March 13, 2023, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement in response to President Joe Biden, U.S. Treasury, the Federal Reserve and the FDIC’s decision to bail out uninsured depositors in Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank and put the banks into FDIC receivership to the tune of $230 billion:

“The failure of SVB Bank and Signature Bank and their announced $230 billion bailout by the U.S. Treasury, Federal Reserve and FDIC should alert Congress to a power they ceded to the executive branch in the 2010 Dodd-Frank legislation. Under the law, Congress will not be asked to appropriate a single dollar and yet the $230 billion bailout’s costs will be paid by additional fees and higher interest rates on loans and credit cards on the American people.

“The scary and yet untold part of this story is that SVB Bank and Signature Bank are just a potential tip of the $20.8 trillion total deposit iceberg, including $1 trillion of uninsured deposits, that the federal government has implicitly just guaranteed in full in a bid to shore up the banking system. In fact, the easiest outcome to predict was that the share prices of small and regional banks would be pummeled—and they are now—as investors and depositors flee from otherwise solvent smaller banks.

“What’s the incentive to hold a stock of a regional bank that might be put into receivership? The decision by Treasury and the Fed put the two regional banks into receivership, under the law, and shareholders got nothing, making the investment in small banks much riskier. Meaning, you can sell your shares today in a regional bank, and get some percent of your investment, or wait for your receivership tomorrow, and you get nothing.

“Once again, this massive liability has been assumed without a current vote in Congress, based on the very predictable outcome of Congress writing itself out of the bank bailout process through creation of the authority for the executive branch to declare almost anything in the U.S. economy systemically risky. The possible good news is that Congress may now revisit Dodd-Frank in order to avert what could become a vicious cycle of ‘fail and bail.’

“Under the current law, with assessments on financial institutions with $50 billion or more of assets being the funding source, in addition to the Fed, the $230 billion bailout shockingly accounts for just 1.1 percent of all the $20.8 trillion deposits nationwide, including $1 trillion of uninsured deposits. These new assessments will put the country’s biggest banks under additional stress, with the potential of the weakest failing, creating a potential avalanche of future bank defaults. The Fed is immediately using a new credit window to deal with this problem, and no matter what happens, more than 95 percent of deposits appear to be guaranteed, but that’s also a part of the problem. Congress needs to reevaluate Dodd-Frank and investigate how SVB Bank and Signature Bank became underwater in the first place, so that an examination of any policies that might have contributed to the problem, including mandatory purchases of U.S. treasuries, played a role.”

Attachments:

“Regional Banks Keep Crashing: Where Things Now Stand,” Seeking Alpha, March 13, 2023 at https://seekingalpha.com/article/4587058-regional-banks-keep-crashing-where-things-now-stand

“Down the Rabbit Hole: The Fed just guaranteed $230 billion of uninsured deposits at SVB Bank and Signature Bank. There are $1 trillion of uninsured deposits out of $20 trillion nationwide.” By Robert Romano, March 13, 2023 at https://dailytorch.com/2023/03/down-the-rabbit-hole-the-fed-just-guaranteed-230-billion-of-uninsured-deposits-at-svb-bank-and-signature-bank-there-are-1-trillion-of-uninsured-deposits-out-of-20-trillion-nationwide/

“Down a Rabbit Hole: The Threat Posed by the Dodd Bill to the Private Sector,” Americans for Limited Government, June 28, 2010 at https://www.getliberty.org/files/FinancialTakeoverBackgrounderUpdate.pdf

For media availability contact Americans for Limited Government at media@limitgov.org.

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March 9, 2023, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement supporting H.R. 140, the Protecting Speech from Government Interference Act, which includes an amendment by U.S. Rep. Dan Bishop (R-N.C.) that addressed what he called “the flaw in the bill” as it was originally proposed, which in Bishop’s words, “there is never a legitimate law enforcement purpose for Federal agents to take down speech that the First Amendment protects”:

“We are happy to report that an amendment by Representative Dan Bishop to H.R. 140, the ‘Protecting Speech from Government Interference Act’ was passed on March 8, 2023. The Bishop amendment stops federal law enforcement officials from censoring any speech that is lawful, and only allows for ‘unlawful’ speech to be targeted. ‘Unlawful’ in the amended version of the bill is defined as meaning speech that is not protected by the First Amendment.

“Americans for Limited Government supports H.R. 140 in its amended form, and encourages a yay vote.  Rep. Bishop deserves special kudos for identifying one of the problems we pinpointed and adeptly using the normal process to make the bill match the title of the legislation.”

Attachments:

Dan Bishop Amendment to H.R. 140, March 8, 2023 at https://www.congress.gov/congressional-record/volume-169/issue-44/house-section/article/H1180-1 :

“Page 2, beginning on line 25, strike paragraph (1) and

insert the following:

“(1) In general.–Nothing in this section shall be

construed to prohibit an employee from engaging in lawful

actions against unlawful speech within the official authority

of such employee for the purpose of exercising legitimate law

enforcement functions.”.

Page 3, line 15, after “function”, insert “under

paragraph (1)”.

Page 3, line 16, strike “lawful” and insert “unlawful”.

Page 3, line 17, strike “but” and all that follows

through line 24 and insert the following: “and consistent

with subparagraph (D), the head of the agency that employs

the employee shall submit, to the Office of Special Counsel

and the chair and ranking member of the committees of

Congress described under subparagraph (B), a report that

includes–”.

Page 5, after line 19, insert the following:

“(D) Reporting requirements for certain actions.–

“(i) Any censorship action relating to combating child

pornography and exploitation, human trafficking, or the

illegal transporting of or transacting in controlled

substances shall be exempt from the reporting requirement

under this paragraph.

“(ii) With respect to any censorship action related to

safeguarding, or preventing the unlawful dissemination of,

properly classified national security information,

subparagraph (A) shall be applied by substituting `Not later

than 72 hours after’ for `Not later than 72 hours before’.”.

Page 5, line 6, before “and the”, insert “the Permanent

Select Committee on Intelligence,”.

Page 5, line 11, before “and”, insert “Select Committee

on Intelligence,”.

Page 7, line 14, strike “and”.

Page 7, beginning on line 16, strike “Constitution.”.”

and insert “Constitution; and”.

Page 7, after line 17, insert the following:

“(5) the term `unlawful speech’ means speech not protected

by the First Amendment of the Constitution.”.

U.S. Rep. Dan Bishop floor speech in favor of amendment, March 8, 2023 at https://www.congress.gov/congressional-record/volume-169/issue-44/house-section/article/H1180-1:

“Mr. Chair, I am grateful that the

chairman and lead sponsor will, I anticipate, lend his support to this

amendment. It will close a loophole that would defeat the purpose of

the bill. In fact, absent this amendment, the bill would inadvertently

validate the very conduct this bill aims to stop.

Emerging evidence, most notably the Twitter files, depicts what one

expert has termed the largest censorship program in U.S. Government

history. On the pretext of protecting election infrastructure or

enforcing the Foreign Agents Registration Act, personnel of the

Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, CISA; the Department

of Homeland Security, DHS; the FBI, the Office of the Director of

National Intelligence; the CIA; the Global Engagement Center from the

State Department, which most Americans had never heard of; and even the

CDC practically embedded themselves with operators of social media

platforms and corporate media to manage and curate Americans’ public

discourse, to induce Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, et cetera,

to take down lawful and First Amendment protected speech of Americans

time and again and again.

In so doing, these omnipresent Federal agencies established working

relationships with a small cadre of supposed internet research groups,

affiliated in some cases with well-known universities and NGOs, but

loaded with political partisans, who purported to create black-box

analytical efforts to identify social media accounts that amplified

content from Russia.

But these purported experts, like Hamilton 68, didn’t identify

Russian-amplifying bot networks, as they claimed, through some

sophisticated algorithm. They just found a bunch of American Trump

supporter accounts and labeled them that. And for months and months, as

they became a trusted source for media that cited Hamilton 68, Twitter

“trust and safety executives” like Yoel Roth stood quietly by knowing

that Hamilton 68 was a fraud.

Guess what? Follow the money. Part of the working relationship

between the agencies and the research groups was funding that flowed by

the millions in government grants. Each day, it becomes clearer that

between these three pillars–Federal security agencies, media

operators, and internet analysts–a new Washington revolving door has

emerged to facilitate the same people moving between them and profiting

from the scam.

The base text of this bill would allow exactly this process to

continue, but there is never a legitimate law enforcement purpose for

Federal agents to take down speech that the First Amendment protects.

We have now seen agencies of the Federal Government once again

targeting Americans for their political views. In the government’s

attempt to stop Russian misinformation, they have targeted and attacked

Americans for simply voicing opinions that they disfavor. Their actions

violate our First Amendment principles, and Congress must take this

action to stop it.

The amendment will address the flaw in the bill, but it is odd to me

that Democrats who used to so revere the First Amendment are no longer

concerned about it. In Lamont v. Postmaster General in 1965, which

Democrats lauded, the Court held that Americans have a right to receive

communist propaganda from abroad. The Democrats loved it then. Now,

they don’t even want Americans to be able to post their views on social

media. How abhorrent.

We will fix it. This bill will fix it. The amendment will fix the

bill.

Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.”

“House anti-censorship bill is a swing and a miss,” Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning, March 8, 2023 at https://getliberty.org/2023/03/house-anti-censorship-bill-is-a-swing-and-a-miss/

For media availability contact Americans for Limited Government at media@limitgov.org.

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March 9, 2023, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement responding to H.R. 140, the Protecting Speech from Government Interference Act:

“H.R.140, the Protecting Speech from Government Interference Act, is a great sounding bill, but in Washington, D.C., as we’ve learned from the Inflation Reduction Act, the titles of legislation do not always reflect what the legislation does. The Protecting Speech from Government Interference Act specifically exempts federal law enforcement personnel from the provisions of the law in the exercise of their lawful duties.

“The perverse effect of this loophole is that the same FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and CISA which have overtly pressured social media platforms to censor political speech under the guise of counterterrorism appears to be exempt from its very provisions. Other government civil agencies would merely need to forward their disinformation ‘concerns’ to agencies expressly allowed to forward them to private sector entities including interactive computer services and social media companies. The net effect is that the legislation intended to stop the governmental censorship appears to write its allowance into law.

“Specifically, the proposed bill states, ‘Nothing in this section shall be construed to prohibit an employee from engaging in lawful actions within the official authority of such employee for the purpose of exercising legitimate law enforcement functions…’ which excludes law enforcement from the provision defining censorship as ‘the removal or suppression of lawful speech, in whole or in part, from or on any interactive computer service’ if they are discharging their lawful duties without any enforcement provision or legal recourse for the censored. Similarly, it does nothing to roll back the lawful authority of CISA, FBI, et. al. to forward and provide information including disinformation ‘concerns’ to private sector entities including social media under H.R. 3359 from 2018 in its counterterrorism provisions.

“It is disappointing that what appeared to be a great first step in protecting First Amendment political speech is actually a swing and a miss that may in fact violate the First Amendment’s prohibition that ‘Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press’ by specifically authorizing federal law enforcement to engage in censorship by outlining the exceptions to the law therein.”

Attachments:

“CISA scrubs ‘disinformation’ web page to remove the fact it ‘rout[es] disinformation concerns’ to ‘appropriate social media platforms’ to censor you,” By Robert Romano, March 9, 2023 at https://dailytorch.com/2023/03/cisa-scrubs-disinformation-web-page-to-remove-the-fact-it-routes-disinformation-concerns-to-appropriate-social-media-platforms-to-censor-you/

For media availability contact Americans for Limited Government at media@limitgov.org.

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Feb. 22, 2023, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement in opposition to the draft World Health Organization (WHO) Pandemic Agreement:

“Americans for Limited Government opposes President Joe Biden’s negotiated draft agreement with the World Health Organization that abrogates U.S. sovereignty without any Senate ratification. Article 4, Section 3 of the draft clearly states that the United States and other signatories would retain sovereignty, but only ‘provided that activities within their jurisdiction or control do not cause damage to their peoples and other countries.’

“In other words, America would retain our sovereignty so long as it complies with the measures that WHO recommends. It even allows for provisional adoption of the agreement in Article 35 to expedite implementation.

“Toward the end of protecting the Senate’s advice and consent process on treaties, Senator Ron Johnson has introduced legislation the ‘No WHO Pandemic Preparedness Treaty Without Senate Approval Act’ which we wholeheartedly support.  Additionally, we urge the House and the Senate to end U.S. financial support to the World Health Organization should President Biden press ahead on this disastrous shattering of our liberties under the U.S. Constitution.

“It is clear that President Biden intends to sign and follow the WHO Pandemic Agreement without submitting it to the Senate, and it is incumbent on Congress to send the current president a strong message that he cannot trade away our nation’s freedoms to unaccountable third party actors.”

Attachments:

WHO Pandemic Agreement, Draft, Feb. 1, 2023 at https://apps.who.int/gb/inb/pdf_files/inb4/A_INB4_3-en.pdf Article IV, Section 3: “Sovereignty – States have, in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations and the principles of international law, the sovereign right to determine and manage their approach to public health, notably pandemic prevention, preparedness, response and recovery of health systems, pursuant to their own policies and legislation, provided that activities within their jurisdiction or control do not cause damage to their peoples and other countries. Sovereignty also covers the rights of States over their biological resources.”

President Biden proposed amendments, Jan. 18, 2022 at https://apps.who.int/gb/ebwha/pdf_files/WHA75/A75_18-en.pdf

Council of the EU gives green light to start negotiations on international pandemic treaty, March 3, 2022 at https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2022/03/03/council-gives-green-light-to-start-negotiations-on-international-pandemic-treaty/

For media availability contact Americans for Limited Government at media@limitgov.org.

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Feb. 1, 2023, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement in response the FBI’s search of President Joe Biden’s Rehoboth, Del. beach house in connection with its missing classified documents case against Biden, according to CBS News’ Arden Farhi “the search was planned with Biden’s attorneys and consensual. No warrant was sought for this search…”:

“According to CBS News’ sources, President Joe Biden’s beach house in Rehoboth, Del. is being searched in connection to the FBI’s ongoing investigation against Biden of the missing classified documents, but without the use of any warrants and therefore no judicial oversight. In light of the FBI’s treatment of former President Donald Trump who lawfully held documents that he says he declassified in its August raid at Mar-a-lago, it is stunning they are proceeding without a search warrant which under the Fourth Amendment would require the FBI to tell a judge what they were hoping to find, protecting the rights of the accused and preventing a wholesale general warrant.

“Since day one of the discovery of the illegally held Biden classified documents, the FBI has allowed Biden attorneys the privilege to go through boxes without supervision, effectively neutering any real investigation. America watched almost a decade ago, became aware that Hillary Clinton smashed her cell phones and bleachbitted her computers to deny federal officials access to her unsecure email server.

“It should be remembered that the FBI similarly allowed Clinton’s attorneys to go through her emails to determine if there was classified information on her computer, only intervening after much of the evidence was tainted or destroyed. America has seen what the FBI does when they’re serious, with 6 a.m. raids on targets of investigations if they’re in the wrong political party and kid gloves for the Democrats who have apparently become the official party of the government.”

For media availability contact Americans for Limited Government at media@limitgov.org.

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Jan. 30, 2023, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement urging passage of H.J. Res. 7 and H.R. 382 to both the presidential and Department of Health and Human Services national Covid emergencies:

“This week, the House of Representatives will be voting on two pieces of legislation by U.S. Reps. Paul Gosar and Brett Guthrie to end the 2020 presidential declaration under the National Emergencies Act and by the Department of Health and Human Services for the Covid pandemic. The fact is, the virus is much less deadly than it was in 2020. When the pandemic began, estimated cases peaked in March 2020 at 157,000 per day, and then daily fatalities peaked by April 17 at 2,328 daily, about a 1.47 percent fatality rate, according to IHME. Today, fatalities in the U.S. reached about 645 daily deaths on Jan. 11, out of 1.7 million peak daily new cases from December, a 0.037 percent fatality rate.

“Americans for Limited Government praises House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise and U.S. Reps. Paul Gosar and Brett Guthrie for offering legislation that will bring an end to the official Covid emergency, long after the actual emergency has passed. The pandemic is over, and it is time Congress said so.”

Attachments:

“It’s time to end the Covid national emergency, Mr. President.” By Robert Romano, Vice President of Public Policy, Americans for Limited Government, Jan. 6, 2023 at https://dailytorch.com/2023/01/its-time-to-end-the-covid-national-emergency-mr-president/

For media availability contact Americans for Limited Government at media@limitgov.org.

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Jan. 12, 2023, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement reacting to the appointment of another special counsel:

“America lived through an unending special counsel investigation in the prior administration due to the Russia collusion fantasy. Now there’s three. Given these repeated abuses of power at the Justice Department, it’s time that Congress revisit the legal and regulatory basis for these unaccountable prosecutors that undermine basic due process rights and confidence in our electoral system.

“One of the great mysteries of Merrick Garland’s appointment of a special counsel to investigate President Joe Biden’s possession and mishandling classified documents at his residence and Washington, D.C. think, from 2017 to 2021, after his time as Vice President, is why it wasn’t wrapped together with Trump’s own special counsel that was announced in November after Trump announced his bid to run for president in 2024. Six days prior to the Nov. 8 midterm elections, the FBI reports they discovered the first group of documents at the D.C. think tank, yet, the Department of Justice chose not to disclose this information prior to the election in November, the naming of Jack Smith as Special Counsel against Trump after the election and then the Georgia special runoff election for Senate. Clearly, the political weaponization of the Justice Department has become so normalized that every action appears to be taken through a political prism. This is the same Justice Department that continues to sit on and suppress the Hunter Biden laptop for the past two years.

“Now it is up to Congress to take a close look at whether these unending political investigations serve the nation.”

For media availability contact Americans for Limited Government at media@limitgov.org.

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