I was watching Ron Paul's appearance on "Late Night with Jay Leno" tonight - and he made quite an interesting point when responding to a question about eliminating the income tax.

If we end the federal income tax on individuals, the government will have about the same amount of money to operate on as it did in the year 2000.

In essence, eliminating the income tax would be coupled with a massive reduction in government spending (which weighs heavily on war and maintaining a massive global military empire).

Trying to understand a bit better, I did a little digging - and found these revenue sources from whitehouse.gov:

2006 Federal Government Revenues by Source (in billions of dollars)

Individual income taxes = 1,197
Corporate income taxes = 252
Payroll taxes = 896
Excise taxes = 82
Estate and gift taxes = 22
Customs duties = 28
Miscellaneous revenues = 51

Total revenues = 2,529

In short, the income tax accounted for about 47% of federal revenue in 2006. Other years, from my understanding, are generally lower - around 40%.

Simply ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would make a pretty big dent...and closing the 700+ military bases in 130+ nations would cut spending so much that an income tax would be wholly unnecessary.

Sounds to me like Ron Paul is on the right path!

Last week, Rep. Ron Paul introduced the "American Freedom Agenda Act of 2007" to restore support for the US Constitution. 

This bill, if passed, would go a long way towards restoring liberty and the constitution in this country.  It would simply eliminate a number of "laws" that go well-beyond the Constitution's limit on federal power.

More specifically, The American Freedom Agenda Act would

• bar the use of evidence obtained through torture
• require that federal intelligence gathering is conducted in accordance with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)
• create a mechanism for challenging presidential signing statements
• repeal the Military Commissions Act, which, among other things, denies habeas corpus to certain detainees
• prohibit kidnapping, detentions, and torture abroad
• protect journalists who publish information received from the executive branch
• ensure that secret evidence is not used to designate individuals or organizations with a presence in the U.S. as foreign terrorists.

Ron Paul spoke on the floor of the House when he introduced the bill.

There's very little "good" that comes out of Washington D.C. these days, but this bill would be a huge step for this country. 

We urge everyone to contact their representatives to support this bill.

by Steve Osborn

Thoughts on taking down the Military Establishment, in response to Michael Boldin's "Leaders Don't Kill People..."

If we could just figure out a way to make it happen.

I know one thing. If we dismantle the military establishment, we had better "insource" our jobs and manufacturing and etc., so we don't have a bunch of combat trained guys with no jobs, no way to feed their families and nothing to do.

Somehow, we are going to have to get the "trust busters" back in action, dismantle these huge mega-corporations and destroy their power. Otherwise, these out of work guys are going to become a new mercenary army as the Corporations hire and supply them to do their dirty work. Or we are going to have them banding together to get their food and supplies as raiders.

I really don't want to have to try to stand off a bunch of combat trained veterans who want the contents of my home. A kicked in door and a spray of bullets is all it takes and they've got another week's supplies. They have learned how to do that very well, the last few years, and I imagine their consciences, for the most part, are pretty well covered with thick scar tissue.

I hope we can turn this mess around, but I fear the system is totally broken, with no fixes in sight.

by Dave Lindorff

Buthaina Al-Sasiri is a well-known and prolific Iraqi writer and journalist living in Cairo. In response to my last article (on American killings in Iraq), she offers these thoughts on the wholesale slaughter of Iraqis by American forces, and on the routine and deceptive mis-identification of those killed (males) as "members of Al Qaeda":

You may remember that the Iraqi resistance has called by the US spinners by different names at different stages of invasion and occupation:

1. First they were "dead enders" and "Saddam's hunchmen," etc. That was before arresting Saddam Hussein.

2. Next they were called insurgents, after the puppet government was installed . Insurgency means revolting against a legal, recognized government.

3. At last they are being called Al Qaeda terrorists. Every anti-occupation group is now referred to as Al Qaeda. Every man killed by the troops is an Al Qaeda leader.

Ofcourse, calling the Iraqi resistance Al Qaeda fits well with the permanent "war on terror". Bush can now have his "legal" justification for the war on Iraq: it is part of his war on terror.

The recent slaughter of innocents is not the first. It has become a pattern.

The US army is becoming more dependant on air strikes--massive airstrikes on civilians--as part of an intimidation campaign.

Last week, they slaughtered from the air a large group of men and children who gathered one Ramadan (the Fasting month in Islam) evening to play a traditional game which needs two groups of men sitting facing each other. A ring is hidden in the hand of a member of one group, the others in the facing group have to guess where the ring is hidden. Usually this game attracts bystanders .

The US Army said, of course, that they had killed Al Qaeda terrorists.

Before that, men , women and children were sleeping on the roof of a house , which is an Iraqi habit in summer. They were airstruck and accused of being Al Qaeda terrorists. Of course, there were other slughters of wedding gatherings, of funeral gatherings. Any gathering is hit from the air.

When women and children are killed, the US army announces that he regrets but it is the fault of the terrorists who hide behind civillians.

A Letter to the Washington Post

Dear Editor, 

I could not get through reading your article, Bush Deplores American Timidity without blowing a gasket.  I paid much attention to this quote of his, "We have lost sight of what it means to be a nation willing to be aggressive in the world and spread freedom or deal with disease. And we have lost our confidence in the ability to compete internationally," Please, President Bush do not include we in that statement since you are the one that has lost sight. 

You are the one who has dictated to this country and the world for far too long.  Bush speaks of freedom when freedom of speech has been assaulted in this country?  He speaks of dealing with disease as he cuts the budgets to health programs and delivering health care to children in this country?  Americans do have confidence to deal with the world.  It is he who has destroyed how we stood on the world stage. 

On the same day which former Vice President Al Gore won the Nobel Prize, I only think of what we could have had.  The Supreme Court in its despotic ways should have stayed out of the people's business.  It is because of Bush, Cheney, and the Supreme Court that over 3,800 of our soldiers are now dead and one million innocent Iraqis are dead.  That would not have happened under a Gore administration.  For that I am certain of.

Sincerely,

Mary MacElveen

I just got through watching the Republican Presidential debate on CNBC, and was struck by the responses to one of the questions on Iran.  The candidates were asked if the president could bomb Iran without going to Congress for approval.

Most said yes - some said it would be a "good idea" to check with Congress, but only one, Ron Paul took the right position; attacking another country is an act of war.

And, more importantly, war cannot be initiated by the US government unless there's a Congressional Declaration of War by Congress. 

On the scary, "I'm a dictator" side of the debate, Mitt Romney said he'd just "consult his lawyers" to find out if he could just go ahead and bomb Iran without Congressional authorization.

Mitt doesn't care about your liberty.  He doesn't care about the Constitution.  He just cares about what kind of powers he can use - and get away with.

What a surprise, right? Politicians lie!

Well, we all know they do, but in Washington State, some people are just about fed up with it, and a proposed law would hold politicians legally accountable for lying on the job.

That sounds like a great idea, doesn't it? Not according to the Washington State Supreme Court!

via the LA Times:

Justices in the majority of the 5-4 decision said the 1999 law, already rejected by a lower court, violates free-speech rights.

"The notion that the government, rather than the people, may be the final arbiter of truth in political debate is fundamentally at odds with the 1st Amendment," Justice James Johnson wrote.

Dissenting justices called the decision "an invitation to lie with impunity."

The next step in this "insanity" of holding politicians accountable would be to hold judges accountable for following the constitution too - and they'd never want that!

If anyone brought that up, I'm sure the State legislature would stand up in opposition. Protecting their partners in crime, as always.