Author Archives: Stephen Gordon

It’s truly grand not to be living in a place like the former Soviet Union, where they’d lock people up in mental asylums for vocalizing their political protests.

There is no way something like this might ever happen in the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Fisher is on the staff of Revolution Books, and on January 28, while she was putting Bush Step Down posters on telephone polls in Cleveland Heights, she was ordered by a police officer to take them down or face a fine. When she complied, she was asked for her ID, which she did not have on her. He then grabbed her by the arm, pushed her against a store window, and knocked her face down onto the sidewalk. He was joined by another officer, and they both pressed their feet against her back until she could not breathe. Her chin was pressed down into the concrete; Fisher has osteoradionecrosis in her jaw from radiation treatments for cancer.

Fisher was handcuffed and shackled. During this time, Fisher yelled out to everyone who passed what the posters were about. One of the police officers then told her, Fisher says, to “Shut up or I will kill you! I am sick of this anti-Bush shit! You are definitely going to the psyche ward.”

She was then threatened some more and taken away in an EMS truck. At the hospital, Fisher was asked to undress in front of the police officers, which she refused to do. The officers refused to leave, so a nurse attempted to shield her while she undressed. Fisher says she was then cuffed to the bed, given an IV of some sort, and made to wait hours for a psychiatrist to interview her. By this time, members of her World Can’t Wait group were in the emergency room having a confrontation with the police, who refused to let them see Fisher. Someone called the news media, who never made an appearance.

OK, I know. Things like this happen, but at least we have a more reasonable judicial system to ensure that justice is eventually served:

During the hearing, Judge McGinty made other strange requests baffling attorneys, asking defense counsel to openly read a lengthy message on Fisher’s t-shirt, saying:

“Wanted for Illegally Crossing Borders: The Bush Regime. If you are going to insist that crossing borders illegally is a crime which cannot be tolerated, how about George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice (and yes, Colin Powell) and the rest of that gang, with their highly illegal, and violent, ‘crossing of the border’-into Iraq, among other places?!”

Judge McGinty then said this was proof of her delusional state, adding that “Carol wants to go to jail and that she has a martyr complex.” Fisher had initially refused to taking a state ordered psych _eval, saying there was no reason for it due to the fact American citizens have the right to express political opinions in an open and honest fashion.

However, Judge McGinty’s response to Fisher’s refusal and statements was simply that “I don’t negotiate with felons.”

Fortunately, we don’t live in a place like the former Soviet Union where they confine political dissidents in mental hospitals and stifle organized political resistance. In AmeriKKKa, we truly can thank our “lucky stars, to be livin here today. ‘Cause the flag still stands for freedom, and they can’t take that away.”

No matter your opinion of Al Gore, this one is funny:

OK, this is getting tiresome already. Another newspaper is unfairly trying to tie the Libertarian Party to white supremacist Larry Darby on yet another issue. As I just explained, the Libertarian Party of Alabama rejected Darby very quickly in 2002.

State attorney general candidate Larry Darby wants to protect the Southern culture.

So the Montgomery Libertarian-turned-Democrat has a plan, including declaring martial law, that he says would solve the illegal immigrant problem and re-establish Alabama’s sovereignty.

Darby’s opponent in the Democratic primary is John Tyson Jr. Incumbent Troy King or Mark Montiel will face off in the Republican primary. The primaries are June 6.

Darby began his campaign for state attorney general in 2002, but ended that campaign after a few weeks. He said he now considers himself a “Dixiecrat.”

Trying to run as a Libertarian for a few weeks does not make one a Libertarian candidate. He probably (I have not yet verified the records) paid some party dues at one time, but we can’t force members through lie detectors. This continued mention of Darby as a Libertarian while the local press continues to ignore the real Libertarian candidates (like Nall, who is getting national media attention) has to end. It looks like time to start contacting editors to let them know that we ain’t gonna take this anymore. I’m now embarrassed that I used to write op-eds for The Decatur Daily a few years ago.

I’ll make this clear. While I don’t know if Darby made it to this KKK anti-immigration rally and cross burning, it seems clear that he would support it. Contrast that to Nall’s view, which was ignored by the same media:

On May 1, I spoke at two different immigration reform rallies. One at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa and one at St. Andrews Episcopal Church in Montevallo, AL. As a Libertarian I support the workers who are already here and do not wish to see them targeted by police if all they are doing is working hard and taking care of their families. Being anti-immigrant is Un-American. We need to reform immigration laws and make it a fairer process and then there would not be so many coming across the border illegally.

From her platform:

As the Libertarian party candidate for Governor of Alabama I would like the Hispanic community in Alabama to know that I support a guest worker program. Much of the rhetoric we are hearing with regard to immigration has roots in racism and has nothing to do with money. Of the four solutions that have been put forward, naturalization of Hispanics already inside Alabama who are working and paying taxes seems the only reasonable thing to do. We want people to come here who are willing to work and from what I have witnessed the Hispanics in Alabama do just that.

Since the morons in the press are having problems figuring this one out, I’ll clarify: the Libertarians are the only ones running non-racist platforms in Alabama.

My cell phone has been ringing and my e-mails are flying since this story hit the front page of Yahoo News:

Democratic Party leaders are wondering what to do about a candidate for attorney general who denies the Holocaust occurred and wants to “reawaken white racial awareness.”

Larry Darby, the founder of the Atheist Law Center, made an abortive bid for the AG job as a Libertarian in 2002, but only recently have his views on race and the Holocaust come to light.

He has no money for campaign advertising and has made only a few campaign speeches, but garnered 12 percent support in the June 6 primary in a poll of 400 registered voters last month.

Let me make something clear. Darby tried to be a Libertarian Party candidate in 2002, but dropped out even before the LP convention. State LP Chair Dick Clark told me his assessment of why Darby dropped was due to a lack of libertarian support because he was prostelitizing atheism as opposed to advancing a libertarian message. Any racist views he held were not made public (that I know of) until much later.

The first I heard of Darby’s racist tendencies was when he attempted to hijack Loretta Nall’s press conference announcing her candidacy for governor of Alabama. From Nall:

In all honesty I did not know that Larry Darby was a white supremacist/holocaust denier until he attended my news conference on the steps of the State Capitol and made it a point to inform the media of his stance on those particular issues.

Had there been a rock large enough for me to crawl under at that time I think I might actually have done it.

I vehemently disagree with Mr. Darby’s viewpoints on white supremacy and the holocaust. I find them offensive. I, however, respect his right to hold those views no matter how offensive I might find them. We all share the same freedoms regardless of how we choose to exercise them. To take away one’s freedom to think repugnant thoughts is to also take away my right and yours to think nice, tolerant, peaceful ones.

Loretta Nall is at my place right now, and restated her unquestionably strong statement on the topic, “Anyone who knows me personally knows that any charges of me being a white supremacist or a holocaust-denier are utter horseshit.”

Nall also recently spoke (video) at the Alabama Black Mayors’ Conference.

A lot of the recent controversy started with this comment to Randy Volokh.

In my investigations of modern mythology, such as the Six Millions Lie, which by the way was first trotted out by Zionists during or immediately after World War One, there is a nasty aspect that is too often ignored – that of Jewish Supremacism. I’ve noticed megalomania or superiority complexes even with so-called secular Jews. Even though so-called secular Jews reject the existence of YHWH (the Jewish God of War, the surviving god of all the gods Jews once worshiped) who made them the Master Race, according to the Tanakh, so-called secular Jews are still Jewish Supremacists.

If you are interested, there is more on the long exchange between Volokh and Darby here.

Something important is to be noted. Even before the racist issues came to light, Darby could not obtain enough Libertarian (at no expense to the taxpayers) support to run for office on the Libertarian ticket. He is now running for office as a Democrat in a taxpayer supported primary election.

To the best of my knowledge, what was reported in the AP wire (which has already been covered internationally and by major papers like WaPo) is technically accurate.

While what he wrote was factually correct, throwing the Libertarian angle into this story was a cheap shot by Jay Reeves. While Reeves brought up a very, very weak and misleading tie to Libertarians with his story, he has failed to report on Loretta Nall — although national programs like MSNBC and the Alan Colmes Show have recently covered her.

In my opinion, Nall’s statement was too polite. However, she’s running for office and I’m not. One of the key reasons I’ve become involved in politics is because I grew up in Alabama in the heat of the civil rights era. My feeling is that people like Darby can rot eternally in whatever level of hell is reserved for racist pukes and scumbags.

Nothing has changed; racists still burn crosses in Alabama. There are other great reasons for hate-mongering people to vote Democrat in Alabama elections, too.

Madonna’s no longer so virginal these days, but is promoting non-coital sexual practices. According to this report, she told concert listeners to engage in oral sex activities with President Bush:

Madonna radically altered her music to attack US President George W Bush during her appearance at California music festival Coachella, yesterday.

The Hung Up singer thrilled fans with a six-song set in the Sahara Dance Tent, and took a cheeky swipe at the US leader by changing her song lyrics.

During an energetic rendition of her song I Love New York, Madonna roared, “Just go to Texas and suck George Bush’s d**k.”

Let’s see. Clinton was impeached over a blow job and now celebrities are suggesting that Bush receive the same oral treatment. Is this some new undercover impeachment strategy? Props.

Whether they’ll admit it or not, being the meat in a lesbian sandwich is a fantasy of most straight males. However, even most straight guys would be angered if the local Department of Health asked nosy questions about their private sexual habits and preferences. From pinknews:

A newsagent was shocked this week after being asked to disclose her sexuality when completing a form related to selling sandwiches.

Aruna Majevadia, had been providing sandwiches in her Brighton shop for two years, but was amazed when the council sent her a form to complete regarding hygiene standards, which asked for her nationality, religion and sexuality.

She told The Argus, “I was flabbergasted. I filled in the form because I didn’t want the council to stop me selling sandwiches. The last question asked me whether I was bisexual, heterosexual or lesbian. That threw me.

“What has my sexuality or nationality got to do with selling sandwiches? I’m normally a jolly person but this brought me down. I’m just a single mum trying to earn a living.”

George Bernard Shaw is attributed with, “An American has no sense of privacy. He does not know what it means.There is no such thing in the country.”

I guess the same holds true on the other side of the pond, too. BTW, if you are GBLT friendly and tired of the Democrats dissing you and your issues, here’s a great solution for you.

I’m not used to the MSM calling for people to have more sex, but John Gibson just did:

This is not a good trend for Russia and it won’t be here either if that should happen. To put it bluntly, we need more babies. Forget about that zero population growth stuff that my poor generation was misled on. Why is this important? Because civilizations need population to survive. So far, we are doing our part here in America but Hispanics can’t carry the whole load. The rest of you, get busy. Make babies, or put another way — a slogan for our times: “procreation not recreation.” That’s “My Word.”

Perhaps David Wiegel stated it best over at H&R:

Here’s a fun Friday video creep-out: FOX News anchor John Gibson tells white people to get serious about procreation before the Mes’kins and Arabs take over.

Click the pic for details and the video.

Penn and Teller (well, actually just Penn) have a message for 9/11 conspiracy theorists: Bullshit! This video is likely to stir the coals in the continued debate over the cause of the World Trade Center collapse.

UPDATE: In order to cover both sides of this issue, Charlie Sheen just came out on the other side of this topic. The title of the top related story on Google News was “Take Off the 9/11 Tinfoil Hats.”

In America, the conspiracy ball has been rolling quite nicely, thank you. Pushed along by Hollywood celebrities like Michael Moore and Charlie Sheen, as well as a very large, very vocal segment of left wing internet blogs, the theories all seem to have a couple of things in common; that the government knew about the attacks prior to 9/11 and did nothing about them and that the “whole story” of what really happened that day is being withheld from the American people.

George Bush’s approval ratings are continuing to drop. From UPI:

U.S. President George W. Bush`s job approval rating has fallen to 29 percent in a new Harris Interactive poll.

It is the lowest job approval rating of Bush`s presidency, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.

Of 1,003 U.S. adults surveyed by telephone, 29 percent said Bush was doing an ‘excellent or pretty good’ — down from 35 percent in the Harris Interactive poll conducted in April. Bush`s job approval rating had been 43 percent in the Harris Interactive poll conducted in January.

While the most recent Gallup survey shows Bush’s approval rating at 31 percent, it’s Bush’s lowest approval rating by that poll, too. From WaPo:

More than two-thirds of the American public thinks the country is on the wrong track and voters prefer Democrats to Republicans by double-digits margins. Bush’s job approval rating has reached a low for his presidency of 31 percent.

Even Republicans are dropping their support for Bush:

Throughout Bush’s five-year presidency, conservatives have remained remarkably faithful. But the latest polls suggest that is no longer true.

A Gallup poll this week found just 52 percent of conservatives and 68 percent of Republicans approved of Bush’s performance, record lows for both.

The grounds for impeachment are clearly out there. With approval numbers this low, the political timing for the Libertarian Party to call for impeachment is right, if not past due. The LNC has the ability to pass a resolution calling for the impeachment of George Bush, but hasn’t done so. I’d recommend contacting your LNC representative and asking why the LP isn’t acting like a principled political organization.

I had a long telephone conversation with Sue Jeffers last night. I had called to confirm the rumors I’d been hearing about the resignation of her campaign manager, but we ended up talking about politics for a bit. I was very favorably impressed with her command of the issues and her political acumen. Here’s the release they put out about her former campaign manager:

St. Paul, MN – Sue Jeffers, the recently announced Republican candidate for governor, accepted the resignation of her campaign manager today. Dan Coleman submitted his letter of resignation, citing health concerns and philosophical differences as his reasons for departing.

“[This] in no way diminishes my admiration for you and what you are trying to achieve,” he said.

“My staff and I wish Dan a speedy recovery, and wish him well in his future endeavors. His duties will be assumed by my capable staff,” Jeffers said of Coleman’s departure.

I know several members of her key campaign team and have full confidence in their ability to keep things running while they look for a suitable replacement for Coleman.

Kinky Friedman just turned in more than enough signatures to get on the ballot in Texas. From Reuters:

Musician and mystery writer Kinky Friedman, brandishing his trademark cigar and spouting one-liners, turned in petitions with nearly 170,000 signatures on Thursday in his bid to run for governor of Texas as an independent candidate.

The 169,574 signatures were more than 3 1/2 times the number needed to get Friedman’s name on the ballot in November but they still must be verified, state officials said.

Texas Secretary of State Roger Williams has said it will take several weeks to make sure at least 45,540 of the signatures, or the minimum number needed to get on the ballot, come from qualified voters.

The Houston Chronicle reports that Carole Keeton Strayhorn also turned in signatures:

Friedman became the second major independent candidate to file a ballot-access petition this week. Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn filed 223,000 signatures on Tuesday as an independent candidate for governor.

If certified, Friedman and Strayhorn will join Democrat Chris Bell and Libertarian James Werner in challenging the re-election of Gov. Rick Perry, the Republican nominee.

Strayhorn’s campaign has tried to portray her as more legitimate than Friedman. Her aides said she collected signatures at schools while claiming Friedman got his from rowdy crowds at music halls.

“All I can say is, thank God for bars and dance halls,” Friedman told his supporters as they unloaded 11 legal boxes of petitions from the “Guv Bug,” a pink trailer topped with Friedman’s trademark black cowboy hat.

Friedman said he was not surprised that Strayhorn gathered more signatures than he did: “Of course she got more signatures than we. She had all her ex-husbands sign.”

According to John Slevin, Mark Leszkiewicz deserves the lion’s share of the credit for getting Kinky on the ballot. Mark arrived at my Birmingham apartment yesterday to help place Loretta Nall on the ballot in Alabama. Nall requires approximately the same amount of signatures, although Texas has around five times the population as Alabama.

Tim West has a new video showing the hypocrisy of Patrick Kennedy after his recent blunders.

You’d be a very rare American if the National Security Agency hasn’t collected your telephone call details without a search warrant. Homeland Stupidity has a good update on how the NSA is collecting data from the major telephone carriers. This includes the latest court challenge — which the government is trying to shut down on the grounds of protecting national secrets. Here’s the latest on what the Feds just learned about you without your permission:

The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting call traffic data for most telephones in the United States, without warrants, since shortly after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, according to reports published Thursday.

USA TODAY reported that under secret agreements with AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth, those companies turned over to NSA billions of call detail records of their subscribers, meaning the telephone number dialed and duration of the call. While the contents of the calls were not monitored, the records included purely domestic calls, originating and terminating within the United States.

Only Qwest refused to participate in the scheme, citing legal concerns.

The last time I checked, the Fourth Amendment still read:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

We might as well just throw the Constitution in the garbage; we weren’t using it anyway.

Update by Stephen VanDyke: The Libertarian Party is finally sounding like the alarmists we knew was always in them with a well-crafted press release that just hit their site and email:

“The fear of terrorism was used to create this database shortly after September 11th, just as it was used to pass the Patriot Act and ignore the rule of law with increased domestic spying,” stated Michael Dixon, chairman of the Libertarian Party. “However, our history proves that these programs will be abused regardless of the intended purpose. We witnessed this with the Clinton administration and its use of FBI files for political purposes. More recently, the Patriot Act has been used against business owners in Nevada rather than al-Qaeda.”

It’s refreshing to see them finally noticing that the sword cuts both ways and that they need to slice up current Republican and previous Democrat policies at the same time.

Jim Lesczynski put me on the mailing list for New York City’s new Libertarian underground rag called Serf City. I received the first two issues the other day and read the articles last night. To my surprise, I found out that the NY Sun had used one of them as a basis for a front page article in their publication. The topic: Liberty Dollars.

Over pierogies and cabbage rolls at a Lower East Side restaurant, the Manhattan Libertarian party recently discussed the virtues of the private currency. Backed by real gold and silver, the Liberty Dollar is created and issued by the National Organization for the Repeal of the Federal Reserve Act and the Internal Revenue Code. The currency does not say “legal tender” and is therefore in compliance with federal law.

But can you use it?

Yes, indeed, said Nic Leobold, a writer for Serf City, the newspaper published by the Manhattan Libertarian Party. He used the Liberty Dollar at several local establishments, including Grey’s Papaya, a bodega near Grand Central Terminal, and Dunkin Donuts. (At the dinner, however, most people appeared to be paying the Ukrainian Restaurant in Federal Reserve notes.)

The NY Sun article went on to cover other private currencies, both local and historical. While I’m not a Liberty Dollar buff, I’m finding the increased use of them around the country interesting. When I was in Austin, a whole lot of businesses accepted them, and now I see that some in NYC do, as well. While I’m not dumping my greenbacks for silverbacks quite yet, I’ll be watching to see how this trend develops.

The controversial .xxx domain has been denied by I-CANN. From C-Net:

The plan has drawn considerable controversy over recent months, with conservative groups campaigning against the domain due to concerns that it would legitimize pornography. Advocates of the plan have denied this, claiming that it would make it easier for Web users to avoid porn.

If the nitwits hadn’t checked, pr0n is all over the Internet. How much more legitimate can it get? One would think that neocons would want the distinction in order to make it easier to keep their kids, spouses and preachers off of sex sites.

Despite ardent political interest in the issue, Paul Twomey, the chief of ICANN, told the Associated Press that the decision “was not driven by a political consideration.”

Yeah, right. And I’ve got some beachfront property in Arizona for sale.

Up yonder at Capitol Hill Blue, Doug Thompson details the problem:

If such hyperbole [Nancy Pelosi soundbytes] sounds familiar, it may be because we heard the same bullshit 12 years ago from the Republicans.

But things won’t change if the Democrats take over. We will just replace one cadre of crooks, scoundrels, con-artists and thieves with another. Democrats and Republicans are an equal match when it comes to moral lapses, ethical challenges and lust for power.

Perhaps Thomas R. Eddlem has the solution over at antiwar.com:

The issues the Right and Left are already working together on are related to the Constitution: (1) Exposing the Bush administration’s policy to eliminate the right to trial, as in the case of Jose Padilla, (2) Stopping the Bush practice and advocacy of torture, (3) Ending the administration’s unnecessary Iraq War, (4) Eliminating unconstitutional, warrantless wiretapping, and the most objectionable parts of the PATRIOT Act, (5) Stopping multilateral trade agreements such as CAFTA, renewal of the WTO, and the upcoming Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).

The current Rebel Alliance is completely ad hoc and has no formal organization, for several reasons. First, we don’t trust each other. Groups on the “paleoconservative” Right ““ those not in the Bush neoconservative orbit who have strong ideological reasons for joining an ad hoc alliance ““ include some of the organizations most disliked by leftists: The John Birch Society, Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum, the Rockford Institute, the “Buchanan Brigades” of Pat Buchanan’s American Cause, libertarian-leaning Lew Rockwell and his Ludwig von Mises Institute. And, of course, Antiwar.com, where the Rebel Alliance meshes and works together best.

If we don’t start working together on issues from corruption to the erosion of our civil liberties to the War in Iraq, all of us are going to get Martin Niemöllered into extinction.

PAX AMERICANA, May 10 – It seems the Republican faction of our elite aristocracy is naming the heir apparent. From WaPo:

Coming soon: President Bush III?

The second — and current — President Bush suggested yesterday that his younger brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, would make a “great president.”

“I would like to see Jeb run at some point in time, but I have no idea if that’s his intention or not,” Bush said in an interview with Florida reporters, according to a story on the St. Petersburg Times Web site.

If that sounds familiar, the Bush brothers’ father, former president George H.W. Bush, made a similar statement last year, telling CNN’s Larry King that Jeb Bush would be “awfully good” as president.

…and people scoff at me when I refer to the American Dynasty.

Long live the Empire! Long live the Emperor! Sieg Heil!

Note: this article contains dead links, the url is still in the hover/alt text. Keep the web working, curate content well!

Here’s a clip from the opening salvo in a Letter-to-the-Editor battle over at the Wall Street Journal:

But the drug war also figures in the equation. Nobel economist Douglas North taught us the importance of institutions in development economics. Yet prohibition and the war on drugs are fueling a criminal underworld that handily crushes nascent democratic institutions in countries that we keep expecting to develop. Is it reasonable to blame Mexico for what enormously well-funded organized-crime operations are doing to its political, judicial and law enforcement bodies when we know that Al Capone’s power during alcohol prohibition accomplished much the same in the U.S.? These are realities of the market, of supply and demand and prices under prohibition that no amount of wishing or moralizing can change.

To which former LP presidential candidate David Bergland replied:

1) The price of the illegal commodity is higher than it would be in a legal, competitive, market. High black-market prices encourage low-level crime. Unlike alcohol and tobacco users, illegal drug users commit crimes to raise the funds to buy their high-price drugs. 2) Peaceful drug users, by definition, become criminals, ruining the lives of those prosecuted and thus stigmatized. 3) High black-market drug profits attract the most ruthless and violent criminals to the business. Alcohol prohibition created organized crime. Today’s drug prohibition keeps it going. 4) The illegal drug market corrupts the criminal justice system as cops, courts and prison guards find it hard to resist getting in on the high returns. 5) Law enforcement becomes more expensive for the taxpayer and is misdirected away from violent crime. 6) The products in illegal markets are of lower quality and more likely to contain impurities than they would be if legal, thus endangering consumers. No “truth in labeling” here. 7) Unnecessary illness and death result. Users spending money on high-priced drugs ignore their health. They share needles, spreading AIDS and other diseases. Cancer and MS sufferers are deprived of pain-relieving marijuana. 8) Competition in the illegal drug market is based on violence, not peaceful competition under the rule of law. Thousands of murders every year occur as a result. 9) The War on Drugs is a war on civil liberties. Your property may be seized without trial on a mere allegation that it was used in a drug deal. 10) The Drug War is racist. Although minorities use drugs at about the same rate as whites, they make up a greatly disproportionate percentage of those prosecuted and convicted.

as well as Drug War Field Marshall Mark Souder (R – IN), on the same page:

Mary O’Grady argues that we will never eradicate drug use. One wonders what other vices Ms. O’Grady proposes we surrender to. Child abuse? Spousal abuse? Rape? We may never eradicate any of these crimes either, but that doesn’t mean that we simply give up on them.

Not coincidentally, by the way, all of those crimes, and many others, are frequently linked to drug and alcohol abuse. It’s a tired old canard that drug abuse is a victimless crime.

Furthermore, where is the evidence that legalizing and taxing a substance causes organized crime to disappear? It sure didn’t after Prohibition — criminals just no longer focused on alcohol. Unless everything is legalized, including cocaine and heroin, of course the thugs would merely move to the more potent substances. Where does it end?

Souder answered his own question, but is too stupid to realize it. My message to Souder is that we may never eradicate all morons in office, but we shouldn’t give up on booting his thug ass from that particular congressional seat. Props.

Online political betting is becoming more and more popular and the latest political questions at bodog.org are interesting, as well. Here’s one:

Bet On: Will Congress pass legislation requiring all web sites with sexually explicit content to place an official government warning label on their site?

Any wagers placed after outcome becomes public knowledge will be graded as No Action. No Refunds. No Over limit Wagers. Congress must officially pass or reject this legislation for all wagers to be graded accordingly. If no official decision has been made on this legislation by December 31st, 2006, all wagers will be graded as No Action. (ONLY $100)

Yes EVEN
No -140

Here’s a fun one:

Bet On: Will it be publicly revealed by December 31, 2006 that Vice President Dick Cheney did not shoot Harry Whittington?

Any wagers placed after outcome becomes public knowledge will be graded as No Action. No Refunds. No Over limit Wagers. Max $100

Yes +500

Living in Alabama, here’s the one most interesting to me:

Bet On: Will the former Democratic Governor of Alabama, Don Siegelman, be found guilty of bribery, extortion, obstructing justice, fraud or racketeering?

Any wagers placed after outcome becomes public knowledge will be graded as No Action. No Refunds. No Over limit Wagers. Former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman must be found guilty of one or more of the above listed charges for all Yes wagers to be graded a win. If no decision has been made public by July 31st, 2006, all wagers will be graded as No Action. Max $100

Yes -125
No -115

I’ve seen the original and it was great. New trailers are available here. The final version promises to be much better. A copy was shipped to my house, so I hope to be able to review it over the next couple of days. Here’s the press release:

Milwaukee, WI – May 10, 2006 – Ed Thompson calls himself a “common man” but he is anything but common. A documentary about him, aptly titled A REMARKABLE MAN, is now available on DVD.

The 82-minute documentary opens with Thompson’s famous free annual Thanksgiving dinner at his Tomah, WI, supper club, the Teepee. It goes on to cover his spirited younger days as a tavern owner, boxer, prison guard and professional poker player.

The 1997 gambling raid on the Teepee changed his life and eventually led to his involvement in politics.

The documentary captures many aspects of Ed Thompson’s multi-faceted personality, showing his charisma, wit, and spirituality. Thompson’s
story unfolds through numerous interviews with friends and family, including his older brother Tommy Thompson who was elected as Wisconsin’s Governor a record four times.

Ed is driven by a love of freedom and individual rights, and a strong determination to accomplish what he sets out to do. As brother Tommy
says, “When Eddie Thompson decides to do something you better get out of the way because no matter what you say he’s going to go ahead and do it his own way. And that’s what we love about him.”

A REMARKABLE MAN director Dave Hendrickson, who became close friends with Thompson while making the documentary, says, “If you love freedom, you’ll LOVE this movie. Ed is one in a million. Maybe one in ten million.”

The extras on the DVD include excerpts from Ed’s recent speeches, additional comments and interviews, his current projects, including
three of his weekly radio commentaries, and more. The extras contain enough material to comprise a movie by themselves. see more…

Jacob Sullum found an interesting article written by a prominent anti-smoker. In looking through Dr. Michael Siegel’s blog, he seems to be combating the War on Tobacco Smokers on two distinct fronts: Challenging bogus scientific claims and accusing his allies of being outright prohibitionists. Here’s a sample clip:

I’ll also be honest about something else. When I used to hear smokers’ rights groups claim that the anti-smoking movement was really about prohibition, I thought it was complete crap. But within the past few months, I’m starting to see that there is an element of truth to those claims. There is a faction within the tobacco control movement that I believe is motivated primarily by a hate for smokers and nothing short of prohibition will ever satisfy this element. But since anyone who suggests that perhaps we’re going down the wrong path will be censored or attacked, this element will never truly be challenged. And most scary, this element now seems to be the driving force, or a major driving force, within the movement. I think, therefore, that it is not inaccurate to state that the anti-smoking movement is now on a path towards advocating prohibition.

He’s not afraid to take on his allies:

It is one thing to make a mistake. But it is another thing to continue spreading false information when you know it to be false.

If this is what is occurring, then the anti-smoking movement is going to quickly lose its credibility and ruin its reputation because it will become clear that we don’t care about the accuracy of our public communications, only about the agenda that we are promoting.

Even though Siegel may be one of “the enemy”, it’s truly refreshing to see one of the opposition acting with a sense of honor.

Note: this article contains dead links, the url is still in the hover/alt text. Keep the web working, curate content well!

The Drug Policy Alliance has a new Flash video attacking drug-free school zones. Here are a few factoids from the same DPA page on Drug-Free Zone laws. They:

• Don’t protect kids. In Massachusetts, for example, seven out of ten drug-free zone incidents occurred while school was not in session, and less than one percent involved sales to youth.
• Don’t have a deterrent effect. Because the areas overlap and blanket most cities, they are impossible for drug sellers to avoid and thus create no incentive to move drug transactions away from schools.
• Have a racist impact. Zones often completely cover many densely populated urban neighborhoods, where people of color are more likely to live. For example, in New Jersey, drug-free zone laws cover three quarters of Newark, in contrast to six percent of rural Mansfield Township.

It’s nice to see someone taking on this issue. I’d like to see an easy mechanism for others to virally spread the video with their e-mails and websites, though. Props.

Republicans support the rule of law. They don’t find that the president (or even Tom DeLay) is above the law. They take their oath to the Constitution very seriously. They don’t believe in a constitutional double-standard. Vote Republican in 2006 to ensure that Bush is impeached.

If you think I’m joking, just watch the video below to check out the statements of Bill Frist, John Boehner, Tom DeLay and Dennis Hastert on the topic.