What do the people rioting in the Middle East and the people protesting reductions in public-sector union bargaining rights have in common?

Not much, but the driving force behind each of them is similar, and that driving force is economic hardship.

What we are likely seeing is the crumbling of a world economic order that has existed for decades if not for centuries. In the Middle East the order is one of military style-dictators or royal monarchs at the top, often installed and/or maintained by foreign powers. In the West, the order is one of an unsustainable welfare and public employment system.

One interesting difference is that the protesters in the Middle East really are freedom fighters in that they are fighting to overthrow dictators and a way of life that has oppressed them for decades. In other words, they are seeking to tear down an unsustainable and unjust economic order.

In Wisconsin and other American states, the public-sector unions are seeking to force the government that employs them to restore and maintain union bargaining rights and pay levels. In other words they are seeking to maintain an unsustainable and unjust economic order.

Government employees form unions in order to bargain collectively with government representatives. These unions of government employees are called public-sector unions. The system that allows public-sector unions to organize and bargain collectively is unjust because the public unions exist at the expense of taxpayers who have little or no say in their hiring, firing, or contract negotiating.

The public-sector unions are not the equivalent of private-sector unions at a factory or other place of employment who bargain collectively for better pay and working conditions. Those private employees have no ability or interest in lobbying their employers to constantly increase taxes for their benefit. The system that allows public-sector unions to form and exist is unsustainable because virtually every state is now technically bankrupt, as is the federal government.

In the new budget proposed by President Obama on February 14, 2011, the federal government alone will spend 25.9 percent of America’s GDP or about 26 cents of every GDP dollar. That is a crushing burden of taxation on the American public which cannot be sustained. Even the relatively modest cuts proposed in Wisconsin are unacceptable to the public unions because their members don’t seem to grasp the fact that the old order is ending one way or the other. The modest cuts are designed to keep the system afloat for a short time and possibly push it ahead to the next administration, but it is going to take drastic changes in the entire system to prevent the catastrophic chaos that appears to be in our future.

The reasoning behind the demands of public-sector unions is failed logic because by definition they are part of the government to which they object. They are, in reality, toadies of the ruling elite. This is not some poor group of under-paid, over-worked union employees in a cotton mill or factory chicken farm that is simply demanding a living wage. If those in public-sector unions object to government trying to sustain itself without destroying the taxpayers then let them join the private sector where bargaining rights are more solid.

Behind the crises in the Middle East and the crisis in Wisconsin lie the policies of the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve policy that it calls “quantitative easing” is causing the exploding prices of food and other commodities around the world. Flooding the world with dollars, as the Federal Reserve has done, lowers the dollar’s value relative to food and other commodities. When people live on a few dollars a day, if that, a 60 percent increase in the price of food is enough to send them into starvation. This increase in food prices is the driving force behind the Middle East revolution; therefore the Federal Reserve is responsible for it.

How then can the crisis in Wisconsin and the crises in the Middle East be diffused before they spread and take more lives? Unfortunately for the public-sector unions, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has made it clear that bailouts are for banks, not people, and certainly not states. However, Middle Eastern governments have responded by giving money to what they call lower and middle class people. Saudi Arabia gave $37 billion to the Shiite minority and released some political prisoners.

Middle Eastern people are sacrificing themselves to end an economic and political order that has oppressed them for decades. The public-sector unions are demonstrating in order to maintain an unsustainable economic system so that they might continue their way of life at taxpayer expense. That is the difference.

WASHINGTON – At their booth at the Conservative Political Action Conference, the Libertarian Party is displaying a "Republican Wall of Shame." (View low-res JPG or high-res PDF.)

These are the prominent Republicans featured on the Wall of Shame:

• Mitt Romney, supporter of the RomneyCare socialized medicine program in Massachusetts.
• Mike Huckabee, who as a governor supported so many tax increases that the Club for Growth labeled him a "liberal."
• George W. Bush, who had a long track record of supporting big-government programs and regulations, and who once said, "I’ve abandoned free market principles to save the free market system."
• Newt Gingrich, who often supports big-government intrusion and who said about global warming, "The evidence is sufficient that we should move towards the most effective possible steps to reduce carbon loading in the atmososphere."
• John McCain, who while running for president famously suspended his campaign to rush back to Washington to vote for bailouts.
• Paul Ryan, the House Budget Commmittee chairman who voted for the Medicare expansion in 2003, the No Child Left Behind Act, the TARP, GM and Chrysler bailouts, and even ethanol subsidies.
• Arnold Schwarzenegger, former California governor. The caption reads "No comment necessary."
• The "mystery Republican president." He signed many massive spending bills, and during his administration, federal spending was the largest percentage of GDP in post-WWII history. (His shameful record might be broken by the Obama administration.)

Libertarian Party Executive Director Wes Benedict commented, "Our goal at CPAC is to reach out to libertarians who have been misled into thinking of conservatism as a small-government ideology. In fact, conservatives just want their own version of big government, as we pointed out last year."

Benedict continued, "We’ve already heard some talk about the Republican ‘three-legged stool.’ My view is, Republicans are wrong on foreign policy, they’re wrong on social policy, and they’re lying hypocrites on economic policy. Their stool has no legs."

Wes Benedict is attending CPAC and can be reached on his cell phone at 512-659-8896.

The LP is America’s third-largest political party, founded in 1971. The Libertarian Party stands for free markets, civil liberties, and peace. You can find more information on the Libertarian Party at our website.

###

Dear President Obama,

The U.S. government bailout of, and acquisition of a majority share in, General Motors was an exceptional action, taken in response to exceptional circumstances. The U.S. stake in GM obviously poses novel managerial challenges to the government. The appropriate response to those challenges, however, is not to run from the responsibility through passive ownership and premature sale at a loss to taxpayers.

We write as GM prepares to undertake an Initial Public Offering (IPO) of stock that will reduce the government stake in the company to 43 percent. We urge that the government as primary owner arrange for the suspension of the IPO and then begin exercising the responsibilities attendant to ownership. We would like to highlight some of the numerous reasons for, and applications of, these recommendations.

1. Ensuring the best return to taxpayers

The government obviously has a serious fiduciary duty to taxpayers to obtain the best possible return on our investment in GM. This should not be the government’s only consideration in managing its GM stake, but it should be a priority.

News reports indicate the planned IPO will cause taxpayers to realize a $4.9 billion loss. Certainly no one can predict the future of GM or the markets with any certainty, but many analysts have offered the view that GM’s financial prospects are very positive. Simply recognizing how severely the Great Recession has crimped auto sales in the United States gives credence to this view; annual sales remain down by more than 25 percent from a few years ago. Many analysts believe that the IPO is being driven by a government desire to exit from GM ownership as soon as possible, even at the expense of better recoupment of the taxpayer investment.

Investor prudence thus counsels for maintaining the government’s current share, and delaying a sell off so that the government can capture likely improved returns in the future.

2. Protecting jobs and investment in the United States

We believe the government emergency investment in GM was necessary and proper, though we were and remain critical that the government imposed conditions on its investment to lower GM costs but not to advance broader public interest objectives.

The primary rationale of investing in GM had to be to preserve jobs and prop an economy in a severe downward spiral. As we pointed out at the time of the government investment, it was incumbent on the government to ensure that GM maintained production in the United States. There may be a rationale for GM to produce overseas for overseas markets, but it should not be opening new facilities abroad to ship back to the United States; and choices about facilities closings should favor keeping U.S. plants open, especially for vehicles produced for the U.S. market. There is a broader concern: the U.S. government has an interest in ensuring the locus of GM’s research and product development remains in the United States.

As majority shareholder in GM, the United States has the ability to direct or influence the company’s investment decisions. As the U.S. reduces its share, so its capacity to influence such decisions diminishes. Had the government invested in GM for pecuniary reasons, the legitimacy of affecting such decisions would be lessened. But the government did not invest in GM for pecuniary reasons. It invested precisely to preserve U.S. jobs and manufacturing capacity. It is now incumbent on the government to manage its investment to advance these objectives.

Underscoring the importance of suspending the IPO to ensure protection of the U.S. national interests in GM are reports that various foreign auto manufacturers — including China’s SAIC — and sovereign wealth funds are considering purchasing large blocs of shares in GM.

3. Addressing climate change, safety and environmental challenges

Looming over all the other great challenges facing the country and the world is the threat of catastrophic climate change. Addressing climate change is going to require massive, across-the-board changes in the way we generate, distribute and consume energy. No area will be more important than transportation.

Your administration has taken some positive steps in increasing vehicle fuel economy standards, but we need even more to achieve transformational change.

Holding a majority stake in one of the world’s largest auto makers, even if due to an historic anomaly, positions the U.S. government to directly advance the transformational changes we need. In addition to prodding the auto makers to do better through always-contentious and often-undermined regulatory processes, the government can and should direct GM to increase dramatically its investments in electric cars and other transformational technologies, and to make sure safety is not compromised with such new technologies.

The ability to direct such investments will decline as the U.S. share in GM declines.

Such direction makes even more sense given the second gift from TARP to GM in the bailout — a provision allowing GM to keep a $45 billion tax loss carry forward that normally is erased in restructuring. GM can avoid that amount in future tax liability on its profits.

4. Preserving our democracy from influence from unaccountable corporate entities

Whether by government directive or some very modest sense of propriety, GM suspended its lobbying and campaign contributions while undergoing the government rescue.

But now, outrageously, with the government still a majority shareholder, the company has resumed lobbying. To peruse GM’s lobby disclosure forms is to see a corporate entity working to shape policy on a broad range of issues, including: auto and truck safety, Wall Street reform, taxes, appropriations, climate change, fuel efficiency, trade (including trade agreements with Korea, Peru and Colombia, and negotiations at the World Trade Organization), and currency valuation.

Why in the world is a majority government-owned — that is, publicly owned — entity permitted to lobby the U.S. Congress and executive agencies, often against your own administration’s legislative and policy positions, such as the Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 2010 legislation to correct statutory deficiencies resulting in the Toyota debacle, presently pending in the House and Senate? With the ballot boxes barely counted, the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers (of which GM is a prominent member) is already reneging on fuel economy rules it agreed to with your administration less than two years ago.

The government as majority shareholder should not permit this to occur; and it should not permit its shareholding stake to be reduced in such a way that GM gains greater latitude to affect policymaking.

As the government was preparing its rescue of GM, we highlighted each of the concerns mentioned here, and urged that they be addressed as part of the rescue process. Those recommendations were, unfortunately, ignored. But it is not too late for the government to exercise its control of GM responsibly, and to advance vital public interest objectives. We urge you to act to suspend the IPO.

Sincerely,

Ralph Nader
P.O. Box 19312
Washington, DC 20036

Joan Claybrook, President Emeritus
Public Citizen
1600 20th St., NW
Washington, DC 20009

Clarence Ditlow, Executive Director
Center for Auto Safety
1825 Connecticut Ave., NW, Suite 330
Washington, DC 20009

Robert Weissman, President
Public Citizen
1600 20th St., NW
Washington, DC 20009

New York Times columnist Frank Rich accused the Kochs of plotting “a billionaires’ coup” to secure “corporate pork,” tax cuts, and a blank check for Wall Street bailouts. “What the Koch brothers have bought with their huge political outlays,” opined Times columnist Paul Krugman, “is, above all, freedom to pollute.” The New York Observer’s Yasha Levine concluded that the brothers are “not very” libertarian, as evidenced by their fondness for “using government subsidies to maximize their own profits.” The Democratic National Committee hammered Koch Industries for laying off 118 workers at a North Carolina plant: “The question for the Kochs is instead of spending money on secret campaigns to fill the government with candidates that will enact their special interest agenda, why aren’t they spending that money on saving those American jobs?”

And:

If these attacks appear to lack a consistent theme, it’s because Democrats need the Koch bogeyman to accomplish so many political tasks. The narrative that emerged after the Mayer article, which became a kind of pre-election Rosetta Stone for Democrats trying to decode why they were going to lose in 2010 and maybe 2012, boils down to a strained four-part theory: 1) The ruthlessly powerful Kochs are “covertly” waging a war against Obama on behalf of right-wing Republicans; 2) they are doing so chiefly out of their own corporate self-interest (mostly to pollute) and a general “pro-corporate” agenda; 3) they are creating and/or co-opting populist anti-government sentiment they don’t necessarily believe in; and 4) this is all a direct effect of the Citizens United decision, in which the Supreme Court lifted restrictions on political speech by corporations (though wealthy individuals such as the Kochs have always been free to spend their money on political messages).

What a long, strange trip it has been for the Kochs. In 1980 David Koch was the vice presidential candidate of the Libertarian Party, when he and Ed Clark (a self-described “low-tax liberal”) ran on a platform that included abolishing the CIA and FBI. Not long before that, according to Senior Editor Brian Doherty’s definitive history Radicals for Capitalism, Charles Koch had openly considered buying the progressive opinion magazine The Nation before helping to launch Inquiry, which published such writers as Noam Chomsky and Marcus Raskin. The conservative flagship National Review beat The New Yorker by a solid 31 years with its cover-story shocker that “anarchists, backed by corporate big money” were “infiltrat[ing] the freedom movement.” Horrors!

He concludes:

There are millions of people—including me, including the Kochs, including people who have never heard of the Koch family—who feel some basic affinity for the notion that that government is best which governs least. Although this is a bedrock tradition in the American polity, it has had almost zero representation in Washington, D.C., during the last decade of bipartisan misgovernment.

Yet libertarians are supposed to be a threat to the republic. Just imagine if we had any political power!

Read more…

I will be sending copies of this letter to the newly elected Congressmen on January 3, 2011. If you wish to add your name to the letter you may do so online at http://www.petitiononline.com/ol112c. You are also encouraged to print and send this letter to your members of Congress.

Dear Congressman,

You have recently been elected to “represent” a segment of the population & will be required to take an oath to abide by the Constitution, which enumerates the powers granted to the Congress.
The Declaration of Independence states, “governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” Just because you were elected does not necessarily mean that you have the consent of Americans to be governed.

For over two years people have demanded that Congress:

• READ THE BILLS they vote on;
• not include unrelated legislation in bills they pass;
• WRITE THE LAWS, instead of granting unelected bureaucrats the ability to create regulations that have the force of law;
• end the bailouts;
• repeal REAL ID;
• allow for HONEST MONEY;
• abolish (or at least audit) the Federal Reserve &
• BRING THE TROOPS HOME!

Obviously, none of these demands from the people have been met; I ask that you do everything in your power to meet these demands. I will not write an empty promise about voters remembering how you vote and “firing you” during the next election, because quite honestly most voters have short memories and statistically 90% (or more) of you will be re-elected (thanks in part to gerrymandered districts & campaign finance laws that hinder competition) and remain dependent upon the tax-payers for your lively-hood until you choose to stop living off money stolen from hard working men & women. You and you alone are responsible for your actions and must wrestle your inner demons in order to sleep at night.

I sincerely hope that you heed these words, abide by the oath that you swear to uphold and do all that is in your power to increase personal freedom & liberty and bring an end to government infringement of rights.

In Peace, Freedom, Love & Liberty,

Darryl W. Perry
Chair Boston Tea Party National Committee
http://BostonTea.us
Owner/Managing Editor Free Patriot Press
http://FreePatriot-Press.com
2016 candidate for President of the United States of America
http://dwp2016.org

Official release:

“Thank you to all donors and volunteers! John Jay Myers raised more than any other Libertarian candidate in the 32nd district with over $7200, and he received the highest percentage of any Libertarian candidate in the district’s history. Your efforts made this record year possible. As a result of your contributions, we were able to distribute 3000 flyers, launch 128 TV commercial airings, plant 100 yard signs, mail 8000 postcards to voters, and run two weeks of Facebook advertising. John Jay also personally attended dozens of radio interviews, parades, and outreach events over the past year while incumbent Pete “Bailout” Sessions remained hidden from the people he supposedly serves. Though his $1.8 million in corporate payoffs won Sessions reelection this time, you have proven through your contributions and support that a Libertarian campaign can get the message out and increase those vote totals. Thank you all again!”

For the next few months I am going to turn my focus on my family and my business. I will be spending only some spare time in making videos and writing to promote the party. Maybe a few hours a week.

Our facebook fan page and Johnjaymyers.com will change to a non-election format.

I know our message above sounds upbeat, but I am very disappointed in the results of the election.

Though we received a higher vote total than any other Libertarian in this district we put more into this election than any other Libertarian has. Originally I started out as a “educational” candidate, I don’t know if we ever really shifted our focus, the fact that there was no debate was a major set back.

We could not get press regardless of the message we sent out.

A few things I would do different:

1. Though our message should resonate with the “Tea Party” people it did not here in Dallas. We have a very pro-war, big religion Tea Party (in other words Republicans) which is run by members of the Republican establishment. Unfortunately most of our website and our videos etc seemed to be targeting the Tea Party voters…. who were probably all voting straight ticket. This was a mistake.

2. What should our message have been? 4 things:

A. End the Wars.

B. End Corporatism.

C. Live your life as you see fit.

D. End entitlements sooner rather than later.

That’s it. We should have approached it from that angle. Though this was our message we didn’t brand it correctly in a way that was palatable to the both the left and the right (and mainly independent).

3. We should have done radio spots months before the election. On both left and right media with a different message to each.

4. We didn’t have enough volunteers to cover the early voting locations, there were 8 in my district, I would like to have had the money to pay 8 people to work 10 days at 8 locations. (around an additional 5k) I honestly think this would have tripled our totals. We ran completely out of money about 3 days before early voting.

5. I would like to have had the money to send a letter to every likely voter in the district. Once about 3 months prior to the election, and once a week before early voting, we covered about 4% (once).

6. Dallas is incredibly partisan, I would like to educate the masses and try to break the monopoly the D’s and R’s have…. that is one of my main goals in the next two years. I would hate to say without education, we don’t have much of a chance electorally. America can not continue with this incredibly divisive “two party system”.

Americans need to understand their rights, and that Government is not the answer to all their problems. I am now more committed than ever in ending big government, especially our large corrupt Federal Government.

This is my first facebook post since the election, I needed some time off.

Thanks for reading all of this.

Class-wide struggle is brewing

Do the Nov. 2 election results signal a major shift to the right and a resurgence of conservatism among the people? Is that what the capture of 66 House seats by the Republicans indicates? That is the fundamental message from the corporate media and by many in the milieu of pro-Democratic Party liberalism, such as the ACLU.

But that is the wrong conclusion.

Of course, there has been a political offensive by the corporate-financed Tea Party and other middle class, right-wing organizations. They are emboldened. In fact, they were emboldened from the beginning.

They received nightly TV coverage by the news networks. They received millions of dollars in secret donations from billionaires like the Koch brothers. They felt secure enough to bring guns to “Town Hall” meetings that were held throughout the country in August 2009 to discuss Obama’s health care package. Can you imagine what the reaction would have been if leftists and progressives showed up with firearms?

So, yes the right wing is on the move. But it is not a foregone conclusion that the election results show a significant move to the right throughout the U.S. population. That could happen, but it is not inevitable at all.

The vote yesterday was above all else a vote of disgust against the incumbent party. The party in charge of the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives since January 2009 has been the Democratic Party.

In 2008, the Democratic Party won the White House and big majorities in the House and Senate. They could have introduced and almost certainly passed any legislation they wanted.

What has happened for tens of millions of families since November 2008?

Unemployment is higher, not lower, than two years ago. More people have lost health care coverage in those two years. The number is now over 50 million of people who cannot go to the doctor because they have no coverage. Instead of providing a single-payer health plan that most people favored (more than 70 percent according to the New York Times, March 2009), Obama settled on a plan that does not take effect until 2014 and guarantees super-profits for the health insurers and pharmaceutical giants who are rapidly raising premiums and rates.

In the last two years more families, not fewer, have been driven from their homes through foreclosure. Wages have been slashed, they have not gone up. Mass layoffs and cutbacks at the state and local levels are increasing, not decreasing, under the tenure of Obama and the Democratic majorities of the past two years.

And while the poverty rate and foreclosure crisis for working people reached new records this year, the Democrats allowed the biggest bankers—the very ones who torpedoed the economy—to be handed the people’s money in the biggest bailout in history. These bankers are now racking up record profits and awarding themselves even bigger bonuses than they received in 2007.

Instead of fighting and reducing the power and wealth of the bankers and corporations, the Democrats used their position as the dominant majority in the government to secure even greater wealth and power for the “fabulous few.”

On Nov. 2, the people voted against the incumbent party. The Republicans and the right wing took advantage by pretending to be “anti-government populists.” That explains their electoral victory.

A massive and militant people’s fight-back movement that targets the banks, corporations and the bought and paid for politicians of both parties is what will swing the tide against the right wing and the entire political apparatus, which serve the needs of the capitalist criminals who lord over the vast wealth of the United States while the people continue to suffer.

The Party for Socialism and Liberation exists to meet that challenge. The class war waged by the rich against the people will soon be joined by massive and determined class-wide counter force from below. It may start with small battles, but the capitalist system leaves no alternative.

It’s that time again. The time that rolls around every two years; when men and women spend outrageous amounts of money telling us why they should be chosen to serve in Congress. They say outrageous things to “scare” you into believing that their opponent is either the devil-incarnate or the rebirth of Hitler, Stalin or any other number of bad “rulers” from times past.

The truth is that regardless which major party candidate is elected, nothing will change except some of the names and faces.

Both major parties support a progressive income tax; though they disagree on what percentage of “income” to steal and some now support repealing the “income tax” and replacing it with a regressive sales tax labeled the “Fair tax” (as if there is a fair manner of stealing your money).

Both major parties support an interventionist foreign policy; though they disagree on when and where to intervene.

Both major parties support a continued welfare state; though they claim to disagree on whether to give welfare to corporations or individuals. (Does the bi-partisan banker bailout and bailout of auto companies sound familiar?)

Both major parties support laws that infringe on your right of privacy – the PATRIOT Act, FISA & NSA all passed with bi-partisan support.

Both major parties support increased government spending.

Both major parties support government intervention in health care; they just disagree on how much intervention there should be.

Both major parties support bigger government, they just disagree on how fast it should grow.

Most importantly, both major parties oppose individual liberty. Neither major party believes that you are smart enough to determine what is best for yourself and your family. They do not believe that you and you alone should be able to decide what substances you wish to ingest; otherwise there wouldn’t be laws and regulations prohibiting the sale of raw milk, not to mention the laws against possessing, distributing and/or consuming certain herbs.

If you want real change and I mean an actual change in how the federal government operates; you can not continue to vote for and/or support the Republicratic Duopoly. As Adam Kokesh said in 2008, “our efforts as a movement must become unified and deliberate to fully withdraw our compliance and support. Be it with your lives, labor, or tax dollars, stop investing in your own oppression! Do not waste a single vote, or a single dollar, on the two-party system!”

–
In Peace, Freedom, Love & Liberty,
Darryl W. Perry
Chair Boston Tea Party National Committee
http://BostonTea.us

Owner/Managing Editor Free Patriot Press
http://FreePatriot-Press.com

2016 candidate for President of the United States of America
http://dwp2016.org

Perhaps I’m just blind, but I fail to distinguish any semblance of dissimilarity between Republicans and Democrats in modern politics. On the federal level, both parties have supported foreign interventionism in Iraq and Afghanistan, massive bailouts via the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), violations of our civil liberties via the PATRIOT Act, and secretive prisons overseas such as Guantanamo Bay. And, mind you, this is under both Bush and Obama.

Damon Eris comments: “The now-standard Republican rejoinder to this argument admits that the GOP “lost its way,” but then pleads for “one more chance,” and points to the rhetorical opposition of Republicans to the Democrats’ evil agenda. The association between American voters and the major parties resembles nothing so much as a violently abusive relationship.”

More at Poli-Tea.

The socialist Peace and Freedom Party candidate, Richard Castaldo, advocates the following positions on his home page:

1. Defund all wars of imperialism, including Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

2. Single-payer not-for-profit healthcare.

3. Abolish corporate “personhood.” Rights belong to human beings, not corporations.

4. Terminate the Patriot Act and restore the Bill of Rights.

5. End corporate bailouts and create green jobs.

Castaldo’s positions 1 and 4 are entirely libertarian. Many libertarians would agree with position 3. Position 5 is at least half libertarian. Only position 2 is clearly anti-libertarian.

Two out of five of Castaldo’s positions (1 and 4) directly, aggressively, and unapologeticly address the core issues of our expanding wars and increasing loss of freedoms.

Why is the socialist Peace and Freedom Party more vocally libertarian on these key issues than the so-called Libertarian Party?

Do you see why I’m no longer a registered Libertarian? Why I’ve registered non-partisan and ignore party labels?

I’m not saying who I’ll be voting for this November. But antiwar voters should educate themselves about every candidate, in every state and district. Then vote based on the issues that the candidates advocate (vocally and aggressively, not buried in some fine print). Don’t waste your vote on something as meaningless as party labels.

Libertarian candidates must earn votes from libertarians, not be given votes simply because candidates have an L before their names.

Since her election night loss to conservative Joe Miller, Sen. Murkowski and her political allies have floated the idea of her switching to the Libertarian Party to continue her run for reelection. Apparently, Sen. Murkowski is fairly flexible in her political loyalties and inclinations. (Her past support for libertarian policies has certainly escaped us.)

Yesterday, the 5-member Executive Committee of the Board of the Libertarian State Party meet in an emergency session to consider Sen. Murkowski’s bid for the party’s nod. After a contentious three-hour meeting, the Board voted unanimously to deny Sen. Murkowski the party’s nomination.

Scott Kohlhaas, Chairman of the Alaska Libertarian Party and candidate for the state House said the decision was based on Sen. Murkowski’s voting record:

Sen. Murkowski voted for TARP. She voted to bailout Fannie and Freddie. Although no one from her campaign had approached us about her running as a Libertarian, the speculation had reached the point where we felt we had to take a clear stand.

We did the hard work to get a Libertarian candidate on the ballot. We didn’t do that hard work to then nominate someone with Sen. Murkowski’s record.

Prior to this announcement, there was speculation that the LP would sell out its principles to win a US Senate seat and polls showed Murkowski at 34% if she ran as a Libertarian. The party’s decision was kept under wraps to get maximum attention.

You can’t make up the following realities in New York State! Note the following series of events driven by the preposterous plutocrats and see if you get steamed.

Greed, power, reckless speculation and theft of other peoples’ money by Wall Streeters collapsed the U.S. economy into a deep recession that started in 2007-08.

These super-rich Wall Street banksters looted and drained trillions of worker pensions and mutual fund savings while nationwide eight million jobs were lost.

Panicked that their overweening avarice was pushing their companies over the cliff, the banksters rushed to Washington, terrified members of Congress with the help of ex-Goldman Sachs CEO turned Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and propelled the Bush White House into a series of massive taxpayer bailouts and guarantees amounting to trillions of dollars during the last quarter of 2006.

By the end of 2009, the Wall Street welfarists were recording once again record profits and sky-high bonuses. Month after month it became clear that the banks were not lending to small and larger businesses to get the economy moving again—a major reason give for the bailouts.

A good slice of the money went to bonuses, mergers and other empire building by the remaining five giant conglomerate banks. Today these banks are sitting on mountains of cash and many credit-worthy businesses and startups still cannot get loans.

As the Fiscal Policy Institute wrote in April: “Essential services like fire departments and schools, recession-buffering social safety net programs like homeless prevention and senior services, and critical infrastructure systems like hospitals, roads and mass transit all face severe cutbacks.

“But Wall Street is not suffering from the budget catastrophe or from the crash. …The financial industry rang up $61.4 billion in profits for 2009 alone—that is nearly triple Wall Street’s previous record. These are truly windfall profits—they are courtesy of the taxpayer-funded bailout [and federal policies uniquely privileging the big banks with virtually free money] and not because the big banks made money from financing the recovery of American businesses. Never before has Wall Street made so much money from doing so little for economic and job growth.”

Making money from speculation instead of from investment is exactly what the legendary British economist, John Maynard Keynes, warned about almost eighty years ago in arguing for a securities transaction tax.

The conditions where many regular New Yorkers live are grim. Poverty, unemployment, home foreclosures, and small business bankruptcies keep growing.

On the other side of the tracks, the top twenty-five hedge fund managers recorded an average of $1 billion each, or over $80 million each a month in 2009. Quite a quick rebound on the backs of American taxpayers and privileged tax policies.

Low-moderate and middle-income New Yorkers already pay a higher percentage of family income in state and local taxes than do the richest one percent of New Yorkers!

Surprisingly, there is a simple way to eliminate the state deficit and prevent tens of thousands of layoffs and large service cutbacks.

What most New Yorkers do not know is that for about a century there has been a state stock transfer tax on purchases of securities. This year, this tax, similar to ones imposed in 30 other countries, will amount to about $16 billion. Amazingly, since 1979, this tax has been instantly rebated by New York State back to the brokers or clearinghouses who paid it. A 100% rebate every year for the bailed out industry that caused the recession and its immense human damage.

Obviously the stock exchanges and their brokers wield big political power. Flush with arrogance, bailouts and profits, they have no shame. So after blocking a tax on those unconscionable bonuses that outraged so many Americans, the securities industry has made sure that neither the Democratic nor Republican candidates for Governor utter a peep about retaining this $16 billion in tax revenues to get the state out of its dire straits.

One man, Howie Hawkins from Syracuse, NY, is challenging both the big boys on Wall Street and the duopolists’ candidates. He is the Green Party candidate for Governor, nicknamed the Green Hornet. Pollinating truth and justice across the State, this ex-Marine, author, long-time citizen advocate, working blue collar teamster and public interest thinker, challenged Mr. Cuomo’s self-imposed taboo:

“Why is Mr. Cuomo, the anointed front runner, hiding the Stock Transfer Tax from the public when it is an obvious way to bridge the state budget deficit? Why does he rule out higher taxes on the rich when they have more money than ever, why won’t he make them pay their fair share, when they’ll still be rich after paying their fair share?”

All the politicians in Albany act like we’re out of money and debate over what services to cut, all the while refusing to tell New Yorkers about the $16 billion they hand back to Wall Street speculators,” he added.

Mr. Cuomo is a recipient of campaign contributions from hedge fund managers.

Take any poll. Betcha New Yorkers overwhelmingly support Mr. Hawkins’ position (see: www.howiehawkins.com). Unfortunately, the two major parties predictably exclude him from any debates this fall.

If you are a New Yorker, and after reading this you are less indignant than you would be were you overcharged by a cab driver or were hurled a racist or ethnic slur from some passerby, it is unlikely you’ll hustle up a neighborhood or workplace petition to demand that your lawmakers in Albany legislate keeping that $16 billion and all the jobs that can be saved with that revenue.

My guess is that if a million New Yorkers sign such petitions in the next three weeks and talk it up where they live in city, town and countryside, they’ll win. You’ll also signal that you’re ready to jettison your political servitude and assert the sovereignty of the people as expressed in our Constitution’s preamble—“we the people.”

If you can’t wait, call your Albany legislators at 518-455-2800 (State Senate) or 518-455-4100 (State Assembly) to see when they will be near your town during this summer. Go and give them two earfuls and demand that they commit.

Joe Kennedy on Neil Cavuto 01/12/2010:

IPR posts about Joe Kennedy

Joe Kennedy For Senate

In 2010, in New England, a vote for a third party is not a wasted vote; in fact, it is the direction that many Independents and dissatisfued Republicans and Democrats are heading. Third-Party and Independent candidates have won major statewide office in Maine, Vermont, and Connecticut, and have realistic shots at the Rhode Island and Massachusetts Governorships.

Second, neither the Republicans nor the Democrats offer real change: both have supported unconscionable bailouts of favored businesses, not only in Washington, but here in New Hampshire as well: The bi-partisan Executive Council pledged tax dollars to keep the Claremont Eagle afloat. The Fiscal Irresponsibility of the Democrats, with its legacy of taxes on pizza and campsites, and the capture of the Republican Party by it’s extremist religious fringe leaves moderates, independents, and many other voters with no major party to call ‘home.’ Libertarians offer a message that is consistent with the New Hampshire way of life: fiscal responsibility and social tolerance.

A wasted vote? Only a vote for continuing the tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum two-party system is wasted. A Libertarian vote will send a message to our politicians, just as the growing independent movement is sending a message across the rest of New England.

In related news, see IPR’s continuing coverage of Independent Libertarian Joe Kennedy in the Massachusetts US Senate special election.

Bernie Sanders is an independent, and a Senator from Vermont.

Sanders Says Federal Reserve Still Keeps Too Much Secret

WASHINGTON, June 10 – Senator Bernie Sanders today called “completely insufficient” a new monthly report by the Federal Reserve on aid to banks, investment firms and other financial institutions.

“Today’s report is completely insufficient.  It is time for the Fed to name names.  The American people have a right to know who received more than  $2 trillion in loans from the Fed, how much each one received, and what they are doing with this money.  This money does not belong to the Fed. It belongs to the American people,” Sanders said.

The need for greater Fed transparency is even more important since the Obama administration, in a separate action yesterday, agreed to let 10 big banks repay federal bailouts they took to help them weather the recession.

“Getting this information is even more important now that 10 banks are starting to pay back their TARP funds,” Sanders said.  “Are these banks paying back TARP funds to the Treasury Department today, while receiving secret loans from the Fed tomorrow?  As long as the Fed keeps this information secret, we will never know.”

Sanders, at a Senate Budget Committee hearing on March 3, asked Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke to name the hundreds of banks that took money since the financial crisis began. Bernanke refused to name any of the financial institutions…

The separate $700 billion financial rescue package that was signed into law last October requires the Treasury Department to identify recipients of bailout funds.  Unlike the bailout, which Sanders opposed, Congress did not vote to directly authorize the Fed to spend any of this money.

Dear friend,

Yesterday I invited you to a “Tea Party.”

Today I’m urging you to bring a gift.

You see, we just unveiled about an hour ago the “Libertarian Party Prosperity Agenda.”

Rooted in the Libertarian Party Platform, it’s a common sense legislative program that Barack Obama and the Republicans aren’t going to like.

It ends the income tax and abolishes the IRS.

It adopts a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution, and it balances the budget by cutting spending, not borrowing or taxing.

It outlaws corporate welfare and bailouts.

And you can download it, print out copies and bring it to tomorrow’s Tea Party by going to http://www.lp.org/files/Prosperity_Plan_Layout_1.pdf

.

You see, the Libertarian Party is America’s only party that believes in lower taxes, smaller government and more freedom.

Not only are we proud to say that, and not only do elected Libertarians actually cut taxes and spending because it’s what they believe in — but now you can share it with your family, friends, neighbors and fellow freedom activists.

So please go to http://www.lp.org to read the Libertarian Party Prosperity Plan for yourself and print it out.

And remember, when invited to a Tea Party it is always proper to bring a gift.

With optimism,

Donny Ferguson
Director of Communications
Libertarian National Committee
Donny.Ferguson@lp.org

The Kansas City Star newspaper today points readers to a blog entry from blogger Nick Sloan, asking "Will bailout-mania open door for Libertarians?"

"But at some point – and we may be there already– America is going to be sick of bailouts and stimulus packages. And Libertarians have been the strongest opponents of it and have been more consistent against bailouts and deficit spending. Remember, the GOP embraced deficit spending during the Bush presidency.

"Libertarians need to prepare and pounce on this opportunity. There will never be a better time for Libertarians to recruit Americans to their cause and ideology."

It’s a question more and more political observers are asking, and every day we’re getting e-mails from former Republicans who are switching theit voter registration.

The non-partisan Congression Budget Office reports the current economic slump will end sometime around mid-2009.

Keep in mind Obama himself admits any effect he thinks his government expansion will have on the economy won’t take place until 2010 — well after the slump will end anyway.

Between that, and the CBO’s research last week showing Obama plan will cause long-term damage to the economy, and that the economy will bounce back faster without the package, why is the Senate even considering a $1,100,000,000,000.00 Frankenstein’s moster of wealth transfers and fatter government?

It probably has much to do with the fact much of the money lines the pockets of groups that deliver votes to Democrats, and much of that borrowed taxpayer money could even end up in Democrat campaign accounts by way of funneling through labor unions, ACORN and such.

The only thing the package appears to be stimulating are government growth and Democrat vote-delivering mechanisms.

That’s three trillion dollars in expanded government spending. $3,000,000,000,000.00. $10,000.00 in new government spending for every man, woman and child in the United States — with very little evidence it will create significant numbers of jobs or speed up inevitable economic recovery.

After facing bipartisan opposition in the House, the government expansion plan moves to the Senate. Economist Martin Feldstein, whose endorsement of the original plan was touted by Obama as a selling point, has withdrawn his support and is calling upon the Senate to delay passage.

Voter opposition to the Obama spending plan is already rising and support has plunged to 42 percent. Support is declining fastest among the independent voters senators rely on to win election — and that’s before the possible $2 trillion in additional bailouts is included.

On January 22, the Boston Tea Party National Committee (BTPNC) passed a resolution supporting the February 1st 2009 Tea Party. The Tea Party effort originated at Market-Ticker.org, where Karl Denninger wrote, “It is time for We The People to send a strong message to Washington DC – no more. No more loading our children and grandchildren with debt. No more bailing out speculators and bankers who made bets they knew were unsafe at the time. No more bailing out people who came to Congress to demand the removal of leverage limits, got what they asked for, then blew themselves up with the very leverage they demanded to be able to use.”

The BTPNC resolution expressed support for the Tea Party, and called on each BTP member to mail one bag of tea to the President of the United States, one tea bag to the member’s Representative in the House, and one tea bag to each of the member’s two Senators.

On February 1st, thousands of people will send tea bags to the Capitol, sending a strong message to the executive and legislature that the American people do not wish to take on the debt created by bailing out private corporations.

“It is time that America returns to its founding values of protecting liberty and expecting personal responsibility,” says Douglass Gaking, Chair of the national committee. “The American taxpayer can not afford to take on this debt. He did not ask for it, and it should not be his responsibility.”

This resolution comes in the same month that the committee passed a resolution calling upon “both houses of the US Congress to promptly pass,and … the state legislatures to ratify, a constitutional amendment repealing section 4 of the 14th amendment, prohibiting future indebtedness and deficit spending on the part of the federal government, and repudiating all federal government debt and debt service obligations accrued prior to the ratification of said amendment.”

As the growing national debt currently creeps past the $10.5 trillion mark, the presumptive personal debt burden of each and every American — man, woman and child — for past US government expenditures now exceeds $35,000 and is growing at a rate of more than $3,000 per year. The BTPNC’s resolutions, backed by the activism of hundreds of Americans, send a message to Congress that the American people do not accept the responsibility of this unwanted debt.

The Boston Tea Party, a new libertarian party which ran its first presidential slate in 2008, campaigns on a one-sentence platform: “The Boston Tea Party supports reducing the size, scope and power of government at all levels and on all issues, and opposes increasing the size, scope and power of government at any level, for any purpose.”

Boston Tea Party Web Site:
http://www.bostontea.us

February 1st Tea Party

Petition to Repudiate the National Debt