3-24-03

Day 20: No Answers, NO Taxes, NO FOOD

Lear Puts Her Congressmen on Notice
Hunger Strike For Answers Continues
Volunteers Needed to Stand With Lear in DC

"Today is the 20th day I have not eaten any food. I WILL NOT EAT unless, and until, you answer the Peoples’ Petitions for Redress of Grievances regarding the Individual Income Tax."

These words begin Rose Lear’s March 24, 2003 notice that she hand delivered to the Congressional offices of her three Michigan elected representatives Monday afternoon in Washington, DC. Click Here to see photos of Rose from today’s delivery of her notifications to Capitol Hill.

As of this evening, Lear will have surpassed the duration of Bob Schulz’s 20-day hunger strike of July 2001 that resulted in a formal agreement with DOJ and IRS to answer the legal charges. Later, both agencies reneged on their formal agreement and have never provided an official response. This breach of the public trust is why Lear will not stop her fast for anything but the full, official response of the U.S. Government to the tax Petitions.

Lear, of Muskegon, Michigan began a hunger strike on March 5th to force the government to answer her well-documented Petitions for Redress of Grievances. These Petitions assert that the federal government lacks any legal jurisdiction to enforce the income tax, that there is NO U.S. law that requires ordinary Americans to pay the tax and that the tax is enforced in a manner that grossly violates the Constitutionally protected rights of Americans. 

In her legal notices delivered to Michigan Rep. Peter Hoekstra and Michigan Senators Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow, Lear stated, "As an official of the United States Government, you have a personal, moral and legal obligation to respond to these Petitions which raise critical issues of law, Constitutional Rights and individual Liberty -- and the flagrant abuses of such by the U.S. Government. I will wait in public each workday upon the doorstep to your Capitol Hill office until my death, OR until you provide official responses to each and every specific legal claim raised in these formal Petitions."  Lear did not get to see any of her Congressmen.

To date, no U.S. Congressman or any other official of the U.S. has provided a substantive response to the Petitions or the legal evidence and record of the Citizen’s Truth-in-Taxation Hearing.

Lear intends to sit in her wheelchair outside her elected representatives’ Capitol Hill offices each workday. Her planned schedule is:

(note: Lear revised her schedule as of 3/25)   11 AM – 1 PM at the Rayburn House Office Building

Lear’s condition continues to degrade slowly. Her trip to Capitol Hill today using her wheelchair was reported by Lear to be painful and exhausting because of other medical ailments affecting her.

Lear asks everyone, again, to please contact their Congressmen and demand that they answer the tax Petitions.

Bob Schulz is calling on all WTP volunteers to help Rose and stand with her in DC. Aside from standing in public and providing solidarity with Rose, Rose needs assistance getting to, and around, Capitol Hill.  After her sister goes back to Michigan tomorrow, she will need to schedule some help on the weekends and other times.  It is expected her needs may increase as the hunger strike continues.  Female volunteers might consider staying in the hotel with Rose and helping in the evenings and morning or helping on a longer term basis.  Please contact bob@givemliberty.org ASAP and we will start to put a schedule of support together to help Rose.