On June 8, two Florida voters and a voting rights group filed a lawsuit to stop a new attempt by the Florida Secretary of State to purge the voting rolls of certain voters. The case is Mi Familia Vota Education Fund v Detzner, middle district, 8:12-cv-1294. Here is the 16-page complaint.

The recent Florida Secretary of State’s directive requires county elections officials to compare the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles records with voter registration records. The purge is an attempt to identify registered voters who are not U.S. citizens.

The lawsuit says the problem with this is that some individuals who were not U.S. citizens when they first obtained a drivers license have since become U.S. citizens. But when such an individual becomes a citizen, there is no procedure by which the drivers license record is changed. One of the plaintiffs, Murat Limage, received his first Florida drivers license in 1999, when he was not yet a citizen. He became a citizen on October 19, 2010, and registered to vote for the first time on November 1, 2010. But he received a notice saying he “may not” be a citizen, and saying unless he proved that he is a citizen within 30 days, his name would be dropped from the rolls. He then presented his U.S. passport to the county elections office, where he was told that he need not take any further action, but that he would not be given anything writing establishing that he is properly registered. Without such a writing, he is afraid that when he attempts to vote, the record will still show that he is not a U.S. citizen.

The basis for the lawsuit is that the new Florida program was not pre-cleared by the Voting Rights Section. The lawsuit asks that a 3-judge court be convened. In the meantime, some county officials have said they will not comply with the Secretary of State’s directive. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.

The Obama campaign, deflecting criticism about the president?s remarks about the private sector, fired back at Mitt Romney for the GOP challenger?s own comments about police, firefighter and teacher jobs.

Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels said fellow Republican Gov. Scott Walker?s victory in a Wisconsin recall election last week doesn?t necessarily foretell the party?s fortunes in this fall?s presidential battle.

Associated Press: "The nation's unemployment rate of 8.2 percent may sink President Barack Obama's re-election bid, but one detail brightens his hopes. About 10 battleground states will decide the election, and seven of them have employment levels that beat the U.S. average."

In a must-read Washington Post piece, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward look back at Richard Nixon's presidency and debunk the "often unchallenged" notion "that the coverup was worse than the crime" saying this idea "minimizes the scale and reach of Nixon's criminal actions."

"In the course of his five-and-a-half-year presidency, beginning in 1969, Nixon launched and managed five successive and overlapping wars -- against the anti-Vietnam War movement, the news media, the Democrats, the justice system and, finally, against history itself. All reflected a mind-set and a pattern of behavior that were uniquely and pervasively Nixon's: a willingness to disregard the law for political advantage, and a quest for dirt and secrets about his opponents as an organizing principle of his presidency."

"Long before the Watergate break-in, gumshoeing, burglary, wiretapping and political sabotage had become a way of life in the Nixon White House."

"Just two years after fending off one of the nation's toughest Republican challenges to win reelection to a fifth term, Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid could find his political fate determined once again by voters in his own Nevada back yard," the Washington Post reports.

The "soft-spoken, hard-knuckled" Reid is "now activating the vaunted Nevada Democratic machine he has helped build on behalf Rep. Shelley Berkley" in an effort to keep the Democratic majority in the Senate.

The Boston Globe takes a good look at the primary super PAC backing Mitt Romney's presidential bid.

"No candidate in the 2012 race adapted more swiftly and effectively to the rise of the super PACs in the wake of US Supreme Court and other rulings that effectively removed any barriers to individual and corporate donations to such so-called independent groups. The other GOP contenders' backers raised not nearly as much, and President Obama, long a harsh critic of super PACs, only recently urged his supporters to get into the game."

"Romney's appearances at the fund-raisers offer a compelling case study of just how fuzzy the line between a candidate and the purportedly independent committees backing him has become. Romney says he has carefully adhered to the new rules, which allow candidates to be a 'featured guest'' at fund-raisers."

Found on Facebook.  See the article here.

 

Ron Paul has more courage and integrity than any other per­son I know of . He argued against the War on Drugs when it was at its height of pop­u­lar­ity. He chal­lenged the Fed long before it became pop­u­lar to do so; in fact, he almost sin­gle­hand­edly made it pop­u­lar to do so. He has fought against social secu­rity, the pre­scrip­tion drug sub­sidy, corn sub­si­dies, and count­less other pop­u­lar sta­tist boondoggles.

But, although he aggres­sively attacked Rick Perry and Newt Gin­grich, he never really attacked uber-statist Mitt Romney.

Ron Paul under­stood how prob­lem­atic the Fed was back when most of us thought it was essen­tial for eco­nomic sta­bil­ity. I doubt he sim­ply didn?t notice the sim­i­lar­i­ties between Rom­n­ey­care and Oba­macare, or Romney?s Key­ne­sian tax-and-spend poli­cies. Nor do I think that Ron Paul, who is about to retire any­way, would have been par­tic­u­larly afraid of any backlash.

I can?t pre­sume to know Ron Paul?s moti­va­tion. But I do know that there are cer­tain pres­sures that a man of integrity won?t ignore. He won?t ignore pres­sures on his moral­ity, his friends, or his family.

For months, the Repub­li­can estab­lish­ment has been openly threat­en­ing his son, Rand Paul. In Jan­u­ary, nation­ally syn­di­cated con­ser­v­a­tive talk show host Mark Levin said, ?If Ron Paul decides that he is going to go third-party?I will do every­thing in my power to defeat his son in Ken­tucky. I will do every­thing in my power to defeat his son Rand Paul in Kentucky.?

If that?s what the Repub­li­can estab­lish­ment said on national radio, what were they say­ing behind closed doors?

I have no doubt that Rand Paul endorsed Mitt Rom­ney after a dis­cus­sion with his father, with his father?s encour­age­ment, and with great reluc­tance. His choice was to swal­low a dis­gust­ing pill and live to fight another day, or end his polit­i­cal career in the Repub­li­can Party.

Ever since I got involved in pol­i­tics, I have got­ten repeated requests to run as a Repub­li­can, and a few to run as a Demo­c­rat.. I have turned those offers down because I know that there is no future in it for me. I?m unwill­ing to attack gay mar­riage, to sup­port cor­po­rate sub­si­dies, or to pre­tend that abor­tion is the most impor­tant issue in Amer­i­can pol­i­tics. (In order to be suc­cess­ful, Rand Paul has been forced to talk about abor­tion con­stantly, and pro­pose var­i­ous ?Life Begins at Con­cep­tion? bills.) And I?m cer­tainly unwill­ing to back big-government sta­tists like Mitt Romney.

That?s why we need a strong Lib­er­tar­ian Party. The notion of ?work­ing within? the Repub­li­can Party is ludi­crous. If the Repub­li­can estab­lish­ment can pres­sure Ron Paul into for­go­ing attacks on a super-statist like Mitt Rom­ney, then what could they do to the rest of us?

Ron Paul ran as a Lib­er­tar­ian can­di­date for pres­i­dent in 1988. And if our party were bet­ter funded and had more clout, he prob­a­bly would have joined us for future cam­paigns, includ­ing his many suc­cess­ful con­gres­sional cam­paigns. We need to make the Lib­er­tar­ian Party stronger, so that Amer­i­can states­men will never need to choose between their prin­ci­ples and get­ting elected.

For that, we all have to work together. You can join the LP at https://www.lp.org/membership. Make sure to also join the LP face­book page at http://www.facebook.com/libertarians.

And join your state party (there is a list here: http://www.lp.org/states). We have great can­di­dates this year, includ­ing Gary John­son. Now let?s work together to get them elected.

 

Arvin Vohra cur­rently serves as Rep­re­sen­ta­tive At-Large on the Lib­er­tar­ian National Com­mit­tee, and on the Exec­u­tive Board of the Mary­land Lib­er­tar­ian Party. He is the inter­na­tion­ally pub­lished author of two books, includ­ing Lies, Damned Lies, and Col­lege Admissions.

The original article can be found in Uncovered Politics here .

 

By Austin Cassidy on June 8, 2012

What?s the biggest difference between Congressman Ron Paul and Governor Gary Johnson? It?s not ideological, although there are some key and important distinctions on their positions.

The biggest difference is money. How much they have and how they?ve spent it.

For Gary Johnson, his whole campaign has been a shoestring affair. Having raised only several hundred thousand dollars in pursuit of the Presidency, he?s spending the limited funds he has on travel and critical campaign operations. Calling the Johnson campaign ?budget conscious? would be an accurate descriptor. They know their resources are tight, the money they have raised has not come easily and they seem legitimately dedicated to stretching their campaign-dollar to the maximum.

The same cannot be said for Ron Paul?s latest bid for the Republican nomination or the myriad organizations he and his family members have spawned to fleece the ?true believers? of their every last dime. People don?t just support Ron Paul, many are personally obsessed with the man. They give and give, and then give some more. In fact, it often seems like Ron Paul?s role model is less Barry Goldwater than something closer to L. Ron Hubbard , the science fiction author and founder of the cult-like cash-cow known as Scientology.

It would be one thing if the Paul campaign spent their money as wisely as the Johnson campaign. There?s no telling how much could have been accomplished with the tens of millions of dollars that the Ron Paul machine has generated over the last half-decade. Unfortunately, we will never know what might have been.

Recently we learned that Jesse Benton, Ron Paul?s bumbling campaign manager and grandson-in-law, had been paid a staggering $586,616 by the Paul campaign and associated organizations. That number has likely grown by, at least, tens of thousands of dollars since it was first reported. Gary Johnson could have financed his entire campaign thus far on Benton?s salary alone!

The problem goes beyond just Benton, who recently enraged Paul supporters when he put out a series of statements to the public that explained a shift in campaign strategy away from active campaigning in upcoming primaries. He explained this was a way to conserve campaign resources. The press interpreted this as Paul suspending his campaign and the announcement likely cost Paul a significant number of delegates in the Arkansas, Kentucky and Texas primaries. It also signaled a desire to preserve relations with the Romney campaign and the GOP establishment, likely with the hopes of protecting the future career of Kentucky Senator Rand Paul.

Some of the Paul diehards have suggested that Benton ?acted alone? in making these campaign policy shifts and in setting his own salary, but that couldn?t be further from the truth. This is Ron Paul?s standard operating procedure: his family gets paid, every time.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) has noted that Representative Paul was one of the worst offenders in the U.S. House for using campaign and PAC money to enrich family members. In CREW?s recent survey of 2008 and 2010 spending by Congressional candidates, they noted: ?Rep. Paul?s campaign committee, Committee to Re-elect Ron Paul, paid salaries to his
daughter, his grandson, his daughter?s mother-in-law, his granddaughter, his grandson-in-law, and another relative. In addition, his campaign committee reimbursed the congressman and several other relatives and paid his brother?s accounting firm. Finally, Rep. Paul?s leadership political action committee (PAC), Liberty PAC, reimbursed the congressman, paid his brother?s accounting firm, and paid his daughter a salary.?

Considering the way that the Ron Paul political machine has generated so much of its millions of dollars from small donors over the last half-decade, many of whom could hardly afford to give to a political campaign, it is shocking that this is how much of the money was apparently being spent. Many of the footsoldiers of the liberty movement have dedicated so much of their lives to supporting this one man, it?s reached such an unhealthy degree that they can no longer see the greater cause they are supposedly fighting for.

There is now a Libertarian governor with a resume far more impressive than that of Congressman Paul, standing up and reaching his hand out to them. And yet they largely ignore this amazing opportunity, fixated on a sad old man who has mesmerized them into attempting to etch his likeness onto everything from chocolate bars to a pub in New York City to discussion of building a statue of the man himself.

Described by some as one of the ?biggest purveyors of nepotism in U.S. history,? the failure of Ron Paul to even consider passing the torch to Gary Johnson shows that he is now entirely focused on building his family?s political dynasty, and perhaps even trying to find a spot for his son Rand on the Republican ticket with Mitt Romney. Ron Paul?s supporters aren?t just promoting the message of liberty, they are worshiping a man who deserves very little of their praise.

Contrast this gross abuse of donor trust with how the Johnson campaign operates. Gary Johnson?s adult son, Erik Johnson, has been working day and night on the governor?s campaign and is getting paid no salary to do so. The governor even got a little choked up when he acknowledged his son?s sacrifice in a touching moment during his acceptance speech at the Libertarian Convention last month.

Gary Johnson is an avid skier, adventurer, and bicyclist. He has reached the highest peaks on four of the seven continents, including Mt. Everest. He?s built a successful private sector business, and been elected the chief executive of a large state for two highly productive terms, during which he vetoed more bills than the governors of the other 49 states combined. His libertarian credentials are unmatched, and yet today Rand Paul endorsed Mitt Romney for President. That alone should tell you everything you need to know about the Paul clan?s priorities.

 

Austin Cassidy writes this to describe himself:  ” I am a registered Libertarian, formerly a Republican. I was one of the original co-founders of Independent Political Report back in 2008. Before that I was the creator of a site called Third Party Watch that was the IPR of that earlier era.

Darcy Richardson and I co-founded Uncovered Politics together in 2010, with the aim of expanding a bit beyond writing exclusively about the third party world.”

A Romney economic adviser criticized President Obama's policy toward crisis-torn Europe in an op-ed article in a German newspaper on Saturday, raising the question of the propriety of taking America's political fights into international affairs.