Wow, an astounding eighty-six new bills were introduced in Congress on Thursday alone. I’m starting to get a headache. How many of these bills are for causes would you voluntarily donate to? Certainly none of these examples are the bailiwick of the Federal Government: [As always my sarcastic criticism is offered in red.]
HR242 – Recognizing the apology offered by the Government of Australia to the aboriginal people and its significance as a gesture of healing for this proud nation. [Huh? The Aussie government apologizes to the aborigines. How is this our business? The arrogance here is nauseating.]
HR1385 – To extend Federal recognition to the Chickahominy Indian Tribe, the Chickahominy Indian Tribe-Eastern Division, the Upper Mattaponi Tribe, the Rappahannock Tribe, Inc., the Monacan Indian Nation, and the Nansemond Indian Tribe.
HR1505 – To authorize the Secretary of Health and Human Services to provide services for birth parents who have placed a child for adoption, and for other purposes.
HR1504 – To require that, in the questionnaires used in the taking of any decennial census of population, a checkbox or other similar option be included so that respondents may indicate Dominican extraction or descent. [The Constitution says that one of the jobs of the federal government is enumeration of the U.S. population. This means they are required to count the number of people living at each address. I have no problem with that. But I do have a problem with being asked about my race, income, and other personal and intrusive questions. If we expect to be a "color-blind" society, we need to disregard race, ethnicity, and skin color in all official capacities.]
HR1502 – To amend title XVIII of the Social Security Act to provide for equity in the calculation of Medicare disproportionate share hospital payments for hospitals in Puerto Rico.
HR1501 – To amend title XVIII of the Social Security Act to increase inpatient hospital payments under the Medicare Program to Puerto Rico hospitals.
HR1494 – To ensure that a private for-profit nursing home affected by a major disaster receives the same reimbursement as a public nursing home affected by a major disaster. [This bill was written by Ron Paul. I don't understand. Clearly, no nursing home (private, public or otherwise) should receive any reimbursement for any major disaster. Do you think you disagree? Please read Davy Crockett vs. Welfare.]
HR1492 – To establish a pilot program to provide assistance for partnerships supporting applied sciences in renewable energy.
HR1490 – To establish a grant program to assist in the provision of safety measures to protect social workers and other professionals who work with at-risk populations.
HR1484 – To award a Congressional Gold Medal to Rabbi Arthur Schneier in recognition of his pioneering role in promoting religious freedom and human rights throughout the world, for close to half a century.
HR1481 – To authorize certain States to prohibit the importation of solid waste from other States, and for other purposes. [The states should not (do not) require authorization from the Feds to prohibit whatever they wish to prohibit, as long as the rights of the individual are not infringed.]
Dave Weigel at Reason magazine sat down with Bob Barr for a kind of exit interview for his failed bid to become the first Libertarian President of the United States. The Ron Paul phenomenon is discussed openly except for one particular answer about access to fund raising lists.
reason: What did matter? Campaign funds? At the convention, Russ Verney told me that he hoped to raise $30 million, and the campaign eventually raised about $1.2 million.
Barr: If certain things had happened that we expected to happen early on, like gaining access to certain lists very quickly, I think we could have gotten there. But those lists turned out to be not available, unfortunately, and that prevented us early to turn over and over again into significant fundraising. We didn’t get that seed money early on that we anticipated. We realistically anticipated it. We didn’t sit around say ‘it would be nice to have all that money.’”
reason: Was one of these Ron Paul’s fundraising list?
Barr: All I can say is that it appeared very realistic that we would have a list that let us raise a large amount of seed money that we could build on. And that didn’t happen.
The New York Times has published their first part of the Ron Paul “answers your questions” interview this morning. One of the questions was regarding running third party or independent after failing to get the GOP nomination. Finally, Dr. Paul explains what Jesse Benton sent us in an email a few days ago.
Q: Even before the primaries, you said you would not run in the general election. Why specifically did you not run?
A: I was running for the Republican nomination, and I would have run in the general if I had won. I had little interest in running third party due to the inherent biases against such efforts. I also signed legally binding agreements not run third party in 2008 if I failed to win the G.O.P. primary. That was the cost for ballot access in several states, 11 total I believe. So even I had wanted to, it would not have been possible to run in the general after I lost the primary.
In another interesting question (That I swear wasn’t submitted by me. Well, truthfully it was.) that Ron Paul sort of “punts” on is about his relationship with Bob Barr.
Q: Did Bob Barr’s failure to appear at your press conference endorsing the third-party vote cause a rift between you and him? Are you still friends with him?
A: That’s old news as far I’m concerned. I’m more interested in focusing on positive things Americans can accomplish moving forward.
He makes a fair point, but he didn’t answer the question. Then again, judging from his answer we can infer the truth. I’m reminded of the age-old axiom, if you don’t have anything nice to say about someone, say nothing at all. I doubt there will be any future joint efforts toward liberty between Paul and Barr. Is it getting cold in here or is it just me?
Judging from some of the comments to the interview we still have a long way to go before people get it through their thick skulls that the government is not a substitute for parenting, hand holding, and individual responsibility.
I recently published my criticism of Ron Paul’s decision to not run as a Third Party or Independent candidate for President once he lost his bid for the GOP nomination. I suggested that he made a poor choice by not doing so because he had the momentum to truly make a mark on this election. I must retract my criticism on this point because, as it turns out, Ron Paul didn’t really have an option.
Ron Paul had no choice in the matter. The GOP primary ballot access laws in several states force candidates to pledge to not run on another party’s ticket if they should not win the Republican nomination. In an email sent to us (included below) by Jesse Benton, Ron Paul’s spokesman and campaign communications manager, clarified this fact:
Marc,
I enjoy your writing very much and check your website regularly. As a fan, I do have clear one point up with you.
Ron Paul could not have run Libertarian if he wanted to. In order to be on the GOP Primary Ballot in at least 11 states, including Texas, Ron had to pledge that he would not seek the presidency on another ticket if he failed to secure the GOP nomination. Not running third party was the price of admission.
We are certainly open to fair criticism of Dr. Paul. But criticizing him for not running third party is not fair criticism. I hope this clears things up.
Best,
Jesse Benton
I replied to Jesse thanking him for the clarification and expressed a wish that Ron Paul had mentioned this fact when asked about a third party run by the media. I was not aware of such rules and I expect many others who have been critical of Paul for “choosing” not to run on another party’s ticket were not aware of such rules.
So in the end, once Ron Paul was on the ballot in one of these “GOP hostage” states he gave up his ability to run outside the Republican Party.
Hopefully, this information will temper the criticism of Ron Paul on this point. Thanks to Jesse Benton for granting me permission to post his email.
A reminder that your vote for any candidate really goes to an unnamed Elector, and a few offbeat ideas on how to change the presidential election.
by Jake, the Champion of the Constitution Originally published November 3, 2008 at http://www.nolanchart.com/article5381.html
The vote for President and Vice President is quite different from any other vote you will cast on Tuesday. When you view your ballot, it has written on it your choices (say you pick John McCain and Sarah Palin) but unlike other votes, this vote does not actually go to Senator McCain nor Governor Palin. Your vote is actually in favor of a pool of specially selected representatives from the Republican Party, equal to your state’s number of electoral votes. These Electors pledge to support their party’s candidates, are NOT constitutionally bound to vote for either McCain or Palin. Electors are chosen by the States and the Electors elect the President and Vice-President. So, in effect, you are voting for a group of Jane or Joe Schmoe’s. [Except in Maine and Nebraska, where things get a little more complicated.]
Today’s article at the Ludwig von Mises Institute describes the farce that is our political system these days, building on quotes from Jesse Ventura, Walter E. Williams, Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Philip Jackson, Murray Rothbard, and James Bovard:
Jesse Ventura, when he’s not talking about 9-11, makes a lot of sense. Describing the two party system to Larry King, he said,
[W]hat you have today is like walking into the grocery store and you go to the soft drink department, and there is only Pepsi and Coke. Those are the two you get to choose from. There is no Mountain Dew, no Root Beer, no Orange. They’re both Colas; one is slightly sweeter than the other, depending on which side of the aisle you are on.
In an interview with Newsmax, he described politicians in the two party system as pro wrestlers.
In pro wrestling, out in front of the people, we make it look like we all hate each other and want to beat the crap out of each other, and that’s how we get your money, [and get you to] come down and buy tickets. They’re the same thing. Out in front of the public and the cameras, they hate each other, are going to beat the crap out of each other, but behind the scenes they’re all going to dinner, cutting deals. And [they're] doing what we did, too — laughing all the way to the bank. And that to me is what you have today, in today’s political world, with these two parties.
Jesse’s right. Our political system is a farce. This year, we have running for president a warmonger who’s a reluctant socialist versus a socialist who’s a reluctant warmonger. We have two parties that claim they’re different, but when the Establishment, the Complex, our shadowy overlords, whatever you want to call them, really want something, they get it. When the Establishment wanted the Bailout in the face of almost universal grassroots opposition, they got it. When the Complex wanted immunity to the telecoms who knowingly spied on Americans, they got it. When our shadowy overlords wanted stormtroopers to brutally stifle protesters during the party conventions, they got it.
But even if voters had a real choice — and even if the politicians followed the majority will on issues that matter — the system would still most likely be a farce. As Augustine observed, without justice, a government is nothing but a band of thieves. Augustine was writing about kingdoms, but his insight applies to democracies as well. Without justice, the ability of the subjects of a government to vote on the laws and rulers that govern them doesn’t make a government any more legitimate than an unjust monarchy. And the founders of this country did not believe democracies were likely to be just.
Ron Paul appeared on MSNBC with Rachel Maddow tonight. He again answered the question about running as an Independent or Third Party candidate with the ballot access spending and marginalization arguments. What Paul doesn’t seem to realize is that his own candidacy on a Third Party/Independent ticket could have been a status quo breaker with the support he had.
He then has some strong words for Maddow’s liberal ears as he attacks Obama and McCain saying they both have the same ideas on foreign policy and monetary policy.
CNN is reporting that a flyer supposedly put out by the Virginia State Board of Elections is being circulated in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia. The problem being, the flyer is fake and attempts to get Democrats to vote on November 5th instead of November 4th.
The flyer states that due to the expected high voter turnout the Virginia General Assembly has voted to split the election over two days instead of one. Those supporting Republican candidates are supposed to vote on November 4th and those supporting Democratic candidates are supposed to vote on the 5th. The flyer itself looks official (sort of). Apparently, officials are investigating the source of the flyer.
There are Four Official Write-In Candidates on the ballot in California: Chuck Baldwin (Constitution Party), James Harris (Socialist Workers Party), Frank Moore (independent), and, NOW, RON PAUL! If you write in EITHER of these Candidates, your votes WILL be counted, and the public and the politicians WILL see those numbers.
However, the fact that it is the very state of California has even greater significance. There are 55 electors in California. There are 3 electors in Montana, and 9 in Louisiana, the two states for which Ron Paul is on the ballot. That is a total of 68 total electoral votes which he could potentially win. In a close election, he could actually throw the election to the House of Representatives.
For anyone who has been dissatisfied with the two current choices, or who has been wanting to vote for a 3rd party candidate, but unable, LET EVERYONE YOU KNOW in those three states about their choices. Let your vote count this election!
It appears that even though the Libertarian Party had met the requirements for ballot access in the state of Connecticut, a federal judge ruled today that “elections officials cannot be forced to add the Libertarian Party’s presidential ticket to the Nov. 4 state ballot.” According to the Associated Press:
U.S. District Judge Janet C. Hall said the Connecticut Libertarians waited too long to file their challenge, in which they said the candidates were denied a place on the ballot over questions about petition signatures.
Forcing elections officials to change Connecticut’s ballot less than two weeks before the vote would cause confusion and unreasonable expense, Hall said in her ruling Thursday.
And in a letter from the Barr campaign, Russ Verney wrote, in part:
As of this afternoon, we finally know the results of our ballot access efforts throughout this campaign.
A Connecticut judge allowed the state to keep us off of the ballot even though we had met the requirement.
The state employees in Connecticut not only improperly struck signatures that we had collected, but also miscounted our signatures.
After hearing from a technical expert on electronic voting machines, the judge decided that it would be too big of a burden to add Bob to the ballot even though the state was at fault.
I cannot express to you how much this upsets me.
Our republic managed to survive while using paper ballots for 100-plus years. The state could have printed paper ballots in a matter of days and thrown the electronic voting machines in the river if they are so difficult to deal with!
While an emergency appeal can be filed, our party who was funding the case has decided against it and honestly, after looking at our finances, we cannot afford an appeal.
I pledge to you that we will work together to correct this injustice after the election – and the many others like it in other states. I’m sure that many of Bob’s supporters will join us in our efforts.
While this last disappointment is our greatest, we have been successful. Bob’s name will appear before 95% of voters across America – more than any other third party candidate in 2008!
I am very thankful for this and expect that, given the failure of John McCain’s campaign, we will garner many more votes than expected.
Voters across America who were uncomfortable voting for McCain but were still willing to do so just for the sake of winning no longer enjoy that option. Now they can exit the voting booth with their heads held high knowing that they cast a vote for principle by voting for Bob Barr.
Liberty Maven
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