  |
|
|
|
||||||
|
|
|
|
9-04-03
Johanna Dubonte is the vice-president of advertising at USA TODAY. Katie Emery works for Dubonte and is our advertising representative at the paper. Long time followers of this column will recall that in April, 2001, after publishing four, in the nationwide edition of USA TODAY exposing the income tax fraud, Katie Emery informed us that the IRS had talked to legal counsel for the paper and Dubonte had decreed the paper would not run any more of our Ads because “they could be misleading.” We received that call from Katie Emery four days after hundreds of people from all corners of the country traveled to DC to march to the front door of IRS headquarters to hear IRS Commissioner Charles Rossotti tell them when they could expect an answer from the IRS to the Petition for Redress of Grievances regarding the federal income tax system (Rossotti refused to leave the building to address the People). The call from Katie Emery on April 11, 2001 was just six days after the Senate Finance Committee conducted a hastily-called “hearing” on our four Ads and refused to let representatives of our Foundation testify at the hearing even though blow ups of our Ads were mounted on easels before the committee Senators. Committee chairman Charles Grassley (R-IA), said anyone raising questions about the income tax system has to be dealt with swiftly and harshly and that a federal swat team was needed to be on the lookout for anyone raising such questions, to immediately “shut them down.” Right-Click here to download the hearing transcript (840 KB .pdf). It is important to note that in arriving at these decisions, Grassley completely ignored the lone suggestion of one of the witnesses, financial consultant J.J. McNabb, that the government might be better off to just simply answer the questions the people who ran the USA TODAY Ads were asking the government to answer. Since then, a “SWAT” team of IRS and DOJ employees, with the assistance of federal judges, has been actively engaged in a coordinated, nation-wide campaign to silence all people who have been openly asking the government to answer tough questions about the origin, authority and operation of the income tax system. In the absence of any answers from the government, these leaders of the Tax Honesty Movement have, in one way or another, been encouraging People, per their Rights, to withhold tax money from the government, until the government comes clean and answers their Petitions. This SWAT team, with the cooperation of federal District Court Judges, has been moving swiftly and harshly, paying little, if any, attention to the First and Fourth Amendments or the well-established requirements of due process. The result? On top of its abuse of its constitutionally limited taxing powers, the government has resorted to a widespread campaign of abuse of individual, unalienable Rights in order to continue the tax fraud. This federal campaign of terror has sought to silence, and restrain those that speak openly, publish freely, assemble and associate freely, and withhold their (alleged) taxes to get honest answers to the Petitions for Redress of Grievances. The IRS’s tools of terror have included: book banning; civil injunctions; web site seizures; forced public statements; unlawful searches, seizures and warrants; visits by armed agents to the homes and businesses of those with “incorrect thoughts” about the tax laws; unjustified incarcerations as political prisoners and the criminal indictment and prosecution of Americans without averring any specific statutory violation of US law. Just prior to the historic Truth-in-Taxation Hearing of February 2002, and given USA TODAY’s attitude toward our advertising content, we ran a in the New York Times on the income tax issue. Last October, we decided to test the attitude at USA TODAY. We sent them an Ad that we wanted published on November 1st. They ran the Ad, no questions asked (, 1.4 MB, .pdf) The Ad dealt not only with the lack of legal authority for the income tax but also with the lack of legal authority for the Iraq Resolution, the Federal Reserve and the USA Patriot Act. Last month, we again sent a draft Ad to USA TODAY to be published before Labor Day. The message of the Ad was that we are "fed up" with unconstitutional behavior by our government and announcing the class-action lawsuit for a declaration of our Right to receive an answer to our Petitions for Redress of Grievances and to retain our money until we do. The Ad asked people who are fed up to visit the web site, read the Petitions for Redress and join the class action lawsuit. We believed we had the paper’s approval for the Ad. However, on August 15, we received another call from Katie Emery. She said Dubonte had again rejected a Foundation Ad, not for legal reasons, but because of “taste.” Yes, “TASTE.” On
August 18, we ran the same Ad in the Washington Times national edition, with
one exception. Across the top of the Ad we added the words, “USA TODAY Refuses To Run This Ad.”
(click to view the Ad)
In July, we announced that we would soon file a class action lawsuit seeking a declaration of our Rights regarding the Petition Clause of the First Amendment. Here are a few of the questions that we said would be presented for the court’s determination: · Do the People have an unalienable, First Amendment Right to Petition their elected representatives in the Executive and Legislative Branches for Redress of Grievances regarding abuses of their taxing, war-making, debt-incurring and police powers? · Does the People’s Right to Petition for Redress of Grievances include the Right to have those Petitions heard and honestly answered? · Does the Right to Petition for Redress include the Right to withhold taxes until the government hears and answers the Petition? · Does the Right to Petition protect petitioners from government Retaliation? We announced that we had entered into a Retainer Agreement with The Lane Law Firm and that Mr. Mark Lane, an exceptionally qualified and nationally prominent attorney, would be in charge of the case. Click here for Mr. Lane’s curriculum vitae. We announced that the first phase of Mr. Lane’s work would be to prepare and file a complaint that would, in his words, “secure serious consideration by the United States District Court, the United States Court of Appeals and the United States Supreme Court.” Finally, we announced that we hoped to file the complaint on or about September 2, 2003. Mark Lane informs us he and his associates are very excited about this case and are “working very hard” on preparing the complaint and should have something for us by September 11th.
We will keep everyone posted on the
progress and our planned lawsuit “filing event” in
Washington,
DC. Visit the
on-line lawsuit
Information Center and read the legal research supporting the importance of
the Right to Petition. Irwin Schiff Irwin Schiff was one of the first to be targeted by the IRS/DOJ “SWAT” team. They raided and cleaned out his office, taking his computers, files and office working papers including his legal briefs, evidence and research for several other ongoing lawsuits he is engaged in against the United States and the IRS. This Spring, they brought him before federal Judge Lloyd George who promptly issued an injunction, shutting down Schiff’s web site, preventing Schiff from speaking out against the income tax, enjoining and prohibiting Irwin from selling his book, “The Federal Mafia: How Government Illegally Imposes and Unlawfully Collects Income Taxes," and requiring Schiff to turn over his mailing list to the government. However, this week, on September 3, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco stayed the order by District Court Judge Lloyd George that would have required Irwin Schiff to provide the government with his mailing list. The order from the Court of Appeals also stayed the question of whether Schiff was in contempt of court for not complying with Judge George’s order. Until yesterday’s order, it looked like the DOJ, the IRS and Judge George were well on their way to incarcerating Irwin Schiff following the scheduled contempt hearing in Judge George’s courtroom. According to the Las Vegas Review Journal, the appellate court also decided to hear the important First Amendment issues raised by Schiff in defense of his Right to sell his book, determining whether a federal judge can ban the sale of Schiff's book. Irwin Schiff is considered the elder statesman of the tax honesty movement. He owns Freedom Books in Las Vegas and has written books that contend the payment of the federal income tax is voluntary and that the government's collection of such taxes is illegal. Schiff’s main contentions are that there is no U.S. law requiring average Americans to file and that the Supreme Court has repeatedly, and consistently, defined “income” as being a “gain or increase” in assets resulting from a corporate privilege. Today, Schiff began taking orders again for his book, “The Federal Mafia” and other previously banned materials. Click here for the 9th Circuit’s Order. See Schiff’s web site www.paynoincometax.com for more details.
We have also been following the case of Dick Simkanin, the owner of Arrow Custom Plastics located in Bedford, Texas, who, in 2000 stopped withholding income related taxes from the paychecks of his employees after receiving no answers from the IRS and his elected representatives to his questions about any law that required him to withhold. As we have reported, after hearing directly from Simkanin, neither the 2001, nor the 2002 grand juries would indict Simkanin for failure to withhold and turn over the tax. However, after the DOJ prevented Simkanin from appearing before the 2003 grand jury, this grand jury indicted him. Following a hearing before a Magistrate Judge, Simkanin was released, without bail, on his own recognizance. Days later, federal district court Judge John McBryde, accepting hearsay over direct evidence, ruled that Simkanin was a flight risk and a threat to society. Judge McBryde overruled the Magistrate Judge, ordering Simkanin jailed pending his trial which is currently scheduled for October 6th. Mr. Simkanin has been a federal prisoner for eleven weeks. Simkanin’s defense will rest on the fact that he has committed no crime, that there is no law that required him to withhold. We believe this is a very courageous move by Simkanin. We believe he could be acquitted, as Vernice Kuglin recently was, based on his good faith beliefs and the U.S. Supreme Court decision in the Cheek case. However, Dick Simkanin wants the jury to reach the question of his guilt or innocence based on the material question of fact – is there a U.S. law that requires employers to withhold?
With respect, we ask everyone, especially those who expressed support and those who were disappointed to again read the Ad we ran in the Montgomery newspaper. Click here to view the Ad. We do believe in the separation of Church and State. As we wrote, church and religious symbols do not belong in our statehouses or courthouses. Note: We do not believe the Ten Commandments is a symbol of a church or religion. There is no “Church of the Ten Commandments.” More importantly, we do not believe in the separation of God and State. As we wrote, our Rights are individual, unalienable, endowed by the Creator and guaranteed by the Constitution, which governs all elected and appointed officials in all three branches and levels of the government, i.e., the “State”. This is a subtle, but extremely important difference.
It is true there are lots of people who do
not believe there is a Creator – a God – and they have an unquestioned Right
to hold that belief. Those People believe our Rights are not of divine
intent and were not endowed by a Creator. Therefore, they believe these
Rights must somehow be the design of, and flow through the permission of,
men and their majorities. In addition, as we wrote, the language of the constitution is very plain – the federal government has no jurisdiction, again -- no authority, to tell the People of any state that they may not recognize God as the supreme authority in their institutions of civil government. The explicit silence of the Constitution on this matter reserves this Right, as the 10th Amendment clearly specifies, to the states and the People. It is not a federal matter for the federal judiciary. Those who support the Rule of Man and the Rule of Whim, rather than our Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Rule of Law, will not take comfort in the work of the We The People Foundation and Congress. |
