LTE about the Hunter (Central OH News Journal)

Ashland has money to burn

Letter to the editor

I applaud the people of Ashland County. While the rest of the country is suffering economically, and local governments are simultaneously seeking new revenues and areas where spending can be cut, Ashland County has a budget surplus, an example to us all.

I assume there is a surplus. Otherwise, why would Ashland County Prosecutor DeSanto be bothering to waste your money on a trial for a man accused of carrying the firearm he was licensed to carry? Ohio was perfectly willing to recognize another license Jeff Jordan possessed. Mr. Jordan wasn't even indicted until after Ohio passed its concealed carry law. (A lawyer once said that he could get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich; this seems to bear out his assertion that indictments mean little.) And Ohio's constitution specifically recognizes the right to carry a defensive arm.

Nor does the state claim that Mr. Jordan is a threat to anyone. In fact, he has publicly sworn to never commit an act of aggression against anyone. At worst, Mr. Jordan is accused of a technical paperwork violation that is only a "violation" because the Highway Patrol and Mr. DeSanto refused to give the proper paperwork issued by Mr. Jordan's home state the same "full faith and credit" they gave his driver's license.

Do the people of Ashland County really want Mr. DeSanto to blow their "budget surplus" on the trial of an innocent man?

Do they want to see an innocent man tried in the first place?

Carl Bussjaeger

Nashua, NH

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A reader writes in
Feel free to reprint:
Why I am refusing to pay my income tax

As April 15, 2004 approaches I have decided to file a 1040 tax return
but to withhold sending the IRS any money for taxes I may owe. This
decision was not made hastily or without a lot of thought. Over the
years, and especially the last two years, I was spared having to make
this decision because I did not owe anything due to weak earnings and
significant expenses. The year 2003 was profitable however and I have
determined that I will incur a tax liability.

I have investigated the history and ethics, the legalities and the
options of War Tax resistance and have weighed the consequences of my
actions according to my conscience and morals. The illegality of the
invasion and occupation of Iraq last year, the direct support of
Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians, the passage of the so-called
Patriot Act and many other instances of corrupt and immoral activity
conducted by the U. S. Government openly or covertly under the present
Republican administration directly threatens our American system of
democracy and its commonwealth, including the domestic economy and the
environment. This has caused me to conclude that to pay my income taxes
would be an act condoning this state-sponsored corruption and their
criminal, genocidal (and ultimately suicidal) policies. In short the
penalties and stigma I may be assessed as a result of not paying my
income tax is not a strong enough disincentive, compared to the strong
feeling and moral conviction I hold as a patriotic American, Christian,
human being and planetary citizen to stand against and resist the
further destruction of all that I hold sacred. My protest is neither
violent nor harmful to any other being and is in accordance with the
beliefs and principles expressed by Henry David Thoreau, Thomas
Jefferson, the Nuremburg Trials, the Bill of Rights and the Declaration
of Independence.

Payment of income tax is voluntary - that is what I was taught. I am a
free, individual citizen who still believes that those in public office
must be held accountable to protect the public trust, instead of
looting the treasury by spending billions of taxpayers dollars on a
personal vendetta against Saddam Hussein, or to enrich political
friends in certain corporations, many of whom have created off-shore
accounts to greedily avoid paying their fair share. I am disgusted by
this continued worsening scenario of creeping fascism and
totalitarianism that is taking place in the federal government, which
increasingly encroaches upon individual privacy, criminalizes and
incarcerates more and more people of color, militarizes every aspect of
society, empowers transnational corporations at the expense of working
people, the environment and consumers, instigates coup d’etats in
foreign countries, disregards international law, and stifles homegrown
dissent through a widening police state.

I’d have to be stupid or blind to continue to support this
dysfunctional and unsustainable system with my tax dollars! Therefore,
I refuse to pay any future income taxes I may owe until the present
Administration changes its policies or is defeated and replaced by one
that reverses the present corrupt and suicidal course this Nation is
perilously following.

I know this may “get me in trouble”. But this country is in trouble, in
case you haven’t noticed. And there is only one way out. The truth.

Long live the American Revolution.

In solidarity with all those suffering as a result of U.S. imperialism,



Christopher Toussaint
Santa Monica, California


cc: IRS, Cong. Henry Waxman, Sen. Barbara Boxer, Sen. Diane Feinstein

PRESS RELEASE:

Verizon Demands that ex-employee have site operated by a third party
censored

For Immediate Distribution
4/20/04

Embarrassed by the publication of the names of two Verizon managers
involved in the three month suspension (without pay, without cause, and
without a required hearing) of a Verizon employee, and by the release of
details of a letter in which one manager subsequently fired the worker
retroactively (again, without cause and without the contractually required
hearing), Verizon pressured Jeffrey L. Jordan through his union to have
the uncomfortable information suppressed, The company demanded that the
names and firing details be censored on the Internet website North
American Samizdat (http://www.NorthAmericanSamizdat.com/), which is owned
and operated by a third party, not Mr. Jordan.

Informed of the pressure placed on a long time friend, NAS's editor, Carl
Bussjaeger redacted the information under protest. Mr. Bussjaeger said,
"It's a clear free speech case. If the woman had the nerve to threaten me,
I'd just refer her to my lawyer. But instead, Verizon made it clear that
it would stall any settlement in Mr. Jordan's improper firing. Well, I did
what she wanted, and she's still stalling anyway. What's next?
Threatening family members if customers complain of lousy phone
service?"

NAS redacted the embarrassing information to allow Mr. Jordan a show of
good faith in negotiations, and waited for a reciprocal good-faith showing
from Verizon. Instead, Verizon continues to stall negotiations. Since the
company has demonstrated that complying with its demands nets the same
result as not doing so, NAS has opted for free speech and has restored the
information which Verizon wanted hidden from public view.

NAS is pleased to report that Internet archiving engines had already
permanently archived pages with the names of the managers intact, not only
from NAS, but from still other independent sites. Verizon not only lacks
an understanding of the First Amendment, they also do not understand the
Internet.

RESOURCES:

NAS's explanation of the redacted data

http://www.gbronline.com/cwb/samizdat/redacted1.html

Call for a boycott of Verizon

http://www.gbronline.com/cwb/samizdat/boycott.html

Google cache of offending data from other sites

http://216.239.51.104/search?q=cache:W3tExsVd3IAJ:goodyearfamily.net/

http://216.239.51.104/search?q=cache:TSMF2BQIquIJ:libertyaction.blogspot.c
om/

CONTACT:

Carl Bussjaeger
cwb@gbronline.com

379 Amherst Street, #361, Nashua, NH 03063

(no phone at this time due to boycott)

Do as I say, not as I do ...

The standards for standard bearers

Opinion Editorials

Lady Liberty

"The Freedom Movement is -- alas! -- not exempt from its own brand of hypocrisy. But because I hold its representatives to a higher standard than the average political wonk (which, to be fair, isn't really saying all that much), I am most disappointed when this group exhibits its own version of "do as I say, not as I do." The case in point is some of the latest meanderings of the Free State Project on its way to taking up residence in New Hampshire." (04/19/04)

http://www.opinioneditorials.com/guestcontributors/liberty_20040419.html

Updates to This week's column, War tax resistance

Tax resister Carol Moore of Washington, DC, protests in front of the US Internal Revenue Service
(picture of Carol Moore, libertarian anti-war activist)

Activists urge tax payers to withhold money to protest Iraq War

Googlebombing Verizon

The LRT April Googlebombing project targets Verizon Communications, which we want to see boycotted. (see the Free Hunter! pages and North American Samizdat for details)


Verizon enforces a sick policy of victim disarmament, rendering their employees helpless and providing safe working conditions for criminals. The company makes no exceptions for trained, experienced, licensed, honest people who simply wish to be capable of protecting themselves.

So here's your chance to help the world realize how wrong Verizon really is. It's fun and easy!

All you have to do is place a little code on your web site, then bring it to the attention of Google.

The code is available at:

http://www.libertyroundtable.org/projects/googlebomb/verizon.html

Free Hunter Update:

Boycott of Verizon Communications

After telling Hunter for two and a half months that he is on unpaid suspension, Verizon Director - COEI Lorna Deplitch has now retroactively fired him in a letter dated March 26, 2004 effective to January 7, 2004. The reason given was "failure to comply with the policies outlined within Verizon's Code of Business Conduct." Verizon did not specify what policies were supposedly violated, nor how Verizon's Code of Business Conduct applied to a man on vacation, hundreds of miles from his workplace. There was no hearing, either on the "suspension" or the firing, as is required by the contract between the company and Mr. Jordan's union.

http://www.gbronline.com/cwb/samizdat/boycott.html