Monday • May 20 • 2024
Vol.XVI • No.XXI
Manchester, N.H.
Jp Cortez, Sound Money Defense League: Sound Money Movement Scores 2022 Wins
As state legislatures clear out and head home for the summer, one reality has emerged: Sound money is a winning issue in the states.
At a time of record-high inflation and geopolitical uncertainty across the globe, states are wisely taking steps to better enable citizens to acquire, sell, and/or use gold and silver.
Last year, Arkansas and Ohio repealed sales taxes on gold and silver coins, bars, and rounds. And Ohio invested almost $1 billion worth of physical gold in its Ohio Police and Fire Pension fund.
This year brought three new legislative victories in Tennessee, Virginia, and Alabama, thanks largely to efforts by Money Metals Exchange, its customers, and its Sound Money Defense League project.
All told, sound money allies introduced bills in 11 states to remove sales and income taxation on the monetary metals, create state depositories, and/or protect state pensions and reserves with an allocation to physical gold.
Here’s a full rundown…
Eleven States Considered Sound Money Bills This YearVirginia had exempted sales taxes on most purchases of precious metals back in 2015, but purchases under $1,000 were still taxed and the whole exemption was scheduled to sunset this year.
Mobilizing grassroots support, the Sound Money Defense League worked with Delegate Amanda Batten’s office on House Bill 936 and secured a five-year extension of the existing exemption, while also securing its expansion to cover ALL transaction sizes.
Before the ink could dry on Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s signature, Alabama finalized sound money legislation of its own.
In addition to prompting in-state supporters to make literally thousands of calls and emails to members of the Alabama House and Senate, Money Metals’ public policy team worked closely with legislative allies to extend Alabama’s precious metals sales tax exemption and also clarify that the exemption covers ALL common forms of bullion.
The successful Alabama bill also removed some burdensome reporting requirements.
During a house committee hearing on Alabama’s Senate Bill 13, the committee chairman proclaimed the precious metals bill was “the most popular bill of the session.” Governor Kay Ivey’s signed SB 13 into law in April.
Meanwhile, a groundswell of Volunteer State citizens prompted the Tennessee legislature to secure its place as the 42nd state to remove sales taxes from gold, silver, platinum, and palladium coins, bars, and rounds.
During the Senate floor vote, Sen. Janice Bowling commented, "I just want to thank the senator for bringing forward this bill along with half of the state of Tennessee that contacted all of us!"
Meanwhile, sound money bills in other states fell short of passage, but efforts laid the groundwork for victories in 2023 and beyond.
Kentucky House Bill 272 aimed to remove sales taxes on gold, silver, platinum, and palladium coins and bars, but the measure did not receive a hearing this year.
In Mississippi, the Sound Money Defense League worked with Rep. Jill Ford, the Mississippi Center for Public Policy, and in-state supporters to advance House Bill 426, another sales tax exemption effort.
HB 426 passed the Mississippi House by a vote of 121-1 but died in Sen. Briggs Hopson’s Senate Appropriations Committee without a hearing.
In Hawaii, Rep. Val Okimoto led the way in pushing sound money legislation (House Bill 1184) out of the House Finance Committee. It passed overwhelmingly out of the full House but failed to receive a hearing before Hawaii’s Senate Finance Ways and Means Committee.
Meanwhile, lawmakers in Alaska held two hearings on House Bill 167, a measure to declare gold and silver “specie legal tender” as well as prevent boroughs and cities from slapping sales taxes on purchases of the monetary metals.
In the Garden State, Assemblyman Ronald Dancer introduced A3007 to end New Jersey’s sales taxes on precious metals. A companion bill was introduced in the New Jersey Senate while other cosponsors joined the effort.
New Jersey’s legislature is still in session, so there’s still an outside chance of progress there this year.
Meanwhile, Oklahomans appear eager to build on the Sooner State’s existing sound money policies. Proponents introduced bills to eliminate capital gains tax on the sale of precious metals, establish an in-state gold depository, and protect taxpayer reserve funds with gold and silver. These bills enjoyed grassroots support, but they did not pass out of any committees.
West Virginia and Washington legislatures introduced measures to eliminate various tax liabilities on precious metals, but these bills didn’t receive hearings in 2022.
The Idaho House overwhelmingly passed a bill that would permit the state treasurer to hold gold as a hedge against the state’s massive pile of negative yielding debt paper, but the senate failed to act on the bill.
In the end, the big news for 2022 is the newly minted sales tax exemption in Tennessee – followed by more incremental wins in Virginia and Alabama.
Hawaii, Kentucky, Maine, Mississippi, New Jersey, New Mexico, Vermont, and Wisconsin remain as the only states that still charge full sales taxes on precious metals, without any exceptions.
Leading the Sound Money PushAs the de facto public policy leaders for the entire precious metals industry, Money Metals Exchange and the Sound Money Defense League are preparing to redouble efforts in the remaining eight sales tax states and continue pushing ahead on other policy fronts.
As inflation rages on, the folly of endless currency printing becomes more undeniable.
Thankfully, individuals, states, and even countries are increasingly considering the role of gold and silver in protecting against the twin threats of Federal Reserve Note devaluation and weaponization.
Jp Cortez is the Policy Director for the Sound Money Defense League, a non-partisan, national public policy group working to restore sound money at the state and federal level and publisher of the Sound Money Index.
Ivan Pentchoukov, Epoch Times: Obama Approved Accusing Russia of DNC Hack Before FBI Received DNC Server Images
President Barack Obama approved a statement by the U.S. intelligence community in October 2016 accusing Russia of stealing emails from the Democratic National Committee (DNC), despite the U.S. government not having obtained the DNC server images crucial to ascertaining whether Moscow was involved in the theft.
FBI emails recently made public during the trial against now-acquitted DNC attorney Michael Sussmann show the bureau was still in the process of requesting images of the DNC servers on Oct. 13, 2016. The server images, which are equivalent to a virtual copy of the alleged crime scene, were taken by private cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike.
On Oct. 7, six days before CrowdStrike agreed to mail the server images to the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) released a statement accusing Russia of hacking U.S. political organizations and disseminating emails allegedly stolen through the hack. The statement was approved and encouraged by Obama, according to then-DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson.
[...]
On Aug. 31, 2016, CrowdStrike provided a report on the DNC hack to the FBI. The FBI special agent who reviewed the report called it “heavily redacted,” according to the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on the Russia investigation. FBI Assistant Director James Trainor was so frustrated with the redactions that “he doubted its completeness because he knew that outside counsel had reviewed it.”
The “outside counsel” Trainor referred to is all but certainly Michael Sussmann, who served as the DNC’s point of contact for all intrusion-related matters. Sussmann was acquitted last month of one charge of lying to the FBI about whether he was representing the DNC when he took a white paper to the FBI that alleged a connection between then-presidential candidate Donald Trump and Russia. The FBI agents who reviewed the paper found the claims in it unfounded within 24 hours.
Read the rest here.
Mike Allen, Axios: Scoop: Jan. 6 committee's secret adviser
The House's Jan. 6 committee has turned to a renowned former network news executive to hone a mountain of explosive material into a captivating multimedia presentation for a prime-time hearing Thursday.
- James Goldston — former president of ABC News, and a master documentary storyteller who ran "Good Morning America" and "Nightline" — has joined the committee as an unannounced adviser, Axios has learned.
Why it matters: I'm told Goldston is busily producing Thursday's 8 p.m. ET hearing as if it were a blockbuster investigative special.
[...]
The other side: Republicans will argue that the 1/6 committee — which consists of seven Democrats plus Republicans Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois — is just out to get former President Trump.
Read the rest here.
BREAKING: The House Select Committee to Investigate January Sixth has failed to obtain a "smoking gun" proving top-down organization of the Capitol riot, Hill sources say, despite taking more than 1,000 depositions and subpoenaing more than 140,000 documents
— Paul Sperry (@PaulSperry30) June 6, 2022
Madeleine Hubbard, Just the News: Donald Trump reacts to Navarro's arrest, points out how 'lowlifes of ANTIFA & BLM' aren't prosecuted
Former President Donald Trump on Monday reacted to the arrest of his former advisor Peter Navarro by pointing out that members of Black Lives Matter and Antifa are able to roam freely while his former White House trade advisor cannot.
Navarrowas arrested Friday at the Nashville airport while trying to board a flight for defying a Jan. 6 committee subpoena. He said he was put in "leg irons" and handcuffs, then strip searched, placed in solitary confinement, denied food and water, and illegally denied access to his attorney.
"Our great trade genius, Professor Peter Navarro, was just handcuffed, shackled, and put in jail, while the lowlifes of ANTIFA & BLM are allowed to rip off the public, roam free on the streets, kill people, and destroy our once great cities (all run by Democrats)," Trump wrote Sunday on his platform, Truth Social.
"When will this end? The American people will not stand for it much longer!" the former president said. "Great patriotic heroes are being created every day. FAIRNESS AND JUSTICE must rule the day!"
Jeff Poor, Brietbart: Dershowitz: Peter Navarro Arrest ‘Dangerous to Democracy’
Saturday, during an appearance on Newsmax TV, Harvard Law Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz warned former Trump adviser Peter Navarro’s arrest could impact American democracy.
Dershowitz told Newsmax TV’s “The Count” Navarro’s indictment was a “real scandal” given no judicial order was given for Navarro to testify that resolved his claim of executive privilege.
If it stands, Dershowitz said Republicans could use it in the same way their Democrat counterparts have used it against Biden administration officials.
“He has invoked a privilege,” Dershowitz explained. “It’s as if somebody was called to testify about what he told his priest or his doctor or his lawyer, and he invokes the privilege and immediately gets indicted, instead of the government going before a court and the judge rules whether or not the privilege applies. If you rule the privilege doesn’t apply and order him to testify, then he can be held in contempt.”
“But you cannot constitutionally be held in contempt of Congress without a judicial order,” he continued. “And if the shoe was on the other foot, and it will be on the other foot if the Republicans gained control of Congress or the Senate, they will use this precedent and go after Biden administration officials and indict them if they refused to disclose information. This is dangerous to democracy, dangerous through the rule of law, and dangerous to the concept of privilege, whether it be a priest privilege or a doctor, privileged lawyer privilege or executive privilege — an extremely dangerous case. And I’m shocked that the Justice Department brought it without there being a judicial determination that he was compelled to testify.”
Kim Dotcom on the Coming Collapse :: Hyperinflation and the Military :: The Great Reset :: Anti-war Protests :: Economic Hurricane :: Quantitative Tightening :: Ion Sarah :: Shrooms :: Conservatives Flipping Out over Kids Drag Show :: Show: 2022-06-06 Ian, Aria, Nobody
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FCK BLM (the license plate) :: The United States is a corporation :: Are you a corporation in the eyes of the state? :: What is the formula to remove yourself from the state? Buck the Government :: Self Driving Taxis :: Show: 2022-06-05 Captain Kickass, Rich E Rich, Nikki
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Free Talk Live's Daily Digests feature highlights from our full-length seven-day-a-week live radio show, selected and edited by Riley Blake.
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Tom Cruise and Scientology :: Top Gun Propaganda? :: Islam, Christianity, and Atheists :: SSRIs, Placebo, and Anxiety :: Top Gun School :: Killdozer Anniversary :: American Nationalist :: Sovereign :: Right to Bear Arms :: Jail Snitching :: Show: 2022-06-04 Ian, Captain Kickass, Peakless Mountaineer
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Free Talk Live's Daily Digests feature highlights from our full-length seven-day-a-week live radio show, selected and edited by Riley Blake.
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Nearly every government eventually becomes greedy and seeks to steal more from its people than it could via simple taxation. Tyrants in the federal government always wanted to control the money that the people used. Alexander Hamilton wanted the President to rule over the Americans for life with massive powers, and he wanted the central government to be quite authoritarian.
The post How DC Politicians Destroyed Our Money appeared first on The Liberty Block.
Civil War Coming? :: Tyranny :: Secession Outreach :: Lily Tang Williams :: Multiple Libertarians Running for Office in NH :: Drag Racing :: TOR Website Unblocked in Russia :: Human Freedom Index :: Lying State Trooper :: Smoking Weed in Jail :: Jail Ghost Story :: Show: 2022-06-02 Ian, Chris W., Nobody
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