Author Archives: Stephen Gordon

They keep finding mystery garbage bags filled with vomit in Iowa and no one has a clue as to why. From The Hawk Eye News:

Trash bags filled with regurgitated food have been found littering the former Pleasant Lawn School area and in roadside ditches northeast of Mount Pleasant over the last three years.

Late last summer, the Henry County Sheriff’s Office thought the littering had stopped. Then, on April 11, the office received another call.

“The last call was four bags,” said Deputy Dan Wesely. Over the last three years, dozens of bags may been dropped, Wesely said.

I could understand it if people were mailing bags of barf to their favorite government office in DC — but Iowa? Perhaps there’s some strain of communicable bulimia going around.

I thought this title from Reuters was amusing: “Watchdogs say House ethics reform is a ‘scam.’” No shit, Sherlock!

I couldn’t resist the urge to post this one.

We told you that they wish to outlaw sex toys in South Carolina. The same legislator who’s pushing that bill also wants to deport drug users to foreign prisons. Here’s Representative Ralph Davenport’s bill:

Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of South Carolina:

SECTION 1. Section 24-3-20(A) of the 1976 Code, as last amended by Act 406 of 1996, is further amended by adding at the end:

“Notwithstanding another provision of law, the department may enter into agreements with foreign countries for the confinement of inmates convicted of drug related offenses or offenses related to the sexual abuse of children.”

I’m wondering if Davenport intends to send drug users to black sites so they can be tortured without fear of negative media or prosecution.

Props.

Third party polling data are improving.

Polling Data

Some people say we should have a third major political party in this country in addition to the Democrats and Republicans. Do you agree or disagree?

————-Apr. 2006—–Jun. 2004

Agree————53%———-50%

Disagree——–40%———43%

Not sure———-7%———-7%

Source: Princeton Survey Research Associates / Pew Research Center for the People and the Press Methodology: Telephone interviews with 1,501 American adults, conducted from Apr. 7 to Apr. 16, 2006. Margin of error is 3.5 per cent.

Props.

I found this video about Gonzalez v. Crotches over at The Metropolis Times this morning.

Thanks to Trevor for bringing this to our attention.

“You’re not fucking listening. You hear what I told you? I told you not to be talking. Didn’t I tell you not to be talking? That’s just the fucking beginning. This mother fucker right here, he loves seeing blood. He loves it. He loves seeing blood. You’re talking too much. Listen to what I’m telling you. He loves fucking seeing blood. He’ll beat your ass and lick it off of you.”

We just covered one story about justice served southern style. Radly Balko also brings to mind another case, this time in Tennessee. While the transcript of the Lester Eugene Siler torture tape has been available for some time, Balko’s link provided my first chance to hear the audio.

If you don’t recall the story, Siler was brutally tortured by Tennessee police officers during a drug raid. We would never have heard this story had Siler’s wife not secretly turned a tape recorder on. While five cops were convicted, they were given extremely lenient sentences — mostly for civil rights charges, as opposed to the life terms they all deserved. Contrast this with Cory Maye, who was given a death penalty for what seems to be a case of reasonable self-defense.

People say that Abu Ghraib was an isolated event. They say the Cory Maye case is an isolated event. They say the same of Abner Louima and many more cases. How many torture cases do we have to endure before we begin to realize they aren’t so isolated. There is an evil streak within some people. We are placing these people in positions where they can abuse their power. We need to change our policies and our political leadership.

EVERY AMERICAN SHOULD LISTEN TO THIS AUDIO and maybe we can begin to form the resolve to create effective political change.

Update by Nicholas Sarwark: The Knox News site has a page with links to various documents in the case and information about the sentences the officers received.

Radley Balko has more on the Cory Maye case. From his site:

Hayne said that the bullet in Jones’ abdomen was traveling in a downward trajectory, implying that the gun that fired that bullet would had to have been fairly high off the ground. Since Maye says he was lying on the floor when the door flew open and Jones came into the bedroom, the prosecution zeroed in on the bullet’s trajectory through Jones’ body, and implied to the jury that Maye wasn’t cowering in fear on the floor, but laying in wait, standing up behind the bed (they didn’t quite have an explanation as to why a guy laying in wait would kill just one cop, and then surrender).

[snip]

Put another way, we have a hole in the door frame at gut-level that’s clearly headed up. And we have a hole in a man a gut level that’s clearly headed down. The two bullets were fired within a fraction of a second. One of those two targets had to be in a position other than upright when Cory Maye fired his gun. Ask yourself, which of the two was more likely to have been crouched the night of the raid, Officer Jones, or the door frame?

If you’re wondering why Maye’s lawyer Rhonda Cooper didn’t bring this up at trial — well, so am I.

I’m becoming increasingly convinced of Maye’s absolute innocence in this case. Check out Balko’s entry for the rest of the story and photographs he took at the crime scene. Additionally, the media is not picking up this story. Google News only shows one mention of Maye at this time — which came from this site. Please help spread the word on the blogosphere. A man’s life is on the line and we seem to be the only ones who care.

For those of you interested in ballot access and related election law issues, this article in Election Law Journal by Richard Winger is a must read. Jeff Trigg provides his commentary on the article here.

In Alabama, both houses of the state legislature are controlled by the Democrats. By a vote of 30-0, the Alabama Senate voted to place a constitutional amendment prohibiting gay marriage on the June 2006 ballot. There was only a small handful of dissenting votes in the House.

With these sorts of numbers, it’s obvious the Democrats are no more concerned about the rights of homosexuals than the Republicans are. Based on these numbers, it’s likely that the key opposition votes in the constitutional referendum will come from Libertarians, Greens and independent voters.

In order to ensure that Alabama votes the way the legislature wants, they established June 6 as the date voters decide on this constitutional amendment. What’s significant is that June 6 is the Democratic and Republican primary election date. With a very heated gubernatorial election, poll turnout will likely be high for the Republicans and Democrats, but the third-party and many independent voters aren’t allowed a dog in this race.

With respect to gay rights, George Wallace’s quip about there not being a dime’s worth of difference between the two parties comes to mind.

With respect to the election date selected, it’s just a continuance of the deplorable state of affairs within Alabama politics.

Here’s Crasher Graham’s account of the story:

After making my way around the stadium after the match, I got caught in the hustle and bustle and the police mounted section started moving in with dogs behind them. Obviously, this caused more panic and made it even harder to get away from the ground. During my effort to get home, I was kicked in the back by a mounted police officer and told “Hurry up, you bastard”. After that, I’m not sure whether a horse panicked or was instructed to shove me by its rider, but I was knocked to the ground and then stepped on by another, or possibly the same, horse. Police horses are not small animals. Two policemen then dragged me along the ground and made the comment “Over here, you tosser”. Fellow supporters then broke through the barricade, carried me to safety, and phoned an ambulance. Requesting the police to get an ambulance brought the response, “It’s not my problem”.

Sounds like things aren’t all that different on the other side of the big pond, either.

Looks like Bush’s approval rating is continuing to drop. From G&M:

Thirty-two per cent of adults said they approve of the way Mr. Bush is handling his job as President, and 60 per cent said they disapprove. The President’s approval rating has been on a steady decline since the start of 2005 as dissatisfaction with the course of the war in Iraq has increased.

When asked whether Mr. Bush is honest and trustworthy, 55 per cent said that description doesn’t apply. Forty per cent said the description applied.

I wonder how low it will ultimately go?

I think I finally figured out the FDA strategic plan behind their recent release condemning the use of medical marijuana. They were combating this recent GAO report which, according to the Kaiser website, “‘lacks a clear and effective process’ for tracking safety issues related to approved drugs.”

If they preemptively prohibit all drugs, they won’t have to take the heat for piss-poor post-approval procedure.

I know it sounds incredible to most of you readers out there in the real world, but they still prohibit a lot of silly things in the deep south, ranging from alcohol to sex toys. My local prohibitionists are trying to get more worldly, adding cigars and cigarettes to the list.

While I maintain an apartment in Birmingham (from where I conduct most of my political activities), my main house is in Hartselle, Alabama. Hartselle is a picturesque small town filled with small antique and art shops. We have a nice Italian grill right down the street from us, but we rarely eat there because chianti complements a steak much better than iced tea does — alcoholic beverages are banned in town. Fortunately, Hartselle is bordered by Decatur — which is a larger town and contains my favorite local restaurants, watering holes and hangouts. One would think the people of Hartselle would be smart enough to realize the both the loss of revenue as well as the loss of freedom.

Now a group of people in Decatur are being just as stupid. Some nitwits called “The Coalition For a Smoke Free Decatur” wish to outlaw smoking in my favorite hangouts.

“80 percent of the people in Alabama, according to the latest statistics, do not smoke,” said coalition member Britt Pitts. “So 20 percent of the people are creating the problem.”

Decatur already has laws concerning smoking in public, but the coalition says they are not enforced.

“We know if you smoke, that second hand smoke can create a heart attack, eye problems and breast problems,” said Pitts. “I think it’s a public heath problem and I think it should be eliminated from the city.”

So far, there seems to be little organized resistance, but one man is outspoken on the issue:

“I realize cigarette smokers and cigarettes are politically correct to kick and pick on,” Murdock said. “And no politician wants to stand up and be in favor of it, but someone needs to wake up and smell the roses.”

Murdock thinks without cigarette taxes, Decatur residents will have to pay in other ways to make up that money.

He feels the government needs to focus on other things first.

“Did you realize the worst problem we have in this county is obesity?” Murdock asked. “Maybe the best way to solve that problem is put scales in the check out lines of the grocery store and anybody overweight pays a ten percent tax.”

When we moved to Hartselle, I promised my family that I wouldn’t get involved in local politics. I’m now considering breaking that vow and giving Murdock a call.

_{Graphic credit and explanation here. Additionally, we picked on WHNT (they are the text and video source for the quotations in this posting) the other day, but I’ll will be first to state that they acted quickly then and covered both sides of this story. That’s refreshing, and increasingly rare, these days.}

We informed you that Neil Young has jumped on board the “Impeach Bush” bandwagon. Check out the video interview where Young provides his own perspective on his new song and album. YouTube’s sort of slow today, so here’s an excerpt:

Young: It’s a record about unification.

Interviewer: Surely though, [I mean?] you say it’s a record about unification but with a title like “Let’s Impeach the President”…

Young: That’s not the title of the record. The record is called…

Interviewer: Not the record, but the song.

Young: Yeah, right.

Interviewer: “Let’s Impeach the President.” That is pretty strong. Strong words.

Young: Yeah. Yeah. I think it is. I think it’s called for. And so do a lot of other people.

It was also a great interview about freedom and post-9/11 mentalities which all Americans, no matter how they feel about the war, should watch. Brian Doherty is cynical about whether this song will create political change. I don’t expect any song to directly change the world — but it can provide a common public voice (like “Ohio” did) to the voices of millions and millions of angered people.

Props.

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

While the respective state laws may vary a bit, it’s basically illegal to sell sex toys in Texas, Mississippi and Alabama. They are currently trying to outlaw them in South Carolina and Tennessee.

I’ve been doing what I can (cached from an old site of mine) to support the sex toy merchants in Alabama, but people keep telling me to ignore the issue because it’s simply a case of some archaic law which hasn’t been taken off the books. With recent Supreme Court cases combined with current attempts to outlaw sex toys in South Carolina and Tennessee, this is clearly not a case of some dumb old law; it’s a political movement — which means we have to fight back. They’ve already tried to suggest that the Hummingbird Twister is the gateway drug which leads to prostitution; I’m waiting to see how the neocons will link the Chocolate Invader to the War on Terrorism.

A couple of years ago, Xeni Jardin suggested how to start fighting back:

This calls for massive civil disobedience. FreeTheAlabamaVibrator.com is still available, people — it’s time to stick it to the Man.

It’s going to take T-Shirts, bumper stickers, blogs, Internet graphics and video and other clever ideas to fight this. In that spirit, I started to look for suitable online tools and found this gem of a video instead. It’s funny and topical, but don’t hit the play button if you’re prudish, Republican or under eighteen years of age.

David McElroy is a local libertarian political consultant who wishes to start a new career in video production. I’ve seen his new film “We’re the Government — and You’re Not,” and it’s great. It is a humorous and witty take on three primary political issues (while mentioning quite a few others): taxes, financial responsibility and asking questions the government really doesn’t want asked. Here’s a message I received from David:

It’s me again with a brief note to let you know that, “We’re the Government — and You’re Not,” will be showing this weekend at the Myrtle Beach International Film Festival in Myrtle Beach, S.C. (I also found out this weekend that the film is one of five nominated as best short film by the festival’s judges.) That makes six festivals for our little film so far. Just to recap, we’ve screened in Atlanta, Birmingham, Chicago and Portland, Ore. The remaining two festivals that we already know about are in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., and Myrtle Beach. I hope there will be more to report later.

If you are in the Myrtle Beach area, it’s definitely worth the drive to watch this short film. Here are the specifics.

Tim West is a friend, co-blogger and the founder of Liberty For Sale. Due to serious health problems, his new marriage and a database crash, he’s dropping the site. He asked me to pass the following message along:

Liberty For Sale suffered a data base failure that looked rather involved tonight. I took this as a sign, and for a number of reasons, I have decided to put a bullet to the head of L4S. I have killed it dead with no remorse and deleted all the content within. I have also deleted all my backups.

Being a lightning rod for discontent within the LP is no longer something I wish to persue, mainly for very practical reasons. I simply can’t type well anymore, with one hand unable to be used due to my medical problems, posting is a real problem. I’m no longer able to make the level of entries required to keep the site fresh, and newer sites such as HoT have had much more effectiveness.

After my recent medical issues, I find that the back and forth required to maintain the level of discourse required to keep the pressure on the LP to change hearts and minds is something I can no longer do and yet make sure that my frame of mind is where it properly belongs as concerns my illness. Getting well again is my first priority, and anything that hinders that process can’t be tolerated.

It may seem very strange after what has happened to me, but I am happier now than I ever have been. My family is closer than ever, I am married to most wonderful and loving woman in the world, and I find that what I started back in August 2004 as The New LIbertarian has grown into a reform movement that can do just fine on it’s own.

It’s time for me to retire from active day to day blogging and concentrate on beating my illness. So that’s what I am doing.

I still intend to start a book project using voice to type software, and write about how to finish the job of turning the LP from a self obsessed quasi-religious cult to a political party that is driven to win elections and that can actually effect the level of freedom in the USA in a meaningful way. I can take much more time to do this than blogging allows, and the result if popular can influence many more people than any blog can. I have decided on this path.

I will still be active on the libertarian web, making comments where they need to be made. Thanks for everyone’s patronage over the last few years. It has been a joy to challenge the “conventional wisdom” inside the LP and be the one to tell everyone that the emperor wears no clothes.

I have zero doubt that in 2008~12, the LP won’t look anything like the LP of 2004. Take care.

TW

While Texas, Alabama and Mississippi have been leading the charge in the battle against sexual enjoyment and fulfillment, they may soon have a new ally: South Carolina. According to this article, a GOP state legislator wishes to ban the sale of vibrators, dildos and other sex toys.

The South Carolina bill, proposed by Republican Rep. Ralph Davenport, would make it a felony to sell devices used primarily for sexual stimulation and allow law enforcement to seize sex toys from raided businesses. [...]

The measure would add sex toys to the state’s obscenity laws, which already prohibit the dissemination and advertisement of obscene materials.

People convicted under obscenity laws face up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

South Carolina law borrows from a 1973 U.S. Supreme Court ruling to define obscene as something “contemporary community standards” determine as “patently offensive” sexual conduct, which “lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.”

I loved Micah Daigle’s take on this:

I just have to chuckle at the thought of S.W.A.T. teams kicking down the doors of private businesses and rummaging through merchandise to find “devices used primarily for sexual stimulation.”

“Officer Smith, does this Pez dispenser look like a sex toy to you?”

“Hmm… check to see what the manual from the Office of National Dildo Control Policy has to say.”

“It’s rather ambiguous. It is pink and plastic and about the size of *ahem* well, you know. But it also dispenses small tart candies.”

“Hrm. Better bring it into the lab for testing.”

Once again, the Republicans are trying to save us from the evils of orgasms. My view is that Representative Davenport is the only dildo they need to ban in South Carolina.

_{Pic lifted from DARE Generation.}

Thomas Knapp has a new installment completed in his “First Look 2008″ series, a set of articles which provides his view of the prospective 2008 Libertarian Party presidential candidates. This time he takes a detailed look at George Phillies. Tom likes Phillies and knows him pretty well, but has some skepticism about his ability to garner the LP nomination.

As normal with this series, he provides the good, the bad and the some additional observations. I’d check it out.

I just got back from Atlanta. After speaking at the LP convention, my wife and I went to a party hosted by ThinkLibertarian, the Libertarian Party of Georgia and the Libertarian Action Network at Smith’s Olde Bar in midtown.

After speaking in public, a drink is alway nice. After a few drinks, it’s bathroom time. When I closed the bathroom door, I saw the “Kill Gordon” sticker on the back of the door.

Yeah, I know I rant a lot about how sick the war on drug users is, how evil our war in Iraq is and how vile the Patriot Act is — but I didn’t think they’d want to kill me for it. I’d think I was getting paranoid, but I’m not so sure after this.

I’ve been called a lot of nasty things by Republicans before, but this is the first time they’ve accused me of having the “highest Republican ideals and principles” — at least to my face.

I get put on a lot of stupid political mailing lists from both the left and the right (don’t those fools understand the concept of targeted mailings) and get all sorts of wierd stuff. They took it too far this time with the direct insult. Worse yet, they put it in print. I’m considering a libel suit. Physical evidence of the defamation exists right after the jump: see more…