The Way Back to America

Step 1 - Restoring Representation to the Citizens

The United States is a representative republic, whereby we elect individuals to protect our interests and do our bidding at the national level, so that we may go about our daily lives pursuing our visions of personal happiness and doing so with some reasonable level of domestic tranquility. Our nation is not a democracy, though we have certain democratic principles, such as the popular election of members of the House of Representatives, but a "democracy" we are not. In fact, the word "democracy" does not appear even once in our beloved Constitution. As H.L. Mencken, the cantankerous (and bibulous) writer for the Baltimore Sun once wrote, "Democracy is four wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner."

One can bet that it will be mutton on the plate eventually. The key to a representative style government, however, is ensuring that those elected, actually represent those who elect them, which is the problem we now face as a nation. Who does your "representative" actually represent? Does he or she spend the day attempting to streamline government and keep it within its constitutional boundaries (to be discussed in Article 5), or is the day spent with corporations, PAC's, unions, and professional groups, seeking special favors at the public's expense? The question (and results) give the answer.

The representative of today, spends the majority of his or her time, fund raising for the next election cycle. With that now as a representative's chief priority, the most efficient use of his or her time is to focus on those with the highest dollar per minute of their time, which is not the flesh and blood constituent, who should be their only focus under a representative style government. It is going to be the pharmaceutical corporation, or the government workers union, or the Political Action Committee, seeking to buy their vote that is going to get the attention, as well as the support. This is our first order of business in what will be dubbed The American Devolution.

Before we can take our country back, we must first recapture our elected representatives to it. Prior to a string of outrageous decisions by the United States Supreme Court, beginning with Home Insurance Co. v. Morse in 1874, Santa Clara County v. Pacific Railroad Co. (1886), up through Southern Railroad v. Greene, in 1910, for anyone but a registered voter living permanently within their district to give a donation to them, was properly and legally deemed a bribe. It was against the law, and still should be. The court made the bizarre ruling that the Fourteenth Amendment, which basically freed the slaves, could be interpreted to free the corporations of America as well.

These court ruling concluded that "Corporation has the same rights to protection of laws as natural citizens," and the money game began. The first step in returning the United States to constitutional government, is to close down this brothel, and get our representatives back to the business of representing those who elect them, rather than any that can afford to rent them for a few months or even one vote. It is time to return to the law, which can actually begin at the state level, using the powers reserved to them under Section 4 of Article I of the Constitution, which states, "The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof;".

No entity other than a living, breathing, registered voter or permanent resident of a congressional district can be allowed to contribute money or services to a candidate. None. That includes the political parties which have controlled the public's agenda for over a century. Freed from the corrosive influence of these groups, our representatives can once again represent those who elect them. Until then, just like any other brothel, you'd better bring some cash.

VIVA LA DEVOLUTION!

The Way Back to America

Step 2 - Restoring The Guardians Of Limited Government

The United States Constitution requires that the senators representing the respective States must be "chosen by the Legislature thereof." (Article I, Section 3, Clause 1) For the handful of Americans who ever read the constitution and knew of this provision, I had better quickly explain why I used the present tense "requires," in the above sentence, or they are sure to remind me that the 17th Amendment changed all that back in 1913....and they would be right. But did Congress and the public have the authority to alter that key provision? According to Section 4 of Article I, the answer is clearly, "No."

The Constitution plainly prohibits any tampering with this important safeguard against federal tyranny: "Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations [for elections], except as to the Places of chusing [sic] Senators." Those "Places of choosing Senators" were the legislatures of the respective States, and that provision was considered so important to constraining federal government growth that the founding fathers forbid it to be changed by anyone.

Why? Because the Senate of the United States was the body of the legislative branch representing the interests of, and powers delegated to, the States themselves. The Senate was designed to prevent power from consolidating in the federal government, which has happened, absent this protection.

James Madison, the founder credited with penning our constitution, wrote in Federalist XLVII (The Federalist Papers): "The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny." This balance of power between the States and limited federal government was a main provision of the constitutional design to prevent that consolidation of power even more so than the separation of powers within the federal government itself (dispersed between the legislative, executive, and judicial branches). It loss has been a severe blow to freedom, as was predicted y Mr. Madison 223 years ago.

The vaunted Freedom House Index, which was established in 1941 to rank totalitarian nations, ranks the United States 43rd in freedom today, though it was Number One in freedom when the Index began. This ranking is behind many third-world nations and governments that we once vilified as tyrannical. They are now more free (and less corrupt) than the United States, by ranking in our own Index of Freedom.

Government cannot grow in scope, without an equal loss of freedom by its citizens, and the election of Senators by the States was a key component of keep the federal government out of our lives. Thomas Jefferson also foresaw the tyranny that would come to pass if power consolidated in federal government as it has. In a letter to James Madison, he wrote: "I do verily believe that if the principle were to prevail of a common law being in force in the United States (which principle...reduces us to a single consolidated government), it would become the most corrupt government on earth." Many would argue that our consolidated federal government of today, fits that billing.

The founders well-knew what they were doing by having elected leaders of each State choose Senators who would guard liberty and the division of powers between state and federal governments. This protected the citizenry against an authoritarian federal government. A good beginning on our Way Back to America would be to return to our constitution and this special provision which was deemed too important by the founders to be (legally) changed.

The Senators themselves will fight this return to our Constitution some predict, as they are now in the big money game as well. Each year, they take millions of dollars from pharmaceutical companies, unions, PAC's and multi-national corporations to do their bidding (instead of protecting the interests of their home States as they once did), but there is a good case to be made before the courts for an overturn of this unconstitutional amendment.

It was prohibited by the ultimate law of the land....the United States Constitution.... from being changed. Either the courts will have to follow the ultimate law of the land if this issue is brought before them, or admit that the judicial branch has followed Congress and the Executive Branch in disregarding it and violating the contract with We the People as well.

VIVA LA DEVOLUTION....back to legal government by eliminating the unconstitutional 17th Amendment.

The Way Back to America

STEP 3 - A Return to Legal Sources

In our contract with federal government, We the People granted it the right to 1) collect Duties (which also acted to protect and build our domestic industries); 2) collect Impost taxes on imports (which acted to discourage them); and 3) collect Excise taxes on whiskey, tobacco and other luxury products. Any shortfall in the limited funding requirements of a limited federal government were to be paid by the States on an allocated basis determined by the Census. These were, and are, the only legal sources of revenue for the federal government of the United States. The small handful of Americans who have ever read the United States Constitution or know of its amendments will be ready to pounce, "But what about the Sixteenth Amendment? In 1913, that amendment gave federal government the power to lay and collect taxes on income." And they would be right....to a certain extent. Such an amendment was added to the Constitution by then Secretary of State, Philander C. Knox under what is known as the "enrolled bill rule," but was it legal? Further, did it actually become law under the requirements of Article V? Was it approved by two-thirds of the State Legislatures as required? The answer to all of these questions is a surprising "No." Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution specifically prohibits an income tax on 'We the People' in Clause 4. The founders knew that allowing federal government to dip its hand at will into the people's pockets would end in disaster. As we can see 100 years later, it has. No amount of money can satiate the behemoth and it always wants to take more and more from us, quite literally at the point of a gun.

If that sounds harsh, I invite you to try not paying your income taxes and see how that works out for you. As for the question of whether the Sixteenth Amendment actually passed or not, I will defer to the U.S. Supreme Court decision in United States v. Thomas, 479 U.S. 853, so I do not sound like a conspiracy monger: "Sixteenth Amendment is effective legal document, even though only four states ratified its language exactly as Congress approved it."

But it is a requirement for an amendment's passage that the wording be exact. No changes can be made. Want proof? Try passing an amendment that federal government does not want with only four states properly ratifying it and see how far it gets. So if the income tax was prohibited by the U.S. Constitution and only four States properly ratified it, how did it become law? That is where the "enrolled bill rule" comes into play, rendering the whole process of public approval of constitutional amendments a farce, if correct. The Thomas court ruled: "in 1913 the Secretary of State declared it [the Sixteenth Amendment] adopted, and Supreme Court follows the 'enrolled bill rule' providing that if legislative document is approved in regular form by appropriate officials, that document is treated as adopted."

Aside from improperly giving our federal government the financial means to overwhelm the States, the People (and some would say the world) the Sixteenth Amendment also allowed the free traders to get rid of our protective import duties which had helped America become the greatest manufacturing nation on earth. It is an historical fact that the United States was the most protectionist nation the world had seen in history until 1923. That period coincides in good measure with its rise as the world's strongest economy as well, in contrast to what the free traders would have us believe. The fastest way to return federal government to it legal limits is to figure out a way to force it back to legal sources of revenue, which are also limited. Reinstituting our nation's historical tariffs as federal government's main source of revenue would have the instantaneous effect of reopening America's factories and industry, causing a boom in domestic employment the likes of which has never been seen. Supplying 314 million Americans with domestically-produced products is not a bad way to kick-start the economy and start us on the Way Back to America. Putting federal government back on its constitutional leash and getting its hand out of our pockets might be even better.

VIVA LA DEVOLUTION!

MESSAGE FROM HOWELL WOLTZ

Dear Friends…both old and new;

After nearly six years, it appears that my case may finally be reviewed by a court of jurisdiction. I received notice from the United States Supreme Court that the appeal of the continued presence of a judge without jurisdiction in my case was docketed as Case No. 10-11059.

The appeal was sent to Chief Justice John Roberts in his capacity as the titular Administrator of the Fourth Circuit, which is where the case was filed and I am unconstitutionally imprisoned. (Each justice supervises a circuit, it just happens that the Fourth belongs to Chief Justice Roberts). He refashioned the appeal from “In re Howell Woltz” as I had filed it, to “Howell Way Woltz v. United States District Court of the Western District of North Carolina” and gave the Chief Judge there until the 18th of July to explain how I am in prison when never convicted by any court of jurisdiction (which is the issue of the appeal).

After nearly six years in prison for a legally impossible crime (“sole conspirator”) I have never been adjudicated by a court either in the jurisdiction or venue of charge. From the moment the assigned Western District Judge (David C. Keesler) called government’s story “bizarre” and ordered my immediate release on unsecured bond, the prosecution and adjudication of this case has been unlawful.

The prosecutors, AUSAs Matthew Martens and Kurt Meyers, appealed Judge Keesler’s ruling, but rather than following the law (18 U.S.C. section 3145(a)) they shopped for a judge who would do their bidding and revoke the properly granted bond, and filed the appeal two federal jurisdictions away in the Eastern District court of Senior Judge W. Earl Britt. This was a crime.

My co-defendant in the case, Honorable Samuel T. Currin, was a judge, U.S. Attorney, and chaired the North Carolina Republican Party for several years, but his conflict with Judge Britt went beyond those positions and years, all the way back to 1980. Judge Britt was sought out in this case because of that animus.

Sam was Senator Jesse Helms’ senior aide in those days, and it was his assigned duty to prevent the confirmation of Eastern North Carolina prosecutor, W. Earl Britt, by the United States Senate, by any legal means. Senator Helms believed W. Earl Britt to be unfit to serve as a federal judge, which history has now proven to have been prescient. It is a bizarre twist of fate that the case of his senior aide almost 30 years later would prove him to have been correct.

AUSA Martens bragged of his orchestration of this illegal intervention in my presence on April 27th, 2006, admitting that he had sought out Judge Britt after learning that “he [Britt] and Currin have been blood-feud enemies for 30 years!” AUSA Martens overstated the 30 years by a few, but not the hatred.

On cue, after my release on bond, Judge Britt ordered me to be chained and transported two federal jurisdictions away to have the properly granted bond revoked without de novo review or the hearing of eight government officials and witnesses who had come to protest this illegal action and testify. This transfer of venue violated the Sixth Amendments of both jurisdiction and venue, as well as Rules 18 and 20 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, as well as the previously cited statute, but no one was watching, including my attorneys.

Despite my many letters of instruction, they refused to challenge these crimes of a sitting senior judge (Britt), the prosecutors with whom they made their living (Martens and Meyers), and the Chief Judge in Charlotte (Conrad) who looked the other way. But the Chief Judge can look the other way no longer. He is now the respondent in a case before the Supreme Court and must answer for what he has done.

Given the abject refusal of my pathetic lawyers to do their job, I wrote the foreign court of Judge Britt myself, while pro se, and copied the Western District where the case was required by law and constitution to be adjudicated. This letter of August 26th, 2006 is still on file in Case No. 3:06-cr-74, and outlines the constitutional violations as well as my refusal to waive my Sixth Amendment right to be tried by a constitutionally “complete” court. Otherwise, these terrible men in black robes could simply claim that I “waived” those rights.

A constitutionally “complete” court must be in the federal jurisdiction where the alleged crime occurred. Venue attaches after jurisdiction, and while jurisdiction deals with the power of the court over the case at hand, venue regulates where that power may be exercised. Once the charges were filed in the Western District of North Carolina and I was arraigned there, whether rightly or wrongly, both jurisdiction and venue attached. Only if I, the defendant, requested of that court that the case be transferred and signed a “waiver” could either I or the case have been moved to another jurisdiction or venue, which the record proves, never happened.

And the Sixth Amendment has more provisions which are required of a constitutionally “complete” court. They include competent counsel and an impartial judge. The lawyers allowed this to happen, proving their complicity and ineffectiveness, and the judge was constitutionally conflicted. Judge Britt could not have heard this case even if he had been in the Western District, as it was regarding his worst public enemy, Samuel T. Currin.

I proved actual innocence years ago, but the courts have determined that “there is no federal right to release upon proof of actual innocence,” (District Attorney’s Office v. Osborne, 2009). While shocking to a once proud American that the courts have now openly admitted what so many victims of the process have learned by experience, that ruling required a change of approach in my appellate efforts, which the Supreme Court has now recognized in this latest effort.

The rulings of Judge W. Earl Britt in this case had no more constitutional authority than one made by any other man or woman on the streets of Raleigh, NC in the far away Eastern District of that state. What has happened in this case is no different than if any (other) thugs had kidnapped me from the Western District and held me in their basement for nearly six years, with but one difference. Judge Britt and his crew are above the law, whereas the (other) thugs would now be in prison.

Since 1967 (Supreme Court case, Pierson v. Ray) judges (and now prosecutors as well) are immune from the penalty of law for such crimes. The courts granted themselves immunity, which does not comport with my reading of the United States Constitution, but that explains how AUSA Matt Martens, AUSA Kurt Meyers, Senior Judge W. Earl Britt, and Chief Judge Robert J. Conrad, can so flippantly commit these criminal acts with such impunity, against those whom they swore to serve and protect. They suffer no penalty for their crimes. They are above the law, by law.

It is worthy of note that every one of these criminals of bar and bench are, or were, prosecutors, which makes a very good case for there never being another one of them, ever, confirmed as a judge, even for traffic court. Once a man or woman has become immune to human empathy and done these horrible things to fellow human beings for a living, they are unfit to judge others.

You can’t change a leopard’s spots simply by covering them up with a black robe. But that is another fight for the future. If the courts finally follow the law and constitution, this part of my journey appears to be coming to an end, and I want to take this opportunity to thank all of the wonderful people who have helped me so much during this time. It is a debt which I can never repay, but one which is deeply felt.

With love and thanks to you all,

Howell W. Woltz, TEP