KN@PPSTER

What Obama should say ...

2008-10-15T13:09:00.000-05:00

... if McCain plays the Ayers card.

Senator McCain, I was eight years old when the Weather Underground became active. I was never involved in it. I never supported its activities. I later befriended a man who had once been a leader of that organization -- a man who had killed no one, a man who had turned himself in to the police, made amends, and become a peaceful member of his community right about the time I graduated from high school.

You were closer to sixty-eight years old when you began your active support for arming and funding the Kosovo Liberation Army, an al Qaeda connected terrorist organization responsible for hundreds, possibly thousands, of murders and kidnappings in the former Yugoslavia, and implicated in a plot to attack Fort Dix, right here on US soil. Your active support for those terrorists -- and their reciprocal support for you in the form of contributions to your campaigns, routed through their US front organization, the Albanian American Civic League -- continues to this very day.

Senator, I regret to inform you that you lack the moral stature to lecture me, or anyone else, on the subject of palling around with terrorists.

McCain has said he'd rather lose an election than lose a war. Well, he's going to lose an election. Tonight is really more about whether or not he flushes his personal dignity down the same toilet as his presidential prospects.

Might not want to throw out that tinfoil hat just yet ...

2008-10-13T10:39:00.002-05:00

MSNBC reports:

The U.S. Army is developing a technology known as synthetic telepathy that would allow someone to create email or voice mail and send it by thought alone. The concept is based on reading electrical activity in the brain using an electroencephalograph, or EEG.

Of course, this has been staple science fiction stuff for a long time, and it would be silly to expect it to never move into actual R&D. I have to admit that I've long looked forward to a brain-implantable, mentally-controllable computer myself (and desperately hoping that Micro$haft won't be the OS leader -- "Blue Visual Field of Death," anyone?).

To get the down side, add "remotely" ahead of "reading" in the quote above. Think Van Eck phreaking, organic style. And once the channel is open, who knows but what it might not run two ways?

When (if?) this pans out, the very least we can expect is a new machine in the airport security line -- TSA will naturally be interested in who's thinking "don't look in my shoes don't look in my shoes oh Jebus did I leave the detonator on the bedside table back at the hotel?"

Depending on the limits of equipment -- reception, sensitivity, etc. -- the possibilities for political and industrial espionage are of obvious concern as well. Will we soon see presidents and CEOs wearing metal-mesh hairnets everywhere they go? Will presidential candidates run ads featuring their opponents' innermost thoughts?

And then of course there's what we don't know: How far along is this, really? If they're showing us this much that they're developing, what aren't they showing us that they already have?

Photo by Liam P. Millay

Bring it on!

2008-10-11T18:03:00.001-05:00

Tune in next Friday, October 17th, at 9pm Eastern. As the nominee of the Boston Tea Party, I'll be debating other vice-presidential candidates on Restore the Republic Radio, an Internet broadcast outfit recently created by the merger of Revolution Broadcasting (a Ron Paul R3VOLution phenomenon) and Aaron Russo's Restore the Republic.

Confirmed participants so far include myself, Darrell Castle of the Constitution Party, and Wayne Allyn Root of the Libertarian Party. That list will likely grow, and I'll try to keep it updated.

Thanks to RtRR for creating this opportunity. They sponsored a presidential candidate debate this last Thursday. That debate included Chuck Baldwin of the Constitution Party, Charles Jay of the Boston Tea Party, Brian Moore of the Socialist Party USA, a representative of independent candidate Ralph Nader, Frank McEnulty of the New American Independent Party, and independent candidate Steve Allen. You can grab MP3s of that debate (it's split into three files) here.

Terror, firmer

2008-10-09T14:00:00.000-05:00

Wikipedia on terrorism:

Most common definitions of terrorism include only those acts which are intended to create fear (terror), are perpetrated for an ideological goal (as opposed to a lone attack), and deliberately target or disregard the safety of non-combatants.

Wikipedia quoting author Dan Berger on the Weather Underground:

[T]he group purposefully and successfully avoided injuring anyone, not just civilians but armed enforcers of the government.

Wikipedia on the Kosovo Liberation Army:

The exact number of victims of the KLA is not known. According to a Serbian government report, from January 1, 1998 to June 10, 1999 the KLA killed 988 people and kidnapped 287; in the period from June 10, 1999 to November 11, 2001, when NATO took control in Kosovo, 847 were reported to have been killed and 1,154 kidnapped. This comprised both civilians and security force personnel: of those killed in the first period, 335 were civilians, 351 soldiers, 230 police and 72 were unidentified; by nationality, 87 of killed civilians were Serbs, 230 Albanians, and 18 of other nationalities. Following the withdrawal of Serbian and Yugoslav security forces from Kosovo in June 1999, all casualties were civilians, the vast majority being Serbs. According to Human Rights Watch, as "many as one thousand Serbs and Roma have been murdered or have gone missing since June 12, 1999."

Historical timeline document of the Albanian American Civic League:

- February 1998: "The Civic League issues a public declaration, 'In Defense of the Albanian National Cause,' in which it announces its support for the Kosova Liberation Army ..."

- March 1998: "[T]he Civic League holds the first rally on Capitol Hill in support of the Kosova Liberation Army."

Guess who contributed $5,000 to John McCain?

Hint: Try Googling the phrase "he did everything we asked of him, including arming the KLA."

Barack Obama used to hang out with a an old sixties lefty who killed no one. John McCain still pals around with the Balkans chapter of al Qaeda. Glass houses, stones, etc.

In celebration of the new kumari!

2008-10-07T15:08:00.000-05:00

Frankly, though, it sounds to me like the girl is getting gypped. Shouldn't living goddesses be able to strike their enemies dead with a thought, command vast armies to invade neighboring countries, get tickets to Les Miz, that kind of thing? And what's up with the losing deity status when puberty hits thing? I'm just sayin' ...

So, I tell them I'm a pro jock, and who do you think they give me? The Dalai Lama, himself. Twelfth son of the Lama. The flowing robes, the grace, bald ... striking. So, I'm on the first tee with him. I give him the driver. He hauls off and whacks one -- big hitter, the Lama -- long, into a ten-thousand foot crevasse, right at the base of this glacier. Do you know what the Lama says? Gunga galunga ... gunga, gunga-galunga. So we finish the eighteenth and he's gonna stiff me. And I say, "Hey, Lama, hey, how about a little something, you know, for the effort, you know." And he says, "Oh, uh, there won't be any money, but when you die, on your deathbed, you will receive total consciousness." So I got that goin' for me, which is nice.

The key word is "principled"

2008-10-07T12:30:00.000-05:00

The Libertarian Party Radical Caucus's Key Point #3:

Principled Populism -- The Libertarian Party should be a mass-participation party operating in the electoral arena and elsewhere, devoted to consistent libertarian principle, and committed to liberty and justice for all. The Libertarian Party should trust in and rely on individuals to welcome a program of liberty and justice and should always aim to convince people of the soundness of libertarian principles. Simply repeating our basic principles and not proposing transition measures is ineffective in the short run because only a small part of the populace is interested in liberty in the abstract, and hiding or abandoning our principled positions is ineffective in the long run because it fails to sustain us as a movement and attract and retain new Libertarians.

As the economic crisis continues to develop in a way that calls for -- nay, demands -- a "principled populist" approach, it's worth pausing for a moment to mourn the monstrous screwups of the last year or so with respect to the premise.

First the Paul campaign got publicly pantsed over Paul's previous Rothbard/Rockwell-inspired attempts to hook into the "populist" racist right.

Then the Libertarian Party nominated Bob Barr, a candidate whose admirers, for the love of Pete, are now tagging him with a "populist" label ... and attaching the other end of that label to George Wallace.

Principled populism pits the productive class against the political class, the awakening masses against the power elites -- not the white middle class against the black underclass or some mythical proud parochialism against some equally mythical indiscrete cosmopolitanism.

To put it a different way, any "principled populism" of a libertarian variety is going to have to weigh on the left, not the right, side of the political dichotomy as traditionally understood if it's going to be successful or if success is even to be a meaningful term with respect to libertarian goals.

The mission of the libertarian movement is not to make the world safe for a return to Jim Crow or the maintenance of marriage apartheid by shilling for "states' rights."

The mission of the libertarian movement is to win freedom for people. In America, that means from sea to shining sea, brother ... and for those of you who want to export it, more power to you once we have it to export. You'll know we're there when you buy the bayonets you're so eager to see the revolution carried abroad on with a voluntary subscription check instead of a mandatory tax return.

Make no mistake about it: The economic defecation is in a state of intersection with the oscillating political blades. We've already seen how "right-wing populism" fares against New Dealism. "Right-wing populism" = fail. The only way -- if there is one -- to beat Franklin Delano OBushma in the upcoming fight will be to hit him, and hard, from the left.

On the political side, key tactics might include things like agitating for repudiation of US government debt to other governments and central banks (as well as banning deficit spending), revoking corporate "personhood" and state-granted liability evasion, etc. On the anti-political side, cultivating the emergence of gray and black markets, barter and alternative currency schemes, etc. can loosen the political class's grip on the economy's throat.

It's time and past time for libertarians to seize the populist hammer -- we're the only ones rightly entitled to wield it in any case -- from the Dixiecrat pretenders and start smashing the state with it.

With all due respect to Woody

2008-10-07T12:06:00.000-05:00

I'm certainly not planning to quit my day job. Hey, wait a minute, this is my day job ...

This land is Hank's land, this land is Hank's land
From east to west, son, it belongs to Paulson
To get the market rising, Hank is supervising
This land was bought by you and me.

As I was walking down to my mailbox
Saw foreclosure looming, it's called Paulson's Smallpox
Saw my poor self living in a brown cardboard box
This land was bought by you and me

(chorus)

They took our money, and made it all funny
To Alfalfa and Spanky, add the name Bernanke
From the hole at Ground Zero, out to Fisherman's Pier, oh
This land was bought by you and me

(chorus)

If your name isn't Buffett, be prepared to just tough it
'Cause the gamblers on Wall Street will never have to just rough it
They made contributions to their pet politicians
And this land got bought by you and me

(chorus)

If you see a sign that says "no trespassing"
It's talkin' to you and the evicted who're massing
In the reborn Hoovervilles and up in the country hills
To take back this land for you and me

(chorus)

Just trying out this...

2008-10-07T11:53:00.002-05:00

Hmmm .... here's what got posted, but it got posted to "draft," which means that I can't just livephoneblog at will:

Just trying out this new thing called jott.com utility for blogging my phone. I've already it out with Twitter and it's pretty cool. listen

Powered by Jott

So, I can send it, but then I have to get to a computer to actually publish it. What it should have read like was:

"Just trying out this new thing called jott.com, a utility for blogging by phone. I've already tried it out with Twitter and it's pretty cool."

So, the speech recognition isn't perfect, but it's not bad, either (and I do have a cold and a croaking voice at the moment).

I'm wondering if there's a setting I can change somewhere to get direct-publish instead of draft. That's the main thing. I want to be able to torture my readership from anywhere, at any time, without lugging around a laptop and wireless Internet setup.

2008-10-04T18:29:00.001-05:00

Horwitz:

What we want to avoid, I would argue, is a repeat of what is now the conventional narrative of the Great Depression: It was capitalism that caused the crash, it was Hoover's inaction that turned it into a Great Depression, and it was FDR's interventions that saved us. As we now know, that's wrong on all three counts, particularly on the issue of Hoover's inaction. He was quite the interventionist and those programs, picked up later by FDR, made matters much worse. The analogy to the current situation is pretty striking.

That's about the size of it, and I don't think there's anything we can do to stop the "FDR reincarnated" narrative from taking root. Or, rather, I doubt Horwitz on the following:

[I]f one really believes this bailout will make matters worse, especially significantly worse, I think it's a reason to vote/root for Obama. ... With Obama in office, and things going south, it might be more akin to the late 70s under Carter, where the blame is less likely to be laid at the feet of markets.

I'm not that optimistic. If McCain won the election, he and Palin might finally kill off their party for good and leave the field open to a real pro-market, pro-freedom opposition party (assuming one can be put together -- I'm trying, folks, I'm trying).

Obama, on the other hand, may very well be the next FDR with all that that entails ... and his presidency will either destroy the Republican Party as surely as a McCain/Palin presidency would, or else give GOP leisure to refurbish the useful myth that they're something other than the party of big government they are and always have been.

Meanwhile, the Libertarian Party chose this, of all election cycles, to cast itself in the role of "rat swimming toward a sinking ship," wasting its presidential and vice-presidential nominations on two Republicans who are if anything less appealing than McCain/Palin (at least it feels that way ... but I'm not sure that's even possible).

Frankly, this election cycle is beginning to read like a goddamn Hemingway novel, and I'm wondering at what point we'll all have to choose between:

After a while I went out and left the hospital and walked back to the hotel in the rain.

... and ...

He could feel his heart beating against the pine needle floor of the forest.

Hey, Uncle Sugar's got you covered, right?

2008-10-04T14:50:00.000-05:00

Our leaders have spoken! Time to stop being part of the problem and start being part of the solution! With that goal in mind, here's some implementation assistance for Hank Paulson and Friends. Print, clip, mail, enjoy.

What I saw "at" the debate

2008-10-03T12:21:00.000-05:00

Well, not much, really. Sundries:

This is my third debate protest at Washington University. When the school hosted presidential debates in 2000 and 2004, there were thousands of demonstrators, some real media figures (Nader spoke in 2000, for example), lines of police in riot gear, etc. In 2000, we seized an intersection, stood toe-to-toe with the cops, backed their asses down, and were at least able to say we forced a motorcade re-route.

This year, there were, at any given time, a couple of hundred demonstrators, held at bay by eight or ten cops on bicycles. And not really held at bay, either. The Instead of War group held a lame rally, marched up to the barricade, pled for a minute to have its representatives let in to "raise the real issues," and then marched off whining that they were going to hold their own forum. That left about 50 people in the area, at which point even the Falun Gong stalwarts packed their stuff, exited the fenced-in "Free Speech Zone," and went away.

Then a gaggle of firefighter unionists in Obama shirts, maybe 100 of them, marched in, stood around for a bit, took a group photo, and left too.

The "we love Sarah Palin" bloc had left long before, after standing around with sour faces for awhile. I think the last straw was the march past them by eight or ten "Sarah Palin Look-Alikes for Obama." Or maybe the couple in Palin and McCain masks walking back and forth in front of them, with "Palin" making crude jokes about "McCain's" age and fending off "his" gropes. It was pretty much the only decent street theatre except for one of our Libertarian guys who made a good show of satirically talking up the "bailout" to the R&D types. Funny, none of them wanted to talk about that.

The antiwar left is obviously dispirited this year -- they're not willing to abandon the Democratic Party, even though that party has clearly abandoned them by nominating a guy who ran against the war in 2004, voted to continue it every time the question came up from 2005 to this very day, and in mid-campaign is sabre-rattling at low volume to avoid associating himself with them. The IOW guys didn't seem to want to talk about that either.

It's kind of embarrassing, really. In the 60s, an anti-war leftist could at least take comfort in the thought that if he was a dupe, he was the dupe of a vast, deceptive Communist conspiracy -- those sly Kremlin puppet masters, he could think, at least looked like they had their world domination shit together at that point, and they were handing out good acid.

Who the hell wants to be a dupe of today's Democratic Party? It's ... well, it's degrading. If you're going to have to admit you got rooked, you want to at least be able to say the guy had an intricate, novel scam. This is like admitting that you lost your life savings to a Nigerian letter scammer. Sure, Obama is going to win and win big, but not on his merits. He's going to win because most Americans hate George W. Bush, don't quite get John McCain, and would gouge their own eyeballs out before they'd allow Caribou Barbie to park herself a heartbeat away from the presidency.

Anyway ... the Libertarian contingent at the protest was decent in size (15 people or so). We were also the loudest, happiest and most cohesive, and we were the last organized group to leave. There were probably ten frazzled stragglers still standing around when we paraded away in search of beer. In 2000, I was the only Libertarian waving a sign, and I only ran into a couple of others. In 2004, we had 30-40 people. So we lost fewer participants pro rata, anyway.

As far as I know, I was the only vice-presidential candidate on-site (or at edge-of-site, anyway) besides Biden and Palin. I got a couple of interviews, one as the BTP's vice-presidential nominee, one as an LP congressional candidate. I also had a short chat with a neat lady from HuffPo who had enjoyed watching the LP's national convention on CSPAN, but I don't think that was interview per se. I'll try to replace the blurry lo-res pic above (taken with an $8 cam) once some film gets developed. The blurry pic is me, standing behind the IOW "rally" and next to a Che-like Obama portrait, waving my BTP sign.

So, we trooped off to Krieger's for a drink or three. The debate was on the tube, but inaudible due to bar noise. Biden looked serious and together. Palin looked like a limping deer in the headlights of an 18-wheeler. I'm reading the debate transcript right now, and in black and white Biden is whipping her ass. I understand that the overall impression was different for many, however. Gotta find a tape.

McCain gets it right

2008-10-01T15:31:00.002-05:00

No, no, not that McCain, the other McCain:

Look, I'll be 49 years old next week. I've seen too many Washington "crises" to be frightened by this latest freakout. I'm having a hard time thinking of the last time the Beltway establishment consensus was right about anything. Hell, people in D.C. can't even drive, and we're supposed to trust them to run the economy?

As I mentioned yesterday, the last time I saw such broad-based bipartisan panic in Washington, it was over the "crisis" of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction. How's that working out for you?

This whole bailout business is really bringing out a nasty "we're the guys in suits and ties, the serious people, the ones who create our own reality, and if the public doesn't buy what we're peddling, we'll pout a little and maybe throw a tantrum on the living room floor" reaction from the beltway bobbleheads.

Remember that the next time you're tempted to take a day off and let these whistledicks do your thinking for you. And if you haven't rattled your Senator's ear with some Old Testament rhetoric ("woe unto he who appeases the Paulson!") yet, get on the horn. Now. [Update: If you can get through. Kit Bond's office is giving me an "all circuits are busy" response; Claire McCaskill's number has been forwarding to a "voice mail box is full -- goodbye" message all week - TLK]

Shut up, he explained

2008-09-30T13:20:00.001-05:00

Dear President Bush, congressional "leaders," whingy Wall Street "experts" and confused talking heads:

No, you don't need to just "do a better job of selling it."

No, we aren't going to suddenly "understand" if you keep "explaining."

No, a little "Main Street" frosting on top isn't going to hide what kind of cake it is.

Look: If I plunk down $10 on "17" at the roulette table, and the little white ball lands on "36" instead, my money goes away. Uncle Sugar doesn't raid the purse of some little old lady in Des Moines to give me my $10 back, nor should he.

When Fund Manager Bob plunks down $x million of his investors' money on "securitized debt, sure winner" and the little white ball lands on "lots of defaults, your share value is circling the drain" instead, same same.

Knock off the "bailout" bullshit. Nobody's buying it. Nobody's going to be buying it. Some of the Street's highest rollers gambled big-time -- and they lost. What's that, you say? They got duped into their bad bets by the casino's shills, Fannie and Freddie? Don't care.

Tell you what. Here's a coupon for $1.99 ham and egg breakfast in the keno lounge. Better luck next time. No refunds. No exceptions. Now gedouddaheah before I call security and have you escorted from the premises, capisci?

My plan for addressing the credit crunch

2008-09-29T17:09:00.001-05:00

OK, so the "bailout" has failed. Hooray!

I have the TV turned to Fox in the other room and I can hear the Chicken Littles predicting dire consequences. There's a credit crunch. Borrowers won't be able to borrow, because there's no money out there.

I've got a plan. It's a simple plan:

The US government should stop borrowing money.

The government borrows $2.42 billion per day. If it stops doing borrowing that money, that money's owners will look for other borrowers, won't they?

My bailout plan would effectively free up close to $900 billion in credit for real business instead of government schemes over the course of the next year.

And instead of the taxpayers taking it right in the keister, the politicians get to.

I don't see any down side.

I'd vote for a yellow dog ...

2008-09-28T16:09:00.001-05:00

... before I'd vote for a "bailout" supporter.

Just sent via the contact form at lacyclay.house.gov:

Dear Congressman Clay,

As a constituent, I have written to you on issues in the past, and want to first thank and congratulate you on your responsiveness.

This issue is different, because it's one on which there's no room for give and take, explanations, compromise, etc.

According to various press accounts, the House will vote tomorrow on a $700 billion "bailout" package for Wall Street's banking sector.

If you vote "yes" on this bailout, or abstain, or miss the vote, or acquiesce in any "voice vote" gimmick or other trick to avoid disclosing your position on this taxpayer ripoff -- in other words, if you do anything but cast a "no" vote on the "bailout" -- I will dedicate the remainder of my political life to ensuring that you never hold public office again. I will also work hard to recruit others to the same task.

Please do the right thing.

Best regards,
Thomas L. Knapp

Senate-modified versions sent to Kit Bond and Claire McCaskill as well.

Please -- goest thou and do likewise. Then follow up tomorrow morning with phone calls.

[Update: Mr. X has posted a nice tutorial on contacting your congresscritters about this. I disagree with him on the efficacy of contact forms -- I suggest using the form AND calling. If you can only do one, call -- NOW! - TLK]

Liveblogging the debate

2008-09-26T19:58:00.030-05:00

Well, yes, of course I am. Tweetin' too.

8:02pm "Recovery plan?" What "recovery plan?" A $700 billion ripoff isn't "recovery."

Obama's calling it a "rescue effort." No, no, no .. RIPOFF. No, the taxpayers aren't putting their money at risk, the bureaucrats are stealing the taxpayers' money. Blames the Busheviks, ties McCain to them. Probably right on both counts. Plays the middle class card.

8:05pm McCain: Poor Ted Kennedy, feeling' bad, we're all feelin' bad, I'm Mr. Bi-Partisanship. Options. Packages. Hasn't called it a ripoff yet. Now Mr. Bi-Partisanship blames the Democrats. Not the beginning of the end of the crisis, the end of the beginning of the crisis.

8:08pm Lehrer: Do you guys support this bullshit?

Obama: Yes, but no. I predicted it and tried to stop it.

McCain: (Lehrer: "Are you going to vote for the plan?) He hopes so, but maybe not. He predicted it and tried to stop it too. I'm Eisenhower. No, wait, I'm McCain, but I'm sort of Eisenhower.

8:12pm Obama: Need leadership even when there's not a crisis. Americans are too friggin' stupid to balance their checkbooks without Barack's magic calculator to make the numbers come out right.

McCain: Excess and greed in Washington, DC and Wall Street. American worker most productive in world, yada, yada, it's just idiots like me who screwed them over.

8:14pm McCain lapses into the canned pitch ... came to change Washington, it changed us, spending out of control. Gonna make porkers famous. Like that Obama guy.

8:16pm Yeah, that pork sucks, and I gave it up. Been clean for a month, man. But it's not spending that's out of control, it's tax cuts. All your FRNs are belong to us unless I need your vote, then I'm your pal, and what I really meant to say is that I'll cut taxes.

8:17pm Obama doesn't think $932 million is a lot of money. Out of control! Corrupts people! I was called "the sheriff," I'm not Mr. Congeniality. Obama says he wants to cut taxes but he wants to raise spending ...

Obama: Close loopholes! Keep jobs in America! Give everyone band-aids and anti-biotic ointment, I'll pay for it.

8:20pm Lehrer: Neither of you guys makes any sense. Explain yourself, McCain.

McCain: Trying to channel Josiah Bartlett from "In the Shadow of Two Gunmen."

McCain: "So the point is" ... he wants to social engineer with taxes to get people to make babies and pay their doctors' greens fees.

Obama: If you make less than $250k per year, I won't increase your taxes. Yes, business taxes look high, but the loopholes make it effectively one of the lowest rates in the world. Close the loopholes then talk to me about tax cuts. McCain would tax health benefits, what an assbag.

8:24pm McCain: Look at our records, then tell me who the assbag is. Obama gave bennies to Big Oil.

Obama: McCain would give Big Oil another $4 billion in tax breaks.

McCain: You already did, clownshoe.

8:26pm Lehrer calls it a "rescue plan" again. Twice.

Obama: Range of things. We don't know what tax revenues are gonna be, economy's slowing down. We can't do everything, but we have to have energy independence. Will wave my magic wand. Got to destroy the health care system to make people better off, and destroy education to make people smarter.

8:28pm McCain: We've got to cut spending. Government out of control (nth time he's used that phrase, and now Lehrer is calling the ripoff a "bailout"). Eliminate ethanol subsidies. Do away with cost-plus on defense contracts. I saved the taxpayers $6.8 billion on a Boeing contract and put people in prison. Elect me and I'll save you another $6.8 billion and put you in prison too.

8:30pm Lehrer: Neither of you seem to be suggesting any major changes to account for the ripoff.

Obama: Invest in energy! Big project! John's right, we need to make some cuts. Lobbyists skim billions off Medicaid, Medicare. Gotta change the culture. Not a crazy liberal just because I attack George Bush. Worked with Tom Coburn to Google Government.

8:30pm Lehrer: I'm not fucking around here, guys. Gimme the major stuff.

McCain: Spending freeze on everything but defense, veterans and anything else I think is important.

Obama: Cut lobbyists' Medicare subsidy. End Iraq war.

McCain: Giving $700 billion a year to countries that don't like us much, need to crank up solar, wind, nukes and let them starve. Create 700,000 jobs by building 45 new nuclear reactors. Also, we'll be able to read our new glow-in-the-dark newspapers.

Lehrer: Not getting through to you, am I? Do you guys understand that a $700 billion ripoff is going to have you by the nuts if you're elected?

8:35pm Obama: Yeah, but I'm not going to squeal no matter how hard it squeezes. Mine are brass.

McCain: Obama would hand health care over to federal government, not doctors. Obama's $800 billion in new spending would make everyone squeal.

8:37pm Obama: McCain agrees with Bush 90% of the time. Saying he'll lead on controlling spending after 8 years of this stuff isn't believable.

McCain: I'm not Miss Congeniality. I've taken Bush to the woodshed. Maverick. My partner's a maverick, too, even if she is crazy as a shithouse rat.

8:39pm McCain: And by the way, I say we're winning in Iraq, so now you know that I'm crazy as a shithouse rat too.

Obama: McCain and I have a fundamental difference. I ran against the war six years ago (I won't mention that I've voted to fund it ever since). I'm running against the war now, but I'll give you another war if you really want one.

8:42pm Obama: Iraq has a surplus, we're screwed and spending $10 billion a month there. The lesson to be drawn is that we should never hesitate to use military force wisely.

McCain: Next president doesn't have to decide if we go to Iraq or not, but how we get out. Obama said the surge didn't work. Didn't go to Iraq for 900 days, didn't meet with Petraeus when he did go. Don't tell me about war, whippersnapper.

Obama: Can the inside baseball (committee thing). Soldiers did good job. Petraeus did good job. Surge was tactic to contain the consequences of bad war. McCain wants to pretend the first four years didn't happen because he was wrong about them. I was right about them but that didn't stop me from voting to keep the thing going.

8:46pm McCain: Obama has never played Avalon Hill's "Squad Leader" and doesn't know difference between tactic and strategy. Obama opposed funding.

Obama: McCain opposed funding with a timetable, I opposed funding without one. But we both supported sitting in the situation room and beating Bush at "Squad Leader" if the lobbyists would provide Crab Louie. Al Qaeda is back and badder than ever because Bush wouldn't spring for the "Cross of Iron" expansion set. I can fix things in 16 months and put bin Laden's head on a pike in front of 1600 Pennsylvania.

8:49pm McCain: Petraeus, Petraeus, Petraeus. Obama would give us wider more complicated war, we might have to buy more dice and make counters out of posterboard and maybe refresh the hors d'ouvres.

Obama: Can't separate Afghanistan from Iraq, so I'll put more of those new posterboard counters to Afghanistan. We should have just played Risk, this is too complicated. Pakistan sucks.

8:53pm McCain: Yeah, Pakistan sucks but let's give them a bunch more money anyway and not talk about it. I pronounce Taliban right. Obama says "Tally" too much. We've got a lot of work to do in Afghanistan teaching them how to pronounce "Taliban." I wouldn't publicly say I was going to attack, I'd just get the briefcase and push the button.

Obama: You sang "Bomb Iran." You suck.

[time for Taco Bell break]

8:58pm McCain: I supported everything we did that worked, and opposed everything that blew up in our faces. That's why the Iraq war is a victory, because I supported it. I have a bracelet, so we must stay the course.

Obama: I've got a bracelet too. I lied about being against the war in 2003, but you can trust me now because I have the bracelet.

9:02pm Lehrer: Iran.

McCain: If Iran gets nukes, Israel is screwed. We can't allow a second Holocaust. Let's form a League of Democracies, since that worked so well for Wilson and prevented WWII. The Iranians have a lousy government. With sanctions, we could make it worse, maybe even as bad as ours.

9:05pm Obama: War on Iraq strengthened Iran. They've funded Hezbollah, they've funded Hamas, and I've helped them do it by voting to fund the war on Iraq, but if you trust me this time I won't do that again.

9:08pm McCain: Ochmeneedoodadjood wants to destroy Israel. Obama would talk with him. I'm going to talk around it a bit, but so would I.

Obama: Gotta talk with people. That's what politicians do.

[Meximelts, fire sauce, cola, bourbon]

9:12pm McCain: Pronounces Ahmenigesundheit right this time. South Koreans are taller than North Koreans, because North Koreans break agreements.

Obama: McCain keeps lying about what I mean, and the viewing audience should drink each time one of us says "Henry Kissinger."

9:15pm McCain: Kissinger, Kissinger, Kissinger, known him for 35 years.

Obama: Resurgent, aggressive Russia is a threat to stability of region. Blames Russia for Georgia's invasion of South Ossetia and Abhkazia. We have to stop secessionists, especially if they're ethnic Russians who don't want to belong to Stalin's old home state. But we can't go back to Cold War. Gotta work with them while we're calling them names, because US has a national security interest in central Asian shitholes.

McCain: Russian aggression, Russian aggression, Obama is naive to think that there's another side to that Georgia/South Ossetia/Abhkazia thing. No Cold War, but we do need to hop around yelling "KGB" and do everything we can to provoke them.

9:21pm McCain: We can't have Russia ignoring international standards like we do.

Obama: McCain and I agree that Russia sucks. Matter of fact I agree with him more than he admits. We need to rebuild Georgian economy because we've done such a great job with ours. Two points on Russia: We have to have foresight, and I do because I'm Barack Obama. Second point: Russia is resurgent and Putin is DA BOOGEYMAN! We have to have energy strategy! Can't drill our way out!

[Tamara: "These guys both suck -- is this almost over?"]

9:25pm McCain: Babble about nukes some more.

Lehrer: Likelihood of another 9/11?

McCain: Much less than it was the day after 9/11. Much safer nation now, but a long way from safe. Did I mention I'm bipartisan? I know Joe Lieberman. We investigated 9/11 and found out what happened and fixed it. Bipartisan! Bipartisan! Long way to go. Gotta do a better job. No torture! I know our allies. America is safer today but we have a long way to go, so prepare for random body cavity searches at the Post Office. Those body cavity searchers are heroes.

Obama: We are safer in some ways. Better airport security because people have to take their shoes off. Long way to go, we should harden chemical sites. Biggest threat we face is not nuclear missile, but suitcase nuke. Need missile defense. Only spending a few hundred million on nuclear proliferation is mistake. But we should focus on al Qaeda. We need to be nice guys with our allies if we don't want them to screw us. McCain's good on torture. Shining beacon on a hill.

McCain: Al Qaeda would establish base in Iraq if we left! If we follow Obama's plan, Osama bin Laden will crawl out from under your bed and get you!

Obama: We've focused on Iraq, bin Laden is still under your bed. Now we're borrowing billions from China (he must not have noticed they suspended lending to the US the other day) and they're doing all kinds of wild shit. $10 billion a month on Iraq, so your kid can't get a checkup and science doesn't happen any more. Haven't adequately funded veterans care. Gotta have "broader strategic vision," and I do because I'm Barack Obama.

9:34pm McCain: I've been involved in every foreign affairs fiasco in the last 27 years and that makes me qualified to lead. We're winning in Iraq because I have a bracelet. I know the veterans and I'll take care of them. They know I love them. I don't need on the job training because I'm John McCain.

Obama: My dad was from Kenya and came to college in US. Nobody wants to come to college in the US now. I can fix that because I'm Barack Obama.

McCain: Plays POW card. Came home, was sad. Worked on normalization with Vietnam. Know how to heal wounds, deal with adversaries, deal with friends, because I'm John McCain.

Lehrer: You guys suck. This is so over.

Let's at least be honest about this ...

2008-09-26T18:04:00.000-05:00

... especially those of you who support "English as the official language of the US," or "English only." If we're going to use English, let's use it correctly.

"Bailout" is not the right word. Neither is "rescue."

The word you're looking for is "ripoff."

A counter-offer on the bailout proposal

2008-09-25T19:13:00.000-05:00

It's not based on any particular data point ... We just wanted to choose a really large number.

That's a spokeswoman for the Department of the Treasury explaining the alleged $700 billion price tag on this cockamamie "bailout" scheme to Forbes.

Sweet Creeping Jebus.

I think I have a better idea than the one Paulson, Bernanke et al are throwing around:

How about instead of letting these yahoos turn us upside down and shake the last little bit of change out of our pockets to bail out ~~the world's most bizarre casino gaming operation~~ Wall Street's finance sector, we, um, don't?

I'm serious. Let's just just say no, and make it stick.

Yeah, I just said what you thought I just said. And for what it's worth, I'm obviously not the only one who thinks things just might go that way.

An open note to Brian Miller

2008-09-23T19:42:00.001-05:00

Brian,

This will be too brief to refer to as a "letter," so I'll call it a "note."

I just want to admit that you were right and I was wrong about Ron Paul at least as publicly as I've sometimes disagreed with you about him.

Although I declined to support Paul's Republican campaign and opposed the notion of making him the Libertarian Party's 2008 presidential nominee, I kept trying -- against my better judgment -- to make lemonade out of the Ron Paul lemon, while you patiently and conscientiously pointed out to everyone in hearing that the lemon was rotten beyond rescue and couldn't be made into anything worth drinking.

I should have known better, and you tried to tell me better. Sorry I didn't listen better.

I still believe that Bob Barr acted stupidly in the matter of Snubgate. I still believe that he embarrassed the LP with a bloc of voters some of whom might have otherwise have been positively predisposed toward libertarianism. And I still believe that it was a combination of Barr's circus performance and the Libertarian National Committee's gutlessness which gave Paul the excuse he needed to endorse Chuck Baldwin instead of sticking with his "vote third party, any third party" line.

However, Paul's endorsement of Baldwin makes it clear that when he feels himself pressured to choose between libertarianism -- or even a pale, more conservative than libertarian, substitute like that purveyed by Bob Barr -- and the darkest, most medieval social conservatism, he'll choose the latter.

I'm glad that we found that out finally and truly now, in an election cycle the LP has already blown anyway, instead of later. Of course, if libertarians had listened to you (and to me, before I outsmarted myself and started thinking that we could play with fire and maybe not get burned), we'd have been ahead of the curve already, wouldn't we?

Best regards,
Tom Knapp

Buy the ticket, take the ride

2008-09-23T11:25:00.002-05:00

Ron Paul has endorsed Chuck Baldwin, the Constitution Party's candidate for President of the United States.

Readers of this blog know that I'm no Paul cultist. And, while I haven't belabored the point (I prefer to ignore them), I keep the Constitution Party lower than the Democrats, lower even than the Republicans, on my preference list. Put a gun to my head, I might vote for John McCain to save my miserable life. If it's Baldwin, though, go ahead and pull the trigger. You can splatter my brains all over the wall before you can have my vote for him. Cigarette, blindfold and mason jar full of cheap bourbon first, if you don't mind too terribly much.

Thing is, it didn't have to be this way. It could have been prevented. Hell, it took herculean efforts on the part of the Libertarian Party and Bob Barr's presidential campaign to make it happen.

The Libertarian Party could have held out for a libertarian presidential slate. It had several good candidates to choose from. Instead, it decided to play cargo cult dress-up games and nominate a duplicate Republican ticket.

Bob Barr could have shown up to the Campaign For Liberty event he committed to participate in, smiled, accepted a handshake from Paul, and walked out without an exclusive endorsement but with more money and more votes than he had walked in with. Instead, he chose to cancel at the last minute, make an ass of himself (and his party) in public by trying to upstage Paul, and piss off the voter bloc that constitutes the closest thing to a libertarian groundswell since at least the 1964 Goldwater campaign, probably since Grover Cleveland's 1892 anti-tariff/hard-money run for a second non-consecutive term, and just maybe since 1776.

Even after that, the Libertarian National Committee could have minimized the damage. It could have issued an apology to Paul and C4L, on the LP's behalf, for Barr's antics. It could have even, in extremis, removed Barr as the party's presidential nominee. Instead, the LNC gridlocked -- its Irresponsibility Caucus met proposals for an apology with proposals for further insult, and neither side prevailed. Unfortunately, either the Irresponsibility Caucus or the Barr campaign apparently has de facto operational control of LPHQ, which has issued a stream of communiques designed to make the situation worse, not better.

It took three massive systemic failures -- at the convention level, at the campaign level, and at the national committee level -- to bring about the current situation. All of those failures were avoidable. The party and the campaign chose not to prevent them. Buy the ticket, take the ride.

The LP is broken, big-time. This year is pretty much shot. Barr looks set to raise a little more money, and probably pull down a few more votes on his name recognition, than Michael Badnarik, the LP's 2004 candidate whom Barr's acolytes have so much enjoyed laughing down their noses at. I doubt more than ever that Barr will bust the 1980 Ed Clark ceiling and reach a million votes, and even if he did, it would be a poison pill -- the more attention he attracts, the more silly and less serious the LP looks.

Can the LP be fixed? Should it be fixed, at least in anything resembling its current form? So far as I can tell, The Libertarian National Committee's main function at this point is to serve as a live demonstration of the futility of central planning and top-down politics.

The LNC also no longer has a monopoly on libertarian partisan politics at the national level. The Boston Tea Party may only be on the ballot in three states this year, but I seem to recall that that's one more ballot line than the LP made its first time out. If the LNC system continues to fail partisan libertarians, they -- as individuals, and as state Libertarian Party organizations -- have somewhere else to go.

Oh, Brother

2008-09-21T01:31:00.002-05:00

Just finished Cory Doctorow's Little Brother. It's definitely going to end up on the "re-read frequently" shelf of one of my bookcases, once I get a hard copy and once I get organized enough to have a shelf like that. Yes, once I get a hard copy -- Doctorow makes his novels available free in electronic form. You can download Little Brother here, or buy it ~~here~~ from Laissez Faire Books at 1-800-326-0996 and get a free DVD to boot (as I intend to do Real Soon Now).

I'm not going to try to tell you too much about the book. "Cryptonomicon meets Alongside Night" is, I think, a fair one-phrase ballpark assessment (not to mention a convenient excuse for opportunistic Amazon link goodness).

Like Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon, Little Brother is punctuated by the occasional techno-didactic digression. As a matter of fact, both books include non-fiction addenda by Security God Bruce Schneier. I think that kind of stuff is cool. Others don't. To each their own, and you can skip past that stuff, you know.

Unlike Cryptonomicon, even a hard copy of Little Brother, which comes to only 155 pages in my PDF reader, won't be fit for double duty as a doorstop.

Like J. Neil Schulman's Alongside Night, Little Brother is a near-future romp pitting an adolescent protagonist and his friends against government gone wild. Similar First Love angles also feature prominently in both books' plots.

Unlike Alongside Night, Little Brother is not explicitly anarchist. Ideologically it instead spins out elements of (at various times) Declarationism, Constitutionalism, Good Governmentalism and Get Out and Votism.

One interesting point of intersection, though, is the role of the inherently anarchic underground in all three books. It's not anything like a stretch to point out that the Revolutionary Agorist Cadre of Alongside Night was part of the inspirational feedstock for the real-life cypherpunks of the 1990s; or that the shadows of those real-life cypherpunks loom over the fictional Secret Admirers of Cryptonomicon and Xnetters of Little Brother.

There's a verisimilitude in Doctorow's and Stephenson's versions that's lacking in Alongside Night, of course, but then what do you expect? Schulman was writing at a time when the idea of a computer on every desktop, let alone a phone on every belt and near-universal access to a worldwide data network, didn't sound at all like "near future." Schulman had to invent sealed transports, spoken phone codes, and literally, physically underground marketplaces to make things happen that the cypherpunks then made possible (or at least proved possible in principle) electronically, and that we (and the Secret Admirers, and the Xnetters) can (or could) therefore do by pointing and clicking these days.

Anyway, good stuff. Like I said, I don't feel like synopsizing much here. If the combination of my recommendation and a free download won't get you to at least dip into Little Brother to see if it's your kind of thing, neither would additional teasing.

This and that

2008-09-19T11:18:00.000-05:00

- I bet you've been in a place where having a friend throw a few dollars your way could make a real difference. I know I have, too. Right now, Norma Jean Almodovar is in one of those places -- she and her husband have major health issues, big auto repair bills, more bills coming due, not enough money to pay them. We've been through this part before: I'm not a wealthy guy, but $5 didn't kill me. Probably won't kill you either. PayPal makes it easy.

- I'm probably not the guy to look to for investment advice, but I'm going to give you some anyway: The market is on a sugar high today from the latest round of government bailouts, buyouts and manipulations. Stocks are rising, gold is falling this morning. You know what to do, because you know that like all sugar highs, this one is going to end in a crash ... and the stash of candy bars hidden in Washington's pantry is getting smaller and smaller.

- If you're into online presidential "fun" polling -- strictly non-scientific -- here's one that has Charles Jay and yours truly as an option. Of course, if you follow me on Twitter, you already saw Mike Seebeck telling me that.

The managerial state: Crisis or consolidation?

2008-09-18T14:57:00.002-05:00

Some snippets from email exchanges. I'm leaving out the names of the people I'm responding to -- I'm just throwing this stuff out as thought-food, I didn't ask permission to fully quote them, and I've tried to carve down to within "fair use" guidelines.

Snippet #1

Other person: Welcome to the end of capitalism

Me: Actually, I think that capitalism ended, or at least started to accelerate toward its end, 75 or 80 years ago.

We've arguably been moving into a post-capitalist era of "managerialism" -- look up James Burnham if you don't know what I mean -- since the New Deal.

...

I'm undecided as to whether this current mess is a Hegelian "managerialism begins to disintegrate under the weight of its own contradictions" thing, or the beginning of a "final managerial consolidation of economic control."

Snippet #2

Other Person: Any way you slice it, it's socialism for the corporations and the wealthy.

Me: Oh, hell, it's already been that for quite awhile.

What I'm worried about in either event is the possibility of the worst possible convergence of economic and political trends.

I don't think that the economic status quo can co-exist with multi-party, or even two-party, democracy much longer (whether we're talking Hegelian disintegration or invisible-hand consolidation is irrelevant to that evaluation -- either one ultimately entails crises of control).

I also don't think that the Republican Party can be trusted to resist the temptation of becoming overseers of a one-party state. I'm not saying all Republicans are evil, mind you ... I'm just saying that the ideological trend of the GOP is toward concluding that government needs more control and acting on those conclusions, and if there's a one-party state at the end of those conclusions, well, they'll "accept necessity."

Snippet #3

Other Person: One thing nobody seems to be talking about in the midst of this economic crisis, however, is precisely how the "managerial class" is taking care of its own.

Me: Actually, I've seen some references to it.

Thing is, there's no good way out of it. The miscreants either get to keep the money, or some other managerial faction (perhaps a new one forming as the apparatchiks of this whole "government takeover" trend) gets to put on a show trial and take it "back," thus making itself look "honest."

Snippet #4

Other Person: It took a one-time Trotskyist to identify the modern managerial class, but I think it will take a young libertarian theorist or two to lead us out of the abyss and into a truly free market economy where everyone can share in its blessings.

Me: I'm not optimistic. I think that most libertarian theorists are still mired in the illusion that current events constitute a conflict between "capitalism" and "socialism." Every once in awhile there's a tentative lunge toward "libertarian class theory" by Rockwell and the Auburn crowd, but it's usually followed by a retreat to the comfy couch of the familiar forms. The mutualists and agorists (especially Kevin Carson, Roderick Long and Brad Spangler -- and "Rad Geek," whose real name I can't remember at the moment) have some chops, but I don't think their operating theor[ies] (i.e. outside of the class analysis itself) [are] going to get anywhere.

Post-snippet notes

No, I don't have an operating theory -- or, more correctly put, a strategy -- for a) weathering the crisis or b) monkeywrenching the consolidation either.

Part of such a strategy would have to include convincing socialists that what they've been fighting since, oh, the end of World War I or so, hasn't really been "capitalism."

Another part of such a strategy would have to include convincing libertarians that "capitalism" was never the same as "laissez faire" or "free-marketism" in the first place, that it was never worth defending, and that in any case it's a-moldering in the grave and is no more likely to be brought back to life than that parrot in the Monty Python sketch.

A third part of such a strategy would have to include convincing both socialists and libertarians that their real interests are much more closely aligned with each others' than with the interests of either wing ("social-democratic left" or "conservative right") of the managerial class.

But those are just pieces. I'm not a system builder.

Personally, folks, I think we're well and truly screwed.

No sympathy for the she-devil

2008-09-18T14:57:00.001-05:00

Bullhorn message to anyone now feigning (or worse yet, actually feeling) outrage at the hacking and public posting of Sarah Palin's "private" email: Please place the the crack pipe and the world's smallest violin on the floor in front of you, put your hands on your head, and slowly step away from the hypocrisy.

Quickly, from the top:

- Government officials are not entitled to an expectation of "privacy" in the performance of their jobs. They work for us ... in theory, anyway.

- Palin has a record of trying to shield official business behind "private" email addresses, of denying requests for "public" email content on this or that pretext, and over the last few days has even gone so far as to have her state's attorney general publicly instruct Alaska's state employees to commit a felony (obstruction of justice) by "resisting" subpoenas of said "private" emails pursuant to the TrooperGate probe.

- Sarah Palin's "private" email address seems, from the published screen shots, to have been used at least partially for official business -- and not just incidentally or in passing, but by design, as evidenced by her choice of user ID ("gov.palin").

If Sarah Palin doesn't want the public looking at her family snapshots and bitchy personal notes, she shouldn't store them on an account she's also apparently using to illegally hide stuff that the public is perfectly entitled to read.

And if Sarah Palin supports the American conception of limited government, she shouldn't have any problem with an individual citizen directly exercising the power delegated¹ to our public servants in USC Title 18, §2705.²

NOTES

1. Yes, delegated. What, did you think that government agents get their powers from their magical shiny badges or something? They get those powers from us. They're just doing the things we have the right to do, but instead in the usual course of things allow them to do for us. That's what we're always told constitutes the distinction between "public servant" and "petty criminal" when there's a need to justify something on their end. It goes both ways, or it doesn't go at all.

2. That would be the power to compel disclosure of stored electronic communications without prior notice to the owner in cases where such notice might result in certain adverse results. Results like, say, destruction of or tampering with evidence (something Palin has already demonstrated a yen for), or endangering the life or physical safety of an individual (something Palin and her running mate have publicly pledged to do to millions of Iraqi, Iranian, Afghan and Pakistani individuals, and to hundreds of thousands of American military personnel, if she can keep her dirty laundry out of sight and get elected). Be a dear, Mr. or Ms. Hacker, and let Sarah know within 90 days. After all, it's the law.

Contra Weigel

2008-09-16T19:11:00.000-05:00

Quoth David Weigel:

Outside of the tear gas-choked air of Independent Political Report and radical-leaning LP blogs, Barr's media coverage has remained steady, respectful, and (of course) dismissive.

Steady? Well, steady as it goes, anyway.

Dismissive? That goes without saying, and is more a function of media treatment of third parties than of anything unique to Barr.

But respectful? Um ...

... Barr went hog-wild, turning the gathering into a barnyard brawl ... woe be unto those who try to put lipstick on the pigheaded ...

Milbank, you ignorant slut -- do you really think anyone actually reads your obscure radical-leaning LP blog? [Quick plug -- Milbank's Smashmouth is a must-read]

He has shown us time and again that he has no true principle and will change his stance if it is politically expedient to do so. This leaves his sincerity very much in doubt. This is why Bob Barr fails where Ron Paul succeeded. It is sad to note that he has probably destroyed the Libertarian Party in doing so.

... writes Szandor Blestman at The American Chronicle. I'm pretty sure that TAC isn't "radical-leaning" or LP-affiliated. Matter of fact, I'm pretty sure it's hardcore conservative, maybe even John Birch Society, stuff. And Alexa says that it's more popular than Bob Barr's campaign site ... and, for that matter, more popular than Reason.

In other news, Weigel reports that in Louisiana, "bureaucratic delays caused by Hurricane Gustav might have kept Barr's signatures from being counted for ballot access."

Dude -- Louisiana doesn't even require signatures. Just a filing fee and list of nine electors. Hell, even the Boston Tea Party would probably have made it if the guy we were relying on hadn't decided to throw his lot in with Ron Paul instead (no hard feelings on that, btw).

The "delay" was not on the part of bureaucrats wielding magnifying glasses over piles of signature sheets ... it was on the part of the Barr campaign, which waited until the last possible minute to file the minimal paperwork involved, and then found the office closed due to Gustav.

Now, it does make sense that Louisiana should give candidates who tried to file on the last day a "sorry we were closed due to inclement weather" pass, and I hope that Barr and Socialist candidate Brian Moore win their suit to get one, but let's not pretend that this was an episode of "Heroic Ballot Access Barrier Assailants versus Amazon Notaries from Hell."

Now I don't truck with all this "objective journalism" nonsense, and frankly I thought Weigel's coverage of the LP's national convention was better than some radicals wanted to admit (if for no other reason than that it boosted my carefully cultivated image as a drug-fueled, whiskey-addled mini-Robespierre of the radical set, you know). But Dave, there's no need to be a kiss-ass at the expense of the facts. Undented campaign bus? Puh-leeze. Unicycle with a flat tire is more like it.