Category: Politics

Party Abandonment

It appears many hardcore Republican Party members are getting all butt hurt about the possibility of Ron Paul leaving if he doesn’t get the nomination and taking his supporters with him. As a person who supports Ron Paul and has no other interest in the Republican Party let me say that I’m one of those supporters who will be leaving if he leaves. Don’t worry, my departure isn’t a big deal since I wasn’t going to support anybody else in the party anyways. With that said I do want to clear something up; if Ron Paul doesn’t get the nomination and his supporters leave it won’t be a case of them abandoning the party, it’ll be a case of the party abandoning the supporters.

How can I say such things? Easy. Let’s look at a large number of Ron Paul’s supporters. Most of them are more libertarian leaning and have become fed up with how the Republican and Democrat Parties have been running things. They joined the Republican Party to help Ron Paul get elected because Paul is the only candidate that actually promises, and has a track record of trying to deliver, liberty. He’s running under the Republican Party which offers cute phrases like personal liberty, belief in free markets, gun rights, sound money, and other things that make freedom loving individuals feel warm and fuzzy inside. Of course what they claim to offer and what they actually offer are two entirely different things.

Ron Paul’s supporters, many of whom are new to politics, must feel like suckers after looking at what the party has given them. It’s like they received a job offer that promised $100,000 a year only to join and receive a paltry $10,000 a year. Who would stick around after such abuse? Even gun owners claiming we need to support Romney this election are having a hard time swallowing it. Think about that. Gun owners, who seem to lean more Republican, are having a hard time swallowing the bullshit they’re being fed. People should be abandoning the Republican Party. They claim to be conservatives but they’re nothing but a bunch of war mongering neocons who want to strip us of our rights just as quickly as the Democrats. The only difference between the two parties is in what order they want to strip our rights.

That’s One Hell of a Subsidy

The owners of the Minnesota Vikings, Zygi Wilf, is trying to sucker the people of Minnesota into handing over $548 million to help pay for a new stadium. Why does a multi-millionaire need pilfer the coffers of the state to pay for a stadium? He doesn’t, but like any smart business man making a risky move he wants to shield his fortune from possible loss as much as possible. Zygi didn’t get rich by being stupid after all. What’s interesting putting the sheer amount of money being demanded by the Vikings into perspective:

The public’s share of the project is slated to be $548 million and the Vikings must come up with $427 million. The team has already been approved by the NFL for a loan to help with the financing and could also sell stadium naming rights and seat licenses to cover their end. It is not clear if the bill will pass since most of the state’s taxpayers are against using their money to make Vikings owner Zygi Wilf, who paid $600 million for a team in 2005 now worth $796 million, even richer. Fully aware of this, advocates of the current bill have used bogus polling to plead their case.

If the bill for the Minnesota Vikings new stadium passes the cost to taxpayers will be $77.30 per ticket, per game, for 30 years, according to an analysis by state senator John Marty, who submitted his findings to his colleagues yesterday (see his full report below). If the taxpayers of Minnesota think $77.30 is too much, Marty has even worse news: the real cost is much greater because his calculation does not include the value of the property tax exemption on the stadium and the parking ramps, nor the value of the sales tax exemption on construction materials.

I have an idea, why don’t the Vikings just increase the cost of their tickets by $77.30 to fund the new stadium? If they’re right and the fans truly want a new stadium I’m sure they will have no problem paying $77.30 more per ticket to help the team out.

Personally I think Minnesota should just tell the Vikings where to stick it. They keep threatening to move to Los Angeles, I say we should make them put up or shut up.

The Slow Fall of the Minnesota Republican Party

Things are not going well for the Minnesota Republican Party (MNGOP). Some time ago it was revealed that they hadn’t paid the rent on their office building for some time, which lead to an eviction notice being sent their way. Now all sorts of chicanery is being revealed about the dummy corporation setup by MNGOP to contest Dayton’s electoral victor:

This past winter, George Fraley got a certified letter from a Republican attorney demanding payment of more than $219,000 in overdue legal fees from the 2010 gubernatorial recount.

There were two problems: The letter listed Fraley as CEO of a company he’d never heard of — Count Them All Properly Inc. Second, he never agreed to bankroll the recount for Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer.

“This has been, without a doubt, one of the screwiest things that has ever happened in my life,” said Fraley, who is not politically active and who has no ties to the GOP.

Fraley’s fight to get his name removed from the corporate filings for Count Them All Properly is coming to light as state regulators and a watchdog group are probing whether the company was created chiefly to keep debt off the books of the state Republican Party, which owes creditors $2 million, including recount debt.

GOP activists were rocked again last week when they learned that the party is $111,000 behind on rent. On Tuesday a Ramsey County district judge will conduct a hearing on whether the party can be evicted from its longtime St. Paul headquarters.

[…]

In the last two years, Count Them All Properly has listed two CEOs, both of whom say they have never heard of the company. Count Them All Properly has no corporate office, no phone number and no website. It does, however, have roughly $500,000 in debt, mostly to recount lawyers.

The company was incorporated in late 2010 by Daniel Puhl, a former administrator for the Republican National Committee who specializes in helping political parties, businesses and candidates work with the Federal Elections Commission.

About two weeks later, a CEO was listed: Jon Richard Schroeder.

Like Fraley, Schroeder says he had never heard of the company or agreed to be its chief executive.

“I have no idea how my name got on there,” said Schroeder, who runs a heating and air conditioning company in Maple Grove. “I have never been associated with them.”

As recount debt piled up, Schroeder said he started getting calls from people looking for the CEO. He told them the same thing: It’s not me; call someone else.

Months later, Schroeder’s name was replaced in state records with a new CEO: George Fraley.

Not only did they setup a dummy corporation to hide the debt that MNGOP knew would be incurred by recounting the governor vote (they claim that’s not why the corporation was setup but we all know it is) but they listed to random schmucks at the CEOs. Couldn’t they have at least listed somebody involved in the Republican Party?

I’m sure this story is going to get very interesting as it develops. I wonder how deep the corruption goes in this case. Also, why does a Ramsey County judge have to rule on whether or not MNGOP can be evicted? They haven’t paid their damned rent, it is well within the rights of the landlord to give those deadbeats the boot. Oh, right, MNGOP is a powerful political entity and therefore receive special state treatment.

If You Don’t Succeed Try Again, Preferable when the Serfs aren’t Watching

Remember all the uproar about the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)? There was an Internet blackout to raise awareness and eventually passage of the bill became toxic to political careers. Obviously we won a great victory for liberty with that one! Or did we? The rule of thumb with politics is this: if there is money backing a bill it will be passed. Meet the HR 3523, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA). CISPA is the new SOPA. This time the critters in Congress were smart and decided to leave out any mention of piracy in the bill’s name and, as expected, the serfs have remained relatively quiet and therefore passing it will be a walk in the park:

The House on Thursday approved cybersecurity legislation that privacy groups have decried as a threat to civil liberties.

The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, or CISPA, sponsored by Reps. Mike Rogers (R-Michigan) and Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Maryland), passed on a vote of 248 to 168.

Its goal is a more secure internet, but privacy groups fear the measure breaches Americans’ privacy along the way. The White House had weighed in on Wednesday, threatening a veto unless there were significant changes to increase consumer privacy. The bill was amended to provide more privacy protections, but it was not immediately clear whether the Senate or the White House would give the amended bill its blessing.

Obama is threatening a veto. Remember when he threatened to veto the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA)? His supporters claimed he was threatening to veto the NDAA because he was a proponent of civil liberties when in fact he merely wanted more power. When his desire for power was fulfilled he signed the bill without hesitation. I’m guessing CISPA has something that reduces his power so he’ll threaten to veto the bill until Congress adds in a clause to increase Obama’s power and the bill will get signed right away.

Now my question is this: where is the outrage? When SOPA was making its way through Congress we had a veritable uprising on the Internet. SOPA was one of the few bills that actually got responses from the general population. Shouldn’t the populace be doing the same thing against CISPA? Yes, but this time the bill title doesn’t mention piracy so nobody cares. Much like the Student Loan Forgiveness Act, CISPA has a warm fuzzy title that promises security but is really something far more sinister.

NDAA Slight of Hand

You have to love politicians. First they create a problem and when everybody gets into an uproar they claim to have a fix for the problem but the fix really isn’t a fix at all. This is exactly what’s happening with the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA):

Late yesterday, Congressman Scott Rigell and 26 other members of Congress introduced a bill, H.R. 4388, which he is trying to sell to the American people as a “fix” for the National Defense Authorization Act. But in fact, it is a useless bill that might actually end up causing harm.

That’s right. The plan in the House of Representatives seems to be to try to fool Americans into thinking that they are fixing the indefinite detention problems with the NDAA and the Authorization for the Use of Military Force, when in fact, they are doing nothing good.

Don’t be fooled!

Here’s how they hope their trick will work. H.R. 4388, which was sneakily mistitled as the “Right to Habeas Corpus Act,” states that no one in the United States will lose their habeas rights under the NDAA. That might sound like something good, but it’s meaningless.

The question with the NDAA was never whether habeas rights are lost. Instead, the question is whether and when any president can order the military to imprison a person without charge or trial. The NDAA did not take away habeas rights from anyone, but it did codify a dangerous indefinite detention without charge or trial scheme. And nothing in the proposed bill by Rigell would change it. The Rigell bill won’t stop any president from ordering the military lockup of civilians without charge or trial.

I’m sure nobody is too surprised by this hand waving. Much like the Student Loan Forgiveness Act is actually a bank bailout hidden in a warm fuzzy name the Right to Habeas Corpus Act is a bill that actually does nothing to fix the NDAA as its sponsor promises.

Implementation of Socialism and Capitalism

As you can imagine I get into numerous debates with advocates of socialism. While I think Ludwig von Mises demonstrated that socialism will always fail in his book Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis the debate will continue to rage on for eternity. One thing I often bring up is the conditions experienced in socialist countries like the former Soviet Union, communist Cambodia, North Korea, etc. When I bring this up the devout socialist I’m debating is always quick to rebute my statement by claiming those countries didn’t implement socialism correctly. I’m willing to conceded this point but when I make the same argument about capitalism the devout socialism will usually argue that America proves capitalism can’t succeed.

Here’s the thing, if you are going to use the argument that socialism hasn’t succeeded because it wasn’t implemented correctly you must also recognize that argument regarding capitalism. The United States isn’t a capitalist country, it’s a fascist country that married the state and private corporations long ago.

The Student Loan Forgiveness Act of 2012

This week on Politics: The Reality Television Show for Suckers we will be looking at HR 4170, the Student Loan Forgiveness Act of 2012. An innocuous piece of legislation that currently has strong backing by those with student loans this little bill is nothing more than a bank bailout packaged up in a warm and fuzzy sounding name. Any proponents of this bill are likely doing a double-take on that last line but rest assured I will explain. The trick of this bill lies in section 6:

‘(2) CONSOLIDATION OF PRIVATE EDUCATION LOANS AS A FEDERAL DIRECT CONSOLIDATION LOAN FOR CERTAIN BORROWERS-

‘(A) IN GENERAL- Notwithstanding any other provision of law, a borrower who meets the eligibility criteria described in subparagraph (B) shall be eligible to obtain a Federal Direct Consolidation loan under this
paragraph that–

‘(i) shall include an eligible private education loan; and

‘(ii) may include a loan described in section 428C(a)(4).

‘(B) ELIGIBLE BORROWER- A borrower of an eligible private education loan is eligible to obtain a Federal Direct Consolidation Loan under this paragraph if the borrower–

‘(i) was eligible to borrow a loan under section 428H, a Federal Direct Unsubsidized Stafford Loan, a loan under section 428B, or a Federal Direct PLUS loan for a period of enrollment at an institution of higher education, or, with respect to a borrower who was enrolled at an institution of higher education on less than a half-time basis, would have been eligible to borrow such a loan for such period of enrollment if the borrower had been enrolled on at least a half-time basis;

‘(ii) borrowed at least one eligible private education loan for a period of enrollment described in clause (i); and

‘(iii) has an average adjusted gross income (based on the borrower’s adjusted gross income from the 3 most recent calendar years before application for consolidation under this section) that is equal to or less than the borrower’s total education debt (determined by calculating the sum of the borrower’s loans described in section 428C(a)(4) and eligible private education loans) at the time of such application.

‘(D) PAYMENT TO THE HOLDER-

‘(i) SECRETARY- For each eligible private education loan that a borrower is consolidating under this paragraph, the Secretary shall make a payment to the holder of such loan in an amount equal to the amount consolidated under this paragraph with respect to such loan.

‘(ii) HOLDER- Upon receipt of a payment described in clause (i), a holder shall discharge the liability on the loan consolidated under this paragraph in the amount of such payment.

Emphasis mine. Part (D) is the real meat of this legislation. If an eligible borrower decides to take advantage of this legislation and is approved the Secretary of the Treasury will use government funds to pay off the private holder of the loan. Effectively this bill grants private banks the ability to rid themselves of risky loans and thus avoid taking responsibility for any bad loans that have been made. This holds quite a bit of similarity to what was pulled during the housing market crash. Passage of this legislation will merely mean the government will transfer money to private banks.

I haven’t even explained the best part, this legislation has been gaining the support of those who have been opposing bank bailouts and demanding that the banks be held accountable instead of being allowed to socialize their losses. The state has effectively gotten many of those who oppose the banks and bailouts to support a bank bailout. It’s disgusting pure evil that is also beautifully elegant.

Somebody is likely to ask where the funding to pay off the banks is going to come from. That part of this scam is also well played:

SEC. 7. OFFSET.

Funds appropriated or otherwise made available for a fiscal year to carry out this Act and the amendments made by this Act shall be made available from the funds available for Overseas Contingency Operations.

What the hell are the Overseas Contingency Operations? Simple, the renamed War on Terror. So money appropriated for the defense budget, the most inflated and unaccountable budget in the United States, will be used to bailout the banks.

This episode of Politics has everything. You have the drama from students unable to pay back their loans, corruption in the state leading to its bailout of the banks, and irony in getting people opposing bank bailouts to support a bank bailout! My compliments to the writers.

Kudos to Adam Curry on the No Agenda podcast for brining this to light. It’s good to know that somebody is actually analyzing this crap while traditional media outlets continue to play the state’s game and report nothing of substance.

Minnesota Republican Party Served Eviction Notice

It appears that OccupyGOP has officially begun:

Massachusetts-based Hub Properties Trust filed paperwork in Ramsey County on Wednesday to evict the state GOP for failing to pay more than $96,000 in rent over the last year.

“Tenant remains in default under the lease by failing to pay in full when due, rent from April 2011 through the present,” the court papers read. “As of April 1, 2012, the tenant owes landlord a total of $111,192.14.” (A security deposit on the property and several partial payments since June 2011 have reduced the total outstanding debt to about $96,000.)

The eviction action follows a series of revelations last winter regarding debts accrued by the party during the reign of former RPM Chairman Tony Sutton. In December, an internal review of finances revealed that the party owes $1.23 million to creditors, plus more than $700,000 in legal fees accrued during the 2010 gubernatorial recount, and is facing possible fines from the Federal Elections Commission for undisclosed debts. The party is also currently being investigated by the state campaign finance board.

[…]

“Rather than continue discussions with us, the landlord chose to exercise its rights and filed a notice of eviction in Ramsey County court. We’re not going to be evicted, and at the same time, are continuing to negotiate on the back payments as well as on a lease that better fits both our space needs and our budget. While this is a situation none of us wants, it’s part of the rebuilding process. No one ever said it would be simple or easy or without bumps along the way. But I wanted you to hear about it from me rather than from any other source.”

Damn… $96,000 in unpaid rent? The landlord must be pissed. I also like how they are saying that they’re “not going to be evicted.” I wonder what makes them so sure? Are they actually planning an occupation or are they just hoping the landlord will lover look their minor $96,000 debt?

Either way it couldn’t have happened to nicer people. Instead of focusing on actual issues the Minnesota Republican Party has been working on getting constitutional amendments to ban gay marriage and implement voter ID. Meanwhile this fine state continues to spiral into deeper debt with no hope in sight. If this state is going to burn then the political machinery should go down in flames with it.

The Hypocrisy is too Much

I hate hypocrisy but can still tolerate an awful lot of it. With that said, this is beyond my ability to cope with:

On Monday, he announced an executive order that allows U.S. officials for the first time to impose sanctions on foreign nationals found to have used new technologies, including cellphone tracking and Internet monitoring, to help carry out grave human rights abuses.

The order specifically targets companies and individuals aiding the Iranian and Syrian governments, but administration officials say it could be expanded in the future to include other countries using technology to crack down on dissent.

Does this mean the United States is going to declare sanctions against itself? The world waits in anticipation to find out.

I’m Proud of My State

Minnesota is a weird state politically. Although a majority of the state leans heavily to the left we still end up with crazy religious fundamentalists like Michelle Bachmann and have even elected a professional wrestler as our governor. Needless to say if Ron Paul was going to win any state it was going to be Minnesota:

The RNC National Committeewoman for the state of Minnesota reports in this Tweet that Ron Paul takes 20 of 24 Congressional District delegates to the Republican National Convention from Minnesota:

16 more delegates are yet to be awarded, three at large delegates and 13 to be awarded at State Convention, so Ron Paul has half of the delegates for the state of Minnesota, already!

For once I’m actually proud of my state.