http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dK8Y2nO_8TM

Compare that interview with the rather hard-hitting tough journalistic interview Judge Andrew Napolitano did last night with The other Donald:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-cqq-WxhRM

And here is the Judge after the interview, saying that Rumsfeld described the interview as the “toughest” he’s had. I’m thinking he wishes he’d rather be asked if he’s a lizard by Louis CK than be interviewed by the Judge again.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpYe0MgEsI0

Ron Paul also talks about becoming the new Chairman of the Financial Services Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy with the GOP taking control of the House.

The subcommittee’s jurisdiction includes domestic monetary policy, and agencies which directly or indirectly affect domestic monetary policy, multilateral development lending institutions such as the World Bank, coins and currency including operations of the Bureau of the Mint and the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, and international trade and finance including all matters pertaining to the International Monetary Fund and the Export-Import Bank.

I don’t think there could be a more perfect subcommittee for Ron Paul.

Later in the interview Judge Napolitano joins the discussion. Check it out below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZWhf8ejBrU

Most of them are, more or less, accusing the Judge of selling out by having guests such as Sarah Palin and Dick Armey on his debut show. I thought the show was excellent and just illustrated the point I was trying to make in my recent article, “Rand Paul is the purple pill“.

The Judge used his debut show to bring together various factions to find some common ground on the issues. How fitting it was to see Rand Paul sitting between Ron Paul and Sarah Palin on the show. I’m not sure if this seating arrangement was purpose-driven, but it certainly seemed like it could have been deliberate. Rand Paul represents the “coming together” of these factions into a more effective liberty-driven whole.

No, Sarah Palin is certainly not as close to perfect on liberty as Ron Paul, and Rand Paul is somewhere in-between. That in-between is the pathway Judge Napolitano attempted to cultivate in the show. I thought he was quite successful in that endeavor.

However, I’m miffed by one aspect of the show. The Judge chose not to end the show with his usual tag line, “Stay Free… America!”

Instead, he ended with, “So long… America!”

Hmm.. do you think he’s trying to tell us something?

—–

Watch the Freedom Watch debut.

Paul suggested Judge Andrew Napolitano as a potential replacement for Justice Stevens. He then uses his ample time to discuss the future direction of America should be toward libertarianism. He argues that libertarian ideas can bring together the Progressives and the Constitutional Conservatives. It was quite an interesting discussion. Check it out below. The video is in 5 parts.

httpvp://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=20F79F4A3CE456BC

As I sat in the audience following Judge Andrew Napolitano’s speech during the Liberty Forum at CPAC 2010 I couldn’t help but wish he was delivering it in the main ballroom on the final afternoon leading in to Glenn Beck’s keynote. Then again, he may have been booed, but that wouldn’t have stopped him.

While Glenn Beck’s speech was very good and included arguments the GOP needed to hear, the Judge’s speech was an uncompromising and no-holds-barred session of truth-telling.

Watch Judge Napolitano’s speech below. If you’d like to watch the entire Liberty Forum the complete playlist is available here and the question and answer session is here.

httpvp://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=640F410A38F85107

We arrived at the hotel around 11am, checked in and headed to the C4L booth to pick up our “credentials”. We then wandered around aimlessly for a bit looking for the “XPAC Lounge” to get good seats for the live Freedom Watch show set for 12:30pm.

Here are a few pics of the Judge preparing for the show. Click on them to see the larger versions.

Notice the backs of the Judge’s first guests, Tom DiLorenzo, Jacob Hornberger, and Tom Woods. The show began…

And at the end of the great show I met the producer George Szucs and the Judge. He thanked us for our work on FreedomWatchonFox.com and agreed to a picture.

We took a break for lunch and dinner then went to the Liberty Forum where Ron Paul and Judge Napolitano gave inspiring speeches. The Judge’s speech was amazing. They then took questions with Tom Woods moderating, going over the allotted time, of course. Interestingly, there were many questions on foreign policy from some that did not necessarily agree with Paul’s non-interventionism. He handled the questions well, but I’m not sure any minds were changed.

Following the forum, we headed down to the Young Americans for Liberty (YAL) after party. While there we met Michael Maresco, aka the Ron Paul Rider, the man who rode a bike across America twice, spreading the liberty message. I use one of his pictures from his ride as my computer background. He thanked us for helping him spread the message about his ride from the beginning. What a nice guy. He was the one that did all the work and he was thanking us.

The Campaign for Liberty is everywhere here at CPAC. While we are definitely making a mark I still get the feeling we are the radical subversives of the conference. I’m really excited for the panel on Saturday at 2pm, “You’ve Been Lied To: Why Real Conservatives are Against the War on Terror”. The only problem is that it is scheduled for the same time as the speech by Newt Gingrich. Is it too much to hope that they mix up the rooms so the Gingrich-loving interventionists get a dose of the Old Right philosophy of non-intervention?

The first day/night of CPAC is now complete. Look for the 2nd day update sometime tomorrow night or early Saturday morning.

]]> http://libertymaven.com/2010/02/19/cpac-day-1-liberty-maven-judge-napolitano-and-the-ron-paul-rider/8984/feed/ 8 http://libertymaven.com/2010/01/29/judge-napolitano-on-justice-alitos-not-true-moment/8816/ http://libertymaven.com/2010/01/29/judge-napolitano-on-justice-alitos-not-true-moment/8816/#comments Fri, 29 Jan 2010 07:37:39 +0000 Marc Gallagher http://libertymaven.com/?p=8816 Judge Andrew Napolitano, the freedom-loving host of Freedom Watch, penned a column describing in detail why Obama was wrong and Justice Alito was right, when Alito mouthed the words “not true” during the State of the Union speech on Wednesday night.

The Supreme Court issued a ruling last week on the campaign finance that is still being discussed all over the country. In fact, it was even mentioned by President Obama at Wednesday night’s State of the Union address. The high court invalidated its own 20-year-old ruling — which had upheld a one hundred-year-old statute on group political contributions — and it also invalidated a portion of the McCain-Feingold Campaign finance law.

The 20-year-old ruling had forbidden any political spending by groups such as corporations, labor unions, and advocacy organizations (like the NRA and Planned Parenthood, for example). Ruling that all persons, individually and in groups, have the same unfettered free speech rights, the court blasted Congress for suppression of that speech. In effect, the court asked, “What part of ‘Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech’ does Congress not understand?” Thus, all groups of two or more persons are free to spend their own money on any political campaigns and to mention the names of the candidates in their materials.

The Judge later appeared on Fox Business News with David Asman to discuss the topic. Check it out below. It appears that Justice Alito’s “Not true” was more right than the snake oil salesman Obama would ever admit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RbLbeGi8GM

Back in December 2009 ABC’s John Stossel switched to Fox and began his own hour long show on the Fox Business Channel. His show is probably somewhere in between Beck’s moderate form of libertarianism and Judge Napolitano’s purist libertarianism on Freedom Watch. Does this mean libertarianism is no longer a dirty word among establishment politicos? Not quite yet, I’m afraid.

The Judge’s show is still only available online and replays are aired on Fox Radio on the weekends. Beck’s claims of libertarianism are difficult to reconcile with his stance on torture and foreign intervention; although, to his credit he has softened his position on foreign wars in the last year. Stossel’s show is on the Fox Business Channel which isn’t the juggernaut in ratings the Fox News Channel has become. Still these three shows could signal a slow evolution toward making libertarianism more mainstream in America.

If you’ve never seen Freedom Watch you can check out all the past shows at FreedomWatchonFox.com. As for Stossel you can watch each of the four shows he’s had so far at the bottom of this article. His show is must-see TV for free marketers and libertarian-minded people every where.

1: Stossel on Global Warming
httpvp://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=2A99D3B5EFFFA72C

2: Stossel on Health Care
httpvp://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=9B5EFB14B5B71F60

3: Stossel on Atlas Shrugged / Ayn Rand
httpvp://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=12C77F036DA0A7F8

4: Stossel on Crony Capitalism (Corporatism)
httpvp://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=B6B57159EDEADD68

“I just don’t think she possesses the mental capacity to be the President of the United States. She’s a goofball!”

So everyone’s favorite host of Freedom Watch has weighed in on Sarah Palin. To me, she’s a completely divisive figure. People seem to either idolize her or loathe her. I don’t think she has much chance of being the next POTUS. In fact, I’d be surprised if she did better than Giuliani did in the GOP primaries of 2008.

For more about what lead up to the Judge’s “straight talk” listen to the audio:

(Thanks to Media Matters for the audio)

Directly following his monologue he talks with authors, Tom Woods and Kevin Gutzman regarding the Constitution, enumerated powers, and nullification. This show is a must-see for all of us.

Watch the entire show below, but if you don’t have time then take 10 and watch the first segment. It makes me happy that Beck has obviously given the Judge near free reign about what guests appear on the show and the topics that are discussed.

When the Judge is host of the Glenn Beck show, the show is no longer the Glenn Beck show. It becomes Freedom Watch, the Judge’s current online only show.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YHcOFzyyZo

Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6

If you don’t know what Freedom Watch is then please check out http://freedomwatchonfox.com/. It’s an online only show hosted by the Judge catering to freedom-loving people everywhere.

Check out the excellent discussions from the show today below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUAFwo2BafY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pr2W7dqytKg

Fox News legal commentator Judge Andrew Napolitano’s Internet program Freedom Watch is one of the most fascinating phenomena in the history of the libertarian movement. There’s never been anything like it and if it were to break out to the Fox News television channel, it would constitute nothing less than a revolutionary development in American politics.

Take a look at the guests that Napolitano has been having on his show: Lew Rockwell, Bob Higgs, James Bovard, Paul Armentano, Ron Paul, Roger Pilon, Tom Woods, Pete Eyre, Nick Gillespie, David Boaz, Peter Schiff, Walter Block, and many more. Every one of them is a major figure in the libertarian movement. I myself have been on Napolitano’s show twice.

How many times have you seen any of these guests on the mainstream television talk shows or even on the cable television talk shows? My hunch is that your answer is “Rarely, if ever.”

For years, conservatives and liberals have played their little games of pretending to have debates over policy, acting as if there were fundamental philosophical differences between the two. In actuality, the debates have always been over which form of statism is preferable — conservative statism or liberal statism.

Read the rest here.

I attended a FFF sponsored event at George Mason University last night. Robert Higgs delivered one of the best speeches I’ve heard yet. He compared and contrasted the Great Depression with our current economic woes. Look for the video later this week. You don’t want to miss it.