Tax Reform is Useless Without Spending Reform

written by ron paul
sunday may 18, 2014

Recently, Republican leaders in Congress unveiled a “tax reform” plan that they claimed would provide the American people with a simpler, fairer, and more efficient tax system. While this plan does lower some tax rates and contains some other changes that may make next April a little less painful for Americans, there is little in it to excite supporters of liberty.
Taxes may even increase under this plan for some Americans, as it eliminates some of those tax deductions labeled “loopholes.” When I served in Congress I opposed bills that “closed loopholes” because closing loopholes is just a fancy way of saying raising taxes. Anything that leaves more money in the hands of the people is beneficial to both liberty and economic efficiency. As economist Thomas DiLorenzo put it, “…private individuals always spend their own money more efficiently than government bureaucrats do,” therefore sound economics, as well as a concern for liberty, requires opposition to any proposal to “let government bureaucrats spend more of the people’s hard-earned money.”
Tax reformers also stray from sound economics when they endorse a tax system that is designed to direct consumption and savings. I share the concern that the current tax system distorts people’s behavior by discouraging savings. However, the solution is not for the government to create a tax code that punishes consumption in order to encourage savings. A truly efficient market is one where individuals are completely free to determine how to allocate their incomes between consumption and savings. No politician or bureaucrat can know the proper allocation of savings and investment that meets the needs of every individual, and government policies designed to cause individuals to devote more of their income to savings than they otherwise would distorts the market just as much as policies that encourage excess consumption.
The Republican tax plan adopts what is called “dynamic scoring.” Dynamic scoring is designed to recognize that tax cuts, by incentivizing work and investment, can increase revenue to the government. This is the argument of the famous Laffer curve. It has always seemed odd to me that a supposed free-market economist would argue for tax cuts on the grounds that it would enrich the state’s coffers. After all, the more money the state has the greater its ability to violate our liberties. Does this mean that those concerned with liberty should vote against tax cuts? Of course not; the solution is to make sure tax cuts are big enough that they cost the government revenue.
Sadly, politicians in Washington refuse to consider any tax plan that would decrease government revenue. This is because the prevalent attitude in DC favors protecting the welfare-warfare state over protecting our liberties. As the obsession with the Laffer curve shows, even many alleged supporters of the free market only pretend to support liberty as a means to enhance the well-being of the welfare-warfare state.
Many politicians in Washington also forget that deficit spending is itself a tax. When the government runs deficits it uses money that could be more efficiently used by the private sector. Deficit spending also leads the Federal Reserve to monetize debt, thus burdening people with the inflation tax.
Instead of worrying over the latest plan to enable the government to more efficiently take our money, people who want to advance liberty must focus on breaking the intellectual and political consensus in support of the welfare-warfare state. Only then can we radically reduce all taxes, including the most insidious and regressive of taxes — the inflation tax.
 

Related

• US Military Training Overseas: Vast and Under-Reported – 16 April 2013
• The Coming Non-Intervention Revolution – 16 April 2013
• The Interventionist Failures and How To Fix Them – 17 April 2013
• Scenes From the Ron Paul Institute Press Conference – 22 April 2013
• Congress Exploits Our Fears to Take Our Liberty – 22 April 2013

http://www.activistpost.com/2014/05/california-senate-passes-bill-to-pull.html?m=1

…and obama is running scared, hang ’em high!
http://poorrichardsnews.com/post/86313696598/obama-dismisses-benghazi-investigation-at-fund-raiser

http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israel-put-palestinian-children-outdoor-cages-during-winter-storm

Wild Wyoming cloud wows weatherwatchers.

http://youtu.be/uzylgCQkj4U

It would be appropriate today for members of the House to reflect on the words of the first person awarded a Congressional Gold Medal—President George Washington. In particular, they may read Washington’s farewell address, in which Washington encouraged the United States government to follow a noninterventionist foreign policy. You cannot square Washington’s recommendation with having an “unbreakable bond” with any foreign government. Unlike House Majority Leader Eric Cantor who twists Washington into a champion of a world-wide interventionist agenda, some House members may find wisdom in the reading.

http://ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/congress-alert/2014/may/19/us-house-considers-gold-medal-for-shimon-peres,-bill-touts-us-israel-%E2%80%9Cunbreakable-bond%E2%80%9D.aspx

image Wikipedia Commons
Catherine J. Frompovich
Activist Post
The most damning aspersion that can be lobbed against any person, or the exposure of “secret government activity,” overwhelmingly is “Conspiracy Theorist.” That pejorative ‘handle’ is equated with imbecile mind-activity with aspersions often suggested as ‘tin hat wearers’. Well, step aside all you doubters and listen up carefully to what took place in the halls of Congress on May 14, 2014 regarding the weather modification system known as HAARP.
In the YouTube below Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) asks some pointed questions about HAARP. However, readers may not be surprised at the answers, but the mainstream media ought to be wiping oodles of egg yolk from its collective face.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RX3IOHpe6sY
In the report “Air Force Admits Weather Control via HAARP and New Tech,” David Walker, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Science, Technology and Engineering, very-matter-of-factly states that they took over from the Navy and will be moving on

to managing the ionosphere, what the HAARP was really designed to do, to inject energy into the ionosphere to be able to actually control it… [CJF emphasis added]

Furthermore, the U.S. Air Force intends to dismantle the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) in Gakona, Alaska, by or during the summer of 2014! [1]

Built at a cost of more than $290 million, the site has 180 antennas on 30 acres that are used to direct energy into the ionosphere, which is 55 miles to 370 miles above the Earth, and monitor changes in the flow of charged particles. Stevens was the godfather of HAARP, which he helped start two decades ago with annual earmarks slipped into the defense budget. [1]

It seems that no research facility can be found to take over the HAARP Alaska facility. Could that be an indication that the weather modification system is regarded unfavorably? I find that as a possibility and extremely interesting, especially in view of all the technology that was invested and built into it. If no one wants to continue operating HAARP, will the State of Alaska be interested in it for education research purposes? But then, maybe HAARP-at-sea-ships, i.e., the Tesla Weapon Platform SBX-1, probably will be the most effective ‘on-site’ HAARP facility rather than one remotely stationary on land.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqhME0dD5Ds
However, there are numerous HAARP facilities in other countries around the globe that the Tesla Weapon Platform SBX-1 possibly could interact with. But then, we have to wonder what Assistant Secretary Walker was referring to when he stated that they got out of HAARP Alaska what they wanted and were moving on…moving on to what?
May 2nd, 2014, I published “What’s With the Weather and Chemtrails?”  Readers may want to review in light of the latest “bombshell” acknowledgement by Walker at a Congressional hearing.
Conspiracy theories and theorists truly have been vindicated about HAARP.
Knowing the dogged research we, who are proclaimed ‘tin hat theorists’, perform and circulate, this writer feels extremely confident that other information regarded as ‘conspiracy theories’ about vaccines and other ‘sacred cow’ secrets also will be vindicated at some forthcoming date—just when, who knows—since it all depends upon who has the integrity to stand up and tell the facts of what’s been going on that the U.S. media, press, TV, and controllers won’t permit be made public until it’s too late to get objection going to stop the destruction of the planet and humankind.
It’s graduation time, theorists. Throw your tin hats into the air and let them fall wherever they may land. Hopefully, they will land on some mainstream media journalists’ heads so they can wear them and become empowered to tell the facts of what’s really going on.
Notes:
[1] http://www.adn.com/2014/05/14/3470442/air-force-prepares-to-dismantle.html?sp=/99/100/&ihp=1
Catherine J Frompovich (website) is a retired natural nutritionist who earned advanced degrees in Nutrition and Holistic Health Sciences, Certification in Orthomolecular Theory and Practice plus Paralegal Studies. Her work has been published in national and airline magazines since the early 1980s. Catherine authored numerous books on health issues along with co-authoring papers and monographs with physicians, nurses, and holistic healthcare professionals. She has been a consumer healthcare researcher 35 years and counting.
Catherine’s latest book, published October 4, 2013, is Vaccination Voodoo, What YOU Don’t Know About Vaccines, available on Amazon.com.
Her 2012 book A Cancer Answer, Holistic BREAST Cancer Management, A Guide to Effective & Non-Toxic Treatments, is available on Amazon.com and as a Kindle eBook.
Two of Catherine’s more recent books on Amazon.com are Our Chemical Lives And The Hijacking Of Our DNA, A Probe Into What’s Probably Making Us Sick (2009) and Lord, How Can I Make It Through Grieving My Loss, An Inspirational Guide Through the Grieving Process (2008).



Conspiracy Theorists Vindicated: HAARP Confirmed Weather-manipulation Tool
Activist
Sat, 17 May 2014 16:50:00 GMT

Monsanto, Dow, Dupont, Kellogg’s, General Mills, Coca-Cola. These are just a few of the 300-plus members of the GMA. Combined, they own more than 6,000 brand name products, including foods, beverages, seeds, home and garden supplies, pet food, herbicides and pesticides.

http://www.organicconsumers.org/bytes/ob425.html#article2

Anthony Freda Art

Susan Boskey
Activist Post
How in the world did we get here? Families struggle with the joblessness and debt left by the corporate takeover of life. They are bombarded with a mean-spirited right/left emotional tone in public debate which gets nastier by the day. All the while, “The Powers That Be” (TPTB) are full-speed ahead inventing new ways to expand laws to micro-manage the lives of everyday Americans. Who knew?
Kick the bums out! Elect leaders who care! Reform the system! Get money out of election campaigns! Protest! Amend the Constitution to get rid of human privileges by corporations! Write your Congressman! And don’t forget to vote!
But really, aren’t we simply witnessing too little too late?
The quest for political reform fails to address the source of the problem. The real culprit is the way we humans think and behave and how our behavior so often falls to the lowest common denominator of what we can get away with. The “do no harm” adage of the Golden Rule as what works in human relations holds little sway in the 21st century digital world. Instead, the mantra which rules, spoken mostly in hushed tones, goes something like, “Get as much as you can any way you can.”
Certainly we find unspeakably corrupt behavior played out in politics and business, but lo and behold, such deceitful behavior begins squarely with the lowly individual. Name-calling, lying, cheating, bullying, stealing, back-biting, character assassination and the joy of dominating others, describes a few of the choices people make at home, at work and, of course, in politics. Considered practically normal, this style of relating is the basic personal crisis of conscience justified by, “but everyone is doing it!”

The Invisible Power of Context

Americans are culturally conditioned to believe that their country is the foundation of freedom and truth and they have neither knowledge nor interest to fact-check what their leaders and media tell them. – Lawrence Davidson, professor of history, West Chester University in Pennsylvania, 2014

A country’s political and financial “container,” or context, has the power to shape and define the scope of possibilities for its people. However, we lose sight of this fact and instead focus on the problems caused by governing systems. For example, American education teaches a version of American history that consistently overlooks and under-reports certain events, particularly those leading up to and surrounding the creation of the Constitution of the United States and the U.S. Government. It was by these events that the direction of the country was forever changed in ways that departed greatly from what we have been led to believe. A universal principle is at work here: any context, political or otherwise, has overarching influence on the content within it, e.g. as does the sun on every aspect of its solar system.
In this essay, I hope to shed light on a couple of the missing pieces to the puzzle of a pivotal moment in American history. Perhaps the reader will take away a bigger picture and begin to consider how what happened then laid the foundation for the financial, political, social and personal ills faced by the 99% today, and also discover the hidden-in-plain-view remedy available for the taking.
The First Form of Governance in America
The story of America began with British colonists-turned-Americans and their individual rights and self-governance even as the American Revolution was underway. Setting the stage was the Declaration of Independence, ratified on July 4, 1776, and the first federal constitution, the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, drafted mid-1776 (hereafter called the Articles or first constitution). John Dickinson of Pennsylvania penned the combined input of the delegates from each of the thirteen colonies that convened to create the Articles, America’s first governing document. It was adopted November 1777, and ratified in 1781 by all thirteen fledgling states.
In effect, this first constitution elevated the common man to the same status as that of a sovereign king, i.e. a self-governing “free inhabitant.” Each of the several states functioned autonomously within a purely voluntary and decentralized federal system. English Common Law, based on God-given “natural” law, was inherited from England as the law of the land. Thomas Jefferson, in the Declaration of Independence, discerned the existence of a new American jurisdiction and the lack of authority British King George III had over it while referring to the first American constitution:

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

The stated purpose of the new, loosely-formed Union was to fend together against foreign invasion. United under the Articles, free inhabitants of the several states were able to protect themselves in ways not otherwise possible separately. The period of 1777 to 1789 was a time of general prosperity in America as the earliest Americans enjoyed benefits of the confederation without obligation of federal citizenship.

The said States hereby severally enter into a firm league of friendship with each other, for their common defense, the security of their liberties, and their mutual and general welfare, binding themselves to assist each other, against all force offered to, or attacks made upon them, or any of them, on account of religion, sovereignty, trade, or any other pretense whatever. —“The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union,” 1781

Not long after the 1781 ratification of the Articles, federal leaders agreed on what they saw as the many weaknesses inherent to the Articles since provisions for a supreme court, a commerce clause, the regulation of foreign trade, a standing army and the enforcement of taxation, had not been included. Over the years historians agreed the Articles were a failure, an opinion few would ever challenge.
In 1787 the Congress of the Confederation authorized that the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention could be held, however, with a resolution of specific, clearly stated limitations, “for the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation and reporting to Congress and the several legislatures.”
As they say, the rest is history. It was at the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention that the 1787 Constitution of the United States came into existence. Interestingly, most Americans believe that it was with this second constitution that the country began. Ask anyone, and most people will tell you they had little to no idea about the years of American history prior to 1787.
The Articles have been listed as one of the four Organic Laws (founding laws) of the United States of America, along with the Declaration of the United States of America, 1776, the Northwest Ordinance, 1787 and the Constitution of the United States 1787, listed at the beginning of the U.S. Code (official compilation of all U.S. laws).
The Second Form of Governance in America
As people know from experience there are two sides to any story. Yet few learn the other side of the story about America’s beginnings. The other side of the American story reveals how to many Americans at that time, the idea of the 1787 Constitution of the United States was less about “a more perfect union…of, by and for the people” and more about implementing the Federalist plan to concentrate federal power in the hands of a few.
Free inhabitants, led by the likes of Patrick Henry, feared exactly this, a centralized system reminiscent of a form of governance like that of the British Empire they had so recently escaped. Behind the cover of patriotism, it turns out that their fears were well-founded, The Constitution of 1787 and the U.S. Government it established was nothing less than a bloodless coup of the original American jurisdiction and way of life by a small group of powerful businessmen.
The short version of the coup is that at the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention the Framers of the 1787 Constitution ignored the Congress of the Confederation’s resolution allowing only revisions to the Articles. Instead, they created an entirely new (unauthorized) second constitution and in 1789 proclaimed it ratified, though by only nine states and not the thirteen, as required by the Articles. On their own terms and by their own authority, the Framers created an illegitimate constitution and instituted a U.S. Government of manmade statutory law.
The creation of this second constitution and its government slipped in under the radar of most free inhabitants because they did not have the higher education necessary (as did the Framers) to figure out what had just happened. Many believed what the Federalist Papers told them; they would be recipients of a “more perfect union” because “all power of government was with the people.”
Yet for Patrick Henry and his cohorts, the incremental erosion of freedoms and liberties upon the establishment of the new U.S. Government did not go unnoticed. Essentially, these were the structural shifts from English Common Law to manmade statutory law, and from decentralized self-governance of “do no harm” to a centralized government of compelled performance (force). Autocratic government representation reverted back to serving the interests of an elite tyranny of the minority, the wealthy landowners.
Fast forward to today and the many statutory laws and regulations such as the Patriot Act and the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) legalizing indefinite detention of U.S. Citizens while denying them a trial by jury. By written law, U.S. Citizens have become potential enemy combatants or domestic terrorists, i.e. enemies of the state. Who benefits?
Herein is the overarching national myth for those with ears to hear: the myth is that we live in a nation of, by, and for the people. The second constitution marked a turning point backward, not forward, for the American people because the model for the U.S. Government used by the Framers was the British Monarchy, a fact well-documented in the notes of delegates attending the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention. Rule by a few, defined as oligarchy, differs only slightly from rule by a monarchy. Oligarchy (olig-archy) offers a handful of additional rulers beyond one king (mon – archy). The late comedian Bill Hicks described it this way, “You are free to do as we tell you.”
The Good News of Territorial Jurisdiction
As mentioned above, the body of law recognized by the first constitution was English Common Law, also known as unwritten law. Whereas under the second constitution the body of law recognized was statutory law, also known as written law. A statute is written by a state or federal authority. A characteristic of all written laws is that they must identify the boundaries (physical borders) of the land it owns, within which live the people to whom (and only to whom) its laws apply, also known as territorial jurisdiction.
While the Supremacy Clause of the second constitution declares it to be “the supreme law of the land,” former attorney and law researcher Dr. Eduardo Rivera says, not so fast. He asserts that the claim of supremacy is limited to the lands within the United States territorial jurisdiction. Therefore, statutory law of the U.S. Government applies exclusively to Americans living on federally-owned lands.
In 1807, Supreme Court Justice John Marshall delivered the death blow to the authority of English Common Law in the U.S. court system. In the decision, Ex parte Bollman and Swartwout 4 Cranch 75, he stated that written law (i.e. statutory law) was the exclusive law of the United States courts. His decision confirmed that a jurisdiction is defined by written law and “cannot transcend that jurisdiction.” A common law and statutory law system could exist simultaneously as different territorial jurisdictions.

Courts which originate in the common law possess a jurisdiction which must be regulated by their common law, until some statute shall change their established principles; but courts which are created by written law, and whose jurisdiction is defined by written law, cannot transcend that jurisdiction. The reasoning from the bar, in relation to it, may be answered by the single observation, that for the meaning of the term habeas corpus, resort may unquestionably be had to the common law; but the power to award the writ by any of the courts of the United States, must be given by written law. —Ex parte Bollman and Swartwout 4 Cranch 75 (emphasis added)

It has historically been well-established that King George III ceded his thirteen colonies to the new United States of America. Less well-known is that with the second constitution, lands that had been owned by the temporary government of the Northwest Ordinance were transferred in ownership to the newly formed United States/U.S. Government in 1789. Americans living within the borders of the Northwest Territory were, therefore, the (only) Americans subject to the statutory law of the new U.S. Government. Otherwise, the free inhabitants of the thirteen original states remained under the territorial jurisdiction of the first constitution and English Common Law by which they had been created.
What makes this period in American history so significant today? Since the Articles were never legally repealed (in writing), they not only remain valid per the Organic Laws above mentioned, but also as the governing document for current-day free inhabitants NOT living on federally-owned land. It is no surprise we were never told.
Why should you care about any of this? There’s a maxim in law that says, “Things that are different are not the same.” Apples are not oranges, right?
Apples: first constitution/decentralized several states/voluntary federal participation/ English Common Law/conscience/God-given rights
Oranges: second constitution/centralized federal government/compelled performance (force)/statutory law/commerce/manmade legislated rights (privileges)
Two totally different territorial jurisdictions exist simultaneously in America today. What Jefferson said in the Declaration of Independence about King George III being unable to subject the new Americans to a foreign jurisdiction reverberates today with a U.S. Government and its “Acts of pretended Legislation,” meaning those of a foreign jurisdiction that actually has succeeded in subjecting free inhabitants to laws that do not apply to them.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation.

Federally-Owned Lands
Federal land ownership has changed and expanded beyond the time when it was only the land inside the Northwest Territory that was federally owned. Now “the Federal Zone” is a force to be reckoned with. A government document, “Congressional Research Service: Federal Land Ownership: Overview and Data 2012” reports, “The federal government owns roughly 635-640 million acres, 28% of the 2.27 billion acres of land in the United States.” Including:

1. The District of Columbia
2. Federal Zones within States and Counties and lands of the Bureau of Land Management 
3. Territories of the United States 
4. U.S. and Overseas Military Bases  
5. Foreign Embassies, Veteran’s Hospitals and U.S. Post Offices 
6. U.S. Coastal Waters
7. National Parks
8. Most U.S. Airport Property

You Can’t Get There from Here
The number of Americans who agree that the federal system is broken and cannot be fixed is growing despite those who keep trying. A centralized U.S. Government of statutory law is largely a commercial system governed by the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC). Given the structural design and operating principles of consolidation and centralization of such a system, power thereby defaults into the hands of a few. While these principles of an overarching commercial system remain firmly intact, there can be no possibility for genuine reform. It is structurally impossible.
Libido dominante, the lust for power, coined 2000 years ago to describe the founder of the Roman Empire, Augustus Caesar, is still what drives people, and especially in a system where so much of life (including people and nature) has been commoditized. The lust for power, no matter how you slice it, unleashes the worst of human behavior that affects people and places. Individually we neglect to look in the mirror, admit culpability as imperfect creatures, and commit to making changes in the only way change can begin and take root – with ourselves. When enough of us, from “authorities” to celebrities and children, voluntarily replace self-interest with conscience as our operating principle and reclaim the willingness to “do the right thing” in any situation, only then can something collectively amazing happen for America.

It is said that power corrupts, but actually it’s more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power.  – David Brin, author

Free-inhabitant Americans today have unwittingly become the beneficiaries of the lost authority of the Articles. Given the continued validity of this governing document, individuals, families and organizations can set out to reconfigure their relationship with a foreign jurisdiction of U.S. Government statutory laws that do not apply to them. In order for a renaissance of individual freedoms and liberties to take hold and be sustained, it will be because the first constitution and all it stands for has again had life breathed into it.
Please do your own research to confirm the information I have shared in this essay. May this, the other side of the American story, inspire and encourage you in ways that make a difference. Thank you for your kind attention.
Susan Boskey, alternative financial consultant, thinker, freelance researcher and writer, author of the book, The Quality Life Plan®: 7 Steps to Uncommon Financial Security www.AlternativeFinancialNow.com and was instrumental in bringing to market the book, Beyond the National Myth: waking up in the land of the free.

Seeing the Forest for the Trees: The Two Constitutions of America
Activist
Sat, 17 May 2014 16:11:00 GMT

Posted on April 25, 2014by Food for the Thinkers

By Doug Newman – email me
________________________________________________________
Sometimes I just want to pimp slap people.
Last summer, I was at dinner during a sales convention. The conversation didn’t get political until someone mentioned the NSA.
There is one in every crowd. Someone piped up and said, “They can spy on me all they want. I am not doing anything wrong.”
They sang this song in Germany in 1933. And they sang it with unprecedented gusto in the months following 9/11, all in the name of  “security” and “keeping us safe”.

We were at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, the world’s second largest hotel. Nothing in the post-9/11 “national security” apparatus would prevent a terrorist from walking in, setting off a bomb, and killing hundreds or even thousands of people.
The more important questions are: How do you know you are doing nothing that could be construed as wrong by some state functionary? How do you know you are not breaking some law somewhere? And why are you so implicitly trusting that your government would never do anything evil with the information it has collected on you?
This is not purely an academic matter. The practical implications are profound.
I give you several examples.
1. Niakea Williams went to her son’s St. Louis-area elementary school one day to pick up her son, who has Asperger’s. The school was put on lockdown and Mrs. Williams was escorted out in handcuffs.
2. Adrionna Harris was almost expelled from her middle school in Virginia Beach after taking a razor blade away from a fellow student who was trying to harm himself.
3. Read what Houston police did to this man who gave 75 cents to a homeless person.
4. A little known Denver parking ordinance can get you a $25 fine even if you haven’t exceeded the two-hour limit.
5. Police in Iowa City, Iowa, seized $50,000 from this couple without charging them with a crime.
6. Alberto Willmore lost his teaching job in Manhattan over a totally bogus marijuana arrest. Even though he was never convicted of anything, he was unable to get his job back.
7. Norman Gurley was arrested in Lorain County, Ohio, because a compartment in his car could have been used to transport drugs.
8. Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies shot and killed 80-year-old Eugene Mallory in his own bed during a meth raid. No meth, or any other illegal drugs, was discovered.
9. Paul Valin contacted police to report that he found a backpack full of what he believed to be meth-making equipment 15 miles from his home near Des Moines. As a result, the DEA placed his house on its list of meth labs.

Ryan Holle
10. Ryan Holle of Pensacola, Florida, lent his roommate his car on night in 2004. As a result, Holle is currently serving a life sentence without possibility of parole for pre-meditated murder.
11. New York police seized Gerald Bryan’s cash in a nighttime raid in 2012. Even though Bryan was cleared of any wrongdoing, the stolen cash was deposited in the NYPD pension fund.
12. Robert Duncan is currently serving two years in a California prison, even though the business in which he worked was legal in California.
13. Jordan Wiser spent 13 days in jail after Jefferson, Ohio, police found a pocketknife during a warrantless search of his car.
14. During a school lockdown in Clarksville, Tennessee, David Duren-Sanner gave police permission to search his car as he had “nothing to hide”. Police found a fishing knife. Duren-Sanner, who previously had never been to the principal’s office, was suspended for 10 days and then sent to an alternative school for 90 days.
15. Look what happened to these parents in Napa, California, even though the medical marijuana prescriptions they had were completely legal.

Eileen and Brandon Bower
16. Eileen Ann Bower of suburban Pittsburgh had her newborn child taken from her for 75 days because of a false positive drug test.
17. Jerry Hartfield of Bay City, Texas, has spent the majority of his life in prison, even though his conviction was overturned in 1980.
18. Jason Dewing of update New York wasfound guilty of violating a law that did not exist.
19. Don Miller of Waldron, Indiana, had his home raided by FBI agents who seized hundreds of cultural artifacts from around the world. Miller was neither arrested nor charged with anything.

Fedcoats raid Don Miller’s house.
20. This San Diego couple was pepper-sprayed and tasered by police who had erroneously identified their vehicle after being stolen.
21. The good news is that Brian Aitken of Mount Laurel, New Jersey, had his prison sentence commuted. The bad news is that he was originally sentenced to seven years behind bars for possessing two legally purchased guns.
22. This special needs student in McDonald, Pennsylvania, was charged with felony wiretapping for recording other students who were bullying him mercilessly.

Abner Schoenwetter
23. Abner Schoenwetter of Miami served over six years in prison for – you can’t make this stuff up – violating Honduran fisheries law.
24. Read what happened to John Filippidis of Hudson, Florida, when he was pulled over by state police while driving unarmed through Maryland.
25. In a case of mistaken identity, Lewis James of Durham, North Carolina, “was handcuffed and later jailed under a $1.425 million bond” after he had contacted the police to notify them of a dead body in the middle of the road. As someone put it on Facebook, “Don’t call the cops. Ever. Even if you find a dead body. Just don’t ever call the cops.”
26. Read what happened to Diane Avera of Meridian, Mississippi, when she went to Alabama to buy Sudafed, even though she did not know that this was illegal.

Andy Johnson and family.
27. Andy Johnson of Uinta County, Wyoming, faces EPA fines of $75,000 per day for building a pond on land that he owns.
28. Douglas Zerby of Long Beach was shot and killed by police while watering his lawn because some idiot neighbor thought the hose nozzle was a gun.
29. Darien Roseen was arrested and had his vehicle searched by sheriff’s deputies in Payette County, Idaho, simply because his Colorado license plates led them to believe that he could have been carrying marijuana.

Brian Banks was a high school All-American linebacker whose career and life were interrupted by a false rape conviction. The Atlanta Falcons gave Banks a tryout in 2013.
30. Brian Banks of Long Beach spent five years in prison and five more years as a registered sex offender as a result of a rape conviction. And then his accuser changed her story.
These are not “isolated incidents.” There are no doubt countless other examples of people who were doing nothing wrong, yet were harshly punished.
Also, consider the following:
• The Internal Revenue Code is 73,955 pages and millions of words long. No one has read it cover-to-cover and no one knows every aspect of it. Yet if anyone violates any of its provisions it can mean fines, prison or even death.

• We are often told that “ignorance of the law is no defense.” To the right is a picture of the Yale Law Library. Do you know every law contained within these tomes?

• Read what various emissaries of the Amerikan police state have done to these veterans who went all over the world to“fight for our freedom.”

• Seventy-two types of Americans are classified as terrorists in various government documents. Senator Harry Reid has now added a seventy-third category.
• Read how police have used asset forfeiture laws to seize millions of dollars from people without charging them with any crimes.

• Read this list of eight ways people commit felonies without even knowing it.

• Read this article and pay special attention to these words from former NSA official William Binney: “The problem is, if they think they’re not doing anything that’s wrong, they don’t get to define that. The central government does.”
• Read how the Innocence Project has helped exonerate over 300 wrongfully imprisoned people, many of whom were on death row.
• Attorney Harvey Silverglate argues that the average American commits three felonies a day without even knowing it.
• This Ford executive claims that, thanks to GPS, “we know everyone who breaks the law.”
• Although it has been estimated that there are over 3000 types of federal criminal offenses, no one knows the exact number for sure.
So, do you still feel you have nothing to fear?
__________________________________
Fascinating article from The Chronicle of Higher Education:“Why Privacy Matters Even If You Have ‘Nothing to Hide’”.

Federal District Court judge orders halt to force-feeding, Forcible Cell Extraction of prisoner; orders video evidence must be kept.

– Andrea Germanos, staff writer

In a decision welcomed as “a major crack in Guantanamo’s years-long effort to oppress prisoners,” a federal judge on Friday ordered the United States to halt the force-feeding and “Forcible Cell Extractions” of a prisoner at the notorious offshore prison.
The order from District Court Judge Gladys Kessler also requires the U.S. to preserve videotapes of the FCEs and force-feedings of the inmate, Abu Wa’el Dhiab.
Forcible Cell Extractions or FCEs refer to when a team of guards forcibly remove from his cell a prisoner who refuses to submit to the torturous process of force-feeding.
According to Reprieve, a UK-based rights group that represents 15 Guantanamo prisoners, including Dhiab, the 42-year old Syrian was arrested in 2002 in Pakistani, where he and his family were living, and was turned over the the United States.
He has spent over a decade languishing at the prison, was never charged and was cleared for release in 2009. He is depressed and wheelchair-bound, the group says.
As we reported earlier this week,

the Department of Defense acknowledged this week for the first time that it possesses videos depicting the force-feeding of inmates—a highly controversial process that has been condemned as torture and a violation of international law by the United Nations human rights office.

But Lawyers for the Obama administration had dismissed as “frivolous” Dhiab’s legal attempts to prevent the destruction of videotape evidence of this FCEs and force-feedings.
As Charlie Savage noted in his reporting for the New York Times, Judge Kessler is the same judge who last year in a ruling said it was “perfectly clear” that “force-feeding is a painful, humiliating and degrading process.”
Kessler’s order delivered Friday “is a major crack in Guantanamo’s years-long effort to oppress prisoners and to exercise total control over information about the prison,” stated Reprieve attorney for Abu Wa’el Dhiab, Cori Crider.
“Dhiab is cleared for release and should have been returned to his family years ago. He is on hunger strike because he feels he has no other option left. I am glad Judge Kessler has taken this seriously, and we look forward to our full day in court to expose the appalling way Dhiab and others have been treated,” Crider stated.

How the NSA & FBI made Facebook the perfect mass surveillance tool

Image Credit: ansik
May 15, 2014 6:48 AM
Harrison Weber
Update May 15 at 3:11 PM ET: Facebook and Akamai responded to VentureBeat’s report.
The National Security Agency and the FBI teamed up in October 2010 to develop techniques for turning Facebook into a surveillance tool.
Documents released alongside security journalist Glenn Greenwald’s new book, “No Place To Hide,” reveal the NSA and FBI partnership, in which the two agencies developed techniques for exploiting Facebook chats, capturing private photos, collecting IP addresses, and gathering private profile data.
According to the slides below, the agencies’ goal for such collection was to capture “a very rich source of information on targets,” including “personal details, ‘pattern of life,’ connections to associates, [and] media.”

NSA documents make painfully clear how the agencies collected information “by exploiting inherent weaknesses in Facebook’s security model” through its use of the popular Akamaicontent delivery network. The NSA describes its methods as “assumed authentication,” and “security through obscurity.”

The slide below shows how the NSA and U.K. spy agency GCHQ also worked together to “obtain profile and album images.”

Two months ago, following a series of Facebook-related NSA spying leaks, Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg stated in a blog post that he’s “confused and frustrated by the repeated reports of the behavior of the U.S. government.”
According to a report by The Intercept, the above slides do not reveal the NSA’s Facebook surveillance program in full. The report states that the NSA also “disguises itself as a fake Facebook server” to perform “man-in-the-middle” and “man-on-the-side” attacks and spread malware [below].
As we wrote at the time, the “NSA’s Facebook targeting is reportedly a response to the declining success of other malware injection techniques. Previous techniques included the use of “spam emails that trick targets into clicking a malicious link.”
Following the report, released in March, Zuckerberg said, “When our engineers work tirelessly to improve security, we imagine we’re protecting you against criminals, not our own government.”
Zuckerberg claimed he disapproved of the NSA’s actions and said that he’s spoken to president Barack Obama by phone to “express [his] frustration over the damage the government is creating for all of our future.”
VentureBeat has reached out to both Akamai and Facebook for comment on the matter.

A web of deception has finally been untangled: the Justice Department got the US supreme court to dismiss a case that could have curtailed the NSA’s dragnet. Why?

• 
  • Trevor Timm
  • theguardian.com, Saturday 17 May 2014 07.54 EDT

It turns out neither of two statements that held up in the nation’s highest court were true – but it took Snowden’s historic whistleblowing to prove it. Photograph: Philippe Lopez / AFP / Getty Images
If you blinked this week, you might have missed the news: two Senatorsaccused the Justice Department of lying about NSA warrantless surveillance to the US supreme court last year, and those falsehoods all but ensured that mass spying on Americans would continue. But hardly anyone seems to care – least of all those who lied and who should have already come forward with the truth.
Here’s what happened: just before Edward Snowden became a household name, the ACLU argued before the supreme court that the Fisa Amendments Act – one of the two main laws used by the NSA to conduct mass surveillance – was unconstitutional.
In a sharply divided opinion, the supreme court ruled, 5-4, that the case should be dismissed because the plaintiffs didn’t have “standing” – in other words, that the ACLU couldn’t prove with near-certainty that their clients, which included journalists and human rights advocates, were targets of surveillance, so they couldn’t challenge the law. As the New York Times noted this week, the court relied on two claims by the Justice Department to support their ruling: 1) that the NSA would only get the content of Americans’ communications without a warrant when they are targeting a foreigner abroad for surveillance, and 2) that the Justice Department would notify criminal defendants who have been spied on under the Fisa Amendments Act, so there exists some way to challenge the law in court.
It turns out that neither of those statements were true – but it took Snowden’s historic whistleblowing to prove it.
One of the most explosive Snowden revelations exposed a then-secret technique known as “about” surveillance. As the New York Times first reported, the NSA “is searching the contents of vast amounts of Americans’ e-mail and text communications into and out of the country, hunting for people who mention information about foreigners under surveillance.” In other words, the NSA doesn’t just target a contact overseas – it sweeps up everyone’s international communications into a dragnet and searches them for keywords.
The Snowden leaks also pushed the Justice Department to admit – contrary to what it told the court – that the government hadn’t been notifying any defendants they were being charged based on NSA surveillance, making it actually impossible for anyone to prove they had standing to challenge the Fisa Amendments Act as unconstitutional.
It’s unclear how much Solicitor General Donald Verrilli knew when he told the government’s lies – twice – to the justices of the supreme court.Reports suggest that he was livid when he found out that his national security staff at the Justice Department misled him about whether they were notifying defendants in criminal trials of surveillance. And we don’t know if he knew about the “about” surveillance that might well have given the ACLU standing in the case. But we do know other Justice Department officials knew about both things, and they have let both lies stand without correcting the record.
Lawyers before the supreme court are under an ethical obligation to correct the record if they make false statements to the Court – even if they are unintentional – yet the Justice Department has so far refused. As ACLU deputy legal director Jameel Jaffer explained, the Justice Department has corrected the record in other cases where it was much less clear-cut whether it had misled the court.
The government’s response, instead, has been to explain why it doesn’t think these statements are lies. In a letter to Senators Ron Wyden and Mark Udall that only surfaced this week, the government made the incredible argument that the “about” surveillance was classified at the time of the case, so it was under no obligation to tell the supreme court about it. And the Justice Department completely sidestepped the question of whether it lied about notifying defendants, basically by saying that it started to do so after the case, and so this was somehow no longer an issue.
But there’s another reason the government wanted any challenge to the Fisa Amendments Act dismissed without being forced to argue that it doesn’t violate the Fourth Amendment: it has an extremely controversial view about your (lack of) privacy rights, and probably doesn’t want anyone to know. As Jaffer wrote here at the Guardian earlier this week, the government has since been forced to defend the Fisa Amendments Act, and it’s pretty shocking how they’ve done it. Here’s what the government said in a recent legal brief:

The privacy rights of US persons in international communications are significantly diminished, if not completely eliminated, when those communications have been transmitted to or obtained from non-US persons located outside the United States.

This is an incredibly radical view of the right to privacy. We already know the government does not think you have any right to privacy when it comes who you talk to, or when, or for how long, or where you are while you’re talking. Now the government has said, in court, that you don’t have any right to the content of private conversations with anyone who is located outside the United States – or to any domestic communication remaining private if it is, at some point, transmitted overseas, which happens often. Jaffer explained the consequences of this view:

If the government is right, nothing in the Constitution bars the NSA from monitoring a phone call between a journalist in New York City and his source in London. For that matter, nothing bars the NSA from monitoring every call and email between Americans in the United States and their non-American friends, relatives, and colleagues overseas.

Intelligence director James Clapper’s infamous lie to Congress – in which he claimed just months before Snowden’s leaks that the NSA was not collecting data on millions of Americans – will certainly follow him for the rest of his career even if it never leads to his prosecution. But while Clapper almost certainly broke the law, the senate committee members in front of whom he spoke knew the truth regardless.
The Justice Department, on the other hand, convinced the supreme court to dismiss a case that could have dramatically curtailed the NSA’s most egregious abuses of power based on false statements. And now all of us are forced to live with the consequences of that.

Veterans scandal risks engulfing Obama – FT.com.

After the latest revelations in the IRS targeting scandal and the Benghazi terrorist attacks, the demands for impeachment of President Obama are picking up steam again. Until this point, discussion of impeachment has pretty much been a moot point, as Democrats control the Senate and will never go along with an impeachment trial.  But when

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Megyn Kelly: Obama is “Out of Control… Impeach Him!” [VIDEO]
Ben Marquis
Sat, 17 May 2014 16:16:05 GMT

A growing number of stateshave grown tired of the overreaching federal government and the smothering regulations promulgated daily by unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats.

States are beginning to rebel against the federal government, using their Tenth Amendment protected state’s rights and sovereigntyto nullify federal laws and regulations that they deem to be unconstitutional and incompatible with their state’s laws.

Although there is literally an endless list of federal laws, rules, and regulations made by a variety of federal departments and agencies, the vast majority of which could be deemed an unconstitutional encroachment on the rights of states and people, the current brewing rebellion is mostly occurring in regards to Obamacare and federal gun control laws.

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There is also a separate movement growing that is seeking to form a Convention of States for the purpose of adding some amendments to the Constitution designed to rein in the overspending and corrupt federal government.

Obamacare

There are at least nine states that have taken steps to nullify Obamacare.  They are able to do this by following a fairly simple four step process.

(Step 1) Ban state enforcement, participation, and material support.

(Step 2) Reject Medicaid expansion.

(Step 3) Protect residents from mandates.

(Step 4) Challenge the IRS’s illegal Obamacare taxes.

Some of the states that are taking the steps to fight back against Obamacare are Arizona, Georgia, Indiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolinaand Tennessee.

Gun Control

The Second Amendment of the United States Constitution guarantees that the people’s right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.  Unfortunately, the federal government has either forgotten or is ignoring exactly what ‘shall not be infringed’ actually means.  Over the course of history, numerous laws, statutes and regulations have been handed down from on high that do, in fact, infringe upon that basic, fundamental and inherent right of people to arm themselves.

Some states have taken steps to roll back gun control, both on the federal and local level, by overriding local ordinances, expanding gun rights, and passing legislation that nullifies federal laws within their borders, like the Second Amendment Preservation Act.

Basically, the Second Amendment Preservation Act reasserts the right of a state to determine what is best for its own citizens when it comes to gun laws.  The Act declares that any and all federal laws that are viewed as unconstitutional or an infringement of the Second Amendment will be null and void within the state, and no agent or officer of the state may enforce, or cooperate with federal enforcement of, these gun control measures.  Some states have even added criminal penalties to this act.

Some of the states that have passed or are considering legislation similar to the Second Amendment Preservation Act include Arizona, Idaho, Kentucky, Missouriand Tennessee, among others.

Convention of States

One final way that states can rebel against Obama and the federal government is through an Article V Convention of the States.

A Convention of States is based upon a provision within Article V of the Constitution, which deals with the amendment process.  If 2/3 of states submit special applications, they can call for a convention that will propose new amendments to the Constitution through state delegates.  If 3/4 of the state legislatures agree on the proposed amendments, they will become part of the Constitution, bypassing both Congress and the President.

A number of states have become involved in the process, and are at various stages of their consideration and application process for the Convention.  As of right now, only a couple of states have actually completed the process, so a convention is not likely to happen anytime soon, but it is in the works.

States, and the people in them, need to stand up for their rights and declare their sovereignty to the federal government.  The founders and framers knew what an overreaching and tyrannical government could be like, and tried to prevent something similar from occurring in America when they wrote the Constitution.

Unfortunately, the federal government has mostly slipped the bounds that were set upon it by the Constitution, and has become unmoored from it’s foundation.  It is time for the states and people to reassert their rights and authority over the federal government, which is supposed to work for us.

US unlawful wars is ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’ tragic-comedy: defining ‘clothes,’ ‘wear,’ ‘self-defense’

Posted on May 17, 2014 by Carl Herman

The Emperor’s New Clothes is the same story as current US wars: both are “official” stories easily and completely refuted by the evidence. Both are tragic-comedies because even children can see the truth with a few moments of attention.

The Emperor’s New Clothes has government officials, messengers (corporate media), and many in the public claim that political leadership is “covered” by the noblest of appearances, and that those who fail to perceive this are either “unfit for his position” or “hopelessly stupid.”

The game-changing fact is that the emperor is naked, and not even close to wearing clothes.

This fact is easily explained, objectively observed, and proved. Indeed, a child points it out with easy confidence, irrefutable accuracy, and proves the official story has zero credibility for any objective observer.

In the story, upon public initial conversations of the facts, the emperor continues the pretense, along with two “officials.” However, the illusion is shattered within moments as the “whole town” began speaking about what was clear for anyone who cared to look.

If we had to document the facts that refute the official story, we would probably define a few key terms:

• clothes: material for the human body to be worn for adornment and coverage.
• wear: in context of clothing, to have clothes intentionally placed on one’s body. This is opposed to having clothes in one’s closet or dresser not on one’s body.

The story isn’t explicit whether the emperor was naked or with underwear, and the child’s recorded testimony is, “he hasn’t got anything on.” If he wasn’t naked, with a little more work we could prove that people clearly distinguish between underwear and clothing, no matter how new the underwear arguably may be.

Therefore, with just a little work, we refute the “official story,” and use the facts to make ridiculous any argument in support of this official story.

And importantly, if we did have to document our evidence even though clear to a child’s examination within moments, it would take some work to write and read, just as our next argument will take with current US unlawful wars.

US unlawful wars: The US “official story” is that current US wars are lawful because they are “self-defense.”

The game-changer here is that “self-defense” means something quite narrow and specific in war law, and the facts of US armed attacks on so many nations in current and past wars are not even close to the meaning of this term.

Among dozens in independent media, I’ve explained and documented (here and here recently) that“self-defense” has a universally agreed meaning in use of a nation’s military for armed attack: you can only used armed attack on another nation if that nation’s government has attacked your nation, or there is provable imminent threat of attack.

Importantly, a nation can use military, police, and civilians in self-defense from any attack upon the nation. This is similar to the legal definition of “self-defense” for you or I walking down the street: we cannot attack anyone unless either under attack or imminent threat of attack. And, if under attack, we can use any reasonable force in self-defense, including lethal.

As the above two links document, and you may recall, no nation’s government attacked the US on 9/11, and US officials agreed they had no evidence of any imminent threat. Despite this crystal-clear legal limit, and legal recourse through the UN Security Council for any security concern, the US has used armed attacks on many nations despite not meeting the legal requirement to do so.

In addition, US official reports now confirm all “reasons” the US told for these armed attacks were known to be false as they were told.

The categories of crime for armed attacks outside US treaty limits of law are:

1. Wars of Aggression (the worst crime a nation can commit),
2. likely treason for lying to US military, ordering unlawful attack and invasions of foreign lands, and causing thousands of US military deaths.

A child can discern this if paying attention: if he/she saw someone physically attack you as you were simply walking along, the child could safely conclude that you did not attack the person, and did nothing to cause concern for any danger.

The child could also tell that if the person responded to you after you hit him, or that you picked up a bottle and shouted with anger causing the person to respond to that threat, that these cases would justify the person’s self-defense.

Moral of the stories: Certainly, as an adult, you can tell the difference in both categories of personal and national self-defense when you pay attention to the facts. And if you wish to have civil and political freedom, certainly you recognize the game to cause a critical mass of the public to also discern the game-changing facts from whatever bullsh*t our lying sacks of spin “leaders” attempt.

US wars and rhetoric for more wars continue a long history of lie-began US Wars of Aggression since theUS invaded Mexico; despite Abraham Lincoln’s powerfully accurate rhetoric of President Polk’s lies to steal half of Mexico. The most decorated US Marine general in his day also warned all Americans of this fact of lie-started wars for 1% plunder.

Such lie-began and unlawful US wars have killed ~30 million since WW2, arguably more than Hitler’s Nazis. Of 248 armed conflicts since WW2 the US started 201, with 90% of these ~30 million deaths being civilian; innocent children, the elderly, and ordinary working men and women.

The 2014 Worldwide Wave of Action (and here) began on the April 4 anniversary of Martin King’s assassination by the US government (civil court trial verdict), with this operation completing ~July 4 (Martin’ 2-minute plea to you).

Purpose of this operation:

• Expose 1% oligarchs in the US and elsewhere as OBVIOUS criminals centering in war, money, andmedia (also in ~100 other crucial areas).
• Cause their surrender through arrests or Truth & Reconciliation.
• Initiate true freedom for all Earth’s inhabitants to explore ready breakthroughs in economics (links here) and technology, and discover what it is to be human without psychopathic criminals whojoke about killing millions, harming billions, and looting trillions.