Patriot Arguments on the Income Tax
And Other Assorted Theories(Part IV)
Devvy Kidd
November 16, 2002Parts I, II & III located at:
Part 1: Patriot Arguments on the Income Tax Part 2: Patriot Arguments on the Income Tax Part 3: Patriot Arguments on the Income Tax
Research provided by Larry Becraft, Attorney at Law.
Executive Order No. 11110
There is currently floating around the Net one theory of the Kennedy assassination based upon certain legal documents. According to this idea, Kennedy was assassinated because he was about ready to start issuing silver certificates; to prevent him from doing so, the "powers that be" had him killed. Please understand that what I offer below explaining the flaw of this argument does not mean that I am an apologist for the Fed or banking industry; it should be obvious from my site that I am not. I only offer these comments because this argument demonstrates just one of the completely erroneous arguments which is allegedly based upon the "law" but are not.
When Congress enacts a law, it often delegates authority to enforce and administer the law to some executive official, typically the President. Naturally, the President does not personally attend to such duties and must himself delegate to others within the Executive branch. The Agricultural Adjustment Act of May 12, 1933, was one of these acts and it permitted the President in §43 to issue silver certificates.
Public Law 673 enacted by Congress in 1950 was similar to many previous ones and it allowed the President to delegate his statutory functions to others within the Executive branch. It provided:
The President of the United States is hereby authorized to designate and empower the head of any department or agency in the executive branch, or any official thereof who is required to be appointed by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to perform, without approval, ratification, or other action by the President (1) any function which is vested in the President by law, or (2) any function which such officer is required or authorized by law to perform only with or subject to the approval ratification, or other action of the President: * * *
Pursuant to this statutory authority, on September 19, 1951, President Truman issued Executive Order No. 10289, which delegated to the Secretary of the Treasury lots of the statutory duties of the President. This executive order provided in part as follows:
By virtue of the authority vested in me by section 1 of the act of August 8, 1950, 64 Stat. 419 (Public Law 673, 81st Congress), and as President of the United States, it is ordered as follows:
1. The Secretary of the Treasury is hereby designated and empowered to perform the following described functions of the President without the approval, ratification, or other action of the President: (a) The authority vested in the President by section 1 of the act of August 1, 1914, c. 223, 38 Stat. 609, as amended (19 U.S.C. 2), (1) to rearrange, by consolidation or otherwise, the several customs-collection districts, (2) to discontinue ports of entry by abolishing the same and establishing others in their stead, and (3) to change from time to time the location of the headquarters in any customs-collection district as the needs of the service may require.
(b) The authority vested in the President * * *
Thereafter, this executive order listed another 8 statutory powers of the President which he was delegating to the Treasury Secretary, the substance of which is not important for this discussion. Please remember that this delegation to the Treasury Secretary was to be exercised "without the approval, ratification, or other action of the President." It should also be noted that this particular executive order did not delegate to the Treasury Secretary the authority to issue silver certificates granted to the President in the 1933 law noted above.
From 1933 until 1963, the President alone possessed the statutory authority to issue silver certificates. But then on June 4, 1963, President Kennedy amended Truman's 1951 Executive Order No. 10289 by Executive Order No. 11110. This particular order read as follows:
AMENDMENT OF EXECUTIVE ORDER NO. 10289 AS AMENDED, RELATING TO THE PERFORMANCE OF CERTAIN FUNCTIONS AFFECTING THE DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY
By virtue of the authority vested in me by section 301 of title 3 of the United States Code, it is ordered as follows:
SECTION 1. Executive Order No. 10289 of September 19, 1951, as amended, is hereby further amended -
(a) By adding at the end of paragraph 1 thereof the following subparagraph (j):
(j) The authority vested in the President by paragraph (b) of section 43 of the Act of May 12, 1933, as amended (31 U.S.C. 821 (b)), to issue silver certificates against any silver bullion, silver, or standard silver dollars in the Treasury not then held for redemption of any outstanding silver certificates, to prescribe the denominations of such silver certificates, and to coin standard silver dollars and subsidiary silver currency for their redemption," and
(b) By revoking subparagraphs (b) and (c) of paragraph 2 thereof.
SECTION 2. The amendment made by this Order shall not affect any act done, or any right accruing or accrued or any suit or proceeding had or commenced in any civil or criminal cause prior to the date of this Order but all such liabilities shall continue and may be enforced as if said amendments had not been made.
JOHN F. KENNEDY
THE WHITE HOUSE,
June 4, 1963By this executive order, the statutory authority of the President to issue silver certificates was delegated to the Treasury Secretary. In Kennedy's administration, the Treasury Secretary was Douglas Dillon, a man from a banking family and a known established "power" in the banking community. Kennedy delegated the authority to issue silver certificates to Dillon and his successors, and this power could be exercised "without the approval, ratification, or other action of the President."
The only reasonable conclusion which may be reached based upon the facts are the exact opposite of the argument made on the Net. For some 30 years, the President himself held the power to issue silver certificates. But some 5 months before his assassination, Kennedy delegated this power to Dillon, and via this order, Dillon could do as he pleased with this power. To assert that Kennedy was by Executive Order No. 11110 getting ready to issue silver certificates is contrary to the plain facts. Instead, Kennedy was surrendering this power and delegating it to the Treasury Secretary, who was someone from the banking industry.
Clearly, it appears that this EO was issued to put the power to issue silver certificates into safe hands, that of a banker. There is no substance to this theory on the Net. I cannot understand how this particular order proves that Kennedy was about to issue silver certificates. Where is the proof that Kennedy was anything other than a pawn of the banking community?
Additional Note re EO 11110:
From Jim Ewart at [email protected]
Hi Larry:
Thanks for the input re the John F. Kennedy "silver-certificate" item. As chance would have it, about two months ago I helped Ed Griffin ("Creature From Jekyll Island") write a letter to a guy who raised this issue with Ed. Ed and I came to the same conclusion as you did, that the story being circulated by some "patriots" was seriously flawed.
As you may recall, some 20 years ago a different story was making the rounds of the "patriot" community. This story said that JFK made a speech at Columbia University a couple of weeks before his death. In that speech JFK supposedly said, "I have discovered that the high office of the presidency has been used to foment a plot against the American people," and allegedly, this presentation continued with him saying that he was going to take decisive steps to stop that plot in its tracks.
JFK supposedly then ordered the US Treasury to immediately print zillions of US Notes (_not_ silver certificates) to replace all the Federal Reserve Notes then in circulation. The implication was that by replacing the Federal Reserve Notes with US Notes, the federal government would no long have to pay interest to the Fed on the face value of all the paper currency -- precisely because US Notes are "spent into circulation interest free" (echoing the late Pastor Sheldon Emery and others of his persuasion, that is, the advocates of "populism" and/or "social credit.")
A few days before JFK's death, supposedly about $300 million of these US Notes were placed in circulation, and it was exactly this action by JFK that caused the bad guys, the "banksters," to arrange for JFK to be killed. However, while this story is interesting, it apparently has almost no factual basis.
One of Congressman Ron Paul's researchers was a libertarian gal with heavy economic and finance credentials, a Masters Degree in finance if I recall correctly, and many years of investment analysis for a major brokerage firm. This gal, Rita something or another, spent several months early in 1983 investigating the story for Ron Paul. She called me later that year to see if I could supply her with any supporting information.
I told her I had heard the rumor but did not have any facts to support it. She said she'd been in close touch with top-level people in the Kennedy family, and in contact with several of JFK's closest political cronies, and also in contact with top people at Columbia University. The University had no memory or other record of JFK being on that campus or in the area for any meeting of any kind within several years of the alleged appearance, and none of JFK's associates, political or personal, offered anything but negative comment on the whole tale.
This researcher (Rita D. Simone, from Arlington, Virginia, whose name, address, and phone number is still in the ZNS database) concluded that the alleged event simply did not happen.
However, some US Notes were issued in 1962 but solely to replace worn-out Federal Reserve Notes from the series of 1950 and earlier. The US Notes were used because the Treasury had already issued all of its authorized inventory of uncirculated Federal Reserve Notes, and because the Treasury could print US Notes without special prior approval from the Federal Reserve banking system.
But the US Notes were strictly an interim solution to the problem of replacing worn Federal Reserve Notes. Please recall that the next year, in 1963, the Treasury printed and began issuing Federal Reserve tokens, FRTs, the "new Federal Reserve Note" bills, the ones missing the phrases "will pay to the bearer on demand" and "and is redeemable in lawful money at the United States Treasury or at any Federal Reserve Bank."
FRTs would eventually replace _all_ then-circulating paper currency: US Notes, Federal Reserve Notes from the series of 1950 and earlier, and silver certificates. Within 10 years or so, the only paper currency circulating in the U.S. was the FRT.
The man who contacted Ed Griffin, questioning something Ed had said in "Creature from Jekyll Island," said he had heard the US Note story from an organization called "Christian" something or another. I had not heard of that entity, I had no record of it in my big database of patriotic groups, publications, and broadcasts, etc., and I had no record of any similar-sounding entity in the general area of the writer's home address.
I concluded that the "Christian" something or another "group" was really just a dba of a lone individual patriot, someone who simply and innocently echoed a highly inaccurate version of the largely fictional JFK-Columbia University tale.
[snip re personal matters]
Here's wishing you and your fine family a very happy Thanksgiving.
Also, thanks again for the analysis of the JFK "silver certificate" story.
Best wishes,
Jim EwartPeople should read Jim's book, Money.
* * *
The "law" is not copyrighted
There is an argument (promoted by David Goul) floating around the freedom movement that the "law" is copyrighted, which is utterly crazy. The "law" is owned by the public and cannot be copyrighted. Back in 1834, two reporters for the U.S. Supreme Court got involved in a legal battle regarding the cases of the Supreme Court. In Wheaton v. Peters, 8 Pet. 591, 668, 33 U.S. 591 (1834), the Supreme Court declared that "no reporter ... can have any copyright in the written opinions delivered by this court". Decisions of the courts belong to the public and nobody can copyright those decisions.
West Publishing Company, one of the largest publishers of legal materials, knows that it cannot copyright cases. It places in its electronic versions of the cases the following caveat:
"Copyright (c) West Group 1998 No claim to original U.S. Govt. works 952 F.Supp. 647, McCann v. Greenway, (W.D.Mo. 1997)
"Copyright (c) West Group 1998 No claim to original U.S. Govt. works 974 F.Supp. 1411, Sadlier v. Payne, (D.Utah 1997)"
But what about statutes? This is addressed in 17 U.S.C. §105: "Subject matter of copyright: United States Government works:"
"Copyright protection under this title is not available for any work of the United States Government, but the United States Government is not precluded from receiving and holding copyrights transferred to it by assignment, bequest, or otherwise."
Those arguing that the "law is copyrighted" are utterly wrong. But this argument is an important part of the argument for those who promote the grand theory that "we are still subjects of the British crown" under the apparent contention that the "King" (or Queen Elizabeth) still today "owns" the law.
As shown above, public documents belong to the public and cannot be copyrighted. When any court decides any case, anyone may go obtain a copy of that decision. I can get any decision, you can and West Publishing can. I may, you may and West does publish those cases. I could start my own company publishing these cases and making them available to whoever would buy them.
However, I doubt that I would stay in business long against West. It has hundreds of people employed by it who get these cases, read them, and make little "headnotes" about various legal points in the cases. It publishes these cases in nicely bound books. It takes the "headnotes" it generates for these cases and puts them into a legal encyclopedias which group all "headnotes" of all cases in specific categories. Using West, studying and finding "law" has been made a lot easier.
West also has a competitor, Lawyers Co-op. The federal government publishes acts of Congress in a set of books called the Statutes at Large ("Stat."). In large university libraries, you can find the Statutes at Large. However, the feds also publish the United States Code, which is simply stated the Statutes at Large organized in a more methodical fashion via titles. You can find the "true blue" (but it is really red in color) U.S. Code in many libraries.
However, since the Code is a public document, anybody can copy it. Here, West and Lawyers Co-op are fierce competitors, with one publishing USCA and the other USCS. Both contain accurate reprints of the various uncopyrightable sections and titles of the official U.S. Code. However, West employs hundreds of people who read and categorize cases. West puts summaries of many cases at the end of sections of the U.S. Code, so when you engage in legal research, cases regarding a specific statute are there at your fingertips. Lawyers Co-op does the same thing. All of this other writing in these versions of the Code was created by these companies and this is the material which is copyrighted in these books.
I never use the official U.S. Code and neither does anyone else. It just sits up there on the top shelf in our local law library gathering dust. The reason nobody uses the official version is because of the absence of the handy research materials like case summaries and other references. If I have a conspiracy case, I pull USCS, turn to Title 18, U.S.C., §371, and start reading the very refined annotations at the end of the section which quickly point you to the relevant cases.
It wasn't always this way, however. Years ago, the States officially published their own legal materials, cases and codes and West was the competitor. As time passed, West acquired dominant market share because its books were superior. Legislatures would appropriate funds for official case books, which were often large, expensive books with large print. West published smaller books with smaller print and its publications were obviously cheaper.
Why would anyone buy from the State its publication of the cases when (for probably the same price) you could buy from West its regional reporter containing cases not only from your own State but also several others? In short, free enterprise beat the socks off the government. Today, many States just let West do all the publishing of cases. Of course, anyone could compete against West.
But West is not fearful of copyright infringement from the public at large. I violate the copyright laws every time I go to the law library and so does everyone else. The law schools are perhaps the biggest violators and law students copy away at copyrighted materials. West does not care, in fact it wants everyone using its products. It fears, however, another competitor like Lexis.
Lexis back in the early 80s started putting cases on computer, but it used West's page numbers from its case volumes. West sued and won for infringement, the court holding that the only thing West could copyright were its own page numbers from its books as well as the headnotes it wrote for the cases. As a result, West and Lexis formed a partnership and now cases are on CD. Formerly to buy all of West's Supreme Court Reporter, it would have cost you several thousands of bux. Now, two discs with all Supreme Court cases can be bought for a couple hundred bux. Private enterprise has thus run circles around government.
United States District Court -vs- district court of the United States