Alan Grayson

Florida Congressman Alan Grayson Barred From Seeing Classified Sections Of 9/11 Inquiry – Report

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Flashback:

– Congressman Alan Grayson Allowed To Read Secret Treaty Says ‘This … Hands The Sovereignty of Our Country Over to Corporate Interests’ (Video)

– Ben Bernanke, ‘THE HERO’ & ‘PERSON OF THE YEAR’, Destroyed By Alan Grayson (Video)

U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL)
U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL)

– Florida congressman barred from seeing classified sections of 9/11 inquiry – report  (RT, Dec 30, 2014):

A request by US Rep. Alan Grayson to access a portion of a 2002 congressional report on the September 11, 2001 attacks was denied by the House Intelligence Committee based on political reasons, the Florida Democrat said.

Grayson’s request pertains to 28 pages of Congress’ Joint Inquiry that were ordered to be redacted by then-President George W. Bush. The congressman said his search stemmed from proposed legislation in the House that seeks to release the classified section to the public.

Read moreFlorida Congressman Alan Grayson Barred From Seeing Classified Sections Of 9/11 Inquiry – Report

Who Voted Against U.S. Aid To Ukraine?

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Flashback:

– Ben Bernanke, ‘THE HERO’ & ‘PERSON OF THE YEAR’, Destroyed By Alan Grayson (Video):

Alan Grayson
Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.). (Evan Vucci/AP)

– Who voted against U.S. aid to Ukraine? (Washington Post, March 27, 2014):

Congress moved ahead with approving aid to Ukraine on Thursday as the House and Senate approved similar bills that would impose sanctions on Russian officials and provide direct U.S. assistance to the new Ukrainian government.

House and Senate leaders are now sorting out the remaining minor differences, and a final deal is expected to be sent to President Obama before the end of the week, according to senior House and Senate aides.

Read moreWho Voted Against U.S. Aid To Ukraine?

Glenn Greenwald: NSA Congressional Hearing Canceled Due To Obama

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– Greenwald: NSA hearing canceled (Politics, July 30, 2013):

This week’s informal congressional hearing on the National Security Agency’s surveillance program has been canceled, according to The Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald, who was expected to testify via satellite.

Democratic congressman Alan Grayson and a bipartisan group of congressman were expected to hear from Greenwald and other critics of the NSA’s surveillance practices on Wednesday, according to a Guardian report from last week. The meeting was not meant to be a formal committee hearing, but would take place on the Hill before a dozen members of Congress from both parties.

But Greenwald now tells POLITICO that the hearing has been canceled due to Obama’s decision to meet with House Democrats.

“Obama developed a sudden and newfound interest in House Democrats and scheduled a meeting with them for that same time,” he wrote in an email, adding that the committee was trying to re-schedule the meeting to take place before congress goes on recess.

Representatives from both the American Civil Liberties Union and the conservative Cato Institute were expected to testify, Grayson told The Guardian.

Homeland Security Threatens Legal Action Against Employees Who Read News About Leaks

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– Homeland Security Threatens Legal Action Against Employees Who Read News About Leaks (TechDirt, July 18, 2013):

We’ve talked about procedures within the Defense Department to block computers from accessing the website for The Guardian newspaper — along with similarly short-sighted moves to apply a sledgehammer approach to pretending that public information isn’t really public. I’ve heard from a few people within the Defense Department who defend this approach on basic procedural grounds of trying to “make sure” that classified info remains classified, but the real problem is considering any publicly revealed documents as still classified. As I’ve said each time this debate comes up, in the business world, the equivalent situation involving trade secrets or non-disclosure agreements almost always are recognized as null and void if the info becomes public through other means.

However, that’s not the way the government works. The latest is that Homeland Security sent around a memo warning employees that merely opening up a Washington Post article about some of the leaks might violate their non-disclosure agreement to “protect National Security Information,” and it even says that merely clicking on the story might make the reader “subject to any administrative or legal action from the Government.” Got that? Working for the government and merely reading the news about things the government is doing might subject you to legal action.

Stunning.

At least someone in Congress realizes the insanity of all of this. Rep. Alan Grayson, who displayed the very same NSA slides that DHS is warning its employees about in Congress itself, has offered up an amendment to the Defense Appropriations Bill, stating that nothing in the defense appropriations should be used to block employees from reading the news on their own time.

None of the funds made available by this Act may be used to restrict the access of members of the Armed Forces to publically available online news media during morale, welfare, and recreation periods.

Read moreHomeland Security Threatens Legal Action Against Employees Who Read News About Leaks

Congressman Alan Grayson Allowed To Read Secret Treaty Says ‘This … Hands The Sovereignty of Our Country Over to Corporate Interests’ (Video)

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Flashback:

Ben Bernanke, ‘THE HERO’ & ‘PERSON OF THE YEAR’, Destroyed By Alan Grayson (Video)

– First Congressman Allowed to Read Secret Treaty Says “This … Hands The Sovereignty of Our Country Over to Corporate Interests” (ZeroHedge, June 19, 2013):

We reported last year:

Democratic Senator Wyden – the head of the committee which is supposed to oversee it – is so furious about the lack of access that he has introduced legislation to force disclosure.

Republican House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa is so upset by it that he has leaked a document on his website to show what’s going on.

What is everyone so furious about?

An international treaty being negotiated in secret which would not only crack down on Internet privacy much more than SOPA or ACTA, but would actually destroy the sovereignty of the U.S. and all other signatories.

It is called the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

Wyden is the chairman of the trade committee in the Senate … the committee which is supposed to have jurisdiction over the TPP.

Wyden is also on the Senate Intelligence Committee, and so he and his staff have high security clearances and are normally able to look at classified documents.

And yet Wyden and his staff have been denied access to the TPP’s text.

Indeed, the decision to keep the text of TPP secret was itself classified as secret:

(I have also received a tip from a credible inside source that TPP contains provisions which would severely harm America’s national security. Specifically, like some previous, ill-conceived treaties, TPP would allow foreign companies to buy sensitive American assets which could subject us to terror attacks or economic blackmail.)

Yesterday, Congressman Alan Grayson (who knows how to read legislation … he was a successful lawyer before he was elected to Congress, and has written and co-sponsored numerous bills himself including the bill to audit the Federal Reserve and – most recently – the “Mind Your Own Business Act” to stop NSA spying) announced that he had been allowed to read the text of TPP – and that it is  an anti-American power grab by big corporations:

Last month, 10,000 of us submitted comments to the United States Trade Representative (USTR), in which we objected to new so-called free trade agreements. We asked that the government not sell out our democracy to corporate interests.

Because of this pressure, the USTR  finally let a member of Congress – little ole me, Alan Grayson [anyone who’s seen Grayson in action knows that he is formidable] – actually see the text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The TPP is a large, secret trade agreement that is being negotiated with many countries in East Asia and South America.

The TPP is nicknamed “NAFTA on steroids.”  Now that I’ve read it, I can see why. I can’t tell you what’s in the agreement, because the U.S. Trade Representative calls it classified. But I can tell you two things about it.

1)    There is no national security purpose in keeping this text secret.

2)    This agreement hands the sovereignty of our country over to corporate interests.

3)    What they can’t afford to tell the American public is that [the rest of this sentence is classified].

***

I will be fighting this agreement with everything I’ve got. And I know you’ll be there every step of the way.

***

Courage,

Congressman Alan Grayson

Grayson also noted:

Read moreCongressman Alan Grayson Allowed To Read Secret Treaty Says ‘This … Hands The Sovereignty of Our Country Over to Corporate Interests’ (Video)

9 TRILLION Dollars Missing From Federal Reserve – Fed Inspector General Elizabeth Coleman Absolutely Clueless (Video)

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Flashback.


YouTube

Alan Grayson asks the Federal Reserve Inspector General about the trillions of dollars lent or spent by the Federal Reserve and where it went, and the trillions of off balance sheet obligations. Inspector General Elizabeth Coleman responds that the IG does not know and is not tracking where this money is.

Rep. Alan Grayson To FBI: Handcuff The Banksters

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October 14, 2010

Robert S. Mueller III
Director Federal Bureau of Investigation
935 Pennsylvania Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20535

Robert O’Neill
US Attorney
Central District of Florida
400 North Tampa Street, Suite 3200
Tampa, FL 33602

Dear US Attorney Robert O’Neill and Director Mueller,

When it comes to foreclosures, there is mounting evidence of a state of rampant lawlessness in Central Florida.  There are increasing signs that big banks routinely evade laws meant to protect homeowners, in many well-documented cases of ‘foreclosure fraud’.  Despite the demonstrated existence, for instance, of ‘robosigners’ signing affidavits attesting to documents that they have never seen, the parties engaging in such misconduct are not being brought to justice.  Big banks are mischaracterizing this as mere “technical problems,” and apologizing only where there is clear and very public evidence of harm.

It is not enough for big banks only to apologize for fraud, perjury, and even breaking and entering – when they are caught.  It is time for handcuffs. Fraud does not become legal just because a big bank does it.

On September 20, 2010, after my office found evidence of systemic foreclosure fraud perpetrated by big banks and foreclosure mills, I called for a halt to illegal foreclosures.

Since then, big banks such as Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, GMAC, PNC and others have suspended foreclosures or foreclosure sales.  These banks are still claiming that the massive fraud they have perpetrated amounts to nothing more than a series of technical mistakes.  This is absurd.  This is deliberate, systemic fraud, and it is a crime.

Read moreRep. Alan Grayson To FBI: Handcuff The Banksters

Rep. Alan Grayson Urges to Vote Now on The Public Option, Introduces H.R. 4789 ‘Public Option Act’

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The Insurance Companies ‘Are The Real Death Panels In This Country.’


The video is Grayson’s speech on the House floor Tuesday, uploaded to YouTube.

Progressive firebrand Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) isn’t giving up on offering Americans a public option.

The congressman on Tuesday introduced the four-page H.R. 4789 “Public Option Act,” also called the “Medicare You Can Buy Into Act,” would allow all legal American residents under 65 to enroll in Medicare by paying a fee. He made a passionate call for a vote on the floor of the House.

“The government spent billions of dollars creating a Medicare network of providers that is only open to one-eighth of the population,” Grayson said. “That’s like saying, ‘Only people 65 and over can use federal highways.’  It is a waste of a very valuable resource and it is not fair.  This idea is simple, it makes sense, and it deserves an up-or-down vote.”

The inclusion of a public option in the larger Democratic health care legislation has been a topic of immense debate. The Senate dropped the proposal in December and the final package is unlikely to include it. A Medicare buy-in option was also briefly considered but didn’t survive.

The Florida freshman described the “adversarial relationship” he had with his insurance company when his bills skyrocketed during the birth of his twins, who were born early and spent months in the hospital. He said many Americans face similar problems, and that “every penny they spent on my care was a penny less for their profits.”

“America needs a public option,” he declared, lamenting the lack of competition in the private insurance industry. “That’s why I’ve introduced this bill.”

Seeking to clear up any doubts about the proposal, Grayson noted that it’s “not a plan for subsidies” as “everyone would have to pay their own costs.”

He labeled insurance companies “the real death panels in this country” due to their widely-documented practices of denying care due to people with pre-existing conditions and rescinding coverage from sick patients.

Read moreRep. Alan Grayson Urges to Vote Now on The Public Option, Introduces H.R. 4789 ‘Public Option Act’

Rep. Alan Grayson: ’20 Percent Of Our Accumulated Wealth Over The Course Of 2 Centuries Gone in 18 months!’

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$12 Trillion Gone and Nobody Got Punished


Added: 10. Februar 2010

Read moreRep. Alan Grayson: ’20 Percent Of Our Accumulated Wealth Over The Course Of 2 Centuries Gone in 18 months!’

House Panel Approves Ron Paul’s Amendment to Audit The Federal Reserve

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Rep. Alan Grayson Passes Bill to Audit the Fed


Added: 19. November 2009

Rep. Alan Grayson argues in support of the Paul-Grayson amendment, which would subject the Federal Reserve to a complete audit.

The amendment later passed the House Financial Services Committee 43-26 as part of the underlying financial reform package.

federal-reserve

(Wall Street Journal) WASHINGTON — A key House panel on Thursday approved an amendment offered by Rep. Ron Paul (R., Texas) to give federal watchdogs massive new authority to audit the Federal Reserve.

The approval came as the House Financial Services Committee concluded weeks of debate on a sweeping financial-overhaul bill to create a new council of regulators to wind down large institutions that pose a risk to the economy. A final committee vote on the bill will be postponed until after Thanksgiving.

Mr. Paul’s amendment removes restrictions on the Government Accountability Office’s auditing authority, giving auditors access to every item on the Fed’s balance sheet. He for more than 20 years has championed significantly neutering the Fed.
Journal Community

Read moreHouse Panel Approves Ron Paul’s Amendment to Audit The Federal Reserve

Fall Of The Republic – The Presidency Of Barack H. Obama (The Full Movie HQ)

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“When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.”
– Benjamin Franklin


Added: 22. October 2009

Fall Of The Republic documents how an offshore corporate cartel is bankrupting the US economy by design. Leaders are now declaring that world government has arrived and that the dollar will be replaced by a new global currency.

President Obama has brazenly violated Article 1 Section 9 of the US Constitution by seating himself at the head of United Nations’ Security Council, thus becoming the first US president to chair the world body.

A scientific dictatorship is in its final stages of completion, and laws protecting basic human rights are being abolished worldwide; an iron curtain of high-tech tyranny is now descending over the planet.

A worldwide regime controlled by an unelected corporate elite is implementing a planetary carbon tax system that will dominate all human activity and establish a system of neo-feudal slavery.

Read moreFall Of The Republic – The Presidency Of Barack H. Obama (The Full Movie HQ)

How The Federal Reserve Banksters Bailed Out The World

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See also:
– Death of ‘Soul of Capitalism:’ 20 reasons America has lost its soul and collapse is inevitable

The biggest collapse in world history is well on its way. The US dollar will not survive another major crisis.

The hottest investment now is the the dollar-carry trade:

– Hedge Funds’ ATM Moves From Tokyo to Washington:
“It’s the U.S.’s turn to flood the world with cheap funding and the risks of this going wrong are huge.”
“Now imagine what might happen if the world’s reserve currency became its most shorted. Carry trades are, after all, bets that the funding currency will weaken further or stay down for an extended period of time.”

The confidence game is over. (Thanks to the Federal Reserve and the US government.)

When the financial system almost imploded in the fall of 2008, one of the primary responses by the Federal Reserve was the issuance of an unprecedented amount of FX liquidity lines in the form of swaps to foreign Central Banks. The number went from practically zero to a peak of $582 billion on December 10, 2008. The number of swaps outstanding was almost directly correlated with the value of the dollar (much more on that shortly). A graphic representation of this can be seen below:

(Click on images to enlarge.)
fx-swaps-and-dxy

The topic of skyrocketing liquidity swaps was in fact the headline feature of one of the numerous grillings of the Chairman by the inimitable Alan Grayson as can be seen in the following video:

And while Bernanke was not very interested in getting caught up in providing actual explanations, the Bank of International Settlements just released a major paper titled “The US dollar shortage in global banking and the international policy response” which goes on to demonstrate just how it happened that Fed chief Ben Bernanke in essence bailed out the entire developed world, which was facing an unprecedented dollar shortage crisis due to the sudden implosion of FX swap lines and other mechanisms which until that point were critical in maintaining the dollar funding shortfall for virtually every foreign Central Bank.

The BIS provides the following big picture perspective:

Read moreHow The Federal Reserve Banksters Bailed Out The World

Ron Paul on MSNBC: Lindsey Graham Confrontation

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vote

Almost the entire US government are puppets:
– The US Government: Bought and Paid For

Of course Ron Paul will be attacked from ‘all sides‘:
– Congressmen Alan Grayson and Ron Paul Ask Senate Banking to Delay Confirmation of Bernanke Until Fed Releases Information on Secret Bailouts
– Ron Paul: The Real Reasons Behind Fed Secrecy
– Ron Paul: End the Fed, Save the Dollar

So far nobody survived trying to abolish the Federal Reserve:
– Richard Belzer on Bill Maher exposes the Federal Reserve:
“The high office of the president has been used to foment a plot to destroy America’s freedom, and before I leave office I must inform the citizens of this plight.”
– John F. Kennedy (November 12, 1963)
(Date of Kennedy Assassination : November 22, 1963)


Date: 15th Oct 09

The US Government: Bought and Paid For

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What a coincidence that Ron Paul, , Marcy Kaptur, Dennis Kucinich, Alan Grayson and Brad Sherman are also on my short list of politicians that I find trustworthy.  🙂

us-capitol

Lobbyists from the financial industry have paid hundreds of millions to Congress and the Obama administration. They have bought virtually all of the key congress members and senators on committees overseeing finances and banking.

This is easy to confirm in black-and-white. See for yourself: here, here, here, here, here and here.

Manhattan Institute senior fellow Nicole Gelinas says:

The too-big-to-fail financial industry has been good to elected officials and former elected officials of both parties over its 25-year life span

And economic historian Niall Ferguson says:

Guess which institutions are among the biggest lobbyists and campaign-finance contributors? Surprise! None other than the TBTFs [too big to fails].

No wonder two powerful congressmen said that banks run Congress.

No wonder two leading IMF officials, the former Vice President of the Dallas Federal Reserve, and the the head of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City have all said that the United States is controlled by an oligarchy.

With the exception of a handful couple of Congress members who have the American people’s interest in mind, Congress is bought and paid for.

Note: A friend on the Hill made an important point to me by email.

Maxine Waters and Ron Paul get almost nothing [from the financial lobby. Sherman, Kucinich, Grayson and Kaptur are some other congress members who have not been bought and paid for].

Read moreThe US Government: Bought and Paid For

Congressmen Alan Grayson and Ron Paul Ask Senate Banking to Delay Confirmation of Bernanke Until Fed Releases Information on Secret Bailouts

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Below is letter text, and attached is the letter that was faxed to every member of the Senate Banking Committee:

10/07/09

Chairman Chris Dodd
U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs
534 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20551

Dear Chairman Dodd and members of the Banking Committee,

We are writing to ask you to postpone the confirmation of Ben Bernanke until the Federal Reserve releases documentation that will allow the public and the Senate to have a full understanding of the commitments that the Federal Reserve has made on our behalf. Without such an understanding, it is impossible to know whether Chairman Bernanke is fit to serve another term and fulfill the Federal Reserve’s dual mandate to ensure price stability and full employment. A list of said documentation is enumerated below.

Since 2007, the Federal Reserve has expanded its balance sheet by $1.2 trillion and taken on substantial credit, interest-rate, and foreign exchange risk. It has lent immense sums to some financial institutions against overvalued collateral, while refusing to lend to others with no clear standards as to who was rescued and who was not. It has set up holding companies using no-bid contracts, and guaranteed substantial liabilities of Citigroup, all the while keeping information about its actions secret from the public and Congress. This is in stark contrast to the analogous period in the 1930s, when the Reconstruction Finance Corporation fully disclosed loans and collateral to Congress.

Today, big banks are being bailed out and have a substantially lower cost of capital through an implicit government backstop even as Americans themselves are seeing their pay cut. This lower cost of capital – at government expense – coupled with increased scarcity of credit is resulting in the banks recapitalizing by charging American consumers higher credit costs, including record overdraft fees and much higher credit card rates.

As you know, the Federal Reserve has a chartered mandate of both price stability and “full” employment. Since 2002, the year Bernanke joined the Federal Reserve board and aligned himself with Alan Greenspan’s activities, the incomes of Americans have actually declined in absolute terms, with incomes projected to decline a further 5% in 2009. One quarter of all mortgage holders owe more than they own, with that number projected to rise to nearly 50% by 2010. Consumer asset prices, most importantly housing, continue to fall, and unemployment continues to rise. This raises real questions about Bernanke’s tenure as Federal Reserve chairman, and about where those trillions of dollars have gone.

Federal Reserve secrecy must be understood in the context of an intellectual dogma which Alan Greenspan inculcated into the fabric of the Federal Reserve and the economics profession, and which has severely harmed ordinary Americans. Bernanke’s ‘Great Moderation’ speech in 2004 didn’t even consider the idea that the economy was becoming more unstable, even as risks were being built into the system by the policies he encouraged. He ignored evidence of a crisis, saying in 2007 that the turmoil was contained to subprime mortgages, ignoring the bankruptcy of over 100 mortgage originators, and the clear evidence the crisis would spread. Now, even as the crisis is said to be subsiding, we still do not have credit markets that are able to function without substantial government support, we have not addressed institutions that are ‘too big to fail’ which the Fed oversees, bank credit availability is again shrinking (posing risk of further increasing already high unemployment), and toxic assets in the system on the books of both private banks and the Federal Reserve have still not seen price discovery.

Chairman Bernanke’s policy-making errors might be chalked up to errors of judgment, and it’s possible to argue that he has been chastened by the last few years of turmoil. What is more disturbing is how the Federal Reserve has refused to disclose the details of its commitments to the bankers who came close to destroying our economy. The Bernanke Fed’s execution of its dual mandate cannot be judged without consideration of those commitments, which would require the Fed to disclose documents which it still contends the public has no right to see.

Specifically, I ask that you postpone the confirmation of the Chairman until after the Federal Reserve discloses:

(1) Information that Bloomberg reporter Mark Pittman has requested via a Freedom of Information Act Request on the Bear Stearns rescue and that the Federal Reserve is contesting in the courts, [i] and which Manhattan Chief U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska has ordered by turned over by the Federal Resrve.

(2) Information that Rep. Grayson requested in February at a hearing and by follow-up letter on which institutions received the $1.2 trillion added to the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet, how much reach institution received, and what was promised in return.

(3) All Federal Reserve documents that went to Attorney General Andrew Cuomo’s office relating to the Bank of America/Merrill Lynch merger in which potentially illegal and coercive activity might have occurred, as well all Federal Reserve documents relating to the lawsuit pursued by Merrill Lynch shareholders in the US District court for the Southern District of New York.

(4) Transcripts of all Open Market Meeting Minutes up to and including that of June, 2009, transcripts which are normally withheld from the public for five years.

(5) Full disclosure of all terms and conditions of all off-balance sheet Fed transactions in the past three years.

The Federal Reserve must become transparent and open with Congress and the public about its behavior during the financial crisis. Thank you for your consideration of this matter.

Best,

Alan Grayson

Ron Paul

Member of Congress Member of Congress

Cc: Richard C. Shelby

Tim Johnson

Robert F. Bennett

Jack Reed

Jim Bunning

Charles E. Schumer

Mike Crapo

Evan Bayh

Mel Martinez

Robert Menendez

Bob Corker

Daniel K. Akaka

Jim DeMint

Sherrod Brown

David Vitter

Jon Tester

Mike Johanns

Herb Kohl

Kay Bailey Hutchison

Mark Warner

Jeff Merkley

Michael Bennet

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Source: Washington’s Blog

Congressman Alan Grayson: ‘Has the Federal Reserve Ever Tried to Manipulate the Stock Market?’

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Alan Grayson is asking Federal Reserve General Counsel Scott Alvarez about the Fed’s independence.

“We need answers to these questions and the only way to get answers to these questions is to audit the Federal Reserve.”


Added: 25. September 2009