Ron Paul on unconstitutional “Super Congress” provision in debt bill

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this deal is the “Super Congress” provision. This is nothing more than a way to disenfranchise the majority of Congress by denying them the chance for meaningful participation in the crucial areas of entitlement and tax reform. It cedes power to draft legislation to a special commission, hand-picked by the House and Senate leadership. The legislation produced by this commission will be fast-tracked, and Members will not have the opportunity to offer amendments. Approval of the recommendations of the “Super Congress” is tied to yet another debt ceiling increase. This guarantees that Members will face tremendous pressure to vote for whatever comes out of this commission– even if it includes tax increases. This provision is an excellent way to keep spending decisions out of the reach of members who are not on board with the leadership’s agenda.

Virginia Legislature weighs gold and silver as currency in the event of a “major breakdown” in Fed notes

HOUSE JOINT RESOLUTION NO. 557

Offered January 12, 2011 Prefiled January 5, 2011 Establishing a joint subcommittee to study whether the Commonwealth should adopt a currency to serve as an alternative to the currency distributed by the Federal Reserve System in the event of a major breakdown of the Federal Reserve System. Report.

———- Patron– Marshall, R.G. ———- Referred to Committee on Rules ———-

WHEREAS, the Supreme Court of the United States has ruled in In re Rahrer, 140 U.S. 545, 554 (1891), that “the police power” of a State “is a power originally and always belonging to the States, not surrendered by them to the general government, nor directly restrained by the Constitution of the United States, and essentially exclusive”; and

WHEREAS, the Supreme Court of the United States has ruled in Beer Company v. Massachusetts, 97 U.S. 25, 33 (1877), that the police power of the States “extend[s] to the protection of the lives, health, and property of the[ir] citizens, and to the preservation of good order”; and

WHEREAS, the protection of the lives, health, and property of Virginia’s citizens, and the preservation of good order in the Commonwealth, depend upon the maintenance of both an adequate system of governmental finance and a sound and robust private economy; and

WHEREAS, an adequate system of governmental finance and a sound and robust private economy cannot be maintained in the absence of a sound currency; and

WHEREAS, the present monetary and banking systems of the United States, centered around the Federal Reserve System, have come under ever-increasing strain during the last several years, and will be exposed to ever-increasing and predictably debilitating strain in the years to come; and

WHEREAS, many widely recognized experts predict the inevitable destruction of the Federal Reserve System’s currency through hyperinflation in the foreseeable future; and

WHEREAS, in the event of hyperinflation, depression, or other economic calamity related to the breakdown of the Federal Reserve System, for which the Commonwealth is not prepared, the Commonwealth’s governmental finances and Virginia’s private economy will be thrown into chaos, with gravely detrimental effects upon the lives, health, and property of Virginia’s citizens, and with consequences fatal to the preservation of good order throughout the Commonwealth; and

WHEREAS, Virginia can avoid or at least mitigate many of the economic, social, and political shocks to be expected to arise from hyperinflation, depression, or other economic calamity related to the breakdown of the Federal Reserve System only through the timely adoption of an alternative sound currency that the Commonwealth’s government and citizens may employ without delay in the event of the destruction of the Federal Reserve System’s currency; and

WHEREAS, “legal tender” denotes a currency that must be accepted in payment of a debt denominated in United States “dollars” if the parties have not stipulated that some alternative currency is to be used as their medium of payment or are not otherwise required to use such alternative currency; and

WHEREAS, the Federal Reserve System’s currency has been designated “legal tender” under color of Title 31, United States Code, Section 5103; and

WHEREAS, under Title 12, United States Code, § 411 and Title 31, United States Code, § 5118(b) and (c), the Federal Reserve System’s currency is not redeemable in gold or silver coin or the equivalent in bullion; and

WHEREAS, that the Federal Reserve System’s currency is not redeemable in gold or silver coin or the equivalent in bullion is being identified by more and more experts as a, if not the, major reason for the ever-increasing instability of the Federal Reserve System; and

WHEREAS, all gold and silver coins of the United States are designated “legal tender” under the aegis of Title 31, United States Code, §§ 5103 and 5112(h), and must be so designated perforce of Article I, Section 8, Clause 5 and Article I, Section 10, Clause 1 of the Constitution of the United States; and

WHEREAS, pursuant to Article I, Section 10, Clause 1 of and the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, each State must make gold and silver coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; and

WHEREAS, the Supreme Court of the United States in Lane County v. Oregon, 74 U.S. (7 Wallace) 71, 76-78 (1869), and Hagar v. Reclamation District No. 108, 111 U.S. 701, 706 (1884), has ruled that the States may adopt whatever currency they desire for the purposes of performing their sovereign governmental functions, even to the extent of adopting gold and silver coin for those purposes while refusing to employ a currency not redeemable in gold or silver coin that Congress has designated “legal tender”; and

WHEREAS, “the police power” being the primary sovereign governmental function of every State, under Lane County and Hagar every State may adopt its own currency, consisting of gold or silver, or both, whenever necessary and proper to facilitate exercises of that power in aid of the general welfare of the State and its citizens; and

WHEREAS, under the aegis of Title 31, United States Code, § 5118(d)(2), and perforce of Article I, Section 8, Clause 5 and Article I, Section 10, Clause 1 of, and the Ninth and Tenth Amendments to, the Constitution of the United States, Americans may employ whatever currency they choose to stipulate as the medium for payment of their private debts, including gold or silver, or both, to the exclusion of a currency not redeemable in gold or silver that Congress may have designated “legal tender”; and

WHEREAS, under the aegis of Title 31, United States Code, § 5118(d)(2), and perforce of Article I, Section 8, Clause 5 and Article I, Section 10, Clause 1 of, and the Ninth and Tenth Amendments to, the Constitution of the United States, the citizens of Virginia may choose to employ as the medium for payment of their private debts whatever alternative currency, consisting of gold or silver, or both, that the Commonwealth may adopt in the exercise of “the police power”; and

WHEREAS, in light of the possible instability of the Federal Reserve System, proposals for states and their citizens to adopt an alternative currency consisting of gold or silver, or both, are receiving increasing attention throughout the United States, as evidenced by bills that have been or are being introduced in the legislatures of the States of Georgia, Indiana, Montana, New Hampshire, and South Carolina; and

WHEREAS, various systems of alternative currency employing gold or silver, or both, in the form of coin or its equivalent in bullion have already proved themselves in the free market, and could either be employed by the Commonwealth directly or be used as models for a new system created by the Commonwealth to meet Virginia’s unique needs; and

WHEREAS, the adoption of an alternative currency consisting of gold or silver, or both, would not destabilize the present monetary and banking systems, the Commonwealth’s governmental finances, or Virginia’s private economy, because it would not compel or commit the Commonwealth or her citizens to employ such alternative currency to the exclusion of the Federal Reserve System’s currency immediately, but would merely make the alternative currency available, and enable it to be used in competition with and preference to the Federal Reserve System’s currency, to the degree that the need for such use became apparent; and

WHEREAS, the United States Congress, the U.S. Department of the Treasury, and the Federal Reserve System have taken and are preparing to take no action to provide the United States with an alternative to the Federal Reserve System’s currency, in the likely event that the latter would be destroyed through hyperinflation; and

WHEREAS, because legislators in Virginia know or should know all of these facts; and because the General Assembly has the authority, the ability, and the duty to take timely action to deal with this situation without first seeking the approval of or assistance from Congress or any other state; and because the Constitution of Virginia provides, “That all power is vested in, and consequently derived from, the people, that magistrates are their trustees and servants, and at all times amenable to them”—for these reasons, the citizens of the Commonwealth will properly conclude that the members of the General Assembly will be primarily responsible if the Commonwealth is found to be without an alternative currency when the Federal Reserve System’s currency collapses in hyperinflation, or some other related economic calamity supervenes; now, therefore, be it

RESOLVED by the House of Delegates, the Senate concurring, That a joint subcommittee be appointed to study whether the Commonwealth should adopt a currency to serve as an alternative to the currency distributed by the Federal Reserve System in the event of a major breakdown of the Federal Reserve System.

The joint subcommittee shall consist of eight legislative members who shall be appointed as follows: five members of the House of Delegates to be appointed by the Speaker of the House of Delegates in accordance with the principles of proportional representation contained in the Rules of the House of Delegates and three members of the Senate to be appointed by the Senate Committee on Rules. The joint subcommittee shall elect a chairman and vice-chairman from among its membership.

In conducting its study, the joint subcommittee shall call or hear from such witnesses and take such other evidence as it deems appropriate and shall consider recommendations for legislation, with respect to the need, means, and schedule for establishing such an alternative currency.

Administrative staff support shall be provided by the Office of the Clerk of the House of Delegates. Legal, research, policy analysis, and other services as requested by the joint subcommittee shall be provided by the Division of Legislative Services. Technical assistance shall be provided by the Treasurer of the Commonwealth of Virginia and the Bureau of Financial Institutions of the State Corporation Commission. All other agencies of the Commonwealth shall provide assistance to the joint subcommittee for this study, upon request.

The joint subcommittee shall be limited to six meetings for the 2011 interim, and the direct costs of this study shall not exceed $12,000 without approval as set out in this resolution. Approval for unbudgeted nonmember-related expenses shall require the written authorization of the chairman of the joint subcommittee and the respective Clerk. If a companion joint resolution of the other chamber is agreed to, written authorization of both Clerks shall be required.

No recommendation of the joint subcommittee shall be adopted if a majority of the House members or a majority of the Senate members appointed to the joint subcommittee (i) vote against the recommendation and (ii) vote for the recommendation to fail notwithstanding the majority vote of the joint subcommittee.

The joint subcommittee shall complete its meetings by November 30, 2011, and the chairman shall submit to the Division of Legislative Automated Systems an executive summary of its findings and recommendations no later than the first day of the 2012 Regular Session of the General Assembly. The executive summary shall state that the joint subcommittee intends to submit to the General Assembly and the Governor a report of its findings and recommendations for publication as a House or Senate document and shall specify the date by which the report shall be submitted. The executive summary and the report shall be submitted as provided in the procedures of the Division of Legislative Automated Systems for the processing of legislative documents and reports, and shall be posted on the General Assembly’s website.

Implementation of this resolution is subject to subsequent approval and certification by the Joint Rules Committee. The Committee may approve or disapprove expenditures for this study, extend or delay the period for the conduct of the study, or authorize additional meetings during the 2011 interim.

Alex Jones Behind the Scenes of CNN’s Attack Piece

Aaron Dykes
Infowars.com
March 28, 2010

In this important interview, Alex Jones shows us what goes on behind the scenes of the CNN attack piece apparently set on demonizing tea parties and pro-Constitutional movements as “violent”.

Alex instantly recognize the attempt to demonize him personally, as well as to discredit other grassroots political movements by the tone of the producer’s questions.

PART ONE

The interview, filmed on Friday, was set-up by Anderson Cooper’s producers, but so far hasn’t aired. Was Alex too controversial, or will excerpts of the footage be used in a future segment? We don’t know for sure, but all that Anderson Cooper’s program showed on Friday in connection with the alleged “violent” tendencies of the Tea Party Movement were establishment phonies Sarah Palin and John McCain.

Regardless of what CNN chooses to air in the future, or how they might distort Alex’s responses, here is a record of what really happened. It was filmed on a pocket camera, and no audio of CNN’s questions is available (as Alex was filmed in a remote studio here in Austin, and they were asking questions from CNN), but Alex Jones’ responses are all here, as he denies their attempt to frame his influence over talk radio and in documentary films as connected with “violence” “anarchy” or other such demonized terms.

Alex calls out CNN for their complicity in “violence” through the promotion of the Iraq War– which resulted in more than 1 million dead Iraqi civilians, including women and children. Alex dares CNN to mention over the airwaves the fact that Anderson Cooper was admittedly in the CIA and is part of the elite Astor family, or the fact that CNN reported the collapse of WTC Building 7 more than an hour ahead of its actual collapse, likely in response to an early Reuters wire report. Yet, no retraction has been made.

Whether or not Alex’s strong response to CNN’s attempt at painting political dissents as “violent” terrorists will ever be aired or not remains to be seen.

RT video commentary on new fascist indefinite detention bill introduced by critters McCain and Liebermann

Thoughtful, but I have to disagree on one point.  Leglislation like this is not done out of panic.  It’s planned out thoroughly.  They didn’t pass the patriot act and military commissions act out of fear.  The globalists intend to turn this country into a military dictatorship and use it to create world government, aka the New World Order, and pesky individual liberties enumerated in the Bill of Rights are a major roadblock to achieving that goal.

This bill isn’t some random, knee-jerk reaction to individual lone wolf terrorists.  The lone wolf (nut) terror attacks are the organic response to fascist policies.

Judge David Carter urges early discovery of Obama vital records

In a new development in the “birther” saga, early discovery of vital records has been urged by Judge David Carter. Plaintiff attorney Orly Taits claims obama must produce vital records within 30 days for discovery, but remains to be seen whether this urging will actually result in the production of any documents.

Taitz has filed a number of suits challenging Obama’s citizenship.

One such case was filed on behalf of Army Reserve Major Stefan F. Cook who filed a suit seeking status as a conscientious objector on the grounds that his deployment orders were invalid. He claimed that Obama was not a natural-born U.S. citizen, and thus ineligible to serve as commander-in-chief of the armed forces. His deployment orders were revoked.

Taitz has released what she claims is a copy of Obama’s Kenyan birth certificate and has filed a motion to authenticate it.

Liberty or Death

“The hour is fast approaching, on which the Honor and Success of this army, and the safety of our bleeding Country depend. Remember officers and Soldiers, that you are free men, fighting for the blessings of Liberty — that slavery will be your portion, and that of your posterity, if you do not acquit yourselves like men.”
– George Washington, 1776

“If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace.”
– Tom Paine, 1776

“Liberty must at all hazards be supported. We have a right to it, derived from our Maker. But if we had not, our fathers have earned and bought it for us, at the expense of their ease, their estates, their pleasure, and their blood.”
– John Adams, 1765

“A general dissolution of principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy. While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but when once they lose their virtue then will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader.”
– Samuel Adams, 1779

“We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.”
– Benjamin Franklin at the signing of the Declaration of Independence

“They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
– Ben Franklin, 1759

“I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.”
– Nathan Hale’s last words before being hanged by British

“Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God. I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”
– Patrick Henry

New York Times Parrots Debunked Poplawski Smear

Says Pittsburgh shooter left comments on Infowars, yet fails to mention that Poplawski criticized Alex Jones’ anti-racist viewpoint

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Tuesday, April 7, 2009

The New York Times has thrown its weight behind the smear attack attempting to assign blame to Alex Jones for being an influence in the tragic shooting of three Pittsburgh police officers on Saturday, despite the fact that the killer, Richard Poplawski, openly criticized Jones’ anti-racist political viewpoint.

As we reported yesterday, a major smear attack on Alex Jones and his websites launched by the ADL in the aftermath of the Pittsburgh police shootings which attempted to classify Infowars as an outlet for “hate speech” has been discredited after the ADL’s own website admitted that Richard Poplawski held views that opposed those of the Texas radio talk show host.

Stories claiming that Poplawski was influenced by Alex Jones, Infowars and Prison Planet originally appeared Sunday in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Raw Story. Neither of these news organizations attempted to speak with us before claiming the link and Raw Story later issued a retraction and removed us from their original piece altogether after we questioned the sloppy nature of their writer Muriel Kane’s hit piece.

In an article entitled Man Accused in Pittsburgh Killings Voiced Racist Views Online, the New York Times today reports that Poplawski made postings on “Infowars, a Web site affiliated with a radio talk show host, Alex Jones, beginning in late 2007 and continuing until two days before the shootings.”

However, the Times fails to explain the nature of what Poplawski actually said on the Infowars comment boards. In his comments, the cop killer was actually expressing opposition to Alex Jones’ anti-racist political viewpoint and encouraging others to be suspicious of Jones’ motives in bringing people of all races together to stand up to tyranny and corruption.

The fact that the Times makes the connection between Poplawski and Jones, while failing to point out that Poplawski disagreed with Jones’ political viewpoint, underscores the fact that this is a baseless smear intended to take what was a tragic domestic dispute completely out of context in order to demonize anti-establishment media outlets and chill free speech.

As the Pittsburgh Post Gazette reports today, in his postings, “Mr. Poplawski also appears to agree with another poster who criticized Alex Jones, host of a conspiracy theorist radio program and author of an Internet site to which Mr. Poplawski’s friends said he sometimes turned for news.

The fact that Poplawski occasionally visited Infowars (and left a total of 3 comments, hardly the “regular” fan that the media made him out to be), makes Infowars no more guilty for the murder of three police officers than ESPN would be if Poplawski had gone there to check the football results.

There is not a shred of evidence that Poplawski was inspired to kill three cops because he thought he was kick-starting some kind of political revolution. Indeed, it was Poplawski’s own mother that called the police to the house as a result of a domestic dispute because of Poplawski’s dog urinating on the floor. Poplawski did not go out tooled up on a radical political mission to kill cops on the back of reading Infowars, and to imply that there is any causative connection is a defamatory smear.

“If blame is to be laid for the Stanton Heights shootings, Mr. Jones said, it should be placed on the Marine Corps, which Mr. Poplawski’s friends and mother said he had joined only to be thrown out,” reports the Gazette.

“If anybody should be blamed for this it’s the Marines — they’re the ones who trained him to kill,” Mr. Jones said.”

The fact that the ADL and the New York Times ganged up to propagate this smear really shows us that we are hurting the establishment with our message of non-violent, non-racist civil disobedience and urging people of all colors and creeds to come together and resist the new world order.

The desperation of the smear attempt is self-evident and this will only backfire once again to reveal the agenda-driven hatred that the ADL and the decaying establishment media have for the growing liberty movement in America.

Do 90 Percent of the Guns Used in Mexican Drug Crimes Really Come From America?

Friday, April 3rd, 2009
The Agitator

From Hillary Clinton to Diane Feinstein to Bob Schieffer to the New York Times, gun control proponents keep repeating the claim that 90 percent of the guns recovered in Mexico’s drug war were sold in the United States.

William La Jeunesse and Maxim Lott say it just isn’t true. As it turns out, the 90 percent statistic actually concerns only those guns Mexican authorities sent to the U.S. for tracing. Since the U.S. really has no means of tracing guns not manufactured in the U.S., Mexican authorities don’t bother sending U.S. officials guns that were obviously manufactured elsewhere (generally guns that lack a U.S. serial number, or don’t show signs of once having had one).  So the 90 percent figure isn’t surprising, and it isn’t really alarming. It means that 90 percent of the guns Mexican authorities thought were probably made and sold in the U.S. were indeed made and sold in the U.S.

But that’s not what gun control proponents have been saying.  They’ve been saying nine of 10 guns used in all Mexican drug crimes came from the U.S. That number, La Jeunesse and Lott report, is closer to 17 percent.

The report explains that most of the weapons used by Mexico’s drug cartels are actually illegal in the U.S. Even if they weren’t, it makes little sense to suggest drug cartels are going through the hassle of sending thousands of “straw buyers” across the border to legally purchase guns in America when more powerful black market weapons are available from Russia, South America, China, and Guatemala without the bureaucracy and risk of registration. The L.A. Times hinted at as much in an article a couple of weeks ago, but seemed to miss the obvious connection that if the cartels are arming up with black market weapons unavailable in the U.S., the 90 percent figure trumpeted by U.S. politicians probably isn’t correct.

Here’s the other thing: According to one Mexican official, 150,000 Mexican soldiers have defected in the last year, taking their government-issued M-16s with them. Those guns are ending up in the hands of drug dealers. The U.S. is also continually sending more money and arms to Mexico to support President Calderon’s military crackdown on the drug trade, but we send all of that aid knowing the high rate of defection among both soldiers and Mexican police officers, and the high rate of corruption and high percentage of Mexican officials on the cartels’ payrolls. One firearms expert told LaJeunesse and Lott that some guns…

“…are legitimately shipped to the government of Mexico, by Colt, for example, in the United States. They are approved by the U.S. government for use by the Mexican military service. The guns end up in Mexico that way — the fully auto versions — they are not smuggled in across the river.”

In other words, not only are U.S. politicians flat wrong when they say that 90 percent of the guns used in Mexico’s drug war are coming from U.S. gun dealers recklessly selling legal American guns to cartel straw buyers, they’re ignoring the fact that a not-insignificant number of the guns used by the cartels likely came from the U.S. government, in the form of the drug war aid.

Yet the federal government’s strategy, as outlined by Hillary Clinton last week, is apparently to harass legitimate U.S. gun dealers while sending more weapons and money to the Mexican government. More power for the government, less freedom for the citizenry. Seems about consistent with politicians’ solution to most problems.