(1) Please review the last four or five blog entries and, (2) An OROG sends a message she knew would be appreciated.

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Please check Mr. Richard Beckman's complete death announcement

The OROG community just has to embrace a fellow who has 

his priorities right, even from the beyond.   This was sent into

A Gringo in Rural Mexico by the daughter of the outlying scouts

who contribute to this blog from Extreme Central Texas

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Lies and purposeful ignorance make for a poor foreign policy

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     Please.   Enough of this incompetent poseur;  he who is more concerned about bringing into the United States un-vetted Syrian and Middle Eastern refugees while he allows Syrian and other Middle Eastern Christians to rot and the Kurds to go un-armed. 
   Please, let us bring an end to this ghoulish personality who is more concerned about whether homosexuals here can marry their transgendered sisters, while in the middle east where Sharia rules, homosexuals are slaughtered without a second thought.  This is in spite of the fact that so many of the ISIS rank and file as well as commanders, actually are homosexuals.

     This blurb in the video posted above, was set up like a T - Ball stand with a faux baseball to hit, so that Barry could take one more  victory lap around the stadium with his multicoloured flag of "inclusion" and "pride".  It was so reminiscent of that magic moment when HRH Barry reminded Candy Crowley, during the 2012 presidential debates with Romney,  that he did say the word "terrorism" in the White House Rose Garden, "Don't you remember, Candy, we agreed to that," he deigned royally, and of course Candy lied and said, "Oh! Yes.  I remember now." 
      Presidential debate history, you gotta love it!

     Pres. Barry took the bait yesterday  swung, and hit the non-impact inertial-negative baseball for another homer, and completed his run around all three bases, and jumped over the net to hug Stephie, just in time to hit the links, or go back to that Big White House all lit up with Gay Pride lights for Friday the 13th, to learn that his side had committed one more act of workplace violence.

     The Acolytes of the Religion of Peace had struck at places where people work.....deservedly famous family saloons and young heterosexual lover's saloons serving the finest beers, wines, and canapés.....a centre of debauchery where people could listen and dance to ghastly, loud, heavy metal American "rock and roll" wearing skimpy  and outlandish clothes,   and a silly soccer game where people wasted their time watching men run up and down a playing field, kicking a silly ball.   HRH Barry, do you not agree that their time would have been better spent, as your communist friends Bill Ayers and Bernadette Dorhn think, killing Hebrew children in occupied Palestine instead of these other self-indulgent pursuits?

     I mean, the problem is not that we have too many totally deranged Moslem nutters who kill more Moslems than anyone else....more Jews and Christians and Agnostics and others....The problem is those T-baggers who are so racist that they think government budgets should be balanced.   Right, President Barry.....?

     We await the spill over about the arms and munitions shipments from Libya to ISIS-controlled territory.....where you painted yourself into a corner by having (Sir Edmund)Hillary a bit to close to that action.   You should have kept a closer eye on her chief operative, Sydney Blumenthal....but now you have to sweat out whether (Sir Edmund) Hillary's noose might also fit your measure.   Will the literate tire of you before or after your useless remaining days?

     You have to worry about whether the National Enquirer might finally decide that the story about three sexual harassment lawsuits brought by three different men at Harvard will finally be "discovered" before 20 January 2017.  One might have to wonder if just one member of the Obsolete Media would, or could, or should finally actually print or post something to tell the adulating masses that their Emperor caused Harvard to have to negotiate three different settlements with men who declared that they had been sexually harassed by the guy with the Indonesian Passport in the name Barry Soetoro, exchange student.   Carney did state that the White House was "vaguely familiar" with the story.   (inquiring reporter never reposted to White House duty)
     Will there be one so brave with heart so strong so as to point out that both Barack Hussein Obama and Michelle Robinson were given the chance to surrender their law licences in lieu of having them taken by disbarment.   Very much like those other icons of propriety, Billy Jeff Blythe and (Sir Edmund) Hillary Corkscrew.
      We should point out that in the case if Billy Jeff, his was ordered surrendered by a judge who had at one time been a student in his class at the University of Arkansas Law School, and in spite of that, actually did not suffer a lip-bite severe enough to take stitches.

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     One might wonder from which part of Dante's Inferno this foursome ascended.  One might wonder why Ben Carson and Ted Cruz and Mario Rubio are vetted, framed, gotcha'd! to death, and essentially harassed to the extreme.    And none, save for the rarest of occasion,  of the felonious foursome receive questions beyond  "boxers or briefs?" 

     Dynamic social democracy at work.  Guard your wallet, and protect your children and grandchildren from the mindless soul-eaters from Hell who want to give those children "free education" and 1000 other nice things.

El Gringo Viejo

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In Christ Alone

The Mark of Zorro (1940) Tyrone Power vs Basil Rathbone

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El Gringo,

This is from my friend in Mission… we don’t know from whence it came but it is fine with me.

This is not meant as an endorsement.

It is an opinion.

---

​This is a different look at The Donald​ and worth the read!

The author had two tours in Vietnam as a junior officer and subsequently served as command Intelligence briefer in Hawaii where he updated CINCPAC, John McCain’s father, on POW matters.

---

Trump is a piece of work even by New York standards: tall, white, loud, brash, entrepreneurial, successful, rich, ruthlessly candid, well-dressed, and fond of heterosexual women. He has married at least three delicious ladies in fact. Trump has five children and seven grandchildren. Indeed, his progeny are well above average too, smartly groomed, photogenic, and successful to boot.

    As far as we know, Donald does not have any tattoos, piercings, unpaid taxes, or under-aged bimbo interns. He is not a drunk or a junkie either. Trump projects and enterprises probably employ more folks than the NYC school system -- or the United Nations.

    You could say that Trump is living the life, not the life of Riley, but more like Daddy Warbucks with a comb over. “The Donald,” as one ex-wife calls him, is not just living the American dream. Trump is the dream -- and proud of it.

    You could do worse than think of Trump as upwardly mobile blue collar. He is the grandson of immigrants and the product of Long island, a Queens household, and a Bronx education. The Donald survived the Jesuits of Fordham University for two years before migrating to finish his baccalaureate at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

    When readers of the New York Times, The New Yorker , and the New York Review of Books speak of “the city”, they are not talking about the Queens or the Bronx.  Growing and schooling in the blue-collar boroughs gives Trump a curb level perspective, something seldom found in Manhattan. Or as any “D” Train alumnus might put it, Trump has “a pretty good Bravo Sierra detector.”

    So what’s not to like about Donald Trump? He doesn’t just stay in four-star hotels; he builds them. He doesn’t just own luxury condominiums; he makes them. He doesn’t just own historic buildings; he restores them. He doesn’t just eat at the best restaurants; he creates them. He just doesn’t belong to the best country clubs; he builds those, too.

    And Donald Trump, unlike the Manhattan/Washington fantasy Press and every Beltway political pimp, doesn’t just pay lip service to a bigger and better economy, he creates micro-economies every day.

    The only thing we don’t know about Donald Trump is why he would like to immigrate to the District of Columbia.

    In any case, the merits of entrepreneurs like Trump might best be defined by the character or motives of his critics. Trump detractors are for the most part “B” list politicians, ambulance chasers, and a left-leaning Press corps that lionizes the likes of Nina Totenberg, Dan Rather, Chris Matthews, Andrea Mitchell, and Brian Williams.

    If the truth were told, most of Trump’s critics are jealous, envious of his wealth and they loath his candor.  Donald might also be hated for what he is not. Trump is not a lawyer, nor is he a career politician who lives on the taxpayer dime. Trump is paying for his own campaign. Bernie, Barack, McCain, and Kerry could take enterprise lessons from a chap like Trump.

    Unlike most government barnacles, Trump can walk and chew gum at the same time. He knows how to close a deal and build something. He is a net creator, not consumer, of a kind of wealth that provides “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” for Americans -- real jobs not feather merchants.

    Today, Trump has nothing left to prove. Yet, success has allowed him the rarest of public privileges, an electoral pulpit and the courage to speak his mind. Alas, truth is not necessarily a political asset in a socialized democracy.

    Indeed, the erstwhile presidential candidate stepped on his crank recently by suggesting that Mexico, already exporting dangerous drugs, cheap tomatoes, and even cheaper labor, was also exporting violent felons to the US.

    Truth hurts! Trump’s rude candor is underwritten by nearly half a million illegal felons in American jails. Coincidentally, events have conspired to support Trump’s take on Mexican dystopia with the El Chapo Guzman jailbreak and the murder of Kathryn Steinle by Francisco Sanchez.

    Senor Sanchez sported a lengthy criminal record and had been deported on four previous occasions. San Francisco, a "sanctuary" city, failed to honor existing warrants and released Sanchez from jail just before he blew Kathy Steinle away.

    As serendipity would have it, Trump then went to Phoenix on 12 July and gave a stem winder to a sell-out crowd on the subject of illegal immigration. Senator John McCain was not pleased to have The Donald on Arizona’s front lawn and intemperately called Trump supporters “crazies.” Trump returned fire saying that McCain was no hero.

    Here again Trump cut to the quick, pointing out that no one qualifies as a hero because he was shot down or captured. Indeed, being a hostage in North Vietnam is not necessarily heroic either. McCain is thought by some to be a heroic because he refused to accept an early release.

    In fact, the Hanoi parole offer was a ruse, a Hobson’s choice, designed to embarrass McCain and his father at CINCPAC.

    If McCain took the parole and abandoned his fellow POWs, he would have shamed his father and been ostracized by shipmates. Indeed, had John McCain not been the son and grandson of famous and victorious, Pacific Command flag officers, no one would have noticed him then or now.

    Few of the demagogues who have come to John McCain’s defense could name any of the 600 Vietnam-era POWs other than McCain. McCain is famous today because he, like John Kerry, has parlayed a very average Vietnam military service into a three-decade political sinecure.

    We know of 50,000 Vietnam veterans that might be more deserving than John McCain. Unfortunately, they died in a war that generals couldn’t win and politicians couldn’t abide. A body bag seldom gets to play the “hero.”

    McCain is no political hero either.

    He is famously ambiguous on domestic issues like immigration. He is also a Johnny-come-lately to Veterans Administration rot, which has metastasized as long as McCain has been in office. On foreign policy, McCain is a Victoria Nuland era crackpot, supporting East European coups, playing cold warrior, and posturing with neo-Nazis in Kiev. McCain pecks at Putin too because the Senate, like the Obama crew, hasn’t a clue about genuine threats like the ISIS jihad or the latest Islam bomb.

    To date, Trump has run a clever campaign. He is chumming, throwing red meat and blood into campaign waters and all the usual suspects are in a feeding frenzy. McCain, the Press, the Left, and the Republican establishment all have something to say about “the Donald.” It is truly amazing how cleverly Trump manages to manipulate the establishment.

    If you are trying to sell an idea or a candidacy, there’s no such thing as bad publicity.

    Who knows where the Trump campaign goes? For the moment, he has scored direct hits on Mexico and McCain. With El Capo on the loose again, every time a toilet flushes in Sinaloa, Mexican garbage is likely spill out in Los Angeles, Hollywood, San Francisco, Portland, or Seattle. Indeed, it’s hard to believe that the Left Coast could survive without cheap labor, pistileros , meth, coke, heroin, or weed. Necrotic immigration and its byproducts are ready made targets for a gunslinger like Trump.

    Trump is no bigot. He probably employs more Latinos and Blacks than Enrique Peña Nieto or Barack Obama. In his own way, Donald Trump is both immigrant and POW, a refugee from Queens and still a prisoner of Wharton. The Donald is The Dude, the guy with babes and a role of Benjamins that would choke a shark. He is the wildly successful capitalist that some of us love to hate.

    Before democratic socialism, success and effectiveness were measures of merit.  It doesn’t take much insight to compare Trump’s various enterprises with federal programs.  Public education, banking oversight, public housing slums, poverty doles, veterans fiascos, Internal Revenue hijinks, and even some Defense Department procurement programs are consensus failures.  The F-35 “Lightning” fighter is an illustration, arguably the most expensive single DOD boondoggle in history. Pentagon progressives seldom win a catfight these days, but they still spend like sailors.

    If and when Trump fails, he is out of business.

    In Trump’s world, failure has consequences.  In contrast, Washington rewards failure with better funding. Indeed, generational program failure is now a kind of perverse incentive for Beltway politicians and apparatchiks to throw good money after failed programs.

    The difference between Trump and McCain should be obvious to any fair observer; Trump has done something with his talents. McCain, in contrast, is coasting on a military myth and resting on the laurels of Senatorial tenure.  

    Any way you look at it, Donald Trump is good for national politics, good for democracy, good for America, and especially good for candor. If nothing else, The Donald may help Republicans to pull their heads out of that place where the sun seldom shines.

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   This point was one of the few of divergence between El Zorro and El Gringo Viejo when Trump jumped on the bones of McCain.  Our political - cultural views are almost mirrors of each other.  It was my opinion that Trump had ripped his britches because even un-McCain people such as El Gringo Viejo would take offense to a non-veteran suggesting that McCain was something less than, at least, a passive hero and victim of illegal and sadistic torture.  After all, he refused release unless "....his men went with him."

     To make a long story a short as possible, El Zorro and El Gringo Viejo argued their cases one to the other, and then let it rest.  My points were well made and used correct facts and reasoning.  El Zorro points were well made and used correct facts and reasoning.  His weighed a bit more simply because he was a two-tour man and had volunteered for ultra-hazardous out-of-theatre duty.

     So, as those days were accomplished that one man muses the points of a true, academic, argument.  I awoke to the decision, soundly made that El Zorro's position was correct.  Mccain is essentially a weasel with a 200,000,000 Yankee dollar wife.  He parades as a conservative but enjoys the warmth of being a "safe" conservative.  He also enjoys being the darling of the limousine pinkoes  who know they can rely on John McCain and Lindsey Graham to do the necessary hatchet jobs on Tea Party, intellectual, religious, and natural law conservatives.

     This does not mean, of course, that we could ever support Trump, unless under severe duress.  It is probable that, in this, El Zorro and I still concur.  My time, money, endorsements, and other efforts, along with the Boss's, are firmly behind Ted Cruz.  But it is time now to allow another old soldier  (Navy flier) to just fade away.  El Zorro and Tyrone Power have won the day.

El Gringo Viejo

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Lt. Richard Dowling Days - Sons of Confederate Veterans Annual Commemoration - The MC is Representative to the Congress of the Republic of Texas Dr. James White

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     Representative James White direct comments at the annual commemoration of the event whereat Lt. Dick Dowling fended off an entire flotilla of Union troop carriers and warships attempting to enter the Sabine Bay / Lake complex.  With a small group of fewer than 50 relatively recently well-trained gunners and only two cannons, the Confederate defenders managed to sink, disable, or turn back every Union embarkation, along with the loss of several hundred killed, wounded, missing, and captured Union soldiers.  To wit:

 Anti-Confederate poseurs such as the Governess of South Carolina
 might notice that Dr. James White delivers the address to commemorate
 the victory of fewer than fifty over the will of a well-armed Union Naval
flotilla, 90 cannon against 2,  and 5,000 sailors and soldiers against 44
 (none of whom owned a slave) mainly Irish  Roman Catholic
Confederate volunteers.

Dr. White  (right-most front, with appropriate 'white hat)
is also a leader in the mix of the non-hysterical, studious, step-by-step
 Texas Nationalist Movement.   He is obviously of Black African Ancestry.

He represents a majority Caucasian district with 
sizable populations of Black African ancestried people, along with 
significant numbers of Caddo, Alabama, and Coushatta Indians who
were among the first to make treaty with the Republic of Texas in 1837
and who have remained in and around their native lands.

Dr. White, of course, is a Republican._________________________________

Lt. Dick Dowling: A Brief Biography 

Richard “Dick” Dowling was born in County Galway, Ireland in 1837, and migrated with his parents and six siblings to New Orleans in 1846 during Ireland’s Great Famine. Dowling eventually settled in Houston in 1857, where he married Elizabeth Ann Odlum. Richard and Elizabeth had two children, Mary Anne and Felize "Richard" Sabine Dowling. 

Dowling was described as a handsome man, with a good sense of humor and a fondness for practical jokes. He was not a talkative man, but kind and cheerful, and inspired confidence in those around him. Beginning in 1857 he established a successful chain of saloons, the first of which was an establishment named The Shades; it had a bar on the ground floor and a billiard hall on the second and was the first business in Houston to install gas lighting. Dowling's most successful saloon was named The Bank of Bacchus and was located on Courthouse Square in downtown Houston. The Bank, as it was known locally, became Houston's most popular social gathering place in the 1860s and it was renowned for its hospitality. 

Just prior to the outbreak of the Civil War, Dowling enlisted in a Texas unit composed primarily of Irish dockworkers from Houston and Galveston known as the Davis Guard, named for former Secretary of War Jefferson Davis. Due to his natural leadership abilities, Dowling soon became the first lieutenant of the company, which surprisingly was not formally accepted into the Confederate Army until October 26, 1861. 

Dowling and the Davis Guard, which earned a reputation as a highly skilled artillery company, participated in the Battle of Galveston in 1862. In 1863, Lieutenant Dowling and 44 of the Davis Guard were assigned to Fort Griffin, an earthen artillery post near the mouth of the Sabine River. Dowling spent his time at the remote outpost instructing his men in artillery targeting drills across the Sabine River's two channels, which the fort guarded. In an effort to improve his men’s artillery targeting, he implemented an innovative idea of placing colored stakes in the river that marked the cannons’ most effective firing range. 

On September 8, 1863, a Union navy flotilla of four gunboats and 5,000 men attempted to enter the Sabine Pass. Dowling's artillery drills paid off as the Confederates scored several direct hits on the federal ships, disabling two of them, and blocking the others’ passage. The Union forces retreated and the Davis Guard claimed the capture of 350 prisoners and a large quantity of supplies; they did not suffer a single casualty in the encounter. The unlikely victory of Dowling and the Davis Guard thwarted the Union invasion of Texas. 

After the Battle of Sabine Pass, Dowling was elevated to hero status in his hometown of Houston. He subsequently served as a recruiter for the Confederacy and was personally commended for his action at the battle by Jefferson Davis, who named the battle the “Thermopylae of the Confederacy.” The Confederate government offered its gratitude and admiration to Dowling and the Guard, while the ladies of Houston presented the unit with medals. The medals were actually Mexican coins that had been smoothed down on one side and inscribed with "Sabine Pass, 1863." 

After the war, Dowling returned to his saloon business in Houston and quickly became one of the city's leading businessmen. Dowling's promising future was cut short by a yellow fever epidemic; he died on September 23, 1867 at the age of forty years.

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News with a bit of rust, but....It's happening.

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   This article is a little long in the tooth, but the new news is that Texas has begun returning its gold now, and is constructing a housing for the gold, along with quantities of silver, and significant amounts of palladium, rhodium, and platinum.   Work is underway to try to develop a new currency, known as the Talent (drawn from the biblical term for the Roman trade coinage) that will have metal, as well as other commodity and abstract value backing.   Recent comments by a fellow who was one of Margaret Thatcher's economic advisors will be placed in the blog to-morrow.   It points to the probability, not possibility, of Texas developing a stand-alone presence in the world of nations.

     One of the Hallmarks of this "stand-alone presence" will be this new currency which is a combination of hard metal backing and abstract value added by intellectual and sweat equity.  All very interesting, and also underway....not something from "To-morrow Land".

    The article below is drawn from EPOCH TIMES, by Victor Schmid

Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed a bill into law on Friday, June 12, that will allow Texas to build a gold and silver bullion depository. In addition, Texas will repatriate $1 billion worth of bullion from New York to the new facility once completed. 

ADVERTISING

THIS IS WHAT GOVERNOR ABBOTT HAD TO SAY AT THE SIGNING:

“Today I signed HB 483 to provide a secure facility for the State of Texas, state agencies and Texas citizens to store gold bullion and other precious metals. With the passage of this bill, the Texas Bullion Depository will become the first state-level facility of its kind in the nation, increasing the security and stability of our gold reserves and keeping taxpayer funds from leaving Texas to pay for fees to store gold in facilities outside our state.”

MORE:

• Europe Was First, Now a US State Wants Control Over Its Gold
• China Uses Gold to Pursue Global Power

On the surface the bill looks rather innocent, but its implications are far reaching. HB 483, “relating to the establishment and administration of a state bullion depository” to store gold and silver coins, was introduced by state Rep. Giovanni Capriglione.

Capriglione told the Star-Telegram:

“We are not talking Fort Knox. But when I first announced this, I got so many emails and phone calls from people literally all over the world who said they want to store their gold … in a Texas depository. People have this image of Texas as big and powerful … so for a lot of people, this is exactly where they would want to go with their gold.”

But isn’t New York, where most of the world’s gold is stored, also big and powerful? Why does the state of Texas want to go through the trouble of building its own storage facility? There are precisely two important reasons. One involves distrust in the current storage system. The second threatens the paper money system as a whole.

Distrust

“In a lot of cases with gold you may not have clear title to the metal. You may have a counterparty relationship that makes you a creditor. If the counterparty has a problem unrelated to gold, they can default and then you become an unsecured creditor in bankruptcy,” said Keith Weiner, president of the Gold Standard Institute.

This means you get whatever is left after liquidation, often just a fraction of the initial value of your holdings.

“This exact scenario happened with futures broker MF Global. I knew people who had warehouse receipts to gold bars with a specific serial number. But that gold had an encumbered title and they became unsecured creditors in bankruptcy,” said Weiner. 

In Texas, two big public pension funds from the University of Texas(UoT) and the Teacher Retirement System (TRS) own gold worth more than $1 billion.

MORE:

• Peter Schiff: Full Interview on Economy, Gold, Stocks (+Video)
• Is the Fed Unconstitutional?

Being uncomfortable with holding purely financial gold in the form of futures and Exchange-traded Funds, University of Texas actually took delivery of the gold bars in 2011 and warehoused it with HSBC Bank in New York.  

You are on the board, you are a fiduciary, so that’s an easy one, you go get it.

— Kyle Bass, board member and hedge fund manager

At the time pension fund board member and hedge fund manager Kyle Bass explained: “As a fiduciary, which I am in that position to the extent you own gold and you are going for a long time, and it’s not a trade. … We looked at the COMEX at the time and they had about $80 billion of open interest between futures and futures options. And in the warehouse they had $2.7 billion of deliverables. We are going to own it a long time. You are on the board, you are a fiduciary, so that’s an easy one, you go get it.”

Bass is implying that there is much more financial gold out there than physical, and that it is prudent to actually hold the physical.

Taking the gold to Texas would then also solve the counterparty risk. “In this case it’s going to be a depository, the gold is going to be there, they are not going to be able to lend it out and it won’t serve as collateral for other transactions of the bank.” said Victor Sperandeo of trading firm EAM Partners. “Because if the bank closes, you are screwed.”

“I think that somebody was looking at that, we better have this under our complete control,” said constitutional lawyer and gold expert Edwin Vieira, of the Texas bill. “They don’t want to have the gold in some bank somewhere and in two to five years it turns out not to be there.”

Gold Money System

So far most of the attention has focused on the part of the depository and the big institutions.

However, the bill also includes a provision to prevent seizure, which is important for private parties who want to avoid another 1933 style confiscation of their bullion by Federal authorities.

Section A2116.023 of the bill states: “A purported confiscation, requisition, seizure, or other attempt to control the ownership … is void ab initio and of no force or effect.” Effectively, the state of Texas will protect any gold stored in the depository from the federal government.

The Constitution of the United States obliges the States to not make anything tender in payment of debts apart from gold and silver coin.

And free from the threat of confiscation, private citizens can use gold and silver as money, completely bypassing the paper money system.

“People can legally do that with gold contracts. The difficulty is the implementation. Now Texas has set up a mechanism with the depository. We have accounts in that institution and can easily transfer back and forth certain amounts. So we can run our money system a gold or silver basis if we were so inclined,” said Vieira.

This would not be possible if the gold is stored in a bank because of the risks of bank holidays and bankruptcies. It would also not be possible if the federal government could confiscate gold.

According to Vieira, this anti-seizure provision rests on Article 1, section 10 of the Constitution of the United States, which obliges the States to not make anything tender in payment of debts apart from gold and silver coin.  

“If someone from the Department of Justice comes along you are going to see legal and political fireworks. The state is going to say ‘we need to have a mechanism to make gold and silver money. This is pursuant to the constitutional provision we have. You can’t touch this. Our state power on the constitutional level is more powerful than any statute you may pass,'” said Vieira.

Because one of the litigant parties is a state, the case would go directly to the Supreme Court.

“We are talking about something completely new in terms of the legal playing field. This is no longer a fringe concept,” he adds, but cautions about a possible fight with the federal government: “We will have to see how committed the governor and the attorney general are.”