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Jan. 5, 2023 - Ron Paul Liberty Report
33:47
Seventh Time A Charm? Eighth? McCarthy Keeps Losing Speaker Vote

After a night of hard talk and compromise, House Speaker aspirant Kevin McCarthy is hoping that the latest round of concessions to the rebels will finally push him over the finish line. What are the concessions and are any of them any good? We'll break them down in today's program. Also today: under the radar, big things are happening in Syria.

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Time Text
Rules and Concessions 00:14:19
Hello, everybody, and thank you for tuning in to the Ron Paul Liberty Report.
With us today is Daniel McAdams, our co-host.
Daniel, good to see you.
Good morning, Dr. Paul.
How are you this Thursday morning?
Doing well.
Always ready to solve another problem.
Oh, we need a speaker.
I hope ours reverses what the truth is.
And Mises points out.
Every time you write a regulation, you create two more needs for the next regulation to correct it.
If we could just reverse that trend, that would be a good idea.
You get rid of one.
Oh, you know, if you get rid of that one, you can get rid of two more.
That would be good.
I think they tried that at one time, but it didn't work to try to legislate that issue.
But we have to change the minds of a lot of people who benefit from this and a lot of money that's involved.
And there's a few people in the military-industrial complex.
They have a lot of clout, and the medical profession has lost its way, and they have a bunch of clowns that run medicine now.
And who knows what's happening?
So there's a lot of special interests we deal with, but we will still plug away.
We want to do number, what is it, another third day for us to talk about the speaker.
And where is the speaker?
Who's speaking for the country?
And this is necessary.
You know, I don't worry too much about that because at least they haven't done too much.
And it used to be saying, well, if they're out of session, we're all safe.
But that isn't even true anymore because you have courts that rule, Supreme Courts that rules, we have bureaucrats that write regulations.
We have security efforts, the FBI and the CIA, they don't disappear when the Congress.
Matter of fact, the whole thing is that the Congress wouldn't continue.
The spending continues.
Everything's on autopilot, and they take care of themselves.
So it's a bigger issue than that.
The big picture is why do we become dependent on government for things they can't do?
But anyway, we want to talk a little bit about the effort because as terrible as what's going on in Washington, as usual, there are some people that, you know, probably are on both sides of this argument, you know, for different reasons, support the different sides.
So there are some.
But overall, the thrust of Washington, the thrust of Congress, the attitudes, the understanding of economic policy, and the consensus that drives people to support intervention overseas, that is so powerful.
And yet, we believe it's very necessary to talk about it.
But there's, you know, McCarthy is under the gun right now.
He's in big trouble.
I would have to say if Las Vegas was involved today, they'd probably be betting against him.
But I haven't looked at that yet.
But there's probably some bets going on.
I'm sure.
He, McCarthy knows he's in trouble.
Yeah.
And he's made concessions rather early on.
That's it.
That's a pretty bad sign for him politically.
So he's made some concessions.
We want to go over those a little bit to show what has he conceded.
And you may, some people who are rooting for McCarthy say, look, how much more do you want to do?
Why is this happening?
Why are you turning this government over to the Democrats?
Because if we can't get together, that gives the Democrats much freer range.
And it means that it's a victory for Biden.
There are a lot of arguments against this.
But anyway, let's just talk a little bit about these efforts that we want to do.
But there was a good article in Zero Hedge and also in Politico that the concessions, we might just talk about the first one they listed was this: one person could, you know, motion to vacate.
One person could force a vote on the speaker.
Yeah, that's a good one.
We'll put that up.
But if I can just say one thing on what you said, I mean, I think you're right.
A very good case could be made about let's not fight within the party.
Let's just elect McCarthy and get on with governing.
And I think that's what Marjorie Taylor Green is saying, and she's definitely on the other side of Matt Gates and the others.
There's basically 20 holdouts.
These 20 holdouts have said to some of the newer members, look, we have been watching years and years of compromises on the part of McCarthy.
Back when he and Pat Ryan and Eric Cantor were the young guns.
Remember that?
I just saw someone posted that headline.
They were the young guns and they were going to do all this stuff.
Well, basically, well, all that they did was compromise while we went from 10 to 30 trillion dollars in debt.
So you could make a case either way, and we don't really have a case because it's really, as you would say, not that much of a philosophical discussion here.
But there are some elements to it, and we should bring up that first one.
Put up that first clip, and let's see if this comes through.
This is sort of the backdrop.
This is from Politico.
Late night concessions.
I saw some pizza being delivered.
So no doubt they ate a lot of pizza and tried to hammer things out.
Well, here's the first one.
And go next, if you will, because this is, as you say, I guess this is one of the top demands from the 20 rebels.
A one-member motion to vacate.
The GOP leader appears to have finally acquiesced to a demand to lower the threshold.
Basically, one person can go down to the floor and essentially trigger a vote of no confidence in the speaker.
I honestly don't know what to think about it.
Maybe you have some thoughts about it.
Is that a good idea, a bad idea?
Well, it should be unnecessary.
We had the right kind of people there, respecting the Constitution.
You wouldn't be worrying about the difference between 5, 10, or 20 or whatever.
It would be much more conciliatory.
They would talk it over and figure it out.
One, I think that, you know, even though I argue that Congress is not all that relevant, and if they want to fight out there, it's not going to change the big picture.
But I think if I were forced to say, well, which way would you lay on?
I just don't think it's going to add any benefits to anybody.
And to argue, well, it's more chaos.
That's a little bit of a backward way of demonstrating.
But some days I think the more they're put into a predicament where they can't make progress, the better.
So I would tend to support this.
But it's not, I can't believe it'll happen.
And if it does happen, there'll be some way that it's not going to work because the problems are so different than this squabble they're having.
The problem is that we have a moral and a financial bankruptcy in the country and they don't even talk about it.
Well, maybe if they keep hassling this George Santos guy, he'll go down there every day and have a motion to kick out the speaker.
Let's move on to the second one.
And this has to do with rules.
And, you know, a lot of people don't understand the rules committee process, but the rules committee is extraordinarily powerful.
As you know very well, Dr. Paul, I remember sitting in on a few rules committee hearings when you had an amendment and seeing if they were going to allow your amendment, you know, just holding our breath.
They are so powerful, they control how the bill is debated on the floor.
They frame the debate.
Extremely powerful behind the scenes.
So the second compromise is apparently Rules Committee seats for the Freedom Caucus.
And the Freedom Caucus is far from your Liberty Caucus, but there are more conservative members.
McCarthy is prepared to give the House Freedom Caucus two seats on the powerful House Rules Committee, which oversees the amendment process for the floor, and I would say, and many, many other things as well.
There also talks about giving a third seat to a conservative close to the Freedom Party but not in it.
And they say someone like Thomas Massey of Kentucky.
So the idea is to allow some of these rebels to sit in on the committee, maybe have someone like Thomas Massey in the committee, in the Rules Committee.
We talked about this before the show, and you said, you know, you don't know whether that's going to make a huge difference.
Yeah, I think there should be some equity, and there has been over the years.
The people who win and control the speakership, they're going to have more votes, and those numbers haven't varied.
They don't get changed every year.
So I would think I didn't complain about that particular thing.
But I'll tell you the thing that I learned after I got there was, you know, the legislation, you know, what we're taught in school, you know, it goes to the subcommittee, it goes to the full committee, it goes to the floor, and it goes to Senate and all these things.
But it had nothing to do with the final version of the bill.
And I can remember when it first happened, I was on the banking committee, and we fussed and fumed, and they were doing it.
But then it went to the Rules Committee.
I said, well, why don't they just look at the book and see what the rules are to bring it up?
The Rules Committee, they have license to do whatever they want.
I've seen it strike the whole bill and rewrite it in the Rules Committee after weeks and weeks of all this BS of doing this.
So I think that's more important to know that.
And the other thing is, if it happens to get through, and they did this once on a financial bill, the Monetary Control Act, it went to a conference between the Senate and the House, and some of the worst parts was put on in a conference.
And nobody looks at the time.
Anyway, nobody looks at a conference report.
Oh, we've gone through this for weeks and weeks.
So it comes back to the floor.
The Rules Committee had their chance at it.
The House, the committees had it.
But that's probably irrelevant because still, the Rules Committee is a big deal.
But even after that, the people who are behind the scenes, who are really pulling the strings, if they really need something, I've seen it happen where they've taken, you know, just a phrase or a sentence and radically changed the final version at the conference.
And it was something that very, very few people knew that it was actually in the bill.
And that's certainly not what the conference is designed for.
It's designed just to reconcile the House and Senate first.
You can take two numbers and add a number of things.
I remember that I think it was called the Chairman's Mark, where it says, strike everything after the title and add this.
And it was a new bill written by the chairman of the Rules Committee.
Yeah, it was going to start all over again.
So that's a big issue.
The next one I think is interesting in a way, and we'll talk about it for a second.
Put that up, if you will.
A vote on term limits.
This is a key demand of Representative Ralph Norman, Republican of South Carolina, who has proposed a constitutional amendment limiting lawmakers to three terms in the House.
This is very popular among populists, but if I remember correctly, your view is very different on term limits, and it's evolved a little bit.
Yes, when I was up there early on in the 70s, you know, that appealed to me.
You know, they get there and have all this power, and I thought it was just a power system, didn't understand exactly all these rules and how they can get around them.
So the one thing I noticed is that there was voluntary term limits, and there were quite a few, not quite a few, but there were several that we knew that term limited themselves, and they did it after three terms, three elections, three terms, and they would resign.
And inevitably, the person who replaced them, I thought was law worse.
But because the person who is principal to Ray the Lee was a much better congressman.
And so that, I, you know, just faded on it.
But we had some votes way back then, and I supported term limits.
But then the more I looked at it, that's not the issue.
It's better that we talk to kids and teach them Austrian economics and teaching them a little bit about why non-intervention is foreign policy important rather than term limits.
Changing the Constitution for that, I would never support anything like that.
Even when I was somewhat sympathetic to it, I wouldn't have changed the Constitution for that purpose because there is a vehicle for it.
At least you can.
Some people goof off and they get thrown out and the people realize they're not doing a good job.
They should be put out because they're voting wrong.
But I don't think that that's a good idea to fight for term limits.
It's not going to solve the problems.
And then some people make the point about, well, then you would have the staffers.
They hang around.
Of course, my rule was there, never hire a former staffer for anybody else.
But that is true.
But is that going to be a practical thing to do to fire all the staffers?
I mean, it probably wouldn't hurt that much, but that's not the solution.
It's the philosophy of what type of government we should have.
And the idea that we have the rules of the philosophy that's called the Constitution and they don't care about it.
So that's where the real problem is.
And changing it to limited terms, I wouldn't be for that now.
Yeah, imagine a state like Kentucky, which has some good politicians and some bad politicians.
Imagine if Rand, if Senator Paul had been forced out before he had the chance to ask Fauci all these questions.
He had a great service to the country.
So, yeah, I think that is a, there are very many well-meaning people who don't understand that.
Let's go to the next one.
Now, this is one that I think is probably the most important.
Balanced Budget Debate 00:06:16
Maybe you'll agree.
One before that, please.
This one I think is probably the most important.
Major changes to the appropriations process.
Fears of another trillion-dollar plus omnibus spending bill have been a major driver of the conservative backlash to McCarthy.
The brewing deal includes a promise for standalone votes on each of the 12 appropriations bills, which would be considered under what's known as an open rule, allowing floor amendments to be offered by any lawmaker.
That is simply, I would call it, give legislators a chance to legislate, act.
And it shouldn't just be a promise.
It's got to be written in blood, right, on the agreement.
Then it's probably not going to work.
I would support it.
But the reason it didn't work when we had it, when I first went up there, we did have that.
And it was an open rule.
And there was a time, I mentioned it recently, where I got involved in trying to defund the United Nations.
And I had a lot of time, and it went on and on, and several hours.
But all they have to do is the strategy is wear them out on one amendment, which is sort of taking all the energy out of it.
And members of Congress are like human beings.
They get tired and bored after that.
But after two or three hours of this, and they don't even go on, they might have 50 things.
What they'll do is sometimes they'll bundle them together and say, we're going to have two-minute votes on these six amendments or something like that.
But they can do it by unanimous consent.
They can close it off anytime they want.
So sometimes you try to, you know, reign these people in.
There's a way of getting around it, sort of called a loophole.
But I still think it should be.
It's been in the past up until, because right now they do it because they're in such a desperation to get things passed.
When things were more reasonable, they didn't have to even think about this.
But I think that the appetite for spending is so great.
The one thing, though, that it's just a technical thing and it's semantics because I'm sure the caucus is for a balanced budget.
The Conservative caucus.
So they want a balanced budget.
And I'm for a balanced budget too.
And I think I have a record to show that I voted for a balanced budget.
But you know what?
I think people should think one step removed from the balanced budget.
Because what if the budget is, what is it, trillion, say $3 trillion, whatever it is.
And they go up $3.5 trillion.
So they raise taxes and they balance the budget.
So no, the balanced budget is secondary to total spending.
Because once they go into deficits, you know, it has to be paid for and they'll do it by taxing or borrowing, whatever it is.
So I think overall that the amount of spending, the appropriations, is probably more important than just balancing the budget.
But I think Jefferson was for the balanced budget.
I'm with Jefferson.
That's always a safe place to be.
The last one is, I think, also very interesting and I think very misunderstood, just like the term limits.
Let's put that next one up.
Conservatives also won a concession to carve out any earmarks included in those packages for separate votes, though it's unclear whether they'd been voted on as one package or separately.
This is again, the populists love to go after the earmarks as being the source of all evil.
But you have always taken a different position on earmarks.
Yes, and I can say that I made some promises and part of that promise was in the Constitutions, obeying the Constitution.
So I never voted for one penny of any earmarks.
But that's not what people accused me of.
They accused me of being part of the problem because a vote would come up to protect an earmark.
And I would vote to protect the earmark principle, but not the money.
I voted all against all the money.
And they said that was hypocritical.
You're not doing it, but we have to cut it.
No, you don't.
You don't have to, you can't do that.
So when they vote for this, they have to vote.
What happens when you cut an earmark?
But you don't cut the money.
Who spends the money?
The executive branch.
It is a gimmick to put more money in there.
And just think of what goes on in the welfare state and the warfare state and all the out of control.
This would make it worse.
If there's a trillion dollars worth of earmarks, the responsibility is on the Congress to tell them how that's to be spent.
So that never won a lot of, because most of them sort of like it, because I got this.
You hear it on the television all the time.
Do you know that I got umpteen billion dollars for my district?
And that's why I'm in a secure position.
So they brag on this.
So mine is not a popular position, but I happen to endorse it.
Well, there's all these stories about the bridge to nowhere in Alaska and all this stuff, and that did happen.
But your point is such a great point, which is that if you don't tell the executive branch how to spend that money, which is your job as a legislator, they love that.
They'll spend it however they want.
And it seems like such an easy, easy thing to understand that the whole job of Congress is to earmark the money, is to tell exactly where it's going to be.
But I don't, even though it's a logical thing to me and a lot of people, I don't know that that's going to win.
It's too easy to attack it.
Syria's Oil Crisis 00:10:09
Well, I guess we're ready to move on.
We'll see what happens.
We'll keep watching and keep updating all of you.
And I think it's probably one of the most interesting things that happens right now.
But we have to move on.
And let's move on to this next one because there is a lot of stuff happening while we're watching the speaker.
And there was yet another rocket attack on a U.S. base, not in America, but in Syria.
The U.S. Central Command on Wednesday said two rockets were fired at a base in eastern Syria, housing troops earlier in the day.
The attack took place in the mission support site Carneco.
That sounds like an oil company.
Carneco, a base next to the Conoco gas fields in eastern Syria's Deir Azer province.
Problem with this, there are a lot of problems.
One of them is it's a U.S. base in Syria, and Syria did not invite us.
And number two, it's an American company or it's a company, Conoco, taking the oil out.
One of the reasons why I wanted this to come up, it's serious and it's very important, but it's not in the news.
And I think it should be more in the news.
And the other point is it isn't America, but it isn't Ukraine either.
I mean, we've talked about Ukraine, and that's ongoing, and that deserves a lot of attention, and maybe it'll straighten out someday.
But this is the point that the Syria, we shouldn't forget about it.
And people say, well, why do they hate us?
I said, well, maybe it's because we steal their oil.
That's why they hate it.
And, you know, the coups and Syria, our effort to add Syria to our empire has not gone smoothly, even though we're participants and they think we're invincible.
But all empires become endangered.
And I think that's what's happening to us right now, is that people are not paying attention to what is happening.
But there's also a little bit of break in which countries are supporting.
And evidently, Turkey's interested in Syria as well.
Yeah, it is.
And going back to the, if we can put on that next clip, this is from the cradle.
And you're right.
Why are they angry?
U.S. base in Syria struck as Washington loots more oil and wheat.
So we have the most severe sanctions in the world on Syria, but at the same time, we steal their oil and wheat.
And if you could look at this next clip, this is from that same article in the cradle.
It says, on that same day, U.S. troops will simultaneously carry out yet another looting and smuggling operation, illegally making their way to bases in Iraq, carrying over seven trucks and tankers of stolen wheat and oil.
Just in one day, 60 tankers and trucks taking the oil from Syria and giving it to the Kurds in Iraq.
Of course, that's going to make them angry.
And the estimate, here's another article from the cradle.
If you can go to that next one, U.S. steals new batch of Syrian oil as Damascus reports $107 billion in losses since 2011.
So that continues to go on.
And as you say, something is changing.
And put on that next one, please, because there has been a break.
You know, Turkey went along with Barack Obama's regime change operation in Syria, changed his position, became anti-Syria, supported the regime change.
It didn't go well.
It didn't go as planned.
Russia stepped in a few years later and basically literally pulled Syria from the brink of an overtake by al-Qaeda and ISIS.
And so now a fascinating, fascinating shift is happening, which is that Turkey has decided to make peace with Syria in a very slow way.
There's already been meetings between the foreign ministers and the defense ministers.
And Turkey has now announced that it is pulling its troops out of Syria, which is extremely significant.
That means really the only occupying forces in Syria are the United States.
You know, it was Obama, I believe, who said when the war was starting, and well, he was moving, Assad has to go right now.
It looks like that policy is dead.
It looks like they're going to have to accept the fact that Assad managed to go through this.
And, you know, it's not like I don't know every belief he has, and he's an authoritarian, I'm sure.
But in some ways, it looks like a guy you could talk to, you know, maybe, and not just threaten.
And this is a point for us, a plus, that interventionism isn't the greatest road to expanding your empire.
You know, we can harley at it, but that oil is still a big deal.
Yeah, for them it is.
It hurts them a lot.
And, you know, you're right.
It does show the idiocy of the neocon regime change operations.
And now as Turkey and Syria are making up, the U.S. says, hey, we don't support that.
We don't support that.
It's going to be very awkward.
It's the last word on this.
For me at least, it's going to be very awkward when Turkey and Syria unite against the Kurds because the Kurds are our allies in Syria.
The Kurds are America's allies.
So it's going to be a NATO partner, Turkey, allied with an enemy, Assad, against a U.S. ally in the Kurds.
If you understand that, then maybe you should be a neocon because the rest of us say that sounds crazy.
But we want to move on to our last story, I think.
Well, let me make one mention about, you know, the theory that we use is the proxy war theory that we always have somebody doing the fighting for us, but it's really us.
It's certainly the case in Ukraine.
So I think right now, you know, the Kurds are the proxy people, and also the reason why we can't walk away yet, but I think we're going to walk away.
And that should be one of the key issues in a presidential election.
It should be the key issue, you know, on all that time consumption that they're doing right now in Washington, because this is big stuff, and it's a picture of a policy that is just a terrible policy.
And a lot of people have suffered, especially since the World War II.
Of course, the world wars were horrible.
But since then, it's no declaration, proxy wars, build the empire, control the reserve currency of the world, the whole work.
And I think it's going to come to an end.
Well, they'll fight to the tooth for the speaker, but they all agree on the empire.
So that's the trouble issue.
That's right.
Well, here's a follow-up to something we have talked about in the past, Dr. Paul, and that's this terrible, terrible law in California to muzzle doctors.
And it went into effect on January 1st.
Let's put this up.
New California law to punish doctors for, quote, COVID misinformation conduct.
I know this is something that I almost see steam coming out of your ears right now.
So go ahead and if you want to talk about it.
You mean the recall didn't work?
No.
It was close, but not close enough.
Well, that was a mess, too, trying to get rid of the governor.
And he's involved.
He likes this kind of stuff.
And let me read one sentence from the article that was put out by Zero Hedge.
And he says, the bill in its latest iteration defines misinformation as, quote, false information that is contradicted by contemporary scientific consensus, contrary to the standard of care.
We must follow what we did with COVID.
No, that wasn't it.
But that's what they're saying.
You know, how they controlled the care.
Now, now it's come out.
Oh, we never told you you couldn't use ivermectin.
You know, yeah, they're denying it now.
So this is just another example.
You'd think they'd back off a little bit, but the coup and the control of power has infiltrated medical management.
You know, the AMA and all the legislation and financing of it, the insurance companies, the drug companies, it's all controlled by that.
It's not controlled by doctors having a good relationship with their patients and able to discuss this because almost all medication, the discussion should be, even though it's Welsh standard, you know what the drug is, everything, you should tell the patient, yes, but these are the pros and cons.
There's also these problems.
But that should be done, and that's why medicine should be based on trust.
And what they have done now since COVID is they've destroyed the trust and punish you if you try to practice medicine by dealing with your patients like you're supposed to.
Yeah.
Terrible, terrible.
Don't move to California.
Get out if you can.
Well, I'm going to close out by thanking Downing Thomas for a Rumble Ran of $20 saying end all foreign aid.
We can certainly agree with that.
And I'm going to do a final thing, Dr. Paul, that's going to shock you because we thought we were done with Pelosi, but guess what?
She decided to tweet in all of this chaos on the floor.
She decided to tweet and put up that last one.
All who serve in the House share a responsibility to bring dignity to this body.
Says the woman who ripped up the president's speech.
So that's my final word, Dr. Paul, and I'll send it over to you.
The queen of hypocrisy.
And there's a lot of hypocrisy to go around.
And, you know, lying and propaganda and hypocrisy, unfortunately, is symbolic of so much in Washington.
So for the sake of the argument today, maybe the 20 individuals are exactly concerned about what we're concerned about.
Need People Speaking Out 00:02:28
And I think most of them are to a degree.
They have disagreements with us on maybe getting rid of the Fed to bar or bringing our troops home, a few things like that.
But still, people are disgusted, and it takes that.
That is why, in spite of the fact we still have this craziness of states passing laws to regulate the doctors and regulate the vaccines and all, the effort to do this is just astounding.
They do not give up.
They keep doing it.
And it's going to take what we saw during the period when the regulations were so high, when the parents got involved and you're destroying our children.
And they're still doing that.
I see, I think it was New Jersey was putting mask on kids again.
I mean, where are their brains?
They probably hadn't mask on for too long and undid their brain.
But anyway, we still actually feel good about some of the things happening for us in our program because we're getting good comments, we're getting more viewers, and I get nice letters.
I get really nice letters.
I had another letter.
I'm always fascinated when a 14-year-old individual can write me a note, and it's very legible and very well written.
And he says, by the way, I'm homeschooled.
They're out there, and they're not out in the forefront, and they won't be.
And that is why, if you don't hear them on the mainstream media or in social media, there's a lot of activity going up there.
And I just think it's so great when young people get involved, and there's a lot of that going on.
But eventually, that's the only thing that makes a difference.
It made a difference.
That moved the needle along to get rid of all that lockdown business because the parents got finally fed up with it and started going to the meetings.
And they have to continue to do that.
So yes, we do need people speaking out, and politicians will respond to that.
So we'll keep plugging along.
And I feel comfortable defending a position that says that we should have a policy that promotes peace and prosperity.
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