Voting

Dear Friends & Members:

Anti-petition bill -- set for a hearing THIS WEDNESDAY 9:30 am --
to more than double petition signatures for citizen's charter  
amendments.  (Details below.)

        State Senator Jeff Wentworth is sponsoring SB 690 (details below) at  
the request of the Austin Chamber of Commerce to raise the signatures  
from 5 to 10% of registered voters and to remove the 20,000 signature  
cap.

        Call Senator Wentworth's office (512) 463-0125.  Ask Sen. Wentworth  
to pull SB 690 down.

"It’s not often that we’re treated to this spectacular an example of how absurd it is to put any faith in elections, democracy, and “majority rule.”

"First, it must be pointed out that even if there were a perfect way for democracy to be administered, it would still be utterly immoral and completely illegitimate. As Benjamin Franklin put it, democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner. To put it even more bluntly, there’s another good example of true democracy in action: gang rape.

...

"The federal government, in their zeal for campaign finance reform, have given Libertarians a great gift. Quite simply, they have created the framework for a decentralized way of campaigning, a system perfectly suited to our way of doing politics.

"From the Libertarian perspective, it was easy to predict that so-called campaign finance reform would not succeed in banning anything. People would simply find new creative ways to raise the money to do whatever they wanted anyway. And indeed this has come to pass. In the last election, we saw this new form of politics in action. It is the 527.

When I ran for president in 2004 on the Personal Choice Party ticket,
people would ask me, "Why are you running? There's already a
libertarian in this race."

Certainly they had a point.

But now, four years later, as the nominee of the Boston Tea Party, I
could give you 100 reasons why I'm in this race. And every day, it
seems like there's a new one.

I believe, as I'm sure you do, that we need a presidential candidate
who champions liberty. After all, how many people became libertarians
thanks to the presidential campaigns of men like David Bergland, Harry
Browne, and Ron Paul?

Our favorite libertarian non-Libertarian, Ron Paul, has more to teach us all. He can do still more to educate. Keep him going. Now we can forget his nominal Republican label. Just think of him as the best Texas straight talker and most libertarian thinking in the public eye. Come November, if you do vote (not voting is fine with me), but are tempted by None Of The Above (NOTA), consider writing in Ron Paul for President.

Velvet Revolution has offered $100,000 for a whistle blower willing to step forward and tell the truth about New Hampshire. Most of us believe there was focused and massive fraud practiced during the vote in New Hampshire last Tuesday. Now,what are we going to do about it?

We need a whistle blower and we need them right now.

We need a Ballot Bomb: $300,000.00 before Friday for the recount in New Hampshire. This was we can make all the Greedy, corporate, pundits, think tanks, and greed candidates cry.

From the "Anything to keep power" cabal, comes the latest on how to screw Dr. Ron Paul...

Many states, in an effort to shut out Ron Paul are now closing their primaries. That means that only Republicans can vote in the Presidential primaries for a Republican candidate. Many states are doing this quickly and quietly and giving people very little time to learn about the new rules. For example, New Hampshire decided only a week ago that you will now have to change your party affiliation by October 12, 2007 or it will be too late to do so. New Hampshire also has a closed primary and only Republicans and possibly Independents will be allowed to vote for Ron Paul.

Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis famously said “Sunlight is the best disinfectant.” Indeed some of the most malignant growth of our government has been nurtured under a cover of darkness.

Literally, in the dark hours of the morning at the end of the year, it has become tradition for the Appropriations committee to rush the famous omnibus bill to the floor for a vote, mere hours after it is introduced. The vote took place at 4 am the last time an omnibus spending bill was before us. We had all of 4 hours to deliberate on almost 1400 pages of important legislation. My colleagues somehow found this acceptable, however, and the bill passed 212-206.

Last week this column addressed the train wreck that federal spending has become. To score political points politicians will make loud noise about fairly small matters such as earmarks, even while refusing to address the real problem. Namely, that our federal government is too big and does too much. Politicians prefer to pass a bill or create a program every time somebody points to a new social problem, this way they can tell their constituents how much they are doing to help. Instead of rationally explaining the proper role of government, politicians have attempted to play the role of friend, preacher, parent, social worker, etcetera-- in essence, whatever any organized special interest can demand.

Fort Bragg, CA -- Citing overwhelming support from his own party's members
and lackluster response to Libertarian presidential campaigns, Steve Kubby
today endorsed US Representative Ron Paul's campaign for the Republican
Party's 2008 presidential nomination. Kubby, a candidate in his own party's
presidential contest, made the endorsement in an interview from his home in
Mendocino County, California.

"I am not, and have never been, a Republican," says Kubby, 60, best known
for his work for cannabis legalization and on behalf of medical marijuana
patients. "For me, the Libertarian Party has always been, and remains, our
last best hope for achieving freedom through the American political process.
And until recently my position was that the Libertarian Party needed to
stick to its own guns, stake out its own territory. But sometimes a special
situation comes along."

There will be a great deal of talk about different styles of politics, as if politics was really just a hairdo. Snip-snip, roll, grip, spray, a quick session under the hairdryer and bob’s-yer-uncle: a brand new political hair style. Gordon Brown is a mullet, Tony Blair is a perm....

All the reasons given to justify a preemptive strike against Iraq were wrong. Congress and the American people were misled.

Support for the war came from various special interests that had agitated for an invasion of Iraq since 1998. The Iraq Liberation Act, passed by Congress and signed into law by President Clinton, stated that getting rid of Saddam Hussein was official U.S. policy. This policy was carried out in 2003.

Congress failed miserably in meeting its crucial obligations as the branch of government charged with deciding whether to declare war. It wrongly and unconstitutionally transferred this power to the president, and the president did not hesitate to use it.

I received a call from the Senate Intergovernmental Affairs  
Committee staff person who told me that they have gotten the message  
that you oppose SB 1884 to make it more difficult for citizen's  
petitioning on city charter amendments!  They have kindly asked us to  
please refer calls directly to the author, Sen. Kirk Watson -- so  
please stop calls to the Committee office.  Instead, please call to  
express your opposition to SB 1184 to Senator Watson's office at  
512-463-0114.  Please be polite and firm.  If anything, he should  
make it easier for citizen's initiatives and referendums.  Then, you  
can email the entire committee listed here.  Don't forget the chair  
and vice-chairs of this committee.