Category Archives: self

Recently, there has been a victory and a defeat regarding the indefinite detention provision of the Fiscal Year (FY)2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Chris Hedges meets with and writes stories about terrorists and believes the indefinite detention provision of NDAA could allow him to be detained. Hedges filed a lawsuit against President Obama and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta claiming the provision, as applied, violates the 1st and 5th Amendments. The Judge asked the federal attorneys a crucial question, “are you telling me that no US citizen can be detained under 1021 (of the NDAA)?” A specific denial would have ended Hedges’ case, the Federal attorneys failed to answer directly.

DownsizeDC – an advocacy group seeking to “to foster human progress by reducing State coercion” – filed the only amicus brief in the case and reports, “The Judge agreed with two of our main arguments. We said the new law is…

• Illegally vague. The Judge said there has to be a precise definition of who is subject to the law, and this law fails.
• Unfair, because it subjects people to detention even when they had no intent to cause harm or knowledge that they were risking such detention.”

U.S. District Judge Katherine B. Forrest not only gave Hedges standing to challenge the law, she also issued an injunction to halt the legalized kidnappings!

The day after Judge Forrest issued her decision, Representatives Justin Amash (R–MI) and Adam Smith (D–WA) proposed an amendment to the FY2013 NDAA, that would strike section 1022 of the FY2012 NDAA and amend Section 1021 of the same Act to eliminate indefinite military detention for anyone detained in the jurisdiction of the United States of America.

The New York Times reports, “the left-right coalition fizzled in the face of charges that the two lawmakers were coddling terrorists.”

Even after the indefinite detention provision was ruled to be illegal, the Congress failed to repeal the section of law. The Chicago Police Department took their defiance of the Court one step farther. TruthOut Assistant Editor Yana Kunichoff reports, “A pre-emptive raid by the Chicago Police Department (CPD) on the home of two Occupy Chicago activists may have happened without a search warrant, said the National Lawyers Guild (NLG), and led to the disappearance of nine activists into police custody without charge for almost 24 hours.”

Zoe Sigman, an Occupy Chicago activist whose home was raided, said, “I’d like to stress that we have done nothing wrong. We have been planning to protest NATO and there is nothing illegal about expressing our feelings about a war machine. Now we’re being treated as mere criminals.” The CPD has released claims that the raid recovered Molotov cocktails, though activists said that the equipment is merely for home brewing of beer.

One protester said, “it’s important to continue protesting, because this tactic was obviously an attempt to intimidate.” I urge you to continue speaking out against tyranny, and I intend to do the same.

I love me the blogosphere. It is a fantastic thing. Blogs gave us the first chance to get out from under the mainstream media. They provide an incredible opportunity to connect with like minded people and get the information that you want. I am committed to the medium and hope to continue to produce in it. They have a downfall as well though. James Lileks has talked about the concept of “non-contiguous information streams”. Blogs, and the increasingly fragmented cable news market, allowed people to get the information they wanted, and ONLY the information they wanted, to the exclusion of all other information. This made it easier for otherwise smart people to maintain some really silly ideas. On the left, it convinced people that the run up to the 2004 election was a really good time for a gay marriage push. On the right, it tragically maintains the idea that we need a bigger defense budget to deal with a bunch of fanatical Islamist peasants in tents than we needed to deal with Hitler or the Soviet Union.

Twitter, Tumblr and Facebook are now dramatically more important than the blogosphere. Pundits who used to maintain well thought out blogs, are devoting more of their time to these other services. It is a bit of a tragedy for those of us who remember the vibrancy of thought and significance that blogs once had. But, crucially, these systems avoid the problem described above. By expressing yourself on Twitter, and especially on Facebook, you are getting out of the echo chamber. see more…

President Obama and presumed GOP Presidential nominee Mitt Romney have both made public statements about marriage recently. Obama claims that his views have evolved over the years and told ABC News, “At a certain point, I’ve just concluded, that for me, personally, it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.” Obama explained he was stating his personal opinion and supports the right of the states to make their own decisions. Romney reiterated his stance that marriage is between one man and one woman. As Governor of Massachusetts, Romney said, “I agree with 3,000 years of recorded history. Marriage is an institution between a man and a woman.”

Romney’s position may be consistent, however it is not historically accurate. Until recently, consensual polygamy was a fairly common and accepted practice, and is still common in some parts of the world. Which meant that marriage could be a man and multiple women, a woman and multiple men or multiple men and multiple women. Additionally, Romney’s position – and to a certain extent Obama’s position – implies that governments have been involved in marriage for nearly 3,000 years. This is not true. Daniel Waechter of PrivatizeMarriage.org writes, “marriage licenses have only existed on any significant scale since 1929. No one in the US before that was required to have a marriage license in order to practice their fundamental right to marry.”

Historically marriage has been handled by churches, not government. Jesse Kline of the National Post writes, “the central question… is whether the state should be dictating the domestic arrangements of consenting adults.”

Getting government out of the business of issuing – and in most case “requiring”– a marriage license will be a challenge because government doesn’t like giving up power it has, nor does government like losing revenue sources once obtained. Providing marriage licenses is big business for the state. On average, 2.3 million couples are married per year in the United States, with the average marriage license costing $33.74; that provides a steady stream of income (roughly $77.6 million) for those who want control over your life.

People have become too accepting of government licensing and regulation. If you don’t want government regulating who you can share Thanksgiving dinner with, if/where you attend church or who you can date; why then are you willing to accept regulations on your committed relationships?

Spotted at the Nevada GOP state convention by Gene Hahn.

Over the past several days, two political parties have been holding their national conventions. One party holds all conventions online, with online voting and no overhead (other than cost of getting online) for party members who wish to participate. The other party regularly holds conventions in upscale hotels and has recently adopted a mandatory fee for any party member who wishes to be a delegate.

The first party, which holds conventions online, is able to hold multiple votes at the same time and party members elected NOTA to two positions on the National Committee, which under party bylaws means the positions will remain unfilled. After an objection to fill the “vacancy” created by electing NOTA, the Chair ruled the motion out of order and the the party founder stated, “if the members choose ‘None of the Above’ to fill an office, the office goes unfilled… it’s the members saying that there’s nobody they want in that office.” During the brief dispute, Robert’s Rules of Order were never quoted and there was no need for a parliamentarian.

The second party, which excludes party members who can’t afford to attend the convention, can only accommodate one vote at a time. Disputes can cause the process to continue for hours on end, and that happened this weekend. Reason.com reports that it began Saturday afternoon when one delegate pushed for someone to speak on behalf of NOTA for Chair. The only two candidates were the current Chair & current Vice-Chair, plus NOTA. The current Chair was eliminated on the first ballot, in the second round, NOTA beat the Vice-Chair. Immediately after the vote was announced one delegate alleged vote tampering and a new round of balloting took place. The delegates voted to ignore the results of both the second ballot and the re-vote. The events carried over into Sunday and more candidates were added to the race. During this disputed election, Robert’s Rules of Order were quoted many times and there was a need for a parliamentarian. Delegates to the convention then had to hurry to elect a Vice-Chair, Secretary, Treasurer & At-Large Representatives to the National Committee.

One of these parties has only been around for 6 years, the other for 40.

If you guessed that the party that had a dysfunctional Chair election was the newer party, you would be incorrect. The party with the dysfunctional Chair election is the Libertarian Party, and the party that elected NOTA to two positions on the National Committee is the younger, Boston Tea Party (not to be confused with the Boston affiliate of the “Taxed Enough Already” groups).

There are other differences between the two parties. For example, the LP will be running hundreds of candidates with ballot access in almost every State, while the BTP will likely only run Presidential ticket with ballot access in a handful of States. The LP platform is modified every two years, the BTP platform can never be changed and forever reads, “The Boston Tea Party supports reducing the size, scope and power of government at all levels and on all issues, and opposes increasing the size, scope and power of government at any level, for any purpose.”

The BTP continues to experience growing pains, however the LP is proving that age does not always equal wisdom.

In March, Kevin Brady (R-TX) introduced H.R.4180 (Sound Dollar Act) and Mike Lee (R-UT) introduced a companion bill (S.2247 Federal Reserve Modernization Act) in the Senate. These two bills are actually seven pieces of legislation, put into a single bill.

The first part of this bill is the “Single Mandate For Price Stability Act” which states the “Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Federal Open Market Committee shall… define the term `long-term price stability’… and… establish metrics that the Board and the Committee will use to evaluate whether long-term price stability is being achieved.” When establishing these metrics, the “Board and Committee shall… take into consideration price indices of goods and services.” The Federal Reserve Board will also issue reports to Congress with “a determination of whether the goal of long-term price stability is being met and, if such goal is not being met, an explanation of why the goal is not being met and the steps that the Board and the Federal Open Market Committee will take to ensure that the goal is met in the future.”

The “Financial Stability And Moral Hazard Mitigation Act” specifies that “the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System shall clearly articulate the Board’s lender-of-last-resort policy.” The “Diversifying The Federal Open Market Committee To Reflect A 21st Century Economy Act” changes how members are elected to the Federal Open Market Committee. The act species that “1 representative from each of the Federal Reserve banks… shall be elected by the board of directors of the Federal Reserve bank that they are to represent,” whereas the committee currently has five members, each member representing between 1 and 3 regional banks.

Title 4 of this bill, “Demystification Of Monetary Policy Decisions Act,” states that the monetary policy committee “shall release meeting transcripts to the public not later than the end of the 3-year period following each meeting.” Title 5, “Exchange Rate Responsibility Act” changes the name of the “Exchange Stabilization Fund” to “Special Drawing Rights Fund” and directs the Secretary of the Treasury to “liquidate all property in the Special Drawing Rights Fund… and use all such amounts to reduce the public debt.”

Title 6, the “Credit Allocation Neutrality Act” specifies that the Federal Open Market Committee “may authorize any Federal reserve bank… to buy and sell… bills, notes, revenue bonds, and warrants” that mature within 6 months “in anticipation of the receipt of assured revenues” by any government or government agency.

Title 7 the “Bureau Of Consumer Financial Protection Funding Act” would give Congress limited oversight of Fed spending, if such spending were deemed unrelated to “the safety, soundness, and smooth functioning of the Nation’s banking and payments systems.” Given that other parts of this bill increase the Fed’s powers, I doubt Congress would claim any activity by the Fed to be unrelated to the safety, soundness, or smooth functioning of the banking industry.

There is nothing in this bill that would prevent the Federal Reserve from continuing to inflate the currency. Nothing to prevent future cycles of “boom and bust.” The “Sound Dollar Act” is another misnamed piece of legislation designed to trick the American people into supporting bad legislation. Instead of passing this bill, the Congress should pass the Free Competition in Currency Act which repeals the legal tender law, repeals the government monopoly over the creation of coins for use as currency and prohibits federal and state taxes on precious metal coins and bullion.