1,792 votes cast, Jill Stein received 1,223 of them, or 68%. Roseanne Barr, who had just entered the race in the last week, picked up 526 votes, or 29%. There were 35 votes for Kent Mesplay, and 8 votes for Harley Mikkelson

GPW reports that Roseanne Barr is very active on Twitter, and had tweeted a challenge to Bill Maher, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert to have both herself and Jill Stein on their programs.

They also report that Jill Stein is actively fundraising, has hired at least 3 staff onto the campaign, and has campaigned so far in California, Colorado, Delaware, DC, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Virginia, Wisconsin, and other additional states as well.

Jill Stein issued a short statement saying “It is great to have Roseanne Barr on the Green Party team. Let’s bring down the house!” Barr has similarly already made positive statements regarding Stein’s candidacy.

An email from the Stein campaign says that

Dr. Jill Stein, Green Party presidential candidate, begins a three day tour of Indiana and Ohio today with a visit to the Evergreen Cooperatives in Cleveland, accompanied by Cleveland City Councilman and Green Party elected official Brian Cummins and County Executive candidate David Ellison.

Saturday at 11:30am, Dr. Stein addresses the Green Party of Ohio Presidential Nominating Convention in Columbus.

This Sunday, as part of Indianapolis’ Occupy the Super Bowl protests, she rallies with supporters at the state capitol against anti-labor legislation such as “Right to Work for Less.”

The full itinerary of public events is viewable here: http://www.jillstein.org/events

Dr. Stein is especially interested in the Evergreen Cooperatives for providing one successful model, among many, for how economic democracy can provide employment and prosperity for stressed communities. In her recent People’s State of the Union address, Dr. Stein called for a Green New Deal providing for full employment and an immediate transition to a sustainable, more democratic economy. The Evergreen Cooperatives “are pioneering innovative models of job creation, wealth building, and sustainability,” and are, “employee-owned, for-profit companies are based locally and hire locally.”

On Occupy Super Bowl Sunday, at noon, Dr. Stein will rally with supporters and other labor movement advocates at the Indiana statehouse in Indianapolis. Dr. Stein is not only strongly opposed to so-called Right-to-Work legislation (RTW), her Green New Deal includes a “program of immediate creation of 25 million, publicly useful, sustainable, well-paying jobs,” according to a prepared statement. Stein will be joined at the rally by lifelong labor organizer Anthony Prince, and student activist Erika Wolf, both newly hired members of the Jill Stein for President campaign staff.

The Green Party has put out a press release welcoming Stein and Barr to the presidential race:

The Green Party of the United States welcomes two candidates into the race for the 2012 Green presidential nomination, Jill Stein and Roseanne Barr. Ms. Barr and Dr. Stein submitted paperwork to meet the Green Party’s requirements as of the evening of the Feb. 1 deadline.

“We are thrilled to have two strong women running for President as Greens,” said Darryl Moch, national co-chair of the Green Party. “We look forward to a race based on Green ideas and values, and to showing the Democrats and Republicans how to run without the corrupting influence of fat corporate campaign checks and corporate-funded attack ads.”

“Anyone hopeful about the Occupy Wall Street’s challenge to the status quo or disappointed by the Obama Administration’s broken promises of change now has a pair of candidates to watch. Anyone bored or irritated with the Mitt Versus Newt Show by now will be relieved by the breath of fresh air — maybe a Green gale force of righteousness — that’s about to come,” said Tamar Yager, also a national co-chair of the Green Party.

For more information about the candidates, visit the following sites:

Jill Stein: http://www.jillstein.org

Roseanne Barr: http://www.roseanneforpresident.com

2012 Press Information for Green Candidates http://www.gp.org/candidates/index.php

The nominee will be chosen at the Green Party’s national convention, July 12-15, in Baltimore, Maryland (http://www.gpconvention2012.com)

State Green Parties in California, Arizona, Massachusetts, the District of Columbia, and possibly Ohio are participating in primary elections. Other state Green Parties will choose the nominee they support and apportion delegates during statewide Green conventions. The Green Party currently has ballot access in 17 states. Greens expect to have the presidential nominee and other candidates on the ballot in at least 46 states and the District of Columbia on Election Day 2012.

Past Green Party convention sites and nominees:

2000: Denver, Colorado; Ralph Nader

2004: Milwaukee, Wisconsin; David Cobb

2008: Chicago, Illinois; Cynthia McKinney

“We consider it important to have strong women candidates at a time when women’s reproductive rights are under assult, from the Obama Administration’s decision on the morning-after pill to the Komen Foundation’s withdrawal of funding for breast cancer screening from Planned Parenthood. We’re proud that our presidential nominee in 2008 was a woman,” said Carl Romanelli, Pennsylvania Green and member of the Green Party’s International Committee.

132 Greens hold public office in the United States, including five mayors. The largest city with a Green mayor is Richmond, California, with Mayor Gayle McLaughlin. The Green Party and its candidates accept no money from corporate PACs.

Many Green candidates are promoting the “Green New Deal” in their campaigns (http://www.greenpartywatch.org/2010/08/11/62-green-candidates-endorse-green-new-deal). Greens have been active participants in the Occupy Movement; both Ms. Barr and Dr. Stein have appeared and spoken publicly at Occupy rallies.

Ballot Access News reports that the Associated Press has this story about Roseanne Barr’s announcement that she is seeking the Green Party presidential nomination; here is a Los Angeles Times story about Barr’s candidacy.

Kent Mesplay was featured in the Bloomington Alternative (H/T Green Party Watch).

This article at Green Party Watch has biographical information about four candidates (Stein, Barr, Mesplay and Mikkelson).

Green Party Watch also reports that Cindy Sheehan wrote

In the last election, I supported the Green Party candidate, Cynthia McKinney and her running mate, Rosa Clemente. Unfortunately, the Party is not entirely functional (which party is?), even if many of us do support its 10 Key Principles.
I have also been impressed by the other woman seeking the nomination, Jill Stein–she is bright, articulate, well-informed, truly progressive and dedicated to public service–but if push came to shove, I would support Roseanne.

Barr was a supporter of Sheehan in her race for Congress.

The Wisconsin legislature is currently considering SB 116, a bill with the major purpose of moving the primary (for office other than President) from the first Tuesday in September to the first Tuesday in August. Unfortunately, the bill also moves the petition deadline for a new party from June 1 to April 1. And the bill does not relax the current requirement that makes it illegal to circulate this petition in an odd year. Therefore, if the bill passes in its current form, the petition for circulating this petition would shrink from five months to three months. Furthermore, that petitioning period would be almost entirely in winter, when weather can inhibit petitioning.

The bill has passed the Senate, but has been amended in the Assembly. The Assembly will probably pass it next week and then it returns to the Senate for another vote.

Selected comments from Ballot Access News on this article:

Andy: Wow, so this means that all of the petition signature gathering would have to be done in freezing cold weather between January 1st and April 1st, and it gets really freaking cold in Wisconsin. This is an obvious attempt to make it more difficult to get on the ballot in Wisconsin.

How about this? Since these Wisconsin legislators are so eager for people to conduct petition drives during freezing cold weather, how about make the legislature have their legislative sessions outside in the cold during the same time period?

Richard Winger: I have e-mailed the Wisconsin Election Board about the flaw in SB 116 (the name of the Wisconsin Elections Board is a weird name that is actually the Government Accountability Board). I don’t know if they will pay any attention.

If anyone reading this lives in Wisconsin, I hope he or she will contact a state legislator.

Background – My background – business owner at age 9 (newspaper route in North Platte, Nebraska); high school dropout; AB magna cum laude; Harvard Law School; commercial and civil rights litigation; created paralegal field, inventor, came in 3rd for NYS Attorney General during November, 2010; creating a new career field with more than 10,000,000 waiting to be filled – Assistant to the Owner of a Small Business. Wisconsin: Started and was nation’s leader in technical (vocational) schools, and has been led by US Government and its higher education and student loan policies (and its own regulation of education) into current crisis of having an insufficient number of high paying jobs and job-creating small businesses in Wisconsin

Creating Jobs

1.. 1st 3 Are Free – WI can get bi-partisan message to Congress and Obama through the National Association of Governors – Office of Federal Relations – should be doing

2.. Tax Incentives for small business are worthless – Stop using them and tell Congress and Obama through the NGA

3.. Subsidizing Business to Move Jobs to Wisconsin – Hurting taxpayers and existing WI businesses by subsidizing their competition – Instead, develop a healthy business environment for small business by decreasing or eliminating regulation – review each statute and get rid of as much regulation as possible

4.. Encouraging existing small businesses to hire smacks of industrial policy – picking winners, hurting others; your efforts should be to assist small business at and before they are started

5.. Eliminate restraints on the raising of capital by small business (i.e., the “Blue Sky Laws”) – end all filings, fees, reports and prospectuses and permit any small business to raise up to $5,000,000 per 2-year period subject only to the laws of fraud – dramatic expansion of jobs, at the cost of a few lawsuits for civil or criminal fraud – we have protected our citizens out of their jobs – Go through NGA to change federal law.

6.. Unemployed College Graduates. What would you think if you, as a recent unemployed college graduate, owe $200,000 on student loans which can’t ever be repaid and which cannot be eliminated through bankruptcy – especially when hearing that a better, job-getting course of training could have been obtained at a cost of only $2,000 per year, instead of $10,000 to $70,000? – Stop this Runaway Locomotive of Unemployed Youth and College Graduates from Running You Down – train them now with skills that will get them higher paying jobs than many of today’s airline pilots

7.. Colleges never trained persons for jobs, they trained as thinkers to be trained later by the large corporations. But large corporations aren’t doing this any longer, and governments are hiring fewer persons, and hopefully the military and armaments industries are using fewer persons – this leaves small business to do the heavy hiring, which can’t use college graduates – they have none or very few of the technical skills we need in running a small business.

8. Multi-skilled training is needed, but not in classic niches (drill press operations, welding, automotive repair). Instead, multi-skill macro (broad-based skills) training is needed (to do a lot of the work currently being by a small business owner), so these trainees can become the assistant to the owner of any small business. This will make small business more efficient, competitive and profitable, and create more jobs, and will lead 50% or more of the multi-skilled Assistants to become entrepreneurs after leaving their 1st or 2nd jobs, requiring 2 more trained assistants. I created such a program, and the lawyer for NYC Welfare Dept. wanted to be the first student in my class.

9. Encourage small businesses to open up. You don’t have to give them subsidies. Give them opportunity by getting out of the way. Eliminate all licensing is what I encourage you to do. Five situations come to mind:

A.. Post-secondary training programs to train youth, unemployed, underemployed, airline pilots earnings only $30M/year, retirees, and perhaps lawyers and doctors to acquire multiple technical skills to be the assistant to the owner of a small business. Don’t require entrepreneurs to go to your regulators to seek permission to do what the regulators know nothing about – let the entrepreneurs decide what the market wants and let them risk their own money – how can you go wrong? Why do you want to regulate that, when your regulators are already in charge of higher education that charges 40 times as much and has their graduates winding up unemployed and hopelessly in debt. Try the other way. Eliminate this licensing nonsense. This will create trained persons who would be hired by the nation’s 26,000,000 small businesses

B.. Be smart as a state, and be the first to eliminate the licensing laws, and you will have a disproportionate amount of the vocational training business located in Wisconsin, creating far more jobs than you would normally have if every state got started at the same time.

C. Also, get somebody in the state who understands what locally-owned state banks could do for a community and don’t get in their way – let them get formed and help finance the growth of small business and jobs in Wisconsin – look at the North Dakota model, about 7 other states are looking at this right now (including Wisconsin, I might add).

D. Here is another thought from a entrepreneur and Libertarian, encourage local groups to set up a local database for keyword advertising similar to Craigslist, in which everyone in the town, village or area is encouraged to put as many free keyword ads in the database as possible, describing what goods or services they want to buy or sell, and after everyone has put in their keyword data, you can then advertise the database to a 25-mile radius around the town at almost no expense to the advertisers – $1/minute ad paid for by 5,000 advertisers is at a cost of 5,000 1-minute database ads for a cost of $1 as to any of the 5,000 advertisers. How can businesses in the town or village not take advantage of such favorable business economics?

E. Set up an area-wide payroll administrator, to make it easy for small business to hire, without the need for any workmen’s compensation or disability income insurance policies and without any threatened audits. This is a workaround not requiring any governmental approvals for my 1st 3 Are Free idea.

Follow Libertarian Principles – They Are the Solution. Libertarian principles should be followed, by having private interests engaged in the recommended activities, such as starting up tuition-free equivalency colleges, post-secondary vocational training programs, database marketing of the goods and services of individuals and small businesses in an area, and the area-wide payroll administrator. Government and political considerations generally tend to corrupt and ruin any program that could be of help to voters, residents and small businesses. The programs should start out being locally owned and financed, but government could at least maintain websites with links to the locally-owned activities and point out that these activities have been deregulated (to the extent that happens). If competing, privately-owned state banks for Wisconsin could be created, so that there was competition for the deposit of moneys payable to the State of Wisconsin, it could prove to be more effective for Wisconsin (or any other state) than a state-owned state bank, depending on how state politicians use or misuse the state-owned state bank.

Ben Manski, the Green Party candidate who lost his bid for a West Side Madison Assembly seat to Democrat Brett Hulsey last year, has great ideas for opening up the political system and correctly identifies the existing redistricting process as “an incumbency protection racket.”

But on the collective bargaining issue, Democrats are on his side, and the current conflict should not be about “building any party at the expense of progress,” he said.

Likewise, Nate Friedl, an organizer of the Fort Atkinson-based tea party group Rock River Patriots, said members “very much support the governor.” Tea partiers are not looking to spawn a new party anyway, he said, but to influence the direction of an existing one. To the extent that his group can help defeat Republicans too closely tied to corporate interests in the future, for example, it will, he said.

But that’s the problem when the Republican and Democrat parties go to war. It’s not until later that you realize it didn’t really matter who won — because we all got beat.

Remember the so called sneak attack on Pearl Harbor? That awakened a sleeping giant, the United States of America. Well the sneak attack on state workers in Wisconsin may have just awakened another sleeping giant, the working class. This is a fight for unity among all workers whether organized into unions or not. When the wages, benefits and working conditions for the organized workers decline they push the wages, benefits and working conditions of the unorganized workers further down as well. Remember the Mexican victory at the Alamo in Texas? A loud rallying cry went out across the country. “Remember the Alamo!”. It changed the tide of the war. Now we have another rallying cry, “Remember Wisconsin!”. Hopefully, that will now change the tide of the class war that has been waged against us for the last 50 plus years.

Rank and file workers are upset, to put it mildly, with both the Republican and Democratic parties approach of blaming the workers for the states failure. The Republicans come out and say it, “Cut the wages, cut the benefits and cut the pensions of government workers.” They also want to cut social security. On the other hand, the Democrats say it’s not the workers fault, but there is no money and therefore we must slow down but not stop the cuts to social services by raising regressive taxes that are aimed at us.

Working people are waking up to this good cop, bad cop routine. There is another way. Take back what the super rich and their corporations and their financial institutions have stolen from us over the years by having “their” politicians, which they invested in heavily, vote to shift the tax burden from those who profit from this system of greed back to us. We have been in a class war and we never knew it. Every time the working people asked for their due, the rich cried that we were engaging in class war.

My friends, we do not have to pay for the bailout of the scoundrels and cheats. We are still the richest country in the world and our workers out produce the rest of the world. Our problem is that our elected representatives do not adequately represent us. Instead they take it out on the workers, the poor, the children, the elderly, the handicapped and anyone else they think is helpless. Those in power have managed to turn worker against worker for the spoils. That is not the way out. We need to organize as one pissed off group. When anyone rises to a better live we must all rise to a better live.

I don’t have to tell you that when you bargain your contract, and you get that three percent raise, the costs of your health care plan goes through the roof and today working people’s buying power is less than anytime in the last 50 years. Let us recognize the enemy and the politicians they buy. It is time to ask our elected official whose side they are on and don’t just take their word for it but watch every vote and see if it help you or helps the corporations and financial institutions. We can do better. We will do better. Thank you, workers of Wisconsin! Thank you, workers of Ohio! Thank you, workers of Indiana! Thank you workers everywhere!

C. T. Weber is State Chair of the Peace and Freedom Party.

Dear Vice President Biden:

Word has reached us from reliable sources that the unions in Wisconsin tendered an invitation sometime last week or earlier for you to appear at one of the growing rallies in Madison protesting the legislative straitjacketing of public employee unions. Since you have just returned from trips to Russia and other autocratic nations where you talked about facilitating more democracy and competitive elections, it was no surprise for us to hear from our sources that you were eager to go to Madison. After all, you like to call yourself a “union guy”.

According to protocol the invitation to speak was forwarded to the White House where the political operatives turned it down. Political operatives do not turn down the Vice President of the United States without clearing the decision with President Barack Obama.

We know that your role is always to play the “good soldier” but in this case can you verify the above reports? If you choose not to, can you say at least that you want to go to Madison to speak to one of the diverse gatherings—the likes of which has not been seen for many years—of workers—union and non-union—farmers, students both from Universities and high schools and other hardworking people both active in democratic causes and inactive but wanting to lend their support to opposing the Republican reactionaries and corporatists?

What say you, Mr. Vice President?

Sincerely yours,

Ralph Nader

The Miami-Dade Green Party adds its voice to the growing coalition of groups and individuals standing in opposition to anti-immigrant bills that have been recently introduced in the Florida legislature. These bills–modeled after Arizona’s racist SB 1070 law—allow for racial profiling and if passed, will result in the separation of families while threatening to turn Florida into a pariah state.

We enthusiastically endorse the March 17, 2011 Rally in Tallahassee organized by the “We Are Florida!” coalition of community groups to oppose these bills including SB 2040 which is currently before the Florida Senate coming out of the Judiciary Committee. According to the coalition, “This bill forces local police to question the immigration status of any person arrested, even for minor offenses, and turn them over to U.S. Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) without ever being convicted of any crime.”

“By deputizing police officers to carry out the functions of ICE, this measure would only serve to undermine public safety by dividing our diverse community and creating an atmosphere of fear. This measure will lead to racial and ethnic profiling on a scale that our state, whose economy depends upon tourism, cannot afford. Racial profiling undermines public safety, instills fear in our communities, scares away tourists, and is simply unjust,” said Muhammed Malik, Co-Chair of the Miami-Dade Green Party.

In fact, it is seldom noted by the corporate media in framing this debate that undocumented immigrants actually add more to the economy through tax revenue and their productive labor. The vast majority come to the U.S. to improve their lives and those of their children after finding their home country economies devastated by anti-worker agreements like NAFTA and other “free trade” pacts which promote a race to the bottom that hurts working people in all countries.

“These racist bills only serve to divide working people when we need unity more than ever given the wave of anti-worker attacks taking place in Wisconsin, Florida and all over the country,” said Paul Lefrak, Co-Chair of the Miami-Dade Green Party. “But just like the working class in Wisconsin and Ohio are beginning to fight back, we need to bring that fight to the Sunshine State and extend it to defend immigrant workers as well.”

Governor Scott and the Florida legislature devise means to slash much-needed social services and attempt to divide and conquer by blaming immigrant workers, while billionaire bankers receive bailouts and tax breaks. The Miami-Dade Green Party stands by the old motto that “an attack on one is an attack on all!” We cannot and will not let racial profiling and scape-goating tactics prevail.

York, PA - Demonstrators supporting Wisconsin unions waved and shook their signs at drivers who beeped their horns as they passed U.S. Rep. Todd Platts’ office in Springettsbury Township at rush hour Friday.Signs reading “Stand with Wisconsin workers” and “Support a teacher” were held by some in the group who decided to participate in the rally organized by Stephen Baker of the Green Party of York County.

“We’re here to protest Republicans trying to take away years of work on labor rights,” Baker, a Springettsbury resident, said.

A bill eliminating most collective-bargaining rights for Wisconsin’s public-employee unions was passed Thursday. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker signed it into law Friday.

Friday’s protest in York County was one of several planned by the Green Party. One was held last week in Harrisburg, Baker said, where about 1,000 demonstrators showed support for Wisconsin unions seeking negotiation rights.

Highlights from the 2007 study by Randall Eberts: Teachers Unions and Student Performance: Help or Hindrance reveal the following about the impact of collective bargaining on public education system:

1. Teachers unions can, and have, come out strongly against state referendum to allow charter schools and voucher systems, which they believe could divert students away from traditional public schools and thus reduce public school resources, their union ranks, and their bargaining and political power.
2. The number of contract provisions positively affects the negotiation of teacher salaries. A 2007 study found that teachers in districts with fifty contract provisions (of a possible fifty-three predetermined categories) received $1,900 more, on average, than those in districts with the minimum number of items. Budget allocations are also affected by the inclusion or removal of specific contract provisions through the negotiating process, providing further evidence of the link between education expenses and contract provisions
3. The costs of operating unionized high schools are about 8 – 15 percent higher than non-union schools.
4. Teachers covered by collective bargaining tend to earn 5 to 12 percent more than those who are not covered. This is consistent with the typical range found for union vs. non-union pay premiums in other sectors.
5. In national data for fourth-grade students, it also finds that union schools are less likely to rely on specialized, less standard instructional methods in mathematics. Students in union schools spend 42 percent less time with a specialist, 62 percent less time with a specialized aide, 26 percent less time with a tutor, and 68 percent less time in independent, programmed study.
6. By their very nature, contracts restrict the discretion of administrators. Unions can dictate class size and teacher assignments, impose restrictions on teacher dismissal and reduction in force, and determine the extent to which teachers participate in key decisions. Codifying strict rules into a contract, which may be in place for up to three years, could be problematic for administrators seeking to adapt to change.
7. Teachers unions can raise average student achievement based on studies of standardized exams, yet unionized schools also increase high school dropout rates (see #5 above).
8. Low-achieving, at-risk students and high-achieving students tend to do better in nonunion schools; unionized schools play to the middle tier of achievers.

Bottom line is that the taxpayer pays more for middle tiered services, and students requiring more specialized eduction and high performers suffer advancement. Yet, the unions are opposed to parent choice and charter schools to address these specific needs? Is it really about eduction? No. Here is what Bob Chanin, General Counsel of the NEA, said at the NEA’s annual meeting in July, 2009:

“Despite what some among us would like to believe it is not because of our creative ideas. It is not because of the merit of our positions. It is not because we care about children and it is not because we have a vision of a great public school for every child. NEA and its affiliates are effective advocates because we have power…. And we have power because there are more than 3.2 million people who are willing to pay us hundreds of millions of dollars in dues each year, because they believe that we are the unions that can most effectively represent them, the unions that can protect their rights and advance their interests as education employees…. This is not to say that the concern of NEA and its affiliates with closing achievement gaps, reducing dropout rates, improving teacher quality and the like are unimportant or inappropriate. To the contrary. These are the goals that guide the work we do. But they need not and must not be achieved at the expense of due process, employee rights and collective bargaining. That simply is too high a price to pay.”

So let me summarize: for the teachers’ unions it’s about power, money, and benefits first – and education second. This is what the unions want and are willing to “get bloody” over in Wisconsin. Gov. Scott Walker and the Republicans in the state want eduction to be the priority; meanwhile the Democrats are hiding out in Illinois in support the unions. The battle lines are drawn. The stakes are high. The children throughout this country deserve better. Mohandas Gandhi once said, “All compromise is based on give and take, but there can be no give and take on fundamentals. Any compromise on mere fundamentals is a surrender. For it is all give and no take.” Let’s hope quality education is a fundamental that conservative Scott Walker will not compromise on for the children of Wisconsin.

The Peace and Freedom Party looks forward to the success of popular uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East, and in Madison, Wisconsin. We urge participation in actions in solidarity with workers in Wisconsin and elsewhere.

People of North Africa and the Middle East can and must create their own democratic institutions. We oppose any intervention by the United States or European nations. History proves that despite rhetoric about human rights it would be done only in the interests of imperialism.

The “showdown” between the State Legislature, Governor and public school teachers in Wisconsin has lasted over two weeks, with no end in sight. Governor Scott Walker is threatening to lay-off some government employees if the 14 Democratic State Senators don’t return to the capitol in order for the Senate to have a quorum and vote on a State budget. The issues that have created the mass protests by public school teachers relate to collective bargaining for government workers that belong to unions and a proposal that would make these employees pay more for some benefits (specifically, insurance & pension).

Tom Knapp points out, “The problematic part of ‘government worker union’ is ‘government,’ not ‘worker’ or ‘union.’

Any enterprise which is operated by government is going to be decided by politics. Like businesses, unions are market institutions that become corrupt when they resort to political power instead of economic power to achieve their goals.” Knapp adds, “As the conventional wisdom would have it, collective bargaining between the state and government employees — cops, firefighters and most especially ‘public educators’ — is breaking the government bank by locking the taxpayer into funding healthy wage, and sometimes outrageous benefit and retirement, packages for ‘public servants’.”

There is one glaring question that is not being: “Why is government in the education business anyways?”

In Healing Our World Mary Ruwart writes,

“Early in our country’s history, Americans were considered to be among the most literate people in the world. Schooling was neither compulsory nor free, although private ‘charity’ schools provided education to those too poor to afford formal instruction. Licensing requirements for teachers and schools were almost non-existent…
The diverse education available in the United States greatly pleased the immigrants, who came from societies where their children could not go to a school that taught the values they cherished. Some influential citizens, however, felt that society was disrupted, rather than enriched, by the different perspectives and faiths that the immigrants brought with them. With a uniform system of ‘American’ education, they could mold children into what they perceived as proper citizens. They clamored to increase the aggression of taxation so that public schools wouldn’t need to charge much tuition. Parents would be forced at gunpoint, if necessary to turn over their hard-earned dollars to the public schools. If they were wealthy enough to have any money left, their children could still go to the private school of their choice. Like the serpent in the Garden of Eden, the so-called reformers tempted the American citizenry to use aggression against the poor immigrants, ostensibly to create harmony throughout the land.”

Public schools do NOT exist to educate children, rather these schools exist to mold children into replicas of one another. Ruwart adds, “The real waste is not money, however, but the minds of our children. A poor education means fewer skills with which to create wealth.” Instead of wasting time and tax-payer money by continuing to fund public schools, the Wisconsin Legislature (and the Legislature of the other 49 States & District of Columbia) should instead repeal compulsory education laws and abolish all taxpayer-funded schools. Doing so, will not only save millions of dollars it will also increase the quality of education for everyone.

–
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

The world is backwards. It should be the taxpayers striking in the streets of Wisconsin. But, private sector taxpayers can’t afford to take a day off, let alone a week. Doesn’t that say everything? Only government employees with their powerful unions, lifetime job security, short work-weeks, loads of sick days, nonstop holidays, early retirement, and bloated pensions, can afford to stand in the street protesting. Common sense tells us anyone with this much time to protest and the ability to abandon their work duties, is greatly overpaid.

It’s time for a reality check. These $100,000 per year teachers keep talking about “the kids.” Exactly who is teaching those kids while their teachers abandon their jobs and commit fraud with fake doctor’s notes? If they cared about the kids, they’d be in the classroom. They’d leave the striking and lobbying to their union leaders and lobbyists. It’s the students (and their parents) who should be on strike. Wisconsin teachers are the highest paid in the Midwest, but their students’ performance hasn’t improved. Where’s the taxpayer’s union? Where’s the students’ union? Are students and taxpayers getting their money’s worth? Perhaps they should be on strike.

I’m a small businessman. Like all private sector workers, I have no time to protest or strike. Take a day off? How could I do that? I run a business. People depend on me. I’m on call 24/7/365, weekends, holidays, birthdays and anniversaries. Vacations are “working vacations.” The phones never stop ringing, the emails never slow down. I have to work 16-hour days just to pay my taxes. Who benefits? Those government employees protesting in the streets of Wisconsin.

Is it fair that government employees can be paid as much as 70% more than the same jobs in the private sector? Is it fair that private sector taxpayers work to age 65, 75, or even longer, to pay obscene taxes, so government employees can retire at age 50, with bloated pensions? Does any of this make sense?

These public “servants” claim this is a battle for “the middle class.” Let me assure you, in the private sector a $100,000 per year job with paid medical, early retirement, and thirty (or more) years of pension is:

A) As far from “middle class” as you can get…

B) Very rare, if not non-existent.

Call me old fashioned, but the system has been rigged. Here in Las Vegas firefighters average $199,000 per year in compensation. Yes, you heard correctly. Quite a few have income of over $300,000. One fireman took 48 sick days, and still took home $232,187. Another is headed to prison for trying to have sex with underage girls. He’ll get his $200,000 pension while in prison. It’s happening all over the country. This isn’t “middle class,” it’s a privileged class. This is no more about “middle class rights” than Bill Gates and Warren Buffett fighting over caviar.

My father in law, Ralph Parks, was a hospital CEO for 30+ years. He managed a hundred million dollar institution with hundreds of employees. He was on emergency call at all hours of the day or night, holidays, weekends, birthdays, vacations. Ralph rarely enjoyed a real day off. In his best years, he was paid just over $100,000. He received no pension or lifetime healthcare. He saved money for his own retirement. He had no tenure and could be fired at any time. At age 59, he lost his CEO job. Soon thereafter he had a stroke and heart problems. He never worked again. That’s the way it works in the private sector. There are no guarantees. Why are these government employees guaranteed a job for life? Are they better, or more deserving than Ralph Parks? Why don’t they keep, or lose their jobs, based on performance?

More importantly, please explain to me how millions of government employees on the local, state, and federal level; who get holidays, weekends, and in some cases the entire summer off; without CEO job responsibilities; take no midnight phone calls; never have to risk their own money (as entrepreneurs in the private sector do); and have a guaranteed lifetime job; deserve $100,000 compensation, plus early retirement, and free medical care and pension for life – all on the back of true working class taxpayers? How is that possible? How does it make fiscal or moral sense for an average government employee to be paid more than a CEO? The answer is, of course, it doesn’t make sense. It’s “government logic.” You see it’s your money, not theirs. So the politicians don’t care.

It’s the taxpayers and business owners who should be in the streets protesting, shouting, pumping fists, screaming “SHAME.” But, of course, we’re not in the streets protesting. We have no time for strikes. We’re too busy working for a living, paying the taxes that fund the bloated salaries and pensions of government employees.

This sad story is at the heart of what has damaged the U.S. economy, created a national debt of $100 trillion (counting unfunded liabilities), and has cities, counties, and states on the verge of economic Armageddon.

Please understand that if we don’t get government employee unions under control, we face disaster. All of us lose. And good luck with those $100,000 pensions. Soon $100,000 may buy you a loaf of bread.

Wayne Allyn Root is a former Libertarian Vice Presidential nominee. He now serves as Chairman of the Libertarian National Congressional Committee. He is the best-selling author of “The Conscience of a Libertarian: Empowering the Citizen Revolution with God, Guns, Gold & Tax Cuts.” His web site: www.ROOTforAmerica.com

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.

The large demonstrations at the state Capitol in Madison, Wisconsin are driven by a middle class awakening to the spectre of its destruction by the corporate reactionaries and their toady Governor Scott Walker.

For years the middle class has watched the plutocrats stomp on the poor while listening to the two parties regale the great middle class, but never mentioning the tens of millions of poor Americans. And for years, the middle class was shrinking due significantly to corporate globalization shipping good-paying jobs overseas to repressive dictatorships like China. It took Governor Walker’s legislative proposal to do away with most collective bargaining rights for most public employee unions to jolt people to hit the streets.

Republicans take rigged elections awash in corporatist campaign cash seriously. When they win, they aggressively move their corporate agenda, unlike the wishy-washy Democrats who flutter weakly after a victory. Republicans mean business. A ram rod wins against a straw all the time.

Governor Walker won his election, along with other Republicans in Wisconsin, on mass-media driven Tea Party rhetoric. His platform was deceitful enough to get the endorsement of the police, and firefighters unions, which the latter have now indignantly withdrawn.

These unions should have known better. The Walker Republicans were following the Reagan playbook. The air traffic controllers union endorsed Reagan in 1980. The next year he fired 12,000 of them during a labor dispute. (This made flying unnecessarily dangerous.)

Then Reagan pushed for tax cuts—primarily for the wealthy—which led to larger deficits to turn the screws on programs benefitting the people. Reagan, though years earlier opposed to corporate welfare, not only maintained these taxpayer subsidies but created a government deficit, over eight years, that was double that of all the accumulated deficits from George Washington to Jimmy Carter.

Maybe the unions that endorsed Walker will soon realize that not even being a “Reagan Democrat” will save them from being losers under the boot of the corporate supremacists.

The rumble of the people in Madison illustrates the following:

1. There is an ideological plan driving these corporatists. They create “useful crisis” and then hammer the unorganized people to benefit the wealthy classes. Governor Walker last year gave $140 million in tax breaks to corporations which produced the $137 million deficit for this fiscal year. Note this oft-repeated dynamic. President Obama caved to the Minority party Republicans in Congress last December by going along with the deficit-deepening extension of the huge dollar volume tax cuts for the rich. Now the Republicans want drastic cuts in programs that help the poor.

2. Whatever non-union or private union workers, who are giving ground or losing jobs, think of the sometimes better pay and benefits of unionized public employees, they need to close ranks without giving up their opposition to government waste. For corporate lobbyists and their corporate governments are going after all collective bargaining rights for all workers and they want to further weaken The National Labor Relations Board.

3. Whenever corporations and government want to cut workers’ incomes, the corporate tax abatements, bloated contracts, handouts and bailouts should be pulled into the public debate. What should go first?

4. For the public university students in these rallies, they might ponder their own tuition bills and high interest loans, compared to students in Western Europe, and question why they have to bear the burden of massive corporate welfare payouts—foodstamps for the rich. What should go first?

5. The bigger picture should be part of the more localized dispute. Governor Walker also wants weaker safety and environmental regulations, bargain-basement sell-outs of state public power plants and other taxpayer assets.

6. The mega-billionaire Koch brothers are in the news. They are bankrolling politicians and rump advocacy groups and funding media campaigns in Wisconsin and all over the country. Koch Industries designs and builds facilities for the natural gas industry. Neither the company nor the brothers like the publicity they deserve to get every time their role is exposed. Always put the spotlight on the backroom boys.

7. Focusing on the larger struggle between the people and the plutocracy should be part and parcel of every march, demonstration or any other kind of mass mobilization. The signs at the Madison rallies make the point, to wit—“2/3 of Wisconsin Corporations Pay No Taxes,” “Why Should Public Workers Pay For Wall Street’s Mess?”, “Corporate Greed Did the Deed.”

8. Look how little energy it took for these tens of thousands of people to sound the national alarm for hard-pressed Americans. Just showing up is democracy’s barn raiser. This should persuade people that a big start for a better America can begin with a little effort and a well-attended rally. Imagine what even more civic energy could produce!

Showing up lets people feel their potential power to subordinate corporatism to the sovereignty of the people. After all, the Constitution’s preamble begins with “We the People,” not “We the Corporations.” In fact, the founders never put the word “corporation” or “company” in our constitution which was designed for real people.

As for Governor Walker’s projected two-year $3.6 billion deficit, read what Jon Peacock of the respected nonprofit Wisconsin Budget Project writes at: http://www.wisconsinbudgetproject.org about how to handle the state budget without adopting the draconian measures now before the legislature.

The Peace and Freedom Party stands in solidarity with Wisconsin’s worker and student demonstrations. We demand:

* The Wisconsin Legislature kill the bill that would deny collective bargaining to state workers
* Governor Walker refrain from calling in the National Guard or police
* Education and union jobs are a right
* Cancel interest payments to the banks
* Tax the rich and their corporations

We applaud the workers and students of Wisconsin for leading the way in a “people’s filibuster” while Democrats hide out to deny a quorum to the Republicans.

by Omar Mohamad, Socialist Party of South Central Wisconsin and Billy Wharton, co-chair Socialist Party USA:

The mass protests led by public employees unions in Madison, Wisconsin have been presented by some mainstream commentators as a labor’s last stand. They are not. They are a spark, a spark with the potential to create a new protest movement capable of revitalizing our unions, radicalizing student organizing and creating a space for democratic socialist politics. As socialists, we stand steadfastly in solidarity with this protest movement. We pledge to support the immediate goal of blocking Governor Scott Walker’s reactionary and draconian anti-union legislation and the longer-term project of building a serious left-wing political movement in the US.

Walker’s proposal to strip workers of collective bargaining rights is an extreme example of the budget cutting strategies being prepared by state and local officials throughout the country. More than 31 states are in the process of implementing deep cuts to basic public services. The local budgetary situations have been made worse by the ending of Federal stimulus funds. Much like at the Federal level, most of these states have, for decades, refused to properly tax their richest residents and corporations. In the case of Wisconsin, corporate tax rates have not been increased since 1972 and a myriad of loopholes and tax credits allow these companies to further evade taxation.

But the budget cuts are not about the fiscal balancing of budgets. They are, instead, an ideological attack on the rights of working people, on the opportunities for public university students and on the public programs that millions of people rely on. Gov. Walker and the other politicians, Democrats and Republicans alike, have refused to cover deficits by spending from reserve funds or increasing taxation on the rich and corporations. This is a political choice, driven by free market ideology, to defend the wealth of the elite at the expense of the vast majority of people in our society.

As socialists, we understand that public employees are not the problem. Their work helps to enhance the public good. The problem that is gripping all of American society is that 5% of the population controls 85% of the productive wealth and this 5% has no intention of returning this wealth to those who produced it. As a result, politicians will violate any democratic right – union rights, civil rights and economic rights – that threatens this wealth. Walker demonstrated just how far he would go by putting the National Guard on notice in the event of mass unrest.

No wonder then that the protesters in Madison compared the Governor to the deposed dictator of Egypt Hosni Mubarak. This comparison is not only because the protesters see a bit of Walker in Mubarak, but more importantly, they see themselves in the massive street protests that gripped Egypt and in the occupation of Tahrir Square. And what great lessons to learn from this brave movement that faced down the police and forced a dictator out. The fighting spirit of Tahrir Square represents a global wave of unrest in which people are exercising and demanding their democratic rights. Democracy, in Cairo or Madison, is about more than elections. It is about creating a society based on economic democracy – where working people who create the wealth can claim that wealth.

Democratic socialism offers the best hope to make the aspirations of these protests real. We believe that society can best be run through direct democracy – where people have a direct say in how the society runs. Scott Walker and the Wisconsin Legislature should not be the ones determining how the budget is crafted. A system of participatory budgeting in which those who will be affected by the budget are given a direct decision making voice in how the funds are spent would be the most democratic and efficient process possible. Here, the true will of all those people mobilizing to stop Walker would be heard.

Until we are able to build the political will to create such a democratic structure, the political focus must be placed on taxing the rich and corporations to cover the immediate budget deficit in Wisconsin. In the short term, this will mean employing all possible forms of civil disobedience and non-compliance on our worksites, our schools and in our communities. Simply put, if a small group of politicians attempts to strip us of our rights in the service of protecting the wealth of the elite, we are more than justified in using all of the social power we can muster to bring the society to a stand still.

The Socialist Party USA has initiated a national campaign to fight against budget cuts and the attack on public workers. We are calling on all of our members and our supporters to join local campaigns to defend jobs, education, and services. As socialists, we bring with us a firm conviction about taxing the rich and a vision of a democratically run society in which people regain control of their lives from the logic of the market, from the workings of capitalism and from the elite 5% who benefit from our labor, while offering little in return.

Solidarity with the Madison Protests!
Kill the Anti-Union Bill!
Defeat the Anti-Labor Walker!

The standoff between the Republicans and the Democrats in Wisconsin over the unions has managed to capture a significant portion of the news and now is spreading to Ohio, Indiana and elsewhere. Teachers are a large portion of the government employees involved. Caught in the middle of all of this are the students whose schools have been closed in some cases and the taxpayers who have to foot the bill. So far not much effort has been spent on asking why the government is still involved in the education business and since it is what are the results and what are the alternatives. Why, after some twenty years of activism, do we still have government run schools? Can’t we break this log jam somehow?

Separating education from the state should be our goal. How we get there is another matter, one that is worth discussing. Simply put in my mind the freedom to teach is inherent in the idea of freedom of speech. Teachers should not be told by the government what to teach or how to teach. When schools are run by the government they are subject to public and political pressure, which is seldom in the best interests of the students. Wisconsin has two significant things going for it with their school system; Milwaukee was one of the first, if not the first, school system in the nation to adopt a voucher program, and Wisconsin has one of the best graduation rates in the nation. In Milwaukee vouchers now exceed $120 million annually. Early evaluation of the program does not suggest there is any specific advantage with vouchers. However, Milwaukee is fortunate to have a choice program for students that has seen some success. “…research shows a general pattern of growth in Milwaukee graduation rates. From 2003 to 2009 the MPS [Milwaukee Public Schools] rate grew from 49% to 70%. For the MPCP [Milwaukee Parental Choice Program] the rate grew from 63% to 82%.” I am not especially fond of vouchers but vouchers seem to work in Wisconsin and just need to be expanded. Maybe they should be on the menu of alternatives.

Statewide the Wisconsin graduation rates are impressive when we compare them to other states. For the period 2007-2008 Wisconsin graduated 89.6% of their students. This is one of the highest rates in the nation.

Nationwide students and their parents should be able to chose from a variety of schools that fit the needs of the student regardless of whether that need is for a specific subject area or a nationwide system that allows a child from a family that frequently moves to leave a school in San Diego on Friday and pick up on the next page in a Rhode Island school the next Monday.

Lots of different factors play into the quality of education a student receives; from the quality of the teacher to family and neighborhood. Some parents may wish to be involved in their child’s education while others may find that difficult for any number of reasons. We need to keep in mind the fact that people learn through different ways and at different speeds. No one way fits all, which is a significant problem with today’s education system.

If Sweden can do it so can others. In the 1990s Sweden introduced the voucher system and today is seems to be very popular. Some states have tried vouchers, as in Wisconsin, but the effort to expand them seems to be stalled. It may not be the best libertarian solution, but it seems to be a step in the right direction and if they work in Sweden why not support them in Wisconsin with its large Scandinavian heritage? We might find we can sell this one.

By 2004 there were roughly 3000 charter schools nationwide with a variety of results. Charter schools are another alternative that have been successful in some places while elsewhere they have not worked as well as the state run system, and in some cases they seem to have been developed more for the money the government was handing out and to hell with the students. As in with any other service it is buyer beware.

The Libertarian Party needs to become more vocal on this issue. We need to remember that separating education from the state is just as important as separating religion from the state. In the long run that is the goal. Now how are we going to get there? This issue is passing us by. Let’s get on it!

Michael H. Wilson is editor of Libertarian Party of Washington State News & Views. His blog’s mission is to “support the ideas of civil liberties, economic freedom and non intervention. “Let me be a free man…free to travel… free to stop…free to work…free to choose my own teachers…free to follow the religion of my Fathers…free to think and talk and act for myself.” Chief Joseph, Nez Perce… Bring All the Troops Home!”

The Big Domestic Policy Question of the Week, driven by Wisconsin’s government budget crisis, is “what to do about government employee unions?”

As the conventional wisdom would have it, collective bargaining between the state and government employees — cops, firefighters and most especially “public educators” — is breaking the government bank by locking the taxpayer into funding healthy wage, and sometimes outrageous benefit and retirement, packages for “public servants.”

Proposed solutions range from “suck it up and pay the bill” on the left to “outlaw government employee unions” on the right … and out in Simply Silly Land, from a guy who bills himself as “one of America’s leading Libertarian thinkers,” the suggestion that Wisconsin governor Scott Walker play Ronald Reagan and fire Wisconsin’s “public” school teachers (hint: Those teachers aren’t employees of the state of Wisconsin).

The conventional wisdom may very well be true, but none of those proposed solutions would amount to more than a band-aid on a gaping wound. That’s because “what to do about government employee unions” is the wrong question. The right question is “what to do about government?”

When government is the employer, employment questions become policy questions … and policy questions are intrinsically political questions. This means that all the players involved will mobilize political power to get the answers they want.

Nothing short of a totalitarian state, complete with conscription to fill classroom teacher slots and secret police to arrest “union troublemakers,” will prevent “public” school teachers from organizing among themselves to get the highest wages and nicest benefit packages they can.

Even formally outlawing unionization for government employees wouldn’t change that. There would still be a wage and benefit schedule, and it would still have to be responsive to teachers’ willingness or unwillingness to accept it. At some point, negotiations would occur. And chances are that the negotiators on the teachers’ side would be wearing NEA t-shirts under their suits and carrying NEA membership cards in their wallets.

The problem isn’t the existence of a teachers’ union. The problem is on the other side of the negotiating table.

A private sector business has to turn a profit to survive. It has finite resources. It has to take in more money than it spends. If its prices get too high, its customers will go elsewhere. No amount of lobbying or majoritarian uproar can trump those considerations.

Government doesn’t operate on a profit motive. In theory, at least, its resources approach the infinite — if it’s out of money, it can just pull out its guns and tax up some more cash. Its customers are forbidden to take their business elsewhere. And lobbying and majoritarian uproar are the deciding factors in its policy considerations.

Get government out of education, and the alleged rapaciousness of teachers’ unions is limited by the ability or inability of private employers to meet their demands (or their ability to generate revenue by forming their own cooperatives and serving willing customers).

Two weeks after Gawker published a shirtless Craigslist photo of Congressman Chris Lee and solicitous e-mails he sent, leading him to resign, Ian Murphy, one of his erstwhile constituents, prank-called Scott Walker, the governor of Wisconsin, and now has his eye on Lee’s vacant seat.

Murphy, editor-in-chief of the Buffalo Beast, the alt-weekly turned national monthly turned Web ’zine, had been considering a run for Congress even before he called Walker, pretending to be David Koch, and became a viral sensation. (Who is David Koch? Jane Mayer explains.) “I was in the process of figuring out how I could possibly get thirty-five hundred signatures or entice some loser party like the Green Party to endorse me—not that I think they’re losers, their politics are great, but I think they’re going to lose,” he told me on the phone Thursday. Both “seemed completely undoable.”

But as one Internet-driven scandal cleared the seat, another has earned Murphy the Green Party’s attention. Eric Jones, co-chair of the New York Green Party, told me that he would be meeting Murphy Wednesday evening to discuss politics…

If the meeting this evening goes well and Murphy enters the political ring, he may need to learn to play nice—or not. “I would hope that I could announce my candidacy in a clown outfit,” he told me. It would be a conservative choice, next that of the Beast’s publisher, Paul Fallon, who announced his congressional run, in 2002, in the nude. Clearly, when it comes to New York’s twenty-sixth district, it pays to wear a shirt.

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2011/02/fake-koch-running-for-congress.html#ixzz1EwElPHDW