Libertarian Party hypocrisy and more

Independent Political Report has the general story, about the troublemaking antisemitism of the New Hampshire Libertarian Party on 9/11, which follows on other problems LP National had perceived with both the New Hampshire and Colorado state affiliates this spring, and the national executive board's failure to deal with them then on a defeated censure motion.

As IPR notes, that May censure effort was over New Hampshire endorsing Trump last year (hold on to that thought), as well as racism by both. Weirdly, it ignored  Colorado went well beyond NH. It didn't endorse Trump. It actually nominated Brainworm Bobby. (Or tried to, until LP Secretary Caryn Ann Harlos filed the correct Chase Oliver paperwork with the Colorado SoS. Harlos would go on to sue then-LP chair Angela McAwful.)

That leads us to where we are now, and the hypocrisy issue. 

The Libertarian Party's executive board pursued a motion of censure against the LP of New Hampshire, which appears even more overrun with Mises Mice than the party nationally. 

I'm going to do a long quote block:

Libertarian National Committee At-large Representative Sam Bohler introduced a motion Friday to censure the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire, citing what he described as antisemitic and homophobic content shared by the affiliate on social media. The motion also invited the party to self-disaffiliate. 

The motion, posted to the LNC’s public Business List on September 12, references a 9/11-themed image depicting a Hasidic Jewish man piloting a plane toward the Twin Towers with the caption “We did it,” as well as the use of slurs in other posts. Bohler argued that the affiliate’s messaging undermines the Libertarian Party’s commitment to individual dignity and damages its national reputation. 

“LPNH’s posts have devolved into low-effort rage bait,” Bohler wrote. “The audience those posts attract is toxic, and as some of them join the affiliate, it will only push it further into deplorable rhetoric.” 

Bohler’s resolution calls on the New Hampshire state party to disaffiliate and cease using the Libertarian Party name, allowing another group to petition for affiliation in its place. The full language of the motion reads: 

Whereas, the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire has published posts on social media depicting a Jewish person piloting a plane in connection to the September 11 attacks, and the use of homophobic slurs, which reasonable people would consider antisemitic and bigoted; 

Whereas, this behavior diminishes the Libertarian Party’s image on the national stage, damaging not only our reputation but also our ability to grow; 

Whereas, a previous attempt to censure was dismissed, yet the pattern of behavior has only escalated; 

Be it therefore resolved, that the Libertarian National Committee censures the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire for its despicable conduct, and invites them to disaffiliate and cease its use of the Libertarian Party name so as to allow another group more in line with the values of this Party to petition for affiliation. 

This marks the second censure attempt targeting the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire in 2025. The first, introduced in May by LNC Treasurer Bill Redpath, cited racist and antisemitic imagery as well as the affiliate’s endorsement of Republican Donald Trump during the 2024 election cycle. That motion was later combined with a separate proposal by Redpath to censure the Libertarian Party of Colorado and failed in a 5–10 vote, with LNC Chair Steven Nekhaila abstaining.

So, there you go. 

The hypocrisy? And irony and other things? 

On Sept. 19, LP National's Shitter account said:

Democrats, the party of censorship & speech police. pic.twitter.com/KhB4Km5gYr

— Libertarian Party (@LPNational) September 19, 2025

As I posted on IPR:

Speaking of censure and Twitter, I believe that, at least in the view of the New Hampshire LP, and of those of us who like to snark, LP National committed an own goal yesterday.

And followed with:

Beyond what I said above, why is LP National singling out Democrats among the two duopoly parties? Especially given the party’s semi-official Trump flirtation last year, and events of the past week, this is hugely hypocritical. 

To snark away, I’ll respectfully suggest Nekhaila and others read Matthew 7:3-5, then look at who all gets to run LP National’s Twitter.

There you go. 

Beyond that? The arrest of journalist Mario Guevara further refutes the LP National lies. 

I also said the first paragraph of my second self-quote to the LP National Tweet.

Will the LP board do anything about this? Doubtful.

Will anybody on the LP board, or allies, who are semi-regular habituants of IPR respond to me? 

An additional issue is that, while LPNH does not have ballot access (so much for that vaunted "Free State" push, even if NH has tough ballot access laws, eh?) Colorado DOES, as far as I can tell.

So, are they going to be able to get away with that, the Brainworm Bobby attempted nomination, even if it was cut off at the pass last year? If so, the LP national is even weaker than I thought, and the non-Mice should just jump ship to that new Liberal Party. (And, that should have been added to the censure motion of earlier this year in my opinion.)

McAwful wound up resigning, but still chairs (shock me) the Mises Caucus within the LNC. The "shock me" is both ways; I'm surprised the Mises Mice find her trustworthy enough to be its leader. Among reasons not to trust her? She claimed Oliver would be a Trump spoiler stealing votes from Democrats. Instead, the shitshow stole votes from the LP.

That said, I also told the LP National Shitter account that its current "bio" is inaccurate, given that, in the 2024 presidential election, it finished well behind the Green Party and is now the fourth-largest, not third-largest, US political party. 

And, people like Libertarian grandee Richard Winger of Ballot Access News, a commenter on that IPR post, as of earlier this year, still couldn't or wouldn't deal with this. 

Beyond all of the above, it remains kind of fun to back on the LP in general. 

Ballot Access News does a bit of slouching to Gomorrah

Recent idjitry by Richard Winger is the specifics here. He has, not once but twice fluffed Trump's pardon of Ross Ulbricht, and in both cases, these don't have anything to do with ballot access. As I told Winger at the second piece, not only Jill Stein but Brainworm Bobby finished ahead of Libertarian-tards in 2024, despite LP head Angela McAwful trying to tie this back to 2020.

In both the first and second cases, he links, first, and second, to Reason interviews.

Seriously, the second piece is nothing but McAwful trying desperately to get her party back to a modicum of relevance when she herself passively-aggressively enabled the anti-Chase Oliver shitshow within the party. And, Winger has written enough about that that he knows that.

Maybe he has hard-on for Ulbricht?

In any case, as I made even more clear re the first piece? This is nothing but transactional pandering to the crypto community by The Donald after he and wife Melanin released their own new memecoins. If Winger's that fucking dumb, that's bad enough.

If he has an undisclosed financial "position" that's at background here, that's even worse.

Re the first piece? Maybe Ulbricht doesn't deserve life without parole. But, he doesn't deserve a pardon, either. A commutation would be different. Silk Road WAS a criminal enterprise. And, even if one favors decriminalization or even full legalization of "hard" drugs (I don't) its criminality went beyond drugs. As did the Ulbricht trial period's "shenanigans" by fanbois.

Beyond that, as the mag admits, the likes of it and Winger are already getting owned by Trump in other ways on civil liberties.

Beyond THAT, Winger, LP, McAwful? By the time I was composing this Jan. 22, they'd already dropped 50 percent from Jan. 17. Kevin Drum has more about the grifting shitstorm these coins are.

And, yes, I posted that to the second BAN piece. After my first comment there, he tried to claim it DOES show the power of a minor party, even though I pointed out McAwful's bait and switch, and of course, this all happened two months AFTER the 2024, not 2020, election.

Jordan at Independent Political Report has engaged in her own degree of suckerdom, as has one commenter there, beyond Nutbar Nuña, off in his own world.

Seriously, are these people more that fucking desperate, or that fucking stupid?

As for the McAwful types in the Libertarian, or Libertariantard, Party, whether full on Mises Mice or not?

To further the mash-up, they're TrumpTarianTards. It's like Jill Stein and other Greens who are AccommoGreens, Greens who really hope to just nudge Democrats. In fact, I see more direct parallels between LP head McAwful and de facto Green head Stein. Namely, they're both attention whores within the third party world, and it's usually in ways like this, triangulating off one half of the duopoly or another. 

And, the attention whore is resigning! Per IPR (no follow on link) she going to another opportunity that she said didn't allow time for running the LP but claimed that details of the move will make heads explode. Maybe, per the info about her grifting at that link — info that should have made BAN, IPR and Reason all take her Trump-influencing claims with multiple grains of salt — she's avoiding getting the boot. And, the big reveal? No, McAwful's fellators, she's not joining Trump's cabinet. She may, perhaps, be joining his memecoin PR team. (She's part of the reason the LP was going broke nine months ago.)

Wrong, Sam Husseini, on Vote Pact

First, does anybody besides Husseini write anything for VotePact, which is based on a voter version of old Congressional "twinning" or "pairing" on important votes when one member was absent, and so, a member of the other side would absent themselves.

Seriously. 

There's 10 articles on its homepage, and he wrote all of them.

So, we're going to assume this is some pet project of his.

And, it's wrong.

First, there are other third parties of both left and right besides Greens and Libertarians. (This sets aside that many Greens aren't really "left." This doesn't set aside that Libertarians, contra their protests, ARE "right.")

I mean, as I've said more than once on both here and Substack? I voted for the Commie. 

Second, contra this piece by Husseini? No, the two parties don't have that much in common.

His bullet point five, that Libertarians as well as Greens are "anti corporate rule"? Really? Where did that come from? Ditto on six, "Main Street over Wall Street."

And, on all environmental issues, Libertarians believe that "moar capitalism" is the solution for the climate crisis, pollution, etc. Libertarians oppose regulation in general.

And, beyond that, the LP platform says NOTHING, really, about business in general.

I'm shaking my head so hard I'm at risk of spraining my neck.

And, if he's got teh stupidz on this, I further withdraw my cutting him any slack on COVID and WIV.

Third, this is to misunderstand the tribalism into which duopoly politics has descended. Most of the more rabid duopoly voters are not pairing off their presidential votes. Just ain't happening.

Third-party and independent candidate roundup

I eventually decded to pull these items from the most recent presidential roundup, as it was getting long. It posted yesterday; here it is. Also yesterday, a roundup of major international recent elections news.

Interestingly, a couple of items center on New York State. Cue Huey Lewis:

First, though?

Chase Oliver is the Libertarian presidential nominee. Not a Mises Mouse, but otherwise, on many issues, full of the Olde Tyme Libertarian gospel. Climate change is the biggest. The free market caused the climate crisis; it's bullshit claiming it will get us out. Gunz would be second. Supporting educational vouchers would be third. 

The batshits of Twitter, whether Mises Mice, or non-LP alt-rightists. started hating on him immediately anyway. And, then there's his own party chairwoman. See below.

==

Second?

#MAGAts like to talk about election fraud. As Robert F. Kennedy Jr. moves in that direction, more and more, in many ways, will he talk about the moral version of election fraud, on residency, he seems to be committing himself? Showing the fear that full-on MAGAts have of Brainworm Bobby stealing votes from Donald Duck Trump, the Guardian piece notes that the New York Post reported on it first.

Meanwhile, even after being gaslit by him on abortion, Bob Jr.'s Veep, Nicole Shanahan, gave $8 million of her bucks to the campaign.

==

That said, Oliver has, or had, another problem: LP Chair Angela McArdle. As of last week, McAwful, she of the idea of bringing Donald Trump and RFK Jr. to the Libertarian convention, had yet to endorse Oliver as party prez nominee, and in fact was still fellating Trump.

And, since writing that paragraph above June 2, it's gotten worse. McAwful officially has Trump Delightment Syndrome, per Third Party Watch, which reports she will officially, so it seems, fellate Trump in red states, but, poutingly I presume, endorse Oliver in blue states. A 37-minute video of her ramblings for the strong at heart.

TPW also reports that the Montana LP has officially rejected him as a candidate. Will he sue? McAwful will surely do nothing, contra the Green Party, which in 2021 decertified the Alaska GP for pulling that stunt with Jesse the Body in 2020. So, Chase, it's you or nobody.

As for the Montana LP claiming "it's looking out for itself"? The Alaska GP made vague nods that way, too. Know what? Whether true or not, it still turns a national party into Articles of Confederation US instead of Constitution US. And, GP National, unlike McAwful's likely inaction a year from now, decertified Alaska's GP at its 2021 convention.

Sidebar: One IPR commenter is a birther, tho not a MAGAts member, and I can't tell if they're a Mises Mouse or not. I told him on one post I wasn't engaging with him there any more on the birtherism. Said nutter, "Nuña," has gotten worse since then, being a No True Scotsman on L/libertarianism, then claiming (no, really) that neoliberalism is "far-left."

Update: Colorado LP has joined Montana. Let the Libertarian crack-up begin.

==

And continuing on that thread?

"Libertarians for Kennedy" is looking at getting Brainworm Bobby and Cucker Shanahan to run on certain state LP ballot lines. Organizers of this effort say that Oliver would have to cooperate, but put that in such a way that they expect it to be guaranteed. More on the batshit lunacy here, which, given that McAwful refuses to endorse Oliver, has more than 0, even if not a lot more than 0, chance of success.

It has less than zero to the degree that McAwful will back Trump as much as possible. State LPs like Montana will probably look at a Mises Mouse Libertarian first and Trump second. Maybe the other way around. Brainworm Bobby will be a distant third.

==

And, just when I think Brainworm Bobby's campaign can't get worse, it does! Turns out that old Movement for a People's Party grifter Nick Brana is Bob Jr's campaign ballot access director, per an IPR piece about Bob and the Natural Law Party.

== 

Now, New York.

Dear Jill Stein: Answer me this. How could you fall short on New York ballot access signatures when a LaRouchie independent candidate for US Senate crushed it with ease, with the same numbers required? (Yes, Sare also ran in 2022, but she's an independent, not a third-party candidate, and you ran in 2016 and 2012.)

Actually, maybe Libertarian nominee Oliver should answer first. According to Independent Political Report, which says RFK Jr. will be the only non-duopoly candidate on the NY ballot, Oliver was WAY behind Stein. 

Actually, that's been answered in comments at Independent Political Report. LP national apparently refused to pay the freight for signature gathering, apparently pouting, even before the convention, that they couldn't get a Mises Mouse the nomination. See below.

==

Related to other Brainworm Bobby stuff? Shanahan loves her some Tucker Carlson, er Cucker Tarlson.

==

Meanwhile, for the Ye Olde Time Libertarians who have tired of the Oliver-McAwful drama, and who had tired of the Mises Mice long earlier, the YOTLs are officially founding a "Liberty Party."

==

Finally, though not tightly tied to the 2024 elections, via IPR, this year's Freedom Fest promises to be a lollapalooza of nuttery.

• Ev Psych fundamentalists like Steve Pinker (also full of shit on other things) and Matt Ridley (ditto).
• Rob Schneider, not funny in movies and not intelligent as a would-be pundit;
• Javier Milei, who will Make Argentina Garbage Again;
• Michael Schellenberger, fake enviro and climate change denialist;
• Pseudoskeptic Michael Shermer;
• Antivaxxer deluxe Del Bigtree;
• A bunch of other A-list grifters;
• Wayne Allen Root, Libertarian edgelord-grifter, and junior Trump wannabe;
• Multiple Skousens;
• Junior grifters that also appear to include at least one transhumanist and definitely include at least one other antivaxxer;
• A guy who self-presumes to be so well known that he's "Joe from Texas."

Gee, who could not fall in love with an event that once again proves that when "FreeDumb" is part of the name, the Dumb is usually along for the ride. (Oh, and on most the names above, either here or on Twitter, I have the receipts.)

Yeah, Jill Stein is there, but, per the above? She at least plays footsie with antivaxxerism. Anyway, she's not a featured speaker; she's on the B-team.

Also, the event is tawdry in some ways. You can't spell Jacob Sullum's name correctly? There's a couple of others, too.

And, there's a number of investment advice gurus. How much you wanna bet they're all peddling crypto?

==

This July 19 roundup has info on LP National vs Colorado state, St. Bernard of Sanders sheepdogging and more.

This Aug. 9 roundup had info on some of Brainworm Bobby's, aka Wasted Space's, ballot access lies and more.

This Aug. 30 roundup had a Socialist Workers Party cult nutter trying to perform entryism on me in comments.

Presidential roundup, May 10

Apparently, though I didn't see anything at Independent Political Report, Libertarian National Committee head Angela McArdle invited her Luciferian master, RFK Jr., as well as Donald Duck Trump, to speak at the Libertarian convention. (Here was my take a week ago when this news broke.)

Per the link above, both are scheduled to speak BEFORE the party's presidential nomination. McAwful, obviously fearing an attempt to stampede the convention, claims Trump (and Bob Jr.) cannot be nominated from the floor.

As for Mr. Trump, Angela McArdle, the chairwoman of the Libertarian party, said last week that it was “not possible” under the party’s bylaws to nominate him.

Really? 

Per IPR, chairs of several state parties have officially invited Bob Jr. to seek the nomination.

Beyond that? Rules were made to be broken.

And on Twitter, the site formerly called Twitter, Bobby Boy has challenged Donald Duck to debate him while they're there.

That said, we still don't know if either one will actually get to speak there. (That said, per recent comments at that IPR post, McAwful appears to be trying to stall out this issue.)

THAT that said, since the Trump speaking time is scheduled for a Thursday, assuming his trial is still happening in New York City, we don't know if he'll be there anyway. And, McAwful, so far, has not indicated a possibility of a reschedule.

==

What could that debate be about? Maybe a dueling lie-fest over Jan. 6, 2021, per Bob Jr.'s latest campaign hire. 

It appears, via NBC, that Team Bob has hired the firm of Total Virality, run by Zach Henry for "influencer engagement." Who's he? Worked for the Aridzona GOP through late January 2021. Per the story, appeared to shoot J6 video from a restricted area at Capitol grounds. And, appeared to post those videos to the Aridzona GOP official Twitter account. Before that, in late 2020, the account posted "fake electors" bullshit and other things.

Earlier this year, Henry worked on the prez campaign of Revive with Vivek Ramaswamy. Before that? Blake Masters' Aridzona US Senate campaign.

No accident, this hire. And, it seems clear what influencers Bob Jr wants to reach. No wonder Trump has started bitching. 

==

Oh, you can insert your Bob Jr. is brain-dead jokes now,too. More on that by me here.

==

Nikki Haley may officially be out of the GOP primary race, but she still got 20 percent in Indiana. And, Indiana is winger enough that this should be a red alert for Trump.

==

Bob Jr's signature-gatherers for him to get on the New York ballot appear to be gaslighters. (Big oops in trying to pull that off with New York Times staffers!) Earlier today, I said Bob Jr himself seemed to be a big old gaslighter on abortion; guess they learned that from him.

==

For BlueAnon bitching about the Georgia appeal's court's ruling in Trump's RICO trial? Bitch at Fani Willis. Clearly unethical. Besides, Georgia's RICO law is far more draconian than the US one, and is being used to prosecute Cop City protestors.

==

#GenocideJoe leaves himself a Mack truck sized loophole: He will cut back arms for Israel if Bibi launches a "major invasion" of Rafah. And, guess who will define "major"? And "cut back," since I Heart Zion Biden didn't say "none"; cut back what? Two percent? After all, "some sort of" invasion of Rafah was happening at the time #GenocideJoe was blathering. And, earlier today, Bibi's cabinet voted to expand the operation. Will Biden claim this still isn't "major"?

==

Oh, despite 700 Jewish professors asking him not to, (and Congressman Jerry Nadler) Biden's going to sign the Antisemitism Awareness Act, if he hasn't already.

==

Revive with Vivek Ramaswamy will join Trump and Bob Jr. in speaking to the Libertariantards.

Presidential politics May 2 — Trump says yes to Libertariantards

The biggest news? After the Libertarian National Committee invited both Genocide Joe Biden and Donald Duck Trump (but not anybody else) to attend the LP's convention this summer, Trump accepted. 

Update 1, May 4: Angela McArdle, LNC chair, apparently screwed the pooch on how she released the news. She apparently also let someone else screw the pooch by letting Trump merch being hawked on the Libertarian Party website. (That doesn't surprise me, and confirms that this is in part about trying to replenish highly diminished coffers.) See below for more on that, as well as for the possibility this might not happen, and if it does, might further splinter an already splintering party. Note: Photo comes from a Reddit site apparently devoted to "tracking" Truth Social. Surely either Never Trumper Rethuglicans or Blue Anons.

Why? 

Not "why" on Trump accepting. That's a no-brainer.

Why did the Mises Mice accept this idea? Why did McAwful (like her non-sister Megan McAwful) propose this? And, what happens if he stampedes the convention into giving him a co-nomination? (And, yes, unless Trump is in one of the last two guest speakers on the afternoon of Sunday, May 26, per the LNC schedule, he will otherwise speak before the LP's presidential nomination. So, yes, this could be a thing. Or somebody could make it one.) Congrats. You'll have chased off the rest of the non-Mises Mice. Given reality vs legend on Trump's own finances and largesse to others, you'll only deepen the party's deficit. (Oh, as with everywhere else, he'll stiff you for security bills.) And, you'll otherwise finish wrecking the party. Side news to that is that in some states where the Libertarians need X percent of the vote to maintain ballot access, they could well lose it.

Congrats!

As I said at Independent Political Report, when I didn't think Trump would agree, riffing on "Apocalypse Now": "I love the smell of desperation in the morning." 

That said, per the link, I should give credit where credit is due. The Mice are apparently hoping at finding plenty of suckers, either in their own Libertariantards or in the #MAGAts, to pay $10 a pop to vote on what Trump should talk about at the convention.

Should Genocide Joe decide to accept? No. He should, in terms of political chess matches, trot out the worst statements by the dumbest of the Mises Mice. That said, let's talk about him more.

I am curious what Trump will say about the odious "Antisemitism Awareness Act," HR 6090, and even more about what the Mises Mice will say, if it comes up there.

That said? Will this happen? The LNC's treasurer is trying to cut it off.

Update, May 5: Not directly related to the Trump invite, but yes, directly related to the Libertarian dumpster fire on money in the pot that probably inspired the Trump invite, McAwful is being sued, and personally, not the LP.

==

Side note: Trump reportedly has Marco Rubio on his shortlist for Veep. I immediately thought 12th Amendment, then the 2000 election. Problem? Rubio's a Florida U.S. Senator; Dick Cheney held no elected office in Texas and could easily establish residency in Wyoming. The Bulwark looks at all the problems a Rubio Veep would cause the Republican Party, which means Trump very well might do it, if nothing else to make Lil Marco kiss his ring.

==

Donald Duck Trump is now going public his own self with his fears that reflect what many pollsters, pundits and GOP operatives have thought for some time: RFK Jr. threatens to take more votes from him than Biden.

==

Cornel West is on the ballot in Vermont. The party, under previous name, nominated Gloria de la Riva of PSL in 2020, which means Claudia de la Cruz is cut out there.

Presidential politics, April 19 — mouthy Jesse Ventura, Luciferian RFK Jr, Watermelon Oreos

I had already written this up yesterday, but we now have a new top story!

Jesse "the Body" Ventura (because his stanners hate that) now says he can beat Biden and Trump. So? Get No Labels or whomever to nominate you.

As of right now, this is just Jesse running his fucking mouth just like in 2020. He wanted the Green Party nomination back then, but didn't want to campaign for it — like Cornel West this year. He wanted it handed to him on a platter. More bluntly, as I said then? He wanted his ass kissed. But, he avoided directly saying that, showing that he's a better retail politician than West. (That's a low bar to hurdle; my left butt cheek is a better retail politician than West.) When that didn't happen, to be blunt again? He became chickenshit.

Anyway, how that all played out?

Some of Jesse's stanners used Dario Hunter as a stalking horse. (You did.) He was, I first thought, too dumb to notice that, but per link below, he eventually admitted this was deliberate. But, the effort failed anyway. Sorry, William Pounds, Primo Nutbar especially, and other pseudoleftists, conspiracy theorists, etc. It's all true. The fun after that was when, after going all hasbara in the campaign (ye gads, imagine him this year) Hunter played the race card.

==

RFK Jr. NOT not running as a Libertarian. He said he thought he would get on all 50 states' ballots on his own line, either by his individual name or a carve-out/SPAC third party created for that purpose. A couple of thoughts following.

First, I figured all along it would be too hard a fit to go Libertarian. He'd have to junk his environmental stances, which would sink his standing with one portion of his backers.

Second, he and his advisors are clearly looking for every loophole or angle in various states' ballot access laws, and finding them. Will state legislatures, under duopoly prodding, close more of these in the next year or so?

Third, it seems clearer than ever that the LP was in part just a stalking horse for Bob Jr. LP Chair Angela McArdle, running a party that's going broke and facing internal dissents, said she would not comment for "at least a few days."

I guess, per that link, that Bob Jr. is now McArdle's Luciferian master.

==

I'm not sure what the Muslim word for "Oreo" might be. Maybe, per the watermelon symbol for Palestinians, we could adopt the US frontier West's phrase of "all hat, no cattle," to "all rind, no red." Anyway, "on the US street" but politically engaged Muslim-Americans are seeing plenty of "watermelon Oreos" among leadership of groups claiming to represent the Muslim-American populace, but really, representing the Genocide Joe Biden re-election campaign. Mondoweiss has details.

==

Remember when #WallbuilderJoe, just a few weeks ago, said that Congress had to give him the authority to tighten up the border with Mexico? Guess that was another lie. Per Axios, he told Univision that he's going to do a Trump-style executive order. He's already kept Trump's Section 42 in place by other means, with the buggy app to apply for asylum. Now this.

==

Trump has officially opposed supporting a national ban on abortion. How many of the right-to-life wingers will stay home in their disappointment? That said, this is THE WORST granting of on-background commenting ever, with the weaselshits at Axios talking about a number of Rethuglicans in Congress "breathing a sigh of relief" over this, but letting them comment on background, namelessly.

==

Cornel West being Cornel West again. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. got national news hype of some sort out of his vice-presidential announcement, including through the use of various leaks before it became official. West just "drops it out there" in an interview with Tavis Smiley, when he announced Melina Abdullah as his choice. (There was a press release, but it came out AFTER the interview, and I suspect was written on the fly afterward.)

==

Warmonger Joe has decided NOT to restock the Strategic Petroleum Reserve after all. Reading between the lines? That means Team Biden expects oil prices to go up further, which means inflation will go up.

Gee, can you guys think of a country with LOTS of oil? Let me help you out. Its name starts with an "R."

==

Mormons, and especially Mormon women, showing less hypocrisy than Protestants of the Religious Right, are tilting Biden. Won't matter in Utah and Idaho. Will matter in Nevada and Aridzona. And, downballot, not just in presidential races. Many of these people say they feel abandoned by the GOP in general.

OTOH, Biden's continuing to lose ground among younger non-white voters.

Top blogging of March

These are the most read posts in March. Posts not from last month will be so indicated.

No. 10? Dental care as health care. Important globally, not just in the US.

No. 9? My critical analysis of Genocide Joe's State of the Union.

NO. 8? A blast in the past from 2017, my longform/total takedown, to which I make occasional small new notes and edits, of the late "Actual Flatticus" / "Alan Smithee" / IRL Chris Chopin.

No. 7? No, I don't "revere" the Constitution. A leftist reply to typical librul thought.

No. 6? A blast from WAY in the past, back in 2006, and yes, Tim Treadwell WAS really fricking nuts (and as a result, really fricking dead). Sidebar: Having read Herzog's memoir recently, going beyond what I said in the original about him pulling punches, he may also have been a bit manipulative, or certainly a bit novelistic. That said, Treadwell was really fricking nuts without Herzog's framing.

No. 5? Actually posted April 1, but it's already trending that much. An April Fool's Day, sadly all too real, presidential election news roundup.

No. 4? My thoughts on Guernica magazine's scrub of "From the Edges of a Broken World."

No. 3? Posted even later than April 1, but trending that much that quickly? My schadenfreude about the Libertarian Party going broke and imploding.

No. 2? My mocking of the stupidity of a Green Party candidate on Twitter.

No. 1? It turned out to be dated, but my thought on the first two rumored candidates to be Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s Veep — Aaron Rodgers and Jesse the Body Ventura.

LP going broke and imploding, and other political news

The Libertarian Party is going broke. I guess the Mises Mice are good party-wreckers but not party-builders? Related? Other Libertarians are demanding party chair Angela McArdle resign over this and other clusterfucks. (She's a Mises Mouse.) Her oh-so-snappy response?

When contacted by Independent Political Report to ask if she wanted to comment on the allegations made in the letter, McArdle responded on Thursday evening, declining to address questions and instead replied, "Give my regards to your Luciferian Masters."

About as snappy as a bowl of rice krispies.

(Side note: I don't know why Independent Political Report is one of "those" websites that won't let you copy text. It's a PITA to do a "save as" text files and then open it in Word, but it's doable easily enough, so it's not like they're stopping anything. You also cannot right-click to open individual pieces in new tabs, which is another PITA. If this is being done for the clicks, IPR, well Ghostery has your number.) 

Meanwhile. the LP also may or may not have had its Facebook page hacked by the Russkies or another foreign actor. And, McArdle's reaction is hilarious. Per a commenter at the link, no, Angela, the FBI indeed doesn't even give two shits about the LP.

As I commented there:

Per Jack, it does check out, and the Eff Bee Eye does promise a follow-up response. Assuming the letter is genuine, the feds do not say what, if anything, the hackers did, if it's actual hackers and not just a foreign log-in or whatever.

So, let's all go to the LP's Facebook page and see if it has an posts that might be even more head-scratching than normal in the last six months.

Wait, WAIT!

Did McArdle not talk about Luciferian masters here at the IPR in the request for a party fiscal audit? Would Satan not be a representative of a foreign government? There's your answer, folks; thank me later, Jordan.

Angela is as McAwful as non-relative (I think) Megan McAwful.

I'd said the Green Party was past its best-buy date after the 2020 election season. I held out for four more years than the likes of Brandy Baker and Mark Lause, the latter formally noting the party was dead after 2016 (and Stein's lesser evilism recount, also getting initial mention in that link). I did mention, in a 2016 postmortem, things that needed to be improved. And, they weren't. Add in the various transgender/transsexual issues, which culminated with my saying "a pox on both your houses" (which I say as a non-twosider on this issue in general) and the nuttery of "identity movement Greens" (and don't forget censorship on the GP Facebook group before it was closed) and I am an ex-Green. And kind of hoping for it to implode more.

The Libertarian Party is trying to join it on an accelerated timeline. And, doing a damned good job of it.

For more on that, read this Substack by an ex-Libertarian (who works at Cato, re his bona fides) who escaped when the Mises Mice took over. Part of the value of the piece is documenting HOW the Mises Mice did that takeover. That includes drawing a bright line from Ron Paul's racist Rockwell newsletters.

As for the financial side? This, from that:

More than a fifth of the national party’s dues-paying members have left in the past year. That proportion is probably even greater among those who were active members, participating in campaigns and party business. In short, a party that proclaimed freedom of association as one of its core principles, in the end was destroyed because it was unwilling to exercise that fundamental right.

Yeah, you lose one fifth or more of your donors, you're in trouble.

Update, April 16: MoJo has a long, long form about the history of the LP, which includes noting that the Ron Paul-tards are in many ways the forerunners of the Mises Mice, but that the strains within the LP go even further. In what would make the Mice shit bricks today, the Koch brothers backed a member of the Council on Foreign Relations as presidential nominee in 1984, but when he lost, they moved on from day-to-day interest. Among links to the piece is one from Reason mag, which also says this split is part of a 50-year tension.

Update, May 4: Trump has accepted the Libertarian National Committee's invite to speak at the convention. (But there may be a hitch.) Will that, and the grift the LNC is trying to do off that, be enough to replenish diminished coffers?

==

Denny the Dwarf Kuchinich, after having been fired as Bob Jr's campaign manager several months back for Kennedy nepotism reasons (one of the few in-laws or other relatives of RFK Jr that still tolerates him) is now running for Congress as an independent. In attacking a WHO "global pandemic treaty," he shows why he was willing to work for Bobby in the first place. He compares it to the WTO. What, are we trying to block the importation of cheaper germs?

In reality?

1. It would not "surrender sovereignty." 
2. It's based on already existing WHO-generated agreements.

Or, per the link above:

It would be only the second such health accord after the 2003 Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, a treaty which aims to reduce smoking via taxation and rules on labelling and advertising. 

However, the proposed pandemic treaty has come under fire on social media, mostly from right-wing critics warning it could lead to countries ceding authority to the WHO. The body strongly refutes this, stressing that governments are leading the negotiations and are free to reject the accord.

If anything, at least if enforced, it would point at China's secretiveness on All Things COVID, if anything.

Denny the Dwarf, as nutters as ever. And, while not quite a Bernie ⇒  Trump guy like that Goodman dude, he is a Bernie (I assume) ⇒  RFK Jr. dude.

As for the Bob Jr. tie otherwise? Denny IS an "antivaxxer under other color." (My phrase.) Or maybe just a straight-up one, being that blatant an enabler of Bob Jr.

Justin Amash: Unclear on the concept(s) or just unclear

Last week, Independent Political Report ran a piece about former Michigan Congresscritter Justin Amash's announcement that he was removing himself from consideration for the 2024 Libertarian Party presidential nod. (Some people tried to push him for that in 2020, shortly after he announced he was no longer a Republican, but he demurred on grounds that might help Trump. Why he thought it would help Trump instead of Biden, I don't know.)

Anyway, in response to a mix of his first paragraph talking about right-libertarianism and his last graf talking about how the Libertarian Party needs to be "Libertarian-lite," I commented:

Innnteresting, starting with his comments on where he aligns within today’s LP factions or branches, while, at the end, he seems to fully endorse “Libertarian-lite,” as in Gary Johnson. Just a bit self-contradictory?

To which, X (a recent anonymous commenter on another blog post here) said:

Perhaps SG is having difficulty grasping this because he equates right libertarianism with extremist posturing. Actually, libertarianism is not intrinsically left or right, so left and right leaning libertarianism is a separate scale from pragmatism vs extreme posturing. Amash unsurprisingly reveals that he’s a right leaning pragmatist within the LP internal debates. That’s exactly where I expected him to be.

To which I replied:

X, it’s not incumbent on me to mind-read Amash if he doesn’t make himself clearer, especially vis-a-vis Libertarian issues of the last couple of years on certain social issues. One could also argue, with small “l” vs capital “L” and the US an outlier in general, that whatever the term might mean, there’s a diff between right-libertarianism and right-Libertarianism. Or that, in the US, right-libertarianism may not be the same as right-libertarianism abroad.

And, this post is follow-up to that.

If I were to try to mind-read Amash, I’d venture that he was trying to distinguish right-libertarians from paleo-libertarians, to use normal political science labels and groupings.

Second, I’ll charitably assume X doesn't think that left-libertarians are a significant portion of the Libertarian Party and ditto for Amash. Left-libertarianism *outside the US* is generally still a non-capitalist, if not even somewhat anti-capitalist, stance. And, it's not even close to a significant portion of small-l libertarianism in the US, "libertarian Greens" of 2020 trying to nominate Jesse the Body Ventura via a back door aside. 

To tie this back to Amash, as an ex-Republican (and per one other commenter on the IPR piece, not a very active Libertarian from 2020 on), he should know that, speaking beyond an LP-only audience, given people who know him as a former Republican, to distinguish carefully.

That said, per point two, per standard political science, yes, libertarianism has a “right” and a “left.” Many Europeans who would be classified as "libertarian" are left-libertarian; even those who are right-libertarian aren't like US libertarians in general, whether LP libertarians or not. In fact, most European libertarians either laugh or sneer at the US version of the political philosophy. (Wikipedia also has a piece on "libertarian socialism," a label I once considered trying to use to describe myself, but, because of US libertarianism, and then the "libertarian Greens" reflecting US libertarianism more than European, I abandoned. Per more recent thought, and reflecting European ideas, "liberal socialism" would fit me somewhat better, but still not perfectly. I may not want to "abolish" capitalism, and I may not be "anti-capitalist," but I do want to be "post-capitalist." Maybe I'm about halfway between the two, but I digress.)

Per point one, paleo-libertarians are clearly socially rightist.

You’re not the first person to say “neither right nor left” or something similar, and I’ve heard that for more than a decade. Nice marketing slogan. But, for marketing slogans to actually sell, they have to be believed by the recipient. And, that slogan has never been believed in these quarters, and for good reason, as listed above.

RFK Jr. going independent

Interesting, but not totally surprising, and also not totally smart to make this move. OR is it smart after all? See my full analysis as it plays out through the piece.

Given that he's already talked to Libertarian Party chair Angela McArdle, his growing frustration with trying to top President Joe Biden in the Democratic Party primary process has become quite public.

So, aborting that, I get.

Update, Oct. 5: The ongoing Libertarian Party implosion and backbiting among national board members, in part reflecting Miss Caucus vs non-Mises, is another good reason for Bob Jr. to avoid that shitshow.

The "not totally smart" is running as an independent. John Anderson is the last serious candidate to try that route. Ross is Boss Perot, even though he had no congressional candidates on his coattails, nonetheless got the Reform Party created as a platform and vehicle.

First, I don't think he gets the ballot access difficulties that face an independent, and that have only grown, perhaps exponentially, in the more than 40 years since Anderson did it.

Now, it's true that he's got Kennedy money (although that may not be quite as much as some of us think) to throw at paid petition signature gatherers in states that allow that. But, there's also getting official presidential electors in our American system and more. 

And, unless he wanted to try to bigfoot Cornel West, the Libertarians are his best angle.

I also doubt that No Labels wants to nominate him, even if it opts to nominate somebody. No Labels also has the baggage from its own POV that, at least in states covered by law by the Ninth Circuit, it CANNOT be only a presidential party, barring a new lawsuit.

Next?

The duopoly-based political horse race angle.

And, going by polls this summer, RFK Jr. going independent could hurt Republicans more than Democrats.

Reuters' story on the announcement, without detailed polling numbers, agrees. So does a National Review piece from July, linked by Mediaite.

And, per a new Mediate story, such luminary wingnuts as Charlie Kirk and Prilosec/POS/Posobiec agree that this hurts Trump more. Taint just them saying that, either; a RFK Jr staffer also says so, per the "this will fuck Trump" header. Indeed, without being so graphic, the man said his own self last week. Prilosec thinks it's a BlueAnon conspiracy, in fact.

That said, those numbers will change, and they'll change more if he abandons the Independent line and joins a third party.  

That said, with his announcement now official, GOP attacks confirm they're worried.

Now, some final analysis of this.

The flip side of all of this? 

First, like West went from MPP first to the Greens second (actually, he's technically running both as a fusion candidate), RFK Jr's move to an independent run doesn't preclude eventually moving to the Libertarians.

Second, the flip side to that is? Beyond the NYT reporting, the meeting with McArdle must just not have gone that well, if we're going to read between some lines.

Third is, on the "horse race" angle, running under the LP banner would probably hurt Republicans even more. 

Fourth, though, per that NR piece, Kennedy's fit as a Libertarian would be tough indeed. And, there's no guarantee he'd win the primary. Ditto on if he decided to bigfoot West.

Speaking of third parties? Anderson helped form the Justice Party not too many years before his death.

==

Now, media analysis.

Why Friday evening / late afternoon news dump time? (Contra any assumptions this was an accident, while this technically may be a "leak," not an "announcement," it seems to me to clearly have been a "planned leak," and on the semantics of that versus "announcement"? Per Spock in STTOS: "A difference that makes no difference IS no difference.")

So, why Friday dead zone time? Especially with shutdown news soaking up some of the media political oxygen? Could that be that RFK didn't want too big a trumpet blast?

As for "where"? Mediaite was certainly a chosen target. You don't have to worry about leaking to the NYT and pissing off the WaPost, or leaking to NR and pissing off TNR, etc.

Mediate is a media analysis site, but one that focuses on analysis of political news coverage. Perfect target.

And, on the timing, once more? The big announcement is Oct. 9, so, the campaign needed some sort of leak before then. And, Friday dead zone time? RFK's campaign, or the man himself, could have figured that all the shutdown coverage was to their advantage. News junkies wanted something else in national news, and many of RFK's vote targets are probably open to blaming both duopoly sides on the shutdown.

So, while it looks like a stereotypical Friday afternoon news dump, there may be logic to it. And, while a first-time candidate for elected office, RFK, through Waterkeepers and other groups, is not a stranger to dealing with the media in general.

==

Now, a second round of political analysis.

First, between money, name and enthusiasm, RFK Jr. can probably get on the ballot in most states with no problem. And, per his time running Waterkeepers and other things, he's got some experience with petition drives for ballot access, I would think.

A related note? Here in Tex-ass, I believe the rule on signing for an independent candidate to get on the ballot is the same as for a third party to get party-line ballot access. It's a disgusting rule, and just another way in which Democrats join with Republicans in suppressing third-party and independent candidate vote rights. In other words, if you voted in either the R or D primary in 2002, you can't sign, and that leaves me out. (Even though I don't plan on voting for him, I absolutely would sign if I could.)

In turn, a note related to that? RFK may not have problems recruiting enthusiastic people as signature gatherers, and paying them where he can. But, per the polling information above, and uncertainty, BOTH duopoly parties will do their best to find ANY problems with his petitions in all 50 states. 

(Update: On IPR, I posted a Ballotpedia link, about paid signature gatherers for initiatives, and extrapolated from that to political candidates; all 50 allow paid petition circulators for president, but vary on how they're paid.)

Second, the fit with Libertarians just doesn't seem like it would be that much better than with Republicans. Even if RFK has softened on gun control (he has, and yet another reason to dislike him), he's still pretty staunch on environmental issues, and their need to be enforced by regulation. Unless he dumps that, too, that, and other issues where he still supports the regulatory state, is too touch a match.

Third, running as a Libertarian, or a Green, just means you're a candidate. Nomination not guaranteed. It's true, he could try to use an existing Libertarian candidate as a cutout, like the "libertarian" Greens of 2020 were trying to use Dario Hunter as a cutout for Jesse the Body Ventura. (They hate it when he's called that.)

Fourth, nonetheless, some non-Mises Libertarians may well vote for RFK Jr. I see this as a net negative for them, if they don't get him on the ballot, as for a Trump-led GOP.

Oh, as for the number of signatures? Here in Tex-ass, it's 113,000 and change. I think it was a lot lower for Mimi Soltyski in 2016; the high presidential turnout in 2020 plus increased population has jacked the number. It was 90K in 2020.

==

And, yet more why Bob Jr. won't go Libertarian?

It's not the environmentalism, it's the pro-life-ism. He's hardcore "good conservative cafeteria Catholic" on this issue, so much so that he touted on Twitter a place in Georgia, Auntie Angie's, that, reading between the lines, believes the "abortion is Black genocide" bullshit.

Note: This isn't out of the blue for Bob Jr. Given that he's grifted on the actual wrongs of the Tuskegee syphilis experiment to target American Samoa, Somali immigrants in Minneapolis and other people of color with his antivaxxerism, Bob Jr. may actually be a self-gaslighter on the "abortion is Black genocide" issue. As a 2-star overall book I just read notes, in 2021, Bob Jr.'s Children's  Health Defense released the film "Medical Racism: The New Apartheid." Add in that Bob Jr. has buddied up with Tony Muhammad of the Nation of Islam, and there you are. (How he squares this with blank checks for Israel, I don't know.

Ron Paul was the last Libertarian candidate, back in 1988, to be openly personally pro-life, IIRC.

That said, while the Libertarian platform talks about people owning their own bodies, it does NOT explicitly tie that to "reproductive choice" or "abortion." Neither is mentioned in the platform.  And, per this "Libertarians on abortion" piece, that platform schwaffling (despite its PR bullshit) is deliberate. Per that link, why not explicitly say in the platform what the piece says? "Libertarians recognize that abortion is a controversial issue, therefore bodily self-ownership should not be taken as an endorsement of abortion." The reality is that Libertarians, IMO, think that most lowercase libertarians believe the party is pro-choice and won't disabuse them. It's bullshit.

That's why this piece, discussing the 2018 platform, and that the government should "stay out" of this issue, is also laughable. Since abortion became medically safe, not doing anything is "taking a side."

Independent Political Report refocuses

George Phillies talks about change of ownership, but that's more for Third Party Watch, which will be going more explicitly Libertarian Party and under Libertarian-based (as in capital-L interests) ownership, and he's going to move IPR more to general political reporting on third parties.

As for Third Party Watch? Libertarian Policy Institute is the home for non-Mises Libertarians, on the nickel version.

I'll probably have less interest in going there than before, and the big stuff will spill over to IPR anyway.

Texas Greens, like the national party, are past their "Best By" date

Nationally, unlike Mark Lause and Brandy Baker, I held out slim hope after the 2016 election for the national party.

The playout of the presidential nomination process, with Dario Hunter playing the race card even while being used by libertarian Green fanbois of Jesse (the still Libertarian Body) Ventura, pretty much eliminated most that hope.

And, when presidential nominee Howie Hawkins, at the instigation (sic) of advisors Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, started peddling the Xi Jinping Thought Kool-Aid on China in general and the Uyghurs in particular, that tore it. (Howie's halfway correct or more answer on Putin and the 2016 election makes me think that loving the Xi Jinping Thought Kool-Aid was NOT a totally unprompted idea on his part.

Now, we move forward two years to Texas Greens.

First of all, just three candidates for office. Libertarians are down as well, but we're not talking about them.

For governor? Delilah Barrios, Second Amendment absolutist, whose muse on this issue is diametrically opposed to her stances on other issues, like national health care. Barrios apparently sees no cognitive dissonance, which means she must be laser-focused on Sameen's stupidity (it is) as a gun nut (he is).

For railroad commissioner? I was not a fan of Green Hunter Crow even before this race; when you're under 30 and already entering perennial candidate territory, that's a good starting point. And, any Green saying gas should be $2 a gallon is a fucking idiot on climate change; that's like writing blank checks. BUT! That's just the starting point. He's ALSO a Texas secessionist! 

Then, for land commissioner? I'd love to give you a link to Alfred Molison. The best I can do is his Twitter; he has no website and not even a Facebook page, unlike our 2014 nutter for governor, Brandon Parmer, who was on Facebook, though but rarely for campaign stuff. And, whether for retweets or his own original tweets, his Twitter has not been used since 2020.

Molison did the best, at 1.6 percent. Makes you wonder how he'd done with an actual online presence. Crow was at an even 1 percent. Barrios was below 0.5 percent, and I hope me calling her out on gunz helped depress the vote.

Greens have one more shot to break 2 percent, in 2024, or it's back to the petition-circulating, signature-gathering drawing board. Two statewide races of prominence: Inflation Warmongering Joe vs. whoever the Rethuglicans nominate, and other third party candidates, in the presidential race, and Havana / Cancun Ted Cruz vs some Rethuglican and other candidates for the Senate. Other than that, it's three state Supreme Court races and three Court of Criminal Appeals seats. And, since Greens, and Libertarians, have been passing up those judicial races more and more? Realistically, it's two races. Really realistically, Greens will need to hope that Democrats nominate a truly crappy ConservaDem to run against Havana Ted, because if it's either Trump the Comeback Kid or DeStan getting the GOP prez nomination, that race will be way too tribal for Texas Greens to hit 2 percent there. (The mind boggles if Hunter Crow turns 30 before that Senate race.)

Note: David Bruce Collins says it's through 2026; I think the state law is "election inclusive," so 2016, 18, 20, 22, 24. Interestingly, Molison "liked" his Twitter response to me.

This is on the state party in another way. If a candidate doesn't have a website and won't create one? You build one. And, you bill the candidate the cost for that, even if it's a cheapie "Google Sites" like Crow's. And, you make a candidate sign an agreement to that end as part of officially being nominated.

I did a search on the GPUS website. Sadly, under its platform page, its subsection on climate change has just one line about a carbon tax, or carbon tax plus carbon tariff. That's re Crow. On Barrios, only three hits, and all of them news releases, about "Second Amendment." On Molinson, since I don't know in detail why he ran, I have no idea if he has any positions at least halfway hinky with GPUS, or issues basically not discussed.

INNNterestingly, per his Twitter, former friend Brains may also be an ex-Green? His profile says only that he's "not a Democrat." BUT? It DOES have the DSA Roseys rose emoji. And, the presumably anarchist blag flag emoji. NO sunflower or other emoji that would be most commonly associated with Greens (I have not seen the four-leaf clover, though green, as Green.)

==

That said, Greens aren't alone. Since the Mises folks took over the Libertarian Party at the national level, many Libertarians have stopped donating, even as a number of state affiliates do battle, even splinter, over whether or not to affiliate with LP National, which in turn is trying to go Xi Jinping on state parties that won't toe the line. Their most recent LP National meeting will shed more light.

What's next for Tulsi Gabbard?

In announcing she was leaving the Democraps, Tulsi Gabbard did not say whether she would become a true Independent, a Rethuglican, a capital-L Libertarian, or a Green. (This ex-Green shudders at the possibility of her joining the Green 2024 presidential field. I'm an ex-Green for current political purposes, but no, not a Democrap. But, I still eye Greens. And I'll cut her less slack than I did Cynthia McKinney in 2008.)

Update, July 18, 2023: Tulsi is leaving the door open for possibly running for the No Labels nod against Yachtsman Joe Manchin or whomever, per her yakking with Sean Hannity.

So, I took her to the house in this Twitter thread this afternoon. And, a lot of people that should know better, and should have known better long ago (some are likely grifters, getting paid to pretend not to know better, or paid to peddle the Kool-Aid, per my photoshopping) went to that woodshed:

We start here:

Only a year ago, sez this ex-Green *skeptical* leftist, some leftists & some Greens (WAY too many Greens are NOT leftist) were still trying to puff smoke up other ppl's skirts abt how wonderful Tulsi Gabbard was.
U mean Tulsi the Hindutva-fascist? I warned you folks long ago 1/x https://t.co/VMXiwJ7BOl

— TheRealSocraticGadfly (@real_gadfly) October 11, 2022

One thing, beyond these tweets, is that the malign influence of her homophobic Svengali, Chris Butler, is still in the background on her attacks on "wokeness." There are some times when the "woke" world is wrong, as when I talk about "wrongfully woke." Usually, it's connected to capitalism. Tulsi's failure to make such a connection also proves, contra people named below, that she's no lefist.

Then:

Here's the piece about the Tulsi Gabbard Kool-Aid in context of the 2020 Democratic prez primaries. Tulsi also loved defense contractor money, and AIPAC and Zionist / Xn Religious Right money (as in John Hagee) 2/x https://t.co/ECS0LRkYVh

— TheRealSocraticGadfly (@real_gadfly) October 11, 2022

And, yes, she did, even to the point of speaking at one of Hagee's events. It ties with her Islamophobia, or Islamo-hatred, as a "good" Hindutva-fascist.

And:

But, I first warned about her as a Hindutva-fascist, friend of the BJP and RSS, 6 1/2 years ago, when Tulsi Gabbard was a Bernie whisperer and Berners praised her to the moon 3/x https://t.co/IcC4RYXtnT

— TheRealSocraticGadfly (@real_gadfly) October 11, 2022

Next:

But, 3 years later, per No. 2 in the thread, Tulsi Gabbard's Tulsi Twerkers (I invented that) were trying to explain away her pro-AIPAC, anti #BDS vote in the House 4/x https://t.co/4BbSgWcSWQ

— TheRealSocraticGadfly (@real_gadfly) October 11, 2022

Per the above, it's totally explicable. But, the Twerkers out there just don't want to admit it.

And:

So, let's look at other Tulsi Gabbard Kool-Aid drinkers and peddlers. We start with Black Agenda Report and one of many times Danny Haiphong has been either a fucking idiot or a grifter 5/x https://t.co/aou50Nm7rV

— TheRealSocraticGadfly (@real_gadfly) October 11, 2022

I don't know who is worse at ruining Black Agenda Report since Bruce Dixon died, Haiphong or Margaret Kimberly. Maybe it's a tie. You can search here for Haiphong by name to see why I say this about him in particular.

Then:

"Shockingly," but not surprisingly, given that he was a 9/11 Falser, Mike Gravel was another one of Tulsi Gabbard's "Tulsi Twerkers." 6/x https://t.co/r7hehv6cM3

— TheRealSocraticGadfly (@real_gadfly) October 11, 2022

Gravel never did surprise me, especially when his Berner campaign managers tried to stage-manage him for public consumption and failed. You can search Gravel's name on here, like Haiphong's.

This:

Totally not shocking is that Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi were both Tulsi Gabbard Kool-Aid peddlers. Glennwald's blocked me in his usual titty-baby mode, so I don't know what .@ggreenwald is saying now. 7/x https://t.co/UXn0h2zbjL

— TheRealSocraticGadfly (@real_gadfly) October 11, 2022

Whatever they're saying is at least 50 percent bullshit by Taibbi and of course more from Glennwald. Interestingly, Matt's not said anything yet. He's still going off (more rightly than wrongly) about Bernanke getting a share of the Nobel in economics. That said, it's not totally rightly, as his prize award is from work that pre-dates the Great Recession.

==

That said, this ex-Green know that she's not totally wrong about Dems. Let's look at some of the highlights, starting with:

It’s now under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers

Erm, Rethuglicans, for the most part, as well as Democraps, are voting for arms for the Ukrainian arms bazaar. 

Then this:

driven by cowardly wokeness

Was dealt with above.

This one: 

who divide us by racializing every issue & stoking anti-white racism

Is dogwhistling. She's pretty well shot herself out of the Green Party sweepstakes (if anybody pays attention to her in 18 months). Given the Mises takeover of the Libertarian National Committee, she may find a home there ... in a cracking-up LP.

This one?

who actively work to undermine our God-given freedoms enshrined in our Constitution

Mises LPers or Rethugs might sign off on it. Anybody who actually knows the Constitution knows it's bullshit.

But, as I said on one of my Tweets? Note to the Religious Right: WHAT God does Tulsi have in mind for these "God-given freedoms"? Krishna? Vishnu? Hanuman? Ganesha?

For people mentioning Nikki Haley or Bobby Jindal? Haley's Christian, though raised Sikh. Jindal was attacked on his religion in his 2003 guv run, by ignoramuses, as he's self-described as an "evangelical Catholic," though born Hindu.

Gabbard, on the other hand? Never "de-converted." And, she was actually born into a "bi-religious" family. An old Atlantic profile has more. It notes that she's said that a Hindu-American could become president, in her eyes. Sadly, the piece says nothing about Chris Butler.

==

Update: I've seen speculation about a Constitution Party future. From the party's point, with its version of Mises vs non-Mises Libertarian infighting in the not too distant past, it would likely jump at this for the exposure .... if it swallowed at least as hard as Republicans on her Hinduism.

Per comments at Independent Political Report and Third Party Watch, the idea that being a woman wouldn't handicap her as a Rethug? Tell me how many women have been in leadership positions there compared to Democraps.

==

Update the main: Apparently she hasn't read the Rethuglican press clippings. Or, more likely, she has a degree of anti-librul venom, like a Candace Owens, that she just doesn't care. If she's campaigning for and endorsing an election denier like Kari Lake, then spiting Democrats is the first thing on her mind.

Judge Pitman just fucked over third-party candidates in Texas

Per the federal lawsuit filed by Texas Libertarians, Texas Greens, and other third parties and independent candidates in 2019, blogged about by me at the time, in depth, here ...

U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman officially fucked over the plaintiffs. Summary judgment for Texas Secretary of State (then Ruth Hughs) on all but one item, per the ruling. Via Ballot Access News, and contra the first commenter, allowing petition e-signatures is NOT significant, whether this is the first such ruling or not.

The meat of the ruling starts on page 18 of the 28 page ruling. Pitman says the signature amounts required are not unduly burdensome, first. He then notes Greens have only had to do that once in the past 16 years and not at all since 2002 for Libertarians, therefore claiming, in essence, that this is nugatory. He then says that lesser third parties who were plaintiffs aren't "active," so, in essence, they don't count. 

Starting on page 24, he rejects that the new filing fees are unduly burdensome. He doesn't even wrestle with the issue of minor parties not being convention-nominating parties. Related to that, on 25ff Pitman rejects the idea that the differential ballot access violates the Equal Protection Clause. He says that's because candidates can do the petition route instead. He did allow the e-signatures, yes, but did not strike down the amount required after saying it's not burdensome and insinuating it's nugatory.

As for details of his ruling on e-signatures? The SoS will likely adopt the most restrictive version possible, meaning, we'll be back in court. And, next year's Lege may, with e-sigs being allowed, decide to up the number of signatures required to, say, 1.5 percent or even a full 2 percent. It's got Pitman's blessing, pretty much. Let's also remember that Pitman did nothing about the restrictive time frame for signing such petitions.

And this is why, contra commenter Mark, I don't consider the e-signatures that big of a deal. In my response, I think I said "due process." I meant the Equal Protection Clause. There's no way, unless he was a total hack like Judge Cannon, that Pitman could have ruled any other way on that issue. Everything else, he told the state of Texas to "carry on." So, if it wants to raise signature requirements or something? It will.

Are there any Democrats left in Alabama? BUT? WHO is running the state AFL-CIO?

To put it another way, Democraps are running SO FEW (how few?) candidates for state House and Senate seats that the state AFL-CIO has felt compelled to endorse more than 25 Libertarians in hopes of cock-blocking some Rethuglicans. 

And, you of course guessed it; there's no Democraps in any of those races.

That said, this is also on the Bammy state AFL-CIO; Independent Political Report also notes that it's endorsing NINE Rethuglicans. Really? Is that just a circle jerking of thinking you have to endorse a candidate in every race, even if it's a craptacular Rethug vs an even worse, in this case, Libertarian-tard?

UNfortunately, and this IS a callout, the new and allegedly improve IPR, with an actual managing editor (paid?) writing this piece, didn't look behind the curtain at Ballotpedia.

Because (and I posted there last night) it would have told Jordan Willow-Evans that yes, the AFL-CIO is doing exactly such a circle jerk. In state Senate District 5, it's endorsing an unopposed Rethug. (And I see nothing in Greg Reed's background to mandate an endorsement, as far as AL Senate committees, etc.) BUT, in Districts 8-11, which also have no opposition, there's no endorsement. But, in Sen 14, another unopposed Rethug is endorsed. (Also, sidebar for Independent Political Report saying "LOOK, Libertarians," why didn't they recruit one for this race? Yes, Weaver was in the state House before, but still.)

S16? Unopposed Rethug.

Without bothering to link, they're endorsing multiple unopposed Rethugs in the state House as well. 

WHY?

I actually halfway understand endorsing Libertarians over Rethugs. With their civil liberties angle, re freedom of assembly including the right to organize, they're more supportive of that than Rethugs. But, as far as supporting actual union activity? It may be closer to peas in a pod.

I tagged both the state AFL-CIO and A-list freelance labor reporter Mike Elk on Twitter, separately. Neither has responded.