Rep Barney Frank (D-Mass) wants marijuana possession legalized

From CNN:

(CNN) — The U.S. should stop arresting responsible marijuana users, Rep. Barney Frank said Wednesday, announcing a proposal to end federal penalties for Americans carrying fewer than 100 grams, almost a quarter-pound, of the substance.

Current laws targeting marijuana users place undue burdens on law enforcement resources, punish ill Americans whose doctors have prescribed the substance and unfairly affect African-Americans, said Frank, flanked by legislators and representatives from advocacy groups.

“The vast amount of human activity ought to be none of the government’s business,” Frank said on Capitol Hill. “I don’t think it is the government’s business to tell you how to spend your leisure time.”

The Massachusetts Democrat and his supporters emphasized that only the use — and not the abuse — of marijuana would be decriminalized if the resolution resulted in legislation.

The Drug Enforcement Administration says people charged with simple possession are rarely incarcerated. The agency and the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy have long opposed marijuana legalization, for medical purposes or otherwise.

Marijuana is a Schedule I controlled substance, meaning it has a high potential for abuse and no accepted medical use, according to the drug control office.

“Smoked marijuana has not withstood the rigors of science — it is not medicine and it is not safe,” the DEA states on its Web site. “Legalization of marijuana, no matter how it begins, will come at the expense of our children and public safety. It will create dependency and treatment issues, and open the door to use of other drugs, impaired health, delinquent behavior, and drugged drivers.”

Allen St. Pierre, spokesman for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, likened Frank’s proposal — co-sponsored by Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas — to current laws dealing with alcohol consumption. Alcohol use is permitted, and the government focuses its law enforcement efforts on those who abuse alcohol or drive under its influence, he said.

“We do not arrest and jail responsible alcohol drinkers,” he said.

St. Pierre said there are tens of millions of marijuana smokers in the United States, including himself, and hundreds of thousands are arrested each year for medical or personal use. iReport.com: Is it time to legalize pot?

There have been 20 million marijuana-related arrests since 1965, he said, and 11 million since 1990, and “every 38 seconds, a marijuana smoker is arrested.”

Rob Kampia, director of the Marijuana Policy Project, said marijuana arrests outnumber arrests for “all violent crimes combined,” meaning police are spending inordinate amounts of time chasing nonviolent criminals.

“Ending arrests is the key to marijuana policy reform,” he said.

If HR 5843 were passed, the House would support marijuana smokers possessing up to 100 grams — about 3½ ounces — of cannabis without being arrested. It would also give its blessing to the “nonprofit transfer” of up to an ounce of marijuana.

The resolution would not address laws forbidding growing, importing or exporting marijuana, or selling it for profit. The resolution also would not speak to state laws regarding marijuana use.

Read the entire article on CNN.

Bob Barr’s Stop the Bill of Rights Blackout Petition

Petition to the U.S. House of Representatives
Committee on the Judiciary, Congressman Conyers, Chairman

Whereas, the basis for the laws of this great Republic is the Constitution, adopted September 17th, 1789; and,

Whereas, that Constitution provided for a clear but difficult procedure for amending it; and,

Whereas, the founding fathers saw a need for Amendments to guarantee certain civil rights to citizens including the right to a free press, free religious expression, the right to keep and bear arms, freedom from government seizure of their property, freedom from unlawful detention, the right to a prompt and fair trial by a jury, and protection from unreasonable bail requirements; and,

Whereas, these and other rights were considered important enough to be added as the first 10 Amendments and these have become known as The Bill of Rights; and,

Whereas, The Bill of Rights, ratified in 1791 remain untouched by Amendment for more than two centuries; and,

Whereas, the Executive branch of the Federal Government, through executive orders and other schemes has eroded many of these rights and still greater threats loom; Now therefore the undersigned citizens of the United States petition Congress to rise to its responsibilities and enforce and protect the Bill of Rights through any and all means at its disposal including but not limited to Committee Hearings and legal action through the courts.

Click here to sign the petition.

Disclaimer: Jake Porter is the Iowa Coordinator for the Bob Barr campaign

Voices from LFV Mailbag: Schansberg congratulates Bush and Democratic Congress on world-record budget deficit

Dr. Eric Schansberg, a professor of Economics, is the LP’s candidate for the 9th Congressional District in Indiana.  I can’t speak for anyone else, obviously, but I am always quite pleased to see well-educated candidates carrying the libertarian banner.

Many thanks to Douglas Gaking for submitting the following, originally from the LP of Indiana website.

JEFFERSONVILLE, IN — Just in time for the Olympics, the White House has predicted a $482 billion deficit for 2009—which if successful, would allow the President and the Democratic Congress to set a new world record. A $482 billion deficit would smash the current record of $413 billion in 2004.

The 2009 deficit will extend the current national debt to more than $10 trillion. On top of that, unfunded liabilities—most notably, for Social Security and Medicare—add tens of trillions of dollars in debt.

Dr. Eric Schansberg, a professor of Economics and the Libertarian candidate for the 9th Congressional District in Indiana, noted that current debt necessarily leads to higher future taxes. And Schansberg pointed to massive increases in spending as the cause: “Tax revenues, as a percentage of GDP, are well within historical ranges. But spending has increased dramatically. With hundreds of billions of dollars for a housing bail-out, a banking bail-out, the ‘macro stimulus package’, the farm bill, our on-going efforts in Iraq, and so on—after awhile it adds up to real money.”

Schansberg pointed to the subtle costs of the profligate spending: “The dollar has depreciated about 40% since 2002. This leads to a host of problems—most notably, higher costs of imported oil and thus, gas prices. If the dollar was as strong as it was in 2002, we’d be paying less than $3 per gallon—and there’d be very little discussion about gas prices right now.”

In terms of his campaign, Schansberg observed that he is the only fiscal conservative in the race: “If you look at the data from NTU, CAGW and Club for Growth, it is obvious that Sodrel is a fiscal moderate and Hill’s claim to be a fiscal conservative is laughable. If we’re going to restore fiscal sanity in the federal government, we need to send principled, fiscal conservatives to Washington DC.”

For more information on the campaign, see: www.SchansbergForCongress.com. To schedule an interview, contact Eric Schansberg at (812) 218-0443, Melanie Hughes at (502) 432-1930, or send an email to SchansbergForCongress@gmail.com.

Perhaps one of our contributors, who know more about Economics than do I, would like to interview Dr. Schansberg for LFV?

Landham: back on the LP ballot line?

PolitickerKY reports

The Libertarian Party of Kentucky will reconsider its endorsement of Senate candidate Sonny Landham Wednesday evening, just days after initially disassociating their party from his bid. This news comes after the office of Kentucky’s secretary of state announced yesterday that Landham would need 5,000 new petition signatures to secure ballot access to run as an independent.

“We’re really stuck,” said Libertarian Party chair Ken Moellman. “We don’t necessarily want to kick him off the ballot.”

The requisite signatures for Landham’s ballot access were already reportedly obtained by Libertarian canvassers, but – without the Libertarian endorsement – Landham would need original signatures for an independent candidacy.

With an August 12 deadline for petition submissions, Moellman has said obtaining 5,000 new signatures in that window would be “impossible.”

Landham was initially stripped of the Libertarian Party’s endorsement in a unanimous 9-0 vote of their executive committee on Monday night. That vote came after Landham made a series of anti-Arab comments that culminated in his advocacy for a potential Arab genocide.

“When you are in a war, you kill every thing that moves,” responded Landham, when asked if he supported such a dramatic position.

Libertarian Party leaders initially sought to distance themselves from Landham’s comments, with Moellman noting they were not in line with the Party’s philosophy.

With his candidacy in the balance now, Moellman says Kentucky’s difficult ballot access process has the Party reevaluating its decision.

“Now, he will have one of two options,” said Moellman. “A – he runs as a Libertarian or, B he doesn’t run.”

“Our goal was not to kick him out,” added Moellman. “We are in a tough spot.”

Moellman said the ten-person state Libertarian Party Executive Committee will use an “online” voting system tonight to determine whether to reinstate Landham’s endorsement.

“We’re trying to work it out,” added Moellman.

Moellman said their dilemma would not exist if Kentucky’s ballot access procedures did not require 5,000 signatures for “third-party” candidates.

“I wish ballot access was a heck of a lot easier,” said Moellman, who said the number of signatures required for Democratic and Republican candidates was two – a far easier number for Landham to obtain as an independent candidate.

At
Delaware Libertarian, Steve Newton explains why this is of national significance:

A Secondhand Conjecture is not a Libertarian blog, although it certainly displays some pretty consistent libertarian leanings.

As I read this post analyzing the Sonny Landham flap and the Libertarian Party of Kentucky, I think Lee hits it right on the money:

Looks like the Libertarian Party of Kentucky has dumped Sonny Landham, previously their clinically insane pick for US Senate. Good for them. Even if given the psychopathic nature of Landham’s views, I feel a little like I’m congratulating them for breathing.

While the Obama campaign might like to think that the LP could pose a serious threat to John McCain in Georgia, the Landham misadventure only reminds me yet again of the extraordinary amateurishness that seems to characterize almost all Libertarian Party political campaigns. There’s simply no excuse for failing to properly vet a candidate you intend to challenge for the seat held by the Senate Minority Leader.

As a former Hollywood actor and convicted criminal, it wouldn’t have been particularly difficult to uncover Landham’s violent imagination or deplorable associations with rightwing hate groups. A simple YouTube and Google search might have sufficed in fact.

I recently quoted a representative of the Libertarian Party of Texas noting that we need fewer paper candidates, and more people out there actually campaigning. True. But we also have to stop feeling so needy that we open our arms to accept people who are not only not Libertarians, but whose calls for bombing other countries over trade issues make us look like total losers.

Reminder: there’s still a
petition for the LPKY to not give its ballot line to Sonny Landham.

George Phillies only third party Presidential candidate qualified for ballot so far by New Hampshire Secretary of State

From the New Hampshire Secretary of State:

Candidates Filing Declarations of Intent for the 2008 General Election

President of the United States

6/10/08 – “Bob” Barr (2256 Parkwood Place Court, Smyrna, GA 30080)
6/10/08 – George Phillies (48 Hancock Hill Drive, Worcester, MA 01609) QUALIFIED 7/30/08 – Libertarian
6/11/08 – “Chuck” Baldwin (7970 Sasser Lane, Pensacola, FL 32526)
6/12/08 – Yonyuth Hongsakaphadana (2204 Larson Drive, Danbury, CT 06810)
6/12/08 – Cynthia McKinney (P Box 311759, Atlanta, GA 31131-1759)
6/13/08 – Ralph Nader (PO Box 34103, Washington, DC 20043)

L.E.A.P Billboard

You can visit the organization at the url on the billboard.

Many thanks to Michael H. Wilson for bringing this to LFV’s attention!

Eric Odom’s “Ultimate Libertarian Quote List”

These are just the first few quotes from his extensive list.  Visit Eric Odom’s blog to see them all.

# A government which robs Peter to pay Paul, can always count on the support of Paul. – George Bernard Shaw

# America needs fewer laws, not more prisons. – James Bovard

# War is just one more big government program. – Joseph Sobran

# Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. – John Adams (1814)

# They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. – Benjamin Franklin

# One of the greatest delusions in the world is the hope that the evils in this world are to be cured by legislation. – Thomas B. Reed (1886)

# If you are not free to choose wrongly and irresponsibly, you are not free at all. – Jacob Hornberger (1995)

# Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys. – P.J. O’Rourke

# The more corrupt the state, the more it legislates. – Tacitus

Barr campaign admits to lying in fundraising plea

From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

Bob Barr’s Libertarian Party bid for the White House needs cash, but is not on the verge of being broke, Barr’s campaign manager said Tuesday. Despite a fund-raising plea he sent out recently that said the campaign’s progress “will stop dead in its tracks” without an immediate cash infusion, Russ Verney told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that Barr has enough money to maintain his campaign at present levels.

But that’s not the goal, Verney said.

“We’re able to raise enough money to execute our plan, but we’ve got ambitions and that takes even more money,” Verney said Tuesday.

Those ambitions center around participating in the national debates with Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama. Barr, a former Republican congressman from Cobb County, has said he needs to be at 15 percent in the national polls by mid-September to qualify. He’s yet to come close to that mark, although recent polls have shown him at or near 10 percent in several states, including New Hampshire, Nevada and Arizona.

Money would help that effort by allowing Barr to buy advertising, do direct mail and other staples of national campaigns. Thus far the campaign has mostly been limited to personal appearances from Barr and his vice presidential nominee, Wayne Allen Root, as well using the Internet to raise cash and spread the word through Web videos, blogs and social networks like Facebook.

Read the article in its entirety here.

AJC compares those who question Barr on the Wiccan issue to Trekkies

From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

Suspecting that Mother Nature might be Libertarian, Barr folds on Wiccan issue

Wednesday, July 30, 2008, 09:15 AM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

There’s a certain amount of humiliation that comes with running as a third-party candidate for president.

The federal deficit, loose nukes, angry Muslims, the economy — these are topics that the major party candidates are asked to address.

But if you’re Bob Barr, the Libertarian candidate, there are times when your campaign must seem like a never-ending Star Trek convention, with no possibility of escape.

This is a recent blog entry on Dispatches from the Culture Wars:

I got to ask Barr a question I’ve wanted to ask him for quite some time. He’s repudiated and apologized for many of his previous positions and I asked him if he would repudiate his absurd anti-Wiccan crusade of 1999, when he wanted all Wiccans banned from the military. He said yes, with a bit of hemming and hawing.

He said that he had reports from several military leaders that Wiccans doing rituals on military bases were causing problems and that’s why he did what he did, but that since that time it’s become clear that there are no problems with allowing Wiccans to serve and to practice their religion on military bases like any other religion.

Libertarian Party gets mainstream press for WV petition drive

From the Huntington Herald-Dispatch:

Libertarian party looking for signatures

Jul 30, 2008 @ 12:05 AM

The Herald-Dispatch

HUNTINGTON — The Libertarian party is finishing a month-long push to get Bob Barr on the presidential ballot. Party spokesperson Andrew Davis said they are shooting for 22,000 signatures, although just more than 15,000 are needed to pass the initiative.

Davis said Barr is on the ballot in 33 states, but they are targeting all 50 plus the District of Columbia.

Davis said there are about 40 or 50 people across the state spending the rest of the week pushing for signatures.

“We’re not asking for your vote,” Davis said. “We’re just asking for a fair chance to compete.”

The deadline for obtaining the signatures is Aug. 1.

It would have been helpful if they had said where people can go to sign the petition, but at least people will already know what’s going on if they are asked to sign one.

Texas Senator puts the corny in Cornyn

TN State Employees Being Paid to Sing About Taxes

I believe Mr. Chapman also had a song about taxes. “Free Christians don’t pay taxes on their labor, free Christians don’t pay taxes on their land,…………..” Or something similar. Now, Tennessee state employees are being paid to sing classic hits such as “Like an auditor, assessing for the very first time.” Neither Merle Hagard or Madonna probably intended for their songs to be changed to be about taxes.

They’re tunes about taxes — written and performed at the expense of taxpayers.

State officials call them “training,” but training for what?

Our chief investigative reporter Phil Williams has the videos that may have taxpayers singing the blues.

To the tune of “Hey Jude,” one group sings, “Hey, dude, the check is in the mail.”

The video shows state employees at work.

Another group dances to the music of “Eye of the Tiger,” instead celebrating the “eye of the auditor.”

But these state workers aren’t just spending your tax dollars.

To the tune of “Redneck Woman,” yet another group declares, “I’m a sales tax auditor.”

They’re also the folks in charge of collecting your taxes.

Click here to read full article

How much did this singing cost taxpayers?

“You know, there’s all types of team building that our training office does.”

It’s all part of what the revenue department calls Team Week — five days of training at Gaylord’s Opryland Hotel. Last year, the total cost to taxpayers: almost $150,000.

When reading about taxes, I always think of Former Ohio Congressman Jim Traficant’s quotes about the IRS.

Jim Traficant: “Madam Speaker, an investigation revealed that 16,000 IRS employees illegally used their computers. The report states IRS agents spent 50 percent of their time at work on personal business. If that is not enough to service your revenue, IRS agents illegally used their computers for shopping, stock trading, gambling and pornography. Unbelievable. Think about it. While 60 percent of taxpayer calls to the IRS go unanswered, the IRS agents were watching Marilyn Chambers do the Rotary International. Beam me up here. It is time to pass a flat 15 percent sales tax and abolish this gambling, porno-watching IRS completely. I yield back the internal rectal service of the United States of America.”

From Privacy To Oppression

I was a young technology policy reporter in January 1999 when Scott McNealy of Sun Microsystems said at a public event, “You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it.” The remarks created a firestorm, with criticism coming even from government officials. But as I saw it, McNealy was not saying that the end of privacy was a good thing, just that it was reality of the wired age, and that to pretend it wasn’t so was to be naive.

In “From Freedom to Fascism”, Aaron Russo spends a lot of time on RFID tagging, REAL ID, and the like. These are scary technologies, to be sure. But the issue is not their mere existence; it is how they are used — and by whom.

As I type this, online, I have “zero privacy”. Folks can see where I am logged in from, what applications I am using, and so on. When I order a pizza online (as I intend to do in a few minutes), that order will be relayed through various servers to my local pizza place, the company’s overall database, to my credit card company, to credit agencies, and on and on. When I go to Amazon or any other major e-commerce site, I get a list of things I might want to buy — which a machine picks out because it has assembled a database of my likes and dislikes. There’s a fictitious scence in “From Freedom To Fascism” in which a man calls to order a pizza and finds out the anonymous, chipper voice on the other end of the line knows his credit history, his purchasing history from other vendors, his health information, and more. It’s just a slight exaggeration.

I have “zero privacy”, but in some ways I choose to accept the tradeoff. I don’t really mind vendors keeping data on me, because it lets them target me for things I might actually like to buy. It’s mutually advantageous: I see stuff I might like, and they find a potentially willing customer. They don’t waste time mass-marketing to uninterested folks, and I am not inundated with ads for things I don’t care about. This is a good “abuse” of information.

But it’s good because it’s voluntary. Every time anyone says or does anything publicly, that individual gives up some privacy. We do this hundreds of times a day; it’s called communication. The problem arises when privacy is given up involuntarily, or without one’s knowledge. At present, many people do not know how much of their data is being shifted around without their consent. When a commom driver’s license becomes a REAL ID-validated, RFID-chipped homing device, many will be completely unaware. Again, in some circumstances I or you might want such a device. But we cannot give up our right to know we are carrying it.

In all, I think “From Freedom to Fascism” is only a moderately successful film. Russo was clearly going for a Michael Moore-esque mix of humor and outrage, but the stock footage clips and cartoons he weaves in are awkward and disruptive. He also tries to put to much under the conspiratorial “Federal Reserve is taking over the world” theme. This overreach is a shame, since a lot of what he says is true, but by exaggerating the argument, he makes his message easy to dismiss. Another major flaw is some of the film’s sloppiness: senators’ names are spelled wrong (”Dianne Fienstein” and “John Corzine”) and a congressman is listed as a senator. There are other typos, too. It makes the product look shoddy.

This is a limited time offer. Operators are standing by….

Via disinter

Susan Davis reports:

In perhaps the most desperate sounding e-mail solicitation yet this election cycle, third party Libertarian candidate Bob Barr’s campaign manager sent out a plea today to supporters to raise $15,000 each day this week—or else.

Under the subject line, “Have I said or done something to offend you?” Russ Verney writes, “You see, I have to report that unless we receive and immediate cash infusion of $85,000, our progress will stop dead in its tracks. To be very blunt, I am presently faced with bills equaling our bank account balance, and I know there are many more expenses on the horizon.”

According to the latest report with the Federal Election Commission, Barr’s campaign had just $69,000 cash on hand at the end of June, and he raised just under $200,000 last month.

If you donate in the next 15 seconds, you can get a Bob Barr bumpersticker at no charge!

Bob Barr recants position on Wiccans in the military

From Nate Uncensored (excerpt):

Apparently someone did get around to asking Bob Barr some substantive questions when he made an appearance at Netroots Nation. Ed Brayton (Dispatches from the Culture Wars) asked Barr if he would now, as Libertarian candidate, repudiate his 1999 attempt to prohibit the practice of Wicca, a neo-Pagan religion, on military bases. Barr said that he has changed his mind, citing “reports” that the practice of Wicca was causing problems that are apparently not an issue now. Brayton writes:

I did ask him for any specific problems that were reported to him back in 1999 by these military leaders, but he said he didn’t want to get into specifics. I’m sure that’s because there are no specific incidents and those military leaders who complained to him did so out of bigotry, or because the problems it caused were really caused by bigotry against Wiccans. He likened it to his stance on Don’t Ask Don’t Tell for gays, which he previously supported but now that it’s clear that allowing gays to serve doesn’t really cause any problems with unit cohesion and good order, he thinks it should be repealed and they should be allowed to serve openly.

LFV introduces new streamlined contact system

Effective immediately, all press releases, news items, technical issues, and general correspondence should be sent to contact.lastfreevoice@gmail.com . The sidebar has been updated with this information, but I still suggest readers add the address to their contacts so it is easy to access.

Messages sent to the new contact address will be distributed to all contributors, thus decreasing the turnaround time, as well as the opportunity for multiple contributors to provide coverage from their unique viewpoint and area of expertise, especially with regard to controversial issues.

All guest articles submitted for consideration, information which requires a higher level of confidentiality, and requests to join the LFV contributor team should still be sent to ElfNinosMom at enm.lastfreevoice@gmail.com . I also suggest readers add that address to their contacts so it is easy to access.

LFV contributors should contact me immediately, so I can make sure you are properly registered in the new contributor forum which will make this expanded participation possible. Please note that participation in the new private LFV forum is a requirement for all contributors, and is especially important given the amount of growth LFV has recently experienced.

Thanks!

LPKY withdraws support from Landham

From Louisville Courier-Journal:

FRANKFORT, Ky. — Action-film actor Sonny Landham has lost his role as the Libertarian Party’s choice for a U.S. Senate seat in Kentucky over inflammatory comments he made about Arabs.
Advertisement

The party’s executive committee withdrew the endorsement of Landham yesterday, and Landham and state party Chairman Ken Moellman called the parting amicable.

Landham said he still hopes to reach the November ballot as an independent candidate.

The party said it had collected more than enough signatures to get Landham on the ballot, but Libertarian officials distanced themselves from him after his anti-Arab remarks.

“We have agreed to disagree on the statements made, and that is why we are parting company,” said Moellman, who called the remarks “offensive and contrary” to the party’s principles.

Landham stood behind his remarks in an interview yesterday.

“My views are still the same,” he said. “I make no apologies for them.” But he said he held no grudges toward the Libertarian Party.

Moellman said the decision to sever ties with Landham means the Libertarians won’t field a candidate against four-term Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell and Democrat Bruce Lunsford, a Louisville businessman.

Landham said he hopes to use the signatures already collected on his behalf as the presumed Libertarian candidate to get on the ballot as an independent.

But the Kentucky secretary of state’s office was unsure if he could do that.

“We would have to legally research whether that is a viable option,” said Les Fugate, spokesman for Secretary of State Trey Grayson.

Root on homeschooling

Government Should Leave Home Schooling Families Alone, Says Wayne Allyn Root

Henderson, NV — “There is no more important task for a parent than the education of one’s children. That responsibility belongs to parents, not the government,” insists Wayne Allyn Root, the Libertarian Party candidate for vice president. “As a home school parent myself, I know how important it is for government to not interfere in the education process.”

Yet the city of Washington, D.C. has issued new regulations that for the first time in 15 years anywhere in America increase government control over home-schooling. “Given the abysmal job performed by the District public schools, the D.C. government should be encouraging, not discouraging home schooling,” says Root. “It is the height of arrogance for this school system with its poor performance to sit in judgment over the quality of parental instruction.”

Home schoolers also have been under attack in California, Root observes, where a court recently ruled against home school parents, declaring that there is no constitutional right to home school. However, he notes, “the U.S. Supreme Court once blocked a state attempt to outlaw private schools, explaining that ‘the child is not the mere creature of the state.’ That principle is equally valid for home schooling.”

“The good news in California,” Root adds, “is that the state has dropped its action against the home schooling family. But the state legislature still should act to protect the fundamental right of parents to educate their own children. The D.C. city council should do the same,” he says.

“There may be no better example as to how government has outgrown its original role than the fact that many people now believe education to be not a family, not a local, and not a state responsibility, but a federal responsibility. That’s entirely wrong,” says Root. “There may be no more important liberty than the right to care for one’s own family, including to ensure the proper education of one’s children. Bob Barr and I are dedicated to promoting that right in our campaign for president and vice president.”

Wayne Root and his wife Debra home school their 4 young children. Wayne is the first home school father on a Presidential ticket in modern history.

Sonny Landham: the floater that just won’t stay flushed

Posted at
Ballot Access News

Unfortunately, on July 29, the Kentucky Secretary of State retracted his ruling that the Libertarian Party of Kentucky could choose to have Sonny Landham on the November ballot as an independent candidate for U.S. Senate instead of as a Libertarian. Now the choices are either: (1) the party can submit its petition in early August and have Landham listed as a Libertarian; (2) the party can submit its petition in the middle of August, which will mean that the petition will only be valid for president and vice-president, but not U.S. Senator (the deadline for the presidential and vice-presidential candidate is in early September, but the deadline for all other office is in early August). In that case Landham won’t be on the ballot at all.

From Freedom To Fascism

I saw Aaron Russo’s “America: From Freedom to Fascism” for the first time the other night. Russo was my second choice for the 2004 Libertarian presidential nomination, and a lot of people had recommended the film, so I was eager to see it at last.

I had mixed feelings about it. In many ways it was several short films glommed together, and Russo seemed to make only a modest attempt to tie it all together. The first third was largely about the history and legality (or lack thereof) of the federal income tax; the second third about the rise of the Federal Reserve; and the final part about radio frequency identification tagging, the move toward mandatory national identification, and the loss of privacy. There was also a clip from Lou Dobbs about the “North American Union” that even the film itself says was just kind of thrown in there.

On the income tax matter, Russo makes a pretty strong case for the argument that no law exists compelling individuals to pay. He is careful to point out that corporate income taxes are indeed legal, but that even the IRS is unwilling or unable to point to any law passed by Congress and affirmed by the Supreme Court that requires mandatory taxation as it now exists. While the argument presented is pretty one-sided, to be fair to Russo that is only because the “other side” refused to offer a rebuttal. The clearest summary of the situation came from Rep. Ron Paul, who in an interview with Russo said that while there is no written income tax law, there is a de facto law in that the government expects you to pay up, the vast majority of the populace is willing to do so, and big guys with guns will haul you off and take away everything you and your family own if you do not.

I thought the film’s segment on the Federal Reserve was its strongest portion, primarily because the Fed is a subject I know next to nothing about. The history of its creation and impact is told in some detail, but Russo did not convince me that I was getting the full story. He did make me want to learn more about the subject for myself, though, and I intend to do so.

The portion on privacy, RFID tagging, and the like dealt with the subject I am most familiar with, and I don’t feel like I learned much that is new. I consider the Democrats’ capitualition on FISA, the entirely predictable abuse of the PATRIOT Act in the investigation of allegations having nothing to do with terrorism, and similar post-9/11 abuses to be a bigger (though obviously related) pressing matter. But Russo’s look at the privacy issue is an important one. I’ll deal with that in my next post.

Libertarians drop Sonny Landham

On last night’s Weekly Filibuster, Libertarian Party political director Sean Haugh revealed that the Libertarian Party of Kentucky is dissociating itself from Sonny Landham. He explained that the LPKY needed to wait until today to find out the ramifications for dissociating itself from Landham for the purpose of getting Barr/Root and LPKY on the ballot, since he was listed on the petition.

The Secretary of State told them today that they could go ahead and file the petition, and then dissociate themselves from Sonny, who would then run as an independent rather than as a Libertarian. In response to my question whether the LP would continue to get signatures for Landham, I was told that the LP there has all the signatures they need and is just sorting and filing them. Presumably, both Barr and Landham have a comfortable enough margin to assure that they will both be on the ballot.

Libertarians help San Francisco prostitution decriminalization measure get national publicity

Posted by Starchild on LP Radicals Yahoo group. Starchild is an activist with the San Francisco LP.

Most prominently, as many of you know, Carol Leigh (aka Scarlet Harlot) was on the Bill O’Reilly show. Unfortunately he did not give her much time to address the issue, as she had to spend most of the
scant time he let her talk during the segment trying to counter his insistence on regulation. Some of Carol’s facial expressions as she’s listening to O’Reilly blather on are priceless! Here is the link she
posted, which also has a short segment from our press conference featuring independent congressional candidate Cindy Sheehan giving her support:

http://sanfranciscodecrim.blip.tv/#1117401

The San Francisco Sentinel has a story on the measure that quotes Maxine as quoted by the Chronicle. Interestingly, the picture with the story depicts a young man on the street instead of a young woman for a change. Annoyingly, they also provide a link to SAGE, and do not allow comments on this story:

http://www.sanfranciscosentinel.com/?p=14808

A couple pieces in the libertarian blogosphere including from David Weigel of Reason Magazine focus on my role in the measure. The material isn’t accurate in every particular (guess that’s true for
most of the coverage we’ve gotten, come to think of it), but any attention in places where the audience is likely to be supportive is a good thing…

http://reason.com/blog/show/127666.html#comments
http://www.quotegator.com/2008/07/22/save-us-starchild/

And a few more sightings of the AP wire story on the measure qualifying that I don’t think made my last list, including in the SF Examiner and USA Today…

http://www.examiner.com/
a-1495590~Prostitution_decriminalization_makes_SF_ballot.html

http://www.kmir6.com/Global/story.asp?S=8702316

http://origin.montereyherald.com/state/ci_9933781?nclick_check=1

http://www.propeller.com/story/2008/07/19/prostitution-measure-makes-
in-onto-sf-ballot/

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-07-19-prostitute_N.htm

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-
prostitution-measure,0,236257.story

http://www.newsobserver.com/2188/story/1147334.html

http://www.denverpost.com/nationworld/ci_9934232

Also, unrelated to our effort but worthy of note, is a story from April about an attempt to legalize prostitution in the country of Kyrgyzstan:

http://kyrgyzstan.neweurasia.net/2008/04/09/women-club-lobbies-legalization-of-prostitution-in-kyrgyzstan/#comment-32251

Love & Liberty,
((( starchild )))

Texas Libertarians Make Austin American Statesman Front Page: Entire World’s Smallest Political Quiz Re-printed

Pat Dixon

The Libertarian Party of Texas and Chair Pat Dixon made the front page above the fold of Austin’s major daily, the Austin American Statesman.

Libertarians want to be kingmakers in legislative races
The Libertarian Party of Texas is not ready to be king, but it expects to be kingmakers — or spoilers, depending upon your point of view — in the state’s most competitive races.
By Laylan Copelin
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

While the online edition includes a link to the Advocate’s for Self-Government’s World’s Smallest Political Quiz, a 5″ x 6″ version of the quiz was included on page eight of the front section of the print edition.  According to their website, the Statesman has a paid circulation of about 180,000 daily.

My hunch is that the article was triggered by this press release: Texas Libertarian Party sees big jump in contributions

The Bad Rackets: “Somebody Dropped The Baby”

Hat tip Angela Keaton

Press Release: Todd Andrew Barnett condemns Sonny Landham for genocide statements, praises Libertarians Against Landham petition

The following is a press release written by or on behalf of BTP Vice Chairman Todd Andrew Barnett.

For Immediate Release
POC, Todd Andrew Barnett, BTP Vice-Chair
ToddAndrewBarnett@gmail.com
(586) 725-9218

New Baltimore, MI — Boston Tea National Committee Vice-Chairman Todd Andrew Barnett, currently a candidate for the Party’s vice-chair seat, excoriates Libertarian candidate for U.S. Senate Sonny Landham for more of his anti-Arab and anti-Muslim comments and condemns his call for genocide of those groups. Landham, whose racist comments generated much public outrage in the press and on the blogosphere, made his case for the decimation of all Arabs and Muslims during his much-hyped second appearance on Ben Goodman’s The Weekly Filibuster, a political talk radio show on Blog Talk Radio.

“When Mr. Landham made these putrid comments on the show, I felt the need to regurgitate,” said Barnett, who also appeared on the show to debate Landham after his press release against Landham generated much public interest. “These statements of his are not libertarian. These remarks are coming from a Libertarian candidate who espouses outright hate for all Arabs and Muslims and exploits the events of 9/11 to justify murder laced with hatred and bigotry under the label of libertarianism.”

Landham openly called for “outright genocide” of all Arabs and Muslims. On the Weekly Filibuster, when asked whether he called for the genocide of Arabs, Landham snarkily retorted, “When you are in a war, you kill every thing that moves.” Then, when asked again whether he called for “outright genocide,” Landham sardonically replied, “I call for outright bombing them back into the sand until they surrender and if they don’t surrender, then you continue the war. Because if you don’t, you will never have peace in the United States. Now do you want peace in the United States or do you want to live to some utopian ideals that are impossible in a world?.”

“The reason we are at war is that our decades-long foreign policy of interventionism has led to a myriad of political and militaristic conflicts that have resulted in so much acrimony and animosity towards the United States federal government, and not the United States as a country and the American people,” said Barnett. “After years of embargoes on Iraq and the Middle East, our own military’s daily bombing runs on Iraqi soil for over 10 years, the United States’ own imposed illegal no-fly zones on the Southern region of Iraq, and our incessant interference with the political and military affairs of the Middle East, it’s no wonder that many Arabs in the Middle East harbor so much resentment, hatred, distrust, and dislike towards our own government. It’s also the reason why terrorist organizations like Hezbollah and Hammas have been organized because of our government’s interference with those countries, although Israel shares the blame as well.”

Barnett points out that these facts do not justify the 9/11 attacks, but rather that the United States government must bear responsibility for what transpired in the Middle East for many years. “The terrorists who struck us on 9/11 were never brought to justice, and the 3,000 Americans killed on that horrible day were never allowed to rest in peace,” said Barnett. “However, if we alter our foreign policy to one of non-interventionism, end our War on Terrorism, and the War in Iraq, we can end the divisive tensions between the U.S. and the Arab countries and begin the healing for both sides.”

The vice-chairman also expresses disgust with Landham’s attempt to back him into a corner and question his patriotism, when Landham’s claim of support for liberty needs to be called into question. “Mr. Landham questioned my patriotism on the show, especially as he was using that moment to make himself look good in the process,” he said. “As I told Ben Goodman and his panelists on that show, Sonny Landham is a collectivist and a statist. He believes in the state. What I didn’t get to tell them is that he also hides behind the 9/11 attacks to justify a holocaust of an entire race. When a Libertarian candidate for public office uses racism to bolster neoconservative and pro-war support for his candidacy and attacks his critics for calling him out on his racist and pro-genocide beliefs, that man is unworthy of the office for which he is running. It’s that simple.”

In response to Landham’s anti-Arab, pro-geocide statements, LP member Lance Brown has set up a petition that calls for the Kentucky Libertarian Party to rescind its nomination of Landham and disavow and disassociate itself from the candidate and his anti-libertarian statements. The petition, titled “Libertarians Against Landham,” was put up on the web on July 28 and calls upon Libertarian Party members to sign it.

“I am pleased that Lance and his fellow party members are calling for this man to be removed from any consideration,” said Barnett. “I’m no longer a Libertarian; therefore, I can’t sign it. But I do endorse it in spirit. I just hope the Kentucky Libertarians will take notice of this and take this into consideration.”

The Boston Tea Party was formed in July of 2006 in response to the gutting of the Libertarian Party’s platform at the organization’s Portland, Oregon convention. It is the fastest-growing libertarian alternative to the LP, whose World’s Smallest Political Platform reads:

“The Boston Tea Party supports reducing the size, scope and power of government at all levels and on all issues, and opposes increasing the size, scope and power of government at any level, for any purpose.”

LPKY: Landham “not on the ballot yet, and we control ballot access”

From the Associated Press:

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The head of Kentucky’s Libertarian Party said party leaders are not ready to take action against U.S. Senate hopeful Sonny Landham for a series of anti-Arab and anti-Muslim remarks.

Ken Moellman made the remarks on Saturday on “The Weekly Filibuster,” an Internet radio program on politics with student panelists.

Moellman said a decision on whether Landham would run as a Libertarian on the November ballot against U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell and Democrat Bruce Lunsford would come on Monday or Tuesday.

In an interview Thursday with The Associated Press, Landham advocated turning away Arabs from entering this country and said the U.S. should have bombed Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran and Afghanistan after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. He repeatedly referred to Arabs and Muslims with offensive language.

His comments were similar to those he had made a day earlier on “The Weekly Filibuster.”

Addressing Landham’s comments on Saturday, Moellman said, “Obviously the party does not stand for that.”

He described the Libertarian Party as “pro-immigration or pro-legal immigration.”

Asked how the state party could continue to consider Landham as a candidate after he had called for the genocide of Arabs and Muslims, Moellman said party leaders are exploring their options and looking at how any decision they make would affect other races.

Moellman said the leaders of the state party all have full-time jobs and it is difficult to get them together for a decision, although he had just gotten off a conference call with them.

It’s likely the party would not run another candidate if it were to abandon Landham, he said.

“I don’t know if we could find another credible candidate who would be willing to walk into that situation,” he said.

Landham has said his supporters have gathered more than enough signatures to qualify him for the ballot, but Moellman said on Saturday that Landham is “not on the ballot yet, and we control the ballot access.”

Landham, who is an actor, appeared in adult films early in his career before acting in several action movies, including “48 Hours” and “Predator.”

Later he was convicted of making threatening and obscene phone calls to his ex-wife and served more than 2 1/2 years in federal prison before the conviction was thrown out by a federal appeals court that found he committed no crime.

Lance Brown launches petition re Sonny Landham’s racist remarks

Longtime Libertarian activist Lance Brown has launched a petition regarding the Libertarian Party of Kentucky’s failure to properly and quickly address the racist comments by Sonny Landham.

The purpose of the petition is to allow concerned Libertarians to voice their opinion to Ken Moellman and the leadership of the LPKY.

Any libertarians concerned about Mr. Landham’s tarnishing of the public image of libertarianism are encouraged to both sign the petition, and pass it on to others, ideally in time to encourage the LPKY in their upcoming deliberations regarding Landham’s candidacy.

The petition reads as follows:

Libertarians Against Landham Petition

We the undersigned believe that Sonny Landham should not be endorsed, approved, or supported by the Libertarian Party of Kentucky as a candidate for Senate or any other office.

Mr. Landham has proven from his comments that he is not a libertarian, and many of his recent statements and positions have been both ideologically incorrect and socially repugnant. Libertarians do not support genocidal war, war based on economic motives, or race-based immigration restrictions, to mention just a few of Mr. Landham’s very un-libertarian positions. Nor do Libertarians (or any freedom-minded individuals, we would hope) support the sort of reckless racial stereotyping and denigration of whole nationalities that has been the underpinning of Mr. Landham’s most widely-reported remarks.

Therefore, we the undersigned assert that the Libertarian Party of Kentucky needs to take immediate action to:
–rescind their endorsement of Sonny Landham’s candidacy; and
–remove his name from any petitions or ballot-access efforts that may be underway; and
–publicly, officially, and in the firmest terms possible, disavow the racist and un-libertarian statements Mr. Landham has been making under the “Libertarian” banner; and
–initiate a public relations campaign sufficient to repair the damage that’s been done to the party’s image in Kentucky, especially among minority populations.

You can sign the petition on Lance Brown’s website.

Many thanks to Lance Brown for bringing this petition to LFV’s attention!

How is Bob Barr spending campaign donations?

The following is from Bob Barr’s June FEC report:

Cash on hand 6/1/08:  $53,145.00

June income: $196,400.00

June disbursements: $68,774.00

End of month cash on hand: $68,774.00

End of month campaign debt: $1,000.00

Items of interest from disbursements:

The Barr08 website cost more than $31,000 to the firm Terra Eclipse.

Their office space cost more than $28,000 to the Paces Foundation in Georgia.  The campaign also paid nearly $2,700 to Post Corporate Apartments, and more than $3,700 in rent to Liza Franzman (who is in Kailua, Hawaii; however, she is from Georgia, so her property may still be there).

Then there are consultants. Doug Bandow was paid more than $12,000. James Bovard received $5,000. Robert Zinzell was paid $3,750. Steve Gordon got more than $2,900. Russ Verney received $1,900. Mike Ferguson was paid $1,250. Ashley Petty got $1,100. John Seewoester was paid $560. Robert Benedict got $312.  The report doesn’t say exactly what kind of consulting they did.

There was also over $35,000 paid to consulting firms. Liberty Strategies…$11,000. Advocacy Ink…more than $20,000. Olympic…$3,500. McKenna Long & Aldridge’s Legal Fees were over $4,100.

Interestingly, the only staff member listed is Andrew McPherson, who received slightly under $2,000. Shane Cory received $2,296 for reasons not specified in his report.

Ballot access fees amounted to slightly over $4,000. If the campaign is investing in petitioning for ballot access, it is not reflected in their FEC report.

And campaigning? There were $23,000 and then some in travel expenses. Fliers and buttons came to less than $1,200. Admission to Freedom Fest was $750. Two meetings at the Old Vinings Inn and the DC University Club were more than $1,500. Unspecified in the electronic report were American Express charges for $13,000.

FULL LIST OF DISBURSEMENTS

Consultants:
Liberty Strategies Contract Services $11,000.00
Advocacy Ink Media Consulting $10,062.00
Advocacy Ink Public Relations $278.25
Advocacy Ink Public Relations $9,931.14
Doug Bandow Political Consulting $10,088.22
Doug Bandow Political Consulting $2,145.00
David Beiler Field Consulting $2,399.11
Doug Bandow Travel Expenses $217.94
James Bovard Field Consulting $5,000.00
Robert Zinzell Political Consulting $3,750.00
Olympic Consulting Political Consulting $3,500.00
Mr. Stephen P Gordon Field Consulting $2,000.00
Mr. Stephen P Gordon See Below $907.86
Russ Verney Political Consulting $1,902.00
Mike Ferguson Political Consulting $1,250.00
Ms. Ashley Petty Field Consulting $715.00
Ms. Ashley Petty Field Consulting $405.00
Imaging Arts Charleston Photography $673.81
McKenna Long & Aldridge Legal Fees $3,915.00
McKenna Long & Aldridge Legal Fees $270.00

Staff
Mr. Andrew MacPherson Salary $997.80
Andrew MacPherson Salary $994.60

Mr. Shane Cory See Below $2,296.27

Communication
AT&T Mobility $89.00

Computer issues:
Terra Eclipse $10,223.00
Terra Eclipse $10,249.00
Terra Eclipse $10,856.00
RackSpace $16.00

Real Estate
Post Corporate Apartments Rent $2,675.00 and $20.29
The Paces Foundation, Inc Rent $3,132.00
The Paces Foundation, Inc Rent $3,132.00
The Paces Foundation, Inc Rent $3,202.00
The Paces Foundation, Inc Rent $19,212.00
Lisa Franzman Kailua, Hawaii Rent $1,600.00
Lisa Franzman 21 N. Kalaheo Ave Kailua, Hawaii Rent $2,160.00
Office Supplies $180.17
Office Equipment $972.80
Office Equipment $206.50

Ballot Access
New Hampshire Secretary of State $250.00
West Virginia Secretary of State $2,500.00
Louisiana Secretary of State $500.00
Commonwealth of Kentucky $500.00
State of Utah $500.00

Campaigning
Freedom Fest Event Ticket $750.00

Mail
Postage $420.00
FedEx $88.94
FedEx Shipping $307.01

Cardmember Service $11,257.85
PayPal Merchant Services $5,790.57
Bank Fees $74.60

Zazzle.com T-Shirts $1,065.39

NextDay Flyers Printing $258.95
NextDay Flyers Printing $458.31
Dr Don’s Buttons Campaign Buttons $418.59

Clubs
The University Club of DC Meeting Expense $546.95
Old Vinings Inn Restaurant Atlanta, Georgia Meeting Expense $1,052.47

Travel
Delta Travel Expenses $713.00
United Airlines Travel Expenses $819.00
Delta Travel Expenses $110.00
United Airlines Travel Expenses $533.00
Delta Travel Expenses $7,722.48
Thrifty Rental Car Car Rental $151.90
Thrifty Rental Car Travel Expenses $228.01
Sheraton Hotels Event Refreshments $186.00
Orbitz Travel Expenses $721.86
Brede Colorado Convention Setup Fee $365.59
Sheraton Hotels Travel Expenses $9,230.31
Courtyard Marriott Travel Expenses $334.35
Doubletree Hotels Travel Expenses $753.41
Courtyard Marriott Atlanta, Georgia Travel Expenses $1,792.16

American Express See Below $261.90
American Express See Below $375.29
American Express See Below $12,798.16

Many thanks to George Phillies for compiling this information

Press Release: Scotty Boman endorsed by Mary Ruwart

For Immediate Release July 23, 2008

Contact: Scotty Boman

Phone: 313-247-2052

E-Mail: scottyeducation@yahoo.com

http://www.boman08.com

MARY RUWART ENDORSES SCOTTY BOMAN FOR U.S. SENATE

Scotty Boman, Michigan Libertarian for U.S. Senate, is proud to announce that he has been officially endorsed by libertarian icon Dr. Mary Ruwart.

“It is a great honor to be endorsed by a person of Dr. Ruwart’s caliber; she is a superb writer, philosopher, and Michigan native,” says Scotty, who was the chairman of the Libertarian Party of Michigan’s successful ballot access

drive in 1994. Dr. Ruwart was supportive of that effort, generously donating copies of her critically acclaimed and best-selling book, Healing Our World, which were sold and the proceeds used to pay petitioners.

“Mary is unique among high profile libertarians in that she has a capacity to be both uncompromising in her positions and patient with those who disagree,” says Scotty. “This quality has made her a unifying force in the

libertarian movement, always sticking to principal, while showing compassion to the less enlightened. Mary Ruwart put the ‘love’ in revolution, before the idea was a catchy logo.”

Dr. Mary Ruwart was a candidate for the LP’s presidential nomination, which was decided on May 25 in Denver. After five rounds of balloting, she was in the lead. But on the sixth and final ballot, she received 43.9%

of the vote, compared to 51.6% for Bob Barr, and 7.9% for None of the Above. Scotty Boman attended the presidential-nominating convention in Denver and was a delegate for Mary Ruwart.

Dr. Mary Ruwart is also a member of the Libertarian National Committee, a research scientist, and a popular writer. She recently offered the libertarian perspective on the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac crisis at her Web site,

http://www.votemary2008.com.

Scotty Boman has also been endorsed by numerous Ron Paul activists in Michigan, including Statewide Coordinator Leslie Roszman, the Lake Michigan Ron Paul Meetup, and county coordinators representing

thirty-three of Michigan’s counties.

For more information, please visit http://www.boman08.com

“We don’t have to live in the kind of America the two major parties have in store for us. Together, let us continue to lay the foundations for an America worthy of our Founding Fathers.”

-Ron Paul June 12, 2008-

Scotty Boman, Libertarian for US Senate.

George Phillies: LNC funding down almost 50% from 2000

The following was researched and written by George Phillies.

These are the Year to Date donation levels for the end of June, for the current and the last three election cycles.

The LNC funding — donations Year To Date — is down almost a third from 2004, and down by almost 50% relative to 2000.

That drop is in nominal dollars. There’s also been some inflation over the period.

YEAR INCOME THROUGH END OF JUNE

YTD 2008 $853,256

YTD 2004 $1,250,666

YTD 2000 $1,603,872

YTD 1996 $762,694

The LNC apparently spent $33,000 collecting 15,000 signatures in MA. I do not understand how you got up to $2.20 a signature.

Letters from LFV mailbag: Gene Trosper on Sonny Landham

The following was received by LFV from the author, Gene Trosper.  To contact the LPKY officers, see the LPKY website.

I just sent this to all LPKY officers. I hope others contact the LPKY as well.

–Gene Trosper

********
Greetings,

I would like to strongly express my shock and absolute horror at the recent comments Sonny Landham has made about Arabs and Muslims.

Mr. Landham has fallen into the dangerous trap of collectivism by treating people as groups, rather than individuals. This is especially ironic, considering his heritage which suffered greatly at the hands of racism and genocidal policies.

The Libertarian Party is an organization that supports the principles of peace, non-interventionism, free trade and individualism. Sonny Landham has struck against each of these libertarian principles with his outrageous comments. he has done a grave disservice to the Libertarian Party and the ideals of freedom which we all purport to embrace.

As a long time Libertarian party member and successful activist, I call on the LPKY to officially disavow Mr. Landham’s despicable statements and do everything possible to legally and morally distance themselves from his campaign. To not respond to evil is to be an enabler of evil. Please do the right thing.

Thank You.

–Gene Trosper
Wildomar, California

Yuppie Welfare Bill Passed

Did you buy a house you couldn’t afford, with a suicidal no-down-payment negative amortization loan about 10x your annual income, and then borrow tens or hundreds of thousands of additional dollars against your fake “equity” to buy luxury cars, expensive vacations, large-screen TVs, designer furniture, gold watches and other bling?

Or are you a “flipper” who committed mortgage fraud, getting several government-backed “primary residence” loans to buy houses, put $15K of Home Depot stuff in them, and sell them — only to discover the housing bubble popped and you cannot make your mortgage payments on the second, third, or fifth house you own?

If so, you’re in luck! The bipartisan bozos in Washington have signed a $300 billion bailout to make the payments on your loans and save Fannie/Freddie to keep the suicide loans flowing, positioning it as a “housing market stabilization bill.” Bush is planning to sign it “quietly.”

Are you a saver, someone who didn’t buy an overpriced house with a suicide loan and are waiting for inflated housing prices driven up by government largesse and the speculative flipper-bubble to return to the market price?

You, then, are screwed. With every tax payment you make, you’ll be paying for your insane neighbors’ Rolexes, Hummers, Danish modern furniture, pools, LG 64 inch LCD televisions, and Disney holidays. And you’ll continue to be priced out of the housing market, thanks to big government largesse.

Technically legal signs for libraries

From librarian.net

Robert Milnes: Open Letter To Progressive & Libertarian Activists & Candidates 2

The following was written by Robert Milnes, and is reproduced with permission of the author

Here is what needs to be done asap. & all this needs to be done openly & highly publicized. The GP & LP and/or their executive tickets must communicate & meet about The Progressive Alliance Strategy.They should form a fusion ticket. This is a Green or Libertarian presidential candidate, the other party vice president. One man one woman. This ticket then becomes one that all progressives and libertarians can identify with in some way. The Libertarian should be attractive to Ron Paul activists. The Green should renounce socialism. Then a program with a website that functions to coordinate the expected progressive/libertarian plurality vote of 40% which is very competitive in a three way race, including one Green OR Libertarian on EVERY ballot. Also recommend the Alliance vote on ballot initiatives & issues. One reason people do not vote third party is they resist voting for a ticket that they think will certainly lose. Wasted vote phenomenon. If they think the fusion ticket just might win, they will support it. Another reason is they will be accustomed and highly pressured to choose between the democrat and republican. Lesser of two evils phenomenon. Again, if offered a viable third choice they will support it. This strategy should resolve the issues of whether or not an all Libertarian ticket could be elected (No), to pursue socialism (No) & whether or not election victory is possible (Yes) or that electing a Socialist e.g. Allende in Chile, or violent non-election revolution(Bolsheviks in Russia), or waiting & working for gradual social, cultural & political change are the only alternatives. (Not recommended). Publicize to Americans the Teddy Roosevelt progressive experience & the election of 1912. They will relate to & not fear that. Get going & good luck!

Bob Barr testifies before Congress: “The American people are entitled to have a president who obeys the law”

Many kudos to Bob Barr on this testimony. Maybe there’s hope for him after all.

BARR URGES HOUSE JUDICIARY TO HOLD PRESIDENT ACCOUNTABLE;
Testifies on Executive Branch Abuses

Washington, DC — In appearing before the House Judiciary Committee, Bob Barr called for “a thorough inquiry into the Bush administration’s attack on the Constitution’s system of separation of powers and checks and balances.” He explained: “It is axiomatic that no matter how much power government has, it always wants more. While the executive branch under George W. Bush has taken this truism to new heights, it is not unique in its quest for power. Unfortunately, the other branches of government have failed to do enough to maintain the constitutional balance. Particularly disturbing has been Congress’ recent reluctance, in the face of aggressive executive branch claims, to make the laws and ensure that the laws are properly applied.

Barr informed Congress that the issue was more than an abstract legal controversy: The failure to check the executive “has inhibited the operation of the separation of powers, necessary to provide the checks and balances which under gird our system of constitutional liberty.” Thus, he added, “if the choice before this Committee is either a constitutional inquiry or a constitutional silence, then by God, I choose a constitutional inquiry” into administration misbehavior, “not silence.”

Barr pointed to multiple administration practices: claiming that the president was authorized to override statutes and the Constitution, conducting illegal surveillance of the phone calls of Americans, using executive privilege to frustrate congressional inquiries, claiming “state secrets” to defeat private lawsuits over administration abuses, issuing “signing statements” to justify violating bills that he signed into law, and contending the president alone was authorized to take the nation into war. “In most of these cases, President Bush admittedly built on the extravagant claims of his predecessors. But that makes it even more important for Congress and the courts to confront the executive branch when it pushes too far,” notes Barr. “Otherwise we may never reestablish the constitutional balance.”

Responding to a challenge issued by Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC), Barr said that, if elected president, “I will not use signing statements as has President Bush, to justify disobeying laws passed by Congress. I call on Senators McCain and Obama to promise the same. The American people are entitled to have a president who obeys the law.”

That isn’t all, however. In response to another congressional query, Barr added: “If I am elected, I will stop using the ‘state secrets’ doctrine to hide government misconduct, start following the Bill of Rights, urge Congress to roll back recent legislation expanding surveillance of American citizens under the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act, order executive branch officials properly subpoenaed by Congress to testify, and stop misusing ‘executive privilege’ to avoid being accountable to Congress and the people. Then I would turn my attention to my next week.”

Many thanks to Steve Kubby for forwarding this to LFV!

Barr’s testimony before House Judiciary Committee

The 14-page written testimony by Libertarian presidential nominee Bob Barr before the Friday House Judiciary Committee hearing on Executive Power and Its Constitutional Limitations is available here as a PDF. Testimony of others can be found here.

IRS Gone Wild: Joe Francis claims alleged tax evasion was a setup

Girls Gone Wild founder Joe Francis, currently free on $1.5 million bond, has been accused of claiming $20 million in fraudulent expenses on his tax returns. He has pleaded not guilty to two felony counts of tax evasion. If convicted, he faces a possible 10 years in prison and a $500,000 fine.

However, Francis says he never knew anything about the tax problems until after he was indicted, and that the situation is really nothing more than his own CPA setting him up so he could collect a multimillion dollar “reward” from the Internal Revenue Service.

“IRS informant rules permit a CPA who actually plans and initiates the tax return mistakes to still collect the tax informant reward, which in this case could go as high as $10 million. If the case goes criminal, the tax rat gets even more.” – Robert Bernhoft, attorney for Joe Francis

Francis has filed a lawsuit against his former CPA, Michael Barrett, for fraud. Francis alleges that Barrett personally prepared, reviewed and approved tax ledgers with errors in them, and vouched for the correctness of those records with Francis’s tax preparers. Francis also claims that Barrett never brought the errors to his attention, or to the attention of anyone except the IRS; and that he pushed the IRS to bring criminal charges against Francis, so that he could collect a larger bounty.

Joe Francis’s tax evasion trial is presently scheduled to start on September 16th.

Angela Keaton has no faith in competency of LNC

The following was posted on the LNC discussion group by LNC At-Large Representative Angela Keaton.  Please note the following additional statement from Ms. Keaton:  “I don’t begrudge Shane Cory his salary or imply that he didn’t put in very long difficult hours. I am merely stating that the way it was handled gives members the impression that the LNC is full of people without business, non profit or any real world experience.”

From: angela at angelakeaton.com
To: lnc-discuss at hq.lp.org
Subject: The continuing crisis
Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2008 07:48:55 +0000

NOT PRIVATE

With all due respect to Mr. Starr, none of the responses to Mr. LaBianca were either well intended or even informative. Having worked for successful non-profits, I can speak to the fact the standard operating procedures of the Libertarian Party are only ’standard’ or ‘operational’ if this were a cutesy 70s sit com about the gang that can’t shoot straight.

First, tonight I attended a dinner at a donor’s house where I had to defend the Barr/Helms press release to a mixed raced woman whose black son was killed by SFPD officers.  Hence, my generosity toward those who those who wish I would take a more ‘nuanced’ view of the Barr campaign is minimal. I suppose we should be grateful that David Irving didn’t shuffle this mortal coil lest I be forced to explain to my mother why Barr (or rather, his ghost writers) think we have lost the greatest historian since Thucydides. Second, a donor earnestly told me that the LP has 49 state ballot access. One can only imagine where he may have gotten such an impression. Finally, there is really little more one can say about those who do not see the public relations problem with regard to Mr. Cory’s separation agreement.

I no longer have any faith that the officers of this organization, irrespective of whether they have the best interest of the Party at heart, are competent to execute our mission.

Angela Keaton
At Large Representative
Libertarian National Committee
angela at angelakeaton.com
310-xxx-xxxx

Todd Andrew Barnett condemns LP Senate candidate Sonny Landham for anti-Arab remarks

The following was written by or on behalf of Boston Tea Party Vice Chairman Todd Andrew Barnett, and is reproduced here with permission.

For Immediate Release
POC, Todd Andrew Barnett, Vice-Chair
ToddAndrewBarnett@gmail.com
(586) 725-9218

New Baltimore, MI — Boston Tea Party Vice-Chair candidate Todd Andrew Barnett, who’s currently serving as the Boston Tea Party’s Vice-Chairman, condemns the racist, anti-Arab remarks made by Kentuckian Libertarian candidate for U.S. Senate Sonny Landham. In the days following the racial epiphets first given by Landham to Courier-Journal columnist Joseph Gerth who broke the story on the candidate’s anti-Arab comments, Barnett blasts the former actor-turned-standard bearer of the LP’s U.S. Senate ticket, calling them “disgusting,” “totally irresponsible,” and “characteristic of a psychotic nutjob.”

The controversy was ignited on July 21 when Landham was asked by Gerth about his position on high energy prices. Landham responded by saying that we should release oil from the strategic oil reserve, drill in areas of the U.S. currently off-limits to the oil companies, and attempt to persuade OPEC to slash the price of oil. If that fails, Landham suggests that we use the military to confiscate the oil. To be more specific, he said, “We should go and bomb those camel-dung shovelers back into the sand.” Obviously believing his racial epithet was cute, he further said, “I said ‘camel-dung shovelers.’ Make sure you put that in the newspaper.”

“The fact that Mr. Landham seemed to think that it was funny, cute, and clever to denigrate, demonize, and smear a myriad of Arabs in the Middle Eastern communities in the United States and the Middle East is unsettling,” Barnett said. “It’s actually worse that he used these racially-charged slurs against these peoples in his official capacity as a nominated Libertarian candidate for the United States Senate. What he’s done is disgusting, totally irresponsible, and characteristic of a psychopathic nutjob.”

Landham made the matter worse by defending his racist comments on Ben Goodman’s The Weekly Filibuster, a political talk radio show on Blog Talk Radio on July 23. When Goodman asked him about his interview comments, Landham sardonically and nastily replied, “Would they have appreciated it better if I called them ‘camel jockeys?’” Then, when asked how he could justify those remarks, he said, “Look. Now, I’m an American. I’m a pro-American all the way. The Arabs, the camel dung-shovelers, the camel jockeys, whichever you wanna call ‘em, are terrorist. And they are doing a terrorist act on this country with the high gas prices. They’re about to wreck this economy, not only our economy, but the world economy.”

“It is outrageous and offensive that Sonny Landham would refer to Muslim-practicing Arabs in the United States and the Middle East as ‘camel jockeys,’ ‘camel-dung shovelers,’ or even ‘terrorists,’” said Barnett. “He even does this in such a catty, cavalier, and callous way. Anyone who accuses an ethnic group of people committing terrorist acts via high enery prices should be shamed in public and even ostracized for their hateful, vile, and disgusting comments and not be taken seriously as well.”

Barnett even notes that Landham’s racist rhetoric is full of holes. “Mr. Landham’s claims are nothing but lies,” he said. “Not all Arabs are ‘terrorists’ and committing ‘terrorist acts’ on this country,” he said. “It’s been almost seven years since the September 11th attacks, and, if anything, most Muslim-practicing Arab-Americans and Arabs do not believe in violence whatsoever. Yes, there are violent radical Islamists in Iran, Afghanistan, and Iraq, but that’s because of our vile and diabolical foreign policy of interventionism and the War on Terror, not our ‘freedoms’ and ‘values,’ that have mostly energized the fundamentalists together and against our country. More importantly, our decades-long foreign policy of interventionism has harbored a great deal of acrimony and animosity from the terrorist organizations, groups, and the Arab peoples in those regions. What will it take for Mr. Landham to understand that?”

The key to the problems, Barnett notes, is returning our foreign policy to one of non-interventionism, ending the War on Terror, repealing our energy policy, and repeal (or at least slash) taxes on the purchase of gasoline, and regulations restricting and controlling the release of oil from ANWR, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and the launching of new oil start-ups. “If we got the federal government out of all these affairs, we can save billions of dollars without the need to go to war, have a war on terror, and tax and regulate the hell out of the oil industry,” he said.

As for Landham, Barnett notes, he’s not a libertarian, even if he bears the Libertarian designation on his campaign literature. “He doesn’t subscribe to the non-agression principle, and he certainly believes the goverment can run your life, Libertarian style,” he said. “He’s using the pro-freedom language to cover up what he really believes: economic fascism, Landham-style. Anyone who buys into his claims is a fool indeed. The Boston Tea Party opposes racism and economic fascism, especially anti-liberty Libertarian candidates like Mr. Landham. And this Vice-Chair will challenge him at every turn to prove how allegedly pro-American and pro-liberty he is.”

Formed in 2006, the Boston Tea Party is the fastest growing libertarian alternative, having 10 affiliates under its belt with more than 20 in development. Its World’s Smallest Political Platform reads as of the following:

The Boston Tea Party supports reducing the size, scope and power of government at all levels and on all issues, and opposes increasing the size, scope and power of government at any level, for any purpose.

Today marks 6th anniversary of “Why would you do that to me, Bob (Barr)?” ad

Cheryl Miller, the woman around whom the LP’s award-winning medical marijuana television ad was situated,  has since passed away.  Ron Crickenberger, then the LP’s Political Director, has also died of cancer.  Neither of them lived to see medical marijuana legalized across the country, but hopefully some of us will live to see the day when patients suffering from life threatening diseases will be able to treat their symptoms with a simple plant.  From Madison NORML:

July 25 marks 6th anniversary of filming of Cheryl Miller’s “Why would you do that to me, Bob (Barr)” medical marijuana tv ad

Posted by Gary Storck
Friday, July 25, 2008

On July 24, 2002, Jim & Cheryl Miller and I participated in a press conference in the US Capitol arranged by NORML, supporting Rep. Barney Frank’s States’ Rights medical marijuana bill, along with Reps. Frank, Dana Rohrabacher, Ron Paul, and Jan Schakowsky, NORML Founder Keith Stroup, Former Reagan aide Lyn Nofziger, Libertarian Party Political Director Ron Crickenberger and others. In the interim, Cheryl Miller, Ron Crickenberger and Lyn Nofziger have all passed on. Here are some photos from that day from NORML: click here

Gary, Jim and Cheryl prepare to head over to the Capitol.

It was an exciting and emotional day, speaking at a medical marijuana press conference inside the U.S. Capitol. NORML took excellent care of us, putting us up in suites near their office.

The next day, before we headed home, Ron Crickenberger came to the hotel and filmed footage for Libertarian TV ads. Ron shot footage of me as part of an ad that included other patients like Angel Raich and Steve Kubby, then moved on to filming an ad he’d written for Cheryl. The ad, titled “Why Would You Do That To Me, Bob (Barr)?”, spotlighting Barr’s opposition to medical marijuana, was for use on behalf of Libertarian Carole Ann Rand running in the race for U.S House in Georgia against Republican Bob Barr, who also faced a Republican primary opponent, John Linder, due to redistricting..

The LP’s Film News Archive for 2003 noted the ad was later named “Most Dramatic Political Ad of 2002″ by the influential National Journal magazine.

– Congratulations to the Libertarian Party for creating a political advertisement just named “Most Dramatic Political Ad of 2002″ by the influential National Journal magazine. Per the LP News, the 30-second spot, entitled “Why Bob,” was broadcast by Libertarian Carole Ann Rand against Republican Bob Barr in the race for U.S House (District 7) in Georgia. The ad–written, directed, and filmed by LP Political Director Ron Crickenberger–was selected from among 1,868 political ads by the National Journal for this top honor. It featured medical marijuana patient Cheryl Miller, who suffers from multiple sclerosis. In the ad, a wan Miller addresses the camera from a hospital bed and says “Bob Barr thinks I should be in jail for using my medicine. Why would you do that to me, Bob?’” The Libertarian Party broadcast the ad about 4,000 times on CNN, TNT, Comedy Central, MSNBC, and other cable networks in the Georgia district. Bob Barr was soundly defeated. The LP took aim at Barr as part of its “Incumbent Killer” strategy, which targeted the worst drug warriors in Congress for defeat. (Source: click here).

Even today as a proclaimed supporter of medical cannabis, Barr has yet to acknowledge it was the power of Cheryl Miller that made him a former Republican congressman and a Libertarian Party candidate for president.

—-

The late Ron Crickenberger films Cheryl as Jim looks on.(Photo by Gary Storck)
—-

The ad that ended Bob Barr’s congressional career and set him on the road to being a Libertarian.
—-
VIDEO: WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT TO ME, BOB (BARR)? ” This commercial is a scathing indictment of the most rabid Drug Warrior in Congress,” — former Libertarian Party Political Director Ron Crickenberger. Crickenberger produced this devastating ad for the LP’s Carol Ann Rand, who ran against the Georgia Republican in an election in which the newly redistricted Barr lost the GOP primary to John Linder, sending him back to the private sector. (2002, Running Time: 1 minute).

Many thanks to  libertarian activist and renowned medical marijuana proponent Steve Kubby for sending this to LFV.

I will vote for Bob Barr in the electoral college if he wins the state of Michigan

Apparently, some members of the Libertarian Party of Michigan are “concerned” about my lack of support for our party’s presidential nominee.

Under duress, I agreed to serve as an elector for Bob Barr. I assured the party that I would vote for him if he indeed won the state of Michigan. I did this because no other elector from my congressional district was present, and if I did not agree to be an elector, there was a slight chance that Barr might not appear on the Michigan ballot. I did it for the party.

Later, when Barr endorsed the life and work of racial separatist Jesse Helms, I said I would not vote for him in the electoral college. I said this in a fit of disgusted rage. That’s why I post blogs under the moniker “G.E.” and not my real Christian name. Regardless, it was a stupid thing to say in light of the absolute impossibility of Barr’s victory here or anywhere else, and I apologize to the LPM for it.

I will not vote for Barr, whom I find entirely despicable as a human being and a horrendous candidate for the Libertarian Party, on November 4. I never gave any indication that I would vote for him on Election Day. But yes, “if” he wins the state of Michigan, I will vote for him, as I pledged.

I did not pledge, however, to not fly off the handle on Internet message boards and blogs, for that is a pledge that I could not possibly hope to keep.

Mike Munger in (at least one) debate in NC

The LP’s candidate for governor in NC, Mike Munger, has been formally invited to participate in at least one debate:

WSOC-TV the ABC Affiliate and WTVI the Public Broadcast Station in Charlotte, in partnership with the North Carolina and Charlotte-Mecklenburg League of Women Voters extend an invitation for your participation in a LIVE televised debate originating from the studios of WTVI in Charlotte.

Date and time: October 15, 2008, at the ABC WSOC studios in Charlotte. The debate will be televised live 7:00-8:00 pm EDT and will be offered to television stations statewide.

w00t!

Animal in Man

By Dead Prez

Worst candidate actually on the ballot this year?

A message I received on facebook:

Who are the worst candidates actually appearing on the ballot this year? Send your picks to info@politicsmagazine.com today.

We’ll keep your suggestions anonymous.

The floor is open for nominations. I haven’t given it much thought yet. So far, this guy appears to be in the lead for the LP candidate for this dubious honor.

Communist Zombies

H/T Thomas Sipos

Obama: Socialism Will Conquer Terrorism

If we only agree to ignore every difference between people, countries, languages, religions and beliefs, and embrace his socialist dream with sufficient ardor, we can defeat terrorism, says Barack Obama. Whoopee.

“People of Berlin, people of the world, this is our moment. This is our time,” he declared.

“The walls between old allies on either side of the Atlantic cannot stand,” Obama said, speaking not far from where the Berlin Wall once divided the city.

“The walls between the countries with the most and those with the least cannot stand. The walls between races and tribes, natives and immigrants, Christians and Muslims and Jews cannot stand,” he said.

Policies to make this pie-in-the-sky socialist dream come true were, true to Obama form, completely absent.

Well, perhaps it’s not fair to say completely absent… Obama’s position in favor of allowing warrantless wiretaps shows that he’s more than willing to simply continue the Bush-Cheney police state with a new, friendly, hope-and-change face.

Meanwhile, the adulatory worship of Obama’s platitudes is picking up in Europe as well:

One man yelled out in English, “Yes, we can,” the senator’s campaign refrain, when he emerged from his car to enter his hotel.

Well of course. Eight years of Bush have indeed proven “we can.” The question isn’t whether more of the same is possible — the question is, can we survive it with our civil liberties intact?

“But the burdens of global citizenship continue to bind us together. A change of leadership in Washington will not lift this burden. In this new century, Americans and Europeans alike will be required to do more, not less.”

Oh, there’s your answer. We cannot allow pesky parochial American concepts like the first, second, fourth, tenth and fourteenth amendments — or indeed the US Constitution — to overshadow our “global citizens’ responsibility” to, well, do whatever the ruling bureaucracies of Europe and the US decide we should do.

“Change?” Not really.

No, seriously, I could swear the water in this pot is getting a little hotter…

Posted at Rad Geek

These are scenes from a SWAT team training exercise in Floyd County, Georgia, in which a squad of heavily armed paramilitaries practice storming, sweeping, and occupying a house, while dressed in military-style fatigues and heavily armed with assault rifles, body armor, gas grenades, etc. The training exercise is part of a recruitment video that the Floyd County Public Safety department is preparing, in order to show potential [job] applicants what Floyd County Public Safety is all about, apparently because Floyd County cops want to hire on even more of the kind of people who would be attracted to the prospect of doing things like this all day, and who believe that this sort of thing is what policing is all about:

And here’s the reality…

Molyneux on Anarchy

Via Brad Spangler

The bipartisan surveillance state

Anthony Gregory in the San Diego Union Tribune:

The Democratic Congress passed and President Bush signed the “FISA Amendments Act of 2008,” legalizing the president’s illegal wiretapping program.

The law allows broad warrantless surveillance of Americans in the United States, so long as the call or e-mail is thought to be international.

Eavesdropping on domestic communications is legal for a week before court papers even have to be filed. The telecom companies that cooperated with Bush are immune from civil lawsuits. Most important, the administration’s illegal conduct has been retroactively approved and future administrations have wider powers than ever to spy on Americans.

The Democratic leadership and virtually all congressional Republicans approved the law. In a complete reversal of his campaign promise, so did Sen. Barack Obama. Last October, his campaign announced, “To be clear: Barack will support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies.” Instead, he voted to prevent a filibuster and then he voted for the bill.

Democrats and Obama supporters defend the betrayal with hollow claims that the law actually protects civil liberties. Why then was Bush so eager to sign it? Missouri Republican Sen. Christopher Bond, a leader in this “compromise,” says “the White House got a better deal than even they had hoped.”

Two years ago, the Democrats seemed outraged after we learned Bush had ordered the National Security Agency, a military outfit, to spy on Americans without warrants, in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Now they control Congress with good odds at the presidency. Power and the hope for more power corrupt.

Eva Orner on the Alex Jones Show

Posted
at Anomaly TV by Floyd Anderson

  

Link to Video

7/17/2008 – Alex welcomes Australian film producer Eva Orner, who produced the documentaries Taxi to the Dark Side and Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson

Listen to the August 29, 2002 Interview with Hunter S. Thompson by The Media Report's Mick O'Regan

Latest Barr video: ‘The Time for Liberty’

Posted at IPR by Fred Church

The following YouTube video from the Bob Barr campaign was released late last night and announced today in a campaign e-mail from Jeri Barr. The video juxtaposes Barr media appearances, quotes from the historical figures, Libertarian National Convention video and archival footage of various conservative and libertarian leaders against iconic images of a government overgrown and antagonistic towards its own citizens. In Mrs. Barr’s opinion, “if every American could watch this video, Bob would win their hearts, minds AND votes.”

Ohio Libertarian Party is Safely on the Ballot

posted at Ballot Access News

The Ohio Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner, has decided not to appeal last week’s U.S. District Court order putting the Libertarian Party on the ballot. This will be the first time any party, other than the Democratic and Republican Parties, has appeared on the ballot in Ohio since 2000.

Wayne Root denies ‘Iranian cockroaches’ comment

Posted at Libertarian Peacenik

According to the Classical Liberal blog, “land developer Treg Loyden” spoke with Wayne Allyn Root on the campaign trail, and heard Root say:

“America should just let Israel alone, defend itself, and go nuke the heck out of those Iranian cockroaches. Blow ‘em all up… just nuke the place for a thousand years.”

UPDATE: I contacted Root through his website, seeking clarification. On July 20th, Root responded as follows:

“NOT accurate at all. Ask Steve Kubby. He was a witness. He backs up that this was NOT what was said. So ridiculous. I’m busy Thomas traveling the nation and winning over non-Libertarians, Republicans, Reagan Democrats, independents to our message.

“6% poll numbers nationwide (translating to 6 to 7 million voters) certainly prove the value of our message.

“And by the way I’ve done dozen upon dozen of radio interviews (certainly more than any LP VP ever)…my responses on Iraq and EVERY issue have been well received by the American public. I take live calls across USA from total strangers…and to date EVERY single caller has been won over by my appearances. We’re winning lots of fans!

Have a nice day.
Wayne”

Barr polls double digits in NH, closing in on getting ballot access

Reported in the Manchester, NH Union Leader newspaper:

Although he’s yet to secure a spot on the New Hampshire presidential ballot, Republican-turned-Libertarian Bob Barr visited Manchester yesterday, drawing attention and, possibly votes, away from Republican John McCain.

Barr visited Murphy’s Tap Room in downtown Manchester, where about 90 people listened to his calls for small government and personal freedom, and nodded agreement to his notion that the country’s two major political parties are headed in the same direction.

“Americans have this sense about them — that we can take advantage of in this election cycle — that the system is not serving them well,” said Barr, a former four-term congressman from Georgia.

His New Hampshire visit comes the same day that John McCain visited the Granite State, which McCain has twice won in hard-fought Republican Party primaries.

McCain said he’s not discounting Barr’s potential impact on the November election.

“You take everything seriously, and it means I’ve got to campaign hard,” McCain said early yesterday. McCain said New Hampshire voters have a very independent streak.

But for Barr to do damage, he has to get on the New Hampshire ballot. He needs the signatures of 1,500 registered voters from each of the state’s two congressional districts, and state GOP Chairman Fergus Cullen said he’s yet to hear any reports of people gathering signatures for Barr.

But Rich Tomasso, media director for the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire, said Barr has about 3,500 signatures in New Hampshire so far. He is shooting for a goal of 5,000 signatures before the petition period closes in two weeks, he said.

Barr said he had no idea McCain would be in New Hampshire the same day he was. He and Tomasso said Barr visited the state after scoring 10 percent of the New Hampshire vote in an Internet poll recently conducted by Zogby International. It was the highest percentage in the country for Barr, who has the Libertarian Party endorsement for president..

Another Libertarian, Massachusetts resident George Phillies, appears to be the closest to being certified for the New Hampshire ballot. The Secretary of State’s office said Phillies needs about 130 more signatures from the 2nd Congressional District to qualify.

Full article here.

DC 2nd Amendment plaintiff Dick Heller running for US House Delegate as a Libertarian

Posted at
Ballot Access News

Dick Anthony Heller, the plaintiff in last month’s famous U.S. Supreme Court decision that said the Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a gun, is petitioning as the Libertarian nominee for Delegate to the U.S. House from the District of Columbia. He needs 3,000 signatures.

If he gets 7,500 votes (or if Bob Barr gets 7,500 votes for president within D.C.), the D.C. Libertarian Party will be a ballot-qualified party for the first time. The last time the D.C. Libertarian Party made a push to win 7,500 votes for any partisan office (other than just president) was in 2000. In that year, it ran Robert Kampia for Delegate. He polled 4,594 votes.

The advantages of being a qualified party include obtaining a tally of how many registered members that party has, as well as a presidential primary, plus a primary for other office. The only other nationally-organized minor parties that have ever been qualified in the District are the Statehood Green Party currently, and the Socialist Workers Party, and the U.S. Labor Party, which had that status 1976 through 1978.

Rasmussen: Majority of small l libertarians planning to vote for Obama

Rasmussen reports that

Libertarian voters make up 4% of the nation’s likely voters and they favor Barack Obama over John McCain by a 53% to 38% margin. Three percent (3%) would vote for some other candidate and 5% are not sure. These results, from an analysis of 15,000 Likely Voter interviews conducted by Rasmussen Reports, challenges the conventional wisdom which assumes that strong support for a Libertarian candidate would hurt John McCain.

In June, Rasmussen Reports asked 15,000 Likely Voters if they were fiscally conservative, moderate, or liberal and if they were socially conservative, moderate, or liberal. This created a total of 16 possible combinations (not sure was a fourth option for both questions). However, 87% of voters fit into one of seven combinations. Libertarians, defined as fiscally conservative and socially liberal, are the smallest of these seven combinations.

John Finan: the struggle goes on

This is the entirety of a very long and very bizarre and yet still somehow surprisingly very tedious email message from John Finan, formerly a candidate for the LP’s presidential nomination.

I’d say he makes Robert Milnes look normal, but that’s somewhat damning-Milnes-with-faint-praise. He’s sort of a Milnes with more time and resources, I guess.

ProCLaMAtion

Pronunciation:\\prä-klə-mā-shən\

Function: noun

Date: 14th century

Definition

1: the action of proclaiming: the state of being proclaimed

2: something proclaimed; specifically: an official formal public announcement

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ProCLaMAtion

John M. Finan Does Hereby Announce his Re-Entrance into The

2008 Race to Become

The 44th President of The United States Of America

FINAN 2008/12 24×7

“The Apocalypse”

“Ushering in One Thousand Years of Peace”

www.JohnMFinan.com

Please enjoy music while reading

May we suggest the music of your choice or:

Guaranteed – Eddie Vedder http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3SxCph5I1Qor

Neil Diamond – Coming to America http://youtube.com/watch?v=9ttDUGM-1mU

u2 its a beautiful day - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omFdpnSu57Uor

You kan haz libertee lolcats!!!

UPDATE UPDATE: Back up!

Bureaucrash has just launched a gallery of libertarian lolcats, such as…

Repent sinners!

From Liv Films, an editorial about gay marriage, fat marriage, eating lobsters, and more. Mona of Liv Films was the “Ron Paul Girl,” but most of their recent work has been non-political. LMFAO (laughing my fat ass off)….

LP tackles raging Boehner!

originally posted by GE at IPR. Headline by Fred Church in the comments.

In response to House GOP leader John Boehner’s comments to Reason’s Dave Weigel — that conservatives considering a vote for Bob Barr “might as well vote for Barack Obama” — the LP has issued a press release with harsh words for the GOP and its leadership.

Libertarian Party spokesperson Andrew Davis said that Boehner’s comments “reflect the same fallacy of thought that has put America in its current situation, with neither Republicans or Democrats offering the solutions voters want to hear.”

Davis also said Boehner’s comments were “a symptom of the same delusion that cost Republicans control in 2006.”

Read the entire release here.

Top issues

Perhaps you kind folks can help me out. What would you say are the top issues of the next 10 years or so, for both libertarians and regular citizens, and for the U.S. and the world?

On an unrelated “Peter Orvetti Is An Idiot” note — can anyone recommend good, easy-to-understand sources on libertarian monetary policy (i.e. gold standard) and why the Fed is bad?

Robert Milnes: “Open Letter to Progressive & Libertarian Activists and Candidates”

The following was written by Robert Milnes:

We all know what is going to happen. A democrat OR a republican is going to win the Presidency and just about all other ballots. Progressives might win a few ballot initiatives & issues. Yet a reasonable strategy for a competitive progressive/libertarian fusion ticket and coordination of the downticket vote has been proposed and NOT TRIED. YOU must speak up & DEMAND that this strategy be tried by the Green and Libertarian parties. It is late but maybe not too late. SPEAK UP & ACT or you know you will lose. It does very little good to protest in the streets or write letters to the editor or pass out leaflets or boycott etc. The key to election victory is held by the two parties. It is UP TO YOU. Yes, YOU!

Press Release: Todd Andrew Barnett now only candidate in BTP Vice Chair race; Barnett thanks Jason Gatties for his brief run

The following is a press release from the Todd Andrew Barnett campaign for BTP Vice Chair.

For Immediate Release
POC, Todd Andrew Barnett, BTP Vice-Chair
ToddAndrewBarnett@gmail.com
(586) 725-9218

New Baltimore, MI – Todd Andrew Barnett, who currently serves as the national Boston Tea Party’s Vice Chair, is announcing that Boston Tea Party Vice Chair candidate Jason Gatties has dropped out of the BTP Vice Chair race. In a private email that was sent to Barnett, Gatties has expressly told him that he is withdrawing his bid to run for the seat to focus on his Lake Michigan College Board of Trustee race.

Gatties, who currently also serves as Secretary of the Boston Tea Party of Michigan, says that a new candidate has entered the Board of Trustee race. “Even though this is a ‘elect 3′ situation, it looks like I will need to beat this new opponent should I have any chance at winning in November,” he wrote. “She has very strong ties to the school, so I will really need to focus on her if I am to win.”

He continues, “So, with that in mind, I will kindly withdraw my previous announcement that I will seek the BTP Vice Chair seat. This new development in my race for LMC Board of Trustees must now dominate my focus.”

Gatties’ announcement of his decision to withdraw his Vice-Chair bid has become both a complete surprise and disappointment for Barnett. However, despite those sentiments, he is saddened by the decision and supports his respected colleague for it. “I am deeply shocked and disappointed by Jason’s decision to withdraw from this race,” said Barnett. “But I do understand and respect it. He has to do what’s in the best interest of his college board race, and I, for one, would have done the same thing if I were in his shoes. His local, non-partisan race is more paramount than this race, and I praise him for doing what is right.”

But there appears to be a future in Gatties’ party office prospects. “I may seek the Vice Chair or Chair seat with the Michigan BTP, a move which may help lighten Todd’s load since I do have the most ‘political experience’ within our group, especially when it comes to election law & petitioning,” Gatties wrote.

“Whatever Jason decides to do after this, he has my full support,” said Barnett. “I truly mean that.”

Gatties has also indicated his support for Barnett as Vice-Chair, especially with the Party’s second national convention coming up on October 24. “When it comes time to nominate a Vice Chair for the BTP National, I will nominate & endorse Todd for that position,” he wrote.

“Jason is a great man of wisdom and strength in this Party,” said Barnett. “I welcome his support wholeheartedly and accept it in advance.” Thanking him for his Vice-Chair bid, Barnett notes, “He deserves my thanks and respect for his interest and enthusiasm that he brought into this race. The BTP is stronger and more united than ever, thanks to good and honorable people like him. He’s a good and decent American and a patriot. I urge my fellow BTP members to thank Jason for his run and support his race, as he will need it now more than ever.”

The Boston Tea Party, which was formed in 2006, is the fastest growing libertarian alternative, having successfully chartered more than nine affiliates. It has the World’s Smallest Political Platform, which reads as the following:

The Boston Tea Party supports reducing the size, scope and power of government at all levels and on all issues, and opposes increasing the size, scope and power of government at any level, for any purpose.

Status Update

For those who care, here’s a brief update on what I’m working on — and how it will impact my blogging and other online writing.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve been planning a brief book, hopefully to run about 100 print pages (about 28,000 words) on my political philosophy, inspired heavily by the works of Dr. Mary Ruwart. As I work on it, I may post sections on my blog, as well as on Last Free Voice. In fact, I restarted my blog primarily to help me with this project.

I had been trying to have one post per weekday on the blog, but I am not going to try to keep up that pace while working on the book project. As those of you who look at this blog on its actual site, as opposed to on Facebook or LFV, know, I occasionally post videos that I find, political or otherwise. These feeds do not convey, so if you want to see everything, just head to the blog itself. (I will continue to post some other stuff to LFV as well.)

While on the subject of Facebook, I have decided to stop adding new names for a while, since I was loading up with too many people I do not actually have the pleasure to know. If you do want to be one of my Facebook “friends” (or if you were one but are not anymore), please send me a request.

Newest Barr brochure, distributed by LPHQ, fails to even mention the LP

A tri-fold brochure, in both color and black and white, has been distributed to LP state chairs by LP Media Director Andrew Davis. This brochure is about Bob Barr’s presidential campaign, and can be seen at color-trifold

Nowhere does the brochure mention the Libertarian Party, or even use the word “libertarian”. It also gives no information for those who would like to join or contribute to the Libertarian Party.  In fact, unless someone just happens to know that Barr is the LP’s nominee, they won’t even know that he is a Libertarian candidate.

What is wrong with this picture?

Update: Shane Cory continuing compensation from LP

Several members of the LNC have spoken with the LNC’s legal counsel, William Hall, with regard to the LP continuing to compensate Shane Cory months after his resignation; you can read the original entry here.  They have been informed that Mr. Cory was owed payment for accrued leave and a bonus for the year ended 3/31/08, but that otherwise his salary ended upon his resignation.

Why LNC Chair Bill Redpath couldn’t have just been up front about this (and the fact that the payments would extend into June, and perhaps July) when he was asked last month by LNC member Angela Keaton, no one seems to know.

‘Underground Libertarian Party’

I stumbled across this archived webpage of the seemingly defunct “Underground Libertarian Party”, which called for the “limitation of the state to minimal functions of educational funding, the protection of the commons (environment), the enforcement of civil and criminal justice and rights and defense of the territorial integrity of the United States” and the “creation of a federation of self governing towns, communes, co-ops, neighborhood and municipal councils, with the goal of the eventual replacement of the state and federal governments with these self governing federations of communities,” among other things. Anyone ever hear of this group?

Barr’s Leadership PAC Quarterly Report

Bob Barr’s Starbucks and Family Employment Fund Leadership PAC filed its quarterly FEC report. I’ve had no time for more than a quick peek, but my main interest was where Barr’s PAC would be investing its funds. For those following along at home, the political contributions come at the end of the report (except for the very last item, which is an intriguing return of $3,000 to a donor). Per usual practice, most of the funds (by an obscenely large margin, in my opinion) seem to have been invested in staff, trips, consulting fees, and more fundraising.

Barr seems to have cooled off on the contributions to Republicans, mainly by the expediency of donating to hardly any campaigns at all. The Fund made the following contributions:

Advocates for Self-Government: $1,000

LP GA: $1,000

Allen Buckley for Senate (Lib): $1,000

Bill Redpath for Senate (Lib): $2,300 – that might go some way to make up for giving Redpath’s Republican opponent a large gift in the previous quarter.

Kell for Superior Court: $150 – It’s unclear to me what, if any, political party Tell claims as his own.

Committee to Elect Woody Thompson: $1,000 – this one is interesting.  Thompson was apparently a Republican commissioner who lost, then switched parties (to DEMOCRATIC, not Lib) to run in the primary against the woman who defeated him (there’s a runoff scheduled for August 5).  Sort of the Joe Lieberman of Cobb County politics, I guess.  So Barr – the LP’s presidential candidate – is making a contribution to a Democrat who used to be a Republican. I guess this low-visibility Republican creep is better than the high-visibility Republican creeps he threw money at last term. But the real question is this: as a de facto member of the Party’s leadership by virtue of his top-of-the-ticket candidacy and former role on the LNC, didn’t Barr feel any calling to encourage one of the local Libertarians to run for that spot – or at least not discourage them by supporting a candidate from another party? I know ballot access is tricky, so maybe it was too late to get a Lib on the ballot, but I personally still think it’s bad form. And it doesn’t help that this guy’s claim to fame as a commissioner seems to be that he brings home the bacon.

Cops outraged because librarian refused them the right to seize public computers without a warrant in missing child case

From the Associated Press:

RANDOLPH, Vt. (AP) — Children’s librarian Judith Flint was getting ready for the monthly book discussion group for 8- and 9-year-olds on “Love That Dog” when police showed up.

They weren’t kidding around: Five state police detectives wanted to seize Kimball Public Library’s public access computers as they frantically searched for a 12-year-old girl, acting on a tip that she sometimes used the terminals.

Flint demanded a search warrant, touching off a confrontation that pitted the privacy rights of library patrons against the rights of police on official business.

“It’s one of the most difficult situations a library can face,” said Deborah Caldwell-Stone, deputy director of intellectual freedom issues for the American Library Association.

Investigators did obtain a warrant about eight hours later, but the June 26 standoff in the 105-year-old, red brick library on Main Street frustrated police and had fellow librarians cheering Flint.

“What I observed when I came in were a bunch of very tall men encircling a very small woman,” said the library’s director, Amy Grasmick, who held fast to the need for a warrant after coming to the rescue of the 4-foot-10 Flint.

Library records and patron privacy have been hot topics since the passage of the U.S. Patriot Act after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. Library advocates have accused the government of using the anti-terrorism law to find out — without proper judicial oversight or after-the-fact reviews — what people research in libraries.

But the investigation of Brooke Bennett’s disappearance wasn’t a Patriot Act case.

“We had to balance out the fact that we had information that we thought was true that Brooke Bennett used those computers to communicate on her MySpace account,” said Col. James Baker, director of the Vermont State Police. “We had to balance that out with protecting the civil liberties of everybody else, and this was not an easy decision to make.”

Brooke, from Braintree, vanished the day before the June 26 confrontation in the children’s section of the tiny library. Investigators went to the library chasing a lead that she had used the computers there to arrange a rendezvous.

The 12-year-old was found a week later, murdered and buried in a shallow grave near her uncle’s home.  The uncle has been charged with murder, and the allegation about public computers was all just a ruse by him to send police on a wild goose chase.

The case still raises important questions about the privacy of information stored on public computers, however.  It has also not yet been explained why it took police eight hours to get a warrant in a missing child case, nor has anyone made a legitimate argument for why the computers should have been just handed over to police without a warrant.  It still appears that police thought they could just bully the librarians into handing over the computers.

Steve Newton scores great interview with NC gubernatorial candidate, Dr. Michael Munger

The following exclusive interview with Dr. Michael Munger was conducted by Steve Newton and posted at Delaware Libertarian, and is reproduced here with his permission.  Great job, Steve!  Don’t forget to click the “more” button to read the entire interview, which is lengthy.

Dr Michael Munger, Libertarian candidate for Governor of North Carolina, does not dodge questions.

You may not like his answers, but as Toby Keith says, you’ll know just where he stands.

Mike is so committed to keeping himself and his party in the debate in the Tarheel State this year that he was willing to take what must have been at least an hour out of his schedule to answer some detailed questions for me.

[An aside to my non-Libertarian friends, especially in Delaware: is there anything really fringe about these answers? You tell me. I'm specially asking you, geek, pandora, and Dana Garrett, because I'm really curious about your perceptions.)

At any rate, here are the questions and the answers. Some are quite long; other succinct to the point of web addresses.

All of them--it bears saying again--are responsive to the intent of the question.

I wonder how well Bev Perdue or Jim McCrory would do with these same questions.

1. If elected Governor of North Carolina, what would be your three major priorities for your term of office?

First priority: I issue an executive order placing an immediate moratorium on capital punishment in the state. Then I commute the sentences of everyone on death row to life in prison without parole.

Second priority: I announce a new task force, composed of development experts and economists, headed by North Carolina State University's Mike Walden [The Wm Neal Reynolds Distinguished Professor of Agriculture], to look at ways to improve the attractiveness of North Carolina for new jobs. We would focus on the big three: improved education, at both primary/secondary and community college level; improved infrastructure in highways/utilities, and improved regulation/paperwork burdens for small businesses. Then, I announce ANOTHER new task force, composed of city planners and experts on road construction, to make recommendations for the use of the Highway Trust Fund. I would work to depoliticize road construction, using something like the Federal Base Closing Commission, to make recommendations about roads. And then I would publicize every instance where the legislature deviates from the expert recommendations. I actually think that lots of folks in the legislature would welcome the chance to be able to do the right thing, relieved of political pressure to bring home the asphalt bacon.

Third priority: I would create a study commission to check over the cases of all citizens incarcerated in NC’s prisons for purely nonviolent crimes. (Embezzlement is violent, by the way, even though it is theft by stealth.) These crimes would include: possession of small amounts of any drug, prostitution, etc. And then I would take the resulting list of nonviolent offenders, after it had been checked to make sure that NO crimes of violence had been committed by anyone on the list, and commute their sentences to time served. The money saved by reducing the number of folks in the steel hotels of our state would be spent on treatment and addiction programs, and adjustment programs to try to reduce recidivism.

Barr (finally) makes a drug stance …. or does he?

According to The Houston Chronicle:

Barr said his presidential agenda would include getting the federal government out of the war on drugs, letting states decide what drug offenses should be prosecuted and whether marijuana possession should be allowed for medicinal purposes.

Todd Andrew Barnett to seek re-election as BTP Vice Chair

The following is a press release issued by or on behalf of Todd Andrew Barnett.

For Immediate Release
POC, Todd Andrew Barnett, BTP Vice-Chair
ToddAndrewBarnett@gmail.com
(586) 725-9218

New Baltimore, MI — Boston Tea Party Vice-Chairman Todd Andrew Barnett has announced that he will seek re-election to the office of the Boston Tea Party Vice-Chair. The National Boston Tea Party’s convention, which will hold elections for all seven seats of the Boston Tea National Committee, will be held on this upcoming October 24.

Barnett, who is also the Chair of the Boston Tea Party of Michigan, announces his run hours after Boston Tea Party member and Boston Tea Party of Michigan Secretary Jason Gatties has declared his intention to run for the same seat hours ago. Barnett was appointed to the post after the recent resignation of Dr. Tom Stevens, who also resigned from the Party shortly after that.

“I am surprised but also elated to hear that my good friend Jason Gatties is launching his bid for my seat in the Party,” said Barnett. “I’m elated because I love a good debate and challenge with my friend. If he sticks with his campaign, it will surely be the most contentious yet most exciting race in the history of the BTP. That I promise you.”

Barnett, who had told a couple of his friends of his intention to run for re-election to the seat, says that his work on the National Committee isn’t done. “There’s more to do as the Vice-Chair of the BTP,” he said. “Membership needs to continue to grow, assist the next chairman with organizing more state affiliates, and build the Party from the ground up. This is a grass-roots endeavor, and my work is cut out for me.”

Citing his record on the Committee as having paved the way for party growth and success, he believes that his top priority is to ensure that the Party will be a force to be reckoned with by 2012. “My job as the Vice-Chair isn’t done,” said the vice-chairman. “I believe that fostering a good rapport with the next chair as I have done with Chairman Jim Davidson and future state affiliates is the key to the Party’s success. There’s more work to be done. We’ve barely scratched the surface this election season, but we have made a lot of excellent progress along the way. I believe that I am qualified to make sure that we are the Party that accomplishes that.”

The Boston Tea Party was formed in July of 2006 on the heels of the disastrous Libertarian National Convention in Portland, Oregon, in which over 80 percent of that party’s platform was shredded. It is the fastest growing libertarian alternative, having the World’s Smallest Political Platform which reads as the following:

The Boston Tea Party supports reducing the size, scope and power of government at all levels and on all issues, and opposes increasing the size, scope and power of government at any level, for any purpose.

Why is Shane Cory still being paid by the LP?

We were all under the impression that former LP Executive Director Shane Cory resigned from his position. The official announcement was made May 3rd. Since that time, Cory has announced that he is working for the Bob Barr campaign, and in fact I’ve gotten multiple emails from him in that capacity, and I am sure others have as well, since they are merely for those who subscribed to updates from the Barr campaign.

Of course, Cory allegedly resigned due to having issued an unauthorized press release, calling for greater government intervention in child pornography; the press release was issued as a seeming response to the stance of LP Presidential candidate Mary Ruwart.

However, according to the official LNC reports, Shane Cory is still an employee, and he is still being compensated every two weeks.

In fact, since Shane Cory’s alleged resignation was announced by the LP, he has received a staggering $17,870.97 of members’ hard earned money.

Shane Cory
5 Burwell Place
Stafford, Virginia 225540000
06/11/2008
Employee Net Pay 3156.95

Shane Cory
5 Burwell Place
Stafford, Virginia 225540000
06/25/2008
Employee Net Pay 1216.13

Total compensation for June, after his resignation: $ 4373.08

Shane Cory
5 Burwell Place
Stafford, Virginia 225540000
05/14/2008
Employee Net Pay 3156.95

Shane Cory
5 Burwell Place
Stafford, Virginia 225540000
05/14/2008
Employee Net Pay 7184.00

Shane Cory
5 Burwell Place
Stafford, Virginia 225540000
05/28/2008
Employee Net Pay 3156.94

Total compensation for May, after his resignation: $ 13,497.89

The question thus arises, has Shane Cory actually left his LP position, as members were told by the LP? Why is he still being compensated as an “employee”, and at the same general rate as when he was employed by the LP? Did the LNC enter into a contract with Cory, wherein they were required to pay him even after he resigned in disgrace? Or is he still working for the LP despite what members were told?

Even if he was party to a contract which required additional compensation upon resignation, Washington DC law very specifically states that employees who quit are to be paid on the next scheduled payday or within seven days, whichever occurs first.

Given that the LNC barely has enough money to function, why are they still paying someone who allegedly resigned over two months ago? Why is Corey being paid by the LNC while employed by the Barr campaign? Was he being paid by the LNC and working for Barr pre-nomination, in violation of federal election law?

These same questions arose when the May report was released, and Bill Redpath’s explanation was that the May compensation was for salary owed, accumulated vacation, and 2007 annual bonus. That explanation satisfied critics for that time, but since he was still being compensated in June, clearly there is far more to this than the LNC would have us believe.

The S-Word

In Kansas City last week, John McCain said Barack Obama had the “most extreme” Senate voting record, I guess referring to National Journal’s annual rating of voting records during the previous year, which found Obama the most liberal senator based on 99 key votes. (Of course, since someone — Sen. Jim DeMint — was also ranked most conservative, it could be argued both Obama and DeMint registered as equally “extreme”.) After the event, McCain was asked if he thought Obama was an extremist. He replied, “His voting record…is more to the left than the announced socialist in the United States Senate, Bernie Sanders of Vermont.” Pressed on whether he thinks Obama is a socialist, McCain replied, “I don’t know. All I know is his voting record, and that’s what people usually judge their elected representatives by.” The Obama camp took this as an insult, issuing a statement saying in part that McCain was issuing “the same old tired political attacks that the American people are sick of.”

But what’s wrong with calling someone a socialist? It is not — or at least should not be — a dirty word. The “same old tired” politics is really the castigation of entire groups because of reasonable but minority philosophical stances. Liberals were so cowed by attacks on their proud tradition that they rebranded themselves “progressives”. Before 1978 or so, “conservative” was deemed a slander.

During an appearance on The Colbert Report earlier this year, George Will summed up the philosophical divide in American politics quite elegantly: “Conservatives tend to favor freedom and are willing to accept inequalities of outcome from the free market, liberals are for equality of outcome and are willing to sacrifice and circumscribe freedom in order to get it.” While Will defended his stance as a proponent of the conservative view, he did not trash-talk the liberal view. His simple summary makes great sense. If one believes freedom to be paramount, inequality is a necessary side-effect, as the government will not be intervening to boost some and hold others back. If one believes equality to be most important, restrictions on personal activity are required to keep those with certain advantages in check.

I heard Kurt Vonnegut speak years ago, when I was still in college, and at one point he thundered, “‘Socialist’ is not a dirty word!” While Vonnegut’s democratic socialism was hardly a secret, I’ve always thought it odd, coming from the author of “Harrison Bergeron“, probably the best cautionary tale of regulation with the goal of absolute equality ever written. I, of course, am not a socialist, though I once was, and I agree that “socialist” is not a dirty word. We need to get beyond such simplistic attacks in order to have an honest debate about the merits of freedom versus forced equality.

Antiwar Radio: guest David Bromwich

ANTIWAR RADIO: David Bromwich on the Scott Horton Show

Los Angeles – July 21, 2008 – Professor David Bromwich will be the featured guest on the Scott Horton Show at Antiwar Radio on Monday, July 21st , at 1:15PM Eastern.

David Bromwich will discuss his article “Benny Morris Justifies Israel’s Coming Attack on Iran.”

David Bromwich teaches literature at Yale. He has written on politics and culture for The New Republic, The Nation, The New York Review of Books, and other magazines.

The Scott Horton Show airs Monday through Friday from 12PM-2PM Eastern on KAOS 92.7FM. Additional feeds and archives available at Antiwar Radio.

For more information on Scott Horton or Antiwar Radio please contact:

Angela Keaton, Producer
akeaton@antiwar.com
www.antiwar.com
(323) 512-7095

Bloggers, show your support for Antiwar.com with the Antiwar Pledge Ring.

PTSD-ridden Army medic in famous photo dead

From Yahoo News:

A photograph taken in the first days of the war had made the medic from New York’s Long Island a symbol of the United States’ good intentions in the Middle East. When he returned home, he was hailed as a hero.

But for most of the past five years, the 31-year-old soldier had writhed in a private hell, shooting at imaginary enemies and dodging nonexistent roadside bombs, sleeping in a closet bunker and trying desperately to huff away the “demons” in his head. When his personal problems became public, efforts were made to help him, but nothing seemed to work.

This broken, frightened man had once been the embodiment of American might and compassion. If the military couldn’t save him, Knapp thought, what hope was there for the thousands suffering in anonymity?

He was standing next to a soldier during a firefight when a boy rode up on a bicycle and stopped beside a weapon lying in the dirt. Under his breath, the soldier beside Dwyer whispered, “Don’t pick it up, kid. Don’t pick it up.”

The boy reached for the weapon and was blasted off his bike.

In late 2004, Dwyer sent e-mails to Zinn, wondering if the photographer had “heard anything else about the kid” from the photo, and claiming he was “doing fine out here in Fort Bliss, Texas.”

But Dwyer wasn’t doing fine. Earlier that year, he’d been prescribed antidepressants and referred for counseling by a doctor. Still, his behavior went from merely odd to dangerous.

One day, he swerved to avoid what he thought was a roadside bomb and crashed into a convenience store sign. He began answering his apartment door with a pistol in his hand and would call friends from his car in the middle of the night, babbling and disoriented from sniffing inhalants.

Matina told friends that he was seeing imaginary Iraqis all around him. Despite all this, the Army had not taken his weapons.

In the summer of 2005, he was removed to the barracks for 72 hours after trashing the apartment looking for an enemy infiltrator. He was admitted to Bliss’ William Beaumont Army Medical Center for treatment of his inhalant addiction.

Read the article in its entirety by clicking here.

Netroots Nation blogger asks Barr about whether Clinton impeachment stopped Congress from impeaching Bush

The following is from dday at Hullabaloo.

Transcript (provided by interviewing blogger):

Me: Rep. Barr, do you believe the impeachment of President Clinton was a good deterrent to the expansion of executive power and the establishment of the rule of law for the executive branch?

Barr: (chuckling) Good Lord no!

Me: So do you regret your role in the impeachment of President Clinton as House manager?

Barr: No, having public officials adhere to and be answerable to the rule of law is very, very important. What distresses me greatly is that Congress has not done, in the case of this President, what they should have done. And that is to inquire into what this Administration has done with regard to breaking the laws, on the electronic surveillance of people without warrants, the improper use of US Attorneys, etc.

Me: Would you have endorsed the impeachment articles that were referred to the House Judiciary Committee last week?

Barr: I’m testifying this Thursday before the House on some of these issues, not in the context of impeachment, but in the context of the rule of law and the separation of powers. So we will be getting into some of these things. But I think it would make no sense at this point to do impeachment–

Me: At what point would it have made sense? What year would it have made sense?

Barr: You’re not going to let me answer a question!

Me: I’m sorry, I’m just trying to follow up.

Barr: Go ahead, ask your question.

Me: Well, you’re talking about a timeline, that it wouldn’t make sense 6 months before the end of the President’s term to begin an impeachment inquiry…

Barr: We’re getting into the heart of a Presidential campaign. Anything that Congress would do at this point would be seen as totally political, and probably from their standpoint be counter-productive, because the other side would rally around the President, and possibly hurt the other side in the election.

Me: I have one final question. Do you feel that the impeachment of President Clinton, in effect, poisoned the well of the practice of impeachment, and always made it a political act, so that the current executive can always count on the fact that it would be seen as political to call for accountability in this fashion?

Barr: Impeachment is always going to be somewhat political, you are never going to get away from that. One of the things that I learned, and what I wrote about in my book, is that when I filed in November of 1997, the very first inquiry of impeachment, none of us knew anything about Monica Lewinsky. That didn’t come up until three or four months later. The basis of which I believed it was necessary and appropriate had nothing to do with that, it had to do with national security matters, improper campaign donations from foreign sources and so forth. But even had we moved in that direction, the Republicans didn’t want to, that would have been seen as political. You’re never going to get away from that. That’s why it’s so important in any impeachment to lay your groundwork, marshal your evidence, have those Congressional hearings first, rather than reaching your conclusion first.

Barr crashes liberal blogger convention, is welcomed …. but only if he pays the regular entrance fee

Barr, the Libertarian Party’s nominee for president, is holding court right now in the third floor lobby, surrounded by a gaggle of fans. His reception is oddly affectionate for a former Republican. One blogger looks like he’s about to ask a question—instead, he asks for an autograph. Another hands Barr his cell phone. “Can you talk to my brother for a second?” Another guy wants to ask him about his appearance in Borat. While Barr is answering a question about wiretapping, a kid goes up behind him and poses like he’s about to beat him up while his friend takes a picture.

What brings him to town? Barr is giving the keynote address this evening at RightOnline, the rival conservative blogger conference being held across the city. His Netroots Nation visit wasn’t anticipated, but conference political director Josh Orton said he was welcome as long as he paid the regular entrance fee.

Read the Slate blog entry here.

I rarely give Barr kudos, but given Obama’s recent turnabout on some important issues – and his ongoing dispute with some of the Netroots Nation bloggers – this was actually a pretty smart move on Barr’s part.  He couldn’t eclipse the appearance by Al Gore, of course, but it seems like he left some liberal bloggers with a positive impression.

I’d still like to see that photo they described, though. 

New York Times covers Barr’s Ohio court victory

CINCINNATI — Ohio must include the Libertarian Party’s nominees on its ballot in November, a court has ruled, complicating Senator John McCain’s effort to win conservative votes in a hotly contested state rich in electoral votes.

The Libertarian candidate, Bob Barr, formerly a Republican congressman from Georgia, will lead his party’s ticket, which includes the vice-presidential candidate, Wayne Allyn Root, and candidates for governor and several Congressional seats.

“Ballot restrictions are all designed to prevent competition for the Democrats and Republicans,” said Russell Verney, Mr. Barr’s campaign manager, who said inclusion on the ballot with a party banner should help attract more votes than if Mr. Barr were on the ballot as an independent candidate.

The court order, issued Thursday, directs the Ohio secretary of state, Jennifer L. Brunner, to disregard her office’s current guidelines for ballot inclusion, which require eligible parties to gather valid signatures equal to one-half of 1 percent of the total vote in 2006 or to have garnered at least 5 percent of the last election’s votes. The Libertarians submitted 6,545 signatures in March, far below the approximately 20,000 needed. Ms. Brunner’s office has not decided whether to appeal the ruling.

Read the article in its entirety here.

Many thanks to Michael H. Wilson for bringing this to our attention!

Why The Libertarian Party Is Still Better

Some have been claiming that the unwillingness of some Libertarians to actively undermine the party with baseless criticisms, despite the less-than-perfect nominee we received, represents “treason” or a “lack of principle.”

They’re not paying attention. Many of us are supporting the party despite our very public misgivings about the presidential ticket.

Compare that attitude to the dressing down that Democrats, angry that Hillary Clinton — who won the popular vote in the Democrat contest — is getting from former Hillary delegates.

It seems that a large number of Hillary’s uppity 18 million supporters are getting a bit too uppity for the “superdelegates,” and the superdelegates are letting their irritation with the little people show.

Dear Democratic Friends:

2008 is a Democratic year-at all levels in all the states. The opportunity is ours. We just have to seize it.

We experienced an exciting, intense, sometimes difficult, campaign to nominate our presidential candidate. Now it’s over. Barack Obama won.

I supported Hillary Clinton and am proud and pleased that I did. But she lost. Barack Obama won. It’s over.

It is time for all Democrats, supporters of Senator Clinton and all other contenders for the nomination, to stand with him to secure his election and the election of Democrats at all levels of competition.

I must confess a bit of fatigue and irritation with people who continue to carp, complain, and criticize the results of the primary and lay down conditions for their support. The Los Angeles Lakers didn’t establish conditions to recognize the Boston Celtics as NBA Champions; Roger Federer did not demand concessions before recognizing that Rafael Nadal defeated him at Wimbledon.

It is time to act in a mature and resourceful fashion. It’s time to put the primaries behind us. It’s time to support Barack Obama without conditions or demands.

It’s time to WIN for Barack Obama, the Democratic Party, America, and our future. We have an unparalleled opportunity. I hope we will all do everything we can to seize the moment.

See you at the Inauguration.

Sincerely,

Don Fowler
DNC Member At-Large, South Carolina
Former Chair of the Democratic National Committee

Alice Germond
Secretary, Democratic National Committee

The “party primaries” gave Clinton the lead — it was caucuses and the DNC’s shenanigans, opposed to the will of a majority of Democrat voters, that made Obama the putative “winner.”

But most amusingly, consider the demand that Democrats “support Barack Obama without conditions or demands.”

I certainly haven’t made a similar request of Libertarians. Neither have Steve Kubby and other prominent Libertarians who have decided to continue backing the vast majority of Libertarian candidates — while noting and criticizing the Libertarian top ticket when it’s wrong.

Those who have criticized Libertarians for not immolating the top of the ticket should consider our party’s relative conditions. We have a thriving group of enthusiasts for Barr, nominal supporters for the LP delegation’s decision (like Kubby and myself), and a large group of “anybody but Barr” activists — all of whom are active and important constituents of the Libertarian Party.

Democrats, on the other hand, not only had no opportunity to have a voice in who was picked for their nomination — having their voices overridden by the Democratic National Committee — but has also suffered the indignity of arrogant insiders smothering their voices and demanding they support the ticket “without conditions or demands.”

Yet another reason why I am a Libertarian. The contrast is stark.

Voices from LFV comments: Fancy Farm responds

LFV previously posted a letter to the editor, in which Robin King threatened a complaint against the church’s IRS tax-free status if Bob Barr and Sonny Landham were not allowed to speak at the Fancy Farm picnic.  The following, written by Todd Hayden, was posted on LFV in response.

The Fancy Farm Picnic or the St. Jerome Catholic Church, who sponsores the picnic the picnic does not have or run a web site. FancyFarm.net is operated by elder enterprizes. The article ” Politics and BBQ Run Freely” was written by a Brian Courtney who has nothing to do with the Fancy Farm Picnic as far as organizing. In fact I don’t even know who he is. He evidentally wrote the article as the way he veiws the Picnic. The Picnic has always been nonpartisan and has never supported one candidate over another. But unforturnatly the speaking only has two hours scheduled and if the politcal chairman allowed everyone who wanted to to speak, there would not be enough time in the day. Therefore he has to make decissions that somtimes don’t agree with everyone. Mr Barr and Mr Landham or Latham or whoever wants, is certainly invited to the picnic and can speak to whom ever they like, but they just may not be able to do it from the speakers platform if the political chairman already has a full schedule.

The Fancy Farm picnic is a fund raiser for the church. Politians found it a good place to campaign starting many years ago and it has grown over the years. The picnic still remains 1st and for most a fund raiser. It is not an event that is put on for politicians but to acomidate them we have made it part of our schedule and because of news coverage we do get some exposure from it. But people need to understand that this event is put on by a bunch of volenteering parishiners who are trying to do their duty and donating their time to the church.

Thank You
Todd Hayden
Fancy Farm Ky

WAR completes another revolution around sun – ‘Quick, send more money!’

I thought the SOB was a millionaire, since after all, he wrote a book called “Millionaire Republican” .  Yet according to this, he can’t even afford to go home to visit his family.

Dear friend,

Tomorrow is a special day for us here at Barr/Root headquarters as it is the birthday of our vice presidential candidate Wayne Allyn Root.

Since our nominating convention in May, Wayne has been traveling around the country representing our presidential ticket by talking to voters while raising much-needed funds.

This weekend, Wayne is in Missouri campaigning away from his family like many of us on the campaign trail.

A committed father of four – he and his wife Debra home school their children – it is tough to be away from home and loved ones for so long. Unlike the campaigns of McCain and Obama, our campaign has to be much more prudent with spending and cannot afford frequent trips home or the luxury of traveling with family.

To celebrate Wayne’s birthday and to thank him for his work for liberty, I want you to send him a special birthday note along with a small showing of support by donating five dollars today.

Consider it five dollars stuffed inside a virtual birthday card!

Please click here to donate today and to send Wayne a special birthday message.

I greatly appreciate your continued support.

In Liberty,

Russ Verney
Campaign Manager
Bob Barr 2008

South Carolina: The Deadbeat State

There’s been a miniature scandal in South Carolina that reaches over to the United Kingdom and back.

South Carolina, like so many other states, loves to waste taxpayer money on “tourism advertising.” Rather than recognizing that individual businesses (and business coalitions) can more effectively advertise than the state can, the state every year spends more than a million dollars on ads in various tourist venues promoting the state’s various attractions.

One of those venues was London’s Gay Pride Festival. Gay and lesbian tourists are one of the biggest market niches for tourism, and some bureaucrat in SC’s tourism ad department apparently decided to get some return on taxpayers’ dollars (to the extent that getting tourism for tax cash is “a return”).

The person — fully allowed to contract on behalf of the State of South Carolina — contracted with an advertising firm called AMRO to run a $5,000 campaign during the height of London Pride, advertising South Carolina’s beaches and plantation houses as “so gay.”

Unfortunately for that bureaucrat, SC’s Republican right-wing governor discovered the spending, ex-post-facto, and demanded his resignation. His outrage over “taxpayers” being “angry” over “how money was being spent” only applied to the $5,000 gay ad campaign however — not to the millions being wasted elsewhere. The governor announced that the state would not pay the debt it incurred as a party to the contract — despite AMRO incurring the requisite expenses and running the advertising as agreed.

Meanwhile, poor AMRO ended up with a deadbeat client. The governor announced that, despite a contract being signed and AMRO delivering on its commitment by designing the advertising copy and running it in high-profile places throughout London, the state would never, ever pay.

If you ever needed evidence of what crooks run government today, here you’ve got it. Contracts can be broken by the benefiting party based on nothing more than manufactured outrage.

Not to mention that, if you or I were to walk out of a $5,000 contract, we’d face ruined credit, big lawsuits, an inability to borrow for years, higher interest rates, and punitive damages. Government, however, can steal twice — once from your assets to pay for such advertising, and again from the providers of the advertising when it decides conveniently not to pay for the campaign. And it enjoys “sovereign immunity,” ensuring that the state will remain forever a deadbeat with no relief for the creditor, ever.

But another party has stepped in to make light of this situation… and it wasn’t a per-se libertarian group.

Gay group South Carolina Pride has taken to mocking both the state’s ridiculous spending and its deadbeat status. It is running an ad campaign contest of its own to mock the SC advertising effort, as well as raising money to pay back the $5,000 bill that the state government racked up yet refuses to pay. That’s downright libertarian!

FreeLibertarianStickers.com offering Barr’08 stickers – free!

Wes Benedict

Check out these bumper stickers! You can get one of each of these for free at FreeLibertarianStickers.com

Bulk prices are rock bottom too! Note that these Barr’08 stickers won’t ship until August 2, 2008, but you can get your order in the front of the line now!

I designed these myself and set up a store to sell them because I haven’t been satisfied with other offerings out there: both the designs and prices. If you know of other great deals on Libertarian merchandise, please point them out in the comments below.

Hopefully Elfninosmom lets me get away with promoting this stuff here. It’s for the cause. I understand this blog often covers complaints about Libertarians. Well, I’ve been complaining about the bumper sticker offerings for years. I have a new complaint with the Barr campaign’s (too pricey), and I just can’t take it anymore!

Starchild instrumental in putting prostitution decriminalization on the ballot

Press release posted on the LP Radicals yahoo group. Starchild has had various offices in the San Francisco and California LP, and is one of the spokespeople for this initiative.

The San Francisco Department of Elections announced today that the measure prohibiting city officials from spending money arresting and prosecuting people for prostitution, and mandating equal legal protection for sex workers, has qualified for the November ballot. Of 500 signatures randomly sampled and checked by department personnel, 80 percent were found to be valid. “This is a happy day for San Franciscans who want government to focus on fighting real crimes like homicides and robberies, and are tired of seeing resources wasted in a futile effort to police consensual sex between adults,” said Starchild, a sex worker activist and spokesperson for the campaign. “We’ve cleared the first hurdle.” By the Elections Department’s tally, supporters had turned in 12,745 signatures of registered San Francisco voters on July 7.

The campaign to decriminalize prostitution will hold a kickoff rally and press conference to formally announce the results on Tuesday at 4:00 p.m. in front of the Polk Street entrance of City Hall, with
speakers to likely include Supervisor Jake McGoldrick, who was a signer of the petition to put the measure on the ballot along with two of his board colleagues. “It is way past time that the
recommendations of the Board of Supervisors 1996 Prostitution Task Force were implemented,” said the measure’s proponent, Maxine Doogan. “Criminalizing sex workers has been putting workers at risk of violence and discrimination for far too long.”

The prostitution reform measure joins two other voter-submitted measures on the local Nov. 4 ballot, along with eight measures put on the ballot by the mayor or members of the Board of Supervisors, with many others expected to be added in the next several weeks.

Starchild – (415) 621-7932 / (415) 368-8657 / RealReform@…
Maxine Doogan – (415) 265-3302 / MistressMax@…

LPNY chair to BTP: Drop dead

In this essay, LP radical and LPNY state chair Eric Sundwall advocates that radical libertarians avoid the BTP and stay in the LP. It is entitled Party Like It’s 1973, an apparent ironic reference to Party like it’s 1773 by BTP interim chair Jim Davidson.

I was somewhat intrigued when popular Libertarian blogger Tom Knapp started the Boston Tea Party soon after the 2006 Portland massacre. An online political party that hearkened to the radical sensibility with a savvy for the political seemed an interesting notion without any real threat to LP work and activities. A place where members could vent and fume within their own diaries and entries and perhaps still effect meaningful activism within the libertarian community in general. Fine. Sometimes a great notion . . .

The current self-flagellation from its members and current standard bearers for office is a greater reflection of petty narcissistic traits and ambitions that one finds within splinters of a small movement, than any real grassroots or political effort. To be sure, most of the current brouhaha is based on the success of reform elements within the LP and the eventual nomination of Bob Barr. But there has also been a disproportionate coverage of their activities within the small third party blogosphere and even some mention in the higher echelons of typical political coverage. I’m beginning to think about getting sixteen of my buddies together to form the American Anarchist Party so as not to be left out. At least there would be no compromise on real principles.

In my estimation the BTP became untenable, less credible and utterly ridiculous when the New York affiliate formed without my knowledge or possible input. I expressed my discontent about this to founder Tom Knapp and got a reply that membership wasn’t tracked on geographical basis and thus any notification about formation of an affiliate wouldn’t be forthcoming to members unless they kept abreast of the website and those postings. At the time I thought I had kept a current feed from BTP in my aggregator (Bloglines) and it was only another entry at the time that serendipitously showed up that brought me back to the site for a quick re-reference. It was at that time that I became knowledgeable of the NY affiliate startup.

Of course the elements forming that start up were no more radical in spirit than in truth ambitious for titles and accolades. In fact some of the players were in dispute with the LPNY about one of their affiliates and a factional shoot off from it in another arena wasn’t all that surprising. Having also expressed some insider concern to Knapp about this, he just shrugged it off and said something about long ropes and the like.

In the course of 2007 one saw a gradual decline of the website and eventually spam took it over and the case for neglect made itself very obvious if one visited the site. Again Knapp was shrugging it off as not his baby anymore since the formation of a national committee and control being handed over to the new principles. Any other misgivings about Knapp and his organizational abilities were already being sent to me through my association of other notable activists and to some extent LNC connections. After he was almost completely rejected for the Platform Committee in Pittsburgh that summer I figured any possible radical ally in this figure was improbable. At the time he was flailing for Kubby as the official or non-official this or that and it was obvious where his pre-occupation was at. Once he started running Ron Paul up the racist flagpole based on a Suicide Girls post, I was done. After the Sean Haugh attack after Vegas, I was disgusted, despite reassurances from Angela Keaton and Paulie that he wasn’t the drama queen I might have marked him as.

Enter the Independent Political Report. They started covering the mini-convention of the BTP in Denver and it seems like new life was born from it. Apparently that long rope came back to bite BTP and Knapp put the kibosh on any usurpation of his baby. Utilizing an administrative override on the former national vice-chair and asserting a violation of by-laws and original intent, he summarily dismissed the usurpers and rallied his original cabal and pressed ahead with their own convention online. I’m sure if I’m wrong about this and on any radar as such, I’ll be corrected on a dozen counts by TK or the like.

But my general point is this. The BTP is an operational and philosophical mess. Great, a one line platform states that they want to reduce government on all counts. So what?! While it’s not the contorted twistings of the Reformista’s tired ruminations and redefinitions, its just annoying at this point. When some kiddie script hacker represents some percentage of the actual vote of their convention and all former users are told to sign up again because their database got trashed, you don’t have to wonder. You just don’t take it seriously. Radicals ought to stay in the LP and exert what influence they can in a franchise which has stood the test of time for at least thirty years. Getting all huffy over one candidate in an impossible race to win is not the solution. There is plenty of room for spirited protest candidacies and meaningful activism.

So don’t get your panties in a wad because Brian Holtz won the platform or that Bob Barr said something about Fannie Mae on TV. Easy ballot access in Colorado and Louisiana may get you on the ballot there and might put you on a temporary pedestal amongst chortling colleagues, but seriously, get a life (or a sound card). Do what you can, where you can. Stop fantasizing about a greater liberty movement or party. Stay real. Stay radical. Stay LP.

Voices from LFV Mailbag: Encouraging Fancy Farm to include Barr and Landham

The following was written by Robin King, and is published with the permission of the author. I have corrected the name Landham, originally written as Latham, and Sonny, originally written in one place as Sunny.

Dear Mr. Elder and others:

Please kindly forward to Todd Hayden, Chairman
Diane Smithson, Co-Chair &
Logan Atkins, Co-Chair

Your web site claims “Speaking at Fancy Farm is open to candidates running for any Kentucky or national office.” yet it is my understanding that Sonny Landham and Bob Barr will NOT be allowed to speak at your annual picnic. Is this true? If so I would urge you to remove this statement from your web site in addition to this one: “Politics and BBQ Run Freely”

Obviously, neither is true if Bob and Sonny can’t speak. Both are pivotal since it may change your state from Red to Blue (or Gold) especially with Mr. Barr polling from 5-10% in many Red States, this could easily tip the election in KY to Mr. Obama.

I would urge you to reconsider and publicly invite Mr. Barr and Mr. Landham to speak ASAP. In addition, it is my understanding that the sponsor of this event is a non-profit tax exempt organization or church. If that is the case, you need to remain fair and non-partisan to retain your tax free status. I will be happy to suggest that folks write the IRS demanding your tax exempt status be revoked due to your support of one candidate or party over any others. I will also start a writing campaign to every blog and newspaper to encourage the good people of Kentucky to help you change your mind. Thus, please allow Bob and Sonny to speak to the masses or pay your taxes!

Thank you!

Robin King
Paducah

UPDATE:  Fancy Farm responds here.

Troy King reported to be dating Troy University homecoming king

Back in November, I made the following comments at
Loretta Nall Sends Troy King Appropriate Sex Toy:

But reasonable people would not include the Alabama legislature, which in is great wisdom passed a law banning dildos, vibrators, and other weapons of mass stimulation.

Not content with the law as it stands, Alabama Attorney General Troy King wants the legislature to make the law even more draconian.

I remember Troy from college. He was always a little weird. He used to write frequent letters to the CW, which described in detail his disgust with homosexuals hooking up in public toilets (well before Larry Craig), a subject he seemed to be intimately familiar with, and exhorted readers to go eat at Cracker Barrel, which at the time was under fire for a policy of discriminating against having gay employees. Troy always seemed just a little too obsessed with homosexual perversion.

Alert readers may remember that Loretta Nall sent Troy King a blow up pig:

My suspicion now seems likely to have been confirmed.

Loretta explains

This is not about being gay. This is about being a hypocrite…of the highest order

There is an official denial of the rumor about Troy King now….so I can say what the rumor is.

According to rumors flying around for the last week Troy King, our
rabidly homophobic, anti-sex toy, Sunday School teaching, pro-execution Republican Attorney General is GAY! And I don’t mean that as in happy either. I’d bet he is anything but happy right now. In fact, according to two sources he is about to resign. [..]

I have been sitting on this story for about a week. Truth is I am SORE from having to sit on it so long….but not as sore as Troy King is.

Bob Barr disgraces the Libertarian Party yet again

Bob Barr’s true conversion: Not from hardcore statist to libertarian, but from hardcore statist to even harder-core statist… Now he buys into the global warming hysteria of Al Gore.

I tried giving Barr the benefit of the doubt when the story was first breaking:

Bob Barr praised by Al Gore for ’serious attention to global climate change’

It must be noted, of course, that Barr’s mere attendance at the event in no way indicates an endorsement of Gore’s views. However, Gore certainly seems to think — erroneously, probably — that it does.

That turned out to be a bad idea:

Al Gore praised by Bob Barr for ‘commitment to addressing climate change’

“There obviously is a role for government,” Barr said, deviating substantially from libertarian philosophy for at least the second time this week. Earlier, he said he wanted to give the Federal Reserve more oversight powers to regulate the housing market and “privatize” Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac by contradictorily increasing government support for and regulation of the publicly traded firms.

“There’s a role for private industry,” Barr continued. “There’s a role for nonprofits and certainly a role for the American people, individually and collectively.”

And then, Anthony Gregory confirmed it:

Bob Barr ‘flip-flopping’ on global warming confirmed

On the Glenn Beck show, in early June, Barr said, “Global warming is a myth. And yet it`s being used by the environmental folks, by the internationalists. A lot of the pressure is coming from the United Nations and other countries. Some of which, like China, of course, are pushing the Kyoto Protocol. Why? Because they`re exempt. It`s going to saddle us. And what is McCain doing? He`s out there buying into this global warming, carbon emission cap and trade.”

Now Barr says, “Former Vice President Al Gore and I have met privately to discuss the issue of global warming, and I was pleased and honored that he invited me to attend the ‘We’ Campaign event. Global warming is a reality as most every organization that has studied the matter has concluded, whether conservative-leaning, liberal oriented or independent.”

This, of course, after Barr had the audacity to say that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — which trade on the New York Stock Exchange and are considered “quasi” private due to the implied backing of their debt by the government and their heavily regulation — should be “privatized” by making that implied backing a reality and increasing regulation further, saying the Federal Reserve should be given more power.

I haven’t heard from my friends who were foolish enough to vote for Barr, even in later balloting. I hope your silence is out of shame because you should be ashamed for making this cretin the LP’s standard-bearer. Not a day goes by that he doesn’t disgrace the party.

SOB Campaigns In Missouri

For those wanting to know what the Libertarian Vice-Presidential Candidate, Wayne Root, has been doing, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch gives us the following report.

Wayne Root

Wayne Allyn Root, a Las Vegas oddsmaker by profession and now the Libertarian Party’s vice presidential nominee, breezed into the St. Louis area today as part of a two-day swing through the state to raise money and his ticket’s profile.

Root is the running mate of Libertarian presidential nominee Bob Barr, who like Root is a former Republican. And as Root observes, both have “big mouths” and love to talk to the press about their politics and their campaign.

But it’s doubtful that Barr can beat out Root’s one-liners, aimed at promoting his party’s philosophy of less government — on the fiscal and personal side.

Asked Root as he drank bottled water at a Clayton restaurant: “What’s the difference between Las Vegas and Washington D.C.?

“In Vegas, the drunks gamble with their own money!” Root chortled, his laughter filling the restaurant.

Democrats promise personal freedom, but offer no economic freedom, Root said, while Republicans favor economic freedom but “you get no personal freedom.”

“To me, it’s two horrible choices…Big and bigger government, dumb and dumber!”

Root said that Nevada offers the best example of what works best. There’s few taxes, and lots of personal freedom. Legalized gambling and prostitution helps provide the income needed to pay for the services that all Nevadans — religious or secular — enjoy, he said.

Click here to read full article

Disclaimer: This son of an ambulance driver, Jake Porter, is the Iowa Coordinator for the Barr/Root campaign.

LNC Member Rachel Hawkridge: Open Letter to Bob Barr

This was posted at LP Radicals

---

Mr. Barr –

My husband and I were delegates to Denver.  I spoke to you, outside of the convention floor, where I asked you about the Patriot Act, and DOMA, and you said that you were misled about USAPatriot, and you apologized for DOMA.  In your nominating speech, I know that I heard you apologize for DOMA. 

After speaking to other people about your work on the LNC and with the ACLU, I felt that I had to give you the benefit of the doubt, and believe that you did have a change of heart.

When I heard (secondhand) that you had changed your position again on DOMA on the Tuesday after convention, I didn’t know what to think.

After reading your position papers yesterday, I believe that I do know what to think.  I believe that I’ve been misled. 

I am disappointed that I don’t have a principled candidate to vote for this cycle.  I don’t find civil rights to be a “States’ rights” issue.  I believe that the Constitution protects the civil rights of all people, regardless of race, creed, age, or yes, even sexual orientation.  In several different ways, it is spelled out . . .

Will housing bill help homeowners?

According to MSNBC, not really.

Opponents say using tax dollars to buy foreclosed homes amounts to a bailout for lenders; proponents argue that the funds would create new jobs and help stem the slide in home price where foreclosure rates are highest.

“The real losers in this awful crisis are the residents who live next to the foreclosed property who have continued to pay their mortgages on time yet see their property values rapidly decreasing,” Ali Solis, vice president of public policy for Enterprise Community Partners, a non-profit group that helps finance affordable housing.

The centerpiece of the proposed foreclosure relief effort is $300 billion in federal loan guarantees to help homeowners refinance into mortgages with better terms. But attorneys, housing counselors and others working with strapped homeowners say the proposal falls short because it leaves the decision to modify a loan up to the lender or loan servicing company.

That means the housing bill will have “little or no impact on the number of foreclosures,” according to O. Max Gardner III, a Shelby, N.C. bankruptcy attorney who works with homeowners who are trying to modify their mortgages.

Click here to read the entire article on MSNBC.

Ready to go to jail? Sign up now!

From the Green Party’s Gregg Jocoy:

Taking the idea of non-violent direct action to it’s logical conclusion, a small (so far) group of people has announced their intention to fill the jails the day George Bush (or the next president) attacks Iran.

The group, organized at FaceBook, goes by the name Iran Pledge of Resistance.
The group issued this statement:

Should the U.S. strike the nation of Iran we will engage in dramatic nonviolent direct action, risking arrest, and hopefully filling up the jails. At 5 p.m. on the same day, or at 9 a.m. the following day (whichever happens sooner) we will go to our nearest places of government (state or federal buildings), and block all entrances until removed by law enforcement. We will make our appearance and the action itself as dramatic as possible.

The founder of the group also maintains a blog which is linked right here.

I’ve joined the group and will keep my eye peeled to see if any of the Presidential candidates agrees to be tossed in jail for opposing an attack on Iran.

Steve Kubby on front page of Auburn Daily Journal

Outreach, or Outhouse?

Just click here, check out the comments at the bottom from R3OVLUTIONaries, and pop back to tell me how I’m supposed to sell such a campaign, and a “libertarian” brand associated with that campaign, with such opinions representing the majority of supporters.

Bonus points for apologies or claims that I “took the posts out of context.”

Extra bonus points if you can somehow spin it into happy-happy joy-joy.

Mucho mega bonus points if you can find comments from the Barr campaign, its prominent staffers, or LP staffers that are anywhere near as ridiculous.

Extra mucho mega bonus points if you can understand why associating the “libertarian” brand with such dreck is bad for the movement and the LP as a whole.

WALL-E World

I was happy to see an article, in the Washington Times of all places, arguing that conservative and libertarian critics of the new Pixar film “WALL-E” are missing the point. If you just watched an ad for the movie, or just read a blurb about it, you might expect to be hit over the head with an unsubtle environmentalist message, or a diatribe about overconsumption. But that’s not what I took away from “WALL-E” — which is, by the way, the darkest but also most hauntingly beautiful of the Pixar films so far.

While the film does make it clear that we produce too much trash and buy too much junk, it is less about that than about finding connections in an age of technology. As Scott Galupo writes in the Times, in the “WALL-E” future’s “desensitized dystopia, people have literally lost touch with one another and themselves.” Back on earth, robot WALL-E himself is totally alone save for an inquisitive cockroach, pining for any sort of companionship.

Galupo says Pixar has long been “a bastion of a certain species of conservatism. It’s not partisan or even political,” but “the realization that the present and the future may not be better than the past.” In addition, “that outsize institutions — whether overweening nanny states like that of Pixar’s brilliant 2004 feature ‘The Incredibles’ or a multinational corporation” as in “WALL-E” are “no good for individual freedom is a cardinal belief of modern conservatism’s small-is-beautiful entrepreneurial wing.” And it is not only the place of the left “to worry about the numbing effects of accumulating too much stuff and automating every imaginable mundane task and movement.”

More than anything else, “WALL-E” reminded me of the importance of moderation in all things — a lesson I often forget in my own life. There’s nothing wrong with stuff. There is a lot wrong with too much stuff. In the Los Angeles Times, Charlotte Allen of the Manhattan Institute says the film “isn’t denigrating consumerism but passive dependency,” and expresses “confidence in the West and its capacity for rejuvenation” that “dovetails with the film’s other message — a belief in free will.”

Unintended Financial Consequences

Earlier today I was blogging about the Securities and Exchange Commission’s latest malarkey for investors. You can no longer sell a “naked” short of the top 18 banks in the country. Why not?

Obviously selling short stock you don’t yet own, and which you would ordinarily be able to “cover” with stock you buy later is an excellent way to put more information into the market for stocks. The more informative the markets, the better for everyone. Many larger banks try to control, through corrupt relationships with brokerage houses, who has access to their actual shares in large quantities, so if you can’t naked short their stock, you may not be able to short it at all.

Now, just as obviously, there is nothing inherently wrong with naked short selling of financial institution stocks. After all, the SEC has made no move to reduce the access of investors to naked short selling of small banks or mid-sized banks. Only the largest banks. And why those banks? Could it possibly be that the very same banks are the major owners of the Federal Reserve banks, the Woodrow Wilson era scheme to distort every financial transaction by changing the meaning of “dollar” in every contract? You bet.

Don’t like it? You aren’t meant to like it. You aren’t meant to have the same opportunity that others in the economy have. You are supposed to pour your wallet into your gas tank, go to work to make the payments on your car, home, and credit cards, and, if you planned a bit, pray that the gold and silver you own becomes worth enough to keep you from going under. But the money masters and the banking gangsters and the scammers in government don’t actually care if you don’t like it.

Phil Gramm, formerly the senator from Texas, who has made plenty of money for himself by selling his soul to the corporate lobbyists while he was in the Senate and by selling his influence after, says that people complaining of hardship in the present economy are whiners. So, stop whining, and go sit in the corner. He will, he’ll give you a “time out” if you don’t pretend to enjoy life. After all, he’s got his. He screwed you and the other taxpayers to the wall over and over again with a power drill, so he got his. His fortunes are assured. Now stop whining about how much the choices he took while in government have impoverished you.

But, this essay isn’t really about you. If you want change, you know where to go. You know how to tell if a candidate is for smaller government on all the issues – they’ll be endorsed by the Boston Tea Party, pretty soon.

This essay is about the economic consequences of distorting the market by removing information. Make no mistake, the unintended financial consequences of bailing out the major banks, bailing out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, saving the depositors of IndyMac, providing enormous liquidity to investment banks, ramping up even M1 money supply, even turning off the lights on the liquidity measure L and the M3 money supply figure so no one can know enough about monetary inflation to make sense of economic choices is distorting the market. These distortions are nothing new, but the fact that they have been present in the market for a very long time is also nothing good.

Medical school could prove unnecessary in day to day life

It’s been a long time since I posted something but here’s what I’m thinking today:

Found this article via reason’s hit&run. Apparently, TN LEOs think themselves doctors and their counterpart and are administering meds that most people have to give consent to have in a hospital setting.

…Metro police have had the option of calling for a needle loaded with a strong sedative to control the most unruly people they encounter on the street.

One of the doctors who came up with the protocol said it’s the safest option out there and that it is used all over the country.

But many people said that the injection was news to them, and a top medical ethicist said it’s a troubling precedent.

The drug is called Midazolam, which is better known as Versed. People who have had a colonoscopy have probably had a shot of the drug for the procedure.

“The drug has an amnesia effect, and we use that therapeutically because one of the nice ways to take care of the discomfort is to make people forget that they’ve had it,” said biomedical ethics and law enforcement expert Dr. Steven Miles….

Now, I’ve always been one to argue with my husband about the protection his field has been afforded, especially with regard to natural remedies and the like, but this is a breach that I can’t quite get over. You see, at least my husband was trained to know when a pharmacological sedative should be used and when it shouldn’t. My quibble today is that either a governing power has admitted that the training doesn’t require rigorous standard and testing or it’s decided that its authority makes such training ridiculous on its face. And, it’s my opinion that the state shows its true color with either answer.

Sadly, for my marriage, either answer proves disastrous; either my husband is a god or a tool- I don’t bow to one and only use the other for hard labor.

(FWIW and on a serious note, my husband is both depending on the day of the week and thankfully, my expectation of him is outside the professional realm and that’s nothing that could be measured outside our home. ;o)

Energy-Communist Conservatives

CNN.com has a poll up with more than 200,000 respondents: Should landowners have to give up their property for new oil refineries?

Twenty percent of respondents said YES, landowners should sacrifice their property rights on the alter of energy autarky.

I think it’s safe to assume that the overwhelming majority of these “yes” votes came from self-identified conservatives. After all, as much as the Left loves the collective ownership of property, they hate natural-resource development (favoring poverty) more. Assuming that half of the poll’s respondents are self-identified conservatives (the true number is probably less than that but the difference would be offset by the few liberals who voted “yes”), this means that approximately 40% of conservatives see nothing wrong with Maoistically seizing private property for the nationalist cause.

And this is the type of people we want to bring into our party?

There’s no hope for Reagan idolaters. We’ve scraped the bottom of the conservative barrel and gotten all the converts we’re going to get. That’s why it would have been nice to have had a presidential candidate who would talk to the Left. Bob Barr, of course, is not that man.

Barr (finally) publishes issue pages on website

Below are the issue statements from Bob Barr’s newly-updated website.  Some of the issues also have video statements on the site.

Marriage:

The federal government should neither regulate personal relationships nor discriminate against individuals for their personal preferences. Laws regulating marriage should be left to the states, precisely where the Constitution places the issue.

Regardless of whether one supports or opposes same sex marriage, the decision to recognize such unions ought to be made by each state rather than imposed as a one-size-fits-all mandate by the federal government. Any federal laws that prevent states from determining their own standards for marriage should be repealed; the federal government should not define marriage, whether by statute or constitutional amendment.

In this way, every state would remain free to determine for its citizens the basis on which marriage would be recognized within its borders, and would not be forced to adopt a contrary determination legislated by another state.

Barr Slams Freddie/Fannie Bailout

On this score, Barr is taking a broadly libertarian approach to the issue and differentiating the Libertarians from the Democrats and Republicans on a key policy issue.

Barr’s statement to FOX on this issue can be viewed here.

Washington Blade Covers Kent Snyder’s Death

Some interesting tidbits from the Blade’s coverage:

Gay staffers from the Paul campaign, some speaking on condition that they not be identified, said they learned about Snyder’s unpaid medical bills from a web site created by his friends that calls on Paul supporters to contribute to a special fund to help Snyder’s family pay the bills, which come mostly from a two-month hospitalization. So far, the site (kentsnyder.com) has raised about $32,000.

It’s a bit sad that gay staffers feel like they cannot be openly gay in the Ron Paul campaign.

“I can’t believe he didn’t have health insurance,” said one political activist who read about Snyder’s unpaid medical bills in a story published last month in the Wall Street Journal. “I can’t believe that Ron Paul didn’t give him health insurance,” said the activist, who asked not to be identified.

Over $35 million raised, but no health insurance for key staff?!?

Craig Max, a D.C. gay Republican activist who sought to become a Ron Paul delegate to the Republican National Convention, said news of Snyder’s death and his lack of health insurance has triggered a behind-the-scenes debate among Paul supporters and libertarian activists over whether or not the Paul campaign should have provided health insurance to its staff.

…

The Journal story did not identify Snyder as gay; a Washington Post obituary reported Snyder died of viral pneumonia but did not mention his sexual orientation.

At least three gay Paul supporters said it was well known among Paul campaign insiders that Snyder was gay. Although Snyder shunned the public spotlight, activists and political operatives working on the campaigns of rival GOP presidential candidates, including officials with the McCain campaign, recognized Snyder’s efforts in building a major campaign operation for Paul, Paul’s gay supporters said.

Imagine if Synder had stepped out of the closet to challenge his boss on some of the issues I’ve criticized Paul on — it would have made a big difference.

Overall, this story is a compound tragedy. Snyder helped build a doubtlessly successful fundraising and publicity campaign, but was ultimately forced into the closet by the politics of the Republican Party, and ended up dead due to a lack of health insurance.

Whether it was the campaign’s responsibility to provide insurance for full time employees is up for debate, and I don’t know what the answer is to that question. I do know that America is poorer for Snyder’s death — and poorer for Beltway Republicans’ habit of forcing yet another brilliant gay man into the closet.

Christopher Hitchens: “Believe Me, It’s Torture”

From http://www.vf.com.

How does it feel to be “aggressively interrogated”? Christopher Hitchens found out for himself, submitting to a brutal waterboarding session in an effort to understand the human cost of America’s use of harsh tactics at Guantánamo and elsewhere.

Of course, Hitchens underwent waterboarding only under very controlled conditions, knowing that he was not in actual danger, and it still gives him nightmares.  Does anybody here actually think interrogators give suspects a code word or metal objects to drop, in case the sensation of drowning becomes too intense?  Of course they don’t.  Yet as this video shows, Hitchens couldn’t endure it more than a few seconds, even doing it voluntarily and knowing that he was perfectly safe. 

Hitchens also wrote an article for Vanity Fair (August 2008 issue) about waterboarding.  Here is an excerpt:

Here is the most chilling way I can find of stating the matter. Until recently, “waterboarding” was something that Americans did to other Americans. It was inflicted, and endured, by those members of the Special Forces who underwent the advanced form of training known as sere (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape). In these harsh exercises, brave men and women were introduced to the sorts of barbarism that they might expect to meet at the hands of a lawless foe who disregarded the Geneva Conventions. But it was something that Americans were being trained to resist, not to inflict.

Exploring this narrow but deep distinction, on a gorgeous day last May I found myself deep in the hill country of western North Carolina, preparing to be surprised by a team of extremely hardened veterans who had confronted their country’s enemies in highly arduous terrain all over the world. They knew about everything from unarmed combat to enhanced interrogation and, in exchange for anonymity, were going to show me as nearly as possible what real waterboarding might be like.

It goes without saying that I knew I could stop the process at any time, and that when it was all over I would be released into happy daylight rather than returned to a darkened cell. But it’s been well said that cowards die many times before their deaths, and it was difficult for me to completely forget the clause in the contract of indemnification that I had signed. This document (written by one who knew) stated revealingly:

“Water boarding” is a potentially dangerous activity in which the participant can receive serious and permanent (physical, emotional and psychological) injuries and even death, including injuries and death due to the respiratory and neurological systems of the body.

As the agreement went on to say, there would be safeguards provided “during the ‘water boarding’ process, however, these measures may fail and even if they work properly they may not prevent Hitchens from experiencing serious injury or death.”

Click here to read the entire article.

Jason Gatties to seek Boston Tea Party National Vice Chair seat

The following is a press release from the Jason Gatties campaign

For Immediate Release

Saint Joseph, Mi- 2008 Lake Michigan College Board of Trustees candidate Jason Gatties has announced that he will seek the office of Vice-Chairman of the Boston Tea Party National Committee. The election will be held in late October.

The Boston Tea Party was founded in 2006 and has become the fastest growing libertarian alternative party. The party features “The World’s Smallest Political Platform”, which reads:

The Boston Tea Party supports reducing the size, scope and power of government at all levels and on all issues, and opposes increasing the size, scope and power of government at any level, for any purpose.

“It is my goal to help the Boston Tea Party continue to grow and eventually become what the Libertarian Party once was”-Jason Gatties

Jason has launched a campaign site, located at http://gatties4btp.wordpress.com, which will be completely up and running by this weekend.

Antiwar radio: trial attorney Peter Casey to appear today

ANTIWAR RADIO: Peter Casey on the Scott Horton Show

Los Angeles – July 16, 2008 – Trial attorney Peter Casey will be the featured guest on the Scott Horton Show at Antiwar Radio on Wednesday, July 16^th, at 1:15PM Eastern.

Peter Casey will discuss his recent article on Antiwar.com, “What’s NOT in the IAEA Iran Reports.”

Casey is a trial attorney with Greenberg Traurig, LLP in Boston, Massachusetts.

The Scott Horton Show airs Monday through Friday from 12PM-2PM Eastern on KAOS 92.7FM. Additional feeds and archives available at Antiwar Radio.
 
For more information on Scott Horton or Antiwar Radio please contact:
 
Angela Keaton, Producer
akeaton@antiwar.com
www.antiwar.com
(323) 512-7095

Bloggers, show your support for Antiwar.com with the Antiwar Pledge Ring.

Robert Milnes: “Proposal for Online green/libertarian Vote Coordination Site”

The following was written by Robert Milnes, and is posted with his permission.

Activists, your parties have failed you. There has been a strategy proposed for several months that could lead to victory. This has been ignored. Therefore YOU have to implement it yourselves. Official party participation is fortunately unnecessary. It is called The Progressive/Libertarian Alliance Strategy. A fusion executive ticket with vote coordination for downticket candidates. With enough ballot access, this estimated 40% plurality could win in a close three way race. However, now that the executive tickets have been selected, none of which are fusion, presidential and vice presidential victory might be too difficult and/or require party participation. But the more simple downticket vote coordination should still be possible. I propose an odd number of greens and equal number of libertarians, perhaps three each form a committee for this purpose. Online, it could accomplish much. If once a week one side or the other chaired with 2 votes for chair, a tie vote on both sides would be not possible. I seek at least 6 such volunteers, perhaps 10, to participate in the formation and ongoing functions of this committee until election day. The purpose would be to keep track of all ballots, publicize available ballots, & recommend one over the other candidate in the case of two or more on a ballot so as to not split the vote on that ballot. This committee would need website, legal and ballot access expert/professional assistance. I look forward to replies. Please forward.

Thomas Woods at the Revolution March

A very inspiring speech!

‘Peter Orvetti is an Idiot,’ Part One of Many

Since LFV seems to be where a lot of the more reasonable and intelligent libertarians hang out, I think I’ll occasionally use my posts here to ask questions of you about points of libertarian thinking that I do not quite understand. I don’t promise to agree with your stances once they’re explained, of course, but I’m always interested in learning more about why libertarians (and anyone else, for that matter) think the way they do.

So, first subject: environmentalism. I understand and agree with libertarians who do not think people should be coerced into taking so-called “green” actions like recycling, driving smaller cars, and so on. I also know there are some who are skeptical of climate change theories. But what puzzles me is that some libertarians seem rather contemptuous of things like buying carbon offsets, switching to swirly flourescent light bulbs, driving hybrids, and so on, in and of themselves and as voluntary actions. How come?

Texas Libertarian Debates Fair Tax National Communications Director

Is the “Fair Tax” national sales tax proposal a good plan for America? Not according to the Executive Director of the Libertarian Party of Texas, Wes Benedict (that would be me).

Ken Hoagland, National Communications Director for Americans for Fair Taxation, and Wes Benedict debate the Fair Tax June 14 at the 2008 Libertarian Party of Texas state convention.

View excerpts of the debate in the video below:

In case the video doesn’t display above try the link below:
http://seananderson.blip.tv/#1079998

Special thanks to volunteer Sean Anderson for recording the debate and posting the video online. Also note that Sean is still editing many videos from the LP Texas convention and it’s possible this video may be updated in the future and not available from these links posted.

[Technical difficulty from new blog contributor (that would be me)--why can't I get the video to display as an image properly.  I tried it on my personal blog and it worked just right:  http://wesbenedictforlnc.blogspot.com/2008/07/texas-libertarian-debates-fair-tax.html]

Adding my free voice

Hello! I was honored to be asked by ENM and Paulie to become a contributor to Last Free Voice, and I am equally honored to accept. I have a relatively new personal blog that I try to update daily, and at LFV I will cross-post those updates that deal with Libertarian and libertarian politics and issues. ENM has kindly cross-posted a few recent ones already. If you want to find out more about who I am, or get in touch with me, head on over there. (I’m always looking for new libertarian Facebook friends, too.)

For now, you can take a look at my Revolution March photos and my brief report on the same. And here’s a little something to watch:

Bush Tours America To Survey Damage Caused By His Disastrous Presidency

[This message brought to you by Independent Political Report, your source for alden links you need to get your phillies of Libertarian news. IPR: We get to the root of the story, and set the barr higher. Umm, Jingozian.

Robert Milnes: “Independent progressive/libertarian fusion ticket only wins now”

The following was written by Robert Milnes, and is posted with permission of the author.

Greens, your party has failed you. No mention of The Progressive Alliance Strategy or winning with a possible plurality progressive/libertarian vote or coordinating Green and Libertarian downticket ballots that I have heard of at the convention. McKinney/Clemente and Barr/Root will get about 1%, Nader/Gonzales about 2%. Democratic progressive women will not vote Green women because of the wasted vote” phenomenon and the tremendous pressure to vote either democrat or republican “lesser of 2 evils” major party loyalty and Reagan democrats will vote Republican or not vote at all. & Of course Republican women will not vote Green women. McKinney/Clemente is too leftist & female for libertarians to vote for them & Barr/Root is too rightist. Nader/Gonzales is too leftist also. What is needed is a Green/Libertarian m/f ticket that most progressives & libertarians can relate to & support in one way or another so as to not split the inclusive vote. Now that the third parties have selected their tickets none of which are fusion, the only other winning ticket possibility would be an Independent fusion with sufficient ballot access. This will not be easy at this late date but I am willing to try. I need campaign support so go to www.robertmilnes.net & click Make a Donation. From there go to www.robertmilnes4president2008 & click Volunteer. I need a movement hosted website & computer assistance. I need a woman libertarian to complement the ticket. If you are one or know of one, please contact me. I need for Indians to help me get on as many ballots as possible especially in Oklahoma which expires July 15. Hopefully they will see that my positions are most favorable towards them. I can promise to pay premium wage for ballot signatures if I get enough campaign donations for that. I look forward to your support and to further campaigning as much as I am able.

The Fed’s massive redistribution of wealth today

“Freddie Mac” — aka the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (FHLMC), a government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) that trades on the New York Stock Exchange — closed at $8 a share on Thursday. This morning, it opened at $4.26 a share and fell to an intra-day low of $3.89. Then Ben Bernanke made it known that the Fed would “lend” money to Freddie and its sister Fannie Mae, and the stock rebounded to close at $7.75.

Big deal, you say?

Consider this: The swing from $3.89 to $7.75 represents $2.5 billion in market capitalization (company value). All based on a few words from the Fed’s Fuhrer.

Oh, and Fannie Mae (the Federal National Mortgage Association)? Its one day swing from $6.68 to $10.25 represented even more money, nearly $3.5 billion.

Today, billions of dollars were lost by investors who finally gave in and sold these junk stocks. But they were suckers. They should have known the fascist Fed would offer to bail them out. The “smart guys” did, and they bought up the stocks and turned billions in profits.

Hmm… Do you think it’s impossible that some people knew in advance what Bernanke would say? No, the government would never do something like that for the benefit of private individuals, would it?

The system is crashing. Both Freddie and Fannie are down by more than 80% for the year.

Lew Rockwell on Jimmy Carter

“Jimmy deregulated trucking and air travel, ended temperature fascism, abolished two federal agencies, and was opposed by the evil Teddy Kennedy for renomination for not being socialist enough. Carter still teaches Sunday school every week, and is an actual peacemaker. The election of Reagan was a huge step down.“

But Lew, don’t you know that Ronald Reagan and Jesse Helms defeated Communism? That’s what “Libertarian” Bob Barr says. How dare you sow seeds of disunity within the libertarian movement, Lew!

Steve Newton: Jason Gatties’ chances improve as opponent drops out

From Steve Newton’s Delaware Libertarian blog, posted pursuant to prior permission from Steve:

In the race for the Board of Trustees of Lake Michigan College, Libertarian Jason Gatties was originally one of five candidates for three open positions.

Recently, however, one incumbent dropped out of the race, meaning that Jason now has a great chance to win one of the seats.

Think of it this way: if four people are running from a raging lion, you don’t have to be the fastest, you just have to be faster than one other person.

By the way, what did Jason do when he learned of his opponent’s withdrawal?

He sent a letter to the local newspaper complimenting the man’s career of public service:

Editor,

On July 2 it was announced that current Lake Michigan College Board of Trustees Chairman Steve Silcox will not seek re-election this year. He has served the Board of Trustees since 1990 and as board chairman since 1997.

Even though I’ve found myself in disagreement with not only Mr. Silcox, but also the Board of Trustees in general at times, I do wish Mr. Silcox the best of luck.

I respect anyone who has given their time to serve our community, and Mr. Silcox has served our community with great pride.

Jason Gatties St. Joseph

Jason is also inaugurating the world’s most affordable fundraiser: visit his site for details.

Robert Milnes: “Green Vice Presidential fusion (libertarian) candidate sought”

The following was written by Robert Milnes.

I am going to try to have my name put into nomination at the Green Party convention. Presidential nomination scheduled for Saturday. It is generally agreed that a candidate’s selection for Vice President will be accepted. If McKinney does not get the 419 votes necessary on the first ballot, it will be an open convention for the delegates to decide. I am seeking a woman libertarian to form a fusion ticket to be associated with my name. Such a ticket could possibly win with the progressive plurality and sufficient ballot access. Further, the progressive + libertarian vote could be coordinated downticket to one Green OR one Libertarian per ballot so as to not split the inclusive vote. This is the Progressive Alliance Strategy. If you are such a woman please contact me. If you know of such a woman please contact her to contact me. Or refer me to her. I await interested replies and further developments at the convention.

Endorsement: Jason Gatties for Lake Michigan College Board of Trustees

Jason Gatties, a regular on LFV (and former contributor) is running for a nonpartisan seat on the Lake Michigan College Board of Trustees.  I hereby offer my wholehearted endorsement.

Jason ’s platform stresses the importance of personal responsibility, which is of course a basic libertarian ideal.  With regard to fiscal responsibility, he wants the college to run better and more efficiently, but without an increase in taxes or tuition.  Instead, he wants to work within the financial structure as it presently exists, privatizing certain non-academic positions, and limiting the size and growth of administrative postitions. 

Jason also wants to give the students the best college experience possible, including social experiences.  He wants to expand the clubs which students can create and join, by allowing citizens to be volunteer advisors so the students will not be forced to give up a club due to not having a faculty member to advise them.  Alternatively, he argues that since the students are legally adults, they should not need to have an advisor for their clubs at all.

Jason even did a small poll, wherein he tried to find out how much LMC students knew about the Board of Trustees.  He was quite surprised to learn that they were completely unfamiliar with every Board member, with the sole exception of a local radio personality.  He also discovered that there is no contact information for any Trustee on the college website.  Jason wants to change that, and to that end, he plans to be far more communicative, and far more responsive.  In fact, he plans to have a “virtual office” which will allow concerned citizens (including students) easy contact with him.

Clearly, Jason has put a lot of thought into the position he seeks, and he intends to use that position in the way it was intended: as a true public servant and steward of the citizens’ taxes.  My experience with Jason has shown that he is passionate about the issues, and that he always tries to do the right thing, even if it causes him personal discomfort.  As such, I can think of no better person for the elected position he seeks, and I strongly encourage voters in Berrien County, Covert Township, and the South Haven Public School District to support him in his efforts.

Some Help From Outright To Ease Obama’s “Difficulty”

This entry is reprinted from the Outright Libertarians blog.

Recently, a gay Democratic activist went to ask Obama about immigration equality. An emotional issue for the gentleman, he teared up when asking Obama about it and received a Clintonian “I feel your pain” response, followed up with a statement that immigration equality is a “difficult” issue:

It was apparent that he knew this issue well. He took some time to explain that same sex immigration is going to be a very difficult one because it combines two of the most controversial issues Congress faces, gay rights and immigration. (I heard this from Barney Frank two years ago as well.) Obama also said that to tackle it we were going to have to establish a vehicle to recognize gay couples.

Obama’s understanding of this issue is pretty lousy, and must contribute to his perception of “difficulty.”

Presently, the Uniting American Families Act (or UAFA) would make immigration equality happen for both same-gender couples AND opposite-gender couples who choose, for religious, personal or other reasons, not to get legally married.

So here’s a simple, easily implemented plan for Obama to pursue on this issue:

1) Talk to Nancy Pelosi, Democratic Speaker, and get the Democratic Whip to get all Democrats to sign on to support UAFA. Ask Pelosi to allow the bill out of committee. The bill, supported by all Democrats and a number of Republicans, would easily pass the House.

2) Introduce identical companion legislation in the Senate. As a senator, Obama can do this, and ensure there’s no “committee” necessary to reconcile differing pieces of legislation in the house.

3) Have Harry Reid instruct all Democrat Senators — who have a majority — to vote for the bill. A number of GOP senators support the bill as well.

4) If President Bush vetoes it, attempt to get a veto-proof majority, which could possibly be achieved for the bill. If a veto-proof majority is impossible to get, commit to signing the bill if elected president. Then, simply repeat the use of the Democrat majorities in both houses and sign the bill as president, after campaigning on a committed platform for UAFA.

It’s not that real action on immigration equality is “difficult,” it simply requires Democrats to actually walk the walk on gay issues. Since Democrats typically cannot be bothered to make legislation on gay issues happen — except when it’s anti-gay legislation like DOMA and the anti-gay military policy — the difficulty is not theirs, but that of 40,000 binational same-gender couples divided or exiled due to Republicrat duplicity on this issue.

Sorry, Barack, but “feeling our pain” ain’t good enough. We heard that often enough from Bill Clinton over 16 years ago. It’s time to listen to Lee Iacocca and either lead or get the hell out of the way.

Boston Tea Party endorses Libertarian candidates

From the Boston Tea Party:

Charles Jay for President
http://www.cj08.com/

Tom Knapp for VP and US House in Missouri
http://tomknappforcongress.com/

Darryl W. Perry for US Senate in Alabama
http://senate.dwp2016.org/

Jason Gatties for Lake Michigan College Board (MI)
http://votegatties.org/

Phil Rhodes for Lt. Governor of North Carolina
http://www.philrhodes2008.com/

Morey Straus for Statehouse in New Hampshire
http://vote.stra.us/
Excellent campaign video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__fQBgCQ-44

Party Like It’s 1773

This week the Boston Tea Party began endorsing candidates who accept our smaller government platform. Since our party is not yet on the ballot in every state, we are looking to candidates from all the other parties who are willing to agree that a smaller government at every level and on every issue, and a larger government at no level and on no issues, is best. In other words, we are looking for men and women who accept, as Henry David Thoreau said in 1848, that the first step toward a better government is for each of us to declare what would be a better government.

To me, and to millions of people like me, a better government has to be smaller. We pay too much in taxes. We pay too much for everything because of the cost of regulations. We suffer too much from the abridgement of our freedom and the nationalisation of powers. We suffer privation, disease, injuries and death due to the USA government’s violations of the constitution, including the illegitimate wars on Americans called the war on drugs and the war on terror. We see the USA government causing too much privation, disease, injury, and death all over the world in foreign wars and decades long military occupations of foreign countries like Germany, Japan, and Korea.

It is time to eliminate government programs. It is time to fire government employees. It is time to bring all the troops home from all the countries where they are stationed. It is time for free trade, not managed trade. It is time for an end to the social welfare state.

Americans currently feed, house, clothe, care for, and salary 52% of the population in city, county, regional, state, and national government programs. More than half the population either works for or is directly paid by some government agency at some level. Obviously, such dubious “largesse” cannot continue. It isn’t really largesse, because the money being bestowed is entirely stolen. Taxation is theft, regulation is restraint of trade, and war is murder.

If you want a bigger government program for NASA, we don’t want you in the Boston Tea Party. I know all about NASA, all about the defense contractor companies who abusively perform trivial project work for shamefully high fees. I’ve been black listed from working in the industry since 1991, and I still get daily e-mails from people all over the industry making me aware of corruption, mismanagement, malfeasance, and the deaths of personnel in all areas of the space program. Clearly, having butchered two batches of seven astronauts with their negligence, NASA has no business being involved in space activities. Equally obvious, dozens of entrepreneurs are ready and able to take up the challenge of putting people in space, if only NASA would stop ruining their lives, as they ruined mine.

If you want a bigger government program for your favorite cause, we don’t want you in the Boston Tea Party. My experience, going back to my earliest political writings, a “My Turn” piece that Newsweek magazine never published, is that everyone knows that the government is wrecking things in the area they care about. Veterans are terrified of VA hospitals. Farmers are disgusted by the Department of Agriculture. Environmentalists see the EPA approving things it shouldn’t, banning things that are harmless, and egregiously benefiting influential business interests to the detriment of the environment. NASA enthusiasts see NASA constantly screwing things up. Experts on nearly any area of foreign policy you care to name see the government failing to do the right thing all over the world, and supporting one corrupt regime after another. Yet, the interest groups clamor for more money for their interest area, in spite of their detailed knowledge of how the government is screwing up whenever it does anything in that area.

It is time to give it a rest. It is time to admit that government was never the solution to our problems. It is time to accept that the industrial era civilisation which organised mass production, mass destruction, total war, mass media, and massive government is a past era, a dying civilisation, and one we are well rid of. It is time to move on to the decentralised, specialised, highly personalised information era civilisation we are capable of achieving. We have all the tools to do things better, to make life better, to customise solutions for all kinds of problems, and to leave the mass production society so its components and factories may be recycled into something better.

Nothing better is going to come of centralisation of authority. Nothing better is going to come of mass produced goods or mass media to control minds or weapons of mass destruction. We’ve seen what the Procrustean one-size-fits-all assembly line does for people, and we don’t need it. Nor can we afford it. Government must become smaller, and it can either shrink voluntarily, through the efforts of peaceful persons accepting the necessity for less oversight, less regulation, fewer prohibitions, and a smaller jail population, or it will be shrunk by force. People will resist, they will rebel, they are in a revolution right now, and the revolt is only presently non-violent. It is not guaranteed to remain non-violent.

Indeed, the current round of overseas interventions is already violent, bloody, unjustified, and deadly. The United States government has over-stepped the constitution, has violated the treaties to which it is a party, has engaged in war crimes in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Somalia, and in other countries, and must be brought to heel. The appeasement which characterised treatment of Hitler’s anschluss in Austria and the Sudetenland, the lack of action against his invasion of Czechoslovakia, and the cataclysm which saw his occupation of Poland, Holland, Belgium, and France is identical to the way the international community has treated Bush’s invasion of Afghanistan, occupation of Iraq, and military intervention through Ethiopian proxies in Somalia. A war with Iran would be a cataclysm, as Iran has been at considerable effort to illustrate with its recent missile tests. These wars must end.

Which means that libertarians must step up our campaigns, increase our efforts, and recruit more participants in an effort to rein in excessive government. This year, this election season, now is the time. Complacency and timidness must be shed. Take on the the greater person you know you can be. Take a leading role in changing society for the better, for individual liberty, for economic freedom, today.

On the other hand, if you want a smaller government at all levels and a bigger government at no level, then we are eager to have you join our party. You may join us without leaving the other party you belong to now. We have members of our party who are also active in the Republican party, many who have worked for Ron Paul’s campaign. We have members of our party who are also active in the Libertarian party, many of whom are campaigning for public office for that party. We have members who have left those parties, and who have left other parties, because they were looking for something better.

Make no mistake about it, there is corruption in high places. There is corruption in the Republican Party. There is corruption in the Democratic Party. There is an unbelievable amount of corruption in the Libertarian Party, given its small size and the paltry sums of money involved in the sleaze and filth going on. But there is no corruption in the Boston Tea Party.

Why not? I can think of three reasons right off. Openness. Rule of the members. Zero national budget.

The Boston Tea Party is completely open in all its activities. Want to know what’s going on with the new state affiliate being formed in North Carolina? Join the North Carolina Boston Tea Party group on Facebook and read all about it – anyone can join, joining is free, anyone can comment there. Want to know what’s going on with the national committee? Join the btpnc Yahoogroup. Want to discuss it? Join btpnc-talk also on Yahoogroups. Want to join the party? Visit http://www.bostontea.us/ and see everything we’re doing, review the polls taken at our nominating convention in June, check it all out, even many of the logs are public. Want access to the super secret clandestine conversations which we use in smoke filled back rooms to make all the decisions? Sorry to disappoint you, but all our deliberations are public.

That turns out to be important, because any time the national committee takes any action with which the members disagree, any member can initiate a poll to reconsider that action. A majority of those members who vote in the poll determine what happens. We’ve already tested that feature.

Earlier this year, I was persuaded by the vice chair of the party that we should have a nominating convention in which each state affiliate cast one vote. It seemed like a great way to get new state affiliates organised. One of our members disagreed and started a poll to overturn that action. All those who voted in the poll did vote against it. So, we went back to one member one vote and held our convention in June. When the vice chair tried to stop the poll by abusing his power over the national web site, his administrative privileges were revoked. Ultimately, he resigned over the issue.

So, it is very difficult for us to have corruption in high places because everything we do is in the open, and everything we do is subject to being reviewed and over-ruled by the members. In addition, corruption is very unlikely because the national party has no authority to control any significant amount of money. We have raised and spent less than $76 so far this year. Our state affiliates are authorised to raise funds, though some of them have adopted the same limitation for the same reason. So, much of the fundraising is handled by individual campaigns, or by individual donors.

As a result of these features, the Boston Tea Party has become the fastest growing libertarian political party in America. We are adding new members, new state affiliates, and new candidates at an increasingly rapid pace.

You can join us. Membership is free. All you have to do is visit our web site, read the platform, agree with it, and you’re in. Nothing to pay. Nothing to send in. No fuss, no muss. One person, one membership.

Oh, yes, we’ve tested that this year, too. A nationalist socialist youth tried to form 12 memberships from an open relay in Milwaukee and cast votes during our online nominating convention. Though he is convinced that a strong leader, or fuhrer, is needed, he opted to cast all his votes for “none of the above” in the polls. We were able to detect and disable his accounts so the polling was not tainted. Many of our members are actually quite clever where computer related technology is concerned.

If you are a candidate for public office, go to our web site and look at our platform. If you agree with it and join, contact your state affiliate or the national committee, and we’ll examine your campaign materials. If we agree that you are consistently for a smaller government at all levels and on all issues, we’ll endorse your candidacy. We’ve already endorsed candidates in North Carolina, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire – states where we don’t yet have affiliate party organisations – and we’re expecting to announce the endorsement by state affiliates of candidates in Texas, Alabama, Michigan, and elsewhere.

Perhaps most importantly, in some ways, we have chosen two standard bearers who are exceptional in the movement for individual liberty. Charles Jay helped to organise the Personal Choice Party in 2004 and is running as our presidential candidate. Tom Knapp has been involved in many libertarian activities, most notably the Rational Review news aggregation site, and is our vice presidential candidate. You can learn more about Charles at CJ08.com.

The Boston Tea Party has avoided the pitfalls embraced by other parties. We did not choose Barack Obama, who recently betrayed Americans with his vote in support of telecomm immunity and domestic espionage in favoring FISA. We did not choose John McCain whose opposition to free speech, private property, and peace is notorious. Nor did we choose Bob Barr, who recently extolled the supposed virtues of arch-segregationist Jesse Helms, has opposed Wiccans in the military, opposes gays and lesbians having access to the institution of marriage, announced his opposition to legalising all drugs two weeks before the LP nominating convention, voted for the USAPATRIOT act, and voted for the war in Iraq.

But, you don’t have to support our national candidates if you don’t wish. Chances are, except in Colorado, Florida, and perhaps eight or ten other states, you won’t even have the option of voting for Jay or Knapp because they won’t be on the ballot in your state. We’re working hard to correct that difficulty, and we expect to be on 30 or 40 state ballots in time for the 2010 Congressional elections. But you still don’t have to feel any obligation toward party loyalty.

I know that the scoundrels in the national LP have been pushing party loyalty as hard as they can. After all, they’ve seen about half the members of the party fail to renew their membership since 2000. The stench of corruption is too much for most dedicated freedom activists. Men like Chris Bennett and women like Angela Keaton have refused to be a part of the idiocy in the LP, and have withdrawn their cooperation – in both their cases filling out the remainder of their terms, but without the enthusiasm which has long characterised their involvement.

Party loyalty, like patriotism, is a refuge of scoundrels. It is a way of justifying all kinds of wrong doing in the name of “we need to do these wrong things to win.” I won’t put up with it.

So don’t feel you have to support our candidates if you join our party. You don’t. In some cases, you won’t be able to support their bids for public office even if you wish, due to onerous laws in your state. You are welcome to support any presidential or vice presidential candidate you please. But, we do think that the only candidates who are for smaller government in all areas, and a larger government in none are Charles Jay and Tom Knapp.

We are coming into some difficult times economically. The Federal Reserve has been printing money without regard to any intrinsic value since August of 1971, thanks to a stupid executive order by evil president Nixon. For various reasons, they have had one of the longer runs with fiat money in world history, not quite as long as the mulberry bark paper of the Mongol Khans, much longer than the Weimar Republic’s disastrous hyperinflation. But the easy ride is coming to an end. As my friend Doug Casey notes, we are headed for a Greater Depression to make the 1930s look like economic easy street in comparison. Indeed, my view is that the only greater depression in economic history of the last 500 years is the 1722 to 1782 depression caused by the disaster of the Banque Royale and Bank of England paper money schemes. If a sixty-year depression sounds very long, you may hope that technology speeds up the recovery, as well.

But the future beyond those economic problems looks very bright indeed. Technology is making it possible to do more things, do them faster, live longer, live more healthy lives, and enjoy the resources not only of this planet, but of our entire Solar System. We are approaching an era of great prosperity and great opportunity. Most of what stands in our way is corruption, political machinations, and excessively zealous government. Since these are entirely problems of human making, they can be, and are being, resolved with human action.

It won’t be easy to overcome centuries of excessive government, prohibitionism, welfare and warfare statism, and idiocy. Some of us are going to be hurt by the effort, and some are going to die trying to get rid of the last vestiges of mass appeal government. Worthwhile things are never cheap, they are dear. The expense in treasure, in lives, and in sacred honor cannot be too high, though, for the blessings of peace, prosperity, and freedom we can bestow upon ourselves and our posterity.

These are revolutionary times. Once again, it is time for women and men to stand up, don the costumes, board the ships, and dump the tea in Boston Harbor. It is time to act up and act out. It is time to get rowdy and be free. It is time to show those in government that we won’t be tamed, we won’t be caged, and we won’t be intimidated. They can in fact kill us, but they can never take our freedom.

Please join the Boston Tea Party today. The freedom you save may be your own.

Peter Orvetti: “The Downer Party”

The following is posted with permission of the author, Peter Orvetti. It was originally posted on his blog, The Orvetti Factor. 

The Libertarian Party eats its own.

I recently rejoined the Libertarian Party, which I have had an off-and-on affiliation with since 1992. (I first officially became a member in 1999, during my brief tenure at the Cato Institute –- which is ironic, given that Cato is largely the result of a great LP schism back in 1983.) I served as Deputy Director of Communications for the LP in 1999 and for the first bit of 2000, and made a point of covering the LP (as well as other alternative parties) back in my Orvetti.com days.

I am by no means a doctrinaire Libertarian. I support the LP because it is the most credible party that I am closest to on the issues I care most about. I also have the benefit, if you can call it that, of living in the most one-sided political jurisdiction in the country, the District of Columbia, where Democrats frequently take 85% or more of the vote in both local and national elections. If I lived in a swing state, I might feel inclined to vote for the least bad of the major candidates -– as I did when I lived in Virginia during a time of several close campaigns. But in D.C., I have the luxury of voting my conscience.

I do not oppose public roads or all taxation, and I do not know enough about the Federal Reserve and the gold standard to have an opinion. But I do think marriage apartheid is abominable (and “civil unions” a politician’s copout), and jail terms for possessing a drug less dangerous than the one to which I am addicted a travesty. I am also a homeschooling parent, and that is part of why I rejoined now.

In early March, just after getting back from a lovely family trip to Paris, I found out that the District of Columbia was going ahead with harsh new restrictions on homeschooling. I was on my way to testify at a public hearing on the matter when I was mugged at gunpoint on the escalator of the Columbia Heights Metro station at 5:00 in the afternoon. I was fine, the 16-year-old perpetrator was quickly caught (lots of security cameras, and some dumb subsequent moves on his part), and I was out little more than $50 and a Blackberry I had been meaning to replace anyway. But the episode crystallized things for me. I was on my way to defend a personal practice against government interference when I was threatened by a gun-toting kid in a city that prohibits me and other law-abiders from self-defense. (Or it did, anyway -– go Justice Kennedy!) I rejoined the LP a few days later.

Because the LP is a small party, and because Facebook has come along since my last time as a member, I quickly reconnected with folks I used to know, and found a lot of other smart and fun Libertarians online. The party was in the midst of what arguably was its most heated presidential nomination fight ever, and there were lots of fevered but mostly respectful debates. For reasons I am sure I will get into in a later posting, I am not presently supporting the LP’s national ticket. I am not sure whom I will vote for –- both major party contenders have great strengths but also many stances that give me pause. I am leaning toward writing in Charles Jay.

Anyway, with the small size and heated internal debates comes factionalism. This is a peril of all minor parties. Since the numbers are small, direction can turn on the actions and decisions of a few activists. And because the rewards are few, members tend to be intelligent and passionate people who hold their ground. So, when irreconcilable divisions arise, it is hard to keep people in the fold.

Even issues of internal operations can be fractious. This is a perennial issue in the LP, which is small but which has a somewhat entrenched bureaucratic structure that often takes a top-down approach to things. Even though I once worked for the national party, I am no longer sure having a strong centralized operation is a good thing for the LP. The action is at the state and local level, and it is hard for a Washington office to really understand what is going on there and support the work without stomping in like a lumbering giant and disrupting activists’ efforts. Perhaps a federation of state affiliates with a loose national component, existing less to lead than to coordinate and fundraise, would be better.

There is currently a major disagreement over ballot access policy that has leaked onto the web, including coverage at Independent Political Report, a site I have written for since its inception. I know nothing about the details, so I will not comment on it there or here. I will say I am sorry to see so many good and committed Libertarians divided over any matter.

There has also been some division as a result of the very controversial nomination of Bob Barr for president on the sixth ballot at this year’s national convention. Several offshoot parties have formed or been revived, and some state parties and presidential electors are openly stating their dissatisfaction with the ticket. As someone who does not back Barr, I sympathize — though I hope the LP will not go the way of the many tiny socialist parties in the U.S., fighting more among themselves about purity than in working toward a common goal. It all reminds me of the scene in Warren Beatty’s great film “Reds” in which one faction walks out of a meeting to go form its own party in the basement.

I am sticking with the LP, if only so I can vote and then look myself in the mirror. I also have a vague ambition to one day run for vice president of the United States (on the promise of abolishing the office if elected -– see Jules Witcover’s “Crapshoot” for more on why). I would happily trade a bucket of warm (spit) for the chance.

In addition, I am at work on what will become a brief exploration of my own brand of Libertarian thinking, significantly influenced by the work of Dr. Mary Ruwart. I am hoping to create a 100-page book, following on Kurt Vonnegut’s dictum that he wrote short books because he wanted people to actually read them. In reading Ruwart’s work and others that have influenced me, I have thought, “If only this were shorter, I could use it to persuade the skeptics I know.” Hopefully my own shorter effort will help.

Peter Orvetti: “Of Stewardship and Safety Nets”

The following is posted with permission of the author, Peter Orvetti.  It was originally posted on his blog, The Orvetti Factor.

There was an interesting mini-debate on the letters page of USA Today last week. Reader Sarah Kapcar wrote that she feels “like an American anomaly” because she and her husband “have no credit card debt. Yes, we use our credit, but we pay off our balances monthly. I could have used those credit cards for a pair of Manolo Blahniks but thought better. My Chevy is a lease, but my husband’s older car is paid for. He could have purchased that new Audi but thought better. We could be just like all the other Americans who are in trouble, but we thought better.” Kapcar continued, “We have been lucky in terms of maintaining good health and jobs, and I can understand how some families today need financial help. Where is my government thank-you for being responsible and not going into debt and facing foreclosure?”

This drew a rebuke a few days later from reader Tracy Grady, who wrote that her son “died of cancer three years ago. He was 8 years old. The hospital bills drove us to bankruptcy. My husband went back and forth from work to the hospital so much that he lost his job. It took him more than a year to get another one, which paid less. Now we have a mortgage we can’t afford, and no bank will refinance us because of the bankruptcy. … All this time I thought we were having a run of really bad luck. Now I understand it. If only we were better stewards, all of this would not have happened.”

This neatly sums up a dilemma I confront in thinking about personal responsibility. It drives me nuts when irresponsible folks expect some outside power — usually the government — to look after them and enable them to continue to act irresponsibly. (I remember seeing a person-on-the-street story about privatizing Social Security accounts in which one woman said, “Don’t give me the money, I’ll just spend it,” and then laughing like it was cute.) But then there are those who do live responsibly but who face unexpected and tragic changes in their personal and financial circumstances. I honestly don’t know what the answer is to this problem.

Of course, when it’s a corporation that is acting irresponsibly, it’s a no-brainer. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer was appalled — though probably not surprised to learm that “Bank of America ‘can use tax write-offs to pay for Countrywide. … Taxpayers may pick up about $5 billion of Countrywide’s losses over 20 years’ and ‘Bank of America would more than recoup the entire $3 billion purchase price.’” The newspaper rightly called Countrywide “a poster child for a bad player in the industry,” and said it “seems beyond wrong that the purchase of Countrywide — at the expense of taxpayers, no less — would bring profits to Bank of America even as so many of its mortgage holders are left in the lurch.”

Not much to argue with there.

Support Antiwar.com when shopping on Amazon

From Antiwar.com:

Anytime you shop at Amazon.com, a little url fix can get Antiwar.com a little extra financial help. Here’s how:

First, when you are on a page for a specific product, you will see a url address similiar to this:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1883959004/qid=1055449515/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/

Now, before you hit “Add to my Shopping Cart” make a little change to this address. Eliminate all of the “code” after the first set of long digits…so you will be left with, say, the following:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1883959004/

Now, after that last ‘/’ add ‘antiwarbookstore. It should look something like this:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1883959004/antiwarbookstore/

Now, hit the “Add to your shopping cart” and a part of that sale will help keep Antiwar.com alive. It’s that simple!!!

Jason Gatties: “What can a dollar buy you these days?”

What can a dollar buy you these days?

How about FREEDOM

Tomorrow we are kicking off our latest fundraiser. It’s called “GIVE A BUCK” and will run from July 7th-August 7th. Now granted, we’ll accept any donation up to $50, but what we are really encouraging are $1 donations only. Why??? Well the way we figure it, just about anyone could afford to GIVE A BUCK!

We encourage all libertarian activists to help spread the word. Visit the DONATE section of the website & fill out the form. The campaign will accept Pay Pal, Check or Money Order, although sending a $1 money order is a bit silly…haha. As of right now, it appears Jason will be running in a 4 way race with 3 seats up for grabs. In our view, we feel we have a legitimate shot at winning a seat this November, which would not only be a victory for Jason, but more importantly, a victory for the libertarian movement.

Thanks for all your support, it means the world to us.

Priscilla Gatties
Committee to Elect Jason Gatties
VoteGatties.Org

The Surreal Discontents of the War on Drugs

An 18-year old MADD activist was recently arrested and charged with delivering cookies to police departments that one department alleged “smelled like” they contained marijuana and LSD.

Turns out that testing has shown the cookies were, well, just cookies:

Christian Phillips, 18, was arrested after field tests suggested cookies delivered to two police departments contained LSD and marijuana. However, a medical examiner’s test of the cookies showed no signs of drugs.

Phillips has denied the cookies contained drugs. More sensitive tests are underway – results are expected this afternoon.

Welcome to the New America.

No good deed goes unpunished. Nobody is above suspicion. No charge or suspicion made by “authority,” no matter how implausible, goes unquestioned. And taxpayers get to spend thousands upon thousands of dollars on each individual situation.

In the mean time, the big lesson appears to be “avoid providing food to police officers.” You could end up in prison.

Jim Burns’ July 4th message

The following July 4th message was written by 2008 LP Presidential candidate Jim Burns, and is being posted with his permission. Sorry it’s being posted so late; however, as many of you know, my internet has been down for weeks.

Today is a happy day. Two hundred and thirty-two years ago the Continental Congress passed The Declaration of Independence. It was a good thing to break away from the Monarchy of England, but more important than the separation were the reasons given for the separation in the first 114 words of the second paragraph of the Declaration.*

It is true that the Declaration was not perfect. Nevertheless, the Declaration was and is Revolutionary: It establish that people should have — equality of rights under the law, — the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, — government established should be established by people to protect these rights, and — government receives their just power from the consent of the governed. These are libertarian ideas one and all.

The Revolution is not finished. The ideas of the Declaration need to be implemented and the Libertarian idea that people should not initiate force, threaten to initiate force or engage in fraud against their fellow human beings and that this idea must be applied to our social institutions in general and the institution of governments in particular must also be implemented. When we can implement these ideas, we will achieve peace, prosperity, and progress for the people of our planet.

Happy day. The Revolution has begun. Success is ours to accomplish.

Dog Bites Man

Gotta love The Press.

Headline of the week, from a Greensboro N&R story on the LPNC’s Senate candidate, Chris Cole:

Libertarian says government isn’t always solution

Those wacky Libertarians!!

Munger to NC Newspapers: Pfffht!!

The LPNC’s candidate for governor, Mike Munger, has unleashed his ire at the debate-exclusion process at NC’s two large metro papers:

http://blog.munger4ncgov.com/?p=73

Excerpt:

RALEIGH (July 9) – Dr. Mike Munger, Libertarian candidate for governor, won’t disclose the personal financial information requested by The News & Observer and the Charlotte Observer unless he’s allowed to participate in the gubernatorial debates.

“I categorically refuse to participate in this farce, unless I’m allowed to participate in the debates,” the Duke professor said. He said he doesn’t object to the request itself because both newspapers have covered all three campaigns fairly.

… “My opponents have refused to ask I be invited to even one debate,” he noted. “I find it ironic that I’m being asked to disclose anything, when it’s my Sphinx-like opponents who refuse to open their mouths and say, ‘We should include every candidate who qualified under state law.’ “

Munger has pledged to prepare the financial disclosure packet, believing in good faith that either the sponsors of at least one debate, or the candidates themselves, will awaken to a sense of their obligations in a democratic society.

You can donate to the campaign here: http://www.munger4ncgov.com/

$6,000 Challenge: Bald is Ruwartiful!

Have the Republicans and Democrats let you down?  Probably.  Has the Libertarian Party let you down too?

Don’t blame me!  I voted for Mary Ruwart.

I donated to her campaign, too!  (Full disclosure: I donated to Bob Barr and Wayne Allyn Root as well.)

I don’t know for sure what the future holds for the Libertarian Party. Some people are excited to have Bob Barr as the nominee and think he’s our silver bullet for success, while others think that nominating a recent former Republican with a conservative voting record in Congress will destroy the Libertarian Party.

While I gather that hundreds if not thousands of Americans have strong opinions on this, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the vast majority of the nearly 300 million Americans couldn’t care less who the Libertarian Party nominee is or what the Libertarian Party is about.

I’m not saying that’s a good thing.  I’m just saying that’s the way things are until a lot more people get involved.  The Libertarian Party is quite small and has only a small impact on public policy, and I think that will be the situation we’ll find ourselves in come January 2009 as well, despite some of the bold predictions of record success or eminent demise. It will take lots of hard work on the right things to change that, but that’s for a future post.

Back to the Mary Ruwart campaign.

Mary jumped into the race at the urging of quite a few people (including myself).  On just a shoestring budget of about $20,000, she came within about 4% of winning the Libertarian Party nomination for President against a former Congressman who had former billionaire Ross Perot’s presidential campaign manager, Russ Verney, working for him.

Even though Mary didn’t win the nomination, I think by being in the race she forced Bob Barr, even if only temporarily, to lean a lot more libertarian than he might have otherwise.

The moderate reformist faction of the Libertarian Party got their way at the Denver 2008 convention, but just barely. And, we’ll all get to see how this plays out at the polls in just a few months.

Again, the votes were close in Denver plus the turnout was quite low and I expect the same in the near future.  That tells me a small dedicated effort can still quite easily affect the direction of the Libertarian Party.

I recently contributed $200 to Mary Ruwart’s campaign (on top of $500 I previously donated) to help pay off some of her debt which is still above $6,000.  If you’d like to see Mary run for president again in 2012, or at least show your appreciation to her and encourage real libertarians to run in the future, please visit her website and make a contribution of $500 or $200 or whatever you can do:  http://votemary2008.com/

If by next Monday Mary raises $6,000, I’ll shave my head bald again as it was in 2002 when we had a radical platform.  Please help.  People are complaining about the little hair I’ve got.

The Austrian/Monetarist split as a proxy for the rift within the LP

From Amateur Economists:

“Libertarians are Republicans who smoke pot.” So goes the saying. And most Americans know little else about the Libertarian Party, America’s third largest, or the libertarian political philosophy. So when former Republican congressman Bob Barr announced his candidacy for the LP’s presidential nomination on May 12, the mainstream media assumed he was a shoo-in. After all, he was a Republican and now lobbies for the Marijuana Policy Project—how could someone better fit the popular definition?

But what the media failed to recognize is that many party members don’t consider libertarianism to be a branch of conservatism but, instead, its diametric opposite. These libertarians refused to embrace Barr and, instead, rallied behind the candidacy of party stalwart Mary Ruwart during the Libertarian National Convention on May 25. It took six ballots before Barr was finally able to win the party’s nomination with just over 51% of the vote, and the rift now between the “reformers” who backed Barr and the “radicals” who supported Ruwart is bitter—and largely economics related.

Read the whole article.

Foreclosures of the Rich and Famous

From Amateur Economists:

The bursting of the housing bubble has not only hurt middle-class and semi-affluent Americans (who thought they were more affluent than they were!), but also the rich and famous. Everyone has heard about Ed McMahon’s troubles – his wife sharing how she’s been so degraded that she now shops at (gasp!) Target of all places – but he’s not the only one.

The article highlights the troubles of Latrell Sprewell, Evander Holyfield, Jose Canseco, Michael Jackson, and Aretha Franklin, before concluding with:

The housing bubble and its subsequent burst were caused by the Federal Reserve’s fiat-money central banking. On the one hand, people such as McMahon, Sprewell, and Franklin should be held responsible for the bad financial decisions they’ve made — just as the heads of all of the middle- and lower-income families have been. But on the other hand, whether it’s Michael Jackson or my parents (who lost their home of nearly 30 years), it must be recognized that the Federal Reserve System obfuscates and sends false signals to market participants. When politicians talk about “helping” the people under the distress of a housing market turned upside down, they cannot be taken seriously unless they first recognize the entity that causes booms and busts: The Federal Reserve.

Read the full article here.

Bob Barr and the Big Fascist Lie

The more I’ve thought about Barr’s recent statement imploring Americans to “give thanks to God” for the “life and work” of racist U.S. Senator Jesse Helms, the angrier I’ve become. And it’s really not so much about Helms’s racism as it is about the fascist lie of the “New Right” — i.e. the militarist, anti-Taftian Right — that Reagan and Fed-financed fascism helped “bring down Communism.”

This, even more than rank racism, is a complete rejection of libertarian principles. As our standard-bearer, we have a guy who believes that if not for the fascist central planning and militarization of FDR/Truman/LBJ/Reagan, etc. — and the fiat-money central bank that financed it — Communism would have prevailed.

It took fascism, in Barr’s view, to defeat Communism.

This is a complete rejection of lessons taught by Ludwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard — you know, libertarians – as well as the Old Right views of Robert Taft and Howard H. Buffett. Namely, that Communism is doomed to fail.

Freedom did not win out and Communism wouldn’t have fallen of its own accord — at least not according to the “libertarian” candidate for president.

That the Libertarian Party would have a nominee who spreads this offensive statist propaganda — that which the “New Right” has been spreading for decades in defense of the welfare/warfare state — is absolutely disgusting and should be the final straw for any right-thinking Libertarian.

Barr is not a libertarian, but a conservative of the worst sort. And he’s not a capitalist, but an out-and-out fascist. Just as CIA operative W.F. Buckley infiltrated the anti-war conservative movement of the post WWII era, so has another CIA operative infiltrated libertarianism. Now that his true colors have been revealed to all, without doubt, he should be firmly rejected in the most vociferous manner possible.

Should libertarians support Chuck Baldwin? Part II

Back on May 27, I wrote a piece for Independent Political Report entitled, “Should libertarians consider Chuck Baldwin?” Unfortunately, it made a couple of incorrect assumptions.

For one, Chuck Baldwin does in fact support the Defense of Marriage Act. Secondly, he also supports an extra-constitutional federal abortion ban.

I recently interviewed Baldwin over the phone, and when asked to make his pitch to libertarians, here is what he said:

I understand that some libertarians do not share my conviction that life begins at conception and that we need to protect it. I understand that some don’t share our concerns on the moral issues, but I’ll say this to all the Libertarians and independents: If you believe that a secure border is critical to our nation’s survival, then I’m the only candidate for president in 2008 you can vote for… I’m also the guy that has historically stood against the Patriot Act, from the beginning. I will never allow eavesdropping on private citizens without a court order. I’m going to stop the New World Order, the NAFTA Superhighway. I really believe that NAFTA and GATT and WTO and all those so-called free trade deals have torn our country apart.

Baldwin was confused by the notion that “all” peaceable immigrants who wanted to work in America be allowed to, and said that the current immigration process is very “generous” and very “fair.”

He also said that he was on the same page with unilateral free trader Ron Paul, and that “maybe some libertarians don’t understand” Ron Paul’s position. Baldwin says he supports a 10% universal tariff to replace the income tax.

You can read the full report on the interview here. I will try to post the audio later today.

Bob Barr: Statist, abortionist, homophobe, and now racist

I have given Bob Barr every last possible chance to win my support. I have overlooked his part in the plot of smear Mary Ruwart. I’ve given him a semi-pass on his continued drug warriorism and love of big-government intervention. And I’m ashamed to say I even looked beyond his blatant homophobia.

But his July 4 press release in support of racist Senator Jesse Helms has pushed me over the line.

I will not vote for Bob Barr for president and, if by some miracle he wins the state of Michigan, I will not cast my electoral vote for him either.

It’s not just that Barr “sent condolences” to the family of racist dictator-lover Jess Helms. That would have been fine. No, Barr went so far as to call on ME to “give thanks to God” for the “life and work” — racist life and work — of Jesse Helms. That, I find completely outrageous and absolutely unforgivable.

Barr is a collectivist, anti-intellectual moron who does not understand that Communism was brought down under its own inefficiency — not the deficit spending and Fed-financed fascism of the disastrous Reagan administration. Barr is a pitiful disgrace to the Libertarian Party and libertarianism and I have diminished respect for anyone who continues to support him and call themselves a libertarian. Sorry.

Let’s take a look at Helm’s history:

Helms’s racist political activities began no later than 1950, when while working on a Democratic primary campaign, Helms helped create an ad that read, “White people, wake up before it is too late. Do you want Negroes working beside you, your wife and your daughters, in your mills and factories? Frank Graham favors mingling of the races.”

Thirteen years later, Helms had this to say of civil-rights protesters: “The Negro cannot count forever on the kind of restraint that’s thus far left him free to clog the streets, disrupt traffic, and interfere with other men’s rights.”

That same year, Helms also wrote, “Crime rates and irresponsibility among Negroes are a fact of life which must be faced.”

In 1960, Helms worked on the unsuccessful Democratic primary gubernatorial campaign of I. Beverly Lake, Sr., who ran as a supporter of racial segregation.

Helms became a Republican and in 1972 was elected to the U.S. Senate. He gave support to Ronald Reagan — Barr’s political idol — in 1976 during his insurgent run against incumbent Gerald Ford.

In 1983, Helms opposed making Martin Luther King a national holiday not on constitutional grounds — but on the spurious grounds that King has “communist ties.”

Helms once purposely sought to offend Carol Mosely Braun, an African-American senator, by whistling “Dixie” and singing a song about the “good life” during slavery. “Watch me make her cry,” he said to a colleague once Braun was trapped in an elevator with him.

Helms was also a hardcore interventionist. He had ties to Salvadorian death squads and was an outspoken supporter of fascist dictator Pinochet of Chile.

This is a man Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr considers to be “one of the finest, most courageous and deeply principled men to ever serve in the United States Congress.”

It is clear that Bob Barr does not want my vote or my support and he shall have neither. It is also clear that Bob Barr does want my antipathy — and the antipathy of others like me — and that he shall have. Although I will continue to run Independent Political Report in as objective of a manner as I can, I will no longer hold back in any other forum or setting in exposing Barr for the racist, homophobic, baby-murdering thug that he is.

Baldwin/Jay/Nader/McKinney ‘08.

Last (but not least!) Free Voice contributor: Wes Benedict

The mother of ElfNino let me have a login and password.  No longer stuck in the cheap seats, now I get to irritate, agitate, educate, and possibly even fabricate from the front row–at least until my posting privileges get revoked.

Elfninosmom suggested I post “a little something” to tell readers who I am.  Perhaps she read my mind, because talking about myself is one of my favorite topics (bragging about the LP Texas being a close second).

First, let me see if I can insert a big smiling picture:

Yeah, that worked.

More about me.

I serve as the Executive Director of the Libertarian Party of Texas (LPTX). The LPTX has a record 174 candidates on the ballot for the November 2008 elections.  About 175 people attended our June state convention in Fort Worth.  Our preliminary reports show t