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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Judge Orders Michigan Couple To Testify
Against Themselves
ON FEBRUARY 26, 2007 AND AGAIN ON MAY 2 OF THAT YEAR, a team
of U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) Attorneys and Federal
District Court Judge Nancy G. Edmunds of the Eastern
District of Michigan tried to order Peter and Doreen
Hendrickson to testify against themselves.
Judge Edmunds (described by The Ann Arbor News and The Grand
Rapids Press as guilty of perverting justice in
another recent case, as well) granted a DOJ- and
IRS-requested “summary judgment” in a lawsuit attempting to
force the Hendricksons to change sworn testimony on their
tax returns in order to give the federal government a
pretext for claiming the couple owed income taxes in 2002
and 2003. There
wasn't even a single hearing before Edmunds'
decision was issued.
The suit, and Edmunds’ “order”, are part of a sustained IRS
effort to suppress revelations about the true legal nature
of the income tax presented in Peter Hendrickson’s book,
'Cracking
the Code- the Fascinating Truth about Taxation in America',
which have had the tax agency in behind-the-scenes disarray
for many years now. Since the book went to print in
August 2003, readers have been steadily recovering every
penny withheld from them in connection with the income tax
from the federal and state governments -- including Social
Security and Medicare ‘contributions’.
Edmunds’ "order" is purely for the consumption of a gullible
public and press. Forcing someone to change sworn
testimony is outside the authority of any court (or anyone
else). Indeed, simply attempting to force someone to change
sworn testimony is a violation of several different criminal
statutes.
Furthermore, the ruling of which these orders are a part is
based on fraud. For instance, the DOJ accompanied its Motion
for Summary Judgment with a purported "Tax Examination" on
which numbers of "tax owed" appear to have been calculated.
These numbers were explicitly adopted by Judge Edmunds as
"facts", on the finding of which she based her conclusions
and issued her ruling. However, when carefully read it turns
out that the "Examiner's" report contains the following
admission:
Similarly, a declaration was submitted by a "frivolous
return specialist", who reports on the great number of
returns identical to the Hendricksons' the IRS had been
having to deal with since Peter Hendrickson's book went to
print-- but never actually declares such returns to be
frivolous, and in particular says no such thing about THE
HENDRICKSONS returns. (See the relevant portions of this
declaration
here, and an analysis filed in response (even though the
submission by the government of both declarations-- and the
Motion for Summary Judgment in support of which they were
supposedly offered-- were all untimely and inappropriate,
since the Hendricksons had a Motion to Dismiss on
jurisdictional grounds still pending before the court)
here.)
Nonetheless, the DOJ and IRS have made careful and
deliberate use of the "order"-- posting press releases
claiming a victory in court, without mentioning that the
"order" purports to dictate the content of the Hendricksons’
sworn testimony, and thus is inherently void. The
agencies also fail to mention that the reason this "order"
was sought is that without a change in the Hendricksons’
returns, there is no legal pretext by which the government
can claim that any tax is due from the couple for the years
involved.
Along with issuing the “order” regarding the Hendricksons’
previous testimony, Edmunds also played her part in another
sleazy IRS pretense by way of this “lawsuit”, involving
agency-fabricated mis-statements of law it mendaciously
claimed were found in Hendrickson’s book. In
constructing its “complaint”, the government asked Judge
Edmunds to enjoin the Hendricksons from filing returns
reflecting these fabricated, erroneous legal assertions that
it had itself invented in order to create a pretext for an
injunction that suggests that Hendrickson's book contains
inaccurate information. (This ruse had become
important to the government because it had repeatedly lost
direct legal assaults on the content of the book in 2004 and
2005.)
Edmunds compliantly issued this additional meaningless
injunction, barring the Hendricksons from filing any forms
based on IRS-invented false and frivolous nonsense which no
educated person would take seriously, but which Edmunds
suggests are set forth in 'Cracking
the Code-...' (even if only in an "order"
actually
written by the IRS's attorneys). These “claims”
allegedly appearing in the book-- such as that “wages do not
constitute income”, or that “only government workers are
liable for income taxes”-- not only do NOT appear in the
book, but are, in fact, explicitly contradicted by the book.
See the orders
here.
The tax agency then began announcing that Pete Hendrickson
has been enjoined against acting on what is presented in his
book, when Hendrickson and his wife have actually been
barred from nothing by this “injunction”.
(Furthermore, such an injunction would be outside the power
of the court in any event, since to tell anyone what he or
she CAN’T say amounts to dictating what must be said, and
thus violates a host of core due process elements, as well
as the First Amendment.)
Judge Edmunds did all of this without the formality of a
trial, and despite the fact that not only do
the official Treasury Department Certificates of Assessment
show that outside the pretenses of this "show trial" even
the government agrees that the Hendricksons owe no taxes for
the years in question, but nowhere in the complaint or
throughout all the filings in the case does the DOJ present
a shred of evidence in support of its bare allegations.
The Hendricksons took the matter through the appellate court
and attempted to get Supreme Court review, meeting with
shameful behavior at both levels (although with one element
of comic relief in the process).
WHILE IT CONTINUED, this "civil lawsuit" assault was part of
a long-running IRS effort to suppress Hendrickson’s book.
In fact, this "lawsuit" was actually the fifth assault to
make it into a courtroom. In each of the previous
four, the DOJ itself
asked the various courts involved to dismiss the agency’s
suits once they were contested. Here, the
intensity of the IRS’s desire apparently overrode the DOJ’s
better instincts, allowing the affair to drag on for nearly
five years.
'Cracking
the Code-...' shows that the application of the
income tax is far more limited than most Americans believe.
It demonstrates how key terms in the code such as “wages,”
“employer,” “employee,” “trade or business” and
“self-employment” are explicitly defined in the law in order
to limit the income tax to benefits of federal privilege,
such as dividends from federally-controlled corporations,
and compensation paid to federal officeholders.
Earnings unconnected with such privilege are not subject to
the tax. Unaware of these special definitions, most
Americans give the words their common meaning, fill out and
sign their tax returns accordingly, and mistakenly pay taxes
they do not owe.
Hendrickson points out that, "The limited nature of the
tax is not a matter of my opinion. In addition to the clear
words of the law, dozens of United States Supreme Court
rulings agree with my research and analysis, while no
Supreme Court rulings support any alternative view,
including the broad misunderstanding of the law the IRS
likes to encourage."
The IRS appears, at best, "conflicted". Even while
presenting a disparaging (but carefully inaccurate) summary
of 'Cracking
the Code-...' on its web site and in its “lawsuit”,
the agency continues to send full refunds-- Social Security
and Medicare ‘contributions’ included-- to nearly everyone
who files accurate returns based on what they learn by
reading the book. Hendrickson’s web site,
www.losthorizons.com, shows copies of refund checks,
credits and corrected account statements amounting to over
$11 million (as of May 1, 2013) received by his readers
since the book was first published. This amount, which
the IRS says is a mere fraction of what it has returned to
readers of Hendrickson’s book so far, continues to grow
every week.
Indeed, each and every month since the filing of this
"lawsuit" more than two years ago, an average of more than
$83,000.00 worth of subsequent victories have been
shared with the world by upstanding CtC-educated Americans,
an even higher figure than had been the case for the several
years before this latest effort to suppress the book began.
The only differences between pre- and post-"lawsuit ploy" is
that now many more state governments (33, so far) have
joined the feds in acknowledging the truth about the law
revealed in
CtC than had done so before.
THIS DISCREPANCY BETWEEN RHETORIC AND REALITY is broad and
consistent. Six other "lawsuits" were announced at the
same time as the one against the Hendricksons, each
targeting
CtC-educated filers carefully selected for their
locations around the country so as to provide a pretext for
a nation-wide press release on the matter. Two of the
others targeted by this publicity campaign have stood their
ground and are in the appellate courts dealing with district
court rulings similar to that issued by Judge Edmunds.
Three of the other four targets of these "lawsuits",
however, surrendered to government harassment and declared
that they had perjured themselves on their original filings.
Nonetheless, although the DOJ and IRS touts these cases as
"victories", the reality is that the government gratefully
accepted new filings from these folks and then quickly slunk
away without a backward glance. There have been no
charges or other proceedings in connection with the
repudiated original filings. In fact, the "righteous
and victorious" feds formally agreed to take a hike in
exchange for the new filings.
In the fourth case, the refund secured by the original
filing was handed back as the government’s price for having
the suit dismissed, but, very significantly, the targets of
the bogus lawsuit refused to file an amended return.
The DOJ issued a self-congratulatory press release claiming
“victory” in this case too, but later the IRS quietly
credited the returned money in full as a positive balance on
the related “account”...
As the husband in this targeted couple explained when
sending me a scan on July 1, 2007 of the notice he and his
wife had received: "Thought you might be interested in
this little development. Received a letter from the
IRS this week stating that I had an overpayment for 2003
(the total amount). That's not so unusual as you know
but, what is interesting is, this is the year they initially
returned, then sued for and now are returning again."
See the re-refund notice
here.
Not one such "lawsuit" has since been filed against any
other of the hundreds of
CtC-educated filers whose upstanding
victories on behalf of the rule of law are posted on
losthorizons.com each and every week, or the tens of
thousands more who have enjoyed such victories without
having been so generous of spirit as to share them. At
least three of the victims of these seven "lawsuits" have
gone on to secure subsequent complete refunds even after
having been singled out for this "special attention".
The simple fact is, while the IRS floods the media with
disinformation and fear, the hard evidence-- the words of
the law, dozens of Supreme Court rulings, the ongoing stream
of complete refunds and everything else-- remains squarely
on the side of the liberating revelations in 'Cracking
the Code- the Fascinating Truth about Taxation in America'.
For a quick introduction to the truth about the tax, see
www.losthorizons.com/Documents/The16th.htm
How Things Ultimately Sorted Themselves
Out In This "Lawsuit"
In June of 2008, a three-judge panel of the Sixth Circuit
Court of Appeals issued a carefully-error-ridden "decision"
upholding the district court's equally bogus "rulings".
As it is described (in part) in our petition to the Supreme
Court,
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A. The courts
below have abused their discretion in the award
of summary judgment to the government, and have
thereby also committed an assault on the Seventh
Article of Amendment to the United States
Constitution.
The District Court granted the “U.S.’s” motion
for a summary judgment in this case by making
“findings of fact” which elevate all of the
(hear-say) allegations presented by the “U.S.”
to gospel and disregard entirely our sworn
testimony to the contrary-- despite having no
independent knowledge of these matters
whatsoever, and alluding to none. The court then
declares that, lo and behold! no genuine issue
of fact exists and (based on the same “found
facts”) summary judgment for the “U.S.” is
appropriate! This is highly convenient to the
“U.S.”, of course, but flatly violates the
well-established doctrine regarding such
motions:
“Credibility determinations, the weighing of
the evidence, and the drawing of legitimate
inferences from the facts are jury
functions, not those of a judge, whether he
is ruling on a motion for summary judgment
or for a directed verdict. The evidence of
the nonmovant is to be believed, and all
justifiable inferences are to be drawn in
his favor. Adickes, 398 U.S., at 158 -159”
Anderson v.
Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242 (1986).
“[I]n ruling on a motion for summary
judgment, the nonmoving party's evidence "is
to be believed, and all justifiable
inferences are to be drawn in [that party's]
favor." Anderson , supra, at 255”
Hunt v. Cromartie, 526 U.S. 541 (1999)
It also flatly
violates the admirable and accurate position
well-expressed in Beaty v. United States, 937
F.2d 288 (6th Cir. 1991):
“A central tenet of our republic--a
characteristic that separates us from
totalitarian regimes throughout the
world--is that the government and private
citizens resolve disputes on an equal
playing field in the courts. When citizens
face the government in the federal courts,
the job of the judge is to apply the law,
not to bolster the government’s case.”
Frankly, it is just this sort of contrivance
that the rules concerning summary judgment are
designed to prevent, and that the 7th Amendment
to the U.S. Constitution makes illegal by
providing that the right of trial by jury shall
be preserved. If permitted to favor one side in
this fashion, any court could keep any case--
the outcome of which it wished to control-- from
reaching a jury by making convenient “findings
of fact” favoring one side, just as has been
done by the District Court in this case.
Nonetheless, when allegedly considering the
matter de novo on appeal, the panel of the
Circuit Court simply repeats the District
Court’s bad behavior.
Perhaps the Appellate Court’s error results from
confusion as to both who was the moving party in
this case and as to the rules regarding summary
judgment. Discussing those rules in its opinion,
it says, "Thereafter, the nonmoving party
must present significant probative evidence in
support of the complaint to defeat the motion.
The nonmoving party is required to show more
than a metaphysical doubt as to the existence of
a genuine issue of material fact.”
(Citations omitted.) However, the “non-moving
party” in this case were the defendants, who
obviously do NOT need to “present significant
probative evidence in support of the complaint
to defeat the motion”; more significantly, the
“non-moving party” is NEVER “required to show
more than a metaphysical doubt as to the
existence of a genuine issue of material fact”
On the precise contrary, it is the MOVANT that
must attempt to raise doubts as to the existence
of an issue of material fact; the non-movant
need merely show that there IS an issue of
material fact in controversy.
In this case, a third party has alleged that
“Event A” occurred, on the basis of which
alleged event the “U.S.” argues that we are
indebted to it. We have testified-- both long
before this case began and directly in response
to the motion for summary judgment-- that “Event
A” did not occur. There can be no plainer “issue
of material fact.”
Neither the District Court nor the Circuit Court
have any first-hand knowledge whatever as to the
occurrence of “Event A”, and thus have no basis
upon which to make “findings of fact”, even if
such findings were not the proper province of a
jury in any case. Yet both courts presume to
make such findings.
The courts below thus abuse their discretion
and, without regard to the fact that the only
proper disposition of this case is dismissal, do
violence to the spirit of the 7th Amendment as
well. The appellate Court compounds the abuse
and that violence by punishing us with sanctions
for invoking its supervisory authority over the
District Court! This Honorable Court has plainly
declared, “The evidence of the nonmovant is
to be believed.” Anderson v. Liberty Lobby,
Inc., 477 U.S. 242 (1986). We appealed a
District Court ruling based on the
straightforward meaning of this declaration,
among other things, and the Appellate Court
declares our appeal to be “frivolous” and
punishes us with sanctions! We appeal to this
Honorable Court for its protection from this
abuse.
We feel obliged to observe that in addition to
sharing the Circuit Court’s “confusion” about
the rules concerning summary judgment, the
District Court exhibited considerable
“confusion” about matters of concrete fact
throughout its Final Rulings. For example, in
those rulings the court deliberately quotes one
line of Peter Hendrickson’s book, ‘Cracking
the Code- The Fascinating Truth About Taxation
In America’ out of context so as to suggest
that the book argues that income tax-related
withholding only applies to federal workers. The
book does contain that one line, but makes no
such argument. Income tax-related withholding in
other cases is discussed in depth in the book.
Similarly, the District Court refers to “the
false and frivolous claims set forth in 'Cracking
the Code' that only federal, state or local
government workers are liable for the payment of
federal income tax”; and “the assertion
that wages do not constitute income for federal
tax purposes”. No such claims are made
in the book; in fact, the book specifically says
otherwise in great detail.
Most egregiously, perhaps, the District Court
makes the following declaration in its final
ruling:
“The only
new argument is that “the statutes invoked
or relied upon by Plaintiff and the Court .
. . are unconstitutional, being plainly
violative of at least the ‘necessary and
proper’ clause of the eighth section of
Article One, and the First, Fifth, Seventh,
Ninth, and Tenth Articles of Amendment to
the U.S. Constitution.” (Defs.’ Mot. for
Reconsideration at 9.)”
What we actually
said in the referenced motion is:
4.
Regarding Plaintiff’s requests for an
injunction and coerced testimony and the
Court’s related decisions, it is
self-evident that to dictate what cannot be
said is to dictate what must be said, or to
impose silence. It is not necessary to
discuss Plaintiff’s calculated
mischaracterizations of what is said in
Defendant Peter Hendrickson’s book or
Plaintiff’s pretensions in suggesting that
it possesses some mystic knowledge about the
underlying meaning of our tax return
testimony in order to observe that neither
Plaintiff, nor anyone else on Earth, has the
lawful authority to dictate the content of
our testimony, or to impose silence, in the
face of allegations concerning us, such as
those on the “information returns” made so
much of by Plaintiff in this case.
To
whatever degree the statutes invoked or
relied upon by Plaintiff and the Court can
be construed to provide for such an
injunction and coercion of testimony, those
statutes are unconstitutional, being plainly
violative of at least the “necessary and
proper” clause of the eighth section of
Article One, and the First, Fifth, Seventh,
Ninth, and Tenth Articles of Amendment to
the U.S. Constitution. Such efforts to
dictate or control testimony also violate
various federal criminal statutes regarding
witness tampering and intimidation, as well
as the fundamental principles of due
process.
The
very fact that Plaintiff has sought such an
injunction, and a coerced change in
testimony we have already made, is a plain
acknowledgment that Plaintiff has no legal
basis for disputing the freely-made
testimony on our returns. The same
plain truth is revealed by Plaintiff’s
inability to carry its burden of proof
throughout this contest, and its failure to
even try to do so. Plaintiff CANNOT
substantiate the allegations made on the
“information returns” upon which it relies,
and therefore seeks to prevent those
allegations from being rebutted.
It is not for us to say whether these
mis-statements and contrivances are calculated
to plant false notions about our arguments and
positions in the minds of those who read only
the rulings by the court and not the actual
materials we filed in the proceedings below, and
to suggest that we are “tax protestors”.
However, if left unaddressed, these
mis-statements will leave such false notions.
Therefore, we bring them to this Honorable
Court’s attention here.
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Both the district and appellate court "rulings" are designed
solely to give the DoJ the ability to declare that
"Hendrickson has been ruled against!" when actually
decisions containing the due-process violations deliberately
incorporated in these both of these are what are known as
"void rulings":
Void judgment. One which has no legal force or
effect, invalidity of which may be asserted by any
person whose rights are affected at any time and at any
place directly or collaterally. Reynolds v. Volunteer
State Life Ins. Co., Tex.Civ.App., 80 S.W.2d 1087, 1092.
One which from its inception is and forever continues to
be absolutely null, without legal efficacy, ineffectual
to bind parties or support a right, of no legal force
and effect whatever, and incapable of confirmation,
ratification, or enforcement in any manner or to any
degree. Judgment is a "void judgment" if court that
rendered judgment lacked jurisdiction of the subject
matter, or of the parties, or acted in a manner
inconsistent with due process. Klugh v. U.S., D.C.S.C.,
610 F.Supp. 892, 901. Black's dictionary of
Law, Sixth Edition.
Attorney Mark Phillips put it this way:
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When an agency of government can dictate and
compel a defendant's sworn testimony, the
outcome of any legal action or proceeding becomes
preordained. In short, as alluded to,
supra, the result is that any “legal” proceeding
of any sort is reduced to a mere Kangaroo Court:
“…a sham legal proceeding in which a person’s rights
are totally disregarded and in which the result is a
forgone conclusion because of the bias of the
court…” Black’s Law Dictionary, 5th Edition.
This is something out of Orwell or Kafka’s most
feverish nightmares, and precipitates a hellish
descent into a totalitarian tyranny the likes of
which make Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, or Maoist
China seem like a veritable jurisprudential
Elysium in comparison! This would be,
needless to say, the total destruction of the legal
system, of Due Process and the Rule of Law.
The bottom line is clear: NO ONE can
lawfully dictate or compel a
person’s sworn testimony—PERIOD!
On a comparatively ever so slightly more banal note,
we should also nonetheless emphasize that the lower
courts in Hendrickson’s case have:
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Erred, in the District court, in issuing
a summary judgment based upon improperly
construing the record un-favorably
against the non-moving party (the
Hendricksons, Petitioners in the instant case),
and in favor of the moving party,
in blatant contradiction to clearly-specified
and well-settled law (see, of
course, this Honorable Court’s own rulings,
e.g., Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, INC.,
477 U.S. 242 [1986], and Hunt v. Cromartie,
526 U.S. 541 [1999]). The 6th Circuit
Appellate Court clearly erred in
not catching (or, more likely, unlawfully
and malfeasantly deliberately ignoring)
this and remanding the case back to the District
court for proper adjudication. No court
can accept the movant's allegations as
fact and disregard the non-movant's
rebuttals in issuing summary judgment.
PERIOD. It doesn't—and cannot—matter
what the case is about.
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(a) issued federal-income-excise-tax-related
injunctions based on unilateral,
unsubstantiated, and already-rebutted
determinations, despite clear provisions in the
Declaratory Act, codified at 28 USC §2201,
barring the making of such determinations in
the context of federal tax litigation; (b)
permitted litigation clearly barred by the
principles of both res judicata and
collateral estoppel to nonetheless go forward,
despite clear provisions to the contrary
codified at Rule 41 of the Federal Rules of
Civil Procedure; and (c), severely punitively
sanctioned Petitioner Hendrickson
merely for appealing outrageous judicial
decisions and actions purporting to (and
purporting to have the lawful
authority to) do all of the above-discussed
utterly lawless improprieties!
It’s important to note, as this Court will see if it
will only review the actual pleadings and evidence
in the case, that Hendrickson has done
NOTHING—ABSOLUTELY NOTHING—but
follow and/or invoke the LAW—straightforward,
crystal-clear, black letter LAW. The
federal government (U.S. Attorney) completely lacked
authority and jurisdiction to even initiate the
action against Hendrickson, and the District court’s
first error was in not dismissing the suit
immediately upon Hendrickson’s Motion to Dismiss for
lack of jurisdiction! The rest of the history
of this case is nothing less than a pathetic,
ridiculous downward spiral of judicial corruption,
malfeasance, and venality.
Taken as a whole, this entire pattern, or ensemble,
if you will, of behavior on the part of the lower
courts in this case clearly evinces—indeed,
constitutes—not merely reversible error, nor even
censurable misconduct, but impeachable
malfeasance of the most outrageous and egregious
sort. And yet this Court has—so far—shamefully
shirked its responsibility and duty under the
Constitution to act to maintain Justice and the
Rule of Law. The actions and judgments
and/or orders issuing from these lower courts are
indeed clearly void ab initio, as any
judgment is void:
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that violates due process, Johnson v. Zerbst,
304 U.S. 458, 58 S.Ct. 1019 (1938); Pure Oil
Co. v. City of Northlake, 10 Ill.2d 241,
245, 140 N.E.2d 289 (1956); Hallberg v.
Goldblatt Bros., 363 Ill.25 (1936)
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if the judge failed to act impartially,
Bracey v. Warden, U.S. Supreme Court No.
96-6133 (June 9, 1997)
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when the judge does not follow statutory
prescriptions and/or procedure, Armstrong v.
Obucino, 300 Ill 140, 143 (1921)
-
where the complaint states no cognizable cause
of action against the opposing party, for
whatever reason, including, but not limited to,
lack of jurisdiction, Charles v. Gore,
248 Ill App. 3d 441, 618 N.E. 2d 554 (1st. Dist.
1993)
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where no justiciable issue is presented to the
court through proper pleadings and with
proper standing to sue, Ligon v. Williams,
264 Ill. App 3d 701, 637 N.E. 2d 633 (1st Dist.
1994)
Judgment is a void judgment if court that rendered
judgment lacked jurisdiction of the subject matter,
or of the parties, or acted in a manner inconsistent
with due process, Fed Rules Civ. Proc., Rule
60(b)(4), 28 U.S.C.A.; U.S.C.A. Const Amend. 5.
Klugh v. U.S., 620 F.Supp. 892 (D.S.C. 1985),
Millken v. Meyer, 311 U.S. 457, 61 S. CT. 339,
85 L. Ed. 2d 278 (1940).
(Read all of Mark's letter to the Supreme Court on
this case
here.)
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Here are the briefs we filed in the appeal of Edmund's
"ruling";
and here's the raggedy three-judge-panel opinion for you to
read for yourself...
Just for comparison, here is an example of what a real
appellate opinion, of the sort issued when the court can
actually justify and support its ruling, typically looks
like.
Interestingly (and amusingly):
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The DOJ Finds That Even Its
Cooperative Appellate Panel Has Its Limits
On July 21, 2008, the DOJ filed a motion with
the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals asking that
the "not for publication" June 11 ruling of the
three-judge-panel of that court in the hokey and
inherently void effort to force my wife and me
to swear to the truth of dictated testimony be
re-issued as a "published opinion". The
DOJ argued that the decision of the panel needed
to be published because-- according to the
department-- it "applies an established rule
to a novel fact situation, in that it rejects as
baseless the tax-avoidance scheme used by Mr.
Hendrickson and advocated in his book...",
that is (as coyly included as a footnote),
"[T]he time-worn protest argument that wages are
not income is not new, but the scheme advocated
by Mr. Hendrickson is essentially a new take on
an old theme and has been sufficiently
convincing that it has attracted a significant
following of persons willing to test it.".
Man, these guys s-o-o-o-o wish that
CtC actually made that argument...
The DOJ also tries to convince the panel that
publishing the decision would "serve the
public interest as it would provide a more
prominent deterrent to the many individuals"
who have found
CtC persuasive (prominent, maybe; deterrent,
I don't think so), and makes clear how
important it is to the IRS that
CtC-educated Americans be "deterred" (well,
they got that part right...).
I didn't bother filing a response to this
motion, because I figured there was no way the
panel would agree to make its embarrassing
"opinion" any more prominent than it was (and
besides, one simply can't respond coherently to
gibberish that has reached a certain depth).
Further, I couldn't see anything but upside in
this matter being made more prominent. At
some level of prominence, someone in the press
is going to look further into this whole affair
than the DOJ's self-serving and deceptive press
releases...
The panel, however much it is prepared to
quietly perform as a shameful accessory to the
government's purposes, apparently agrees with me
about "prominence" not being in its interests:
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Our Formal Response To The Panel's Decision...
...and then our Supreme Court Petititon...
*****
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The Supreme Court Kicks The
Can Down The Road
On June 15 of 2009, the US Supreme Court
shamefully declined to hear our petition.
A
petition for re-hearing was then filed, only
to be again declined in mid-July, even while the
court was out of session. It may well be that
both refusals were reflections of the court's
view of the matter as moot (in light of there
having been no effort up to that point to
enforce the plainly invalid ruling), or there
may have been some other reason.
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HOWEVER...
In February, 2011, government efforts to prosecute this case
directly ended and Judge Edmonds went silent, with nothing ever
collected from us as a consequence of this "suit".
Here's how we got to that:
In Spring of 2010, three years after getting its "ruling" in
this case, the government moved Judge Edmunds to force
Doreen and I to submit the dictated testimony so important
to its effort to discredit CtC by getting its hands on a
pretext for claiming our earnings were "income" and we owed
taxes for the years involved in the case. At this point
Judge Edmunds held her first-ever hearing in the matter and,
in apparent recognition of the fact that her original orders
were unlawful, modified them to provide for our explicit
disclaiming of the validity of what we were ordered to make.
In light of this revision (and disregarding the manifest
pointlessness of the exercise, since we were threatened with
jailing under civil contempt rules if we did not) Doreen and
I submitted 1040Xs for 2002 and 2003 to the court in June of
2010. What we submitted were plainly marked as being made
under duress, as not constituting our own testimony, and as
containing only words and representations dictated by the
court which we do not believe to be true.
In October of that year, the government came back again and
moved Judge Edmunds to reverse her revision of the orders.
It asked that we be made to execute forms containing
state-dictated content but without being allowed to indicate
that the forms were coerced and did not contain our
testimony. Edmunds split the difference and re-revised her
order, this time saying that the disclaimer could be filed
with the court, but not appear as part of the coerced
returns themselves.
Doreen produced new 1040Xs accordingly, merely including on
the forms under the "reasons why you are amending" portion
of the forms a reference to the disclaimer affidavits she
filed simultaneously with the court. (I did nothing at all,
since, being unable to attend the hearing on the motion I
had never heard this new order and was never served with it,
either).
Again the government came back with a "renewed" motion for
contempt, this time in January, 2011. We filed
this response in February, 2011, and haven't heard a
word on the subject of that motion since.
(More than two years later, though, in May of 2013, Doreen
was indicted on a charge of "criminal contempt of court" for
having resisted the original orders way back in May
of 2007, all the subsequent history notwithstanding. An
alternative grounds for deeming Doreen in contempt was her
having filed a refund claim for $5.00 of FICA withholding in
2008--
duly honored by the IRS-- which the indictment alleges
to have been "based on the false and frivolous claims that
only federal workers are subject to income taxes...etc.,
etc..
Doreen was tried in October of 2013, and proceeded in
propria persona. Shamelessly recognizing reality while
remaining completely contemptuous of the law, the government
actually requested-- and received-- an instruction from the
trial judge to the jury that it was not allowed to consider
whether the orders Doreen is alleged to have disobeyed while
under a legal duty to obey were unlawful and
unconstitutional! The trial ended with a hung jury.
Doreen was re-tried in July of 2014. Read about that corrupt
little affair
here.)
"It is not the function of our Government to keep the
citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the
citizen to keep the Government from falling into error."
-U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson
By the way, there's something that each of you can do to
that is very important...
One of the primary reasons that the legal profession has (at
best) sat on the sidelines in regard to the effort of
several generations of Americans to address the "income" tax
subject is simply because those in that profession have no
knowledge of this body of law. Worse, and of much
greater significance, attorneys and other legal
professionals have watched as a long series of flawed
"arguments" about the nature of the tax have taken the stage
over the years, each presented as being the product of great
research efforts, and each purporting to reveal the
liberating truth about the tax.
These folks have (not unreasonably) concluded that there IS
no sound argument, and no case that can be made in a
courtroom-- imagining that if there were, surely someone in
this long parade of gurus/activists/etc. would have
presented it to the world before. At this point, most
won't even look at anything new. Those in that
profession must be persuaded to look, and to understand that
they can now go into courtrooms across the country armed for
bear.
Most everyone reading these words knows someone in that
profession. Please go to the trouble of printing out
The Fascinating Truth About The Sixteenth Amendment in
its entirety (along with all supporting docs linked from
within that page), and then sit down with your acquaintances
in the legal profession and see that they read these
documents through. Then watch 'It's
Time To Learn The Truth About The "Income" Tax' and
maybe 'The
Q&A Movie' with them, and leave them a copy of
CtC to read. Help get these folks involved in
upholding the law.
"A free people claim their rights as derived from the
laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief
magistrate"
-Thomas Jefferson
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