January 8, 2000
January 15, 2001
January 22, 2001
January 29, 2001
In the past, a highly-politicized Justice Department has been used to shelter President Clinton from prosecution. But the appointment of a conservative senator to the post may just change all that.
Left-wingers hope to generate strong opposition in the Senate to confirming Sen. John Ashcroft (R-Mo.) As attorney general because he opposes taxpayer funding of abortions and government-imposed racism in the fields of education and job opportunity.
Ashcroft opposes federally imposed racial quotas - known as "affirmative action" in the left's lexicon of euphemisms - in education and the workplace. Because many millions of Catholics and Protestants oppose abortions on moral grounds, he opposes using their taxes to finance such services.
In announcing his selection of Ashcroft on Dec. 22, President-elect George W. Bush made unsubtle references to incumbent Attorney General Janet Reno, who used the Justice Department to protect President Clinton from numerous scandals.
Ashcroft will enforce federal law "by principle, not by politics," Bush said. "His job is going to be to enforce the law in an impartial, not in a political way."
Left-wing organizations were quick to denounce Ashcroft.
"This is truly an astonishingly bad nomination," said Ralph Neas, head of the misnamed People for the American Way.
His selection "is a particular poke in the eye to African Americans after Ashcroft's incredibly irresponsible behavior to block the judicial nomination of Judge Ronnie White," said Neas, referring to a left-wing nominee of president Clinton's to the federal bench.
The Human Rights Campaign, a large homosexual organization, called Ashcroft's choice "a frightening halt to the moderate tone" of earlier Bush nominations. Ashcroft opposes special homosexual rights laws and their open service in the military.
Liberals are also angry at Ashcroft for opposing Bill Lann Lee as head of the Justice Department's civil Rights Division. Lee has said that laws against racial and sexual quotas, such as passed in California, are unconstitutional.
"Putting Bill Lann Lee in charge of enforcing the civil rights laws is seriously wrong because he remains committed to racial preferences and quotas," Ashcroft said. "Mr. Lee persists in the belief that Americans should be judged by the color of their skin in determining academic admissions, public contracts and employment.
Ashcroft has an 80 percent favorable rating with Liberty Ledger, Liberty Lobby's score card for Congress.
It will be hard to derail Ashcroft's nomination in the Senate. While the left despises his politics they find it hard to hate the man, who is the son of an Assembly of God preacher.
Ashcroft's goodwill grew when he declined to challenge the loss of his Senate seat to a dead man. His opponent, Democratic Gov. Mel Carnahan, was killed in a plane crash two weeks before the election, resulting in a sympathy vote that barely topped Ashcroft. Ashcroft resisted pressure to challenge his loss on grounds that a dead man is unqualified , and stepped aside while the governor appointed Carnahan's widow to his seat.
Bush also appointed Gov. Christine Todd Whitman of New Jersey as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. He was careful to place her in this benign post because she is in favor of abortions.*
Tax protesters and tax reformers would use their time much more wisely to join forces and stump for honest money instead of fighting among themselves ro trying to institute reforms in the current tax system that would be worse than what we already have.
Honest money would eliminate the onerous taxation that has destroyed America's middle class. It would end the criminal federal Reserve bank to which the people's wealth is steadily transferred.
Jim Townsend, for many years publisher of The National Educator, tried hard to organized patriots to accomplish exactly that with his Redeem Our Country organization (with SPOTLIGHT cooperation), the only concerted attempt thus far to eliminate the Federal Reserve Bank.
Simply put, honest money requires but a few principles:
* Proper money must be issued by the government. Private money must make its owner a profit or perish, therefore the public can never have full value of such money. The unseen hand of the owner is in every exchange, taking its cut. This is why a year 2000 Federal reserve Note will buy about one or two percent of the value exchanged for a 1920s note of the same denomination. Its value is depleted by the unpaid debt created through 80 years of wealth (credit) transfer to the Fed.
* The only need of a federal tax in an honest money system is to take an inflationary excess out of circulation if the need for it is reduced. Taxing for this purpose, rather than being a wealth-stealing burden, becomes a wealth preserving blessing, keeping the value of the medium of exchange constant. This should be the ardent desire of all tax reformers.
* The bulk of money must not be a commodity as commodities can always have their value manipulated. Note how George Soros broke the Bank of England in another SPOTLIGHT article. It must be a medium of exchange - the true purpose of money - not a "store of value," Which is but a euphemism for a commodity.
However, a dual system could be made to work reasonably well. Commodity, or store of value money, would be bought, sold and hoarded for its hoped for changes in value by those who could afford to so speculate, while medium of exchange money would keep business on an even keel with its computer regulated, constant volume and value.
Notice that honest money does not come into existence through loans. therefore two wonderful, common sense, "miracles" occur.
1. There is no usury to be paid to anyone for the use of the medium of exchange, therefore there is no extra hand in the middle of each transaction gathering a portion of the nation's wealth for itself while gradually reducing the value of the money.
2. Instead of the medium circulating only until the banker who loaned it is repaid, whereupon that much of our money is extinguished by a bookkeeping entry, the medium continues to circulate until it is replaced due to wear. this means the banker no longer controls the volume of money in circulation for his own profit trough expansion of loans (inflation) and contraction of them (depression).
Honest money would return America to the prosperous, middle-class oriented, Mecca of commercial opportunity it once was. Federal taxation would no longer be a vexation.
Our present virus of dishonest money will keep us in sickly bondage by some form of its symptom of heavy taxation o matter what political snake oil we apply in the vain hope of easing that symptom.*
It is critical for populists to give legislation to be introduced by Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.) an early puch after the new Congress is seated Jan. 3. Paul's legislation to abolish the federal Reserve Board languished in the Banking and Financial services Committee during the last Congress.
It will have to be introduced again, with another number to replace H.R.1148, in the new Congress. The Establishment will fight this every step, which is why your senators and congressmen need to hear from you right away. Tell them you are writing or calling about Paul's bill to abolish the Fed and they will know exactly what you are talking about.
Paul's bill would repeal the Federal Reserve Act, abolish the Fed's Board of Governors and abolish all the Federal Reserve banks.
To comprehend how difficult this is recall that the Fed and the federal income tax were imposed upon the country after a secret meeting of the Bilderberg Group's grandpappies, led by Sen. Nelson Aldrich of the Rockefeller family.
From this meeting also came the 16th Amendment, which imposed federal income taxes on American citizens. Paul will be reintroducing his bill to amend the Constitution to abolish the income tax and that is a longer, even more difficult road.*
The Establishment press finally confronted Greenspan's market fixing, but not its tainted results.
In the waning days of last year, The New York Times, faithful town crier of Wall Street, suddenly reversed itself and admitted an anomaly it has denied for a decade. Beginning in 1987, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan had massively rigged the stock market in violation of federal criminal law and regulatory standards.
"On Greenspan's orders, E. Gerald Corrigan, then president of the New York Fed, discreetly instructed bank executives to keep on lending money, enven to insolvent debtors, and not to worry about potential losses, the Fed would make them whole," wrote the noted economist Robert Kuttner in one of the major book-review essays the Times is known for.
The "insolvent debtors" were, of course, the brokers, specialist market-makers and speculators who had lost their shirts in the October 1987 stock-market collapse.
"Forget your losses and start buying stocks again, even if they are in sharp decline. We will supply the cash, no matter how much is needed," the Fed urged them.
In the end Greenspan and corrigan rigged the market and stopped its hemorrhaging with "not much more than $1 billion in federal cash - it was a cheaper fix than most of us expected," Tim Metz, former chief financial reporter for The Wall Street Journal, told The SPOTLIGHT in an interview in early 1988.
"All this was illegal, of course," confirmed Kuttner, "and if it didn't work, Greenspan would have been liable for prosecution under federal criminal statutes that prohibit such market-rigging - as well as under rules defining the Fed's fiduciary duties and ‘prudent-man' obligations."
But Greenspan and Corrigan got away with their mammoth scam because in the end, "the system held," concluded Kuttner.
The only detailed investigative reports exposing this scheming and fraudulent use of taxpayer's money have appeared over the years in this populist newspaper.
Moreover, the "system" no longer holds. After years of denial, during which neither. Congress nor the Establishment media ever dared challenge the convoluted explanations Greenspan gave out to cover his backroom deals, the Times decided to admit some of them with the justification that "the system held" - precisely at year's end, when the chaotic, devious and lawless financial system created by the Fed's manipulation is plainly crumbling.
The National Association of Purchasing Management's year-end report, a key bellwether, warned that in December U.S. manufacturing production has fallen to its lowest level in a decade, and was sinking toward recession-threatening cutbacks.
Business debt defaults are on the rise and will hit the all-time high of 10 percent of total outstanding corporate debt, warned Moody's old-line market-watch service.
The economy is wilting, in large part, because the capital markets - the "system" Greenspan supposedly held together - are now ruled by a smash-and-grab elite of financial magnates such as Ronald Perelman, known on Wall Street contemptuously as the "Finagle King," who have devised ways to milk billions of dollars from securities deals on which multitudes of small stockholders end up the big losers, seasoned market-watchers say.
As an example, they cite the example of Revlon, the well-known family-owned cosmetics company, which fell under Perelman's control in February 1996 and was taken public shortly thereafter.
"Small investors who thought Perelman might turn around the slowing company eagerly bought Revlon's stock at $55.63 per share," says financial writer Christopher Bryon. "Today that single share of Revlon is worth les that $3, making the investors a lot poorer - but by some devious means, the deal has made Perelman himself much richer."
Of course, Revlon is by no means the only falling star on Wall Street. Amazon.com, the internet book retailer run by the celebrated Jeff Bezos, feted as "Man of the Year" by Time magazine in 1999, has seen its market capitalization - that is, the total value of all shares issued - shrivel from $10.7 billion to a more realistic $1.8 billion. Priceline - a favorite investment of Saudi billionaire Prince Al-Walid bin-Talal - plunged from last year's market cap of $5.2 billion to a pathetic $62.6 million.
"Millions of working people have hocked their family homes in order to invest in such wildly speculative securities because they believed that Greenspan would prop up all of the market all the time, by what ever under-the-table means were necessary," said veteran portfolio manager Raoul Tonetti.
But Greenspan tactics are not devised to sustain small, inexperienced investors. The Greenspan strategy is essentially a vast scheme of wealth transfer. It illegally diverts tens of billions of dollars in taxpayer money bail out imprudent bankers and make good the back-breaking losses occasionally inflected by the reckless market bets of highly-leveraged stock speculators and "macro{" hedge funds, investigative writers such as William Greider, author of a definitive book on the Fed,* have found.
"Greenspan used to say that welfare was unfair, because it drained off the resources generated by productive workers to people who produced nothing," wrote the respected Greider. "Ironically, that is exactly what he has been doing as Fed chairman - siphoning off the wealth generated by the productive segments of society and transferring it to non-productive elements who happen to be rich instead of poor, such as Perelman-style market, finaglers, self-dealing corporate chieftains, money-laundering bankers and bet-a-billion speculatators who have learned to use the U.S. payments system as a giant casino with quite a few roulette wheels rigged in their favor."*
*Secrets of the Temple: How the Federal Reserve Runs the Country, by William Greider, is available from Liberty Library. The massive soft-cover tome (almost 800 pages) has been called one of the best books on the Federal Reserve ever written. To order (Item #373, $17.95) send payment to Liberty Library, 300 Independence Avenue SE, Washington, D.C. 20003 or you may call 1-800-522-6292. We presently have a very limited stock of these books so order today.
Here are some late developments in the emergency situation that threatens the survival of Liberty Lobby, the populist Institution that publishes The SPOTLIGHT.
Liberty Lobby's attorneys are working overtime seeking relief from the bizarre order by Judge Runston G. Maino giving Mark Weber and his CIA handler - Andrew E. Allen - the right to seize Liberty Lobby and shut down The SPOTLIGHT.
Weber and his controllers had connived to get Maino, a California judge in Vista, to intervene outside his jurisdiction and unilaterally void Liberty Lobby's settlement in the U.S. Bankruptcy court in Washington, D.C.
On the basis of Maino's order, postal clerks in Washington, D.C. began withholding Liberty Lobby's mail, although the mail is still being delivered for now.
However, on Dec. 22, Liberty Lobby's attorney in California, J. Brian Urtnowski, confronted Maino and pointed out that he hadn't given Liberty Lobby the opportunity to respond to Weber's motion.
Evidently recognizing his mistake, Maino gave Liberty Lobby a stay, which expires on Jan. 22.
This means that if - by that time - a higher court does not overrule Maino, Weber will liquidate The SPOTLIGHT.
Urtnowski has not only appealed Maino's ruling, but has also filed for a writ to prevent Maino from taking further action. In Washington, D.C., Liberty Lobby's attorneys, Mark Lane and Rom Stanton, have asked the U.S. Bankruptcy Court to disqualify Maino from further intervention.
Regular SPOTLIGHT subscribers, please note: A detailed report on the conspiracy surrounding the attack on Liberty Lobby appears in a special newsletter, Liberty Lobby, sent exclusively to members of Liberty Lobby's Board of Policy as a four-page "wrap"accompanying this week's issue of The SPOTLIGHT.
This report notes evidence that one of the conspirators known to be involved in the plot to destroy Liberty Lobby was linked to a government informant involved in the Oklahoma City bombing.
Non-BOP members can receive a copy of this report in return for a $10 contribution to: Friends of The SPOTLIGHT and Liberty Lobby, P.O. Box 91660, Washington, D.C. 20090-1660.*
The wife of one of the men trying to shut down Liberty Lobby approached The SPOTLIGHT recently and provided a candid interview.
From a quite unexpected source, The SPOTLIGHT will now be able to provide its readers with detailed, in-depth stories about the behind-the-scenes maneuvering involved in the conspiracy to destroy Liberty Lobby.
Mrs. Priscilla Weber of Costa Mesa, Calif. - the wife of conspirator Mark Weber and the mother of his two children - has come forward and provided The SPOTLIGHT with what can only be described as "inside" information about Weber and his colleagues.
Priscilla said that she would never have agreed to provide all of this information to The SPOTLIGHT without previously consulting with her own pastor who told her, simply,"just tell the truth."
Married to Weber six years ago after what she acknowledges was a "long-distance courtship," Priscilla soon discovered that her husband was not the person she believed him to be as she watched him become more and more immersed in the conspiracy and under the influence of others, including two cult members with whom he took up residence four years ago after abandoning her (in a particularly brutal way) when she was four months pregnant with their second child.
According to Liberty Lobby Board of Policy Chairman Vince Ryan, who has participated in interviews with Mrs. Weber: "Note now and most assuredly that Priscilla is not bitter. She is not the proverbial ‘woman scorned'. Anyone raising that concern has clearly never met or spoken with Priscilla. Although she told her story with tears, she normally is a cheerful woman who is a ling-time activist in pro-family circles and a Christian dedicated to her traditionalist Catholic faith."
In fact, Priscilla's religious devotion became her guide and foundation through four rather bizarre years of what she says, candidly, has been both physical and mental abuse, details of which she provided.
Mrs. Weber told The SPOTLIGHT that she became increasingly empathetic toward Liberty Lobby, when she recognized the remarkable parallels - in more ways that the casual observer might imagine - between her husband's treatment of her and the children and the way that he was dealing with Liberty Lobby.
Priscilla said her husband bragged that even though he had a long-standing hostility to Willis Carto, the founder of Liberty Lobby - though he had worked with and was paid by Mr. Carto - he kept his hostility to himself until he had the opportunity to strike.
Weber - who evidently relied heavily on ‘self-help" and "power enhancement" books to guide his activities - boasted that this was his standard way of dealing with others, keeping his venom under wraps until the right moment.
This is just one of the revealing personal insights into the character of not just Weber but many of his closest associates that Priscilla has provided in a number of extensive interviews with The SPOTLIGHT.
In addition, she has also brought forth sometimes disturbing information about Weber's unusual manipulation of finances(both his and others), his careful record-keeping regarding phone calls and meetings with both friends and casual associates - extensive files that would be a bonanza for any intelligence agency - and a variety of strange activities and behavior on the part of her husband and his associates that she has observed over the past several years.
These are just a few sketchy highlights of what The SPOTLIGHT has learned - information that is very much of interest to SPOTLIGHT readers and to members of the historical Revisionist movement of which Weber was once a part.
Future issues of The SPOTLIGHT will provide details as the extensive notes and transcriptions of Mrs. Weber's reports are reviewed and made available for publication.*
Liberty Lobby has played a definitive role in defending Americans' hard-fought constitutional right.
To close down The SPOTLIGHT by governmental fiat - which would be the end result of capturing Liberty Lobby - would be a violation of the First Amendment, the most important amendment of the Bill of Rights.
Millions of words about the central importance of the First Amendment to the security of our liberties under the unique government created for us by the Founding Fathers have been written.
The First Amendment means more than protecting the rights of pornographers, child molesters, communists and other degenerates. When properly applied it means protecting those who wish to propound ideas different from and even conflicting to those prevailing in the fields of religion, science, politics, journalism and history. Today, the courts have in general lost sight of this fact and for the most part are prejudiced against those of us who do wish to challenge what they see is now a corrupt and degenerate system meant to serve only the interests of the international plutocracy, the cultural communists (the politically correct) and political Zionism.
In one of the most significant decisions of the Supreme Court, Sullivan vs. New York Times, it was ruled that the press has a duty to engage in "vigorous debate," which is precisely the mission of Liberty Lobby and The SPOTLIGHT, as any inspection of the printed matter and the radio messages of this Institution over the years since 1955 will unmistakable show.
Fundamentally put, Liberty Lobby/The SPOTLIGHT challenge the whole movement familiarly known as political correctness, which is only a popular synonym for cultural communism or the "Frankfurt School," a Marxist movement which was instigated by communists in 1923.
THE SPOTLIGHT
The SPOTLIGHT has always had a distinctively populist philosophy, mirroring that of its publisher. It is the direct outgrowth and the successor to Liberty Letter, a monthly newsletter which was for the purpose of advising and alerting subscribers and members of Liberty Lobby of legislation in Congress.
This purpose is carried forward every week in The SPOTLIGHT and in its regular "Spotlight on Congress" features. This public service is in the highest tradition of constructive citizen action in our representative system because such vital information is difficult or impossible for the average citizen to come by otherwise.
The feature of The SPOTLIGHT is the heart of the newspaper and the reason for its existence.
WHY THE SPOTLIGHT IS UNIQUE
The reason The SPOTLIGHT carries news that may only indirectly serve Liberty Lobby's official policies is because the news media in general chooses to "bury" or "spike" much important and real news.
What is news? The SPOTLIGHT defines news as happenings that directly bear on the interests of the consumer, taxpayer and voters of the U.S. whether they know it or not. Thus, The SPOTLIGHT's definition of news is entirely different from the orthodox definition of news, which is to report on events that the dominant international plutocratic establishment feels the public should know.
In other words, The SPOTLIGHT performs a great public service by maintaining the highest journalistic standard of any newspaper in our country and consistently and faithfully carries truth through against the greatest odds.
ANTI SEMITISM
The SPOTLIGHT, when it is mentioned at all, is always attacked as being "anti-Semitic." This charge is a lie, a lie that is a potent punishment and weapon always used to put down anyone who utters a word outside of the boundaries of acceptable (political position mandated by Liberty Lobby's Policy Position No. 5, "Pro American Foreign Policy."
Liberty Lobby sees that most of this nation's problems today result from intervention into foreign wars, none of which have served American interests.
This policy means hands-off Vietnam, Iraq, Kosovo and the Palestinian no-win mess. It definitely means no more taxpayers' money for Israel.
Liberty Lobby's position on this has been consistent for 45 years, and is the reason for Israel's agents, such as the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), attacking and minimizing Liberty Lobby and The SPOTLIGHT at every opportunity.
The SPOTLIGHT has prevailed legitimately and purposefully for 25 years against the entire controlled news media and before it then, its publisher for 20 years. The SPOTLIGHT and Liberty Lobby deserve accolades and respect for the thankless task they have undertaken.
The greatest danger to American liberties do not come from scattered "haters," as designated by the ADL, for a compliant press to endlessly repeat, but from the ADL itself and its like-minded alien subversives who work strenuously to trash our glorious First Amendment and make unpopular opinions criminal - exactly as they have already done in Europe, Canada and Australia.
May god save America, certainly the "free" press will not.*
Willis A. Carto is the treasurer of Liberty Lobby and the executive publisher of The SPOTLIGHT.
Just before ringing in the New Year, President Bill Clinton signed away U.S. sovereignty to an international war crimes court.
Just hours before the deadline on New Year's eve, President Clinton ordered the signing of a treaty creating an International criminal court to try alleged war criminals.
There is little chance the current Senate will ratify the treaty, but by signing before the Jan. 1 deadline, the United States will have a voice in the structure of the court.
That rationale for signing the treaty was dismissed by populist patriots, who object to a presidential blessing on a treaty that would further erode national sovereignty and place American soldiers in jeopardy.
Clinton, a Bilderberg veteran and strong advocate of world government, tried to make his action politically palatable by asking that the court protect American soldiers on the numerous United Nations "peacekeeping missions."
Failing that, he waited until after the election and picked a moment - hours before the New Year - when it was likely to have the least media impact.
The ICC has announced that it will claim jurisdiction over the entire world, even over nations that neither sign nor ratify the treaty.
Judges from tin-pot countries who hate the United States would be able to try American soldiers for "war crimes" committed on any of the endless United Nations missions abroad, without a jury. A U.S. request to provide an exemption for soldiers acting under orders of the UN Security Council was rejected.
The United States signed the treaty "to reaffirm our strong support for international accountability and for bringing to justice perpetrators of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity," Clinton said.
Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, promptly denounced Clinton's action. He vowed to make "protecting America's fighting men and women from this international kangaroo court one of my highest priorities in the new Congress."
"The court still claims...the jurisdiction to indict, try and imprison American citizens, whether or not the U.S. agrees to be bound by the treaty," Helms said. "By signing this president has effectively given his approval to this unprecedented assault on American sovereignty."
So, far,138 nations have signed the treaty, including most NATO allies, Russia and Israel. Ironically, Clinton is considered a war criminal by many, including the innocent victims of random U.S. missile assaults on Serbia, Iraq, Somalia and Afghanistan.*
Politicians who supported gun laws deopped like flies before supporters of the Second Amendment.
More than 86 percent of congressional candidates who supported the Second Amendment right to bear arms won in the last election.
This astonishingly good news is the result of freedom lovers, led by the National rifle Association with strong support from Liberty Lobby and other patriotic groups, taking their Second amendment campaign into the heart of America.
"A movement was reborn and firearms owners across the nation were mobilizing, organizing and getting out the vote," wrote Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the NRA, in American Rifleman. "We were on our way to electing a preserving a pro-firearms rights Congress."
While populist patriots were conducting voter education and registration drives, the left-wing extremists were fighting back - and losing.
Handgun Control and Million Mom March drew only small crowds. The Alliance for Justice held a press conference with Attorney General Janet Reno and Housing Secretary Andrew Cuomo to "launch a mobilization so massive that politicians cannot ignore us.
They announced "hundreds of simultaneous rallies, town hall meetings and door-to-door campaigns across the country." Turnouts were feeble and ignored by the mainstream media to avoid embarrassing their soulmates.
Paul Bugala, former domestic adviser to President Clinton, wrote a hysterical Internet column.
"What is it about peace and prosperity that has them so angry? Could it be that the Clinton administration was the first in history to take on the extremists at the NRA?"
"Extremist" is thus defined as one who believes in the whole Constitution, including the Second Amendment.
Columnist Peggy Noonan called Begala's hysterias "hatred, pure and simple."*
Immigrants now account for slightly more than 10 percent of the U.S. population but the resulting problems reach much higher percentages.
More than one in 10 people (10.4 percent) living in the United States are immigrants, legal or illegal, but the costs and burdens foreigners bring with them are far disproportionate to their numbers, a new study has found.
The report by the Center for Immigration Studies, released Jan. 4 in Washington, found that:
* By the end of the 1990, more than 1.2 million legal and illegal immigrants were settling in the United States each year.
* The number of immigrants has more than tripled since 1970, from 9.6 million to 28.4 million. As a percentage of the U.S. population, immigrants have more than doubled, from 4.7 percent in 1970 to 10.4 percent in 2000.
* Immigration has become the determinate factor in U.S. population growth. The 11.2 million who arrived since 1990 and the 6.4 million children born to immigrants in that decade are equal to roughly two-thirds of the population growth during that period.
"These new data confirm what many Americans are seeing with their own eyes - the United States is in the midst of the largest sustained wave of immigration in its history," said the center's Steven Camarota in releasing the report.
Immigrants are concentrated in California, New York and Florida. Colorado, North Carolina and Nevada have also seen significant immigration growth. Since millions of illegal aliens vote, they could prejudice elections. Immigrants account for 5.5 percent of all "eligible voters."
"Because current policy allows in so many people who lack a formal education, immigration has resulted in an enormous growth in the poor and uninsured populations," Camarota said. "The question has to be asked: is the country well served by our current immigration policy?"
UNEDUCATED IMMIGRANTS
One-third of recent immigrants lack a high school diploma, more than three times the rate for natives, the study found. More than half of post-1970 immigrants live in or near poverty, compared to 28 percent of natives.
"The limited value of their labor in an economy that increasingly demands educated workers means that the situation for many immigrants remains precarious, despite the current prosperity," Camarota said. "With the economy slowing, the situation for immigrant families is likely to deteriorate dramatically and the cost of immigration to become glaringly apparent."
The proportion of immigrant households on welfare is 30 to 50 percent higher than for natives, despite some limitations placed in recent years on benefits for illegal aliens, the study found.
Immigration accounts for virtually all of the increase in public school enrollment over the last two decades, the study found.
This year, there are 8.6 million school-age children from immigrant families in the United States.
"Because all children born in the United States to immigrants are by definition natives, the sole reason for the dramatic increase in the immigrant population is new immigration," the report said.*
Almost a decade ago, The SPOTLIGHT told you about possible dangers from the armor-piercing weapons. Now, others have noticed.
Italy is officially "disturbed" about the possibility of radiation-related ill effects from the use of depleted uranium (DU) ammunition by U.S. and NATO forces.
This populist newspaper first brought the possible dangers of DU ammo to the attention of the public back in 1991, when NATO used the ammunition against Iraqi armor in the Persian Gulf War.
Depleted uranium munitions are more dense than conventional ones, allowing them to penetrate heavy armor more easily.
Some 60,000 Italian troops and 15,000 Italian civilians have taken part in missions in the former Yugoslavia since 1995.
The Italian soldiers have been unofficially diagnosed as suffering from "Balkans Syndrome," a mysterious illness with variously defined symptoms.
And, during the last week of December, Italy launched a probe into a possible link between the depleted uranium and some 30 cases of serious illness involving soldiers who served in Bosnia and Kosovo, 12 of whom developed cancer.
Italian Prime Minister Guiliano Amato is demanding explanations from NATO on the use of DU munitions in the Balkans conflicts, following media reports that six Italian soldiers who served there have died of leukemia.
Following the death of a sixth Italian soldier, Amato told La Republica newspaper on Jan.3 that "NATO must carry out all the check that will allow us to understand the history and the characteristics of depleted uranium."
A feeling of alarm over the reports was "more than legitimate," he added.
NATO has denied that depleted uranium (DU) used in some of its munitions could be linked to the deaths of military personnel.
UNFOUNDED?
On Jan. 3, a spokesman at NATO headquarters said "current research indicates it would be virtually impossible for a person to inhale enough depleted uranium particles for it to be a health risk.
Britain joined the U.S., firmly holding to the view that, despite the alarm expressed by Italy, Spain Turkey and Finland, the firing of depleted uranium shells by American aircraft during NATO's bombing campaign against the Serbs in Kosovo in 1999 posed not health risk for British peacekeeper.
Unlike Italy, there have been no reported cases of cancer-related illnesses suffered by British soldiers who have served in either Kosovo or the earlier Bosnia conflict. British officials could no explain why this was the case.
The UK Ministry of Defense's (MoD) experience has been confined to the 1991 Gulf War which did lead to mysterious illnesses among about 5000 veterans, some of whom have blamed the use of depleted uranium weapons.
Depleted uranium is a by-product of the process for converting natural uranium into the enriched form used in nuclear weapons and reactors.
CONTROVERSIAL
According to respected British defense expert Michael Evans, the potential exposure of NATO troops to radioactive dust scattered by American weapons tipped with armor-piercing depleted uranium in the Gulf, Bosnia and Kosovo campaigns has become a highly controversial issue, even though there remains no scientific evidence linking it to the deaths of alliance soldiers.
Forty British soldiers who served in the Gulf War were so convinced their illnesses could be blamed on the firing of depleted uranium shells that they went to Canada for tests. A Canadian expert, Professor Hari Sharma, examined the men and declared they were suffering from Uranium poisoning.
However, the UK MoD said his findings had not been published in any scientific journal and all attempts to persuade the professor to send his work to be examined in Britain had failed.
"We also invited the 40 veterans to be examined by independent medical experts in Britain but so far they have not come forward," a department spokesman said.
The British Royal Society of Medicine is currently carrying out a review of the possible effects of depleted uranium weapons and MoD officials have testified. The society's report is due in the spring.
Meanwhile, the family of a soldier who served in the former Yugoslavia, 24-year-old Salvatore Carbonaro from Sicily, said on Jan. 2 that he had died of leukemia in November.
The dead soldier's brother, Mauro Carbonaro, told a regional newspaper that Salvatore had been in contact with DU munitions.
The dead man served in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1998 and 1999, although that is not a period when NATO has admitted to using DU ammunition in that region.
NATO officials said last December that U.S. aircraft fired more than 10,000 depleted uranium projectiles in Bosnia between 1994 and 1995, as well as in Kosovo in 1999.
They said that DU rounds were "fired from A-10 Thunderbolt aircraft, under international auspices," and that the fact had been known for several years.
A NATO official in brussels added: "There is nothing secret about DU rounds being fired in Bosnia."
Carbonaro was the sixth Italian soldier to serve in the region whose death has been linked to what is being called the "Balkans Syndrome" - a series of health problems contracted by those who served in the former Yugoslavia.
The Italian defense ministry has set up a commission to establish whether there is a link between the deaths and cancer cases and the use of the depleted uranium.
In addition to the six Italian military fatalities linked to the syndrome, the press in Italy has listed another 30 suspected cases of soldiers contaminated by DU.
Reports from other European countries whose troops have served in the region have been investigated.
LINK?
According to NATO sources, in Belgium, five cases of cancer have been diagnosed in soldiers who served in the Balkans, but no link with the arms has been established. Several cases of leukemia have also been recorded among Dutch veterans of the Balkans, and Spain has launched an intensive study of some 32,000 military personnel who were on duty there.
Portugal's army chief of staff said on Jan. 2 that about 900 former peacekeepers would undergo medical tests to see if they had been exposed to radiation linked to depleted uranium munitions.
A German defense ministry spokesman told the Weltam Sonntag newspaper that tests carried out by the army on its Kosovo veterans over the past 12 months had not shown any radiation-linked illnesses.
"We always knew that it was used in Kosovo and not in Bosnia and that it could be dangerous when handled," he said. "But now we fear things may not be so simple."
Since 1995, up to 60,00 Italian soldiers have served in Bosnia, Kosovo and Macedonia.
NATO has admitted that U.S. warplanes operating in Kosovo fired armor piercing rounds containing depleted uranium during the alliance's 78-day bombing campaign last year. The MoD has taken comfort, however, from a new Pentagon report which has effectively ruled out any link between cancer and depleted uranium weapons.
The Pentagon report said that depleted Uranium was 40 percent less radioactive than natural uranium.
However, this argument is dismissed by veterans who claim the danger emanates from the radioactive dust in the atmosphere which, if ingested in substantial amounts, could damage organs.
David Case, an expert working for the Pentagon's environmental exposure team, wrote in the latest report that depleted uranium, which is much denser than conventional material and, thus, has greater penetrative power, could cause kidney problems, if ingested, "because of its heavy metal toxicity."
"The health risks from its radioactivity are slight compared to the heavy metal toxicity risk," he wrote. More than 3000 tons of depleted uranium were fired in the Gulf War, either by American tanks or by A10 Warthog tank-busting aircraft.
The U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs has been monitoring 33 Gulf War veterans who were seriously injured in "friendly-fire" incidents involving depleted uranium. About half of them still have depleted uranium fragments in their bodies.*
CFR and Bilderbergers are making preparations for a likely stock market crash.
If you hocked your house to bet on the stock exchange, you should be aware that in their soundproof conference rooms, the money magnates who style themselves "masters of the universe"——the elders of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and Bilderberg——have started holding rehearsals for an anticipated breakdown of the U.S. financial markets. The CFR''s trial-run "simulation" scenario for such a financial apocalypse, developed by Dr. Roger Kubarych, an economist and senior fellow of the CFR, is based on the assumption that a concatenation of bad news——a sudden spurt in inflation figures, plunging computer and software sales, reports of sharp increases in loan defaults, and a simultaneous sell-off of mutual funds——might well trigger an avalanche of stock-market losses, leading to a generalized panic.
Kubarych has presented his financial "doomsday" game theory both to leading CFR and Bilderberg business barons. Their consensus: In such a crisis, the Federal Reserve must ride to the rescue, by providing "whatever liquidity [cash] may be needed to save the U.S. payments system," Wall Street sources say. But under the law, the Fed is authorized to manage the money supply only by buying or selling bonds.
The Kubarych scenario, and the unanimity with which some of the world''s top financiers reacted to it, gives new life to a question that has been haunting Wall Street for years: Is Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, whose indifference to legal niceties is well known, keeping the money supply brimming over with secretly——and illegally——generated billions in U.S. currency? The question is timely, because a number of the "crisis signals" postulated by the Kubarych scenario are already looming on the horizon. So-called "core inflation" figures are up, and the high-tech markets are in a slump, leading to sharp losses in stockholder assets.
CRISIS SIGNALS
Most importantly, a number of major banks are reporting a rising tide of loan defaults. First Union Corp., the sixth largest U.S. money-center, revealed in regulatory filings that it had over $700 million of "impaired" (i.e. non-performing) loans on its books at the end of the third quarter, a whopping 11 percent increase over the previous year. First Union, long regarded as one of nation''s fastest-growing and most prosperous banks, reacted to the crisis by closing 90 branches, firing 2,350 employees, shutting its Money Store subsidiary, and watching helplessly as its stock fell by 50 percent. Other banks report similar problems. Not since the recession of 1990 has Wall Street seen such a rapid deterioration in credit quality, veteran brokers say. The credit ratings of a record 470 corporations were sharply downgraded in the year 2000, as the number of "noncurrent" (i.e. unpaid) commercial and industrial loans rose by a whopping 38.7 percent over the preceding year, according to data released by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation."If you still think stocks will make you rich, go buy some," said Demeter "Dim my" LaRoque, a retired New York Stock Exchange floor trader. "But take my advice, don''t bet the farm on them."
The Libertarian belief in the benefits of deregulation that borders on the religious has been exposed as a myth in California's first free market experiment in the energy industry.
The California utility disaster offers an object lesson in the consequences of "libertarian deregulation," which opposes any government regulation of business. If the trend to deregulate utilities is not reversed the consequences will be catastrophic for America.
While the traditional Christian beliefs of President George
W. Bush's nominee for attorney general, John Ashcroft, have drawn
a great deal of media attention, a more threatening dogma to which
the new administration is wholeheartedly devoted is accepted without
question by the mainstream media: the libertarian doctrine of
deregulation.
The baneful effects of the libertarians' bad religion have devastated
California utilities and looted the state's economy of billions
of dollars. Many of the energy suppliers behind the on-going utility
crisis in the Golden State are senior sponsors and advisors of
the new administration.
The new president is an acolyte in the church of laissez faire economic theology, but he is well supported and coached by the high priests of free market orthodoxy.
Top executives of several of the energy-generating companies, including Enron, Dynegy and Duke Power, participated in closed-door negotiations to resolve the California utility crisis in which they were expected to strongly defend their pricing practices and reject charges of price gouging.
One participant in the intense negotiations is natural gas executive Kenneth Lay, a long-time friend, donor and adviser to Bush.
Lay, a possible Bush nominee for energy secretary, is chairman of the Houston-based natural gas pipeline company Enron Corp., the energy company that has been Bush's biggest financial backer throughout his political career. Lay was part of a large group of outside advisers involved in shaping Bush's energy policy and is serving on an energy policy advisory committee that Bush assembled for the transition.
California Gov. Gray Davis (D) called the energy suppliers "pirates, marauders, gougers and greedy profiteers," according to The Los Angeles Times.
The governor's harsh criticism raises a valid question: Have the electricity suppliers who own California's power plants colluded to increase profits in the state's deregulated market?
The generators, almost all of which are headquartered in the South and South west, say they have adhered strictly to the law and have not manipulated the market, either individually or in concert.
"Those charges have clouded the issue for the better part of the year 2000; they continue to cloud the issue," said Richard N. Wheatley, director of communications for Houston-based Reliant Energy. "It's the buyers who drive up the price. . . . It's like a buying frenzy."
Government and private researchers, however, have concluded that California's deregulated energy market has been manipulated to keep energy prices substantially higher than the cost of production to increase corporate profits.
Researchers with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission found that "the market was artificially distorted" by the power suppliers who decreased the power supply in order to maximize profits when demand increased.
Wholesale power sold on California's spot market briefly soared above $1,000 per megawatt hour but has come down to around $320 per megawatt hour——still expensive compared to $34 per megawatt hour one year ago.
One of the reasons for soaring prices is the critical shortage of power plants in California while the state's energy needs are growing.
Under the 1996 state law that deregulated the sale of electricity in California, the utilities were encouraged to sell off their power plants and begin buying electricity on the "free market"—— including from the companies that now own their old plants.
However, when California desperately needed power last summer,
federal investigators found generators exporting power by selling
electricity to marketers elsewhere in the country. Those buyers
could then sell it back to California when the prices climbed
due to dwindling supply.
In fact, more power was exported to other states from generation
plants in California last year than in 1999.
Power plant operators usually shut down many of the generators for maintenance between January and April so they can run full throttle during the hot summer months. This upkeep is especially important in California, where 82 percent of the generators are more than 30 years old. But last year, for reasons federal officials have yet to determine, preventive maintenance plunged nearly 40 percent.
SUDDEN SHUTDOWNS
Many researchers cite a sharp increase in unscheduled plant shutdowns and unusual production cutbacks that dried up California's energy supply and helped push prices skyward——as much as fivefold, draining cash from the state's big utility companies.
As the demand for power increased due to the need for air conditioning during the heat of summer, plants unexpectedly began shutting down. Lost wattage virtually quintupled in August compared to the year before.
Researchers for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission said in a November report that the cuts could have been caused by equipment breakdowns in aging facilities, but they hinted that the shutdowns were calculated to reduce the supply of power available in order to drive the prices higher. The federal re searchers noted that when prices climbed to more lucrative levels, the outages suddenly ended and the plants sprang back to life.
Last week, the major California utility companies announced job cuts. Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) officials said they would have to immediately cut 325 jobs, and possibly 675 employees over the next few months, to save money.
Southern California Edison (SCE) announced even bigger cutbacks. On Jan. 5, SCE said it planned to lay off 1,850 employees——or 13 percent of its workforce.
FREE TRADER ON A MISSION
Bush, a devout free-trader who campaigned on the promise of expanding NAFTA from Alaska to Argentina, made good on his promise by nominating Robert B. Zoellick to be U.S. trade representative.
Zoellick "is a free-trader on a mission," according to The Washington Post, who had "a direct hand in negotiating free-trade agreements with Canada and Mexico and clearing the final negotiating hurtle to the creation of the World Trade Organization. Now he wants to negotiate free trade with Europe and the rest of Latin and South America."
Zoellick might have a hard time convincing Californians that "free trade" in the energy markets has made them stronger or is any improvement over regulation.*
In the interest of minimizing harm to patriots who sincerely want to fight unjust taxes, The SPOTLIGHT lists the most common mistakes made by tax fighters as researched meticulously by a successful nontaxpayer.
In his many years of tax research, Otto Skinner has done all American patriots a tremendous service. For instance, an entire chapter of his third book, The Biggest Tax Loophole of All, is dedicated to exposing 18 flawed tax arguments that result in fines and/or prison time for good, but misled, patriots.
Following is a listing of those arguments with very abbreviated, incomplete refutations.
For easier understanding, it must first be mentioned that taxation law begins with an obligation on the government to prove that a person is a taxpayer lawfully subject to (liable for) a tax. It is generally a mistake for the citizen to take it upon himself to attempt to prove to the government that he is not liable. A nontaxpayer has no standing in court to argue tax law.
Argument: Submitting the W-4 exempt form.
Refutation: This is a form for taxpayers, not nontaxpayers.
Argument: Stating that the tax is an unconstitutional, direct tax.
Refutation: The protester presents himself as being liable for the tax by arguing from the standing of a taxpayer. Moreover, the tax is neither unconstitutional nor direct.
Argument: Stating that the 16th Amendment was not properly ratified.
Refutation: The amendment created no new tax anyway. The protester again presents himself as being liable for the tax as a taxpayer.
Argument: Filing a 5th Amendment claim.
Refutation: Implies that the individual has committed a crime and is a taxpayer.
Argument: Stating that wages are not income.
Refutation: Wrongly assumes that pro perty (wages) is the subject of the tax.
Argument: Stating that "shall" means "may" in case law relied upon.
Refutation: That particular case, and the statement used from it, have no bearing on the tax.
Argument: Stating that the tax is voluntary.
Refutation: No tax is voluntary al though self-assessment may be.
Argument: Stating that the individual is not an employee.
Refutation: This argument is based on an erroneous definition of the term "includes" in the tax code.
Argument: Stating that the secretary must complete a tax return.
Refutation: Falsely mixes criminal and civil cases.
Argument: Stating that the individual is a nonresident alien, not a citizen, etc.
Refutation: Also stems from a flawed definition of the term "includes."
Argument: Stating that the tax is only on government employees.
Refutation: Argument is based on an act of Congress which established no tax.
Argument: Files zero tax returns (and often states that only corporations have income).
Refutation: Relies on three cases which do not back up the theory. Two of the cases resulted in convictions of those who used them. The other is misused in support of the definition of income.
Argument: Stating that lack of an OMB number on the 1040 instruction book nullifies the tax.
Refutation: OMB numbers apply to regulations but the taxpayer is obligated by statute.
Argument: Stating that zip codes are a federal geographic gimmick.
Refutation: Has nothing to do with who is subject to the tax as the tax is not territorial.
Argument: Stating that Title 26 is not positive law.
Refutation: Whether the code is "positive" or not, it is prima facie evidence of some act of Congress passed into law——it is immaterial to the legitimacy of the tax.
Argument: Stating that tax levies can only be placed on the property of public servants.
Refutation: Argument ignores part of the code as well as who is subject to the tax.
Argument: Stating that the tax is the direct Victory Tax of 1942 and therefore can only be imposed for two years.
Refutation: The "Victory Tax" did not differ from the ordinary "income tax" thus nullifying the theory.
Argument: Stating that we have no lawful money, so what we use as money can't be taxed.
Refutation: Money (property) is not the subject of the tax, income amount is only the measure of the tax.
Skinner sums up the chapter with a few handy hints to help discern flawed arguments:
If the argument considered applies the tax to someone else instead of yourself, don't use it. You want the government to acknowledge that you are a nontaxpayer, not that someone else is a taxpayer. If the argument has you filling out a form, it's false. Only taxpayers are obligated to fill out forms.
Finally, see what the argument gives as the subject of the tax and try to verify that subject in the tax code.
Always study the case law that has been used in tax cases appropriate to yours. Never take for granted that it actually supports your argument just because some "expert" says so.
Skinner's ability to cut through and understand legalese and his common sense approach to law are a godsend to the patriot anti-tax movement.
His books and bulletins are valuable tools which take the mystery out of tax law.*
For more information write: Otto Skinner, P.O. Box 6609, San Pedro, CA 90734 or visit his website located at: http://www.ottoskinner.com.