Free Republic

Oregon voters amended their constitution to stop the state from stealing their land. But then the state’s powerful elite took the case to court. The result: A sordid tale of corruption, bribery, and abuse of power in which the will of the people was subverted and the losing attorney was elevated to a judgeship. It’s been said that if the Bill of Rights were put to a vote of the people, it would be defeated. Last November, the citizens of Oregon had an opportunity to vote on one of the least popular aspects of the Bill of Rights: the final ...

High and Dry in the Klamath Basin by William F. Jasper In southern Oregon, the Feds' choice of fish over farmers has made the region's rural communities and families likely candidates for the endangered species list. Klamath Falls, Oregon, has become the rallying site for a national movement and the focal point of a life-and-death struggle for rural America. On May 7th, 20,000 people showed up for a "bucket brigade" to draw attention to the desperate plight of farmers in the Klamath Basin, victims caught in a scissors attack between the blades of a harsh drought and brutal environmental policies. ...

WILBUR--During the Klamath Basin Relief Fund convoy's stop in Salem Saturday, a spur-of-the-moment decision was made to drive over to Gov. John Kitzhaber's house.The governor wasn't home, but a neighbor was. She saw the Klamath Relief Fund's signs and centerpiece, a 10-foot-tall silver bucket, and was inspired to support the effort. She donated a large jar of her homemade pickles.The convoy arrived in the Roseburg area Sunday evening and, at a rally in support of Klamath Basin agriculture, that jar of pickles was auctioned for $27.50. The money was added to the donations that are being collected for Klamath families ...

Interior Secretary Gale Norton will ask the National Academy of Sciences to review the biological rationale behind federal decisions to reserve water in Upper Klamath Lake for protected fish and withhold it from farmers in the drought-stricken Klamath Basin this summer. This comes a week after Norton overruled federal biologists by releasing surplus lake water to farmers when the biologists had earlier mandated that any such excess water go instead to national wildlife refuges. Together, the actions signal that Norton and the Bush administration are openly questioning -- and in some cases spurning -- the hotly debated April endangered species ...

PART 1PART 2 DURING THE 1920s and early 1930s, the U.S. government provided huge loans to foreign nations whose exports were subsequently blocked by high U.S. tariffs, artificially held down interest rates and flooded the nation with cheap credit, and championed cartel operations by private businesses. Economic historian Robert Skidelsky recently attributed the start of the Great Depression to the collapse in world grain prices — a collapse directly tied to the disastrous attempt to corner the world wheat markets by the Hoover administration’s Federal Farm Board. The federal government also severely reduced the currency supply from 1929 through 1932, ...

PART 1 HEGEL’S DEIFIED state doctrine found vigorous proponents in Britain. According to Oxford professor T.H. Green, It is not supreme coercive power, simply as such, but supreme coercive power exercised in a certain way and for certain ends, that makes a State, viz., exercised according to law, written or customary, and for the maintenance of rights. Thus, a true state could never violate a citizen’s rights; therefore, a state is automatically trustworthy — or else it would not be a state. Oxford Professor David Ritchie wrote in 1891: The State has, as its end, the realization of the best ...

THE FOUNDING FATHERS took a dim view of claims of the unlimited beneficence of government. George Washington declared, “Government is not reason, it is not eloquence — it is force.” John Adams wrote in 1772: “There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.” Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1799, Free government is founded in jealousy, not confidence. It is jealousy and not confidence which prescribes limited constitutions, to bind those we are obliged to trust with power.... In questions of power, ...

Crime is criminal, but why make a second crime of “the processing of criminal proceeds in order to disguise their illegal origin,” i.e., so-called “money laundering” (the definition is from the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering, The Forty Recommendations,www.oecd.org//fatf/pdf.40Rec_en.pdf)? And what counts as “crime”? Under the excuse of fighting “organized crime,” the U.S. government was the first one to criminalize money laundering. Under the Money Laundering Control Act of 1986, explains Bob Bauman, a lawyer and the editor of the Sovereign Society’s A-Letter, Currency Transaction Reports (CRTs, on Internal Revenue Service Form 4789) must be filed for all ...

War on Drugs: Military Perspectives and Problems by Joseph Miranda special to DRCNet for further reading: A recent tragedy in Texas demonstrates how dangerous a military buildup can be to civilians. The Drug Policy Forum of Texas provides this story on the shooting of Esequiel Hernandez by a US Marine and general information on the militarization of the drug war. Contents: Exercise in Futility War on Reality No More Vietnams Conclusions Sources Exercise in Futility Since at least the mid 1980s, the use of the United States armed forces in the “war on drugs” has been a topic of ...

The Congress shall have Power...To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof. —Article I, Section 8, Clause (18), Constitution of the United States of America ENUMERATED POWERS ACT HR 175 Title: Enumerated Powers Act Introduced: January 3, 2001 Sponsor: Rep. John Shadegg (R-AZ) Co-sponsors (as of 3/23/01) Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD) Rep. Doug Bereuter (R-NE) Rep. Philip Crane (R-IL) Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA) Rep. John Duncan (R-TN) Rep. ...

HHS MEDICAL-PRIVACY-INVASION RULEDEADLINE FOR SUBMITTING COMMENTS: FRIDAY, MARCH 30, 2001 Institute for Health Freedom (IHS): Guidelines and printable form letter for submitting comments in opposition to Health and Human Services’ proposed medical-privacy-invasion scheme The Liberty Committee: Medical Privacy Petition Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX): ”Dear Colleague” letter on preserving Americans’ medical privacy HJ Res. 38, Medical Privacy Protection Resolution, sponsored by Rep. Paul For Immediate ReleaseMarch 1, 2001 HHS Calls for Public Comments on Final Medical Privacy Rule Americans Must Respond by March 30, 2001 Washington, DC – On February 28, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ...

The Congress shall have Power...To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof. —Article I, Section 8, Clause (18), Constitution of the United States of America ENUMERATED POWERS ACT HR 175 Title: Enumerated Powers Act Introduced: January 3, 2001 Sponsor: Rep. John Shadegg (R-AZ) Co-sponsors (as of 3/23/01) Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD) Rep. Doug Bereuter (R-NE) Rep. Philip Crane (R-IL) Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA) Rep. John Duncan (R-TN) Rep. ...

H.R.1122 Sponsor: Rep Rangel, Charles B. (introduced 3/20/2001) Latest Major Action: 3/20/2001 Referred to House committee Title: To authorize the President to award a gold medal on behalf of the Congress to Jesse L. Jackson, Sr. in recognition of his outstanding and enduring contributions to the Nation.

H.R.1122 Sponsor: Rep Rangel, Charles B. (introduced 3/20/2001) Latest Major Action: 3/20/2001 Referred to House committee Title: To authorize the President to award a gold medal on behalf of the Congress to Jesse L. Jackson, Sr. in recognition of his outstanding and enduring contributions to the Nation.

Americans are losing their rights, homes, and livelihoods as federal agencies move to lock up vast tracks of land throughout the West in accord with the UN’s Wildlands Project. Five years ago, Diana Luppi was a successful novelist and screenwriter, and the owner of a beautiful home near Pagosa Springs, Colorado. Today she is homeless, debt-ridden, and saddled with a spurious criminal conviction. Tried by a federal district judge rather than a jury of her peers, Miss Luppi was sentenced to six months in prison and hammered with a $5,000 fine – a sentence that was suspended in favor of ...

ARLINGTON, Va., Feb. 17 — Nearly 400 leaders of a fractious, squabbling movement of people who call the tax laws a hoax set aside their differences here today and made plans to conduct a sustained national advertising campaign to expand their numbers.Displaying a new sophistication in organizing and marketing, what had been a contentious mélange of authors, sellers of tax evasion schemes and leaders of militia and patriot organizations, as well as business owners who have stopped withholding taxes from their workers' paychecks, came together at a hotel here. They gathered under the aegis of the We the People Foundation, ...

February 13, 2001 Dear friend of liberty, House Concurrent Resolution 23 (H.C.R. 23) was submitted Thursday, February 8, 2001 by Representatives Ron Paul (Texas), Virgil Goode (Virginia), Walter Jones (North Carolina), Roscoe Bartlett (Maryland), and John Duncan (Tennessee). H.C.R. 23 expresses "the sense of Congress that President George W. Bush should declare to all nations that the United States does not intend to assent to or ratify the International Criminal Court Treaty...and the signature of former President Clinton to that treaty should not be construed otherwise." H.C.R. 23 was referred to the House International Relations Committee of which Representative Paul ...

Quantico, Va. – As long as there have been law enforcement agents, they have tried to listen in on what the bad guys are planning. In early times, that meant standing next to a window in the eavesdrope [sic], the place where water from the eaves drips, to overhear conversations. As communications went electronic, eavesdropping did, too: Gen. Jeb Stuart hired a tapper to intercept telegraph messages in the Civil War. And by the 1890’s, two decades after Alexander Graham Bell’s first call to Watson, the first known telephone wiretaps by the police were in place. The Internet, in turn, ...

Capt. Kenneth P. Puckett, a former Senior Panama Canal Pilot, explains why Americans should be deeply concerned with China's ever-growing presence in Panama.Interview of Captain Kenneth P. Puckett by William Norman GriggCaptain Kenneth P. Puckett, US Army chief warrant officer (Ret.), was a senior Panama Canal Pilot and served as port captain of the Panama Canal from 1994 to 1996. As port captain, he was responsible for managing all of the Canal's operations on a 24-hour-a-day basis. He served two and a half tours of duty in Vietnam as a vessel master and harbor master for the Army, and served ...

(CNN) -- A group of astronomers has come up with a plan they claim will save life on Earth from an early demise. All it takes, they say, is moving the planet into a different orbit. Their deadline is about 3.5 billion years in the future. At that time, the scientists say, the sun will be 40 percent brighter than it is today and the Earth will be too hot to sustain life. Even looking just a billion years down the road, the increased brightness of the sun would cause a "moist greenhouse" effect which will have a catastrophic impact ...