by William F. Jasper

New American

At a speech in Sacramento, California, on December 10, Richard Mack, former sheriff of Graham County, Arizona, and founder of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA), announced that within a matter of days he will be filing a lawsuit in federal court against the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) for slander, libel and defamation.

Sheriff Mack, who successfully challenged the 1993 federal Brady handgun control act in a landmark case that went all the way through the United States Supreme Court, has been an outspoken champion of constitutionally limited government and a critic of federal usurpation and abuse of police powers. The forty-year-old Southern Poverty Law Center is notorious for lionizing left-wing extremists (such as unrepentant Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers) and equally notorious for smearing innocent individuals and organizations with the “racist,” pending“extremist,” “anti-semitic,” “anti-government,” and “hate group” labels. It is not surprising then that it has targeted Richard Mack for vicious treatment in a number of its publications and web sites over the years. But even more troubling than what it has published about him, says Sheriff Mack, are the lies that it has spread to law enforcement agencies about him in the seminars and training programs the SPLC conducts for federal, state, and local agencies. Sheriff Mack, who was a speaker, along with this writer at the 53rd Anniversary Banquet of The John Birch Society in Sacramento, also announced to the assembled guests that he would also soon be filing papers to run in the Republican primary for the 21st Congressional District of Texas against incumbent Rep. Lamar Smith, whom Mack describes a “RINO” (Republican In Name Only). The 21st District includes much of San Antonio and Austin, as well as Fredericksburg, where Mack now resides.

In an interview with The New American after the banquet, Sheriff Mack, explained that he had contemplated a lawsuit against the SPLC for the past several months, but the difficulty, time, and expense of taking on such an endeavor against the well-funded organization had prevented him from doing so. In May of this year, however, he received a telephone call from an SPLC “reporter.” Mack says he was amazed and told the reporter: “This is really funny. You guys have been lying about me for 15 years and this is the first time you’ve bothered to call me.”

The reporter asked, “When did we ever lie about you?”

Sheriff Mack recounted the telephone conversation:

I said, well, recently you said I believe in shooting federal agents, killing federal agents — IRS agents in particular. I said I have never said anything like that. I don’t believe in violence. I spent 20 years in law enforcement and never slugged or slapped or hit or maced or shot another human being. So I don’t believe in violence and I’m not a violent person, nor have I been.

The SPLC reporter said he would check into that. Later that day, says Mack, he received a call from spokesman Mark Potok, who edits the organization’s Intelligence Report. Potok said, “Sheriff, we owe you an apology.”

Sheriff Mack says “I knocked on the phone and said ‘Is this really Mark Potok of the SPLC who doesn’t care who they lie about? I don’t trust you.’”

Mack says Potok then admitted, “We went back and reviewed the tape where we reported you advocated shooting agents and that isn’t what you said.”

Potok agreed to reprint a retraction. However, says Mack, the retraction was a tiny paragraph, compared to the massive coverage they had given to the earlier false charges about him. And it could not even begin to undo the vast damage they done in smearing his name and the CSPOA before other law enforcement agencies.

Mack pointed out that Sheriff Dwight Nothstein of Carbon County, Pennsylvania, for instance, has publicly compared Sheriff Mack to Hitler and repeated the SPLC charge that he has advocated shooting federal agents.

“It does hurt me to see that the SPLC, which does training for every federal law enforcement agency, including other police and sheriffs agencies all across the country, will actually tell these people that there’s something inherently wrong with someone who quotes the Founding Fathers and our Constitution,” he told The New American.

“That’s all I’m guilty of. And isn’t it interesting that I’m called a racist, a bigot, a hate group monger, and I [supposedly] hate everybody because I simply quote American ideals as expressed by the Founding Fathers? That’s my ‘crime.’ And yet I get slandered all over the country to my fellow brothers and sisters in law enforcement.”

But the Sheriff is not one to let such things get him down; besides a busy speaking schedule, he is very active with a number ­of positive efforts and is always upbeat and optimistic.

In addition to launching his SPLC lawsuit and a congressional campaign, he is also releasing his newly published book, The Magic of Gun Control (cover shown above) and gearing up for his CSPOA “Constitutional Sheriffs Convention” in January 2012 in Las Vegas. He is hoping to bring together 150-200 sheriffs from across the country, together with other law enforcement officers to discuss with them their role in the “lawful and peaceful way to restore the Constitution and its Bill of Rights as the supreme law of the land.”

The U.S. government still has the power to issue debt-free money

by the Economic Collapse

Most Americans have no idea that the U.S. government once issued debt-free money directly into circulation. America once thrived under a debt-free monetary system, and we can do it again. The truth is that the United States is a sovereign nation and it does not need to borrow money from anyone. Back in the days of JFK, Federal Reserve Notes were not the only currency in circulation. Under JFK (at at various other times), a limited number of debt-free United States Notes were issued by the U.S. Treasury and spent by the U.S. government without any new debt being created. In fact, each bill said “United States Note” right at the top. Unfortunately, United States Notes are not being issued today. If you stop right now and pull a dollar out of your wallet, what does it say right at the top? It says “Federal Reserve Note”. Normally, the way our current system works is that whenever more Federal Reserve Notes are created more debt is also created. This debt-based monetary system is systematically destroying the wealth of this nation. But it does not have to be this way. The truth is that the U.S. government still has the power under the U.S. Constitution to issue debt-free money, and we need to educate the American people about this.

There is a red seal instead of a green seal on the front, and it says “United States Note” rather than “Federal Reserve Note”.

According to Wikipedia, United States Notes were issued directly into circulation by the U.S. Treasury and they were first used during the Civil War….

They were originally issued directly into circulation by the U.S. Treasury to pay expenses incurred by the Union during the American Civil War. Over the next century, the legislation governing these notes was modified many times and numerous versions have been issued by the Treasury.

So why are we using debt-based Federal Reserve Notes today instead of debt-free United States Notes? It seems rather stupid, doesn’t it?

Well, that is what Thomas Edison thought too.

Thomas Edison was once quoted in the New York Times as saying the following….

That is to say, under the old way any time we wish to add to the national wealth we are compelled to add to the national debt.

Now, that is what Henry Ford wants to prevent. He thinks it is stupid, and so do I, that for the loan of $30,000,000 of their own money the people of the United States should be compelled to pay $66,000,000 — that is what it amounts to, with interest. People who will not turn a shovelful of dirt nor contribute a pound of material will collect more money from the United States than will the people who supply the material and do the work. That is the terrible thing about interest. In all our great bond issues the interest is always greater than the principal. All of the great public works cost more than twice the actual cost, on that account. Under the present system of doing business we simply add 120 to 150 per cent, to the stated cost.

But here is the point: If our nation can issue a dollar bond, it can issue a dollar bill. The element that makes the bond good makes the bill good.

thin air and lending it to theOur current debt-based monetary system was devised by greedy bankers that wanted to make huge profits by ­creating money out of U.S. government at interest. Sadly, the vast majority of the American people have no idea how money is actually created in this nation.

In a previous article about money and debt, I explained how more government debt is created whenever the U.S. government puts more money into circulation….

NEXT WEEK: When government puts more it creates more government debt.