Daily Archives: 1 September 2009

Barney Frank now talking compromise on Fed Audit

Well that didn’t take long. Just days ago, I posted this video in which Barney Frank, questioned by a constituent, expressed support for Ron Paul’s audit of the Fed. He’s now talking about a compromise:

“WASHINGTON (Reuters, Sat Aug 29, 8:23 pm ET) – Rep. Barney Frank, the chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Financial Services Committee, hopes to craft a compromise bill with lawmakers who want to open Federal Reserve monetary policy decisions to audits, a spokesman for Frank said on Saturday.

A bill sponsored by Texas Republican Rep. Ron Paul that would allow the Government Accountability Office, a federal watchdog agency, to audit Fed interest-rate decisions has won the co-sponsorship of more than half of the House.

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke has warned the bill would compromise the U.S. central bank’s policy-making independence and could undermine financial markets and the economy.

The Financial Times reported on Saturday that Frank hoped to bring forward compromise legislation that would safeguard the Fed’s independence, while enhancing transparency and creating checks and balances for the central bank’s use of emergency lending powers.

Steven Adamske, a spokesman for Frank, told Reuters the congressman would work with Paul on a compromise bill. He said compromise language had not yet been written and provided no further details. A spokesman for Paul could not be reached….” (Read more from dailypaul.com)

If it doesn’t reveal an answer to this question, then the compromise bill is bullshit: WHO GOT THE FUCKING MONEY???

(independence my ass)

Fraud Claims Soar as Karzai Moves Closer to Vote Win

“Afghanistan’s Independent Election Commission (IEC) issued a new set of vote results today, showing President Hamid Karzai inching further ahead of his chief rival Abdullah Abdullah with about 35% of the votes counted, and nearing the majority of votes needed to avert a run-off vote.

Karzai’s presumptive victory has been considerably tainted, however, by thousands of accusations of voter fraud, and officials now say that nearly 700 of the complaints it has received so far are ‘Category A’ allegations of fraud or intimidation, meaning that any of them is large enough to have potentially had an impact on the outcome of the vote.

Not only that, but officials say that the number is expected to rise even further as the votes continue to come in from the nation’s more remote regions. Between the low voter turnout and the enormous number of allegations of fraud, the credibility of the final results, which were initially expected on September 17 and are now expected to be delayed even further, is very much in doubt.” (Read more from myantiwar.org)