• Read more about The Trans-Pacific Partnership: Another assault on human rights that must be opposed
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• Read more about The Top Secret deal between 11 countries that will affect your life
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• Read more about The TPP is bad for business
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            For Immediate Release

 

June 18, 2013

Clerk Candidate Boman Sounds Off On Duggan Removal

 

“I have not decided on a Mayoral choice yet, and when I make that choice I may or may not make it public.  That being said, I have met most of the mayoral candidates including Mike Duggan and Tom Barrow.  Regardless of any differences of opinion, I have found them to be well-meaning people who care deeply about Detroit’s future.  No matter who one supports, this is not a cause for celebration…

 

This costly and emotionally draining drama could have easily been averted.  A Scotty Boman led City Clerk’s office would treat all candidates fairly; if the law sets qualifications for candidates, then all candidates must meet those qualifications. The checklist that candidates sign when they file should spell out the residency requirement.

 

If a candidate specifically asked if he or she may file before the one year requirement is met, he or she would be told to come back after a full year and not file prematurely.

 

When candidates file, Department of Elections staff should look up the candidates’ voter registration date and refuse to accept petitions until the one year requirement is met.

Whether or not I win, I hope the next City Clerk takes this advice to heart.”

 

Boman is a native Detroiter, a mathematics professor, vice president of his neighborhood patrol, and on the executive board of the Morningside Community organization.

A total of four candidates will be on the ballot for City Clerk in Detroit’s August sixth primary.

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Paid for by the Committee to Elect Scotty Boman.  4877 Balfour Road.  Detroit, MI 48224.

 

“the news hub considers itself the premier place for Libertarian Party news, candidates, announcements and more. An independent news outlet and not part of the party itself, the site’s sole mission is to assist the Libertarian Party, its members and candidates in getting their message of liberty to the American people.”

Recently, Libertarian Party News announced on its website that its domain name is now owned and operated by the Libertarian National Committee (LNC). From the website’s front page:

Please be aware that LibertarianPartyNews.com is reorganizing. Going forward, the domain www.libertarianpartynews.com will be owned and operated by the Libertarian National Committee. The subscribers and some of the columnists will move over to the new independent news outlet OppositionNews.org.

OppositionNews.org will continue to report on the Libertarian Party, its candidates and current events within the party. The LP is the largest non-establishment political party in America and is sure to dominate the headlines and reporting of the new site.

Stay tuned for further announcements via the Libertarian Party or OppositionNews.org.

The announcement means that GoldUSAGroup.com is likely the only news website covering the Libertarian Party exclusively. A third party that has an independent news website covering it is the Green Party, which is run by Dave Schwab and called Green Party Watch. While there is no news website covering the Constitution Party exclusively, the Independent American & Constitutional Review (IA&CR) reports on right-wing and constitutionalist minor parties in the U.S. Additionally  several socialist third parties such as the Party for Socialism and Liberation and the Freedom Socialist Party maintain news organizations including newspapers and frequently updated websites with party news and views.

About Vote Splitting – Political Analysis

Published June 11, 2013

By Ken Moellman

I often hear people lament that Libertarians split the vote and cause their candidate to lose. I hear this more often from Republicans, but I also hear it from Democrats, as well. And you hear all sorts of silly accusations, as well.

As seen on facebook: “Seems to me….that when an independent runs…it splits the Rep. vote and the Dem wins….Can’t help but wonder if the Dems are funding the independent candidates.”

My political analysis on this is pretty straight-forward. As one who’s personally been accused of costing a Republican to lose, and who currently leads the 3rd largest party in the state, I have done quite a bit of analysis on this.

Generally, the Republicans run as “not Democrats”, rather than “for” something. Certainly, there are exceptions, but look at the races of the past few years: “We need to stop the Democrat agenda,” “We need to stop Obama.” These are not campaigns built on a promising future, but built on stopping a dystopian one.

By contrast, independents and other parties run on a platform to somehow improve things. When I ran my race, I ran to eliminate what I believe is an outdated office. Others, like Gatewood Galbraith (I), ran on a number of issues, a few of which resonated, and at least one of which has been implemented; industrial hemp.

And this is a healthy and long-standing tradition of 3rd and 4th candidates in any particular race. Even when they don’t win, they help move the discourse in a positive direction. Gatewood never won an election, but we now have an industrial hemp framework. I didn’t win, but the once-lost proposal to eliminate the treasurer’s office resurfaced.

On a national scale, Ross Perot is generally considered to have made Bush I and Dole lose, despite there being clear evidence to the contrary. Despite losing in 1992 and 1996, he was successful in pushing for NAFTA reform, which came in the mid-90s, and forcing the public debate on balancing the budget leading to an attempt to do so in the late 90s. These are good things.

Since ballot access rules became so draconian (they weren’t always that way), and since the districts have become so much larger (our state house districts of 45,000 people each are larger than the original US Congressional Districts of 33,000 people each), it’s been harder for independent and non-D/R candidates to win races.

In the past, the bigger parties would absorb like-causes into their own platform, once hey hit a certain popularity. The Prohibition Party, for instance, was absorbed in the Republican Party. Likewise, many progressive/socialist/workers parties were absorbed by the Democratic Party. In Minnesota, the state affiliate of the Democratic Party is still known as the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party.

Republicans (the primary complainers) could do well to adapt some of these causes under their roof. They could take fiscal responsibility seriously. They could take liberty seriously. However, when the Tea Party rose up, the Republican establishment initially rejected them, and sought to exclude them (and in some cases they were successful, both in Kentucky and elsewhere). I believe that this action alone is what helped cause the Republicans to lose a good opportunity to win nationally, in 2012. Kicking your energized base to the curb is stupid.

The Republicans had geared up their talking machines to blame Libertarians for Romney’s loss, weeks ahead of the election. They’d done such a thorough job, that even after the numbers came out and proved it wasn’t the case, that Libertarians were blamed by the GOP-faithful anyway. There’s nothing like making your hardcore supporters look stupid to hurt your movement, as well.

If political organizations are to grow and to be successful, they need to incorporate and include more people, more voices, and more ideas. I believe that is one factor in the growth of the Libertarian Party, and specifically here in Kentucky. We understand that people won’t be 100%ers, and that’s okay. We’re working together, for liberty, and we welcome new people into the fold.

If Republicans want to succeed as a party, they need to be “for” something. They need to stop excluding people. They need to use the resources they have at their fingertips. And I can say this because, for the most part, the Republican establishment doesn’t care; either out of arrogance that they know better than I do, or because they have power, even in being #2. Either way, it’s the future of their party. I don’t really care.

The problems the Democrats face, especially in Kentucky, are menacing as well, but they have more to do with what’s happening nationally. And that’s another topic, for another day.

Oh, and at least on my side of the fence, while all donations are greatly appreciated, we aren’t funded by anyone except our friends and family, generally. For some reason, the political insiders don’t want to fund people who won’t give them a leg-up on the rest of society. Huh.

Article source:

http://www.lpky.org/node/359

Thousands march for whistleblower on eve of trial

By Radhika Miller

JUNE 4, 2013

Photo: Radhika Miller

Darryl W. Perry is a writer whose articles are published in several publications, including the monthly newspaper The Sovereign.  He is a co-host on a radio show on Liberty Radio Network. He is the owner and managing editor of Free Press Publications (FPP.cc). Perry is a co-founder and co-chairman of the New Hampshire Liberty Party, a party created in September 2012 to promote secession of the state from the federal government and individual liberty. From 2010 to July 2012, he served as the chairman of a small libertarian political party, the Boston Tea Party. He has announced that he is running for president in 2016 seeking the Libertarian Party nomination (http://darrylwperry.com/).

Published June 16, 2013

Reporters Without Borders has demanded Iranian Presidential candidates support more press freedom. With 52 journalists in jail, what do we know about the Iranian elections?

On June 14, many Iranians voted in the election to choose the successor of President Mahmoud Ahmadinjad. Voters were given eight choices, and two of those candidates eventually withdrew leaving voters with 6 candidates on their ballot. I say “voters were given… choices” because the candidates in Iranian Presidential elections are chosen by the Guardian Council, a group selected by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. The Associated Press reports that more than 680 people sought a spot on the ballot, and those approved are mostly pro-establishment figures. Reporters Without Borders wrote an open letter to the original eight candidates and prefaced the letter by stating, there is “little hope that the 14 June election will be conducted in a clear and transparent manner… The Iranian regime openly flouts freedom of information, a fundamental freedom that is essential for free and fair elections. During President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s two terms, respect for human rights conditions has declined dramatically in the Islamic Republic.

Over the past eight years, more than 200 newspapers have been shut down and more than 300 journalists and netizens have been arbitrarily arrested, tortured and sentenced to lengthy prison terms.”

Reporters Without Borders challenged the candidates to “pledge openly and unconditionally to respect freedom of information” and asked the candidates to commit themselves to the following four actions:

• Demand the unconditional release of the 52 journalists and netizens who are today imprisoned in Iran.
• Begin a fundamental reform of media law, aimed in particular at decriminalizing press law violations and guaranteeing freedom of information without discrimination based on language, religion or political opinion.
• Ensure that Iranian citizens have free, uncensored and unmonitored Internet access.
• End arbitrary actions and impunity. The murders of dissident journalists must not go unpunished.

Secretary-General of Reporters Without Borders Christophe Deloire wrote, “As long as these demands go unmet, Iranians will not be able to think of themselves as a free people.” I tend to agree with Deloire, however I will add that as long as people are being forced to comply with any arbitrary power, they can not think of themselves as free!

Regarding the actual election, many Iranians were considering a boycott of the election. Some who called for the boycott said that anyone voting was betraying Neda Agha-Soltan and others killed during protests over the 2009 Presidential election. The Ayatollah Khamenei said, even if “they don’t want to support the Islamic ruling establishment… Everyone must turn out.”

It seems the words spoken by the Ayatollah Khamenei may come back to bite him. Anunnamed journalist in Tehran reported to The Guardian, “Even those who were undecided or completely set against voting are saying they want to cast a ballot to make sure that anyone like Jalili doesn’t win.” Saeed Jalili is regarded as the preferred choice of the regime’s ultra-conservative leadership. The preferred choice of reformers appears to be Hasan Rowhani, former chief nuclear negotiator. Rowhani was also secretary of Iran’s supreme national security council for 16 years. Despite the claims that “Rowhani won’t be allowed to win…” it appears that the supposed moderate was elected with nearly 51% of the vote. Regardless, the people of Iran will not be any freer, and the government of the United States of America will continue to push for an unjust war against the people of Iran based on lies.

–
In Peace, Freedom, Love & Liberty,
Darryl W. Perry

Article source:

http://fpp.cc/?p=3662#sthash.miVWrdtA.dpbs

Friends,

This morning, the Our America Initiative joined with a newly-formed grassroots organization, Equal Marriage Arizona, to file the necessary paperwork to begin gathering signatures to place a Constitutional Amendment on the ballot in Arizona to overturn the state’s ban on same-sex marriage.  Gathering the 400,000 signatures it will take to give Arizona voters a chance to enact  this historic amendment will be a massive undertaking — and I’m asking for your help.

Like a great many legal experts, I believe the U.S. Supreme Court will — any day now — empower states to decide the fundamental question of marriage equality.  We want to seize the momentum such a decision will create, and doing so in Arizona, a “conservative”  western state, will send a message of individual freedom to every corner of the nation.

We are extremely fortunate to have great leadership for Equal Marriage Arizona.  It is chaired by Warren Meyer, a Phoenix businessman and highly-regarded libertarian writer, and co-chaired by Erin Ogletree Simpson, a retired Tucson attorney and chair of Arizona’s Log Cabin Republicans.

We have crafted a proposed amendment that not only protects the rights of committed couples to marry, but also clearly protects the religious freedoms of all faiths.  The team is in place and the paperwork is filed.  Now, we need YOU.

Take a moment to watch this great [video] we released this morning — and feel free to share with your friends.

I urge you to go to OurAmericaInitiative.com today and make a contribution that will allow us to fund this landmark initiative.  While we will be depending heavily on volunteers and grassroots supporters to place the Equal Marriage Amendment on the ballot in Arizona, it is a simple reality that success will require substantial funding.

Overturning Arizona’s ban on same-sex marriage is just the first step in a broader effort that will extend to additional states in the days and weeks ahead.  Eliminating marriage discrimination requires a coalition that cuts across all political lines.  I am proud that this effort is being launched from a platform of liberty, individual freedom, and fundamental fairness — and I am excited by our prospects for success.  In a dramatic shift from a few short years ago, polls show that America is ready for marriage equality.

Our task is to provide them with the opportunity to go to the polls and take this decision away from the politicians and the courts.

Please go to OurAmericaInitiative.com today and let us know that you are ready to help, either by volunteering or making a financial contribution that will help us make some history in Arizona and beyond.

I am excited by this great opportunity, and look forward to having you as a part of this important step toward getting the government out of the business of discriminating against gay Americans.

Your friendship — and your support — are deeply appreciated.

Thank you,

Gov. Gary Johnson

Honorary Chairman

Our America Initiative

P.S.  Don’t forget to visit OurAmericaInitiative.com today and let me know of your support.  We have a LOT of work to do, and must get started NOW.

Donate here and support a socialist feminist newspaper that informs and inspires, in print and online. Check out Socialism.com for more stories. Like us on Facebook or donate to keep the presses running and stories coming.

June-July 2013 – Volume 34, No. 3

The living ideas of Clara Fraser, the original socialist feminist 

June 2013

Introduction: The following selections, compiled by Adrienne Weller, pay tribute to the groundbreaking politics of Clara Fraser on the 15th anniversary of her death. The excerpts are from Fraser’s Revolution, She Wrote, which includes many of her witty and profound columns from theFreedom Socialist (find one here). The book also contains her earliest writings on socialist feminism and covers topics ranging from LGBT people in the military to the supposed backwardness of the much-maligned U.S. working class. Fraser’s clarity, compassion, and radical practicality reverberate from every page.

Readers can order the book at www.RedLetterPress.org.

Socialist Feminism: Where the Battle of the Sexes Resolves Itself

Feminism, the struggle for women’s equal rights, is always a powder keg of the class struggle.

As both an ideology and a living mass movement, feminism has always arisen from and flourished in concert with the general movement for radical social change. And the social philosophy of feminism was first formulated by radicals.

From its inception, feminism was a passionate cry for total, fundamental, revolutionary social change, and a demand for justice for all the underprivileged.

Real, consistent feminism is intrinsically related to basic economic change and to revolutionary politics. And vice versa.

Socialist feminists sharply differentiate themselves from the political opportunism and delusions of the reformist sector of the movement, and are recognized exponents of the radical alternative.

“Non-political” feminists [in the 1960s] moved swiftly to generalized radical politics, impelled by the inexorable logic of their own transitional demands for nothing less than a total upheaval and transformation of family, economic, cultural and political relations. Affected by and acutely concerned about Vietnam, the Black rebellion, and academic freedom, feminism was the bridge that carried them to socialism.

The woman question has historically been indissolubly linked to the class struggle. But at the same time, the founders of the feminist movement always highlighted the dual natureof women’s oppression.

All women, regardless of class, are subjected to political, legal, cultural and economic discrimination, and this subjugation as an entire sex confers an independent character to women’s struggle.

The patriarchal capitalist class relies on women for the extraction of unpaid domestic labor, and simultaneously exploits women in still another way — as a vast pool of cheap labor. The bosses reap their super-profits from the hides of females. That is why the bourgeoisie can no more eradicate sexism than it can eliminate racism, which provides similar economic super-benefits to capital: all wage exploitation would have to go in the bargain.

authored with Susan Williams, M.D.

Class: The Power that Heals

My previous column ended by posing a dilemma: The downtrodden people who need change the most seem to spend their energy sniping at each other, figuratively or for real. A Die-Hard Skeptic (DHS) takes this for granted.

DHS: People this badly divided will never come together to overthrow the system, no matter how rotten it is.

Me: Surprise — Unity happens!

Oppression forges resistance in spite of and across the deep chasms separating the resisters.

All of a sudden, when the bosses or the government go one little step too far, an apparently spontaneous eruption occurs. All the workers previously feuding over race and sex/sexuality and religious or national or cultural differences, and the normal menu of ego wars that rage on any job and in any community, coalesce suddenly caught up in a euphoria of sister/brotherhood forged by a joint reaction to the guys with their heels oneverybody’s necks.

DHS: But watch what happens after the excitement of the action wears off. Everything reverts to the status quo ante and nothing lasting is achieved.

Me: Aha! But this is precisely where the role of a party comes in. When a revolt takes place without a party … you’re right: the movement will not endure, huge errors of strategy and tactics will be made, key lessons will not be drawn.

Only the revolutionary party can ensure that activists and agitators become political professionals geared and educated for the long haul. Only the party can help the militant strike or sit-in or electoral upheaval take the next leaps forward and aim for state power. Only the party can extend isolated insurgencies into constant, concerted mobilizations for the total revamping of society.

Any putative leftist or progressive who sneers at parties and scoffs at vanguards is revealing deep-seated hostility toward revolution and socialism. A transformed reality will not be concocted out of documents and good intentions and dreams of paradise.

A true humanist and visionary needs to embrace the party as the midwife who brings to birth a brave new world.

Oppressions: The Capitalist Connection and the Socialist Solution

All the many brands of oppression — racism, sexism, heterosexism, ageism, classism — are historical; they have not been always with us. It was not ever thus. And it’s not going to be this way, come the revolution!

Whenever I say that, somebody always objects: “Oh yeah? You can’t change human nature.” Wrong! My business as a socialist is changing human nature away from the distortion that capitalism has made of it.

Oppressions grew. They developed — not out of somebody’s evil mind, but out of material reality. Given certain economic conditions, levels of technology, and the particular development of the forces of production, assorted varieties of subjugation had to happen.

We live in an epoch in which there coexists class oppression, racism and sexism, heterosexism, ageism, ableism, anti-Semitism, et cetera, et cetera.

All these manifold types of oppression sprung up at different times in history. Slavery, for instance, was originally a system of forced labor that had nothing to do with racism. Racism only came later — when American cotton producers needed to rationalize the enslavement of laborers from Africa. It was the conditions of the large-scale plantation economy of the U.S. South that created racism.

So all these bad “isms” didn’t have a common historical origin. But they sure had a common destiny — capitalism.

Long Arabian Nights

I hate it, I hate it — I hate this war.

It’s worse because this one is something of a shocker. We didn’t really expect America’s imperial decision-makers to do something so inane and self-defeating.

Yet they had to.

They have to preserve their system. They have to carve out their new world order of permanent occupation of Persian Gulf oil producers and colonialist control of the region’s politics.

The carnage is precisely what the U.S. government is all about. Governments reflect and express economic relations, and our economic set-up is predatory. A private-profit and profiteering economy makes for Rambo-istic militarism and an accommodating government. The state, after all, is a body of armed men.

Given this social anatomy, prayers for peace and calls for sanity and restraint won’t cut it. They may be comforting but they are irrelevant. The millions of appalled Americans will not get far enough with protests until they realize that “peace” isn’t an answer because it isn’t possible. War can’t be reformed out of the system. Only revolution will count.

written in reaction to the 1990 war against Iraq

Response to “Notes on Leadership”

Without leadership, there is no movement, no organization, no development of consistent theory, no division of labor, no refinement of practice, no stability, no training and demonstration, no growth. Without leadership, nothing guarantees that the program will be implemented, for everybody cannot do everything at the same time. We desperately need strong, rational, logical, persuasive, effective, energetic, rugged female individuals as leaders, just as we need ranks with the same qualities who love and admire and support and criticize their leaders as they themselves learn to develop and perfect leadership qualities. Nobody has to be dominated, or repressed, or intimidated, but everybody has to learn to take criticism and evaluation. Real leadership welcomes and organizes debate, criticism, hard looks at policy and practice; real leadership is nothing to fear, and something to tenderly nourish.

Approaching the Final Conflict

The human race is closer than it has ever been to driving the usurpers and exploiters off the face of the earth.

Humanity is also closer to annihilation — but that in itself is a powerfully compelling reason to vanquish the ruling class!

In the race against time, we have every historical and logical reason to put our confidence in humanity. The people have always struggled against odds for survival. And won! And, in the process, a limitless diversity of culture, art, beauty and knowledge has been created. To save all this from destruction, and to preserve the potential for far greater achievements, is worth fighting for. And people do. Everywhere. All the time.

The FSP can take great pride in being a part of this colossal struggle for survival and freedom. We have kept the faith, as the Black Panthers used to say; we have not caved in to the pessimists, doomsayers, defeatists and cynics, ever ready to give up on humankind because they have no will to fight. We have helped create in theory and practice the foundations for a truly egalitarian socialist society where both sexes and people of all colors, cultures, nations, sexual orientations, ages and physical capabilities can learn from each other and share a life that is richer and more meaningful due to the interaction. We have courageously taught others to fight and have stood fast with them. We have evinced the sheer audacity to think that revolution in the heartland of imperialism is not only necessary but possible and indicated!

authored with Guerry Hoddersen

Also see: A small biography for a very large life

Also see: Of hermits, hedonists and related narcissists

Click here to see the current Freedom Socialist. Special offers during the June-September FS $100,000 Fund Drive: send $7 for one year (save $3) or $10 for two years (save $10) to Freedom Socialist, 5018 Rainier Ave. S., Seattle, WA 98118. To subscribe to the FS by postal mail, email, or audio CD, visit here. Please contribute to sustain our work. You can donate now via  To see the booklist at Red Letter Press or to find out more about the Freedom Socialist Party, go towww.socialism.com, or reply to this message. We would love to hear from you! Friend on Facebook | Forward to a friend

Freedom Socialist Party Keeping you up to date on the FSP. Our mailing address is: Freedom Socialist Party 4710 University Way NE, #100 Seattle, WA 98105 Add us to your address book Telephone: 206-985-4621

Today, attorneys for Ventura appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge Arthur Boylan, arguing for the lawsuit to continue. Kyle’s widow Tara still profits from Kyle’s autobiography, which includes a story of a 2006 bar fight between Kyle and Ventura. Ventura claims the bar fight never occurred.

According to Ventura attorney David Bradley Olsen, the alleged bar fight is “a complete fabrication and is a vicious, deliberate, and calculated assault on [Ventura's] character, honor, and reputation that is intended to turn the SEAL and military community, and Americans in general, against [Ventura].” He argues that Ventura retains a right to protect his good name.

Kyle attorney John Borger counters that Ventura’s decision to continue “will serve no useful purpose, and likely will promote public perception of Jesse Ventura as someone who has little or no regard for the feelings and welfare of surviving family members of deceased war heroes.” Before his death, Kyle affirmed under oath that the events described in his book did occur.

Ventura has been speculated as a potential 2016 presidential candidate either as an Independent or for the Libertarian Party nomination. Should he run, this issue will likely be raised.

LNC Chairman Geoffrey Neale and LNC Executive Director Carla Howell both spoke, as well as former LPCO Chairman Penn Pfiffner, who gave the Keynote speech on Saturday.

Others came from all over the country, and one of them agreed to sit down for a quick interview about how Libertarianism is doing in his state. Patrick Dixon is the Chairman of the Libertarian Party of Texas, and he shared with us the ways in which they have been successful in growing the party:

Published June 13, 2013

By the Libertarian Party of Colorado

People like to solve problems, and in a market where ideas are free to be tested, the most beautiful process unfolds. As soon as people of any industry recognize the implications of solving one problem or another, professionals from all over will flock to ground zero and put their heads together. That is, if the process is allowed to happen at all.

Recently, the Commissioners of Boulder County voted against an extension to the existing moratorium on fracking, thus approving the drilling of a few wells northeast of the city of Boulder. The room erupted in fury when the vote was not extended to them. Had they been literally holding pitchforks, they would not have been out of place.

At first glance, the cause seems like a sympathetic one. The residents of Boulder are concerned about a new and dangerous-sounding process known as fracking – or, hydraulic fracturing. The drills would, after all, be in close proximity to schools and homes. It sounds reasonable to put your foot down over this, if in fact the concern levied is valid.

Despite having to rely on evidence that is largely anecdotal and, at times, entirely erroneous, these citizen activists have nonetheless sharpened their spears and will stop at nothing to see a ban on fracking here in the U.S.

The reality, however, is that natural gas is one of the safest fuel sources we have, is the safest and cleanest of the dirty fossil fuel sources, and is the only safe fuel source capable of meeting the demand for energy that the whole world – not just America – so desperately needs right now. Its critics who strive for a ban offer no sensible solutions, nor do they comprehend the gravity of the consequence of eliminating this option.

When the steam engine was first invented, many people believed that they would make cows permanently infertile. Had this myth persisted, none of the prosperity that followed would have been possible. So lets separate the fact from the fiction.

Though you wouldn’t think it by watching a film like Gasland and listening to citizen activists – most of whom lack any background into the esoteric science they profess to understand – hydraulic fracturing may prove to be the biggest success story in free market economics since the first oil boom itself.

Some of the concerns with hydraulic fracturing are well-placed and there is some amount of risk involved, but the benefits far outweigh the costs. Those benefits cannot be understated enough.

The dominant fuel source is still petroleum, but its days are numbered. Even countries like Saudi Arabia are moving into the much-more-costly offshore drilling, which is a good indication that their reserves may be running out. And even if peak oil wasn’t a very real threat to modern civilization, there is still the tangled web of regulation from an already-heavily-subsidized industry, and our continued reliance on the tempestuous exports of foreign companies will continue to make oil production an evermore costly and unreliable option.

Natural gas, unlike oil, also has the added benefit of not being tied to the hopelessly-flawed dollar. Right now, any country wanting to buy or sell oil must do so using the Petro Dollar. This has worked great for oil and for us as a nation, but it won’t likely stay this way for very long, especially if China has a say in the matter.

To put it another way, when natural gas production exceeds domestic demand and we begin exporting, it won’t be because other nations must buy that gas, but because they choose to, thus making the market more sustainable and solvent. Oil trade, on the other hand, is more like a house of cards that comes down the second the nations of the world decide to buy and sell with their own currencies. This would mean everything which uses petroleum in our daily lives – i.e. gas, tires, plastics, paints, pesticides and everything in between – will cost much, much more. It also means the U.S. Treasury Bonds that are keeping U.S. credit afloat would become next to worthless. Putting your eggs in this basket is very sketchy indeed.

Nevertheless, some energy source will need to step up to replace the edifice built by petroleum, and eventually that something will have to be renewable. There are dozens of alternative energy options out there, and many of them are quite sustainable. Renewable energies have an optimistic future, and it shouldn’t be but a few decades before these technologies advance to the point that everyone in the developing world has access to clean, renewable energy.

The issue, though, is time. We don’t have decades. Our energy crisis is imminent. It is not nearly as demanding here in the developed world, but in the third world, simply being able to heat your home is a matter of life and death. Climate change will continue to take its toll and the poorest places on the planet will suffer the most.

Already, some places on the globe have seen some of the coldest winters on record and Antarctic sea ice levels are at an all-time high. To quote a popular TV show, “winter is coming.” This is a very big reason why energy is so important.

In the event of a natural disaster, natural gas can be a lifesaver, just as it was in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. Any community faced with a power outage for any reason can find immediate relief from back-up natural gas generators, and it is the quickest way to provide energy to poor and rural communities, or any location not on the grid.

The natural gas boom is also providing a way out of poverty for struggling, poor areas by providing employment and income. Some places refuse this boon, while others welcome it gratefully. In many instances, the financial damage dealt by Big Ag to small, family owned farms and by estate and property taxes, is mitigated by cash flow from oil and gas company supplements for drilling on or near their land. It has become a saving grace for some farmers.

Even many environmentalists realize the benefits, and when common sense regulations are adopted, even they get on board. They have the good sense to realize that while fracking has its risks, it should be treated no differently than the risks associated with elevators, microwaves, MRI’s, draw bridges, etc. And it should be respected for the positive environmental impact it has actually made towards curbing carbon emissions. It is now a matter of public record that national carbon emissions are at a twenty-year low – not because of the impact of renewable energy, which is still negligible, but because of natural gas.

Without a doubt, the benefits to natural gas production are many, but it does come with some costs. Some are painful lessons of a system that otherwise works just fine when common sense measures are taken, but in most cases, the hysteria surrounding hydraulic fracking is just a bunch of hot air.

Unknown to many in the anti-fracking movement, hydraulic fracturing has been around for over sixty years. The only thing new about fracking as a technology is the use of a pivotal drill that allows the drill to move horizontally, as well as vertically. This means that one drill can extract an amount of gas that would normally require a hundred drills or more.

The impression left by Gasland is that if fracking is allowed to exist, anyone and everyone nearby may explode at any moment. The famous combustible-tap-water scene in Gaslandbetrays the truth that such an event is possible in many places where fracking has not occurred. Filmmaker Josh Fox even knew that the specific area in the film where this flashy scene happens had a history of naturally-occurring methane pollution, but left this fact out of the film. The most alarming moment in the film, it turns out, is based on an intentional lie.

It may seem counter-intuitive, but relative to oil, coal, and nuclear, natural gas is much safer. It doesn’t seem that way, because fracking just sounds dangerous. Well, flying through the air at 10,000 feet in a 250,000 lb. steel boat we call an “airplane” sounds dangerous, but the success rate of this activity is so near perfect as to render any unsuccessful flight anomalous.

One of those counter-intuitive facts has to do with the link between fracking and earthquakes. It sounds plausible that fracking would lead to earthquakes, and indeed this can be technically true. But greater context and research reveals very surprising results in this area.

Anthropogenic seismicity is indeed a well-documented fact. One of the first extensive studies to link human activity to seismicity was right here in Denver. In 1961, the military drilled a 3600-meter well into the ground Northeast of Denver in what is now the ironically-named Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge, and they injected the well with chemical waste. This lead to the now-infamous “Denver Earthquakes.” When the earthquakes started happening, no one could explain why at first, but experts zeroed in on the problem rather quickly: pressure from the waste well injections.

When it comes to fracking, almost all the cases linking hydraulic fracturing to “felt earthquakes” – those that are detectable to humans on the surface – have to do with this sort of waste disposal, not the fracking process itself. Chemical injection into underground wells happens in many different energy industries, not just gas. In fact, it is much worse in the others as thisstudy points out:

Hydraulic fracturing of sedimentary rocks for recovery of gas from shale usually generates very small magnitude earthquakes only, compared to processes such as reservoir impoundment, conventional oil and gas field depletion, water injection for geothermal energy recovery, and waste water injections.

The study looked at all 198 examples of induced felt seismicity from 1929 until now and found only three resulted from hydraulic fracturing itself. After explaining why these unusual events happened (usually involving proximity to an existing fault line), the study concludes, in no uncertain terms with this:

It should be noted, however, that after hundreds of thousands of fracturing operations, only three examples of felt seismicity have been documented. The likelihood of inducing felt seismicity by hydraulic fracturing is thus extremely small but cannot be ruled out.”

I’m sure the author of this study would conclude the same about airplane crashes. The largest earthquake, it should also be noted, was 3.8M.

Ignoring facts like these leads to the constant derision of Americans by environmentalists for not following suit with supposedly wise Europeans who simply ban the practice of fracking without bothering to understand it or improve it.

But this argument has always been specious and full of confirmation bias, and the proof is in the pudding. As recently as last December, even the UK has decided to lift its ban on hydraulic fracturing. It seems even the Europeans now suddenly feel comfortable with the risks of fracking.

The inefficient and wasteful use of water, as well as the lack of proper disposal of “produced water” – the chemical byproduct of fracking – are concerns that often get raised as well. The industry for many years had no real way of dealing with the waste, but thanks to free market economics, these are problems that are already being solved. In stark contrast to other dirty energy sources like nuclear, this is perhaps the most attractive thing about natural gas.

Riggs Eckelberry, founder of OriginOil, decided to solve the waste-water problem by finding ways to clean and re-use produced water. He adopted a process known as Solids Out of Solution (SOS) to remove the solid waste from the water so that it may then be used again in the very same well. Its initial test run on an oil-fracking well in California found that it was successful in removing 99% of the solids in the produced water. Here’s a video showing how it was done.

Add to this innovations in the use of what the industry calls “brackish” water – water that is non-potable and previously too costly and inefficient for use – and you start to see how the technology becomes cheaper and safer. Waterless fracking – a process that is more costly and less efficient than hydraulic – is nevertheless a less environmentally intrusive option, and one that is viable in areas where water is rare or depleted, as in many parts of Texas.

This also addresses the fear that fracking uses too much of our already-valuable drinking water. Other industries like geothermal, nuclear and the grossly inefficient Canadian tar sands consume far more water, and must do so continuously. Fracking, on the other hand, now only needs one large initial stock of water to get the operation going, then uses much less water throughout the life of the well.

Also, it may frustrate environmentalists to learn that the company that may be poised to reduce our carbon footprint in arguably the biggest way we’ve seen in a long time is none other than the evil Haliburton, which is unveiling a new technology that does just that right here at its Colorado-based Western Hemisphere headquarters.

The new technology is part of an overall push to make fracking more energy-efficient by fueling the process itself by natural gas. The new pumps – called Q-10 pumps – will be fueled by processed natural gas and, in the near future, will likely be fueled by raw natural gas from the well itself. In addition, the company will begin using a gravity-fed sand container to use in the sand-water mixture, instead of a generator fueled by diesel.

The goal is to have an entirely self-sufficient – or at least, more efficient – fracking operation, making natural gas even more attractive than it already is.

Of the arguments against fracking presented in Gasland, the strongest has little to do with water or drilling, but with air pollution. Fracking-related air pollution is well-documented, and is a much stronger case to make when it comes to assessing the risk of fracking. There is no doubt that areas where drilling has occurred have a much higher concentration of methane pollution in the air than elsewhere, and even former EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson admits this. Drilling fields in Wyoming and Colorado have recorded pollutant levels to rival LA smog at its worst. This is mostly due to leaks, and solutions are being found to curb and mitigate the risk of what the industry calls “fugitive methane emissions.”

The jury is still out, however, on whether or not contamination of the water supply has resulted from hydraulic fracturing. The complexity of the data is addressed by this quote from scientists at Duke University, authors of several studies meant to evaluate this claim:

In summary, we agree with Davies that our “data showed that contamination had occurred, but the association with hydraulic fractures remains unproven”. Any assertion that hydraulic fracturing is unrelated to contamination remains equally unproven.

This sentiment is echoed by more  recent studies from the same group. Methane is not known to affect the potability of water, but it can become a hazardous situation due to its flammability. The most definitive scientific statement that can be made linking contamination of the water supply with hydraulic fracturing is summarized thusly:

Based on groundwater analyses of 60 private water wells in the region, methane concentrations were found to be 17-times higher on average in areas with active drilling and extraction in non-active areas, with some drinking-water wells having concentrations of methane well above the “immediate action” hazard level.

But regarding contamination of the water supply by the actual chemicals used during fracking, it adds:

The study found no evidence of contamination from hydraulic fracturing fluids or saline produced waters.

It is as if gas is being leaked into the air and into the water supply, but because it is not being contaminated with chemicals used in the process itself, it cannot be said to be the cause. The extra methane might be related to fracking, and this is the single biggest concern to date about fracking.

We don’t know enough to say one way or the other regarding the extra methane, but we do know that chemical contamination of the water supply has never been found anywhere. Susquehanna County, PA, which was featured heavily in Gasland, has now been reviewed by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection and its findings were corroborated by the EPA. After a 16-month investigation into the nature of its water situation, the DEP concluded that there was no link between hydraulic fracturing and water contamination in Pennsylvania.

WPX Energy, the company suspected of having the faulty well-casing that allegedly caused the methane contamination, was cleared of all wrong-doing when the DEP tested the well-casings and found no evidence to the claim. Yet despite the fact that the methane contamination was found to be naturally occurring, WPX is currently still venting and treating the water for local residents anyway. So much for the myth of the evil energy company that doesn’t care about the community.

The results have big implications. Pennsylvania was one of the nation’s leaders in fracking, so if the evidence against fracking is going to get any clearer, it would be there. Even the New York Times has admitted that much of the hysteria over fracking is probably over-stated, remarking, “In sum, the experience of fracking in Pennsylvania has led to industry practices that mitigate the effect of drilling and fracking on the local environment.”

If fracking saves us from nothing else, it can’t be understated the effect it will have on mitigating further need of coal. Coal is a much dirtier fuel source, produces way more greenhouse gases and pollutants, and is incredibly caustic to landscapes that have been strip-mined. Just look at the very same DEP study I just mentioned in Pennsylvania. You won’t find any lakes polluted with high-concentrations of methane, but notice how many are designated “impaired” due to mercury pollution – a main byproduct of coal-burning. If there was ever a more glaring example of toxicity of coal on the environment, Pennsylvania is surely it.

That is perhaps the biggest take-away of all, especially for the state of Colorado. Colorado is the seventh-greatest producer of coal in the US, but it has the fifth-largest proven natural gas reserves as of 2010.

Colorado has always had a respect for environmental concerns, and its national parks are among the best-maintained in the country. It is here you can expect the kind of common-sense regulation to be enforced at the state level, rendering the federal Clean Water Act exemption moot. That is just as well, too.

Standards on what is clean and unclean vary from state to state, but decades of federal regulation of coal have given a corrosive fuel source an unfair advantage, which likely would have been terminated even sooner in an environment of free enterprise.

Natural gas will not cure-all of our energy problems, but it is a sufficient stop-gap solution to the energy crisis we face right now. The technology for solar is in its infancy, and cannot have the immediate impact that natural gas can. This is even less true for wind and tidal.

Pursuit of alternative, renewable energy sources is a great thing. But the risk of reaching peak oil, the continued costs of drilling offshore and the never-ending unreliability of instability in countries with foreign oil have left us searching for an energy source that can meet our needs now.

The only other energy source that comes close in volume is nuclear, but this is even more hazardous than coal. The energy it generates is of the scale we need, but the cost is far too great. Already, facilities the world over are struggling to contain spent fuel rods, some of which are decades old. The solutions with which we’ve become content to the problem of nuclear waste would be laughable if they weren’t so hopelessly irresponsible.

There is a growing worldwide stockpile of nuclear waste that is waiting for reclamation technology to deal with it, and no one even knows how much of it there is. It is just sitting there, corroding the containers they sit in, awaiting the final long-term solution that has yet to come. A business person might have rejected the whole enterprise long ago upon asking the simple question of what to do with the waste, and only through heavy government subsidy is he incentivized to accept the answer: “We’ll figure it out later.” It is nothing short of criminal, and no further venture should be made into nuclear until there is an acceptable solution to this problem.

While fracking may have its problems, its solutions seem nearer to us than those surrounding nuclear. That is not to say those solutions might not be found, but experimenting with ways to deal with nuclear waste would likely take a good deal longer than the imminent gains of natural gas.

The other alternative energy sources are too numerous to count, and they may all likely play a vital role in the continued diversification of where we get our energy. No other fuel source can have such an immediate gain at relatively lower costs than natural gas. It is far from perfect, but rarely do we see as much expedient and meaningful innovation as we are seeing in the industry of hydraulic fracking. Colorado would be wise to jump on board, and can prove its own ability to regulate an industry without the need of the federal government.

To put it in another way, the inevitable decline of the federal government will hurt some states that depend on federal aid more than others. When its debts become too great, as they already have, it will begin downsizing and even parceling off its land, resources and services. As Libertarians, we know this is coming. Where is Colorado going to be financially and politically when this happens?

Colorado, and many other states, can be saved by fracking. The federal exemption on hydraulic fracture regulation means most states, including Colorado, Pennsylvania and Texas, already have regulations in place to deal with the growing industry. So rather than saving Colorado from fracking, we should save Colorado with fracking.

Source:

http://lpcolorado.org/why-colorado-should-embrace-fracking/

FOR RELEASE:
June 11, 2013

Jay Sweeney, 570-587-3603, jnln@epix.net 
Glenn Davis, 215-740-6354, gdavisgpopatlarge@gmail.com

Members of the Green Party participated in and supported the ten-day march from Philadelphia to Harrisburg organized by DecarceratePA. At the close of the 113-mile march on June 3, Decarcerate PA and its allies rallied at the Capitol in Harrisburg to demand a People’s Budget, Not a Prison Budget. Glenn Davis, a member of the Green Party of Pennsylvania (GPPA, www.gpofpa.org) Steering Committee, was the first speaker. Wearing his Green Party t-shirt, Davis made the following remarks:

“I know in Harrisburg they are closing 11 public schools and pre-kindergarten has been cut to half days. This affects every family’s income because they will now have to pay for day care or leave work early. In addition, Philadelphia is closing more than 24 public schools and 13 more next year. This is an insult to every working person. Today, we should be educating our next generation, but instead the politicians are spending more than $400 million to expand Graterford Prison just outside Philadelphia.

“I think this is a War on the Poor, and the casualties are climbing. I am marching for those who protest the War on the Poor. The casualties are our families, our children and our broken school system. There are also prisoners of the War on the Poor. That is who they are building the new prison for. It is our children they are building the new prison for.

“I am marching for the thousands of men and women who attended Mayor Nutter’s Ex-Offenders Job Fair in May. This Job Fair showed that Governor Corbett did not know what he was talking about. Thousands of ex-offenders showed up, only to be turned away because Mayor Nutter was not prepared for the demand. It was most disrespectful when they came out and asked those waiting to put their resumes in a card-board box and go home. It was a Job Fair! You don’t put your resume in a box and go home! You are supposed to give your resume to a recruiter! It felt like make-believe, like they had no jobs for anyone.

“In the Capitol, behind me are Governor Corbett and the legislators. These politicians are in “a House of Lies,” taking the back-door approach. We put them in a position of leadership, but you cannot lead from behind. I am not only upset by the Republicans, but also by the Democrats in this two party system. The politicians from the two corporate parties are in bed together, and they are screwing the poor people. That’s who we are marching for, the poor and working people.”

The March for a People’s Budget, Not a Prison Budget was endorsed by 1 Love Movement, ACLU – PA, ACT UP, Books Through Bars, Broken On All Sides, Campaign for Nonviolent Schools, Center for Returning Citizens, Coalition of Labor Union Women, DreamActivist PA, EXIT-US Inc, Faculty and Staff Federation at Community College of Philadelphia, Fight for Philly, Granny Peace Brigade Philadelphia, Green Party of Pennsylvania, Green Party of Philadelphia, Hearts on a Wire, Human Rights Coalition, International Action Center, International Socialist Organization, Jobs with Justice, Juntos, Mishkan Shalom, NAACP Graterford Branch, New Sanctuary Movement of Philadelphia, Noble Pillars, Occupy Trenton, Parents United for Public Education, Philadelphians Allied for a Responsible Economy, Philadelphia Coalition Advocating for Public Schools, Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, Philadelphia Student Union, Philly Survivor Support Collective, Point Breeze Organizing Committee, Reconstruction Inc., Students Organizing for Unity and Liberation, Support Center for Returning Citizens, Teacher Action Group, and Youth Art & Self-empowerment Project.

The Green Party of Pennsylvania stands for grassroots democracy, social justice, nonviolence, and ecological wisdom. For more information on the GPPA, please contact 888-721-4733 andcontact@gpofpa.org.
_______________

The photo below shows Glenn Davis (second from left), Green Party of Pennsylvania Steering Committee, on the DecarceratePA march for a People’s Budget, Not a Prison Budget.

Source:
http://www.gp.org/press/pr-state.php?ID=622

Will you stand up and end the threat of fracking in NY State, once and for all? Not a moratorium, or another delay, but a BAN. Right now.

RSVP to rally with the Greens in Albany toDemand a Ban from Cuomo on June 17th!

When: Monday, June 17th. Green Contingent meetup time: 11:30am sharp. Rally scheduled from 12pm-3pm.
Where: Green meetup on the steps of Albany City Hall, on Eagle Street between Corning Place and Pine Street (Google Maps link).Rally on the East Capitol Lawn, Albany, NY

Check bus options with Food and Water Watch.

Please share with your allies, email groups and social networks!

Don Grundman: Sodomites are “sub-human”

by Joshua Fauver

The following will be a compilation of posts from one Don Grundman, the founder and former state chairman of the Constitution Party of California as well as it’s current state contact. (as listed on the national party’s website.)

On the piece published by the Independent Political Report, titled Constitution Party Issues Statement on Religious Liberty and Boy Scouts Mr. Grundman had the following to say:

 ”….    I actually represent the majority of history and civilization throughout time up until this moment when a new sub-human species, spawned by and in allegiance to The Enemy of God, has emerged which will actually sacrifice the children of our nation and the world as a whole to sodomites.”

Incredible isn’t it?  How does one suggest with any real confidence that those who are of a different sexual orientation than them are somehow a, and I quote, “sub-human species.” But Grundman didn’t stop there, he went on to suggest that they exist only to “sacrifice the children of our nation and the world as a whole to the sodomites” How absurd! Where does one get off by saying that the homosexuals in this country are out to get our children and to have them sacrificed. There is absolutely no basis  for such hideous, inflammatory, and bigoted remarks. It doesn’t matter what your personal religious beliefs are, there is no basis for suggesting that simply because of someone’s sexual orientation that they are “sub-human” I’m appalled by Mr. Grundman’s claim.

Mr. Grundman’s bold, baseless, and ridiculous claims didn’t stop there. He had to go on to suggest that anyone who 1.) Advocates for marriage equality, 2.) suggesst that the tenth amendment should apply to marriage and it be left up for the individual states to decide on, are “moral mutants.” who believe that our children should be taught to be homosexuals. He said:

“It is only in our time that moral mutants like yourself have openly worked to advance the pathology of homosexuality and especially the once unthinkable idea that homosexuality should be taught to children…”

I find this to be a bit absurd. First of all, when did Don Grundman become the judge of all of mankind? Last I checked God was still seated on the throne, and it was He who would be doing the judging. I don’t remember the standard to which I would be held being Don Grundman’s standard of morality. Who is Don to suggest that those who are of a different opinion of him are “moral mutants”? Secondly, where does Don Grundman base his claims that because some in our society feel, and perhaps rightfully so, that they should be free to be with who they choose to be with want to teach our children to be gay? There is absolutely zero basis for such a strong accusation. that the above quoted “unthinkable idea” is ” something which only monsters such as yourself, …, and all too many other degenerates of our time will endorse” I find it a shame to see such immature name calling being found constantly among the leadership in the Constitution Party ranks.

Don Grundman went on to suggest that those who are homosexual aren’t really fighting to have marriage equality. Their goal isn’t to have their relationships legitimatized and legally recognized  as they say they are doing. No, in fact their ultimate goal is to be able to legally molest children.

” You do such an excellent job of presenting all of the arguments which the child molestors will use in the next phase of the attack upon the nation by the Homosexual/Sodomy Movement after pervert marriage is legalized.”

I honestly don’t even know what to say about this. I guess my question is when did homosexual become synonymous with child molester?  On what grounds does he suggest those who have a homosexual relationship are by extension pedophiles? Why is it that this Don Grundman continues to make claims with absolutely zero evidence or basis in reality?

I’ve documented here for you the behavior and opinions of those in leadership positions of the Constitution Party.Whether it be our example here, Don Grundman, (founder and former state chairman of the California affiliate of the Constitution Party.) or Riley Hood (Chairman of the Constitution Party of Wisconsin, or even Don Stone of the Constitution Party of Illinois, those who are in this party have a now well documented reputation of, under the name of Christianity, using derogatory words, statements, phrases, and comparisons to bash those who live a life style that is contrary to their beliefs. Let me be clear, I am a devout follower of Christ, and it is by my daily reading in the word of God that I see that Jesus’ behavior at no time ever looked like that of Don Grundman. At no point is Jesus found bashing sinners and condemning them and calling them insulting names. On the contrary, Christ embodied love and compassion.

Let’s observe for just one moment a passage from the Bible found in the book of John, chapter 8 versus 1-11

But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. ² Early in the morning He came again into the temple, and all the people were coming to Him; and He sat down and began to teach them. ³ The scribes and the Pharisees *brought a woman caught in adultery, and having set her in the center of the court, ⁴ they *said to Him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in adultery, in the very act. ⁵ Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women; what then do You say?” ⁶ They were saying this, testing Him, so that they might have grounds for accusing Him. But Jesus stooped down and with His finger wrote on the ground. ⁷ But when they persisted in asking Him, He straightened up, and said to them, “He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” ⁸ Again He stooped down and wrote on the ground. ⁹ When they heard it, theybegan to go out one by one, beginning with the older ones, and He was left alone, and the woman, where she was, in the center of the court. ¹⁰ Straightening up, Jesus said to her, “Woman, where are they? Did no one condemn you?” ¹¹ She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “I do not condemn you, either. Go. From now on sin no more.”]

Let us ask ourselves, would Jesus have acted any differently had they thrown a homosexual man before him instead of an adulterous woman? Certainly not. Now let’s compare Jesus’ behavior to that of Don Grundman’s and company? Does the above examples of Don Grundman’s behavior remind you of Jesus? I feel it only right to remind Don that the word christian means “Christ like.” Sir your behavior is in no way, shape, or form like that of Christ.

Don Grundman, I only ask that if you’re going to call yourself a “Christian” then act like Christ, and if you’re going to call yourself a Constitutionalists, then know and support the Constitution.

Source:

http://iacreview.blogspot.com/2013/06/don-grundman-sodomites-are-sub-human.html

Kansas Secretary of State Re-Interprets Law to Make it More Difficult for a Party to Remain on the Ballot; Removes Reform Party

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach recently re-interpreted Kansas election law section 25-302b, the law that determines how a party remains on the ballot. That law, passed in 1984, says, “Any recognized political party whose nominee for any office for which the officer is elected from the state as a whole fails to receive at least 1% of the total vote cast for any such office in this state at any general election, or which fails to nominate persons for at least one such office, shall cease to be a recognized political party.”

The law was written with input from the Kansas Libertarian Party, which wrote the law so that in years when no statewide office is on the ballot except President, the vote test would not apply. Note the phrase “any office for which the officer is elected from the state as a whole.” The intent of the law was to exclude President, because President is not elected from the state as a whole; President is elected by the entire nation.

In 2000, a year in which no statewide office was on the ballot except President, the Kansas Secretary did not disqualify either the Libertarian Party or the Reform Party, even though neither of them received as much as 1% of the presidential vote. But that precedent has now been reversed by the current Secretary of State, who removed the Reform Party from the ballot earlier this year because it did not poll as much as 1% for President. It only polled .43% for its nominee, Chuck Baldwin. The Secretary of State did not ask for an Attorney General’s Opinion before he removed the party; he did not issue a formal opinion stating that the old precedent was being reversed. He simply wrote a letter to the Reform Party, telling the party that it is disqualified. He also removed Americans Elect from the ballot, but that was not surprising since Americans Elect had asked to be removed.

This development should be of concern to the Libertarian Party, even though the Libertarian Party did poll over 1% for President in 2012 (it polled 1.76% for Gary Johnson). The Libertarian Party did not poll as much as 1% in Kansas for President in 1984, or 1992, or 1996, or 2000, or 2004, or 2008. In future presidential years it may again have trouble polling 1% for President.

Some comments on the article:

1. Richard Winger

   June 14, 2013 at 8:17 pm

   When a law is ambiguous, legislative intent and precedent are both useful for interpreting it. Bill Earnest, a Kansas Libertarian Party leader, worked with the legislature in 1984 to draft the bill so as to exclude president. That is why “nominee” is singular; if the bill meant to include presidential electors, it could have said “nominee or nominees”.

   In 2000, the Kansas Secretary of State was aware of the legislature’s intent in 1984. He was Ron Thornburgh and he had worked in the Secretary of State’s office before he became Secretary of State. That is why he interpreted the law in late 2000 to leave the Libertarian and Reform Parties on the ballot.

   The current Secretary of state is an anti-minor party zealot. He personally argued in the 10th circuit last year when the Constitution Party was trying to win the ability of voters to register into the Constitution Party, even though it is not a ballot-qualified party. I had never before heard of any Secretary of State who personally argued in court in an election law case. Generally an Assistant Attorney General does that work.

    
2. Cody Quirk

   June 15, 2013 at 8:42 pm

   Oh well, the Kansas RfP was defunct anyways- I tried to contact them various times and never got a response.

Rally against U.S./Israeli intervention

JUNE 14, 2013

Los Angeles, June 8

Published June 12, 2013 on Uncovered Politics 

By Darcy G. Richardson

William Araujo of Edison has successfully fended off a challenge to his nominating petitions — the second such shameful attempt by the New Jersey Democratic State Committee to keep his name off the ballot in the past two months — to qualify for a spot in the November 5th general election as the Peace & Freedom Party’s candidate for governor.

A union carpenter at the New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark, the 43-year-old Araujo had previously sought the Democratic gubernatorial nomination but was one of three candidates unceremoniously tossed from the primary ballot in April when the New Jersey Democratic State Committee — fearing competition for little-known State Sen. Barbara Buono, the party’s anointed candidate — challenged the signatures on his nominating petitions.

Buono, it turns out, wasn’t the potential “giant slayer” portrayed in an earlier piece on Uncovered Politics.  She and her mean-spirited, pea-brained advisors — the overpaid and overvalued “consultants” who make a living feeding off of one political campaign after another — chose instead to go after the “little guys,” knocking the penurious Araujo off the Democratic primary ballot along with two other rivals, including former Glen Ridge Mayor Carl A. Bergmanson.

Without Christie’s blunt “in your face” style, the soft-spoken Buono was nevertheless as much of a bully as her Republican opponent.  Her actions in dealing with Araujo’s fledgling candidacy spoke volumes about who she really is.  The Edison upstart apparently wasn’t supposed to interfere with her coronation as the party’s sacrificial lamb.

Not to be denied, Araujo, who goes by the nickname “Willie,” immediately began circulating petitions to run independently of his party in November.  Willie and his wife, Iris — a dynamo in her own right — personally collected nearly 1,200 of the 1,372 signatures on his nominating petitions.

The easy-going Araujo also adopted an appropriately-titled campaign theme song:“Little Willy” by The Sweet, a popular British rock band from the 1970s.  As the song’s lyrics state, “you can’t push Willy round, Willy won’t go.”

True enough, Little Willie is now on the ballot.

The New Jersey Democrats, who apparently tired of pummeling poor Willie, sheepishly dropped their last-minute challenge to Araujo’s independent nominating petitions this morning after striking only 32 of the more than 900 signatures they were contesting.

In officially qualifying for the general election ballot, Araujo promised a “New Deal for New Jersey.”   He said he will fight for the state’s long ignored and forgotten poor, working-class and struggling middle income communities.

“I want to be their voice,” he declared.

Araujo, who once lived on the streets as a young teenager growing up in Newark, knows what it’s like to struggle.

Despite high approval numbers and a commanding thirty-point lead in the polls, he also doesn’t believe that Gov. Christie is invincible.  “Nothing is impossible,” he says.

All of the media adoration for Chris Christie is completely unwarranted, asserts Araujo.

Araujo and his wife, Iris, personally collected nearly 1,200 signatures on his petitions.

“Gov. Christie hasn’t done anything to improve New Jersey’s economy,” he said.  “Our jobless rate was 9% in April, which was only three-tenths of a percentage point lower than when Christie took office in January 2010 and much higher than the national unemployment rate of 7.5 percent that month.  It improved slightly last month,” continued Araujo, “but we’re still saddled with the second-highest foreclosure inventory in the country and, alarmingly, poverty — particularly child poverty — is on the rise.”

The spunky, blue-collar candidate maintains that Christie has done little or nothing to stem the recent increase in poverty in the Garden State.

“Child poverty has increased dramatically under his watch,” said the long-shot candidate.

To read the rest of the article, please go to the following link:

http://www.uncoveredpolitics.com/2013/06/12/you-cant-push-willie-around-willie-wont-go-3/

On June 12, North Carolina HB 951 passed the House Finance Committee. It repeals the state income tax form check-off that asks taxpayers if they wish to send a small donation to their favorite political party. In recent years a surprisingly large number of taxpayers have chosen to send a donation to the Libertarian Party, so much so that last year, the party got $96,664.

Ballot Access News is a monthly newsletter that has been published since 1985 by ballot access expert and one-time Libertarian Party candidate for public office Richard Winger. The website is updated daily with information pertaining to minor parties and ballot access cases from all across the country. Winger is widely regarded as the nation’s foremost expert on ballot access. BAN’s website is http://www.ballot-access.org.