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Federal Nullification Efforts Mounting

 :: Posted by Limited Government on 06-29-2013

Federal Nullification Efforts Mounting In States

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Imagine the scenario: A federal agent attempts to arrest someone for illegally selling a machine gun. Instead, the federal agent is arrested — charged in a state court with the crime of enforcing federal gun laws.

Farfetched? Not as much as you might think. The scenario would become conceivable if legislation passed by Missouri’s Republican-led Legislature is signed into law by Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon. The Missouri legislation is perhaps the most extreme example of a states’ rights movement that has been spreading across the nation. States are increasingly adopting laws that purport to nullify federal laws — setting up intentional legal conflicts, directing local police not to enforce federal laws and, in rare cases, even threatening criminal charges for federal agents who dare to do their jobs.

An Associated Press analysis found that about four-fifths of the states now have enacted local laws that directly reject or ignore federal laws on marijuana use, gun control, health insurance requirements and identification standards for driver’s licenses. The recent trend began in Democratic leaning California with a 1996 medical marijuana law and has proliferated lately in Republican strongholds like Kansas, where Gov. Sam Brownback this spring became the first to sign a measure threatening felony charges against federal agents who enforce certain firearms laws in his state.

Some states, such as Montana and Arizona, have said “no” to the feds again and again — passing states’ rights measures on all four subjects examined by the AP — despite questions about whether their “no” carries any legal significance.

“It seems that there has been an uptick in nullification efforts from both the left and the right,” said Adam Winkler, a professor at the University of California at Los Angeles who specializes in constitutional law.

Yet “the law is clear — the supremacy clause (of the U.S. Constitution) says specifically that the federal laws are supreme over contrary state laws, even if the state doesn’t like those laws,” Winkler added.

The fact that U.S. courts have repeatedly upheld federal laws over conflicting state ones hasn’t stopped some states from flouting those federal laws — sometimes successfully. About 20 states now have medical marijuana laws allowing people to use pot to treat chronic pain and other ailments — despite a federal law that still criminalizes marijuana distribution and possession. Ceding ground to the states, President Barack Obama’s administration has made it known to federal prosecutors that it wasn’t worth their time to target those people.

Federal authorities have repeatedly delayed implementation of the 2005 Real ID Act, an anti-terrorism law that set stringent requirements for photo identification cards to be used to board commercial flights or enter federal buildings. The law has been stymied, in part, because about half the state legislatures have opposed its implementation, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

About 20 states have enacted measures challenging Obama’s 2010 health care laws, many of which specifically reject the provision mandating that most people have health insurance or face tax penalties beginning in 2014.

After Montana passed a 2009 law declaring that federal firearms regulations don’t apply to guns made and kept in that state, eight other states have enacted similar laws. Gun activist Gary Marbut said he crafted the Montana measure as a foundation for a legal challenge to the federal power to regulate interstate commerce under the U.S. Constitution. His lawsuit was dismissed by a trial judge but is now pending before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

“The states created this federal monster, and so it’s time for the states to get their monster on a leash,” said Marbut, president of the Montana Shooting Sports Association. The Supreme Court ruled in 1997 that local police could not be compelled to carry out provisions of a federal gun control law. But some states are now attempting to take that a step further by asserting that certain federal laws can’t even be enforced by federal authorities.

A new Kansas law makes it a felony for a federal agent to attempt to enforce laws on guns made and owned in Kansas. A similar Wyoming law, passed in 2010, made it a misdemeanor. The Missouri bill also would declare it a misdemeanor crime but would apply more broadly to all federal gun laws and regulations — past, present, or future — that “infringe on the people’s right to keep and bear arms.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder sent a letter in late April to the Kansas governor warning that the federal government is willing to go to court over the new law. “Kansas may not prevent federal employees and officials from carrying out their official responsibilities,” Holder wrote.

Federal authorities in the western district of Missouri led the nation in prosecutions for federal weapons offenses through the first seven months of the 2013 fiscal year, with Kansas close behind, according to a data clearinghouse at Syracuse University.

Felons illegally possessing firearms is the most common charge nationally. But the Missouri measure sets it sights on nullifying federal firearms registrations and, among other things, a 1934 law that imposes a tax on transferring machine guns or silencers. Last year, the federal government prosecuted 83 people nationally for unlawful possession of machine guns.

So what would happen if a local prosecutor actually charges a federal agent for doing his or her job? “They’re going to have problems if they do it — there’s no doubt about it,” said Michael Boldin, executive director of the Tenth Amendment Center, a Los Angeles-based entity that promotes states’ rights. “There’s no federal court in the country that’s going to say that a state can pull this off.”

Yet states may never need to prosecute federal agents in order to make their point. If enough states resist, “it’s going to be very difficult for the federal government to force their laws down our throats,” Boldin said.

Missouri’s governor has not said whether he will sign or veto the bill nullifying federal gun laws. Meanwhile, thousands of people have sent online messages to the governor’s office about the legislation.

Signing the measure “will show other states how to resist the tyranny of federal bureaucrats who want to rob you of your right to self-defense,” said one message, signed by Jim and Arlena Sowash, who own a gun shop in rural Stover, Mo.

Others urged a veto. “Outlandish bills like this — completely flouting our federal system — make Missouri the laughingstock of the nation,” said a message written by Ann Havelka, of the Kansas City suburb of Gladstone.

http://www.mail.com/news/politics/2166348-federal-nullification-efforts-mounting.html

June 21st 2013

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Will America’s Corrupt Banks Realign Politics Again?

 :: Posted by Limited Government on 05-21-2013

Will America’s Bank War Again Realign Politics?

It can be said that the present day financial crisis and the broad and sweeping powers the U.S. Federal Reserve has assumed in its wake all share their origins in the very first debates Congress had over the creation of the national debt, the Fed’s precursor, the Bank of the United States, and over the implication of foreign ownership of these institutions.

With an economy addicted to credit expansion and a $16.7 trillion national debt set to rise rapidly in the coming years, and interest owed on the debt, much of it to foreigners, poised to eventually overwhelm taxpayers’ ability to repay it, these debates are no less vital today.

They can be instructive to the American people in deciding whether to continue on the path of increasing debt and dependency on foreign sources of credit and printed money to refinance our obligations.

The First Bank

When the first U.S. Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton’s Bank of the United States — the nation’s first central bank — came up for renewal in 1811, these very controversies caused Congress to allow its charter to lapse.

President James Madison had never supported the bank’s charter in 1791 as a member of the House of Representatives, along with Thomas Jefferson, who both had opposed the bank on constitutional grounds. In 1811, Madison had his vice president, George Clinton, cast the deciding vote against the bank’s renewal.

The fight over Hamilton’s bank back in 1791 in many ways had led to the advent of political parties in the United States. The Federalists, led by Hamilton, were in favor of the bank, and the Republicans, led by Madison and Jefferson, were against.

Of considerable concern at the time was the foreign ownership of the bank. In debate over the bank’s renewal, Sen. Henry Clay revealed that “seven-tenths [70 percent] of the stock belonged to British subjects, and that certain English noblemen, and a late Lord Chancellor, were among the very largest of the stockholders,” as noted in an 1830 House report on the bank’s history prepared by Rep. George McDuffie for the Andrew Jackson Administration.

As a result of the objections, the bank’s 1811 renewal was defeated — but not for long.

Madison’s Transformation

Within a year, the U.S. was again at war with Great Britain, a conflict that put the nation deeply into debt. Madison, who had famously opposed the creation of the national debt, when in power saw it rise from $45 million in 1812 to $127 million by 1816 to pay for his war.

Per the House report, within three years “the circulating medium became so disordered, the public finances so deranged, and the public credit so impaired, that the enlightened patriot, [Alexander] Dallas, who then presided over the Treasury Department, with the sanction of Mr. Madison, and, as it is believed, every member of the cabinet, recommended to Congress the establishment of a National Bank.”

Quite the turnaround. Opposition to the bank had been an article of faith for Jefferson and Madison’s Republican Party, but then in 1816, Madison signed into law the bill that created the Second Bank of the United States.

Similarly, Jefferson’s renowned opposition to the national debt had suddenly become forgotten when he took office in 1801, going deeply in debt with Baring Brothers & Co. (then Francis Baring and Company) of London to finance the 1803 Louisiana Purchase from Napoleonic France.

The Rise of ‘Old Hickory’

These apostasies led directly to the rise of Andrew Jackson and the splintering of the American political party system, once again over the bank issue and the debt.

It is a sinister joke that Andrew Jackson appears on the 20-dollar Federal Reserve Note, an institution he would have despised. Whoever came up with that idea must have had quite a laugh over the irony. As President, Jackson paid off the national debt and when the renewal of the Second Bank’s charter passed Congress, he vetoed it. The Jacksonians became the basis for the modern day Democrat Party. Those in favor of the national bank became the Whigs.

Besides the arguments against its constitutionality, assisting Jackson was again the specter of foreign ownership of the bank, which was his principal objection. In 1822, foreigners held $3.1 million or 9.1 percent of the bank’s $35 million capital, according to a report of its board of directors. In 1830, according to McDuffie’s report, that figure had risen to some $7 million, or 20 percent of the stock.

By 1832, that figure had again increased to $8.4 million, or 24 percent of the stock, “mostly of Great Britain,” Jackson noted in his veto of the bank’s recharter. Foreign ownership of the bank was indeed rising, quite rapidly. Even though foreigners were barred from serving on the central bank’s board of directors, Jackson perceived ownership as a threat to American sovereignty and independence, and the central bank was again shuttered.

“Should the stock of the bank principally pass into the hands of the subjects of a foreign country, and we should unfortunately become involved in a war with that country, what would be our condition?” Jackson asked, tacitly referring to the financial ruin that followed Madison’s war. Nearly reaching bankruptcy, the War of 1812 revealed what happens when a nation finds itself at war with its creditors.

Overall, the Republicans under Jefferson and Madison had accumulated a mountain of debt to foreign countries during their administrations. Their experiences changed their views and hence public policy about everything from the national debt to central banking, supporting Jackson’s essential point that foreign “investment” is actually influence, and can turn into subversion. When Madison could not secure financing for his ruinous war (even after it was over), he yielded into the pressure to create another central bank in 1816.

16 years later, Jackson would undo it, but the issues of currency, debt, and central banking would not go away forever.

The Revenge of the Fed

Although Jackson’s slaying what was called the central banking hydra liberated the American economy for the duration of the Civil War and the Industrial Revolution, advocates of a national bank and the power to engage in rapid credit expansion would eventually succeed, with formation of the Federal Reserve 100 years ago in 1913 under the guise of preventing bank panics.

Yes, there had been bank panics in the interim, but these did not stop the industrialization of the U.S. economy or the settling of the West. Nor did they lead to anything like what followed.

After all, the creation of the Fed did not stop bank panics. It worsened their severity as is readily evidenced by both the Great Depression and financial crisis of 2007 and 2008. Both crises followed massive credit expansions that were financed by the central bank.

Now, looking at where the Federal Reserve has brought us over the past century, with politicians as diverse as former Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) uniting around the issue of Fed transparency in the 2010 Dodd-Frank legislation, it appears that the most recent financial crisis has opened another salvo in the nation’s ongoing Bank War.

Foreign Influence — again

The Fed audit revealed that of the $1.25 trillion of mortgage-backed securities the central bank purchased after the housing bubble popped, some $442.7 billion were bought from foreign banks. These were not loans, but outright purchases, a direct bailout of foreign firms that had bet poorly on U.S. housing.

They included $127.5 billion given to MBS Credit Suisse (Switzerland), $117.8 billion to Deutsche Bank (Germany), $63.1 billion to Barclays Capital (UK), $55.5 billion to UBS Securities (Switzerland), $27 billion to BNP Paribas (France), $24.4 billion to the Royal Bank of Scotland (UK), and $22.2 billion to Nomura Securities (Japan). Another $4.2 billion was given to the Royal Bank of Canada, and $917 million to Mizuho Securities(Japan).

At the time of the bailouts, then-Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) supposed in an interview with radio host Mark Levin that foreign creditors threatened to stop lending the U.S. money unless we bought back the mortgage paper.

The whole episode vindicated the fears of Andrew Jackson, who essentially warned that a central bank and a government in debt to foreigners would first serve their interests before that of citizens. So, while Americans were suffering through high unemployment and resultant foreclosures on their homes, foreign banks were made whole with a printing press.

Jackson was proven right. Foreign ownership of U.S. debt in 2008 again had again changed public policy in favor of those interests.

No Other Way

All the while, the people are told that there is no alternative. That we must have a central bank that privatizes profits when times are good, and socializes losses when the banks screw up and extend credit too far. That the economy would fall apart without such an institution.

These were the same exact arguments that were put to Jackson when he questioned the central bank. The1830 McDuffie House report warned Jackson ominously, “it would be utterly impossible to produce so entire a change in the monetary system of the country, as to abolish the agency of banks of discount, usually attendant on great political revolutions, subverting the titles of private property.”

The report added, “The sudden withdrawal of some hundred millions of bank credit, would be equivalent, in its effects, to the arbitrary and despotic transfer of the property of one portion of the community to another.”

Yet without a central bank, none of those things happened. Instead, 1870 to 1913 is seen by many to have been a renaissance for the American economy.  In fact, between 1836 and 1913, although there were bank panics, there were no economic crises of the magnitude seen in 1929, 1931, or 2008 when central banks had complete control over monetary policy.

The New Bank War

The bank war has been the fault line of American history. It has led to two of the three shakeups of the party system that have occurred over the past 224 years. It is no mistake that the same issue that divided the party of Jefferson and Madison in 1816 and 1832 divides both Democrats and Republicans today.

With the rise of the Tea Party on the right and Occupy Wall Street on the left in the U.S., or of the UK Independence Party in Britain, or of the Five-Star Movement in Italy and Syriza in Greece, one common thread tying these disparate political movements together is opposition to bank bailouts and the current regime of central banking.

When leftists and libertarians begin finding common ground on an issue as important as money, something is happening. This movement may be in its nascent stages, but it is sending shockwaves through the current political system all over the world.

The political success of central banking over the past century — all opposition had been nearly wiped out — means that when economic contractions brought on by excessive credit expansion occur, as it has today, there are no other institutions to blame for the misery that follows.

Central banks have had their time, but now the pendulum is swinging once again. Where it ends is anyone’s guess, perhaps a Rand Paul candidacy, but as in the past, this issue has the potency to transform and realign American politics.

Bill Wilson is the President of Americans for Limited Government. Robert Romano is the Senior Editor of Americans for Limited Government

http://netrightdaily.com/2013/04/will-americas-bank-war-again-realign-politics/

January 4th, 2013

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House Republicans Circulate Plan to Oust Boehner from Speakership

 :: Posted by Limited Government on 12-28-2012

Several Conservative House Republican Members Are Contemplating a Plan to Unseat Speaker John Boehner From His Position on January 3…

The Republicans, both conservatives and more establishment members alike, are emboldened after the failure of Boehner’s fiscal cliff “Plan B” on Thursday evening. Dissatisfaction with Boehner is growing in the House Republican conference, but until now there hasn’t been a clear path forward.

Those members and staffers requested anonymity from Breitbart News at this time to prevent retaliation from Boehner similar to what happened to those four members who were purged from their powerful committee assignments a few weeks ago. Their expressed concern is that if Boehner knew who they were, his adverse reaction toward them would be much more brutal than losing committee assignments, such as a primary challenge in 2014 by a leadership-sponsored candidate.

The circulated plan is a comprehensive multi-step process.

According to the plan as drafted, the first step is to re-establish the election of the Speaker of the House by secret ballot, rather than by a public roll call vote. That’s because the members who would oppose Boehner, if there ended up not being enough votes to achieve their desired result or if Boehner scared via threat or coaxed via prize some of the opposition into voting for him, would be sitting ducks for retaliation in the near future.

As one hill staffer considering this path told Breitbart News, the members involved in an unsuccessful coup d’etat would be “toast.”

To establish a secret ballot election for Speaker of the House, one Republican member will need to step forward and introduce a resolution on the House floor on the morning of January 3, 2013, before any other business takes place. Those close to this plan are convinced that a member will step forward and introduce this resolution.

On January 3, the House of Representatives will convene for the first order of business for the 113th Congress. Normally, the first order of business is for the House to elect a Speaker.

But if a member introduces that resolution for a secret ballot, the whole House will vote on that first. That vote will need to have a public roll call, meaning the American people, the press, and Boehner will know who voted which way. Even so, those who are considering this path forward to unseat Boehner know that Boehner and other establishment Republicans can’t legitimately oppose the concept of a secret ballot election for a leader of a political body.

Why’s that? In a 2009 op-ed Boehner himself wrote for U.S. News and World Report, the then House Minority Leader bashed unions for their failure to employ secret ballot elections to protect those voting. Boehner’s op-ed was an attack on the Democrats’ Employee Free Choice Act, also known as “card check” – legislation that would have hurt the sacred concept of elections so badly that, in Boehner’s own words, “it would leave them [workers voting in union elections] open to coercion and intimidation.”

Card check legislation would have made unionization elections public – meaning everybody involved would know whether employees voted in favor of or against unionization. Boehner called such elections “undemocratic” because even “all 535 members of the United States Congress hold their offices thanks to a secret ballot.”

Boehner’s op-ed helped kill the Democratic effort for card check, as he warned that some who have “spoken passionately in favor of secret-ballot elections” have done so “only when it serves their interests.” Those hill staffers who drafted this plan note in their planning documents that a secret ballot against Boehner “is likely the ONLY WAY the Speaker can be ousted,” and find it ironic that the election for House Speaker isn’t done by secret ballot right now.

At the beginning of the Congress, the House will only have one officer: the Clerk of the House. House rule documents compiled by those staffers considering this plan show that the Clerk of the House is required to keep the legislative body’s secrets. The clerk takes an oath to “keep the secrets of the House.”

Since at that point the House would have just passed a resolution requiring who votes for whom as Speaker to be secret, the Clerk – who would keep track of such a vote – would be required by his oath of office to keep the roll call secret.

If a secret ballot election for House Speaker is established, step one of this plan against Boehner is complete.

The second step of the circulated plan would require enough GOP members to band together and vote for somebody other than Boehner as Speaker. Since Illinois Democratic Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr., has resigned his position, there will be 434 voting members on January 3. For someone to win the Speaker election, they’d need to secure 217 votes – or a majority of everyone voting.

Since there are 233 Republicans heading into the next Congress, only 17 Republicans would be needed to unseat Boehner. The House would continue having multiple elections throughout the day on January 3 until it agreed upon a new Speaker.

Republicans need not worry about handing the Speakership over to Nancy Pelosi or some other Democrat in this process, either. “Don’t worry about Speaker Boehner losing GOP votes in a secret ballot,” the House rule document compiled by staffers obtained by Breitbart News read.

It is still not possible for Pelosi to become Speaker even with 100 % of Democrats united behind her and a split GOP vote. The reason is to become Speaker it is not enough to win a plurality. One must win an absolute majority of all votes cast for an individual.

So even if all 201 Democrats vote Pelosi, Boehner gets 1 vote, and the remaining 233 Republicans each vote for a different individual, Pelosi does not win. Pelosi would need 218 to reach a majority of the 435 votes cast for an individual. Since Republicans have a 33 vote advantage in the House, the only way Pelosi wins is if 17 Boehner opponents affirmatively vote Pelosi or abstain rather than simply vote for an alternative candidate. Both these scenarios are easily avoided.

The same argument applies if fewer than 435 Members show up to vote. The magic number would be less than 218 but Pelosi still cannot get there so long as there are more Republicans in the room than Democrats and they don’t abstain or voter [sic] for her.

Those planning to oust Boehner know that there will likely be multiple elections taking place next. They expect to have a series of elections in the House throughout the day on January 3, as they’re pretty sure they won’t get a new Speaker on the first try.

If Boehner loses on that first election try, he’ll be battered. For now, this is a leaderless movement – an “Anybody but Boehner” charge. But after that first secret ballot election wouldn’t have earned him his speakership back, those planning this ouster expect viable alternatives to emerge at that point.

One of those alternatives, they think, will unite the party and take the speakership.

If these conservatives aren’t successful in removing Boehner – but get close – they expect Boehner to cave and give them several concessions. Those concessions would include “that Boehner should move for it himself to decentralize power to the members, re-establishing trust and his legitimacy as the leader of the party.”

They argue Boehner might be able to reach those concessions by allowing committee chairmen to bring resolutions and legislation to the House floor for votes, and by stopping his continual dealing with President Barack Obama outside the regular order of House business through the committee system.

By Matthew Boyle 21 Dec 2012 – http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/12/21/House-Republican-members-circulate-plan-to-oust-Speaker

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Only 16 Members of Congress Are Needed To Unseat Speaker Boehner

 :: Posted by Limited Government on 12-09-2012

Only 16 Members Can Unseat Boehner, Group Says

The President and CEO of Conservative Group American Majority Action (AMA) is Demanding Republicans Band Together to Fire House Speaker John Boehner.

“Speaker Boehner has been an abysmal failure as speaker, and his latest purge is the nail in the coffin for conservatives,” AMA’s Ned Ryun said in a statement. “Boehner has never won a negation battle with the White House or Senate—and he’s been nothing short of an embarrassing spokesman for the Conservative Movement. It’s time for him to go.”

Ryun pointed out, too, that if conservatives want to unseat Boehner, they’d only need 16 members to abstain from supporting him in January. That’s because Boehner needs 218 votes to become Speaker again. Seeing as there are 233 House Republicans next Congress, and assuming no Democrats would vote for Boehner as Speaker, if 16 conservative Republicans abstain from voting, Boehner wouldn’t regain the Speakership.

“The Conservative Movement doesn’t realize we only need 16 House votes to block Boehner from becoming Speaker,” Ryun said. “House rules demand nominees for speaker to receive a majority—at least 218 votes—to win election. If 16 members abstain, Boehner only has 217 votes.”

The Republican caucus already locked the votes for leadership slots up in conference shortly after the election, but it has to be made official at the beginning of the next Congress in January. That means conservatives upset with Boehner’s leadership technically could band together to ouster him.

After this week’s Boehner purge of conservatives from influential committee roles, enough Republicans might be perturbed enough to do something about it – especially with Boehner threatening retaliation against more than just the four conservatives he’s already yanked from their committee spots if anyone else doesn’t toe the leadership line.

By Matthew Boyle – December 5th 2012
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/12/05/Only-16-conservatives-necessary-to-unseat-Boehner-as-Speaker-group-says

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The Declaration of Independence 2.0

 :: Posted by Limited Government on 12-04-2012

The Globalist Federal Government Seceded From America

Independence is not a dirty word.

Self-determination is not a dirty word.

Freedom is not a dirty word.

“Our country has already been taken over. I want to secede back to the Republic, back to our nation. The new world order has taken over. We’re not fighting just some corrupt politicians and it’s a little political issue. We have serious, hardcore authoritarians, Ron Paul called them yesterday authoritarian psychopaths, in control. We know what tyranny is historically. This is the worst case of it I’ve ever seen. And it’s growing and coming to fruition very, very quickly.” – Alex Jones, “Talk Show Host Calls For Second American Revolution!” November 15, 2012.

“As over a million Americans express their disenfranchisement with the federal government by supporting a secessionist movement that has spread like wildfire, it is time to call for a new declaration of independence and a new commitment to restore the Republic in the face of an enemy that has subverted America from within.” – Paul Joseph Watson, “Ron Paul: The Founders Believed in Secession,” November 15, 2012.

“We are going to force the issue with the globalists, because here’s the key. We’re not seceding from the federal government. We are recognizing and declaring what is self-evident that the federal government has been hijacked by foreign banking cartels.” – Alex Jones, “TRANSCRIPT: Alex Jones – Secede from the New World Order,” November 15, 2012.

Since when did self-determination become a dirty word? Isn’t this the slogan that America fights for abroad? Why, then, does the U.S. government deny this principle at home? Why is the federal government more interested in the self-determination of Iraqis, Afghans, and Syrians than of Americans?

A government that denies its own basic principles and laws does not deserve to be listened to and followed. Secession from such a poisonous government is a moral and spiritual duty.

Alex Jones is on the right side of history by calling for secession from the bankster-hijacked federal government. He is standing up for America and for freedom-loving people worldwide.

The current oligarchical owners of the U.S. government forfeited their claim to rule the American people when they murdered three thousand innocent Americans on September 11, 2001, and then proceeded to destroy the laws and freedoms of the United States by hyping the fake terrorist threat. They seceded from America on that day. The rightful response is to secede from these savages, counterfeiters, aggressors, and liars.

Secession is not an act of treason, it is one of many peaceful political solutions to problems that have been long in the making. The states can rebuilt the American economy by seceding from the corrupt federal reserve system that stole the federal government from the American people in 1913. They should create their own currencies and issue their own credit to their citizens and businesses since the federal reserve and federal government aren’t doing it.

The federal government can honestly fix economic injustices by either abolishing the corrupt federal reserve system or nationalizing it and reclaiming the right to issue money from the transnational private banking cartel. If this does not happen, then the states have a right and a responsibility to their citizens to secede from a collapsing and morally bankrupt banking system.

The Dollar is dead. The era of private central banking is finished. Public banking is the future. Gold and silver is the future. Honest money is the future. If the federal government will not get on the right side of history then the states must.

If the question is asked, why secede? Give this answer: why obey? The hijacked federal government is proposing austerity and war. It is intellectually, morally, financially, spiritually, and politically bankrupt. Here is an excerpt from the Infowars article, “Why The States Must Secede To Save America”:

“While Americans are being told to brace for tax hikes, spending cuts and a myriad of other austerity measures, the Federal Reserve has been sending trillions of dollars to foreign banks.

The federal government is supposed to represent the states, but it doesn’t, it represents the interests of the political and banking elite who themselves have no allegiance whatsoever to America.”

The age of treason is not over, but there is a new age of global political awakening in which corrupt political leaders and international financial fraudsters are getting the biggest wake up call in history. Humanity wants to be free. The sick perverts who rule England, America, and other nations must step down from office and face the legal consequences of their actions.

The transition to a new age of freedom won’t be easy. But liberty must be fought for in every generation. In our time, the greatest freedom to be won is the freedom of the mind. Totalitarian ideologies such as political Islamism, Zionism, and Counter-Terrorism have deprived nations in the East and the West of this sacred freedom which is the source of all others.

As socially conscious and politically aware global citizens, it is our duty to destroy these totalitarian ideologies and liberate the individual from the prison of systematic government brainwashing. Our demand is clear: The brainwashing of all humans by all governments must end.

We are not mental subjects of governments, but creative children of God, and God has no official state ideology. Governments of the world must recognize this divine demand and stop using the media as a tool to instill propaganda into the minds of their citizens. That is the way of the past. It is a dead way. We live in a different time now, a time of spiritual evolution.

There are creative and peaceful remedies to government brainwashing and mass mind control. The global alternative media is the key to saving liberty because the free access to information is critical if we want to form our own opinions.

In his farewell speech in Congress, Dr. Ron Paul said, “The internet will provide the alternative to the government/media complex that controls the news and most political propaganda.” He also said that the growth in popularity of homeschooling will lead to new thinking, new ideas, and new reforms. Here is an excerpt from his speech:

It is self-evident that our freedoms have been severely limited and the apparent prosperity we still have, is nothing more than leftover wealth from a previous time. This fictitious wealth based on debt and benefits from a false trust in our currency and credit, will play havoc with our society when the bills come due. This means that the full consequence of our lost liberties is yet to be felt.

But that illusion is now ending. Reversing a downward spiral depends on accepting a new approach.

Expect the rapidly expanding homeschooling movement to play a significant role in the revolutionary reforms needed to build a free society with Constitutional protections. We cannot expect a Federal government controlled school system to provide the intellectual ammunition to combat the dangerous growth of government that threatens our liberties.

Government schools are about indoctrination, and “sheep-herding,” as the genius and poet Ezra Pound described it.

Totalitarian governments treat the mass of people as sheep to be brainwashed, robbed, and slaughtered.

The history of the totalitarian states in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union proved that totalitarianism is the death of the soul and the annihilation of the individual.

Individuals in America have a moral and spiritual duty to mentally secede from a war-possessed totalitarian government that is only interested in enslaving, killing, robbing, lying, spying, and cheating. It is the right and honourable course. I stand with them, and with all humans who want to mentally and spiritually secede from oppressive governments.

“Reboot the Republic. . .Reinstall the Declaration of Independence.” – Alex Jones.

November 15, 2012
Posted by Saman Mohammadiat 11:59 PM

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Ron Paul on The Alex Jones Show

 :: Posted by Limited Government on 11-09-2012

Ron Paul on The Alex Jones Show 11/9/12

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Supreme Court May End People’s Right To Sell Their “Personal” Property

 :: Posted by Limited Government on 10-12-2012

Ben Swann Reality Check looks at a case before the Supreme Court that would mean the end “first rule principle” for selling personal property that originates overseas.

Supreme Court To Rule On Your Right To “Resell” Personal Property

Tucked into the U.S. Supreme Court’s agenda this fall is a little-known case that could upend your ability to resell everything from your grandmother’s antique furniture to your iPhone 4.

At issue in Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons is the first-sale doctrine in copyright law, which allows you to buy and then sell things like electronics, books, artwork and furniture, as well as CDs and DVDs, without getting permission from the copyright holder of those products.

Under the doctrine, which the Supreme Court has recognized since 1908, you can resell your stuff without worry because the copyright holder only had control over the first sale.

Put simply, though Apple Inc. AAPL -2.13% has the copyright on the iPhone and Mark Owen has it on the book “No Easy Day,” you can still sell your copies to whomever you please whenever you want without retribution.

That’s being challenged now for products that are made abroad, and if the Supreme Court upholds an appellate court ruling, it would mean that the copyright holders of anything you own that has been made in China, Japan or Europe, for example, would have to give you permission to sell it.

“It means that it’s harder for consumers to buy used products and harder for them to sell them,” said Jonathan Band, an adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law Center, who filed a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of the American Library Association, the Association of College and Research Libraries and the Association for Research Libraries. “This has huge consumer impact on all consumer groups.”

Another likely result is that it would hit you financially because the copyright holder would now want a piece of that sale.

It could be your personal electronic devices or the family jewels that have been passed down from your great-grandparents who immigrated from Spain. It could be a book that was written by an American writer but printed and bound overseas, or an Italian painter’s artwork.

There are implications for a variety of wide-ranging U.S. entities, including libraries, musicians, museums and even resale juggernauts eBay Inc. EBAY -1.54% and Craigslist. U.S. libraries, for example, carry some 200 million books from foreign publishers.

“It would be absurd to say anything manufactured abroad can’t be bought or sold here,” said Marvin Ammori, a First Amendment lawyer and Schwartz Fellow at the New American Foundation who specializes in technology issues.

The case stems from Supap Kirtsaeng’s college experience. A native of Thailand, Kirtsaeng came to America in 1997 to study at Cornell University. When he discovered that his textbooks, produced by Wiley, were substantially cheaper to buy in Thailand than they were in Ithaca, N.Y., he rallied his Thai relatives to buy the books and ship them to him in the United States.

Better made in the U.S.A.

While American men’s brands once prized European craftsmanship or appreciated low-cost production from the Far East, some of the best fashion now is made right here in the U.S. Martin Marks talks menswear. (Photo: AP)

He then sold them on eBay, making upward of $1.2 million, according to court documents.

Wiley, which admitted that it charged less for books sold abroad than it did in the United States, sued him for copyright infringement. Kirtsaeng countered with the first-sale doctrine.

Jennifer Waters
October 7, 2012
http://govtslaves.info/supreme-court-to-rule-on-your-right-to-resell-personal-property/

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Thomas Jefferson Warned Americans About the Dangers of a Federal Reserve Bank – WAKE UP AMERICA!

 :: Posted by Limited Government on 08-11-2012

More than 200 years ago, the great American patriot and author of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, wrote a brilliant essay which outlined the unconstitutional nature of the future United States Federal Reserve and also prophetically warned against its dangers. In his thought-provoking essay, Jefferson discussed the Necessary and Proper Clause of the US Constitution, which the Congress and Supreme Court have subsequently used to justify not only a central bank, but also a federal drug war, federal welfare, federal control of education, Obamacare, and a great deal of other unconstitutional and costly measures.

As Jefferson predicted, if the Necessary clause is determined to be what is convenient rather than what is truly necessary, then the enumerated powers delegated to the federal government will swallow up the broad powers reserved by the states. As a result, America now has one dominant federal government and 50 subservient state governments, rather than 50 independent states that are held together by an extremely limited federal government. The United States Federal Government was only intended to ensure basic human rights, resolve commercial disputes between the states, and provide for mutual defense. The abuse of the Necessary and Proper Clause has effectively destroyed the Tenth Amendment, which Jefferson so succinctly pointed out, “is the foundation of the Constitution.”

Jefferson made this prodigious statement because the ultimate check on governmental authority in America rests upon multiple independent states competing for citizens. If for example, one state raised taxes to high, its citizens would flee to other states. And if one state enacted tyrannical laws, its citizens would have other domiciles of freedom available to them. Now, citizens can not escape a Federal Reserve that inflates their money and steals their savings, a Patriot Act that destroys their right to privacy, a NDAA Act which allows the government to indefinitely detain and murder them without trial, or the plethora of other federal infringements upon their freedom by simply moving to another state. Today, an American would have to renounce his citizenship and move to another country in order to escape such tyrannical legislation.

So far, the Federal Reserve has been responsible for enhancing the damaging effects of the Great Depression, helping to create a housing bubble that led to the current financial crisis, financing countless unjust and destructive wars, inflating the currency (thereby destroying citizens’ savings), transferring America’s wealth from the middle class to the richest bankers, and creating an untenable public debt that will surely lead to default and catastrophe. And shockingly, the American people have yet to learn their lesson. There has not even been an audit of the secretive, privately owned Federal Reserve, or any kind of reasonable oversight by the legislative branch. Americans are still led to believe that they need this institution to guarantee the smooth operation of commerce in the country, even though all the evidence and historical data suggests otherwise.

Jefferson’s Opinion on the Constitutionality of a National Bank : 1791

The bill for establishing a National Bank undertakes among other things:

1. To form the subscribers into a corporation.

2. To enable them in their corporate capacities to receive grants of land; and so far is against the laws of Mortmain.(1)

3. To make alien subscribers capable of holding lands, and so far is against the laws of Alienage.

4. To transmit these lands, on the death of a proprietor, to a certain line of successors; and so far changes the course of Descents.

5. To put the lands out of the reach of forfeiture or escheat, and so far is against the laws of Forfeiture and Escheat.

6. To transmit personal chattels to successors in a certain line and so far is against the laws of Distribution.

7. To give them the sole and exclusive right of banking under the national authority; and so far is against the laws of Monopoly.

8. To communicate to them a power to make laws paramount to the laws of the States; for so they must be construed, to protect the institution from the control of the State legislatures, and so, probably, they will be construed.

I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground: That “all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people.” [XIIth amendment.] To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition.

The incorporation of a bank, and the powers assumed by this bill, have not, min my opinion, been delegated to the United States, by the Constitution.

1. They are not among the powers specially enumerated: for these are: 1st A power to lay taxes for the purpose of paying the debts of the United States; but no debt is paid by this bill, nor any tax laid. Were it a bill to raise money, its origination in the Senate would condemn it by the Constitution.

2. “To borrow money.” But this bill neither borrows money nor ensures the borrowing it. The proprietors of the bank will be just as free as any other money holders, to lend or not to lend their money to the public. The operation proposed in the bill first, to lend them two millions, and then to borrow them back again, cannot change the nature of the latter act, which will still be a payment, and not a loan, call it by what name you please.

3. To “regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the States, and with the Indian tribes.” To erect a bank, and to regulate commerce, are very different acts. He who erects a bank, creates a subject of commerce in its bills, so does he who makes a bushel of wheat, or digs a dollar out of the mines; yet neither of these persons regulates commerce thereby. To make a thing which may be bought and sold, is not to prescribe regulations for buying and selling. Besides, if this was an exercise of the power of regulating commerce, it would be void, as extending as much to the internal commerce of every State, as to its external. For the power given to Congress by the Constitution does not extend to the internal regulation of the commerce of a State, (that is to say of the commerce between citizen and citizen,) which remain exclusively with its own legislature; but to its external commerce only, that is to say, its commerce with another State, or with foreign nations, or with the Indian tribes. Accordingly the bill does not propose the measure as a regulation of trace, but as “productive of considerable advantages to trade.” Still less are these powers covered by any other of the special enumerations.

II. Nor are they within either of the general phrases, which are the two following:

1. To lay taxes to provide for the general welfare of the United States, that is to say, “to lay taxes for the purpose of providing for the general welfare.” For the laying of taxes is the power, and the general welfare the purpose for which the power is to be exercised. They are not to lay taxes ad libitum for any purpose they please; but only to pay the debts or provide for the welfare of the Union. In like manner, they are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare, but only to lay taxes for that purpose. To consider the latter phrase, not as describing the purpose of the first, but as giving a distinct and independent power to do any act they please, which might be for the good of the Union, would render all the preceding and subsequent enumerations of power completely useless.

It would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and, as they would be the sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please.

It is an established rule of construction where a phrase will bear either of two meanings, to give it that which will allow some meaning to the other parts of the instrument, and not that which would render all the others useless. Certainly no such universal power was meant to be given them. It was intended to lace them up straitly within the enumerated powers, and those without which, as means, these powers could not be carried into effect. It is known that the very power now proposed as a means was rejected as an end by the Convention which formed the Constitution. A proposition was made to them to authorize Congress to open canals, and an amendatory one to empower them to incorporate. But the whole was rejected, and one of the reasons for rejection urged in debate was, that then they would have a power to erect a bank, which would render the great cities, where there were prejudices and jealousies on the subject, adverse to the reception of the Constitution.

2. The second general phrase is, “to make all laws necessary and proper for carrying into execution the enumerated powers.” But they can all be carried into execution without a bank. A bank therefore is not necessary, and consequently not authorized by this phrase.

If has been urged that a bank will give great facility or convenience in the collection of taxes, Suppose this were true: yet the Constitution allows only the means which are “necessary,” not those which are merely “convenient” for effecting the enumerated powers. If such a latitude of construction be allowed to this phrase as to give any non-enumerated power, it will go to everyone, for there is not one which ingenuity may not torture into a convenience in some instance or other, to some one of so long a list of enumerated powers. It would swallow up all the delegated powers, and reduce the whole to one power, as before observed. Therefore it was that the Constitution restrained them to the necessary means, that is to say, to those means without which the grant of power would be nugatory

But let us examine this convenience and see what it is. The report on this subject, page 3, states the only general convenience to be, the preventing the transportation and re-transportation of money between the States and the treasury, (for I pass over the increase of circulating medium, ascribed to it as a want, and which, according to my ideas of paper money, is clearly a demerit.) Every State will have to pay a sum of tax money into the treasury; and the treasury will have to pay, in every State, a part of the interest on the public debt, and salaries to the officers of government resident in that State. In most of the States there will still be a surplus of tax money to come up to the seat of government for the officers residing there. The payments of interest and salary in each State may he made by treasury orders on the State collector. This will take up the greater part of the money he has collected in his State, and consequently prevent the great mass of it from being drawn out of the State. If there be a balance of commerce in favor of that State against the one in which the government resides, the surplus of taxes will be remitted by the bills of exchange drawn for that commercial balance. And so it must be if there was a bank. But if there be no balance of commerce, either direct or circuitous, all the banks in the world could not bring up the surplus of taxes, but in the form of money. Treasury orders then, and bills of exchange may prevent the displacement of the main mass of the money collected, without the aid of any bank; and where these fail, it cannot be prevented even with that aid.

Perhaps, indeed, bank bills may be a more convenient vehicle than treasury orders. But a little difference in the degree of convenience cannot constitute the necessity which the Constitution makes the ground for assuming any non-enumerated power.

Besides, the existing banks will, without a doubt, enter into arrangements for lending their agency, and the more favorable, as there will be a competition among them for it; whereas the bill delivers us up bound to the national bank, who are free to refuse all arrangement, but on their own terms, and the public not free, on such refusal, to employ any other bank. That of Philadelphia I believe, now does this business, by their post-notes, which, by an arrangement with the treasury, are paid by any State collector to whom they are presented. This expedient alone suffices to prevent the existence of that necessity which may justify the assumption of a non-enumerated power as a means for carrying into effect an enumerated one. The thing may be done, and has been done, and well done, without this assumption, therefore it does not stand on that degree of necessity which can honestly justify it.

It may be said that a bank whose bills would have a currency all over the States, would be more convenient than one whose currency is limited to a single State. So it would be still more convenient that there should be a bank, whose bills should have a currency all over the world. But it does not follow from this superior conveniency, that there exists anywhere a power to establish such a bank; or that the world may not go on very well without it.

Can it be thought that the Constitution intended that for a shade or two of convenience, more or less, Congress should be authorized to break down the most ancient and fundamental laws of the several States; such as those against Mortmain, the laws of Alienage, the rules of descent, the acts of distribution, the laws of escheat and forfeiture, the laws of monopoly? Nothing but a necessity invincible by any other means, can justify such a prostitution of laws, which constitute the pillars of our whole system of jurisprudence. Will Congress be too strait-laced to carry the Constitution into honest effect, unless they may pass over the foundation-laws of the State government for the slightest convenience of theirs?

The negative of the President is the shield provided by the Constitution to protect against the invasions of the legislature: 1. The right of the Executive. 2. Of the Judiciary. 3. Of the States and State legislatures. The present is the case of a right remaining exclusively with the States, and consequently one of those intended by the Constitution to be placed under its protection.

It must be added, however, that unless the President’s mind on a view of everything which is urged for and against this bill, is tolerably clear that it is unauthorized by the Constitution; if the pro and the con hang so even as to balance his judgment, a just respect for the wisdom of the legislature would naturally decide the balance in favor of their opinion. It is chiefly for cases where they are clearly misled by error, ambition, or interest, that the Constitution has placed a check in the negative of the President.

Endnote:

(1) Though the Constitution controls the laws of Mortmain so far as to permit Congress itself to hold land for certain purposes, yet not so far as to permit them to communicate a similar right to other corporate bodies

The full article on the Federal Reserve can be found here:

August 9, 2012

By Adam Bilzerian

http://thebilzerianreport.com/

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