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IRS loses challenge to prove tax liability
Lawyer is acquitted after arguing income levy lacks legal foundation
Posted: July 26, 2007
1:00 a.m. Eastern
By Bob Unruh
© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com
The Internal Revenue Service has lost a lawyer's challenge in front of a jury to prove a constitutional foundation for the nation's income tax, and the victorious attorney now is setting his sights higher.
"I think now people are beginning to realize that this has got to be the largest fraud, backed up by intimidation and extortion and by the sheer force of taking peoples property and hard-earned money without any lawful authorization whatsoever," lawyer Tom Cryer told WND just days after a jury in Louisiana acquitted him of two criminal tax counts.
And before you consign him to the legions of "tin foil hat brigades" who argue against paying taxes, and then want payment to explain how to do that, he addresses the issue up front.
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"These snake oil peddlers have conned millions of dollars out of many well-intended patriots and left a trail of broken lives in their wake. … These charlatans should be avoided, not only because they will lead you to bankruptcy and prison, but because by association they discredit those who are telling the truth," he said.
The truth, he said, is where he comes in, with the launch of a new Truth Attack website that is intended to build on his victory, and create a coalition of resources to defeat – ultimately – the income tax in the United States.
The logo for the new Truth Attack campaign against income taxes
Although the legal citations in the case tend to run the length of paragraphs, Cryer told WND the underlying issue is not that complicated. Essentially, he argued that income is not necessarily any money that comes to a person, but rather categories such as profit and interest.
He said the free exchange of labor for compensation has been upheld as a right by the Supreme Court, but that doesn't necessarily make the compensation income.
If ever such an argument were to be presented widely, Cryer said, the income to the federal government would plummet. But not to worry, he said, the expenses could be reduced equally by eliminating programs, departments and agencies that also have no foundation in the Constitution.
"The Founding Fathers intentionally restricted the taxing powers of the new federal government as a measure of restraint on its size. By exceeding that limited taxing authority the federal government has been able to obtain resources beyond its intended reach, and that money has enabled the federal government to exceed its authority," he said.
For example, he said, the Constitution does not empower the federal government to regulate education, or employment, and agriculture, yet it does so.
The jury in U.S. District Court in Louisiana voted 12-0 to find Cryer, of Shreveport, not guilty of failure to file income taxes for two years. He had been indicted in 2006 on charges of failing to pay $73,000 to the IRS in 2000 and 2001. The next step in his personal case will be up to the IRS and prosecutors, if they choose to continue the issue, he said.
But for the rest of the nation, he's working with Save-a-Patriot, the Free Enterprise Society, Live Free Now and his own Lie Free Zone to spread the message of the truth.
"There are three points that are important," he told WND. "There's no law making the average working man liable [for income taxes], there's no law or regulation that allows the IRS to contend that earnings are 100 percent profit received in exchange for nothing, and the right to earn a living through any lawful occupation is a constitutionally protected fundamental right, and it is exempt from taxation."
Spokesman Robert Marvin in Washington's IRS office told WND the Internal Revenue Code provides for taxation on salaries or wages, but when pressed for a specific citation, or constitutional provision, he said, "I can't comment."
Cryer's encounter with tax law began more than a decade ago when a friend told him the income tax was sham. Cryer started researching, hoping to keep his friend out of trouble. But his conclusions, after years of research, were exactly what his friend told him.
He researched not only tax laws, but also the documents pertaining to the drafting of the U.S. Constitution as well as the first income tax.
He said throughout his battle, he's offered at every turn to pay taxes if the IRS could show him the authorization, and that never has happened.
"The Criminal Investigation Division and Department of Justice both responded only with 'your position is frivolous.' I had never stated a position, so how could they know whether it was frivolous?" he said. "Imagine my sending you a bill for $1,000 and when you call me and ask what the bill was for I simply said, 'that position is frivolous, just write the check and send it in.'"
His acquittal, he said, was a precedent because it means "people can see and recognize the truth."
He said multiple Supreme Court opinions have affirmed an individual's ownership of his or her own labor, and "exercising your fundamental rights" is not taxable. "It is definitely a trade. What most people receive in the form of wages, salaries or in my case fees that they personally earned for their labor is not received in exchange for nothing."
He said there might be a profit that should be taxable, but there might not.
"The IRS lets Wal-Mart sell a trillion dollars worth of goods, but they can back out their cost of goods [before being taxed,]" he said. "The IRS considers, in the case of a Wal-Mart wage earner, 100 percent of what he takes in is profit."
"But he's using his life, energy and work lifespan, and depleting it as he goes," Cryer told WND. "[Working] is a God-given fundamental right that is protected under the Constitution and can't be taxed any more than exercising freedom of speech."
While he waits to see what, if anything, the IRS and Justice Department will do next in his case, he's working to coordinate the groups that are battling taxation as unconstitutional.
"I have started a campaign to unify [the work] and we've got a number of organizations that are sponsoring and supporting this campaign," he said. The goal is to get everyone "who is aware of the truth" organized so they can spread the word.
He warned without a restoration of constitutional basics, the nation is lost.
"Read your Constitution and you will see that the federal role does not include ANY authority to regulate or tax any citizen directly and that WE expressly reserved the right to rule and govern ourselves as States, not as mere political subdivisions," his website says.
"The Constitution does not allow the government to run your lives, but the money it is stealing from millions of Americans is the fuel for its over-reaching and kibitzing. Take the money back and we and our states and communities can again be free," he said.
The fight is over "our FREEDOM from rule by a DISTANT RULER, just as we fought to free ourselves of a distant England over 200 years ago," he said.
I'm glad to see this beyond what I can put into words.
Maybe there is hope for this country.
not for another six hours
You're kidding me... again?
Depends on the news and expectations.
I'm not really the one to ask as I'm more of a chart reader than a news trader.
Faster than you can catch.
With news expected, many have developed a strategy of straddling a pair to catch it either way it runs.
Just a bs political move with no teeth.
Nobody wants yen, kind of like paying your income tax in unrolled pennies... Makes a statement but sure is a pain in the ass toting ten thousand pounds of pennies around.
He was kickin ass for a while during the last contest.
All it takes in one bad trade in this game.
holy crap man, this is twice you are bottoming..
Could someone give him a cheat sheet please.
As far as I know Oanda and GFT never have.
Forex.com and FXCM got into a bit of trouble over it a while back though.
Oanda is about the most popular so far.
I like GFT.
FXCM is a close third.
Not too sure about that.
Our leaders to the rescue.
So worried about inflation they say?
Dingell to propose 50 cent gasoline tax increase
By Chris Good
July 07, 2007
House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell (D-Mich.) will propose a new carbon tax that would increase the gasoline tax by 50 cents, the lawmaker said in an interview on C-SPAN's ‘Newsmakers’ airing Sunday.
In the interview, Dingell acknowledged that voters may not be willing to bear the cost of limiting greenhouse gas emissions, and that he would propose the new tax “just to sort of see how people really feel about this.”
“I sincerely doubt that the American people are willing to pay what this is really going to cost them,” Dingell said in the interview.
Since 1955 Dingell has represented Dearborn, MI, home to Ford Motor Company’s headquarters. The Michigan lawmaker has said he will push legislation in the fall that would restrict carbon emissions from both automobiles and electric utilities.
In addition to raising the gasoline tax, Dingell’s new proposal would institute a “double digit” tax on each ton of carbon dioxide emitted.
I think that goes hand in hand with the bit you showed me a few days ago.
The buck is destined to up against the yen not because god wishes it but because walstreet wishes it... as does this administration.
One of Clinton's blemishes was the bursting of the bubble...
Bush's handlers don't want the same blemish.
Fast?
Yeah I also found that patterns develop differently and mean different things.
I found that in forex more times than not a pennant is a reversal pattern as opposed to a continuation in stocks.
I've also noticed that forex like handles as continuations way more than stocks.
Hardly ever see an ascending triangle in currencies unlike stocks where it's a more common affair.
Trend lines are about the same though and I use them primarily when trading.. no matter the timeframe.
No problem man, glad to see you around.
Hey tex, try oanda for a demo. It doesn't have a time limit and uses a competent platform.
The people offering plans to trade forex for you are no smarter than you and will never make as much money for you as you will on your own.
Quite a few of the trading platforms allow you to view charts differently.. bid ask or closing price... Might help.
Not like stocks where you can get a market maker to meet you half way.
Here in forex your trade will go through at the asking price if the currency goes there.
Jimmy I think you're on the right track for sure.
I have similar limitations with my time and can tell you it will be tempting to leave a position open.. Don't do it.
This market changes in a moment's notice and will half your account in one small spike from a news story in the middle of the night.
That being said I think your indicators are the correct ones though I would add slow stochastics as I've had great success with them.
Also look into trendlines as well.
Trendlines are accurate no matter the timescale and combined with indicators are a very reliable trading style.
I don't trade the pound but I do dabble with the USD/JPY and it is possible to get 20 pips a night with that pair... Not every night.. but most.
Good luck and welcome to the board.
Yep very true.
We have no influence whatsoever.. which is nice.
The hypsters in this game are the news makers and tellers.
The fact that it's a scam doesn't bother me if I can predict the scam.
In pennies I can't predict the scam.. I can't tell you when the next pr will hit.. I can't tell you when the company distributes another five billion shares..
In forex even with the hyping the market still moves on a technical basis.
Oversold is oversold and overbought is overbought.
It's not really that as much as it is news hype.
Look at all the turmoil caused to the dollar over the worry about everyone converting holdings to euros.. when all is said and DONE we see it was all hype..
Why?
It was a pump and dump scheme, the same as we've seen in pennies for years.
It's not new to currencies.. we're just starting to recognize it.
One thing to remember is that yes the same idiot pennystock mentality is in all markets.. even currency.
lol.. I just get a kick out of these morons we're supposed to fear so much.
Nine times out of ten they don't even hit the building with the vehicle.. How friggen hard is it to hit a building with a car?
These particular morons are like the thumbless inbred rednecks of the terrorist community..
Lighting a gas can and then ramming into a security baracade infront of the building?
Not even a car bomb...
Ridiculous.
I'm not sure what's worse.. the moron with the bomb or the ones filming the aftermath.
Looks like some amateurs at best.
Lighting a gas can and driving almost into a building is not something we need to worry about in this global war on terror we've all come to fear so much.
Doubt it will have much affect on the markets.. if anything the pound might be stronger seeing as these terrorists really are b rate morons.
Welcome to wonderland.
Few idiotic rules.
Very little moronic government interference.
Dollar looking to go down against the yen.. might be part of the problem.
Daily chart looks down.. five minute is touching a short descending trendline with indicators in midland.
Start trading quick, while you're still high.. may be the key for you.. cats love catnip afterall.
It would more than put the brakes on..
How many mortgages are subprime?
How many would be called back.. how many houses would all of a sudden belong to banks?
There's just no way they can do it.
I guess it could be a play to grab a huge amount of land... but kind of pointless if it turns the economy tits up.
That sounds bad in more than a few ways.. also sounds a tad unlikely.
Calling back most or many subprime loans will in no way improve liquidity... It will just create a seller rich market and no one capable of buying.
I never did take the time to learn point and figure charting.
From what I hear some find then truly useful.
I find it humorous that in a definite and confirmed uptrend, the only thing we hear from any news outlet or commentator is doom and gloom predictions on the very few and far spaced down days.
I have yet to hear anything about the perfectly formed and concluded consolidation and continuation handle formed by the DOW 30 over the last six years.
Slow start so far.
Waiting to see some confirmation before I enter anything.
Dick Cheney & the Fourth Branch of Government
In 1995 President Clinton issued Executive Order 12958, “Classified National Security Information,” which was then amended in March 2003 by President Bush. This order “prescribes a system for classifying, safeguarding, and declassifying national security information.” These responsibilities are given to the Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO) which is a part of the National Archives, and an important part of their job is to conduct on-site inspection of agencies’ information programs. The executive order authorizes inspections of ALL executive branch agencies to monitor their compliance with rules for protecting classified information.
In 2004 the National Archives notified the Office of the Vice President (OVP) that they would be conducting their on-site inspection of the office, but Cheney blocked this inspection. The OVP told the National Archives that it was not “bound by the executive order” and would not allow the Archives to inspect the procedures or facilities used to classify national security information. In fact, the OVP has not provided any data on its classification and declassification activities since 2003.
In June 2006, a letter was sent from OVP saying that they were not an “entity within the executive branch.” So the ISOO requested that the Attorney General (Alberto Gonzales) decide if the executive order applies to the VP’s office. Cheney responded to the request by recommending that this executive order be changed to abolish the ISOO. Perfect solution.
Since when is the Vice President not part of the executive branch of government? Is there some fourth branch of government I wasn’t aware of? School House Rock doesn’t mention it. Neither does the Constitution. In a letter from the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform they say that “it would appear particularly irresponsible to give an office with your [Cheney’s] history of security breaches an exemption from the safeguards that apply to all other executive branch officials.” This letter includes 12 questions for the OVP about their classification procedures. The OVP has yet to respond.
::update::
Keith Olbermann had his staff fact-check White House claims, and there are no exemptions for the Office of the Vice President.
::update::
Representative Rahm Emanuel's answer to Cheney's claims: "If he believes his legal case, his office has no business being funded as part of the executive branch, however, if he demands executive branch funding he cannot ignore executive branch rules." He plans to introduce legislation that will force Cheney to make a decision.
::update::
Surprise surprise. According to the LA Times, Bush has claimed oversight exemption as well.
The next SARS like event is upon us.
Be fearful... very fearful
Untreatable TB threat 'apocalyptic scenario'
30,000 infected annually now, but toll could become 8 million 'time bombs'
Posted: June 24, 2007
1:00 a.m. Eastern
By Bob Unruh
© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com
The World Health Organization is appealing for billions of dollars in funding to avert the apocalypse en route if a virtually untreatable form of tuberculosis that already infects 30,000 people a year is left unchecked.
The TB, called XDR-TB for extensively drug resistant, is virtually immune to currently available antibiotics, turning aside the effects of both front-line and secondary drugs, officials have said.
It has been in the news of late because of an American airline passenger, Andrew Speaker, an Atlanta, Ga., lawyer, who was diagnosed, then traveled to Europe for his wedding, and returned, on commercial airliners, potentially exposing hundreds of people to the frequently fatal disease.
He now is being treated at a special center in Denver that deals with cases of tuberculosis.
"XDR-TB is a threat to the security and stability of global health. This response plan identifies costs, milestones and priorities for health services that will continue to have an impact beyond its two-year time line," said WHO Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan.
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The organization is appealing for $2.15 billion in funding to develop a battle plan – and tools – to fight the drug-resistant TB. It is expected that it would save 134,000 lives over two years, and many more in the future.
The extensively drug resistant TB has been reported in 37 countries in all parts of the world since it first was identified in 2006, the agency said.
"There is somewhere between 25,000 and 30,000, we roughly estimate, cases of extensive drug resistant TB each year," Paul Nunn, coordinator of WHO's Stop TB Department, informed a recent meeting.
The program, called "Global MDR-TB and XDR-TB Response Plan 2007-2008" sets out measures needed to prevent, treat and control those threats. MDR-TB is multiple-drug resistant, while XDR-TB is extensively drug resistant.
WHO officials said the plan also launches "actions" that would reach a 2015 goal of providing access to drugs and diagnostic tests to all MDR-TB and XDR-TB patients, "saving the lives of up to 1.2 million patients," officials said.
Included will be investments in programs to treat patients, building capacity in diagnostic laboratories, expanding infection control and surveillance, and funding research into new attacks on the disease.
"We have sounded the alarm on the potential for an untreatable XDR-TB epidemic. Today we issue our response on behalf of all patients and communities whose lives are most at risk. It is an ambitious plan that must be fully supported if we are to keep a stranglehold on drug-resistant TB," said Dr. Mario Raviglione, director of the WHO Stop TB Department.
It was in March 2006 when researchers reported their encounter with the extensively resistant TB strains. Within a few months, a cluster of "virtually untreatable" XDR-TB cases was reported in South Africa, aggravated by a high prevalence of HIV.
"All but one of the 53 patients died in an average of 25 days after samples were taken for drug resistance tests," the agency said. Then Speaker's case, "focused attention on the need to address the TB epidemic as an immediate international priority."
"A highly important element of the plan is a steady supply of quality drugs to treat MDR-TB and XDR-TB in underserved countries," said Dr. Marcos Espinale, executive secretary of the Stop TB Partnership. "The Partnership's Global Drug Facility is ensuring supply of these drugs to a growing number of countries, after our Green Light Committee has verified that applicant countries meet its technical standards and will use the drugs correctly."
MDR-TB is defined as being resistant to main first-line drugs such as isoniazid and rifampicin. More than 400,000 such cases are reported each year, and it emerges generally when it is spread from one person to another, or the drugs used to battle ordinary TB are mismanaged, allowing a resistance to develop, officials said.
The XDR-TB develops when there is resistance to all of the most effective anti-TB drugs, and the fluoroquinolone drugs as well as some of the second-line injectable drugs, amikacin, capromycin and kanamycin.
The problem is with the tendency for such infections to grow exponentially, said Raviglione.
"That is the big threat here. If you have more and more of these cases, you will automatically magnify the problem by having transmission going on to other individuals ... Once they become infected they are sort of a time bomb," he said.
"If this is kept unchecked and goes on, then you may also see an apocalyptic scenario where the present epidemic of TB is replaced by an epidemic of TB which is now fully resistant to everything," he added.
In such a situation, the toll could be massive. Currently 8.8 million people each year develop normal TB, a bacterial infection (Mycobacterium tuberculosis) that usually attacks the lungs. It already kills 1.6 million annually, WHO said.
"The possibility is that you could replace that epidemic with a drug-resistant epidemic, in other words you could have 8 million cases of drug-resistant TB wandering around. And then you will be back to the pre-antibiotic era," said Nunn.
"We really now have to focus on problems of infection control. We can't allow drug-resistant MDR or XDR to get into populations of HIV-infected people," he added.
Ordinary TB can be diagnosed with a microscope, but drug-resistant forms require much more sophisticated tests – and labs, which are missing in many poor countries. And ordinary TB usually can be treated over a course of six months or so; the more drug-resistant varieties could take two years.
"It's basically a death sentence. If people are failing first- and second-line drugs and we don't have in the pipeline a new drug for immediate use, that's a crisis," said Espinale.
U.A.E. Says Gulf Will Defer Common Currency Launch (Update2)
By Matthew Brown
June 24 (Bloomberg) -- Gulf states will defer the introduction of a single currency until after a common market is created in 2010, U.A.E. central bank governor Sultan Bin Nasser al-Suwaidi said.
``Our monetary union consists of three stages, but they don't have to be implemented at the same time,'' al-Suwaidi told reporters today in Basel, Switzerland, where he's attending a meeting of central bankers from around the world. Stages one and two ``will be completed by 2010. Stage three, which is the unified currency, we will defer it until we have the common market working to our satisfaction.''
The six Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia, the largest Arab economy, originally planned to introduce a common currency by 2010 and pegged their currencies to the dollar in preparation for its launch. The deadline was first questioned last December when Oman said it could not meet the target and later withdrew from the project altogether.
``There are advantages to a single currency, but Gulf economies will continue to prosper with or without monetary union,'' Simon Williams, an economist at HSBC Holdings Plc., said in a telephone interview from Dubai today.
`More Difficult'
Monetary union became ``more difficult'' after Kuwait dropped its peg to the dollar last month, the deputy governor of Saudi Arabia's central bank, Mohamed al-Jasser, said May 31.
The U.A.E. will not alter its currency's peg to the dollar unless its Gulf neighbors follow suit, al-Suwaidi said today, adding he doesn't know what compelled Kuwait ``to deviate'' and peg the dinar to a basket of currencies.
The six Gulf states ``are in the same boat,'' he said. ``We are subject to the same pressures, to the same intensity, so it makes sense that we move together.''
The Gulf Arab states are Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E., Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and Bahrain. Together they constitute a loose economic and political group called the Gulf Cooperation Council, or GCC.
BIS Says Central Banks May Keep Raising Rates to Curb Inflation
By Gabi Thesing
June 24 (Bloomberg) -- Central banks may need to continue raising interest rates this year to quell inflation even as global economic growth slows, the Bank for International Settlements said.
``Underlying inflationary pressures are still visible in major economies, and it is not clear whether the projected moderation of growth will be sufficient to significantly reduce resource pressures,'' the BIS said in its annual report, published today in Basel, Switzerland. Financing conditions ``might also eventually tighten.''
The world's major central banks have already raised borrowing costs over the past year to contain inflation, marking the first global tightening of monetary policy since 2000. Policy makers are concerned that the fastest sustained global economic expansion in 30 years will fuel wage and price increases as companies operate at full capacity and unemployment drops.
``The global inflation story is not over,'' said Eric Chaney, chief European economist at Morgan Stanley & Co. in London. ``There is still cyclical inflation and some more homework to be done by the central banks.''
The European Central Bank, the Bank of Japan, the People's Bank of China and the Bank of England have all indicated that further rate increases may be in the pipeline this year, while economists at Merrill Lynch & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now expect the U.S. Federal Reserve to leave rates at a six-year high rather than cut them.
`Vanishing Slack'
The BIS said a 37 percent rebound in the cost of oil since mid-January as well as rising wages, increasing capacity utilization and falling unemployment may be stoking inflation.
``It is not clear whether inflationary pressures have been contained,'' the report said. ``Economic slack has more or less been used up in the major advanced economies'' and ``vanishing slack might have increased inflationary risks.''
Central banks have fueled economic growth by keeping borrowing costs at relatively low levels, the BIS said. In the period under review, to May 2007, interest rates ``remained highly accommodative in the industrial countries'' after being raised only ``moderately.''
The International Monetary Fund forecasts global economic expansion of 4.9 percent this year after 5.4 percent growth in 2006. That will mark five consecutive years of growth above 4 percent, the longest streak since the early 1970s.
Higher Rates
Global growth is ``driven by the bottomless needs of the new industrial giant nations,'' Morgan Stanley's Chaney said. ``They need investment, they need infrastructure. Growth will be very strong for the next ten years.''
The ECB raised its benchmark rate to a six-year high of 4 percent this month and President Jean-Claude Trichet left the door open for another move, saying rates are still supporting growth and he sees ``upside risks to price stability.''
Chinese central bank Governor Zhou Xiaochuan said yesterday he can't rule out raising rates for a third time this year to curb inflation and take the steam out of a surging stock market.
Trichet, Zhou, Bank of Japan Governor Toshihiko Fukui and U.S. Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Donald Kohn were among more than 100 central bankers attending the annual general meeting of the BIS in Basel this weekend.
Known as the ``central banks' central bank,'' the BIS holds currency reserves on behalf of its members, churns out research on everything from derivatives to inflation-targeting and provides policy makers with a forum for discussion.