Liberty Maven

According to AP, the Supreme Court refused to intervene in a lower court decision that disallowed Bob Barr to be on the Louisiana ballot.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court refused Tuesday to intervene in a dispute between Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr and Louisiana over Barr’s bid to get on the state’s ballot.

The justices denied Barr’s request for help in a one-sentence order.

The Libertarians blamed Hurricane Gustav for making them miss the deadline to be included on Louisiana ballot.

Barr is on the ballot in 43 states, though court challenges could change that.

According to Ballot Access News, Barr is on the ballot in 45 states. I’m not sure where the AP is obtaining their numbers. This is yet another time and money consuming distraction from the real issues that the well funded two party duopoly never has to worry about.

Will there be a third party uprising before 2012? I could certainly get behind that.

It was hoped that among the hundreds of decisions the U.S. Supreme Count handed down today, one would have been in the case of the Libertarian Party v Dardenne (case# 08A269), in which the LP is fighting to get Bob Barr on the ballot in Louisiana.  According to Ballot Access News:

All briefs on the injunctive relief matter had been submitted during the period between September 27 and October 2. The U.S. Supreme Court isn’t expected to hand down orders again until October 14, although the Court is free to hand down an individual order at any time.

Things aren’t looking good.

For those of you who aren’t aware of Robert Schulz’s legal revolution against the U.S. Government, he is one of the strongest defenders of our Constitution today.  He has had each and every Congressman served with the Petitions for Redress of Grievances, justly asserting that the U.S. Government has abandoned the Rule of Law as defined by the People via the Constitution.  If he experiences complete success, Constitutional Order will be restored.

His latest courageous action has been to go after Washington for it’s epidemic Wall Street bailouts.

United States District Court in Albany seeking to halt the execution of the emergency bailout of Wall Street insurance giant American Insurance Group, AIG. On Wednesday, Schulz filed a second federal lawsuit seeking to block the larger Wall Street bank bailout currently being negotiated through the U.S. Congress.

Yesterday, while ignoring the dissimilar legal issues raised in the two lawsuits, the U.S. District Court issued an Order combining the two cases into a single case and denying the applications for injunctive relief requested.  The Court, in effect, ducked a judicial (and very public) hearing to examine the critical legal question at the heart of the bailouts: What Constitutional authority exists for the U.S. Government or Federal Reserve to use public (taxpayer) funds for definitively private purposes?

Again, what legal authority allows the U.S. Government to directly purchase the distressed assets and contracts of privately owned Wall Street firms for the express purpose of mitigating their private investment risks and losses? 

Together, the lawsuits assert that the commitment of public funds and credit for the direct benefit of privately owned banks is an ultra vires act by the United States Government and Federal Reserve, i.e., beyond the limited legal authority granted by the Constitution. Both lawsuits had asked for a “show cause” hearing demanding that the Government defendants produce evidence of their alleged legal authority to commit public funds for such purposes, as well as emergency and permanent injunctions halting the bailout efforts.

If you are interested in the full story, including why the Courts fearfully dismissed the lawsuits erroneously, as well as what you can do about it, then please click here.

The Dallas Morning News is reporting that Bob Barr lost his case.

AUSTIN — The Texas Supreme Court has denied Libertarian presidential candidate’s Bob Barr attempt to keep the names John McCain and Barack Obama off the state’s November ballot.

The court did not explain the reason for its decision Tuesday.

What a bunch of leadership. Read the article here.

Listen, everyone, don’t let people distract you with nonsense about fiscal responsibility within the government or holding our leaders accountable. And definitely DON’T worry about the future of the U.S. Dollar. After all, the fundamentals of the economy are strong and we have REAL problems to worry about, such as imprisoning dangerous soda spillers, foreclosing on a disabled man who parked a car in his very own driveway, AND, most disturbing of all, people trying to peacefully exercise their freedom of speech!

Let’s start with the deadly soda, because we definitely all need to work together to proactively hunt down dangerous felons like this.  Let me paint the picture.  It’s an easy one.  We’ve all had parents, at least two, anyway.  And some of us have even cared for them when they got sick.  And most of us have had a soda or two in our lives.  So this should be pretty easy to picture.  Natalie Walters, a lady who routinely takes her father to the Boise Veterans Affairs Medical Center for treatment, also decided to callously take advantage of her right to travel, and regularly visited the cafeteria.  Her routine was to refill her mug with Diet Coke for anywhere from $1 to $1.50, depending on the cashier at the time and his or her ability to accurately type in the right codes and digits on a keyboard.  Well, imagine her surprise on Aug. 20, when Walters filled her mug with Diet Coke, [and] the clerk charged $3.80.

“I told her that cannot be right and asked to talk to the manager,” Walters said.

The manager told Walters the price is correct.

Walters decided she didn’t want to pay that much and offered to return the soda, she said. But the manager told her there was no way to accept the returned soda and Walters had to pay. Walters refused, and she said she was angry by this point, and she poured the soda onto the counter.

The manager banned Walters from the cafeteria.

But, wait, there’s more!  A LOT more!  Officials realized their debt to the safety of the community, and felt morally compelled to go through every piece of cafeteria and hospital videotape, tracking her insurgent movements, tracing her back to her ill father; going through his medical records; and justifiably upsetting him by interrupting him at his own dental appointment to let him know that Big Brother requested his daughter’s presence.

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Over at All American Blogger, the actual election law at the heart of the Bob Barr’s lawsuit is dissected. And in fact it’s pointed out that perhaps being filed by the deadline is not the only way to get on the ballot. There may be another way. See bold text below:

(a) To be entitled to have the names of its nominees placed on the general election ballot, a political party required to make nominations by convention must file with the secretary of state, not later than the 75th day after the date of the precinct conventions held under this chapter, lists of precinct convention participants indicating that the number of participants equals at least one percent of the total number of votes received by all candidates for governor in the most recent gubernatorial general election. The lists must include each participant’s residence address and voter registration number.
(b) A political party is entitled to have the names of its nominees placed on the ballot, without qualifying under Subsection (a), in each subsequent general election following a general election in which the party had a nominee for a statewide office who received a number of votes equal to at least five percent of the total number of votes received by all candidates for that office.

Blogger Andrew Min corresponded with Bob Barr’s press team, and a disagreement ensued.  The above notwithstanding, I can’t imagine Bob Barr winning the case anyway.

Read the whole article here.

Things are not looking good for McBama, which means that things ARE looking good for the people of the State of Texas and, potentially, for the entire United States.

Bob Barr might have just hit the mother lode of ethical and legal issues tied to Presidential elections.

“[His Campaign] filed suit Tuesday seeking to remove Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama from the ballot in Texas, alleging that the two major candidates missed the deadline for officially filing to be on the ballot. The lawsuit by the former Republican congressman from Georgia claims that neither McCain nor Obama met the requirement of Texas law that all candidates provide “written certification” of their nomination “before 5 p.m. on the 70th day before election day,” because neither had been formally nominated by their respective parties in time. That would have been Aug. 25. Obama did not accept his party’s nomination until Aug. 28, McCain his on Sept. 4. “

Best case scenario, this would lead to the complete removal of both “primary” candidates from the ballot in Texas.  At the very least, however, it could certainly create some ethical controversies which could prompt many Republicans and Democrats to seriously question the soundness and validity of a National Party Convention.

My hat is off to you, Mr. Barr.  Although you have received much criticism over the past week, I appreciate you both catching and acting on a critical piece of data which few, if any of us, even noticed.  Good luck to you, sir!

The Barr campaign notifies us that they have prevailed in the Pennsylvania ballot challenge case. McCain and his fellow Republicans attempted to have Barr removed from the ballot in PA. This makes a total of 44 state ballots where “Bob Barr” will appear.

From Ballot Access News:

This is quite a shot in the dark, and I’m sure the Barr campaign discussed this internally, although one never knows. They can use the Texas ballot access fight to their advantage in an attempt to get Bob Barr into the debates.

They should continue spreading the word about Obama and McCain missing the ballot access deadline in Texas. Also, they should add a new tactic to their press releases on the matter. The Barr campaign should make it clear (and public) that if both the Obama and McCain campaigns are truly interested in “change” as they claim then they should be for what the majority of the American people want and that is for Bob Barr to be in the debates (according the the recent Zogby poll saying 55% of those polled said he should be included). This alone is already being pursued to a degree, but it must be made more public using all media opportunities. The key is to continue to use the “change” rhetoric of the anti-change Parties against them.

The final and most convincing argument can be found with the Texas ballot fight where both Obama and McCain missed the filing deadline (supposedly). It seems that threatening a lawsuit could be used as a negotiating tactic. The Barr campaign’s lawyers can offer to drop the lawsuit if both Obama and McCain agree to allow Barr into the debates. Pointing out the amount of money and time both campaigns will have to spend on defending the lawsuit instead of their own campaigns should be a key point.

It is unlikely either Obama or McCain will fold to such “offers”, but it is worth a shot, especially since the law is being relaxed to their benefit. For Bob Barr, fighting for debate access is more important than fighting for ballot access at this point.

If Obama and McCain are truly for “change” and putting the “country first” then they should not suppress Bob Barr’s inclusion in the debates. Unfortunately, unless the main stream media makes this Texas ballot fight and hypocrisy widely known most voters will never get to hear the true message of change in this election.

To very little public fanfare from my beloved American media, a Mockery of a Trial of Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, alleged al-Qaeda mastermind, is getting underway in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Is John McCain losing any sleep over it? Doubt it.

by Jake, the Champion of the Constitution

Originally published September 2, 2008 at http://www.nolanchart.com/article4690.html

Senator John McCain and Khaled Sheikh Mohammed actually share one very important fact in common.

Both have been held as prisoners for the same term, 5-and-a-half years, and have been subjected to hideous amounts of torture.

After a self-professed suicide attempt, McCain survived the ordeal, returned home to his first wife and family, and has gone on to be a US Senator or Congressman for over 25 years, and has a chance to become POTUS this September. However, if McCain’s mind is sane, he would probably see at least a moral similarity to how he as an American POW was treated by the North Vietnamese after dropping bombs on them, and how a captured terrorist/enemy combatant was treated by at the hands of his American government for bombing the WTC. However, after not having batted an eyelid to assist fellow US citizen Jose Padilla when he was tortured for a terrorist/enemy combatant crime that he was never even tried for, I am sure McBama will stay quiet on the human rights violations committed on Khaled Sheikh Mohammed (or KSM as the US government refers to him in dehumanizing fashion in the 9/11 Commission Report).

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