As most of us are aware, former President Ford passed away a couple of days ago. I clearly disagreed with some of his policy while he was president. However, like Carter, he has been clearly critical of Bush foreign policy -- and I agree with some of his assessments of our engagement in Iraq. Bob Woodward captured a bit of the flavor of Ford's beliefs in a once embargoed interview which was published in the Washington Post today. Here's the short version:
"Rumsfeld and Cheney and the president made a big mistake in justifying going into the war in Iraq. They put the emphasis on weapons of mass destruction," Ford said. "And now, I've never publicly said I thought they made a mistake, but I felt very strongly it was an error in how they should justify what they were going to do."
Here's a bit more:
"Well, I can understand the theory of wanting to free people," Ford said, referring to Bush's assertion that the United States has a "duty to free people." But the former president said he was skeptical "whether you can detach that from the obligation number one, of what's in our national interest." He added: "And I just don't think we should go hellfire damnation around the globe freeing people, unless it is directly related to our own national security."
It would be nice if more people, including prominent Republicans, would be willing to speak out against the war in Iraq sometime before we double the amount of deaths suffered on 9/11.
It looks like another Libertarian scored a political victory. He was being deprived of the use of his own land because of eagles which weren't even there. Here's the scoop:
Edmund Contoski, who is among other things a founder of the Libertarian Party of Minnesota, has been battling for years to regain control of the land he owns north of Minneapolis, which had been restricted after the discovery of a bald eagle's nest on the property, according to an MSNBC/Washington Post account.
Although there were no actual eagles found on the premises, and although the federal government had previously determined that the bald eagle should be taken off the protected list due to the species' rejuvenation in recent times, Contoski was prohibited from in any way changing the land, making it useless for development. As he is quoted as saying, "I can't even cut firewood. I can't trim a tree. I can't do anything."
Yesterday, Shane Cory commented about Bruce Bartlett's tirade against the Libertarian Party.
Not only did Shane rebut Bartlett's "irrelevant nonsense," but LNC Chairman William Redpath will be doing so in an online interview tonight. Both Bartlett and Redpath will be presenting their cases on the program. Here are the specifics:
Since everybody else is putting their two cents into this debate, I'll add mine. Remember the line attributed to Mahatma Gandhi: "First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win."
It looks like we're in the process of graduating from phase two to phase three.
Claiming the American consumer is in crisis, third-party soft drink Royal Crown Cola called for an end to two-brand dominance, demanding an equal playing field for all and urging sweeping restrictions on the amount Coke and Pepsi are allowed to spend on advertisements.
It is unfortunate that the Onion writers knew too little about third party challenges. This would have been my take:
In nearly every cola precinct in the nation, thirsty consumers are left wanting. They look to be quenched by an alternative to the two major companies that, in the end, represent the same bland and empty flavors.
Yet, when that lone parched consumer approaches their local electronic vending machine (which offers no receipt after purchase -- a controversy for another day), he or she is given the choice of only the Grand Old Cola, Coke, or the sly marketer, Pepsi, that targets a younger demographic by branding itself as "the choice of a new generation."
Supporters of third-party colas, especially the vocal consumers of Liberty Cola, ask that drinkers from across the nation, whether diet or regular, join together and support their soda by clicking here.
Yep, I can work a fundraising pitch into anything.
Also, the Washington Times ran with the Bartlett piece this morning. . . amazing.
It's extremely rare, if not unheard of, for us to highlight commentary or articles placing the Libertarian Party in a negative light, but for the moment we're going to take a different approach.
In a syndicated column published today, columnist Bruce Bartlett penned an article that Human Events titled, "Why the Libertarian Party Is Worthless."
A great deal of the piece is filled with irrelevant nonsense, such as this line:
Theoretically, this is no barrier to third parties at the state and local level. But in practice, if a party cannot win at the presidential level, it is very unlikely to achieve success at lower levels of government.
I guess Mr. Bartlett has never heard about ballot access. His other statement is turned on its head. For years, the LP and other "third" parties have been gaining the trust of the people by electing leaders to local office. To set our eyes on actually winning the White House right now is foolish, if not absurd. We have a long way to go and for now, our presidential candidates serve as vital advocates for our party.
Bartlett, a former staffer of Congressman Ron Paul, also made this disturbing statement:
Over the years, I have known a great many people who have flirted with the Libertarian Party, but were ultimately turned off by its political impotence and immaturity. C-SPAN runs Libertarian conventions, and viewers can see for themselves how unserious and childish they are. They show that the Libertarian Party is essentially a high-school-level debating club where only one question is ever debated -- who is the purest libertarian, and what is the purest libertarian position?
While Bartlett can have his opinion on our conventions, I personally admire the fact that our presidential candidates have to fight for the nomination rather than take part in a televised coronation ceremony as with the R's and D's.
One statement above does bother me because it is one that I think hits too close to home. It is the accusation that we spend our time debating and challenging our libertarian credentials rather than moving the party forward.
For quite some time, we've used a fun outreach tool to attract new members -- The World's Smallest Political Quiz. Unfortunately, it's been used internally as well to rate the "purity" of a Libertarian.
100/100 -- means that you're as pure as driven snow when it comes to your Libertarian credentials (or you're at least pure in the eyes of the man who wrote the questions with his vision of libertarianism).
70/70 -- means that while you technically passed as a "libertarian" you would most likely be ousted or driven away from the LP during your first local meeting.
20/20 -- you're not only NOT a libertarian, more than likely you're an eeeeviill statist!
For outreach purposes, the quiz is fun and attractive although I do question why we use a tool that automatically tells 2/3rds of those who take it that they are essentially not welcome.
However, is it proper for us to apply a purity scale to our members, driving away those who disagree with our views?
In my opinion, if you want to see the Libertarian Party succeed, then welcome to the party! You can be a Libertarian.
If you want to grumble and moan about the purity of individuals while doing nothing to move us forward politically, have fun debating your small "L" credentials with other libertarians. We'll be happy to wave to you from the arena floor from time to time as you sit in a gallery full of critics.
We're in an important time in history that could arguably be compared to the political scene of the 1850's. At the time, the Whig Party was taking in its last gasps of life after being fractured by ideological differences. A newly formed Republican Party was standing by to fill the political void as Whigs left their party.
While some like Mr. Bartlett would like to say that we are the party that will go the way of the Whigs, divided by ideology, I'll argue the opposite.
It's the Republican Party that has been not just split, but shattered by poor and unprincipled leadership. Now dazed and confused Republicans are looking to the political arena for a principled home and allies that they can trust.
Will we welcome them or will we make them ace the quiz first?
Republicans continue to bicker over how to handle the Iraq fiasco. The latest is a proposal for a "surge" in troop strength in Iraq. From Time.com:
The latest semaphor flags from the Bush administration suggest the President is warming to the idea of boosting - if perhaps only on a short-term basis - the number of U.S. combat troops in Iraq by somewhere between 15,000 and 30,000 troops.
Proposed by a handful of retired generals, pushed internally by officials in the National Security Council, and advocated in public by Sen. John McCain, the "surge" has become the hot tactical idea of the season. The debate over a surge is now under way - both about how big to make it and about whether to do it at all. Former Secretary of State Colin Powell said over the weekend that he was not convinced a surge in troops would work, while Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid said his party would support a limited, short-term jump in troop levels.
While they are debating the issue, the death count is currently at 2,946 and continues to climb. It doesn't seem very likely that we'll be out of Iraq before we surpass the 2,973 deaths tragically suffered on 9/11.
LNC Chariman Billiam Redpath is currently featured on the front page at HotSoup.com. Here's the question raised: "Is America's two-party system broken?"
I'll provide a snippet from the answers of each of the panelists.
GOP apologist Mary Matalin exposes her obvious prejudice:
It's one of those questions posed by people who have never lived or worked in a country that had a multi-party system, which oftentimes collapses into chaos, calamity, and cacophony, and you can't make any progress whatsoever. It spins its wheels in motion, as opposed to progress.
Former White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry offers some hope:
I think what we need is a new politics of the center that with the right kind of charismatic candidate could lead to the development of a third party. I think that may happen as we look ahead to 2008. So the big question in American politics now - is it [the American political party system] binary or is it tripartite?
Presidential wannabe Mike Huckabee seems to have forgotten about how the Ds and the Rs worked together to give us the Patriot Act, the War and Iraq, and numerous other assaults on our freedom:
You have parties that essentially don't work together to solve problems, and I think people in America are not so much looking for an ideological government, they're looking for a problem-solving government.
White House correspondent Mike Allen more or less admits that he ignores candidates who don't have an R or a D attached to their name:
One of the ways that you're able to sort of keep things down the middle is that you spend as much time talking to the opposition as you do talking to your candidate. So if I'm, for instance, covering President Bush in 2004 and I have the privilege to be on Air Force One covering his events, I'll also talk during the day to the Kerry campaign on my cell phone, read their e-mails as they come through to our Treos or Blackberrys or the other little devices that we carry. So at the end of the day, if you're covering a candidate, you know the best argument for what they're saying because you hear their events, talk to the staff members who love and appreciate them, and you know any holes there might be in that argument because you're doing the research yourself, often with the aid of the other side. So what we try to do is bring those together and give people the complete package.
LNC Chairman William Redpath say's the two party system is "absolutely broken":
Political scientists will tell you that the almost natural result of that is two dominant parties running for the center, trying to offend as few people as possible, and that's what gives us situations where everybody avoids the issues when they're running for office, situations where you have groupthink to a certain extent in legislatures, such as the resounding vote in allowing President Bush to take us to war in Iraq.
Here's the biggest "Doh!?" of the day. The irony is that it comes from a group of people we'd normally consider pretty bright:
Some 10,000 US researchers have signed a statement protesting about political interference in the scientific process.
The statement, which includes the backing of 52 Nobel Laureates, demands a restoration of scientific integrity in government policy.
According to the American Union of Concerned Scientists, data is being misrepresented for political reasons.
It claims scientists working for federal agencies have been asked to change data to fit policy initiatives.
The Union has released an "A to Z" guide that it says documents dozens of recent allegations involving censorship and political interference in federal science, covering issues ranging from global warming to sex education.
The combination of education and state gives us Heather Has Two Mommies (at taxpayer expense) when the Ds are in charge and Most Children Left Behind when the Rs are at the wheel.
The combination of medicine and state gives us incredibly long waiting times for new medicines while some alternative treatments are outlawed. The combination of healthcare and state has also given us increased healthcare costs and regulatory burdens.
Hurricanes and the state? Don't even get me started...
Libertarians have two birthdays to celebrate this week. In addition to our own 35th birthday, December 15 is Bill of Rights Day across the country. Here's the wiki version of the history of the Bill of Rights:
The Bill of Rights is the term used to describe the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution. These amendments limit the powers of the federal government, protecting the rights of the people by preventing Congress from abridging freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, freedom of religious worship, the freedom to petition, and the right to keep and bear arms, preventing unreasonable search and seizure, cruel and unusual punishment, and self-incrimination, and guaranteeing due process of law and a speedy public trial with an impartial jury. In addition, the Bill of Rights states that "the enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people," and reserves all powers not granted to the Federal government to the citizenry or States. These amendments came into effect on December 15, 1791, when ratified by three-fourths of the States.
While various government reports continue to indicate that our economy is in great shape, a new U.S. Mint policy indicates that the value of the dollar, or to be more precise, nickel, isn't as high as they might suggest. From CNN:
The U.S. Mint has implemented a law against melting down pennies and nickels which, at current metal prices, could be worth more as metal than as currency.
The Mint has received numerous questions over the past several months regarding the metal value of the coins and the legality of melting them.
"We are taking this action because the nation needs its coinage for commerce," said Director Ed Moy in a statement.
"We don't want to see our pennies and nickels melted down so a few individuals can take advantage of the American taxpayer. Replacing these coins would be an enormous cost to taxpayers."
The new regulations authorize a fine of up to $10,000, or imprisonment of up to five years, or both, against violators.
Dems Promise to Cut Pork; I'm Not Holding My Breath
According to the LA Times, the Democrats are saying they plan to eliminate earmark spending for the rest of the fiscal year.
ONE OF THE MASTERS of pork-barrel politics in Washington is the dean of the Senate Democrats, Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia. Eager to funnel tax dollars back to his state for roads, sewers, clinics and other projects, Byrd has been a tenacious defender of "earmarking" - the formal term for a lawmaker directing federal money to a pet local project.
That's why it was stunning to hear Byrd, the incoming chairman of the powerful Appropriations Committee, and his House counterpart, Rep. David R. Obey (D-Wis.), announce that they wouldn't support any earmarks for the rest of the fiscal year, ending Sept. 30. All the projects previously approved by either the House or the Senate in nine yet-to-be-completed spending bills - nearly 10,000 projects costing about $17 billion, according to Citizens Against Government Waste - will be dropped.
Certainly they are to be congratulated for cutting GOP pork, but I doubt they'll be able to resist the urge to spend other people's money in their districts. They certainly don't mind making us pay for other people's healthcare, so they can't claim to have some principled argument against redistribution schemes.
I'm simply wondering how they plan to spin the first pork that they slip into some legislation next year.
Over the years, a lot of people have told me that Ayn Rand's book Atlas Shrugged was the greatest single influence leading them to become a Libertarian. For me, the road was started with Robert A. Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, which I first read as a young teenager.
Out of curiosity, what book steered you towards libertarianism or was the most influential in shaping your political beliefs?
Lest anyone mistakenly think Congress will be free of scandal with the Democrats in charge, think again. Voters in the Big Easy just re-elected a person some might decide to call The Big Sleazy. From the AP:
NEW ORLEANS: U.S. Congressman William Jefferson easily defeated his fellow Democratic opponent in a runoff vote despite an ongoing federal bribery investigation.
In complete but unofficial returns, Jefferson - Louisiana's first black congressman since Reconstruction - received 57 percent of the vote over state Rep. Karen Carter, who had 43 percent.
Carter was unable to capitalize on a scandal that included allegations the FBI found $90,000 in bribe money in Jefferson's freezer.
Any ideas on how to clean up all the corruption in DC?
More than $1 million donated after an arson blaze killed five firefighters can't be distributed to their families because the charity didn't follow IRS rules.
You're a mean one, Mr. Grinch
You really are a heel!
You're as cuddly as a cactus
You're as charming as an eel, Mr. Grinch!
You're a bad banana with a
Greasy black peel!
However, tax-exempt charitable organizations cannot raise money for a group as small and specific as the families of five firefighters. Under federal law, such groups can give money to individuals only if those individuals or families are part of a wider class and if giving the money ultimately benefits the community.
You're a monster, Mr. Grinch
Your heart's an empty hole!
Your brain is full of spiders
You've got garlic in your soul, Mr. Grinch!
I wouldn't touch you with a
Thirty-nine-and-a-half-foot pole!
"This was a spontaneous effort - there wasn't time to go to a bunch of tax attorneys and CPAs," said Riverside County Supervisor Marion Ashley. "We feel like the IRS is the Grinch that stole Christmas."
You're a vile one, Mr. Grinch
You have termites in your smile!
You have all the tender sweetness
Of a seasick crocodile, Mr. Grinch!
Given the choice between the two of you
I'd take the, um, seasick crocodile!
This article over at Human Events Online indicates that Libertarian Party candidates not only took the control of the Senate from the Republicans, they also covered the difference in votes other races where the Republican candidate lost:
This isn't the first time Republicans have had to worry about losing votes to Libertarian Party candidates. Senators Harry Reid (Nev.), Maria Cantwell (Wash.), and Tim Johnson (S.D.) all won races in which Libertarian candidates got more votes than their winning margin.
The focus of the article isn't on LP candidates, though, but trying to convince Republicans to go after the 15% of the population identified as libertarian.
Rep. Barbara Cubin (R.-Wyo.) told her Libertarian challenger after a debate, "If you weren't sitting in that [wheel]chair, I'd slap you." It took 10 days to certify her re-election, perhaps because that Libertarian took more than 7,000 votes. A better strategy for her and other Republicans would be to try to woo libertarians back.
With their big government policies, Republicans have already indicated their clear disdain for libertarians. The Democrats aren't even in power yet, but are already up to their same old tricks, plus they are adding a few they learned from the GOP. What can the Libertarian Party to get the word out that we are the only natural home for libertarians?
The new Congressional session hasn't even started yet, but Democrats are already scurrying about like cockroaches trying to obtain every morsel of lobbyist money possible. Here are some samples from the Wall Street Journal:
Democrats may be promising a clampdown on lobbyist freebies once they take control of Congress. But ahead of that push, party leaders are collecting lobbyists' checks, while Democratic staffers angle for jobs inside their well-appointed offices.Verizon Communications Inc. earlier this week sponsored a reception for newly elected Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill. Illinois Democratic Rep. Melissa Bean was the beneficiary of a Tuesday night fund-raiser in the new Capitol Hill offices of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. In addition to retiring Ms. Bean's debt, Chamber Political Director Bill Miller said the reception was a chance for corporations and lobbyists who didn't back her re-election to "meet her and see what a great representative she is."
Ome might argue that these are just minor, isolated events, except:
Yesterday, Illinois Rep. Rahm Emanuel, mastermind of the Democrats' House takeover, accepted donations at Sonoma, a trendy Capitol Hill restaurant that features California cuisine to match the wine list, for his leadership committee, a type of account employed by ambitious lawmakers to make donations and curry favor with their colleagues.
There's a whole lot more in the article, but I thought I'd provide one more example:
Or to bask in their newly empowered status. Last night, incoming House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel hosted a Capitol Hill fund-raiser for his leadership committee. Mr. Rangel has never been seriously challenged. He was elected in 1970 with 87% of the vote and has won re-election by margins of more than 90 points ever since. But the New York congressman did shell out $370,000 to the House re-election committee to help his colleagues in last month's races. He now has a chance to recoup that investment -- and more.
Nancy Pelosi's office at least gave us some spin to chew on:
"We will break the link between lobbyists and legislating," said Pelosi spokesman Brendan Daly. "People still need to raise money to run campaigns."
What ever happened to raising money the old fashioned way: From individual campaign supporters?
The nominee for United States Secretary of Defence, Robert Gates, says that the US is not winning the war in Iraq, directly contradicting President Bush.
According to WaPo, Hillary Clinton seems to be very serious about a potential presidential bid in 2008:
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) is taking a series of concrete steps toward a likely campaign for president in 2008, settling on key members of her campaign team, recruiting potential new additions to her staff, and calling Democratic activists in states with early primaries and caucuses.
No final decision on running is expected before the end of the year, according to sources knowledgeable about her thinking, as Clinton works methodically through a checklist of preparatory steps. But she and her inner circle are already ramping up for what could be a history-making bid for the White House.
Dick Morris, former political advisor to Bill Clinton, seems very concerned about this. In a commentary piece at The Hill, Morris provided quite a few reasons to be scared of Hillary:
1) She rarely has a new idea but specializes in advocacy — the rote recitation of talking points.
2) She is obtuse in her understanding of people and ham-handed in her approach.
3) She seeks popularity as a means to the goal of getting elected but otherwise marches to the beat of her inner, liberal drummer.
4) She swallows the ideological line of the guru du jour hook, line and sinker. During the healthcare years, it was Ira Magaziner who pushed her buttons. When she decided to back the Iraq War, it was the generals who paraded before her committee. She is vulnerable to a cultish adoration of the guys with all the answers.
5) She has a rigidly dichotomized view of friends and enemies, demanding total loyalty and public silence from the former and maintaining a ruthless determination to destroy the latter. She is a Democratic Nixon to those whom she perceives as her enemies.
6) She devotedly and deeply believes in a European-style socialism in which government takes much more of our national income and offers a far wider array of services and benefits.
7) She'll increase [taxes] just to redistribute income.
8) She is more like LBJ, Nixon or Bush Jr. - determined to charge ahead and do what she thinks needs to be done, the torpedoes be damned.
9) She constantly seeks to reinvent herself and rigidly maintains an almost totally inaccurate image in public of what she is really like in private.
10) She would be a disaster at home and abroad.
If anyone knows how disasterous a Clinton presidency would be, Dick Morris would.
A year ago, BB&T Bank was applauded by a lot of Libertarians for their stance on eminent domain. For the purpose of refreshing our memories, here's how one newspaper reported the story:
BB&T Corp., the second-biggest bank in the Washington area, said yesterday that it will not lend money to developers who plan to build commercial projects on land taken from private citizens through the power of eminent domain.
BB&T is now engaged in additional free market activity. Here's the scoop:
Winston-Salem-based BB&T's philanthropic organization, BB&T Charitable Foundation, recently made the $1 million donation to UNC-Greensboro to establish the BB&T Program in Capitalism, Markets and Morality. The program also will create the Ayn Rand Reading Room in the school's library. The room will include fiction and nonfiction works by Rand, who was an economic freedom advocate, and other authors.
BB&T Chairman and Executive Officer John Allison IV said the grant would help to promote students' understanding of concepts outside the technical framework of businesses. "Unfortunately, we find that many students who graduate with business degrees while understanding the 'technology' of business, do not have a clear grasp of the moral principles underlying free markets," Allison said.
The gift will fund an undergraduate course on markets and morality and a separate course for graduate students. It will also provide faculty grants for curriculum development to increase students' knowledge of capitalism and moral foundations in the economic principle.
Also included in the gift is the creation of the BB&T Distinguished Lecture Series in Capitalism, which will promote discussions on business ethics and values. Dr. Bruce Caldwell, a professor of economics at UNC-Greensboro and editor of The Collected Works of F.A. Hayek, will be among the various presenters during the lecture series.
Congratulations are due to BB&T for their continued work in advancing the cause of liberty.
Third, fourth and even fifth parties have at least one ally in Colorado. The writer also made a very valid point:
The Democrats and the Republicans have worked hard to create the illusion that a two-party system is "normal." They have used their control of Congress and the presidency to pass laws designed to ensure that third and fourth parties do not gain power and unseat them. Things like single-representative, winner-take-all districts and financial benefits for incumbents help maintain the two major parties at the expense of third parties. And did you know that the federal government financially supports the Republican and Democratic National Conventions - but not any other political party's conventions?
Reason prognosticates about what we can expect from the Democrat controlled Congress:
Americans favor raising the minimum wage to $7.15 per hour, 83 percent to 14 percent, according to a recent report from the Pew Research Center. Democrats are talking about an increase to $7.25 an hour, and they're promising to push it through in the first 100 hours of the Democratic majority rule. Bush has said he supports an increase, but won't haggle about the numbers in public.
The Libertarian Party of California provides an alternate version of the story of Christmas:
Since the 1930s, the U.S. government has gotten into the Santa Claus game by increasing the generosity of welfare and subsidy programs. The Congress in recent years has increased government spending to $2,654 billion, doubling the size of government during the Clinton and Bush administrations. Politicians run for re-election on the record of how much of other people's tax money they have captured for spending back home, just like 535 little Santa Claus elves cheerily making gifts to the happy voters. The Santa Claus spirit is shown by infamous spending earmarks such as the "bridge to nowhere" in Alaska and thousands of other special pork projects, and expensive new entitlements like the Medicare prescription drug benefit.
Alternative Salmon, Mormon Crickets and Prurient Pork
We just posted an article on the front page of LP.org about pending pork barrel spending. In it, I included a few of the 12,000 proposed earmarks about which we might expect to hear over next couple of weeks:
$1 million for Mormon Cricket and Grasshoppers Activity in Utah
$1.1 million for alternative salmon research in Alaska
$591,000 for the Montana Sheep Institute
$232,000 appropriated to the National Wild Turkey Federation
$194,000 for Goose Control in the state of New York
As I've been too busy to research every line item of every potential amendment to the nine (ten in the Senate) upcoming appropriations bills, I was wondering if you all might help out with a couple of issues. First, if someone can find other examples of egregious waste, please let me know (in the comments section).
Second of all, why do we need to spend seven digits to find out that Mormon crickets engage in hopping activities? And just what exactly is an alternative salmon?
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