Governor Johnson called me on Wednesday to ask for my support as a LP convention delegate in Las Vegas. We spoke for 5 minutes about problems with the Fair Tax before I had to leave to teach a class. Later that day I wanted to follow up with more information in written form. Unfortunately Governor Johnson does not post his direct email address on his website, so I called him back at the number that called me leaving a voicemail with my phone number and email address. He didn’t get back to me, so I’m posting these concerns as an open letter instead.

My hope is the timing of this letter will facilitate an airing of these concerns with Gary Johnson and Jeffrey Miron on the video chat scheduled for Monday February 13. I believe Jeffrey Miron will find many of these concerns to be very legitimate — and that might knock some sense into Governor Johnson.

-Chuck Moulton

Chuck Moulton: An Open Letter to Gary Johnson about the Fair Tax

Governor Johnson,

I will be a LP convention delegate from VA. We spoke on the phone at 11:20 am EST Wednesday.

I mentioned to you that many libertarians are not fans of the Fair Tax. The purpose of this email is to give you more information on that so you can better position yourself to libertarians in general and Libertarian Party national convention delegates in particular.

I see that your economics adviser Jeffrey Miron advocates a flat consumption tax, but I can’t find any writings or videos where he has advocated the Fair Tax in particular. I agree with him that a flat consumption tax would be preferable to our current tax code. But I have several strong objections to the Fair Tax.

The devil is in the details.

Main libertarian objections to the Fair Tax:
1. The prebate would start a new welfare entitlement.
2. The transition would redistribute from savers to borrowers.
3. There is a danger of getting BOTH an income AND a consumption tax.
4. Advocates disingenuously quote a 23% rate when it is actually 30%.
5. Advocates use protectionist rhetoric to sway populists.

I will elaborate on all of these objections. I’d encourage you to consult your economics adviser Professor Miron to see if he agrees with me. Also current LNC treasurer and ballot access guru Bill Redpath has strong opinions against the Fair Tax.

First, when people start receiving a government checks in the mail it will create a new political constituency that will vote in favor of keeping and raising the checks. When a new entitlement is put in place it becomes politically very difficult to remove that entitlement due to the public choice theory of motivated, self-interested voters and special interest political contributions driving political decisions. Indeed it is far more likely (given ample historical precedent) that politicians will keep raising the check higher to get votes. Many libertarians fear this will be the camel’s nose under the tent that paves the way for socialist income redistribution.

Second, seniors that have worked their whole lives and have now retired to live on their savings (right when the Fair Tax is implemented) will see that savings taxed twice: once as income and once as consumption. In actuality this isn’t a cost, but merely a redistribution because conversely people who have ran up a credit card debt buying things before implementation of the Fair Tax and will subsequently earn money to pay off that debt will never be taxed. So during the transition period any consumption tax replacing an income tax will redistribute money from savers to borrowers. Any transition from one tax to another will have a redistribution effect, so this should not necessarily be a deal breaker. However, consumption tax advocates should be aware of this effect because failure to admit it will seem like the politician is trying to pull one over on people.

Third, libertarians are worried about supporting any tax because historical experience shows that government will tax as much as it can by any method it can. The current incarnation of the Fair Tax contains a Title IV which sunsets it if the 16th amendment is not repealed. From 1999 to 2007 the Fair Tax bill introduced in Congress did not include that sunset provision. It was included in the 2009 and 2011 versions. Many libertarians researched the Fair Tax before 2009 when the plain text of the bill left open the possibility of getting both the income tax and Fair Tax together — especially given a government running large deficits. Passing legislation is messy and unpredictable. In the course of passing the Fair Tax, that sunset provision could be taken out by amendment during negotiations. Another small technical point: even if the 16th amendment is repealed, the federal government can still impose an income tax as long as that tax is apportioned among the states proportionally to the number of people in each state. Additionally other taxes (like the corporate tax, capital gains tax, etc.) may be re-imposed by Congress after the Fair Tax is implemented.

Fourth, if the Fair Tax is quoted like any normal sales tax, then people will pay 30% of their purchases. If you give the Fair Tax pitch to a normal voter then ask him what his sales tax rate will be at the register, most will say 23%. Deliberately leading people to the wrong conclusion (even if not explicitly saying anything false) in order to sell a proposal is a red flag showing the proposal isn’t good enough to be embraced on its own merits. Libertarians familiar with the Fair Tax see advocates quoting a 23% rate as either misunderstanding the Fair Tax or lying to the public.

http://www.fairtax.org/site/PageServer?pagename=about_faq_answers#47

Fifth, I’ve heard you claim that the Fair Tax will make America more competitive because American companies will not have to disadvantageously pay the corporate tax while foreign companies don’t. The logic is the Fair Tax will make imports relatively more expensive than before implementation and make exports relatively cheaper than before implementation, which will stimulate production. As an adjunct professor of International Economics, I cringe whenever I hear that. Unfortunately the rhetoric misses the fact that consumers in America are worse off because foreign goods are more expensive and producers in foreign countries are worse off because American goods are cheaper. The same competitive effects could be realized by imposing an export subsidy on American goods and an import tariff on foreign goods. Both the export subsidy and the import tariff would lead to a deadweight loss for the world as the costs exceed the benefits. Production is just a means to an end, not an end in itself (utility in the form of consumption and leisure is the real goal), so production should not be a loftier goal than consumption and sacrificing consumption for production with a net loss is very misguided. Similar rhetoric to yours about the Fair Tax’s effect on American competitiveness is used to justify protectionist tariffs. Practically all libertarians are for free trade, and many libertarians have an ear for economics. While populist protectionist rhetoric may play well with the general public, it turns off libertarians.

Finally there is a contingent of radical libertarians who will be turned off by any advocacy of any tax — even a tax that is lower or more efficient or fairer than a current tax. They are far more excited about Ron Paul’s plan to eliminate the income tax and replace it with nothing. There’s no pleasing everyone. Most pragmatist libertarians will support transition policies that move the ball down the field to lower, more efficient, fairer taxes… but the Fair Tax isn’t even a good incremental policy.

For the reasons above, in my opinion you would win over more libertarians by advocating for the general concept of a consumption tax replacing all other federal taxes (without a prebate, but with constitutional amendments prohibiting all other taxes) than you will advocating for the Fair Tax in particular. At a minimum you should be familiar with the Fair Tax’s deficiencies and present them honestly to libertarians so you won’t be seen as a shifty politician trying to put lipstick on a pig.

There are a number of your other positions that libertarians are worried about (e.g., Guantanamo Bay detainees, entangling alliance with Israel, not pardoning non-violent drug offenders while governor), but the Fair Tax is the big one.

Thanks for your time reading my concerns.

-Chuck Moulton

Biography:

Chuck Moulton has held numerous leadership positions in the Libertarian Party at the national, state, and local level including vice-chair of the Libertarian National Committee, chair of the Libertarian Party of Pennsylvania, at-large member of the Libertarian Party of California executive committee, and 10th congressional district chair on the Libertarian Party of Virginia state central committee. He ran for U.S. Congress as a Libertarian in 2004. Chuck is an ABD economics Ph.D. student at George Mason University with research interests in free banking. He is also an attorney licensed to practice law in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and California and a professional registered parliamentarian who currently serves on the LP’s bylaws committee. Chuck has taught undergraduate courses in Money & Banking, Mathematical Economics, and International Economics.

“Having seen the people of all other nations bowed down to the earth under the wars and prodigalities of their rulers, I have cherished their opposites, peace, economy, and riddance of public debt, believing that these were the high road to public as well as private prosperity and happiness.”- Thomas Jefferson

BURNET, Texas (Feb. 11) – My most natural reaction to the simply put question, “Why peace?” is puzzlement. My natural response to the question would be, “Why peace? Why not?” How could peace possibly be a bad thing? Then I realize how aloft and self-righteous simple questions and answers can sometimes seem. It is best, as is my normal fashion, to treat even seemingly simple questions as serious inquiries into fundamental freedom throughout the United States and the world. I understand we must be able to demonstrate why peace is beneficial to individuals, nations and civilizations. So, let’s start over… Why peace?

I think the clearest and simplest answer is, “Why not; we have tried war, over and over again, we never win, and the problems we war against only get worse. As the old ’60s song goes: all we are saying is, give peace a chance.” Not only that, but history proves that when there is no war, people prosper. There have been economic booms, scientific advancements, and cultural progress after every conflict American has fought, beginning with our War of Independence.

War breeds war. That is all it can do. War does nothing but devour valuable resources and destroy precious lives for the sole purpose of perpetuating itself. As Randolph Bourne wrote, “War is the health of the State.” War is a mechanism used by the ruling elites of the State to coerce and control the people, so it becomes essential that whenever one war is complete, another is instigated elsewhere so that the mechanism keeps running.

On the other hand, peace breeds prosperity. If War is indeed the “health of the State,” then Peace can be nothing less than the “health of the People.” Being at peace means valuable natural resources can be preserved and used at home where we need them most. Being at peace means young fathers and mothers can live and enjoy free trade, not only among themselves but with the world, instead of dying capriciously and unnecessarily, for political gain or to line the pockets of those who profit from their sacrifice.

History teaches us that the key elements to prosperity are freedom and peace. You don’t go to war with people you like, or with people you know, or with people with whom you are trading and doing business. Even after our fledgling republic was nearly torn asunder in civil war which literally pitted brother against brother and nearly destroyed the South, our reunited nation and all its people advanced and prospered after peace was restored.

After both the world wars of the 20th Century, there was prosperity and advances in science, technology and culture that only ended when the nation again blundered or was bamboozled into war. The post-War War I economic boom saw the increased use of machines and factories for mass production, which made goods faster and cheaper to produce, thus lowering prices so the average American could buy and enjoy them. The Roaring Twenties roared with more than the music and dancing in the burgeoning commercial radio and movie industry. American homes roared with the sound of newfangled, labor-saving devices like electric vacuum cleaners, toasters, washing machines and refrigerators. Americas not only had more freedom to enjoy the fruits of their labor, they were also literally set free to travel when the automobile became affordable and part of every American household.

Despite common belief, World War II did not end the Great Depression, but instead delayed recovery. “Tanks, bombs, and helicopters have limited uses outside of military applications,” writes Art Carden, assistant professor of economics and business at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tenn. and an adjunct fellow with the Oakland, California-based Independent Institute. “The labor that was used to produce them was not available to produce consumer goods and services; in fact, people went without consumer goods.” The boom began after the war, when the troops came home. Again, there was a great surge of economic expansion, technological invention and innovation and cultural change, including the birth of the Baby Boomer Generation, of which I am a late entry. Even the nations devastated by the war, France, Germany and Japan, prospered. In the decade after World War II, colonialism ended and dozens of new, free nations were born. Many of the new countries of this Third World rejected taking sides in the looming Cold War between the United States and the U.S.S.R that was dividing the world once again into warring factions, and sought to achieve freedom and prosperity peacefully, following a third way.

“War is just one more big government program.”- Joseph Sobran

The other wars that American politicians are so fond of creating over social and political issues stifle prosperity too and hurt the very people they are designed to help. We have been fighting the war against poverty since the Johnson Administration and all we have done is spun a web of social programs that somehow have locked poor people into poverty. We’ve been fighting the war on ignorance since the ’70s and our children, who were once the envy of other nations, can no longer read. The War on Drugs, the most devastating and destructive war in American history, has been raging for more than 40 years. In addition to thousands killed each year, it has wasted billions of dollars, and has put more people in jail than any other nation in the world. It has made it profitable for pushers to infiltrate our schools to an extent that the legal vices, tobacco and alcohol, have never been able to do.

The cost of America’s current major wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has surpassed one trillion dollars. While this figure is staggering, the real cost of these conflicts to our economy and our liberty is even more staggering. One trillion dollars is an almost incomprehensible number, but what is even more incomprehensible is the fact that most of that is borrowed money; the federal government borrows about 43 cents of every dollar it spends, and then uses it to build schools, roads and hospitals in countries where we’re partly responsible for destroying their infrastructure. Borrowing money and going further into debt to destroy, rebuild, and maybe destroy again, is not only insane, it’s immoral.

The military budget is more than $700 billion, and climbing each year. In real terms, defense spending is more today than at any time during the Cold War, the Korean War, or the Vietnam War. Our founder’s would be appalled. They predicted that war would be the most dreaded threat to our liberties. They told us that from war would precede debt, taxes, fraud and degeneracy of morals. They warned us that no nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare. As James Madison said:

“Of all enemies to public liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.”

With the Internet, the world today is literally our marketplace. War shuts down part of that marketplace, but peace allows that marketplace to thrive. The War on Terror declared after the tragic events on September 11, 2001 has led to one war right after another. This caravan of conflict has plunged us deeper into debt as we sacrifice our precious natural resources, not the least of which are our brave men and women. In fact, those who volunteer to defend and protect the Constitution are those we should be most concerned about. They should be working in America, not dying in Afghanistan or Iraq or Libya, or wherever the warmongers who control our government care to send them!

Americans need to Occupy Congress and tell them to stop killing people all over the world, stop making new enemies every chance they get, and get out of the way of creative and productive entrepreneurs so that Americans can once again start producing the best goods and services on the planet! Bring our job force home, America! Open the world to trade by declaring peace! Maybe — just maybe — once again the “Made in America” tags you see will begin to rival the number of tags that read “Made in China.”

Instead of teaching our young people to kill, we should be teaching them about commerce and trade. In a word: business. But because war has become America’s business, some would even say its chief industry, all other business suffers. Now any good accountant will tell you, in order to have a successful business you must be able to show a profit, and the bottom line is — war doesn’t pay. That is what makes it such a lousy business for our nation to get into. With the one exception of defending the country from foreign attack, war only takes, giving nothing in return, save economic ruin and human heartaches. The natural resources and manpower eaten up by an imperialistic war machine are lost forever to starving job markets and industry at home.

The young people who have volunteered to serve in our military, for what they were told and believed was a noble cause, have sacrificed more than enough. It’s time for America to end the deceit engineered to gain their loyalty and trust and to stop dishonoring their sacrifice by wasting their lives in futile and endless conflict. Bring them home where they can work for themselves and their families, prospering in a peaceful country. The biggest favor we could do for most of our troops would be to retire them so they can come home and go to work. We need prosperous patriots more than we need hallowed heroes. We can make this country great again, but it will require peace. Peace breeds plentiful production, while war can only breed devastating destruction.

As my friend Anthony Gregory has written, “Libertarianism is the ultimate antiwar philosophy.” Libertarians view aggressive war as the greatest of government evils, as purely destructive and grossly immoral, not just because of the killing, but because of “the expansion of state power; the regimentation of the economy; the crackdowns on civil liberties; the financing of it all through taxation and inflation…”

Government is force and war is the inevitable, ultimate and deadliest expression of that base characteristic. Force and coercion are not only incompatible with freedom and liberty, they are destructive of them. Freedom and liberty can only survive and flourish in a society where peaceful exchange of goods, services and ideas is preserved and protected by the respect of everyone involved, by mutual consent. Just as freedom and responsibility are said to be two sides of the same coin, so are peace and prosperity.

 ”Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom.” - Albert Einstein

Why peace? Because war wastes, destroys and kills. It wastes money and resources, it destroys liberty and property and worst of all kills what we should value the most. The greatest cost of these endless and needless wars cannot be measured in dollars and cents but in the waste of our most precious resource — the lives of our young people. As a U.S. Air Force veteran, it pains me every time I hear a report of another young man or woman killed on some far-away land. Every time a young American soldier, sailor, airman or marine is killed, another dream dies, another possibility dies, another prospect dies. Every time a young American is killed, another hope dies.

The men and women who volunteer for our Armed Forces take an oath to defend our country and our Constitution. Our elected leaders then dishonor and betray that loyalty and commitment when they send them to fight and die on foreign battlefields to support dictators and corrupt governments or to serve some false ideal of “humanitarian assistance” or nebulous goal of nation-building. Politicians piously praise the dedication and sacrifice made by America’s young men and women in uniform, yet they continue to promote policies that will cause them, and their families, to suffer and sacrifice even more. Our military deserves a Commander-in-Chief who will honor and respect their devotion to duty by calling on them to fight and die only to defend America when we have been directly attacked.

Why peace? Because the world needs the goods and services Americans can potentially produce more than it needs some planetary protection from evil that America can’t possibly provide. War is waste. Peace is production. War breeds war. Peace breeds prosperity. What do you believe America needs more of right now? Which could you use more of right now?

Why peace? Because America should be a nation teaming with free, living, and prosperous patriots, not a country of cemeteries filled with dead heroes. The greatest honor we can bestow on these young people is to stop asking them to sacrifice themselves in endless and needless wars. America is indeed the home of the brave – and we should bring the brave home and keep them here.

“War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious.” - U.S. Marine Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler, two-time Medal of Honor winner

R. Lee Wrights

R. Lee Wrights, 53, a libertarian writer and political activist, is seeking the presidential nomination because he believes the Libertarian message in 2012 must be a loud, clear and unequivocal call to stop all war. To that end he has pledged that 10 percent of all donations to his campaign will be spent for ballot access so that the stop all war message can be heard in all 50 states. Wrights is a lifetime member of the Libertarian Party and co-founder and editor of the free speech online magazine Liberty For All. Born in Winston-Salem, N.C., he now lives and works in Texas.

Lee Wrights for President
Contact: Brian Irving, press secretary
press@wrights2012.com
919.538.4548

Although there are those who thought it would be a bad idea , you did go ahead and switch to the Libertarian Party in an effort to continue your presidential campaign. Now that you have gone ahead and moved in to the Libertarian Party race, hopefully you will run a better campaign than you have been running so far.

There are a few problems you will have to overcome. After the 2008 campaign there are a number of active libertarians who are burned out on the “endorse someone famous” tactic, sacrificing someone who could effectively represent libertarian ideas to their fullest. The ticket of Bob Barr and Wayne Root was a mistake that the party is still trying to live down, and even though you are better than either of them you are still campaigning in their shadow.

If you want to be an effective Libertarian Party candidate, you will have to come out of their shadow and prove that you are fully libertarian, much more so than those nominated the last time the Libertarian Party sacrificed purity for electoral gain.

And that means you will have to rethink a few of your associations within the Libertarian Party. Being seen as close to Wayne Root, who is almost bragging about how he is the one who brought you over, will never get you out of the shadow of the 2008 ticket. Those who seem the most pleased by your Libertarian Party candidacy are what people in the Libertarian Party call the “Reform Caucus.” They are the ones responsible for the 2008 ticket that you have to run against.

The first and foremost way to come out of the shadow of the 2008 ticket is to take the purist libertarian position on foreign policy, as that is what divides the Libertarian Party the most strongly. Wayne Root campaigned actively in 2008 about how he was the pro-war candidate until he discovered that was a losing strategy.

You currently advocate returning all United States troops and that is a good position. But you also support entangling alliances. Neither side of any conflict should have any expectation of United States support. You need to become a purist on this issue. It will alienate many of those who currently are your most ardent supporters but it is necessary if your campaign is to not be a repeat of the 2008 disaster .

The other area where you could improve is in economics. It would be refreshing, in an ironic sort of way, if the Libertarian Party were to have a candidate strong on both civil policy and foreign policy yet weak on economics, but the standard bearer should be as good as possible on all three. Your position on the Federal Reserve and the Fair Tax are not positions embraced by libertarians in general.

Perhaps you could be forgiven your economic short-comings, but you need to embrace a hard-core foreign policy on your campaign if you wish to do so. You were a great example of what a Republican could be when you ran, but as a Libertarian there is room for needed improvements. Your current associates will not appreciate those improvements either. So you need to ask what is more important – your race or the party you are running in?

In libertarian circles Schoolland is best known as the author of the animated video “The Philosophy of Liberty” popular on the Internet. He wrote the illustrated libertarian primer “The Adventures of Jonathan Gullible: A Free Market Odyssey,” which has been translated into more than 40 languages.

Schoolland, who was Hawaii LP chair for five years, is also the author of “Shogun’s Ghost,” an expose on education in Japan, where he taught before accepting his current position in Honolulu. He is a member of the Mont Pelerin Society, an international organization of economists, philosophers, historians, intellectuals, business leaders, and others who favor classical liberalism.

ISIL is a non-profit, non-partisan libertarian educational organization encouraging activism in libertarian and individual rights.

Schoolland issued this statement:

“I like Ron Paul. I like Gary Johnson. I’d probably like all the libertarian candidates running for President. But liking someone isn’t a reason to vote for them. When I became a member of the Libertarian Party back in 1976 I signed a non-aggression pledge. I take that pledge very seriously. That has been my guiding principle ever since.”

“I simply don’t vote for anyone who compromises on that principle, as the Libertarian Party has too often been willing to do in recent years to broaden candidate popularity. I applaud Ron Paul and Gary Johnson for promoting the libertarian program, but if people don’t grasp the underlying principle, then gains will turn to losses in an instant of mob passion. No compromise with principle.

“The libertarian message is rooted in an appreciation of individual rights … not state’s rights, not practical moderation. That is why I enthusiastically join the Lee Wrights campaign and endorse him for the 2012 Libertarian Party Presidential nomination. When I listen to Lee Wrights speak, as he did at the Libertarian Party of Hawaii convention last May – traveling on his own dime – I was reminded of that great, successful libertarian abolitionist, William Lloyd Garrison, who said:

I am aware, that many object to the severity of my language; but is there not cause for severity? I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject, I do not wish to think, or speak, or write, with moderation. No! No! Tell a man whose house is on fire, to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hand of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen; — but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present. I am in earnest — I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch — and I will be heard.”

R. Lee Wrights

R. Lee Wrights, 53, a libertarian writer and political activist, is seeking the presidential nomination because he believes the Libertarian message in 2012 must be a loud, clear and unequivocal call to stop all war. To that end he has pledged that 10 percent of all donations to his campaign will be spent for ballot access so that the stop all war message can be heard in all 50 states. Wrights is a lifetime member of the Libertarian Party and co-founder and editor of the free speech online magazine Liberty For All. Born in Winston-Salem, N.C., he now lives and works in Texas.

Lee Wrights for President
Contact: Brian Irving, press secretary
press@wrights2012.com
919.538.4548

Expected participants are former Texas LP chair Roger Gary, Kiowa Nation member and Afghan war veteran R.J. Harris, former two-term New Mexico Republican Gov. Gary Johnson, renowned author and documentary filmmaker Bill Still, and private attorney Carl Person.

Several local TV stations are expected to cover the debate and the Florida LP plans to stream it live on USTREAM.tv and LPF.org

Wrights, 53, recently was one of the third-party candidates featured in an article in Al Jazeera about “The ‘other’ political parties of the US.”

“The interviewer was impressed with my stop all war stand, as well as my long-running libertarian blog, Liberty For All,” Wrights commented. “Libertarians have an immense reach these days. I’ve received e-mails from young people overseas who want to learn more after reading the press releases, my blog or information on my campaign website.”

Stop all war is the focus and message of his campaign. Wrights believes this is the most critical issue facing our nation today. He has emphasized this point in a series of interviews in Libertarian-oriented media, most recently on the Liberty Underground Show, on the 1787 Radio Network, and broadcast over WTAN-AM, Tampa Bay.

Wrights has also been interviewed by the Rodney Wimberly Show, the “voice of South Arkansas,” on KELD-FM, the Angel Clark Show on the Liberty Radio Network, and on KKSM-AM, San Diego.

In late February, Wrights will start an extended cross-country road trip in which he’ll literally cross the nation twice to attend Libertarian state party conventions in Georgia, California, Mississippi, Colorado, the Kansas/Missouri Heartland Convention, Ohio, Arkansas, Pennsylvania and New York.

“As it has been from the start, this is a grassroots effort, a ‘wise and frugal’ campaign we’re taking to Libertarian activist everywhere. My message is clear and simple: The libertarian promise of peace and prosperity is one Americans are longing to hear,” Wrights said. “We don’t need to soften, refine, modify or craft what we believe to appeal to conservatives or liberals to win votes. Instead, we must embrace our beliefs and wear them proudly.”

“As your nominee for president I’m ready, willing and able to take this bold stand. I’ve never been afraid to speak truth to power,” Wrights stressed. “I’ll take the true libertarian message of peace and prosperity to all 50 states and won’t be ashamed to say in a loud, clear and unequivocal voice: stop all war!”

Ogle, who was profiled in a Columbia Missourian article last week,  is not even listed on the LP website, which enacted strict requirements for inclusion on January 31. Ogle was the only LP candidate that paid the $1000 filing fee to appear on the Missouri ballot. Others such as former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson, former air traffic controller RJ Harris, and activist R. Lee Wrights chose to skip the non-binding election.

According to Richard Winger here, in addition to Missouri, individual state Libertarian Parties are qualified to hold primaries in Arizona, California, Delaware, Idaho, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Utah.

At this time, California is the only one of these states anticipated to hold a primary.  It is scheduled for June, one month after the Libertarian National Convention.

For the Democratic Missouri primary, four candidates were listed on the ballot, including IPR contributor Darcy Richardson.  Richardson came in fourth place with 892 votes (1.2%); attorney John Wolfe, Jr. finished third with 1,022 (1.4%); anti-abortion activist Randall Terry placed second with 2,016 (2.8%); and President Barack Obama won with 64,405 (88.3%).

Former Senator Rick Santorum won on the Republican side.

For Immediate Release

Even as an active and proud union member, I believe no one should be forced to join or pay fees to another group as a condition of employment, but the State has NO authority or right to legislate the contracts between a private company and its work force.

Private businesses and their workforce could have used “closed shop” as a positive trade during the formation of the union shop or during contract negotiations. They could have traded compulsory union membership for things like merit over seniority, lower healthcare cost matching or better benefits packages.

I feel Right To Work efforts and legislation should have focused on public contracts for outside goods and services. The State should have revised its current standards of preference for ALL bids on state contracts for goods and services. Publicly funded contracts should be awarded based on bids from companies and vendors using the following priorities:

1. Costs of contract
2. Favorable terms/length
3. Labor location
4. Company location
5. “Open Shop” if Union
6. Public comment

This process should be 100% transparent, online and open for public comment. There should be NO private bids or contracts awarded behind closed doors. Every bid should be open for public review, with ample time for public examination and comment. When a contract is awarded there should be a public review listing the “rank” of each bid and a summary explaining why a bid was chosen or rejected.

The administration was so dogged in their pursuit of “union busting” they actually dusted off the history books and used the same methods and tactics used to pass Right To Work in 1958. With a lightning fast bang of the gavel and the swift flick of a pen, the current administration has taken away a major bargaining position from both private businesses and their workforce.

Some in this race to be Indiana’s next Governor are shying away from the RTW discussion. While they’re saying things like “It’s time to move beyond this…”, I am proudly and loudly saying that, as Governor, I will fight to repeal this intrusion into private businesses. I will work to restore the legally contracted rights of private workers and unions. Together, we will repeal this, like we did in 1965.

In Liberty,

Rupert Boneham
Libertarian candidate for Governor of Indiana

Contact Info:
Evan McMahon, Campaign Manager
Rupert For Governor

317-643-4090 ext 1 (office)
317-500-6333 (cell)
129 E. Market St. Ste 100
Indianapolis, IN 46204
emcmahon@rupertforgovernor.com

“It’s Our Time!” – www.RupertForGovernor.com

See the article on the campaign website.

mp3

Wrights explains how his “Stop All War” platform applies to both foreign intervention and to government’s wars on the economic and individual freedom of the American people.

Gary Johnson and other presidential hopefuls will participate in a Libertarian Party debate Saturday afternoon in Orlando.

Johnson, the former New Mexico governor, who dropped his bid for the Republican nomination last month, will be joined on the debate stage by party activist Lee Wrights, Kiowa Nation member and Afghan war veteran R.J. Harris, author and documentary filmmaker Bill Still, former Texas Libertarian Party chair Roger Gary, entrepreneur Leroy Saunders and Carl Person.

The presidential debate, held as part of the Libertarian Party of Florida convention at the Embassy Suites, will be open to the public.

All the above candidates have been in past debates of LP presidential candidates, except for Leroy Saunders. The Sun-Sentinel adds

Libertarian front-runner Gary Johnson will campaign in the state this week, including a stop in Fort Lauderdale on Wednesday.

He also plans to attend the state Libertarian Party conference in Orlando Feb. 10 to 12 — all part of seeking the party’s nomination at a national convention in May in Las Vegas.

[...]

Johnson will visit the Tampa area on Tuesday, where he will speak at 3 p.m. at the University of South Florida.

And on Wednesday, he will meet with the Broward County Libertarian Party at 7 p.m. at the Denny’s restaurant, 3151 NW 9th Ave., in Fort Lauderdale.

Seeking the nomination of the Libertarian Party exclusively
Dues-paying member of the National Libertarian Party
Campaign website is current with contact information
Obtained the approval of at least five members of the 18-member Libertarian National Committee.

A previous rule, requiring candidates to file with the FEC, prevented Burns from being listed, since he does not plan to raise or spend enough money to file with the FEC.

The other candidates listed remain Roger Gary, RJ Harris, Gary Johnson, Carl Person, Bill Still and Lee Wrights.

For background see

LP.org Presidential Candidate Listing Requirements Revised Again

Several Candidates Seeking Libertarian Presidential Nomination Removed From Party’s Official Listing

LP Prez Candidates Now Need ‘Approval’

Sloan: Who Are the Five?

For more information about these candidates as well as some of the unlisted ones see my latest update here.

Ballot Access News reports

Because most states purge their voter registration rolls between elections, the United States has fewer registered voters now than in October 2010. There are fewer Democrats now, fewer Republicans now, fewer independent voters now, and fewer voters in each nationally-organized minor party now. The nationally-organized parties that existed in 2010 and that have as many as 500 registrants in the nation are the Libertarian, Green, Constitution, Working Families, Reform, Socialist, and Socialist Workers Parties, in that order.

Americans Elect did not exist in 2010, and now has 3,285 registrants, so it is the only nationally-organized party that now has more registrants than in 2010.

However, there would be more registered Libertarians in the nation now than there were in October 2010, except that sometime during late 2010 or early 2011, Massachusetts converted all registered Libertarians to independents without telling them or without telling the party officers. Massachusetts had 15,857 registered Libertarians in October 2010, and did not do a new registration tally until last month, when the state said there are only 15 registered Libertarians. If the Libertarian Party still had the registrants it had had in October 2010, it would be the only nationally-organized party that had existed in 2010, and which gained nationally between 2010 and now.

Massachusetts keeps track of how many registrants there are in each group that tells the state that it wants that service. The Massachusetts term for such groups is “political designation.” Such groups never need to reapply for status as a “political designation”; Massachusetts continues keeping a tally for them, even if they have utterly ceased to exist as organizations (for example, the Natural Law Party).

But there is an exception in the case of political designations that become qualified parties, and then later lose their status as a qualified political party. The Libertarian Party had 12,534 registrants in Massachusetts when it was just a political designation, in October 2008. It became a qualified party in November 2008, by polling over 3% for U.S. Senate. In November 2010 the party lost that status when it didn’t run any nominees for statewide office. It didn’t realize it was supposed to immediately reapply for status as a “political designation.” If the Secretary of State’s office were courteous, it would have asked the Libertarian Party if it wanted to now be a “political designation”, since it was longer a qualified party, but instead the state said nothing to the party, and eliminated all its registrants, and now the party has to start accumulating registrants from scratch.

Arizona, California, Florida and, Pennsylvania are the only states that have more registered Libertarians than, Massachusetts, did before they got wiped out. Oregon, North Carolina and Kansas (just barely) have over 10,000 each. 25 states have known numbers of registered Libertarians; four of these have less than a thousand each.

UPDATES:

1) George Phillies, from comments:

Assuredly, the change from Political Party to Political Designation status has happened several times: 1996, 2006, and 2010, and in the first two cases voter registrations were maintained, and the state Libertarian Association did absolutely nothing to cause registrations to be maintained.

2) Richard Winger, from comments:

If anybody in Massachusetts wants to be 100% sure that my report is true, send me an e-mail to richardwinger@yahoo.com and I will forward you the electronic Massachusetts registration report that the Secretary of State’s office e-mailed to me less than a week ago.

That report has been forwarded to me and I am attaching it here:. MA.enrollment_count_31DEC2011 (2)

I am presuming that since this is information from the state government that there is no problem with posting it here. If there is a problem that I am unaware of, please let me know and I will take it down.

It appears that it shows 10,839 registered Libertarians, not 15. I’m awaiting explanation from Mr. Winger and will update the post again or put up a new one.

UPDATE

Richard Winger from comments:

I’m very happy to say I was wrong. I am also extremely puzzled as to how this happened. The state sent me an Excel file showing how many registered voters there are in every precinct in eveery party and every political designation. It was so huge, I didn’t print it. I just took notes. Maybe something was wrong with my Excel program. Column J is for the Libertarian Party. When I opened it up the day I got it, it plainly showed 15 voters in column J. I so wish I had printed it out on paper. Now, when I open, it has 10,839. None of the other column totals have changed (in other words, none of the other parties now show anything different from my notes). So, please alter IPR’s title. And if anyone who is experienced with Excel can tell me how a program can do what this one seems to have done, let me know. richardwinger@yahoo.com.

In retrospect, I should have phoned the Mass. Sec. of State’s office when I first got, or perceived, the 15 voter figure, but I just assumed they would give me a hard time. The state did take away all the Working Families registrants when it lost its status as a political body. The Working Families Party tried to persuade Massachusetts to put them back, but the state wouldn’t do it. So I assumed the office was giving the Libertarians the same treatment it had given to the Working Families Party.

I meant to say, above, when Working Families lost its status as a party. That happened in 2008. Working Families had 5,534 registrants in Massachusetts in October 2008, but it lost its party status a month later and even though it re-applied as a political designation, it didn’t do that for several months after it had gone off the ballot, and the state wouldn’t restore its registrants. That is why it only has 26 registrants in Massachusetts now.

And in the corrected version of the story at Ballot Access News:

UPDATE: an earlier version of this post said that Massachusetts had converted the state’s registered Libertarians to independents. The earlier version was mistaken about that. Massachusetts had 10,839 Libertarians registrants as of December 31, 2011. When that figure is added into the national Libertarian total, the Libertarians don’t have as many registrants nationally as they had had in October 2010, but they only declined by 390 nationwide.

Gary Johnson has now participated in one debate with other candidates seeking the Libertarian nomination, and has made plans to appear in others. Johnson has received the endorsement of several state and county LP organizations, which has not been a common practice in the LP in the past. Johnson has been included in several polls of hypothetical general election matchups. He has issued several press releases/op-eds, many of them on civil liberties issues such as ending the USAPATRIOT act, supporting gay marriage rights and legalizing marijuana. He has criticized leading Democratic and Republican contenders on these issues, and in a number of interviews on MSNBC, CNN, Fox, and other media outlets has suggested he could draw as many or more votes away from the Democrats as from the Republicans. Johnson spoke at a recent conference of the ACLU. He has also been holding a series of video/chat townhalls through his website with LP leaders; the next one will be tomorrow. Johnson has had several op-eds, interviews and articles in outlets such as Huffington Post, Washington Times, the Daily Caller, Reason Magazine, and so on, and has been doing local radio interviews around the country. Johnson also responded to the State of the Union, as did Lee Wrights and RJ Harris. Johnson has the most detailed spending plan of these candidates, calling for a 43% cut, and continues to make his case for the national sales tax plan known by its proponents as the FairTax, which has drawn criticism from Lee Wrights among others.

RJ Harris has been keeping his blog updated, has attended several state conventions and debates, has made plans for others, and has some newspaper articles. He has helped with Oklahoma ballot access. Along with Carl Person, Harris has reorganized his campaign under new management and both of these candidates as well as Bill Still have updated the design of their websites. Harris was involved in a car accident while on his way to a Constitution class at the Oklahoma Capitol taught by 2004 Libertarian presidential nominee Michael Badnarik which he helped arrange. Badnarik is now trying to teach such classes at state capitols around the country. Harris was not seriously injured, but had some car damage.

Lee Wrights has also continued, and plans to continue participating in state conventions and debates and writing regular articles/op-eds. He has also issued his first TV spot, which can also be used by other candidates, and was included in an Al Jazeera article along with several candidates of other parties.

Johnson, Harris and Wrights, out of the candidates who have participated in debates and remain listed at LP.org, have been issuing the most regular updates (although Still has been updating his website frequently, but I don’t know of any active distribution of his updates beyond that). They are also the three candidates who have been acknowledged in recent LP press releases and/or LP.org blog posts.

Carl Person, Bill Still and Roger Gary are the other three candidates who have been traveling to conventions, participating in debates and meet the new LP.org listing criteria:

Seeking the nomination of the Libertarian Party exclusively
Dues-paying member of the National Libertarian Party
Campaign website is current with contact information
Obtained the approval of at least five members of the 18-member Libertarian National Committee.

Of the remaining candidates that are no longer listed at LP.org, Sam Sloan (temporary website here) meets all the criteria except obtaining approval from five LNC members, which was added most recently. He has enough money to travel around to state conventions, and is trying to get into the debates but has been excluded.

Other candidates:

Jim Burns sends out fairly regular email updates to his list.

Robert Milnes continues to update his site/blog frequently. In recent weeks his main focus has been on exposing discrepancies in the resume claims of Tiffany Briscoe, who beat him for the Boston Tea Party nomination. He is trying to get the FBI to investigate that election, which he thinks was rigged, so far without any luck.

Politics1.com lists the following additional candidates, all or almost all of whom were previously also listed at LP.org but have since been removed:

Ralph
Beach (South Carolina)

Scott Keller (Florida)
– Computer programmer.

James Ogle
(California) – Parliamentary system advocate.

Dave Redick (Wisconsin)
– Retired businessman, engineer, Army veteran & frequent
candidate.

Leroy Saunders (Georgia)
– Limousine company owner.

Mosheh Thezion (California)
– Electronics technician & ’10 US Sen. candidate.

Dean Tucker (Texas)

Joy Waymire (California)
– Tea Party activist, ranch manager and tax preparer.

I don’t know what if anything any of them are doing by way of campaigning.

There are some additional candidates who are or were filed with the FEC as Libertarians that have not even made it into the politics1 listing, such as Ronald Keith Hebert and Shawn James Hogan. I don’t have any information about any of these candidates beyond their FEC filings.

At this time, the rumored entries of Jesse Ventura or (less likely) Ron Paul into the LP race remain rumors only.

One additional rumor has an unnamed wealthy individual supposedly interested in running for VP and spending a significant amount of money on the race, particularly or perhaps only if Gary Johnson is the nominee. 2008 VP candidate Wayne Root is also rumored to be a likely VP contender. Another possible VP candidate may be 2000 and 2008 VP runner up and 2008 presidential nomination candidate Steve Kubby. As in 2008, some of the presidential candidates may also switch to the VP race after being eliminated.

Additional information about the activities of any of these candidates, and any that I may have missed, welcome in the comments.

…Contained in this major dump are several thousand private forum messages, personal emails, internal organization notes, names, phone numbers, home addresses and other information on all of their members and supporters. It’s time for these cowardly suit and tie white supremacists to sleep with one eye open. Scared much?

In addition to finding the usual racist rants and interactions with other white power groups, we also found a disturbingly high amount of members who are also involved in campaigning for Ron Paul. According to these messages, Ron Paul has regularly met with many A3P members, even engaging in conference calls with their board of directors. Ron Paul’s racist politics and affiliations are already well known, being viciously anti-immigrant, anti-abortion and against gay marriage — not to mention having authored the racist “Ron Paul Papers” and receiving financial support from other white power groups (pictured with Don Black from stormfront.org). Hard to believe Ron Paul draws some support from the left and the occupation movements, especially now that it is confirmed Ron Paul hangs out with straight up racist hate groups.

We put extra effort in ruining the life of A3P webmaster Jamie Kelso. On top of being on the board of directors of A3P, former $cientologist, and high ranking Ron Paul organizer, he also is the account owner of german nazi forums and store nsl-forum.org, rhs-versand.com.

This claim has been circulated many places on the web, but I have yet to see specific messages to back up the claims.

The data dump is here for those who want to do their own investigation.

Tom Knapp writes:

A couple of disclaimers:

•  I don’t think anyone is going to mistake me for a Ron Paul apologist. I’ve been critical of Paul for various reasons, including but not limited to the issues raised by “the newsletter controversy.” Believe this: If I find anything credible anywhere directly connecting Paul to A3P and organizations of its type, I’ll shout it from the rooftops.
• I’ve only spent a few hours researching the dump, running searches on strings I would expect to shed light on the claims above.  There’s a lot of data to sift through, so what I’ve found so far may very well not be the final word on the subject.

Those two things said, I’ve found nothing really substantiating the two claims in the communique quote above. To wit:

1. A “disturbingly high amount of members” of A3P “are also involved in campaigning for Ron Paul.”

   This is a pretty fuzzy claim in the first place, insofar as “disturbingly high” is a subjective evaluation and “involved in campaigning for” can mean a lot of things.

   What I found were several references to A3P members attending Paul campaign events; a couple of references to A3P members talking with low-level Paul volunteers whom the A3P people perceived as “with us” or “pro-White;” and one suggestion that a film/video guy who had done work for the Paul campaign be approached about doing the same kind of work for A3P.

   None of the campaign events mentioned were portrayed as Paul intentionally addressing A3P-type audiences — it was stuff like “we went to see Paul speak at CPAC” and “we went to Paul’s GOP convention rally in Minneapolis” and so on.

2. “Ron Paul has regularly met with many A3P members, even engaging in conference calls with their board of directors.”

   The closest thing I found to Paul “meeting” with A3P members were references like “managed to get my picture taken with Paul when I attended the Minneapolis convention rally.”

   I found references to A3P’s board of directors, and I found references to conference calls, but I found no references to Paul or his campaign being involved in said conference calls.

Does this mean those two claims are false? NO, it doesn’t. I may have missed something. Like I said, it’s a lot of stuff and I’ve only spent a little time sifting through it.

But those claims are strong enough that the burden of proving them falls on those making them. If the material to substantiate the claims is there, someone who can find it needs to highlight it and point it out instead of just leaving it buried down in the pile of garbage it’s embedded in.

Here’s the picture I get from my limited swim through the A3P sewer:

The A3P types consider the Paul movement, and the wider “paleo” movement (other referenced people, pubs and groups in the dump included Pat Buchanan, Thomas diLorenzo, The American Conservative magazine, the John Birch Society, et. al), to be “implicitly pro-White” (their terminology) and are attempting to build a “bridge” (their terminology) between those movements and “explicitly pro-White” (their terminology) groups including (named in the dump) A3P, White News Network, Stormfront, et. al.

I don’t think that belief on the part of A3P types is entirely unreasonable, given that the Rothbard/Rockwell “paleo strategy” which Paul used to raise money in the 80s and 90s was intended to specifically cater to such tendencies.

On the other hand, I think the A3P types are probably:

1. Under-estimating the extent to which Rothbard, Rockwell and Paul were using the “paleo strategy” to cynically exploit them — suckering them for political “seed money” and so forth — as opposed to genuinely make common cause with them; and
2. Seriously over-estimating the extent to which the now-existing Paul movement, which is not, for the most part,  a product of the “paleo strategy,” is composed of people likely to be sympathetic to the A3P-type fringe.

So far, I’m not seeing anything that constitutes a serious indictment of Paul, his campaign, or the movement surrounding his campaign — or at least nothing above and beyond other long-known plausible indictments of any or all of the three.

But, once again, this is just my initial impression, based on limited time and limited skills for digging through the dump. If anyone else is finding or seeing anything I’m missing or mis-interpreting, by all means let me know in comments, via contact form, etc.

As a side note, while I consider myself a member of Anonymous (expect us!) and while I’m happy to see A3P exposed, I was not involved in this operation nor did I have any foreknowledge of it.

If anyone has found more incriminating information in the data dump to back up the way it was characterized in the hackers’ message, please put sourced data in the comment section here.

In regards to some of the longer standing claims,

“Ron Paul’s racist politics and affiliations are already well known, being viciously anti-immigrant, anti-abortion and against gay marriage”

Progressive blogger Punk Patriot writes

Ron Paul is NOT anti-woman. Dr. Paul is a licensed physician who practiced obstetrics and gynecology prior to entering politics, assisting in the delivery of more than 4,000 babies over the course of his medical practice. He does personally hold socially conservative Christian values and believes that life begins at conception, but unlike many others in the Republican party he believes the federal government has no right to impose his socially conservative values on the entire nation. Dr. Paul consistently opposes a federal ban on abortion and believes quite reasonably that the question should be left up to the states (video here and here). Dr. Paul voted against the Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act, a bill designed to criminalize the transportation of pregnant minors across state lines with the intention of the minor obtaining an abortion. Dr. Paul voted against the misleadingly titled Population Planning Bill, a bill designed to forbid dispersal of aid funds to international women’s health groups that also perform abortions even though they are already prohibited from using those funds to cover abortion services. Dr. Paul also voted against the equally misleadingly titled Child Custody Protection Act, another bill intended to prohibit the transportation of a minor across state lines to avoid parental notification laws and obtain access to abortion services. Those are pretty progressive politics for a socially conservative pro-life Christian.

Ron Paul is NOT anti-gay. MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell proclaimed, “[w]ithout Ron Paul in this race, we would never hear one sensible thing said about marriage equality on the presidential debate stage… and no American politician is in a position to change more minds about marriage equality than Ron Paul. He is not speaking to the converted; he is speaking to conservative Republicans, he is speaking to evangelical Christians, he is going into the halls of the staunchest opponents of marriage equality in this country and he is telling them a truth so clear and so powerful that he is surely changing minds.” Dr. Paul opposes a federal ban on gay marriage, and believes “[a]ll voluntary associations, whether they’re economic or social, should be protected by the law.” In fact he doesn’t just believe it, he expressed it on Fox News at a Republican presidential debate broadcast when he would have had much to gain politically from pandering to evangelical homophobia. Dr. Paul voted against the Same-Sex Marriage Resolution, a 2006 joint resolution proposing a constitutional amendment providing that marriage in the U.S. consists only of the union of a man and a woman and that federal and state constitutions can not be construed to require marriage or legal incidents of marriage be conferred in other unions. Dr. Paul voted to repeal the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. When interviewed by arch-conservative John Lofton on his evangelical right-wing radio program The American View, Ron Paul eloquently defended a position of tolerance for people of all sexual orientations in a situation when it would have been politically beneficial for him to confirm the bigoted views of the listening audience. LOFTON: “Let’s shift gears here to another topic: Homosexuality. Do you believe it’s a sin?” PAUL: “I’m not as judgmental about that, probably because of my medical background.” LOFTON: “Do you believe that God says it’s a sin?” PAUL: “Well, I believe a lot of people understand it that way, but I think everybody’s God’s child too, so I have trouble with that.” Repent America, an evangelistic organization in the extreme theocratic right wing that is “focused on the public proclamation of the Gospel to further the Kingdom of God”) have even used this interview in attack ads against him because he does not believe homosexuality is a sin.

Ron Paul is NOT anti-black. Nelson Linder, President of the Austin chapter of the NAACP, a member of Dr. Paul’s constituency who has known Dr. Paul for 20 years, unequivocally dismissed charges that the Congressman was a racist and stated that the reason he was being attacked as a racist in the press was that he was a threat to the establishment (audio). Ron Paul is the only candidate from the two major parties who has consistently opposed the “War on Drugs,” which the NAACP has rightfully denounced as the last bastion of institutionalized racism in America. Dr. Paul is the only candidate from a major party who has vowed to issue a Presidential pardon to all nonviolent drug offenders (1:38 into this video), the disproportionate majority of whom are disadvantaged minorities unfairly targeted by law enforcement for the color of their skin (A black man’s view on Ron Paul being racist: Part 1, Part 2).

[..]

Ron Paul is NOT in league with Christian Reconstructionist theocrats who would make laws respecting an establishment a religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. Dr. Paul voted against the National Day of Prayer Resolution, a concurrent resolution to “recommend that United States’ leaders call for national days of prayer and urge all Americans to seek God through humble prayer and fasting.”

[...]

Ron Paul DID oppose the Civil Rights Act of 1964, for exactly the reason quoted in the article: “The Civil Rights Act of 1964 not only violated the Constitution and reduced individual liberty; it also failed to achieve its stated goals of promoting racial harmony and a color-blind society.” Dr. Paul DOES NOT oppose civil rights and fully supported the Act’s repeal of Jim Crow laws, but he was deeply disturbed by the expansion of the power of the federal government over the behavior of private individuals.

Ron Paul DID co-sponsor a bill to overturn Roe v. Wade, for the same reason he voted against a Constitutional ban on abortion: he believes it to be out of the jurisdiction of the federal government.

A number of UNATTRIBUTED newsletters with Ron Paul’s name in the title did come out in the early 1990′s containing baldly racist and homophobic material. His response to that material is telling : “The quotations in The New Republic article are not mine and do not represent what I believe or have ever believed. I have never uttered such words and denounce such small-minded thoughts.” This can easily be confirmed by looking into publications and recordings directly from Ron Paul himself from both before and after the newsletters in question, including the following three-part recording of an educational program about juror’s rights from 1989, in which Dr. Paul expresses his reading of and admiration for staunch abolitionist Lysander Spooner while simultaneously defending the principle of jury nullification of unjust legislation: Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.

Regarding immigration, VDARE (dedicated to limiting immigration) writes

Now, at last, Paul has finally given a comprehensive discussion of his views on immigration—in his latest book Liberty Defined, where he lists his positions on fifty different issues.

But what he—or the left-libertarian faction that seems to have his ear/ byline after the strange death of Rothbardian paleolibertarianism—actually says about the issue of immigration is a profound, and in fact tragic, disappointment.

The article concludes that “Ron Paul needs every vote he can get in his insurrectionary candidacy. In spurning immigration patriots, he has blundered.”

Finally, as to the claim

“…A3P webmaster Jamie Kelso. On top of being on the board of directors of A3P, former $cientologist, and high ranking Ron Paul organizer…”

As with the claim that Paul has had phone conferences with the A3P board of directors, I’d be interested in seeing more concrete evidence that Kelso is a high ranking organizer for Ron Paul.

Although he is currently running for president and serving in the US House as a Republican, Ron Paul ran for president in 1988 as a Libertarian and remains a life member of the Libertarian Party. In 2008 he endorsed Constitution Party candidate Chuck Baldwin in the general election.

What’s the #1 benefit that local Libertarian candidates can offer voters if elected?:

- Lower their tax bill so they can pay their bills, make ends meet, save, help others or buy more.
- Give them the freedom to use marijuana, or medical marijuana, without penalty or with less penalty.
- Create more jobs, save businesses, expand businesses.
- Reduce the regulatory burden of Big Government so individuals and businesses can operate more freely with less red tape.
- Reduce the chance of the government taking property by eminent domain.

This is the first LP.org poll of 2012 and the first since Carla Howell took over from Wes Benedict as executive director.

As with past LP polls, non-LP member and non-libertarian visitors of LP.org are able to vote.

Early results at this time:

Lower their tax bill so they can pay their bills, make ends meet, save, help others or buy more.
26% (196 votes)

Give them the freedom to use marijuana, or medical marijuana, without penalty or with less penalty.
13% (100 votes)

Create more jobs, save businesses, expand businesses.
9% (69 votes)

Reduce the regulatory burden of Big Government so individuals and businesses can operate more freely with less red tape.
46% (347 votes)

Reduce the chance of the government taking property by eminent domain.
6% (47 votes)

Total votes: 759

At 2:28 a.m. on February 4, an Indiana criminal jury convicted Secretary of State Charlie White of registering and voting at an address which wasn’t his real residence. See this story. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link. The judge will decide whether White is now convicted of felonies or misdemeanors.

Libertarian Party of Indiana press release:

The Libertarian Party of Indiana is releasing the following comments on the conviction of Charlie White:

“Charlie White’s situation has become untenable, and Indiana needs to move past this sad chapter in Indiana political history,” said Sam Goldstein, Chairman of the Libertarian Party of Indiana. “White needs to remove himself from office by resigning, and focus now on his own personal issues. Indiana cannot afford to have a lame-duck Secretary of State for the next three years.”

Goldstein continued, “White’s situation shows the brokenness of our election law. From the murkiness of residency requirements to the potential loss of ballot access for the Republican Party for four years, Indiana’s election laws need serious reform to bring stability, openness, and clarity to our electoral system. White is not the person to lead this wave of reform.”

“It is heartening to see the Rule of Law and justice prevail,” said Jerry Titus, Vice Chairman of the LPIN. “A jury of his peers has found Mr. White guilty and regardless of the potentiality for the reduction of his convictions to misdemeanors, he should immediately resign. To delay this belies Mr. White’s primary consideration of his own self-interest, rather than that of justice and the people of Indiana.”

Smith has come under increasing fire after introducing the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) last year. The act would have given the Justice Department added authority to shut down sites accused of violating copyright.  After protests on such sites as Wikipedia and Reddit, Smith dropped the bill, but said it would be reviewed later this month.

Reddit is apparently not backing down in its opposition to SOPA and Smith. The Daily Caller reports that Reddit posted a statement from Mack to the top of its message board. It reads:

At this moment, the adage “Politics makes for strange bed-fellows” has never been more true. I am Sheriff Richard Mack, candidate running against SOPA sponsor Lamar Smith in the rapidly approaching Texas Primary. AMA.

I’ll be on, and answering your questions as best as I can for the next couple of hours. I will be back to follow up later this evening.

Given the support and unexpected efforts coming from Reddit, I feel this community is owed some straight answers even if you may be less than thrilled with the one’s I’m going to give.

Edit: I need to catch a plane. I apologize for not answering as many questions as I could have, but I didn’t want to give canned responses. I’ll be back on later tonight to answer some more questions.

Lower in the post, Mack answered questions from Reddit users.

The primary is scheduled to occur on April 3.  Smith has represented the district since 1987.

Ogle is a self-employed artist seeking the LP nomination. In 1995, he founded a fantasy parliamentary system based on ranked choice voting, which he emphasizes in his campaign. He also sought the vice-presidential nomination of the Boston Tea Party, but lost to Kimberly Johnson in a run-off.

Ogle expresses admiration for Barr and lists her as “Prime Minister” and “Queen” on his parliament website. In response to her announcement, he writes:

Roseanne is a team player, one of the best we’ve got. Not only did she nominate more than 30 names to the team’s executive cabinet, but she also called on all her blogger supporters to nominate names as well. That’s as good as it gets. I don’t know who #1 and #2 (prez/vp) on the team is going to be, but I’m asking all male voters to consider voting for the top woman, and that might be Roseanne Barr [Green Tea], Joy Waymire [Libertarian], Tina Cook [Independent] or Diane Templin [American Independent/Constitution]. They all bring something big to the table. Roseanne brings Hollywood, she’s very smart and spiritual. Joy bring the L philosophy, she was friends with David Nolan (RIP) and she agrees with him 100%, and believes through individual liberty, we can really improve all aspects of the team, the platform and the USA. They’re all team players. I really believe that we need a Green/Libertarian or Libertarian/Green ticket. But getting Roseanne to the L convention will be difficult, because her x-husband Tom Arnold was a L., and Ls have been treating her poorly. That will be a difficult and delicate thing to get Roseanne to vie for tokens at the L convention.
…all male voters to please consider voting for the top woman (and females to please consider voting for the top male)…

Ogle and other LP presidential candidates were removed from the party website several days ago after the LP changed the criteria for listing. In response, Ogle writes:

I’m glad they did that, because it gives the team practice for November when the status quo does the same thing to us as usual. This means our team must work harder and earn every inch we get. What we want to do is completely transform the national L Party, to where we elect 1000 consecutively ranked names, with plenty of consecutively ranked names as back-ups. #1 should be the presidential nominee and chair simultaneously instead of being split in two camps like always. #2 is vice president and vice chair. #s 3 through 1000 have votes on the team as well, but they outnumber #1 & #2 by 998 to two. So it’s no wonder they’re trying to stop us, we’re trying to shake up their whole program

We need to enlarge the L Party, and we can do that simply by counting the votes to elect the top 1000 names, instead of just the top one name, when we elect the presidential candidate. It’s just an improvement to the vote counting process, and it doesn’t take a constitutional amendment to do that

Ogle will be on the Libertarian primary ballot in both California and Missouri.

Johnson said he’d cut the military’s budget and end Obama’s interventionism. It wasn’t until he got started on legalizing marijuana that the crowd (figuratively) lit up. A steady stream of applause followed Johnson’s declarations after that.

“I support gay marriage equality. I support repealing the PATRIOT Act. I would have vetoed the Department of Homeland Security, because I think it’s redundant. I would’ve never established the department of—the TSA agency. I think we should end the practices of torture. Period. I can understand the complexities in the following, but I think we should end the practices of detainment without being charged. There is nothing I want to see the government come in and fix with the Internet.”

Johnson also made a point throughout the evening of highlighting the differences between himself and Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), who sought and received Johnson’s endorsement in 2008.

“I don’t think that Ron Paul is going to win the Republican nomination. For the most part, we are talking about the same message, but we do have differences. And when he drops out, or finds an end to the Republican primary, I don’t see this agenda moving forward,” Johnson said.

“And I think it’s important to point out differences between myself and Ron Paul. I don’t support building a fence across the border, I do support gay marriage equality, I do believe in a strong national defense. I do believe in our alliance with Israel, for example. And I think military alliances are key to reducing military spending by 43 percent and still provide for a strong national defense. And I believe in a woman’s right to choose.”

The crowd went nuts over that last one.

Nate Nelson at United Liberty adds:

Johnson could pose problems for both Obama and the eventual Republican nominee. On the one hand, Johnson built a very solid fiscal and economic record as Governor of New Mexico — which could appeal to Paul supporters and other Republicans as well as right-leaning independents who may feel disaffected if Romney, Gingrich, or Santorum wins the GOP nomination. On the other hand, there are some remarkable differences between Johnson and Paul that could help him succeed in appealing to the more left-leaning so-called “liberaltarians” and even some non-libertarian progressive Democrats and independents whom Paul has so far failed to win over.

It’s unlikely in the extreme that Johnson will win the presidential election. The electoral game is too rigged against third parties and, besides, the Libertarian Party’s dysfunctional nomination process will officially put him into the general election campaign far too late for him to assemble the kind of grassroots movement he’d need to win. But Johnson could well be a problem for both major parties. He could be competitive in his home state and throughout the Southwest, which could make the race for some pivotal swing states even more interesting than usual. In other words, he could play the role of spoiler in the upcoming general election even better than Ralph Nader did in 2000, and it should scare the pants off both Republicans and Democrats that it’s still unclear whose campaign he could spoil.

ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero also drew the Nader comparison:

“Do you run the risk, in other words, of being a Ralph Nader, given the fact that you have so much more coincidence with the president’s agenda than with Mr. Romney or Mr. Gingrich?”

Meanwhile, Johnson has an article in the conservative Washington Times newspaper spelling out his plan for spending cuts and a national sales tax plan known by its proponents as the FairTax. Excerpt:

Here I present a simple but drastic economic plan to foster a boom in America.

First, we need to get rid of the income tax. When our first great Supreme Court justice, John Marshall, equated the power to tax and the power to destroy, he was predicting what’s happening to our country right now. Giant, slow corporations spend their money on lobbying because tax avoidance is where their profit is. General Electric earned $14.2 billion in 2010 and paid zero taxes on it. Why? Because it has the lobbyists to get subsidies and tax breaks.

But those mom-and-pop stores? The tech startups? The nimble new corporations with new ideas and new visions for our economy? They pay as much as 35 cents on every dollar they earn. When the company pays its employees, the government taxes that money again. We need to stop taxing work, savings and investment. I advocate removing all income taxes, all capital-gains taxes, and replacing them with a consumption tax, kind of a national sales tax called the Fair-tax.

We also need to get rid of payroll taxes. Look at it from the perspective of employers for a moment. When they want to hire someone, it costs more than just the wage they’re paying. They have to pay payroll taxes, including for Social Security and Medicare. That cost is about 10 percent of the wages they pay an employee. Remove that burden, and employers will be able to hire 10 percent more people. With an unemployment rate of 10 percent, why wouldn’t we jump at this chance? The Fair-tax replaces employment and payroll taxes.

[...]

At the same time, I have proposed cutting the federal budget by 43 percent to bring it into balance. It can be done. It requires the will and ability to ignore and even fight the special interests that have a vested interest in more and more government spending. Our system is corrupted by special-interest campaign contributions. Crony capitalism permeates our government. The result is that, as the Congressional Budget Office reported this week, the deficit for 2012 will once again exceed $1 trillion.

The Washinton Times article incorrectly says that “Gary Johnson is the Libertarian Party nominee for president….”

Johnson’s plan stands in contrast to candidates such as Lee Wrights and RJ Harris, who are also seeking the Libertarian presidential nomination and have different proposals on taxes and spending. Wrights has his own plan for cutting spending and a couple of articles laying out his criticism of the FairTax (TM) plan, while Harris says

Fellow citizens, if you elect me as President I will exempt you from personal taxes by ending the IRS and allowing nothing to take its place. Then I will end the federal welfare system and the benefits will come from having stopped the government from stealing what you earn along with your ability to be as thrifty or as beneficent as you choose.

Finally, Johnson’s campaign has put out a message contrasting their candidate with two other past Libertarian presidential nominees other than Ron Paul (1988) – Bob Barr (2008) and Michael Badnarik (2004), and also by implication with Harry Browne (1996/2000).

George Phillies reports:

In a widely-circulated message “Paid for by Gary Johnson 2012″ a writer identified as Andrew Ferguson wrote in part:

“Flash back to the last election cycle. No, go back two, to 2004, when the LP, still reeling from Harry Browne’s machinations, nominated a complete unknown as its presidential candidate. The list of “missed opportunities by the Libertarian Party” is a long and tragicomic one, but surely the choice of Michael Badnarik must be at or near the top: in an election evenly split between the military-statist Bush and the eco-statist Gore, the LP could’ve had a healthy cut of the excluded middle – but Badnarik’s was not the name to draw those voters.”

(The letter writer seems to have been unaware that Kerry was the Democratic nominee who ran against Badnarik in 2004, and that Al Gore ran against Harry Browne in 2000, with Bush being the Republican nominee both times. Back to the letter:)

“In 2008, with that swing-and-a-miss behind them, the LP whiffed with the opposite approach, nominating a big name who was a, shall we say, imperfect fit with party ideals. I’m not one to deny the place of pragmatism in politics, but the man who authored the Defense of Marriage Amendment and fervently prosecuted the Drug War was a strange choice for the supposed party of freedom. No matter how hard he pushed his Road to Damascus narrative, a large chunk of the LP base (namely, donors and state and local party poobahs) was never going to buy into his campaign.”

“As a result, Bob Barr’s failure was utterly predictable – the rift in the party in 2008 was clear for all to see – but more to the point, just as utterly inevitable. In Barack Obama, the Democrats found a candidate who could reach out to the same undecideds the LP tries to make its own – those looking to cast a vote in dissent, anything so long as it has nothing to do with the party in power. Empty as we now know (or always knew) his promises of “Hope” and “Change” to be, they were nonetheless effective in closing off any change the Libertarians had of playing a role in the last cycle.”

(I believe that the writer meant chance, not change, in the last part of the preceding sentence. Back to the letter:)

“All of which is to say, the LP screwed up by getting its candidates backward – if anything, the off-the-ranch Republican with name recognition would have fared much better in 2004, serving as an alternative to two unpalatable statists. Meanwhile, 2008 would have been the time to run an outsider, someone who could elucidate a libertarian point of view, in the rare moments he (or she – vide Mary Ruwart) was called upon to do so.”

The Fort Knox Gold Scandal featuring Bill Still will be aired on the History Channel’s H2 channel Saturday, Feb. 4 at 10:00 PM EST or 9:00 PM CST.

Good evening from Washington. I’m Still reporting on the economy.

Well, finally, after 30 years of beating on the doors, the History Channel has finally taken notice of the Fort Knox gold story.

Just before Christmas, the History Channel filmed a segment with me to air on their new program, “America’s Book of Secrets” which runs on their new H2 channel. It will air this Saturday night, Feb. 4, at 10 pm eastern, 9 central on H2.

I first reported on the Fort Knox gold scandal in 1980 when I was running a small newspaper here in Loudoun County, Virginia.

At the end of World War II, the United States had over 700 million ounces of gold in Fort Knox, about 70% of the world’s supply. This was the greatest treasure in gold ever amassed in human history. So to protect it, Congress ordered that a physical audit of the gold be done every year.

In 1953, some 9000 bars — less than 0.5 of one-percent — were assayed and found to have an average weight of 28.9 pounds and to be better than 99.5% pure.

But mysteriously, in direct violation of Federal law, 1953 was the last time this the greatest treasure in gold ever amassed was audited.

Since then, the Treasury has merely given us their best guess at the gold reserves remaining. They claim that by 1959, only 558 million ounces remained, and by 1971, 291 million ounces. Today, Treasury still claims that 150 million ounces of gold remain in Fort Knox.

Interestingly, 1959 was the year author Ian Fleming published the James Bond novel, “Goldfinger”. Fleming was a highly-placed operative in the British Intelligence services during World War 2, and the grandson of British financier Robert Fleming, whose merchant bank was sold to JP Morgan Chase in 2000. “Goldfinger” of course, later became a James Bond movie which depicted a plot to steal all the gold out of the massive, subterranean “central core Vault” in the basement of Fort Knox.

Here is a hand-drawn depiction of the Central Core Vault drawn by the former Commanding General, Lt. Gen. John L. Ryan. General Ryan gave fascinating details about the construction of the building in this 1975 letter.

He said the Central Core could only be accessed by a “screw-lift” elevator. Experts say this would be a typical setup for lifting very heavy loads.

Could it be that Ian Fleming somehow knew that a real Fort Knox gold robbery was in the works?

In the early 1970s, rumors began to swirl that Fort Knox gold had disappeared.

By 1974, sufficient media pressure had been brought to bear so that Mary Brooks, then Director of the U.S. Mint, took 6 Congressmen and one Senator on a tour of Fort Knox with a few reporters. They were taken – not to the basement – the Central Core Vault – but to one of the smallest vaults in Fort Knox, Vault 13.

Here is a picture of Mint Director, Mary Brooks, taken on that day:

“It’s all here!” Reads the caption

However, visitors on that day noticed that the gold in that small vault had a strange orange color. This would be indicative of a high copper content, and not the .995 pure gold know as good delivery gold.

Another photo seems to support this theory. Here we see Rep. Gene Snyder of KY holding a U.S. Postal scale as Rep. John B. Conlan of AZ places a gold bar on it. When you enhance the image, you can see that the scale shows the bar weighing 22.25 pounds. A normal bar of .995 gold would weigh 28.9 pounds, nearly 30% more.

The Sec. of the Treasury tried to explain away this discrepancy by claiming that the scale was a common household scale and was defective. The photo shows, however, that it was an official postal scale, typically accurate to one ounce.

As a reporter, I knew in 1980 that the U.S. government was hiding something – something big. But at that time, I too, believed that a return to gold money was a good thing to do. It took me 15 years to figure out that gold was not the solution, especially because we – the U.S. govt – probably own no gold. It’s all probably been stolen. Yup, Fort Knox is most probably empty.

So tune into the History Channel’s H2 channel this Saturday at 10pm to learn more. And don’t forget I’m the only one fighting this battle effectively. We need money to do it. We need lots of small donations to www.still2012.com — but we need some big ones too. If you want to help take back the money power — which is the ONLY WAY to save this nation from drowning in a tidal wave of debt – please, please give, and ask your friends to give. If you are not an American citizen, please give to www.billstill.com .

I’m still reporting from Washington. Good night.