You are currently browsing the category archive for the ‘Libertarian Party’ category.
Imposing tighter and more forceful controls on the “fourth estate”, requires serious consideration. And such a proposal being in itself, “politically charged”, guarantees nothing will be done unless there is a single party in firm control of all three forms of government and that includes the courts…
There has to be a faster way, a better way.
That is what I am to propose.We have found (particularly in this election year) that to get things done quickly, “We, The People” have to get involved. It is what propelled Donald to the forefront of his party’s nomination over the stale platitudes of people who were competent. It is also what gave Bernie’s campaign far more power than any insider could have ever considered as late as last December a mere 9 months ago. So whether you like either of the two campaigns or not, it is “We, The People” who manifested them in our own two diverse images….
The problem with today’s press is not so much its partisanship. The reason calling out such partisanship from BOTH parties is justifiable, is because the press plays itself against BOTH sides. Indeed in social issues it does tend to side with liberals and lambastes both conservatives and Tea Party Republicans. Most of our media is liberal on issues supportive of prisoners, gays, minorities, and women’s rights. But when it comes to a government using its power to get things done, the media’s business-identity takes over and it becomes strongly Libertarian. Here keeping government in a box seems to be its prime directive. Those of you with sharp minds can already see where this is going: both socially and governmentally our press is almost pure Libertarian. On the social side it mimics Liberalness while on the business side, it’s conservative. Both which are planks of the Libertarian party.
Because of this dichotomy, both sides can and do look at the American media as its enemy…. while the same both sides ignore and dismiss the side which is a partial friend of it .Therefore for citizen’s groups to attack the media on its partisanship is probably a moot endeavor. For if there is no partisanship actually there, one will come up empty handed. No, for any change to occur, there first
a) has to be a problem, then
b) that problem has to become common knowledge, then
c) movements towards change have to campaign to attract followers, and then
d) the number of “pros” has to outweigh the number of “cons”, and
e) only then, does change occur. But is has to start with a real … problem.
We have a real problem. Our fourth estate refuses to report real facts and lets lies slip by without comment every time those facts or lies fly in the face of its Libertarian nature. Take the climate-change debate: since governments should not enforce Draconian rules upon private business so the press mitigated the compelling facts of global warming with opposing opinions funded by Big Oil. Flip that over to the other side: gay marriage. Government should not enforce Draconian rules upon private citizens; therefore it cast and painted those who were traditionalists into caricatures of silliness, to which most of “us” (long oppressed) took delight. Take religion: all those enforcing a “state’ religion, be they traditionalists of Muslim, Jewish, Old School Catholic, or Fundamentalist Christian get parodied and those actively involved in the “serving” nature of religion as in “creating good here on earth” get support… Take taxes: raising them though obviously the glaring solution to almost every problem and concern, also involves taking resources away from private citizens and putting them into the hands of a “government” … Hence, no commentary is ever given towards how raising taxes would swell the “people’s” economy, raise all wages, and allow us to all live much wealthier than we can today, despite all the evidence out there crying for it to be noticed and upheld… The trend has been consistent.
The point I’m making is that when progressives look at this monolith, and when conservatives look at this monolith, they both see the monolith fighting strictly against them. They don’t see it actually is fighting against all government in general….
One could talk about this “problem” of the media for hours. In just the few short minutes of typing I already have cooked up enough mental outlines and supporting examples to write a whole book. We don’t have time for that. Let’s accept step a) (There has to be a problem) is legit and move onward to where we need to go to make our stamp as We, The People, felt…
We need to quickly move over to step (b) (that problem has to become common knowledge), as well as setup the future stages of c) (movements towards change have to campaign to attract followers) and d) (the number of “pros” has to outweigh the number of “cons”…..)
We know how to do this because we did it to Rush Limbaugh… We attack their advertisers… Both due diligence and concerted effort are needed as was bravely and methodically accomplished against Rush Limbaugh.
The plan simply involves holding advertisers accountable for the News shows they sponsor. We write to advertisers supporting some of the most hateful one-sided shows and ask them if they were aware they were supporting bigotry, we ask them if they were aware they were supporting misogyny, we ask them if they were aware they were supporting a “state religion”, and we ask them if they were aware they were supporting climate change denial….
Make sure you offer the examples… quotes and times of what was directly said.(Twitter makes it easy).. Then politely inform them that for the life of you, you cannot conscientiously buy another of their products until you are sure they have changed …. and that one way for them to gain your future support, would be to take public action and combat those issues which by their association through their advertising, they seem to support.
We know this is effective…. The power of association is a very motivating human trait… “Ew, I don’t want people to think I’m with them….”
And we also know it does not take many such letters to make an impact… It is one of the reason true Conservatives appear almost equal in power though their numbers are a very minimal percentage of the population.(17%)… Because almost the full 100% of them write protests to businesses including those in the press themselves.. Therefore no matter how ridiculous is their claim, one needs to pay it respect to mitigate any financial impact to oneself.
The reason such small numbers can impact business is because businesses depend on revenue streams. As you know profits are only the tip of the pyramid after all other expenses have been paid down and off. So by taking a block of two off the top, they who live or die by their profit dollars, are impacted immediately… They cannot ignore your threat….
Now some may say that the press doesn’t matter. Because to most people, the press is just something out there… an irrelevant entity that no one seems to watch… When we hear that 2.4 million watch Fox’s “The Five” we should also calculate to ourselves that means there were also an estimated 322 million who did not watch. And that does indeed correlate to the reality of our lives.. At work, no one comments on politics unless that happens to be all they live for.Sports, entertainment, family, problems with coworkers, traffic, all seem to take precedence in our lives over the fate of our county, state, or even federal electees…
But Brexit pointed out a glaring problem to ignoring this. When Brits were asked from where they got most of their opinions prior to voting, a high majority responded with the BBC. And this makes psychological sense. When confused it is natural to turn to where your parents used to get their source of information.. which was the BBC.
Now throughout the argument of Brexit, the BBC as is today’s American media dealing with Trump, tried to play both sides evenhandedly; to do so they let tons of lies simply slide by without context which caused quite a few votes going Brexit’s way. Brexit proponents made promises and charges that were completely unfounded, but due to any silence of a rebuttal by BBC, they were allowed to hang out on the line as truth. Proof of of this being that the promise to transfer moneys being sent to the EU (350 million each week) over to the NHS, was pulled less than 24 hours had expired since the vote went Brexit’s way… That misinformation bubble on which many used to cast their vote, could and should have easily been popped before the vote…
The BBC let down Britain, and today, we see our American press doing the exact same: letting down America to keep up the semblance of a tight horse race… We see click-bait headlines pushing “something’s very wrong” in a squeaky clean Clinton Foundation even when inside the same article they mention there was no wrongdoing found; on the other hand we see them completely ignoring outright bribery looking at them in the face…as in Trump paying off the Florida AG to make a “We, The People’s” investigation go away….
The press has the ability to spin an election cycle. This is very true. This happened in 2000 and the USA is still digging out from that tragedy… All the facts back then said tax cuts and deregulation would cause immense economic trouble, but those effects were never publicly discussed by our press. Instead we were treated to media storms of:…”who would you rather have a beer with?” Duh, the obvious answer would be a Texas Rangers baseball team owner over the other choice, one who’d been a governmental bureaucrat all his life.. But that shouldn’t have been the question!.. But solely because it was, and many more voters back then looked at the press for guidance than dare do today, it spun the election criteria out of the field of economics over into La, La, Land. So instead of having our national debt completely paid off back in 2008 to which we were on track to do, we now have $16 trillion new dollars yet to pay. So now instead maintaining certain regulations to keep businesses from immorally gouging consumers without consequences, we had a crash rivaling the Great Depression. So now instead of nipping Global Warming in the bud by 2004, we have oceans crashing into our houses, wiping out recreational shoreline yearly and species living 30,000 years disappearing without trace.
Elections have consequences and if “We, The People” are to truly remain in charge, we need to apply our control over this press as well as we apply it over our government… And our tool for that is economic. And it must start with you….
One… Personally comment somewhere every time you hear misjudgment made by the press.
Two… when you do hear a particular misleading comment, note the next three advertisers.
Three… do a search, find those advertisers’ customer service, click send email, and type a few sentences. Like this..
“Did you know your company’s ad was the first thing I saw on Politico after its host seemed to support Trump’s misogynist agenda and did not comment against Donald Trump’s slur against women! How can you advertise on such a vile channel?
Or..
“What are you trying to do! Just saw your ad on ABC who just gave credence to Trumps’ immigration policy by not calling out the lies Trump spewed…especially that all Hispanics are rapists. I will no longer support a company who indulges in prejudice and hate.. Good bye
Or…
Did you know that CBS just let Donald Trump’s assertion go unchallenged that there was no global warming? … Did you know your advertisement came immediately after cutting away from that? I’m sorry but my dollars cannot go to a company who associates with networks who will not correct such lies and misinformation….
==========
It’s a start. The benefit is that we know it works… “Rush who?” you ask.
…unless you are Bernie Sanders, which makes him even more amazing than he already was… Out-raising Clinton? Impressive. Not to mention blowing the doors off all feeble Republican efforts.
But I’m riffing on this topic today, so here it goes.
The reason is because a lot of progressive type people as well as far righters rail at their politicians for being what has often been titled “corporate whores”…
Doing whatever corporate donors ask and then getting a few bucks for it…
What most of you don’t realize, is that elected officials really don’t have a choice. Citizens United changed the playing field so that ignoring BIG money kills you off early.
(Which is why we elect progressive type people and become dismayed to find they too gyrate to corporate philosophies faster than we can find their replacements..)
For new comers to this process, we should say, it was not always this way… There was a time when BIG MONEY was just a player like everyone else. If they had good ideas, you listened. If they were a crock, you ignored their pleas…
Citizen’s United changed that playing field by allowing dark money to invade any contest. Prior, one had limits on contributions each which alone would not sway an entire election, plus it had to be publicly disclosed…
Now if someone doesn’t like the “size of your nose”, they can secretly donate unlimited amounts to unseat you… In local races it may not be effective. Bryan Townsend (2012) trounced “Big Bucks” Tony Deluca who had paid a lot for slick pieces to land in every district mailbox every day a month before the election… It sorta pissed people off.
But the threat of big money arising against you, makes you seriously weigh what normally would have been good sense legislation against that potential threat…
For example: do I dare stop this cancer causing power plant in the heart of Newark which will prematurely kill of 15,000 of our citizens over the next 50 years,…. or risk losing the next election due to dark money behind a dark opponent?
That would be a no-brainer right? Those dead could be your children, right? But no, it is not a no-brainer because you won’t be around in 50 years. And if you vote against it, you definitely will have an all out fight to still be employed beginning the next election cycle..
So more than donated money itself, it is the threat of potential money that has killed off all “pro-people” legislation.
Just like: the threat of getting stopped at a sobriety checkpoint…. chance of a 100 per million… makes you not drink too much before driving. Or getting a ticket from the camera pole, makes you not run a red light and instead sit at the corner for 3 minutes with no cars in sight; or eventually losing your license, makes you choose to pay at tolls instead of sneaking through the EZ Pass lane.
All those ridiculous things we do that defy common sense, we do because of existential threats. With Citizen’s United, the threat is real that if we do not side with corporate against WE, THE PEOPLE, we will lose everything we’ve worked for our entire professional lives….
This is why calling anyone, including Hillary, a corporate whore, is pretty lame… They have no choice really… Sadly it is like name calling a 13 year old who was forced to prostitute.. They could be a concert pianist had events gone differently for them… But we, have forced them into this situation… and as would any 13 year old rapidly figure out, you get killed if you don’t play the game, so you had better play it well because no one is coming to save you….
Unless it is YOU… Are YOU going to vote to end Citizen’s United?….. If not, shut your mouth… You are polluting the air with your breath…
Got this idea from a thread embedded in one of Steve’s posts.
We know the Racino’s are losing money. It is because of competition. Delaware needs a new idea, and Colorado provides the answer…
Of course some will object. Just like everyone originally objected to the idea of gambling ever coming to Delaware…
Gambling is now so entrenched, it is not only a part of our revenue stream, but its owners get concessions from the state itself at the expense of raises to the state employees. Soon, state wages will be replaced by scratch-off cards…..
On the other hand, the revenues from marijuana are amazing. Delaware could pay for one fifth of its state’s educational budget by legalizing and taxing this revenue stream alone.($82 million) However the smart move would be to put all these revenues into an endowment fund for later, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey are sure to follow suit as our fumes cross state lines and infiltrate their state halls….. just as they did with casino’s, and eventually that Delaware’s consolidation on that income stream dries up…. But with an endowment, we can keep the benefit filtering in for decades into the future…. “as far as the eye can see.”
Of course, the first word out of the mouths of those politically connected, would be… “what about our friends, the Racino owners?”
And there’s the rub. They benefit too…. In what other state can you gamble and smoke weed at the same time? We’ll have to build new toll lanes just for the traffic trying to get into this state!
Courtesy of Western Pennsylvania Healthcare News
I haven’t been paying attention. Thank Goodness Steve has.
The tycoon wishes to remain anonymous because he is one of the most solid Republican monetary supporters.
But when asked how he reads this chart, here is his compelling answers….
“Aside from the obvious, that we have had 39 months of continuous private sector job growth, something not seen since the Clinton Era, I suppose the biggest question remains as to “why” the glitches. Why are there parts that drop down in the recovery and seem to go backwards?
Here, let’s just go through the time-line. Let’s start at the bottom of the inverted pyramid… The general climb out of the hole was due to TARP money which jump-started construction projects and the big infusions to banks which kept the economy from falling off the cliff into the pit of no return. It culminated with a big push of Census hiring in March of 2010. Most attention was on Obamacare at that time and with everyone’s lack of attention from the president, congress, and corporate, things languished for several months. Also one must remember that the Republicans looked like they would make big gains in 2010 and turn all Obama’s directives around. That would be very bad if it were so, and no one sank any money into investment until the election determined things.
Those who figured Obama would win, (Northeast and California) invested heavily in October only to be mistaken and with the Tea Party rattling their sabers upon their win, no one invested anything at all. We all thought the economy would crash and burn again. Up until the election we fully expected the Bush Tax Cuts to be eradicated, so our goals had been to move our funds over into areas where they would not be taxed, primarily investment into our own companies. As the tax laws became extended, many of us were not in the right zone at the right time to take advantage of the two year grace period that tends to better reward those investing in liquid assets as opposed to longer term job creating ones.
By 2011, in February we realized the Tea Party was nothing but a boil, a cyst, a sham, and things would hold current at a status quo. February, March, and April we made plans to go forward and grow. Then in May, the first debt crises occurred and shocked, we all pulled back. The Tea Party did not vote on its unceremonious raise and emergency measures were begun to be implemented by the Federal Treasury. In June, we rode our previous success fully betting that no one, not even the Tea Party would be foolish enough to destroy America’s credit rating for their own political gain. By July, we knew we were horribly wrong. We pulled back on every investment option we possibly could.
The Grand Design ($4 Trillion Budget Arrangement) never did come about. If it had we would have thrown everything into getting on the ground floor of the next boom. But by August 2011 we were confident enough to begin putting some of our extra money now trickling in over to self-investment and it continued straight through January 2012.
That was when Republicans began their Primary campaign in earnest and the Democrats were silent by having no primary or no opponent to which to reply; all bets were that the Democrats were very vulnerable. In fact, it looked like it could be a clean sweep of both Houses and the Executive. This would mean all new investment was futile. The Fed would raise interest rates according to all these Republicans against soft money, costing banks billions and overall investment would slow to a crawl. This slide lasted until the juxtaposition of the two party conventions back to back, which gave us all a clear idea of who would win. I mean who would you want behind the shoulder advising the policy of the next president: Bill Clinton or Clint Eastwood? The fruits of our investments through Sept and Oct. paid off through November and December. Although we too had quite a scare after the first debate.
Then came the Sequester. It is hard to remember now that we really thought we were going off a cliff back then. Once settled, January’s hiring was alread done but February received the spike of top money shifting from taxable investments over to job producing non-taxable investments. The stock market jumped as world money became content that America had finally finished with its infatuation that the top 1% carry the economy as a whole and should be taxed less, jumped back in. Problems in China and Europe made sure we were the world’s safest investment at the time.
Currently it appears that our entire economy has matured in 2013… if anyone looks at the chart, you see that the spike in February almost perfectly cancels out the dips in January and March, and that the average across all 6 months is very consistent, almost the same number.
In fact, we have plateaued. This is where our economy is right now, growing steadily with population growth and nothing more. There is nothing any more that anyone can do to increase private sector hiring.
Nothing will change I figure until the House of Representatives gets enough democrats and government hiring can begin anew.”
“Oh” I said, “so now you are a Democratic supporter?” lol.
“NEVER!” he responded. “However I’ll admit that Republicans are absolutely worthless when it comes to growing economies.”
And there, you have “the rest of the story….”
Last week Allan Loudell was waxing poetic on an live interview how the Supreme Court was Conservative on the voting rights act and liberal on the repeal of DOMA, finishing with: ” is it anyones guess what to expect?” I was busy at the time, but thought it was rather easy to figure out. You see, i know a Libertarian and so making the assessment that Justice Kennedy was also a Libertarian, didn’t require much of a leap at all.
When one thinks of Libertarians, one thinks of that tiny party in the middle of a ballot. But Libertarianism has played a dominant role in the US’s formation… It is just that when it strikes, it is not on the ballot. Below I show how Libertarianism easily explains how this court acts….
This past season the Supreme Court heard 75 cases… Of those seventy five, 30% were decided by a vote of 5-4. This is one of the most contentious courts on record. The roundabout average is 22% of its cases decided by 5-4 decisions. However, and this is surprising, almost 50% of its decisions were decided by a 9-0 margin. That is unprecedented as well.
Graph Courtesy of SCOTUS Blog
There appears to be a solid libertarian bias that leans through this court. If progressive, they are libertarian progressives, if conservative they are libertarian conservatives, and if split, then the most libertarian of them all, Justice Kennedy, is the decider.
Let me first touch on those decision made last week. a) Voting Rights Act… If there is no firm reason not to leave it to the states, then leave it to the states… Libertarianism. b) Repeal of Clause 3 of DOMA… If the government is picking favorites of one custom over another, that is not the government’s business… Government needs to butt out… Pure Libertarianism. Those inured in thinking only in terms of “left” and “right” are by their blinders.. baffled. However there is a very clear aim through out this court and that aim clearly states that the government should not be interfering with people’s rights to decide things for themselves.
Furthermore, although this court is very pro business, to call it an business court would still be an error. The human gene concept, that actual genes were not to be patented, was decided in part because doing so would benefit the company that acquired the patent, but hurt those who didn’t. There was no prevailing clause of ownership offered by the plaintiff, since the gene existed long before the company did, so therefore, everyone has a right to it. The decision was business neutral. Though one company lost, all others gained thereby making the decision a neutral one. Very Libertarian. Favorites should not be picked by the government. However if Monsanto in another landmark case, actually did invent the gene, then for a farmer to replant some of the soybeans as farmers have since civilization began, should not happen. Those beans were not his intellectual property, because they were created legally under license by Monsanto. No different than buying a CD and burning copies for one’s friends and acquaintances. Again, very Libertarian. The government should not interfere with either picking or hurting a company in its effort to make money by playing with existing rules.
Likewise the Federal Government should not limit or impose itself or it’s temporary values upon a company doing business overseas. Therefore for the Federal Government forbidding an AIDs vaccine to be used in Africa for infectees caused by prostitution, was illegal. That puritan law was stricken. Government can’t interfere.
And so after this season, federal judicial participation in guilty pleas is now subject to harmless error review; the government can’t involuntary dissolve a parent/childs bonding rights; a person who does not choose to willfully invoke their 5th amendment rights, can have their subsequent silence used against them. A sex offender in the armed services must like every other citizen who is one, register in the state where he resides. Likewise an insurance beneficiary of a previous divorce, can get paid according to original contract, and no state law can override that.
Just “thinking like a Libertarian” has for the most part made one able to predict the outcome of this court with amazing accuracy. It is really contrary to Allan Loudell’s statement, not a mystery after all….. One just has to think outside the Red and Blue Box…
Jeff Christopher followers stage a show of force to give Sussex County an idea what will happen once a sheriff gets full power to make arrests base on his arbitrary judgment.
All three of his followers think this is what America needs more of.
Between 2010 and 2011, California experienced a drastic 20 percent decrease in juvenile crime–bringing the underage crime rate to the lowest level since the state started keeping records in 1954.
1954.
In that one-year period, the number of arrests for violent crimes dropped by 16 percent, homicide went down by 26 percent and drug arrests decreased by nearly 50 percent.
The vast majority of the drop resulted from far fewer arrests for marijuana possession…..
California’s 2010 law did not legalize marijuana, but it officially knocked down “simple” possession of less than one ounce to an infraction from a misdemeanor–and it applies to minors, not just people over 21. Police don’t arrest people for infractions; usually, they ticket them. And infractions are punishable not by jail time, but by fines–a $100 fine in California..
The study, entitled “California Youth Crime Plunges to All-Time Low” and released by the San Francisco-based Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, looked at the number of people under the age of 18 who were arrested in the state over the past eight decades.
It appears it took a while for America to get smart. While experiencing the enlightenment of marijuana….. kids aren’t committing violent crimes…
It is time to reduce juvenile crime across the entire country…..
Two more sponsors on the position that the debates shut out Gary Johnson, pulled their sponsorships US News and World Reports, reports. Three are out. Seven remain.
Phillips Electronics and the YWCA who were hit with a massive email campaign, yanked their sponsorships over their concern that these debates were partisan and not non-partisan as originally intended. The debate commission being a 501 (c) (3) organization, requires sponsors for its funding, and the loss of two more sponsors will impact it greatly.
The bi-party commission had excluded Gary Johnson because it stated he did not meet the 15% threshold level previously set. There is increasing concern across this nation that the dual bi-partisian commission is intent on keeping third party candidates out of debates. Doing so, would make them partisan and thereby violate the stipulations of their tax status.
The Gary Johnson campaign has a lawsuit on the docket to open the debates to third parties. It appears the court will not overrule the debate commission.
However the loss of a major sponsor could change the tune of the debate commission. The loss of two, could change it faster.
Note: the following sponsors remain. Please email them to withdraw as well.
Anheuser-Busch
Howard G. Buffet Foundation
Sheldon S. Cohen
Crowell & Moring
IBWA
Kovler Fund
Southwest Airlines
kavips 