Under the FAQ banner "What are United States notes and how are they different from Federal Reserve notes?", the Treasury's statement that "United States notes serve no function not already adequately served by Federal Reserve notes" squarely squelches public debate re the interest-saving et alia advantages of fiat United States notes over fiat Federal Reserve notes. Such advantages are set forth in President Lincoln's June 23, 1862 half-page "President's Message in favor of a National Currency, but vetoing irredeemable [fiat] bank notes" -- just like today's Federal Reserve notes. Congress concurred, and so issued the famous United States "greenback" dollar. Later, Congress made a record of the controversy as a matter of "transcendent importance"for present and future reference." United States notes were found "indispensably necessary, and a most powerful instrumentality in saving the government". History Of The Legal Tender Paper Money Issued During The Great Rebellion, Senate Sub-Committee of Ways and Means (1869) at 6, App. A at 36.[7]
Of course, my expectation is a pro forma denial, to be followed by a petition for a writ of certiorari to the Supreme Court, and a final pro forma denial. But one thing none can deny is that the issues raised, as to both fact and law, are of major public importance--and the Ninth Circuit's perfunctory evasion serves only to underscore the validity of the avoided questions. Here is the conclusion of the Petition for Rehearing:
"If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein." Board of Education v. Barnette , 319 U.S. 624, 642 (1943). In a matter of major public importance, the panel herein has furtively insinuated the eviscerating caveat, "except by deceit." A publishable decision is called for, to refix Freedom's falling star and relearn Lincoln's lingering lore.
Sigh. I now have more hope in my evolving dispute with the GAO re its Coins Act estimates. I doubt that the GAO will respond intelligently, and very much doubt that Judge Alsup of the district court will be happy to see me again. Stay tuned...and please consider signing these two petitions: Produce debt-free United States Notes; and Commemorate President Lincoln's Assassination with 1 Billion Debt-Free Lincoln $5 Bills.
[1] The panel's substantive decision
and excerpts of the Petition
for Rehearing are reproduced below. Here are links to the complaint, to the Brief of Appellant Clifford Johnson, the Answering
Brief, the Reply
Brief, an update
letter, and the Excerpts of Record in the District Court, Volume I, Volume II, and Volume III. All filings are available under the Treasury
submenu at commondada.com.
[2] The Coins Act (Currency Optimization, Innovation, and National Savings Act; S. 1105 / H.R. 3305) proposes to replace all $1 Federal Reserve notes with $1 United States coins.
[3] From the outset, Johnson has stressed that the action rests on demonstrable hard-fact misrepresentation. This court even stayed the appeal to require a response to Johnson's objection that it was not clear whether the district court had duly noticed misrepresentation. Nevertheless, the district court, the Treasury, and the panel have nowhere addressed or cited a single authority that addresses any sort of misrepresentation, let alone the dispositive corollaries of viewpoint suppression and vitiated consent. In lieu of responsive points and authorities, hard-fact misrepresentation is palmed off as debatable disagreement, wherever it counts.
[4] The ignorant populace is differently harmed, by the affront to its right to know and its "First Amendment right to avoid becoming the courier for the State's ideological message." Wooley v. Maynard, 430 U.S. 705, 717 (1977). On the other hand, no First Amendment injury is suffered by banking interests that promote the mistaking of bank notes for government notes, or by savvy economists and wonks who ingenuously inveigh that it is unthinkable to trust the government to print its very own paper money.
[5] From birth, all see grand "United States" captions on both sides of every money note, above national symbols and officious Treasury authentications; and all hear pundits debate whether the government is printing too much or not enough money. The at issue misrepresentation sustains a popular mindset to which it makes no sense to propose to start issuing United States notes, as Johnson-the-petitioner can testify to.
[6] Causation and the injury of impaired petitioning are of the factual ilk routinely adjudicated in anti-trust litigation attacking the abusive exploitation of media dominance to coercively prejudice counterparties against disadvantaged competition. Foundational evidence showing the parties' relative market positions and postures, plus a showing of the abusive exploitation of media dominance, is usually proof enough. The natural effects of a monopoly's publications and of a limiting judicial order are generally presumed. See, e.g., Associated Press v. United States, 326 U.S. 1, 17, 18 (1945).
[7] Today, President Obama's many references to the economic marvel that Lincoln's administration wrought underscore the public importance of renewed debate re fiat United States notes, versus fiat bank notes. See also Lincoln's Populist Sovereignty: Public Finance Of, By, and For the People, 12 Chap. L. Rev. 561 2008-2009, by Professor Canova.
(Article changed on July 15, 2014 at 19:20)
(Article changed on July 16, 2014 at 01:04)
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