SPOTLIGHT EMAIL NEWSLETTER #25 Tax Facts Are on Non-Filers' Side Government collectors opted to avoid experts who claim the income tax is unconstitutional. EXCLUSIVE TO THE SPOTLIGHT BY JAMES P. TUCKER JR. Tax protesters came to Washington looking for a fight. They claimed the income tax is unconstitutional and they gave government officials the opportunity to prove them wrong-on national television. Treasury Department officials refused to accept the challenge and stayed clear of the symposium at the National Press Club in Washington on July 1-2. Participants in the symposium, sponsored by the We the People Foundation for Constitutional Education, based in Albany, N.Y.,* also called on patriots to resist tax tyranny. Bill Benson spent a year traveling to. all of the 48 continental states and collected 17,000 certified documents to prove his claim that the income tax amendment was never ratified. "'I have not filed an income tax return since 1981," Benson said. "If I file, I become an accessory after the fact" to the illegal collection of taxes from American citizens. Staring into the C-SPAN camera, which was covering the event live, Benson added: "I would welcome an indictment." A criminal indictment, he explained, would force the government to confront the issue of the 16th Amendment never having been ratified. Why has Benson never been indicted, when he has so boldly and publicly challenged the government for 18 years? When, over the years, this issue has been raised in federal courts, judges would term this a "political issue" to be dealt with by Congress, said Lowell Becraft, general counsel for the Wallace Institute. When Congress was approached, it would insist it is a matter for the courts to decide. Thus, if the Internal Revenue Service dared to indict Benson, courts would have to confront the issue and quit playing semantic volleyball. This could destroy the income tax and force 110,000 IRS bureaucrats to seek gainful employment. Benson and Becraft provided evidence that the 16th Amendment was never ratified and is not legally a part of the Constitution. For example, the Feb. 8, 1910, Senate Journal for Kentucky showed ratification was rejected on a vote of 22-9. But the House supported the amendment and the federal government wrongfully counted-Kentucky as having "ratified." Also 33 states' "ratifications" were invalid because they made changes m the amendment. Courts and constitutional scholars are in universal agreement that states can ratify or reject-but not change-a pending constitutional amendment. Otherwise, there would be many variations of the same amendment. According to Becraft, the 16th Amendment required 36 state ratifications to become part of the Constitution, and 38 states allegedly ratified. Dropping Kentucky, where the state Senate rejected ratification, the number is cut to 37. In Oklahoma, he said, one house of the legislature voted for ratification. The other changed the wording, requiring that taxes be subject to apportionment among the states-as was originally provided in the Constitution, which prohibited a direct federal tax on citizens. This cut the number of legitimate ratifications to 36. Then California's legislature modified the language, leaving the 16th Amendment one short of the three-quarters necessary for ratification. Thirty other states also made changes to the constitutional amendment. The fact that Americans are becoming educated on the issue and preparing to fight was dramatically demonstrated by Joe Banister; a former criminal investigator for the IRS. In December 1996, Banister said, he was listening to a radio talk show in his government-owned car. He heard patriots, including Devvy Kidd, who ran for Congress twice, discuss the fact that the income tax is unconstitutional. He bought the books recommended on the talk show for the purpose of disproving them. After reading the books and talking to some of the authors, Banister became a convert. He gave a detailed report on his findings to his boss at the IRS, requesting that it be sent to the top and challenging the government to show him that he was wrong. He received no response and resigned last February to join anti-tax forces. The government has a hard time responding to this issue. Months ago, organizers of the symposium sent their mountain of evidence to government leaders, explaining their agenda and inviting federal bureaucrats to attend and respond. A follow-up letter was sent. No one came to respond. The meeting was addressed by Rep. Jim Traficant (D-Ohio), who had introduced legislation to eliminate the federal income tax last April 15. *We The People Foundation can be reached at 2458 Ridge Road, Queensbury, NY 12804. Or call Bob Shultz at (518) 656-3578. Reform Party Heads in New Direction Rebellion inside the Reform Party opens new vistas on political horizon. EXCLUSIVE TO THE SPOTLIGHT By William Francis The election of Florida businessman Jack Gargan as chairman of the Reform Party of America may chart a new direction for the "third" party founded in 1992. Texas billionaire Ross Perot, who was the party's presidential candidate in both 1992 and 1996, started the party. Gargan-endorsed by Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura, the Reform Party's highest-ranking elected official in the nation-defeated Patricia Benjamin, who was Perot's choice for the chairmanship. Gargan's victory is being perceived as a defeat for Perot, inasmuch as Gargan (and Ventura) have suggested that the party has been too much under Perot's thumb and that there should be a "new face" as the party's candidate in 2000. The new Reform Party chairman is a familiar face to SPOTLIGHT readers. Gargan has been known nationally as an outspoken critic of the infamous congressional pay hike and has been featured as a guest on The SPOTLIGHT's call-in talk forum, Radio Free America (RFA). Russ Verney, the Perot ally who has been the party's hands-on executive director (and who has also been a guest on RFA) denies that Gargan's election is a defeat for Perot. Verney says that the party belongs neither to Perot nor to Ventura but belongs to the delegates and the party's grass-roots members. Ventura says he has no interest in the party's presidential nomination in 2000 and for his own part Perot has not formally announced any intentions of seeking his party's nod. In the meantime, Ventura is urging former Connecticut Gov. Lowell Weicker to seek the party's nomination. Weicker also served in the U.S. Senate as a Republican. OPENING FOR BUCHANAN? Many backers of populist media personality Pat Buchanan are urging their candidate to abandon his bid for the GOP nomination and make a bid for the Reform Party's nod. As far as Buchanan is concerned, Ventura has suggested that the Reform Party is not the place for a Buchanan candidacy. Ventura has said that Buchanan's focus on what Ventura called "social issues" does not fit with the Reform Party agenda. In contrast to Ventura, Buchanan is pro-life and has been a vocal critic of the gay rights agenda and has been an outspoken opponent of affirmative action and racial quotas in hiring and education. In addition, Buchanan has also taken strong stands in favor of restricting immigration. Thus far, however, Buchanan seems committed to a continuing campaign for the GOP nomination, despite a flurry of rumors that Buchanan was considering abandoning the Republican Party because he perceived that "the fix was in" for Texas Gov. George W. Bush, who is clearly the solid favorite of the Republican Party kingmakers. In 1992 and 1996 Buchanan was the favorite of SPOTLIGHT readers and Liberty Lobby Board of Policy members for the GOP presidential nomination. However, in 1992 after Buchanan's campaign folded, they overwhelmingly endorsed Reform Party candidate Ross Perot over Republican George Bush and Democrat Bill Clinton. In 1996, after Buchanan withdrew from the GOP campaign and refused to run as a third party candidate, and as grass-roots populist support for Perot began to falter, SPOTLIGHT readers overwhelmingly endorsed U.S. Taxpayer Party candidate Howard Phillips. NEW DIRECTION What all of this together means for the future course of the Reform Party under the Ventura-Gargan team remains to be seen. In the past, when Reform Party executive director Russ Verney appeared on RFA, many callers took Verney to task for not committing the party to a firm stand on the issue of the constitutionality of the privately-controlled Federal Reserve money monopoly and questioned the party's commitment to continuing foreign aid programs, among other issues. Now, however, many populists see the Reform Party as being open to new ideas and are hopeful of being able to work with the new leadership. The one possible negative drawback in the ascendancy of the Ventura forces comes with the promotion, by Ventura, of Weicker as a candidate for the party's nomination in 2000. All Quiet On the Southwestern Front? As a NAFTA-like White House initiative absorbs the border along the United States and Mexico, communities in three states are being denied their right to manage their own resources by the federal government. EXCLUSIVE TO THE SPOTLIGHT By Christopher J. Petherick White House initiatives, in the form of Executive Orders (EO) may be quietly stripping communities along the U.S.-Mexican border or their right to self-governance by putting them into an international zone as elected officials stand by unaware. Few elected officials contacted by The SPOTLIGHT seem to be aware of the federal government's program or intentions. Calls placed to the offices of Arizona Gov. Jane Dee Hull (R), New Mexico Gov. Gary E. Johnson (R), Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Rep. Brian Bilbray (R-Calif.) provided little information. Most of the spokespeople The SPOTLIGHT spoke with said they knew nothing of the program and had to refer to other staffers. No calls were returned by the time the paper went to press. Even fewer federal officials could, or would, explain the program. After extensive research, however, The SPOTLIGHT was able to piece this much together. The program began with a meeting in the early 1980s between U.S. and Mexican officials to formulate a plan to clean up nuclear waste along the border. As a result of this, the United States and Mexico agreed to begin to cooperate in the decision-making process regarding solutions to environmental problems in the region. This "cooperative," called the Agreement on the Cooperation for the Protection and Improvement in the Border Area or La Paz-literally meaning "The Peace" in Spanish-was signed by President Ronald Reagan in 1983. Later, a more formal agreement was reached, creating a 62.5-mile strip on either side of the U.S.-Mexican border that established an "open zone" for focusing on environmental problems known as Border Region XXI, the "Southwest Border," or the Southwest Border Region. Border Region XXI went into effect, January 1, 1997. That area more than doubled to 150 miles when EO 13122 went into effect earlier this year. (See The SPOTLIGHT July 26.) As a part of this agreement, federal agencies agreed to work in conjunction with Mexican authorities expanding their focus to address a wide range of environmental and natural resource issues. The Environmental Agency (EPA) took the lead in the Border XXI program. CITIZEN'S VIEW But critics see the program as yet another attempt to incrementally condition Americans into believing that anytime the federal government dabbles in the affairs of state and local governments, they are not violating the principles of the U.S Constitution. Van Velsor, a former law enforcement official and a columnist for The Desert Journal, has written extensively on this issue. "Nothing in the Constitution says the federal government can do what they've done," Velsor said. "The federal government has no business going into a state and taking land. They can't even buy it, except for a military base. "We talked to people in the Las Cruces [N.M.] in the original 62-mile radius, they didn't even know about the program," he added. But researchers and astute local newsmen living in these areas say the controversy goes significantly deeper; that these directives affect the resources, decision-making and economic well-being of U.S. citizens living in these regions. Luther Broaddus III, a rancher in Canton County, N.M., and a local newsman explained how the management of resources in his local community was completely undermined by the federal government. "They're downplaying it," Broaddus said. "[La Paz] started out as a 30 page document, and evolved into a 3.2 lb. document that involves every facet of our lives." Broaddus served on a local committee that wrote the Comprehensive Land Plan in 1995. "Our plan said the government had to follow their rules to the letter," Broaddus said. "It effectively shut them down." But according to Broaddus, with the federal government's program of Border XXI and EO 13122, the federal agencies ignored their own agreement and forced land owners to comply with federal guidelines anyway. The federal government undermined a legal plan initiated by the community, costing area residents $36,000, to block federal management dictating their land resources. For the community, either landowners cooperated with all the federal environmental guidelines or the whole community loses its federal funding. Specifically for many ranchers, who have to lease federal land in the region, if they did not participate in the federal environmental programs, they could not operate on government land. "When you hold your hand out to the federal government, and you hear the clinking," Broaddus remarked. "It's not shekels you hear, it's shackles going onto your wrists." THE OFFICIAL STORY According to the EPA, U.S. federal agencies began to work with specific Mexican governmental agencies including the environmental office known as SEMARNAP, the National Ecology Institute, and the Water Commission. Other agencies were soon involved, including the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and Mexico's Secretariat of Health, which jointly addressed environmental health issues. The EPA saw this as a natural evolution for the region, because of the proximity of U.S. towns to neighboring "sister cities" across the border in Mexico. "The two countries are right next to each other," said Darren Swatz-Larson, the director of the El Paso Border Liaison Office. "Even if there wasn't NAFTA, the two countries should talk to each other on how to clean up their environments. It's that close connection that brought together Border XXI." Swartz-Larson says the federal government and Mexico have been working jointly under the new program to develop local projects. Successes included building a sewage treatment plant where there had never been one and reductions in air pollution. As a part of this agreement, the Border Environment Cooperation Project and the North American Development Bank were created to fund the development projects from U.S. taxpayer dollars, Mexican tax dollars and international financial institutions like the World Bank. To some officials in the Clinton administration, concerns about the program are nothing but paranoia. "There's a lot of myths about this," said Pam Teel, the former EPA point of contact for the program. "There's no substance to this belief about a 'world order.' " According to Teel, the EPA's role in the program was mainly to study the area and propose environmental planning, not to take power away from any of the communities. The media has reported on the controversy surrounding international trade agreements such as NAFTA, the Caribbean Basin Initiative and Fast Track, and on problems stemming from these initiatives such as the resultant increases in drug trafficking and illegal immigration. But the press has virtually ignored this cooperative pact whereupon the White House completely bypassed Congress to force a symbiotic relationship between Mexico and southwestern United States. Critics see this as nothing more than a "federal government solution looking for a problem." To them, the plan to clean up the area expanded into a scheme for the White House to surreptitiously develop its globalist economic and political agenda, in spite of local communities and state governments. The SPOTLIGHT on July 26, 1999, reported on Executive Order 13122, the Interagency Task Force on the Economic Development of the Southwest Border, signed May 25, 1999, which made the region larger, spanning 150 miles across on the U.S. side. New, Subtle Effort to Impose UN Taxes The United Nations is attempting to impose a direct tax on "world citizens" again. EXCLUSIVE TO THE SPOTLIGHT By James P. Tucker Jr. The 1999 Human Development Report by the United Nations Development Program, proposes a tax on e-mail to buy computers for poor countries. Earlier efforts by the UN to impose direct taxes included a levy on oil that would be paid by anyone driving a car and on international travel and monetary transactions failed. "That's why the latest attempt is being kept low-key, in hopes that it can become a fact of life before people realize it," a State Department official said. "Bilderberg believes it is essential for the UN to be able to tax people directly, as well as having its army and global court to function as a world government." The UN report said the new tax will help poor countries enter the electronic community instead of being excluded from Internet commerce. "The typical Internet user worldwide is male, under 35 years old, and has a university education and high income, urban-based and English-speaking," the report said. "The literally well-connected have an overpowering advantage over the unconnected poor, whose voices and concerns are being left out of the global conversation." The UN complained that the United States has more computers than the rest of the world combined. On the other hand, southern Asia, has 23 percent of the world's population, has less than 1 percent of the Internet users. The UN proposes to tax this "discriminatory" market and transfer the revenues to poor countries. "Market forces alone will not rectify the imbalance," the UN said. "Governance of the Internet should be widened to bring in the needs and concerns of developing countries. To ensure that the global communications revolution is truly global, funding is required." The report proposes a "bit tax" of one cent on every 100 e-mails at least 10 kilobytes in size-basically, a lengthy text or any e-mail with an attachment. The UN agency estimated that this tax would have raised $70 billion if it has been in effect in 1996. With the revenue base of Internet users expected to leap from 140 million in 1998 to 700 million in 2001, potential revenues from the cyber tax are staggering. "The psychology is to begin with a tax of only pennies without Americans or people from other countries realizing they are paying directly to the UN," the official said. "Then the tax rate will climb and be used by the UN's general fund. More taxes will be introduced. "This is part of a Bilderberg pattern to build a world government with the courts and military power to impose it's will," he said. Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic "still has it right," the official said, pointing to a recent speech to the people of India. "Mankind is in great danger," because of an effort to "create a world from one center," Milosevic said, according to the Tanjug state news agency July 21. "Certain nations and most of the people do not accept such a future for mankind and realizes it threatens not only a free way of life but all life on the planet," Milosevic said. Even while the bombs were raining on Belgrade in early June, Milosevic told the world that the invasion of his sovereign country was manipulated by Bilderberg to advance its cause of world government (SPOTLIGHT, June 21, 1999). Annan Demands Global Constabularies Since soldiers can't police, the world government wants its own police force to keep the peace. EXCLUSIVE TO THE SPOTLIGHT By Martin Mann After years of scheming, policy intrigues and one-world propaganda, the UN has been finally authorized a global gendarmerie known as United Nations International Police (UNIP). >From Nigeria to Nepal, recruiting offices are being opened to enlist 3,000 "experienced police officers" into an armed cadre sworn to enforce laws and regulations issued, not by a sovereign nation, but by an international bureaucracy. The first 3,000 global guardians of order will also be tasked with forming and training additional UNIP units "whenever circumstances tell us that we need more manpower," says Sven Frederiksen, a veteran Danish detective superintendent who has been named as the first commandant of the UN police force. The SPOTLIGHT has repeatedly warned of an international police force. (See The SPOTLIGHT April 15, 1996, and others.) For the moment, "circumstances" are telling the power-hungry global administrators that they need to organize an additional regional police force in Kosovo, where NATO troops have "wretchedly failed" to maintain law and order, as UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan put it. It was the recent discovery of the bodies of 14 Serb farmers found slain near the village or Gracko that gave Annan his long-awaited opportunity to add an armed law-enforcement auxiliary to his international bureaucracy. At a special July 25 session of the UN Security Council, international commanders in Kosovo admitted that the NATO peacekeepers are simply not up to die task of policing their territory. "The military are not equipped for police work," said Bernard Kouchner, the UN commissioner for Kosovo. "That takes trained policemen. We will organize such a force for Kosovo, but it will take several months before it becomes operational." The breakdown of law and order in Kosovo demonstrated that the UN needed permanent police powers of its own, Annan argued. "We need authorization to organize an enforcement division of trained and well-armed officers ready for instant action in any emergency," he asserted. As the debate ground into late afternoon on July 25, the UN Security Council granted Annan the enforcement authority he requested in a historic "flash" vote. "Now is the time when Americans must wake up and act to preserve their heritage of independence, national sovereignty and constitutional governance," said Warren Hough, a veteran journalist who has covered the UN for almost 20 years. If this relentless expansion of one-world creeds, "supranational" law enforcement, runaway free trade, globalist economic institutions, offshore banking, and cosmopolitan bureaucracy meets no resistance, "our identity as American citizens will be lost. We will become mere subjects ruled by international elites, meat for the rootless mongrel stew of global masses," he warned. **************************************************************************** Subscribe to THE SPOTLIGHT! Only $59.00 for 1 year or $99.00 for 2 years. Every week, get the important stories that the popular media either miss... or ignore. For around $1.00 per issue, THE SPOTLIGHT is a steal! Don't wait any longer. Make sure that you never miss another issue. Subscribe now! To subscribe online, visit our SECURE server at www.spotlight.org. You can also mail your subscription to THE SPOTLIGHT, 300 Independence Ave. S.E., Washington, D.C. 20003. OR CALL 1-800-522-6292 **************************************************************************** If you wish to unsubscribe from this newsletter, send an email to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" (without the quotes) and type in the body of the email "unsubscribe spotlist" (also without the quotes).
