Utah leading the way back to sound money?

Utah Considers Return to Gold, Silver Coins

By Stephen Clark

Published March 03, 2011

| FoxNews.com

AP2008

The Utah House was to vote as early as Thursday on legislation that would recognize gold and silver coins issued by the federal government as legal currency in the state. (AP)

It's been nearly 80 years since the U.S. stopped using gold coins as legal currency, and nearly 40 since the world abandoned the gold standard, but the precious metal could be making a comeback in the United States -- beginning in Utah.

The Utah House was to vote as early as Thursday on legislation that would recognize gold and silver coins issued by the federal government as legal currency in the state. The coins would not replace the current paper currency but would be used and accepted voluntarily as an alternative. 

The legislation, which has 12 co-sponsors, would let Utahans pay their taxes with gold and also calls for a committee to study alternative currencies for the state. It would also exempt the sale of gold from the state capital gains tax.

Read the rest: here

Project Gunwalker second broadcast on CBS 3/3

Gunwalker scandal hits CBS again: interviews whistleblowing ATF agent

BREAKING NEWS: CBS News to air 2nd ‘Project Gunwalker’ segment aand Grassley writes Holder again

“An ATF agent tells CBS News investigative correspondent Sharyl Attkisson that he was ordered to sit by and watch guns get into the hands of criminals in Mexico,” CBS News reports.

See the sidebar video for a preview of what we’ll see tonight, in what Attkisson says will be an “extraordinary follow up” to her first report which aired on Feb. 23.

“We will hear from an insider,” she says, “who is telling us on the record and on camera, how it worked that thousands of guns were allowed to go in the hands of suspected criminals with ATF knowing that they would turn up in drug cartels in Mexico where they’d be used in crimes.”

But the agents who objected within their own agency were repeatedly rebuffed, they were told to keep their mouths shut, to stop complaining about it, in one case we have an internal email that describes a supervisor telling somebody ‘If you don’t like it you can go work for the Maricopa County Jail—if this isn’t fun to you then you can go find something else to do.’

Oh boy, is this great!

 Kudos to Mike V. and David Codrea for an amazing job getting the truth out to us

The end of the Federal Empire

The Judge and Ron Paul on Fox Business:  Are you watching the Judge regularly?  You should be.

Yet another "Reichstag Fire"?

A hired non-governmental consultant for the Pentagon describes as yet unnamed "suspects" that may have committed acts of economic terrorism leading to the crash of 2008.   

[I hope the consultant points blame at the Federal Reserve monetary policy, the bankster oligarchy, and their yes men in Congress...too much to hope for]

...Might the .gov use such an excuse for another fascist/totalitarian shift in this country? Why wouldn't they? 

9/11 has also been referred to as an example of a "Reichstag Fire", but I prefer to think of it as an overt act, as blowback to our interventionist foreign policy.

An excuse for more of our $$ expended in a new cyberwar on terror.  An excuse to seize more power over the internet and the financial system (for our own protection, don't you see?).

The unclassified 2009 report “Economic Warfare: Risks and Responses” by financial analyst Kevin D. Freeman, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Times, states that “a three-phased attack was planned and is in the process against the United States economy.”

While economic analysts and a final report from the federal government's Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission blame the crash on such economic factors as high-risk mortgage lending practices and poor federal regulation and supervision, the Pentagon contractor adds a new element: “outside forces,” a factor the commission did not examine.

“There is sufficient justification to question whether outside forces triggered, capitalized upon or magnified the economic difficulties of 2008,” the report says, explaining that those domestic economic factors would have caused a “normal downturn” but not the “near collapse” of the global economic system that took place.

Suspects include financial enemies in Middle Eastern states, Islamic terrorists, hostile members of the Chinese military, or government and organized crime groups in Russia, Venezuela or Iran. Chinese military officials publicly have suggested using economic warfare against the U.S.

"Triggered"? No way, total BS.  That blame lies at home in Washington, District of Confiscation, and in Wall Street.  

"Capitalized upon or magnified"?  Sure, any enemy would want to exploit a weakness.  However, the world economies are so intertwined, and the dollar is the world's reserve currency.  That charge only makes sense if the "suspect" in question made proactive moves prior to the bubble bursting in 2008 to gain from the market crash.  None of the countries listed above are likely to have done so; non-governmental entities might be able to do it under the radar, but (from what I understand) I think the report is bullsh*t.

Article here

TSA again demonstrates its worth

A passenger managed to waltz past JFK's ramped-up security gantlet with three boxcutters in his carry-on luggage -- easily boarding an international flight while carrying the weapon of choice of the 9/11 hijackers, sources told The Post yesterday. 

The stunning breach grounded the flight for three hours Saturday night and drew fury from Port Authority cops, who accused the Transportation Security Administration of being asleep on the job.

...Once aboard Santiago-bound Flight 837, flight attendant Fausto Penaloda, 40, asked him to stow his luggage in the overhead storage bin. 

As Peraltalajara's shoved it into the compartment, Penaloda saw the boxcutters fall out of the bag, according to a police report.

Article here

What motivated secession: Western NC, 1861

North Carolina had not yet seceded when Fort Sumter surrendered to the provisional Confederate Army in 1861.

"At first the Union sentiment in Haywood County [North Carolina] was overwhelming but after Lincoln's call for troops became known the feeling changed and what had been a Union stronghold became strong for secession."

Annuals of Haywood County, W.C. Allen

The isolated towns and villages of the Haywood Co., North Carolina mountains produced at least 1165 men (according to the North Carolina roster) who served in the CSA.  Among these men were three of my great-great-great grandfathers, who served in the 25th and 62nd Regiments of North Carolina Troops.  None were slave owners.

A Yankee asked a Confederate prisoner: "So how many slaves do you own?"  
The Confederate replied: "None."
"So why are you fighting?" asked the Yankee?
"'Cause you'ns is down here!" came the reply.

Civil War Letters and Memories from the Great Smoky Mountains, Hattie Caldwell Davis 

----------------------------------------------

Any readers from Buncombe or Haywood Counties, make sure you say hey in the comments section...

Quote of the Day 3/2

As I watch government at all levels daily eat away at our freedom, I keep thinking how prosperity and government largesse have combined to make most of us fat and lazy and indifferent to, or actually in favor of, the limits being placed on that freedom.

Lyn Nofziger

NH Bill to outlaw TSA practices as sexual assault

FULL TEXT OF BILL (AS OF 3/1/2011):
AN ACT making the touching or viewing with a technological device of a person’s breasts or genitals by a government security agent without probable cause a sexual assault.

SPONSORS: Rep. Lambert, Hills 27; Rep. Manuse, Rock 5; Rep. L. Jones, Straf 1; Rep. Itse, Rock 9; Rep. Sapareto, Rock 5

COMMITTEE: Children and Family Law

ANALYSIS
This bill makes the touching or viewing with a technological device of a person’s breasts or genitals by a government security agent without probable cause a sexual assault. This bill classifies persons convicted of the offense as tier III offenders under the criminal offenders registry.

News article attached here


Tenth Amendment Center blogpost here

Live free or die, baby!

Great re-write of the Declaration of Independence, for our generation

The following is an excerpt of a revised Declaration of Independence, if Thos. Jefferson would write it today:

CONCERNING THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH OF THE UNITED STATES:

You have violated the Fourth Amendment guarantee against unreasonable Search and Seizure, and issued Warrants without Probable Cause.

You have violated the Fifth Amendment guarantee of due process of law, targeting your own citizens for extra-legal assassination.

You have violated the Sixth Amendment guarantee of a public Trial by Jury.

You have violated the Eighth Amendment guarantee prohibiting Cruel and Unusual Punishment with a reign of Torture.

You have saddled the People with the Expense of maintaining in Peacetime a Standing Army of

Two Million Professional and Mercenary Soldiers.

You have built a Thousand Military Bases in 110 Countries Worldwide, and subverted the United States from a Republic to a Military Empire.

You have asserted fraudulent Casus Belli to bend the People’s Will to the Hostile Designs of War.

You have made war on countries--Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan--that pose no threat to the American people and desire no conflict with us.

You have abused the Citizens with Propaganda Campaigns to promote these Wars.

You have allowed the Secret Police Forces of the CIA, the NSA, the FBI, and the Military Police to spy upon, arrest, imprison without charges, and torture his own citizens.

Washington's Blog, "Constitution 2.0, Of the Banks, By the Banks, For the Banks" via ZeroHedge.com

Quote of the Day 3/1

The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States, whatever the pretensions of politicians, pedagogues, and other such mountebanks, and that is its aim everywhere else...Their purpose, in brief, is to make docile and patriotic citizens, to pile up majorities, and to make John Doe and Richard Doe as nearly alike, in their everyday reactions and ways of thinking, as possible.

H.L. Mencken 

The problem, and how to strike at its root

  This is a great short lecture, watch it through.  It is from washingtonsblog.com via zerohedge.com:

 

A Higher Percentage of Americans Believed in King George During the Revolutionary War than Believe in Congress Today

Influential Harvard and Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig noted in a must-watch speech last week that polls show that only 11% of the American people have confidence in Congress.

He notes that more people believed in King George at the time of the Revolutionary War than believe in congress today.

He's right.

Historians have estimated that between 15 and 20% of the white population of the colonies were Loyalists

Watch:

Why do so few Americans today believe in our government? Because the government is serving the giant corporations and the ultra-wealthy, and not Main Street and the common American. And see this.

Washington, crossing back...

via Zerohedge.com

Arizona county on Mexican border may secede (from AZ)

"The "Baja Arizona" idea has some fans, apparently.

An article in Thursday's Star outlined a political committee's plan to try to get Southern Arizona to secede and form a 51st state, perhaps to be called Baja Arizona.

In an online poll accompanying the story, votes were running 54-46 percent in favor of secession, out of 3,042 votes cast as of 9 p.m."

From the Arizona Star

Jury Nullification advocate indicted by feds; clear 1st Amendment violation

"Since 2009, Mr. Heicklen has stood there and at courthouse entrances elsewhere and handed out pamphlets encouraging jurors to ignore the law if they disagree with it, and to render verdicts based on conscience.

That concept, called jury nullification, is highly controversial, and courts are hostile to it. But federal prosecutors have now taken the unusual step of having Mr. Heicklen indicted on a charge that his distributing of such pamphlets at the courthouse entrance violates a law against jury tampering.

Mr. Heicklen was arraigned on Friday in a somewhat contentious hearing before Judge Kimba M. Wood, who entered a not-guilty plea on Mr. Heicklen’s behalf when he refused to say how he would plead. During the proceeding, Mr. Heicklen railed at the judge and the government, and called the indictment 'a tissue of lies.'"

NYT article here

--------------------------

This is a clear violation of the first amendment right to freedom of speech.  If a person can encourage violence and murder as long as the people he encourages have time to consider their actions, and have their right to free speech protected by court precedent, how much more so for the idea of jury nullification?  Jury nullification represents the trump card of the sovereign people against unjust laws.  There is a long history of jury nullification in Anglo-American history.  

As to Heicklen's being charged with jury tampering, that is BS because he never targeted any specific jury, only jurors in general. 

We should consider the right of jury nullification among our ninth amendment rights, and assert these rights whenever possible. 

Do not tell a judge or lawyer in voir dire before trial that you wont follow instructions. If you do, you will be dismissed:  

I was summoned for jury duty some years ago, and during voir dire, the attorney asked me whether I could obey the judge's instructions. I answered, "It all depends upon what those instructions are." Irritatingly, the judge asked me to explain myself. I explained that if I were on a jury back in the 1850s, and a person was on trial for violating the Fugitive Slave Act by assisting a runaway slave, I would vote for acquittal regardless of the judge's instructions. The reason is that slavery is unjust and any law supporting it is unjust. Needless to say, I was dismissed from jury duty.

Walter Williams, 11 July 2007

Get on the jury and plant seeds in the other jurors minds without getting overt about the idea of nullification (only when the law or prosecution is unjust, in your judgement, obviously).

Quote(s) of the Day 2/28

JOHN ADAMS (1771): It's not only ....(the juror's) right, but his duty, in that case, to find the verdict according to his own best understanding, judgement, and conscience, though in direct opposition to the direction of the court.

JOHN JAY (1794): The jury has a right to judge both the law as well as the fact in controversy.

ALEXANDER HAMILTON (1804): Jurors should acquit even against the judge's instruction...."if exercising their judgement with discretion and honesty they have a clear conviction that the charge of the court is wrong."

Michael Goodwin @ NY Post: Gimme culture imperils nation

"The real war is over the entitlement culture itself. And while government spending is the most visible part, the ultimate issues are the character and fate of our nation. 

Any serious conversation about American decline must start with the fact that too many of our countrymen have lost the plot about how the United States became the beacon of the free world, the world's largest economy, and the lone superpower."

"For those who have no sense or interest in how we got here, it is easy to believe we are immune from the laws of history that inevitably reduce empires to dust. 

From that willful ignorance, it's perfectly acceptable to demand pay without work, or, almost as insidious, pay and pensions that dwarf those of your neighbors who foot the bill."

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/gimme_culture_imperils_nation_XnN3czu1gW55IQffybRB3I#ixzz1F5pfOs2J