Early last week I received a telephone call from a nice woman named Louise at LP National HQ. While I do get the occasional call from HQ, usually pertaining to campaigns or my membership, it is very unusual for me to be receiving calls from National level political headquarters on my cell phone during business hours. Louise informed me that she was calling on behalf of the National LP's Communications Director, Stephen Gordon, who would like to extend me the offer of representing the LP Blog at the CPAC 2007 here in Washington, D.C. The offer was so out of left field (and completely awesome) that I actually had poor Louise repeat this three times to me before it fully sank in.
Mind racing, I considered the primary reasons why I might be invited to do something like this for the LP. Aside from my participation in the party itself, I actually just moved up here to the D.C. area only weeks ago from my home city of Atlanta, thus enabling me to attend on the cheap. Additionally, Stephen was a fan of my coverage for Third Party Watch of the 2006 LP Convention in Portland, OR. Between the three, I suppose he felt it was worth the gamble to allow me a chance to cover such a big event.
Like many of you, until recently I was not overly familiar with the CPAC. CPAC, short for Conservative Political Action Conference, as it turns out, is a massive conservative leaning conference held annually in the heart of the Nation's capital. Speakers at this year's event include, among others, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani, Tony Snow, John Bolton, and the Vice President. Ah, and everyone's favorite new LP torch bearer, former Congressman Bob Barr.
Beyond the proposterously impressive list of conservative speakers, which frankly could only be more impressive if the President himself was attending, what exactly goes on at this conference? Great question. The event features a large number of panels and workshops, featuring fair and balanced titles such as "Why Are Liberals Hell-Bent on Raising Our Taxes" and "Loony Ladies of the Left: How to Combat the Radical Feminists on Your Campus." No, seriously, I did not make those up. Jabs aside, the event does feature a number of extremely informative looking sessions on conservative activism and policy, as well as what amounts to being probably the top conservative networking event this side of the Republican National Convention.
As best I can tell, Mr. Barr, who now serves as the Southest Region's Representative to the Libertarian National Committee, is the only Libertarian speaker on the docket. He will be participating in a panel Saturday morning titled "Balancing Individual Rights and National Security." Such a panel seems right up his alley and I very much look forward to hearing what he has to say.
While I share much in common with the former Congressman in terms of political ideology, I must say that I have little in common with most of the CPAC's speakers and attendees. I am a mile to the right of the Republican leadership in terms of fiscal policy (I'm for balanced budgets, small government, and free trade; remember those?) and ten miles to their left on social issues (I oppose government involvement in marriage, the War on Drugs, & the war in Iraq). Indeed, one wonders if Mr. Gordon knew of my near complete dislike of the Republican agenda if he still would have asked me to cover this for the LP. But then, a wise man once said, "Only Nixon could go to China."
Over the next three days I hope to bring you fresh, lively coverage and perspective on the biggest conservative event of 2007. I hope it will be long on wit and color with a dash of substance. I expect to post several times a day each day, so be sure and check back for the latest updates.
When moving to DC a few months back, I took the opportunity to get rid of a lot of junk I'd been accumulating over the years. Old magazines went in the trash and some clothing which no longer fit went to charity.
Perhaps it's time we apply this logic to our government, too. Today's AJC shows us just how we can accomplish such a constitutional house cleaning.
For example, the First Amendment - which guarantees the rights to freedom of religion, speech, the press, peaceful assembly and to petition for redess of grievances - is so often misunderstood by government, the courts and the people that we'd probably all be better off if it were simply repealed. Few people really understand anymore why it might be necessary to "assemble" anyway, and who worries in this day and age about something as arcane as a "redress of grievances"?
Then take the Second Amendment - that pesky sentence constantly getting in the way of efforts by big city mayors in New York, Washington, San Francisco and elsewhere to disarm the populace. Insofar as many government officials view the clause as applicable simply to a "militia" - which they in turn believe we no longer need because, after all, we have the military and the police nowadays to "protect" us - wouldn't it greatly simplify their jobs to just repeal the amendment?
Once we've finished this task, we can focus on the really important things in life. As the author suggests, "Now back to Britney Spears and Anna Nicole Smith."
a) The position of a candidate on the Iraq War, the economy and civil liberties
or...
b) The race, gender and religion of a candidate?
The way the mainstream media keeps talking about Hillary and Obama, one might think the 2008 elections are about race and gender. While it might be effective in getting people to forget Hillary's war vote and the fact that Obama came out late in the issue department, there is something wrong with this picture.
At least Gallup has some figures about how voters react to such trivial issues, since political issues no longer matter.
If you don't wish to peek at the survey results, here's a snapshot of the results: A black female Catholic candidate probably has a better chance of winning than someone who might end the war in Iraq while restoring the economy and our civil liberties.
It's a shame they didn't poll on shoe size or favorite type of pet. Perhaps then we could get some really qualified candidates.
"If you want to get educated or want to succeed, the welfare office don't care," said Nia Foster, a 32-year-old mother of two on public assistance in this AP article. It's almost ironic that she now has temporary employment in a tax preparation office.
According to the article, more people are receiving "public" assistance now than at any time since we started measuring such things.
The welfare state is bigger than ever despite a decade of policies designed to wean poor people from public aid. The number of families receiving cash benefits from welfare has plummeted since the government imposed time limits on the payments a decade ago. But other programs for the poor, including Medicaid, food stamps and disability benefits, are bursting with new enrollees.
The result, according to an Associated Press analysis: Nearly one in six people rely on some form of public assistance, a larger share than at any time since the government started measuring two decades ago.
To be sure, less people are on the current welfare rolls. However, the government has used some creative sleight-of-hand tricks to make sure that the checks arrive from different offices - ones without the word "welfare" so conspicously attached.
"If the goal of welfare reform was to get people off the welfare rolls, bravo," said Vivyan Adair, a former welfare recipient who is now an assistant professor of women's studies at Hamilton College in upstate New York. "If the goal was to reduce poverty and give people economic and job stability, it was not a success."
With Democrats now in charge of Congress, don't expect things to get any better. By the same token, don't look to the executive branch for improvement. This comes direct from the elephant's mouth:
"I don't have any problems with those programs growing, and indeed, they were intended to grow," said Ron Haskins, a former adviser to President Bush on welfare policy.
The next time someone tries to sell you on universal/socialized/government healthcare, you may wish to remind them of how the how wonderful goverment health standards are. From Stars and Stripes:
The Army and Navy will review medical care and living conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington and the National Naval Medical Center at Bethesda, Md., according to the Defense Department.
The move comes after The Washington Post ran a series of articles beginning Sunday, exposing substandard living conditions at Walter Reed.
Walter Reed's Building 18, which houses 76 soldiers recovering from war wounds, was found to have mold, water damage, mice and elevator outages, according to the Post.
The lack of government care for our wounded and ill soldiers in this case is appalling. That many politicians wish to impose those same healthcare standards on the entire population with "universal healthcare" is truly scary.
The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit just decided that habeas corpus doesn't apply Guantanamo Bay prisoners, setting the stage for yet another Supreme Court case. Here's the New York Times take on the issue:
The Supreme Court previously ruled twice that federal statutes empowered the courts to consider Guantanamo prisoners' habeas corpus petitions challenging the grounds for their detention. In response to those rulings, Congress twice rewrote law to limit the detainees' avenues of appeal. The most recent rewriting was at issue in Tuesday's 2-to-1 decision.
That law, the Military Commissions Act of 2006, was signed by President Bush last October. Its enactment followed the Supreme Court's rejection of his administration's earlier arguments that the right of habeas corpus - the fundamental right, centuries old, to ask a judge for release from unjust imprisonment - did not apply to foreigners being held outside the United States as enemy combatants.
The new law explicitly eliminated the federal courts' jurisdiction over habeas challenges by such prisoners. It instead set up military panels to review the justification of detention in individual cases, with limited right of appeal to the courts afterward.
In its ruling Tuesday, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit found that the new law did not violate the constitutional provision that bars the government from suspending habeas corpus except in "cases of rebellion or invasion." Two of the three appeals court judges, citing Supreme Court and other historical precedent, held that the right of habeas corpus did not extend to foreign citizens detained outside the United States.
Does anyone think the new Congress will have the courage to pass legislation providing basic legal rights to all people held in U.S. custody?
thinkLIBERTARIAN.com just conducted an audio interview of Bob Barr. Here's the link. In addition to this interview, Mark Augustyn and Mark Solomon are continuing to do a great job supporting both the national LP and their local state affiliate. Whether it's a concert, a bumpersticker, a video or an interview, they consistently promote liberty in an effective manner.
At the national office, we greatly appreciate the work of organized activist organizations like thinkLIBERTARIAN.com. Shane Cory considers them a great example for other LP supporting organizations to follow. I wholeheartedly agree.
A Conyers psychotherapist is expected to enter his name as a Libertarian candidate for the congressional seat left vacant by U.S. Rep. Charlie Norwood's death last week.
Though the prospects for a third-party candidate are slim, Dr. Jim Sendelbach would become the first Libertarian included on a Georgia ballot for the U.S. House of Representatives, according to state party officials.
"It'll be historic," said David Chastain, executive director of the Georgia Libertarian Party. "Given the mood of what's been going on in Washington, D.C., and with the people being disgruntled with what the Republican administration has done, as far as fiscal irresponsibility and taking away personal rights and liberties, a Libertarian candidate in this race could be very interesting."
As almost everyone on Capitol Hill is a bit flaky, Sendelbach's professional credentials are ideal for the office he is seeking.
It might be nice to read a newspaper one day where there was no need for any coverage of political scandals. However, hell hasn't frozen over, yet.
Of course, we are all familiar with the recent issues with Bob Ney, Mark Foley and Tom DeLay. There there is William Jefferson's Freezer-Gate in New Orleans. In the current news, there is Sex-Gate in San Francisco and Defense Contractor-Gate in California.
Oftentimes, certain people call Libertarians extremists. Reality shows that while Libertarians sometimes take on unpopular opinions, we do so because of our strong desire to adhere to our principles. In other words, we'll do what's right, even if it hurts us on Election Day.
What people often don't realize is that Libertarian positions are often later adopted by the American public, forcing politicians to do the right thing.
The War in Iraq is no different. Even two years after 9/11, 63 percent of Americans believed that the nation was right to go to war with Iraq. This Time/CNN poll from September 2003 also showed that President Bush's approval rating had dropped from 63 percent to 52 percent.
Today, polling numbers tell a different story. This series of USA Today/Gallup surveys gives Bush an approval rating in the 30s since October of last year. During this same period of time, a majority of Americans have felt that sending U.S. troops to Iraq was a mistake.
Leading isn't always easy and it's a lot tougher before our opinion becomes mainstream. While our rewards may not be immediate, doing the right thing tends to pay off in the end. Republicans certainly learned the price for ignoring principle last November.
Libertarians are becoming more and more effective. We've figured out how and worked hard to become thought leaders. Now it's time for us to learn how to transistion these thoughts into a significantly greater level of electoral success and work just as hard to ensure this happens.
WaPo is reporting that John McCain, father of the McCain-Feingold Incumbancy Protection Racket, is now taking money for his presidential race that he once condemned others for accepting:
Just about a year and a half ago, Sen. John McCain went to court to try to curtail the influence of a group to which A. Jerrold Perenchio gave $9 million, saying it was trying to "evade and violate" new campaign laws with voter ads ahead of the midterm elections.
As McCain launches his own presidential campaign, however, he is counting on Perenchio, the founder of the Univision Spanish-language media empire, to raise millions of dollars as co-chairman of the Arizona Republican's national finance committee.
In his early efforts to secure the support of the Republican establishment he has frequently bucked, McCain has embraced some of the same political-money figures, forces and tactics he pilloried during a 15-year crusade to reduce the influence of big donors, fundraisers and lobbyists in elections. That includes enlisting the support of Washington lobbyists as well as key players in the fundraising machine that helped President Bush defeat McCain in the 2000 Republican primaries.
According to CNN, McCain isn't very happy about the WaPo article:
Sen. John McCain blasted a report in the Washington Post that said the Arizona Republican, who has campaigned against the use of "soft money," is using just those kinds of funds to support his GOP presidential nomination.
McCain told CNN the article is "worst hit job that has ever been done in my entire political career."
According to the story published on Sunday, campaign and IRS records show several of McCain's finance co-chairmen "have given or raised large donations for political parties or 527 groups."
While I strongly believe that one should be able to give a campaign as much money as he or she likes, it is sort of fun watching the man who tried to bankrupt the LP squirm a little bit.
In the spirit of the previous blog entry, it might be fun to have a bit of Libertarian trivia over the weekend.
I'll start with a few questions to get this going. Feel free to answer and provide any interesting details of which you might be aware.
1) Who was the first woman to receive an electoral vote?
2) Who produced the first LP political commercial to receive the coveted Pollie Award?
3) In what year did Dixville Notch, NH voters cast more votes for the LP presidential candidate than for the GOP presidential candidate?
4) Which LP office holder won his current office (hint: he's held a higher level office before) as a write-in candidate in a campaign in which he didn't even participate?
Bonus Question: How many people didn't vote for the candidate in question 4?
Do any of you have some additional interesting Libertarian trivia questions?
Learn More of the History of the Libertarian Movement on C-SPAN
While were aren't usually in the habit of promoting books at LP.org, Reason's Brian Doherty has a new one out which provides a history of the Libertarian movement.
Additionally, Doherty will be on C-SPAN this weekend. Here's the information he provided about the program:
Hi everyone! I'm letting everyone know that I'll be talking about my new book RADICALS FOR CAPITALISM for a full hour this weekend on C-SPAN2--that's "2", the OTHER C-SPAN.
It airs on Saturday Feb 10 at 9 pm EASTERN.
Then again on Sunday Feb 11 at 6 pm and 9 pm EASTERN
I'm not making this one up. I'll just feed the story to you the same way I received it:
An initiative filed by proponents of same-sex marriage would require heterosexual couples to have kids within three years or else have their marriage annulled.
Initiative 957 was filed by the Washington Defense of Marriage Alliance. That group was formed last summer after the state Supreme Court upheld Washington's ban on same-sex marriage.
Under the initiative, marriage would be limited to men and women who are able to have children. Couples would be required to prove they can have children in order to get a marriage license, and if they did not have children within three years, their marriage would be subject to annulment.
All other marriages would be defined as "unrecognized" and people in those marriages would be ineligible to receive any marriage benefits.
Former Congressman and current LNC member Bob Barr wrote an article for the AJC outlining how Bush has literally taken our civil liberties back to medieval times. Here's a segment of the article:
Some 792 years ago, in Runnymede, England, a very unhappy King John was forced by a group of barons to sign a document called the "Magna Carta."
Despite the passage of so many centuries since that June day, and notwithstanding the fact that no one save a devoted cartographer could find the "meadow that is called Runnymede" on a modern map, the notion of a "Great Charter," clearly establishing rights of individuals and limiting the power of the governing authority, remains a central underpinning of Western civilization. These ideas form also the very basis of our own representative democracy; that is, until the administration of George W. Bush.
While many provisions in the Magna Carta dealt with parochial interests of barons that have little relevance today, such is not the case with paragraph 39: "No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land." The eloquence, relevance and importance of these words ring as loudly today as they did nearly 800 years ago.
After finishing the lesson for those who might not be aware of of some of the history and tradition behind one of our most basic civil liberties, Barr went on to explain how Bush has sent us back almost to the dark ages.
It's a good read and worth passing on to others, especially those without strong libertarian inclinations.
Republicans on Monday blocked Senate debate on a bipartisan resolution opposing President Bush's troop buildup in Iraq, leaving in doubt whether the Senate would render a judgment on what lawmakers of both parties described as the paramount issue of the day.
The decision short-circuited what had been building as the first major Congressional challenge to President Bush over his handling of the war since Democrats took control of Congress last month, and left each party blaming the other for frustrating debate on a topic that is likely to influence the 2008 presidential and Congressional races.
Meanwhile, Bush is proposing $625 billion for DoD as part of his $2.9 TRILLION dollar budget. FromStars and Stripes:
President Bush has asked for about $624.6 billion in Defense spending for fiscal 2008, to include a 3 percent pay raise for all servicemembers, the Defense Department announced Monday.
The Defense Department portion of the president's $2.9 trillion spending plan is $481.4 billion for fiscal 2008, according to a Defense Department news release.
An additional $141.7 billion will be needed for fiscal 2008 to fight the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the news release says. The wars are funded through supplemental requests on top of the base Defense budget.
Additionally, the administration is seeking $93.4 billion for the rest of fiscal 2007 to fight those wars.
It's beginning to look as if our children won't be able to pay off the national debt -- and we'll be passing the proverbial buck to our grandchildren.
The Democrats had their chance to prove to the American public they had changed since they last had control of Congress. In case you've missed it, here's what they've been up to lately. A Houston Chronicle article had the headline: "House approves huge spending bill." Here's the overview:
A must-pass bill covering about one-sixth of the federal budget swept through the House on Wednesday. A sizable chunk of Republicans joined virtually all Democrats in approving spending increases for education, veterans and the AIDS battle in Africa.
The 286-140 vote - with 57 Republicans voting in favor - was a please surprise for Democrats who expected far less GOP support. The bill had much to please the rank and file, including Republican moderates, even though it contained no pet projects for their districts.
"The content is a heck of a lot better than most expected we'd come up with," said the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, Rep. David Obey, D-Wis. He worked with his Senate counterpart, Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., to add money for initiatives popular with both Democrats and Republicans.
To add fuel to the fire, they continue to provide money to Senator Ted "Bridge to Nowhere" Stevens:
The overall total would have been even higher had there not been such hurt feelings over how Democrats powered the bill through the House: just an hour of debate time, no amendments allowed.
Republicans also said the measure was not entirely free of parochial "earmarks," saying powerful senators such as Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, and Pete Domenici, R-N.M., received special treatment for home-state projects.
The Hillis reporting that the conduit of cash between K Street and the Capitol continues:
Many Democratic freshmen raised tens of thousands of special-interest dollars toward their reelection even before they were sworn in for the 110th Congress.
The numbers show that although they said during their campaigns that they would reform the "culture of corruption" in Washington, many quickly immersed themselves in the town's lobbyist-dominated fundraising network to fill up their coffers and retire their debt.
While some House freshmen have done little fundraising, more than half of those who had revealed their fundraising activities by yesterday reported raising between $35,000 and $83,000 between Election Day and the swearing-in of the new Congress, usually a very quiet time on the fundraising circuit. Most of the money came from political action committees (PACs) representing corporate and labor interests.
Perhaps enough voters will realize by 2008 that both major parties are more concerned with special interests than with American interests.
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Here's an excerpt from the article:
