul.
One national Republican leader familiar with the challenge said he believes that the Paul supporters do not intend to support Romney, but to make mischief at the convention, as evidenced by their unwillingness to provide affidavits pledging their support.
At this point it is obvious the Republican Party doesn't want me; therefore, I no longer want them and want to congratulate Barack Obama on a second term. I'll be writing in Nader, which means not a vote for Romney.
“If they’re not willing to say that — that’s their prerogative — but clearly they’re not Mitt Romney delegates,” said the leader, who asked not to be named because of the legal challenge.
Supporters of Paul, a Republican congressman from Texas who has stopped campaigning for his party’s nomination, still hope to have a large presence at the convention in order to elevate Paul’s libertarian message and influence the party’s platform.
It sure does sound good; however, the Party hasn't listened yet so why would they now?
Among Paul’s agenda items is a measure to “audit the Fed” — demanding increased transparency at the central bank — that overwhelmingly passed the House last week....
Reid said it would never see light of day, so....
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"House passes bill increasing scrutiny over Fed" by Jim Abrams | Associated Press, July 26, 2012
WASHINGTON — The House voted Wednesday to give Congress greater scrutiny over the monetary policy decisions of the Federal Reserve, approving legislation sponsored by longtime Fed nemesis Representative Ron Paul.
There shouldn't even be a Fed. According to the Constitution, the government should be coining and regulating the money and injecting it into the economy at 0% interest.
The 76-year-old Texas Republican, who is retiring at end of this session, has made a career of trying to do away with the Fed, which he blames for the growth of government and the rising federal deficit. Failing to accomplish that, he has pushed to make the independent central bank’s operations more transparent.
‘‘I know when people talk about independence and having this privacy of the central bank, it means they want secrecy, and secrecy is not good,’’ Paul said.
‘‘Congress has rightly insulated the Fed from short-term political pressures,’’ Representative Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the House’s second-ranked Democrat, said in opposing the legislation. ‘‘This bill increases the likelihood that the Fed will make decisions based on political rather than economic considerations, and that is not a recipe for sound monetary policy.’’
I can not tell you how discouraging it is to see Democrats defending bankers. It's why I'll never be a Democrat again.
The legislation, which passed 327 to 98, would require the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, to carry out comprehensive audits of the Fed’s Board of Governors and 12 regional banks.
Many members voted for it knowing it was going nowhere, but they can now look butch for the fall campaign. I took on the Fed! My response is where you been for the last 100 years?
The Fed is subject to annual financial statement audits and the Dodd-Frank Act passed after the 2008 Wall Street meltdown does have provisions, backed by Paul, for auditing certain Fed activities. But the new legislation goes further in requiring inspections of the bank’s monetary policy decision-making, including its agreements with foreign central banks and Foreign Open Market Committee directives.
Related: Dodd-Frank Failed
How would you like to cap your career with that?
As of July 18, the Fed’s balance sheet stood at $2.86 trillion. Of that, $1.65 trillion is Treasury securities and $863 billion is mortgage-backed securities.
Yes, they printed money so they could buy back all that crap and cover up Wall Street's colossal crimes of fraud.
Fed chairman Ben Bernanke, in an exchange with Paul last week at a House Financial Services Committee hearing, objected to the legislation, saying it threatens the Fed’s independence because it would allow Congress to request documents supporting changes in interest rates. He said that could make some Fed policy makers hesitant to support changes and ‘‘that is very concerning.’’
I think the private central bankers have been on their own a little too long.
Paul rejected that argument, asking when ‘‘did we get into a situation where Congress has nothing to say about trillions and trillions of dollars?’’
Good question. Near as I can figure it, the 1980s.
The bill faces an uncertain future in the Senate. The sponsor of the Senate’s companion bill is Paul’s son, Tea Party favorite Senator Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican.
Reid said he'd kill it so I take it as a given that it is already dead.
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Related: Is Ron Paul Speaking at the GOP Convention or Not?
I don't really care because at this point I won't be watching.
Also see: Few Republican challengers in races for Massachusetts Legislature
UPDATE: GOP establishment continues to fight Ron Paul on the eve of RNC
Same thing is happening in states all across the country.
Does the GOP establishment know what this means?
