NYC Libertarian Chapter Officer Arrested in Free Speech Violation

Manhattan Libertarian Party Membership Director, Antonio Musumeci, was arrested Monday, and his camera’s memory card confiscated.  Antonio was recording  Julian Heicklen, a fully informed jury activist , as he distributed FIJA information at the federal courthouse in New York City.

This incident takes New York City’s police state to new and bizarre levels.  Antonio has several times engaged police who attempted to search him as he entered the subway.  The subway searches are a complete waste of taxpayer money because everyone knows you can simply walk across the street and enter from the other side.  To think that would stop even the dumbest terrorist boggles the mind.  This is just another example of the Bloomberg adminstration wasting taxpayer money simply to prove they can do whatever they want.

Antonio said..

 ”I find it troubling that in public space on federal property a person can be arrested and ticketed for being or admitting to be the press for filming the arrest of someone else. Having such a broad Executive rule restricting the ability to film on public federal property seems to go against the intent of the protections enshrined in the 1st Amendment.”

Arresting Antonio in the act of exercising First Amendment Rights by recording Heicklen exercising his First Amendments rights by passing out information about exercising Sixth Amendment Rights puts me in mind of a scene from Princess Bride.  What if Antonio’s case goes to trial and Heicklen is passing out FIJA info as Antonio’s jury is being picked and Antonio is recording it and he gets arrested….  The world could conceivably collapse in on itself or something.

BUT IT GETS WORSE…

They confiscated Antonio’s memory card.  Apparently Antonio talked them out of confiscating his whole camera.  But he had a miniature “spy” camera on his shirt.   You know what’s coming right?  He recorded the police preventing him from recording the police preventing him from recording him exercising his First Amendments rights by recording ……

Ahhhhhhhhh………………. Only in America.You can find additional blogs, including Antonio’s own account at http://blogofbile.com/.

Audit the Fed: Tom Woods Testimony Today

Hearings began today on Ron Paul’s  HR1207 which proposes to audit the Federal Reserve.  Dr. Wood’s says it beautifully. I can’t begin to compare so read his testimony here.

First, this is a huge victory for the forces of freedom in New York City.  Dozens of heroic volunteers from the Campaign for Liberty and the Libertarian Party gathered signatures, called Congressmembers and lots of other activities and this was repeated across the country.  HR1207 has 290 co-sponsors as a result.  When I checked last no member of Congress from NYC  was included, in particular Financial Services Committee member Carolyn Maloney.

What’s to oppose about this bill?  It only seeks to require a thorough audit by the GAO so that Americans know where trillions of dollars printed by the Fed have gone.

The objections are nonsense.

For example some suggest it would remove the Fed’s independence and subject monetary policy to politics. Nonsense.  There is nothing in the bill that seeks to control Fed actions. An audit will only expose their actions to sunlight.  

Some opponents say that the bill is just a first toward abolishing the Fed.  They are right.  But that’s no excuse to oppose this step even if they don’t want to end the Fed altogether.  If there is nothing wrong going on won’t that help make the case that we should keep the Fed?  Regardless there is no excuse for keeping Americans and even Congress in the dark about vast expenditures that make things like the war in Iraq look trivial.

This is a bill every American should support.  And we shouldn’t accept a watered down version.  Dr. Wood’s put it perfectly…

If the Federal Reserve Transparency Act passes and the audit takes place, the American people will have achieved a great victory. If the legislation fails, more and more Americans will begin to wonder what the Fed could be so anxious to keep hidden, and the pressure for transparency will simply intensify. A recent poll finds 75 percent of Americans already in favor of auditing the Fed. The writing is on the wall.

The Federal Reserve may as well get used to the idea that the audit is coming. That would be a far more sensible approach than the counterproductive and condescending one it has adopted thus far, in which the peons who populate the country are urged to quit pestering their betters with all these impertinent questions. The Fed should take to heart the words of consolation the American people are given whenever a new government surveillance program is uncovered: if you’re not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about.

Separating the Libertarians from the Neocons

Grand Street News, a fine community paper serving the lower east side, features yours truly in the latest issue. Sharp-eyed editor Yori Yanover noticed that Politico.com was confusing lovable Libertarians with ill-mannered Republicans, and contacted me for clarification:

The other day, we read in Lloyd Doggett’s report in Politico about the disruptions of health-plan town hall meetings a reference to the disrupters being a “mob, sent by the local Republican and Libertar ian parties” that “came not just to be heard but to deny others the right to be heard.”

We could believe this about Republicans (Who can forget the Dade County Brooks Brothers Riot?). But Libertarians? Would Ayn Rand condone brute thuggery? So we emailed the only Libertarian we know—and vote for—our neighbor from East River Housing Jim Lesczynski: “Is this something your people would do?”

Jim Wrote back: “I can’t speak for what other Libertarians would do while acting as individuals, and I haven’t read the Politico report, but I can tell you that the Manhattan Libertarian Party would never send people to disrupt someone’s meeting or town hall. In my opinion, the Libertarian ethic is to treat other people the way you want to be treated. I would not want someone to disrupt my meeting, and I certainly wouldn’t condone the disruption of someone else’s event.”

Just as we suspected.

Yori also notes my current campaign to abolish the Public Advocate, “the office which he, and 98% of New Yorkers consider a useless waste of public money.”

Grand Street News endorsed me for NYC Public Advocate in 2005.

Reason Enough to Oppose the Senate Health Care Bill

… and start a business issuing 1099’s.   A forbes.com article ‘Senate Six’ Could Sink Small Business yesterday listed a number of nails in the coffins of small businesses, including:

• fees for not offering health insurance
• 35% tax on health plans worth over $8000 (singles) per year.
• cap flexible spending accounts at $2000 per year
• eliminate income exclusions for employers who maintain drug plans for seniors

There is a lot more lunacy in the Senate bill according to the article.  But here is one absolutely insane item. 

–For small business, there’s a provision that will increase the already sky-high tax compliance costs. It requires businesses that pay more than $600 annually to corporate providers of property and services to file an information report with each provider (1099) and with the IRS. Ask your accountant how much that’s going to cost. No one has done an analysis of the cost to business (it’ll be a whopper) vs. the dollars raised by the Treasury (minimal).

Think about that.  If you are still standing up you have never run a business (and complied with paperwork regulations anyway).  And if you have never run a business (like most of the people voting on this abomination) you are unqualified to interfere with those of us who have.   Based on the (Forbes) language above, businesses would have to issue 1099 information returns for virtually every vendor they do business with.  The record keeping and paperwork implications are staggering.  And the revenue potential is minimal.

And it has nothing at all to do with health care.  It has to do with tightening government’s grip on taxpayers and increasing government power.  That seems to be the theme of the bill.  Why else would you cap health savings accounts?  Why else would you tax employer paid health insurance?  Aren’t those the things we are supposed to be encouraging?

The bill also creates $80 billion in “fees”  based on market share for drug and medical device providers.  Fees? for market share?  Adding cost to drugs and devices?   How does that reduce the cost of health care?  

Where is anything in any of the bills that actually reduces the cost of health care,   things like tax-parity for health insurance purchased by individuals, or interstate competition or expansion of health savings accounts or  deregulation of  health care providers.  The Republicans are at least addressing tort reform which is actually one of the most difficult issues.  There is a ton of easy stuff based on free market  (or free-er market) principles that would actually help small business.  But this government seems intent on destroying small business instead.

Spitzer Reprise?

CJ Maloney blogs today on Eliot Spitzer in Hubris and the Hooker on Lew Rockwell.

CJ will be our guest at next Monday’s (Sep 14) meeting of the Manhattan Libertarian Party. Details here.

You can’t make this stuff up

I’m watching the Senate Health Committee debates. Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn (R)  introduced an amendment that as far as I could tell required members of the Senate to participate in whatever public plan they create for the common man and woman, apparently instead of the lush plan the taxpayer subsidizes for them now.   It always pains me to give credit to Republicans but lets give credit where credit is due.  Senator Coburn – on this one you rock.

Chairman Chris Dodd immediately accepted the amendment however,  New Mexico Senator Jeff Bingaman (D) objected.  He didn’t see why, since the public plan would be voluntary,  he ( and others among the ruling class) should be forced to participate in something that the proposed law specifically says would be voluntary.  That’s completely rational.

Of course it might be different if the taxpayer wasn’t subsidizing his royal behind.  If he had to deal with the disaster of the US health care “system”  created by his chamber and their lower house brethren that public option might look pretty good.

Or would it? The amendment lost.

So I guess the Senate Health Committee doesn’t have much faith in the quality of the public option.  They won’t give up their privilege but we have to pay for both their privilege and the public option they won’t subject their families to. 

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders proposed an amendment to facilitate the states in experimenting with single payer. He explained how it was revenue neutral since it was really just redirecting existing expenditures, and he limited it to a few states per year. Yeah Bernie – though single payer is fundamentally immoral – the “states as laboratory” is something I’ve preached for decades.  Small problem – it requires waivers on a significant list of Federal program requirements.  It sounded as if (though I haven’t read the bill – pretty sure no one has) they would redirect money from individuals’ medicare etc. apparently without their consent.  There was some discussion about this – no one seemed sure. What the hell – it’s not their health care. See previous paragraphs.   

Hold on – another objection – sure enough – Senator Bingaman. Its seems a lot of people in New Mexico like that medicare money they get from that bottomless piggy bank that is the Federal Government – or from younger generations – I don’t know.  But apparently we can’t have some silly little state making it’s own decisions about it’s affairs. They didn’t really mean it when they adopted the Tenth Amendment.  At least not when it means reducing OUR pork.

Speaking of which – I went to Senator Bingaman’s website to make sure I spelled his name right.  Here is what occupies about 25% of the home page

Bingaman: New Mexico Airports to Benefit from DOT Funds

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Jeff Bingaman today announced that two New Mexico airports will receive funding from the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) to make improvements to their facilities and runways. 

• Bingaman: Funding to Help Combat Domestic Violence

• Feds Release Bingaman Secured Funds for Border Law Enforcement Agencies

• Bingaman: New Mexico Pueblos Awarded HUD Funds

• Bingaman: Tribal Communities Awarded Funds to Hire Police Officers and Purchase Equipment

• Bingaman: New Mexico Anti-Drug Organizations Awarded Federal Funds

• Bingaman: Los Lunas to Benefit from Crime Prevention Funds

WOW! Great work Jeff.  You bring home the bacon.  No wonder Arizona, according to the Tax Foundation,  gets $1.30 in Federal Expenditures (Pork) for every dollar paid in.  Hillary and Dick didn’t do so well.  Here in New York, we only get 79 cents back on every dollar we pay in.  Never understood why New Yorker’s like big government. When it come to our fair share of pork our elected officials get rolled – over and over again!

Wait a minute.  What does pork have to do with health care?

NYC Libertarians submit over 10,000 signatures for 10 Libertarian party candidates!

I was delighted to be a very small part last night in the submission at the Board of Elections of over 10,000 signatures on petitions for 10 candidates of the Libertarian Party in New York City.

In addition to three city-wide candidates, we have Borough President and City Council candidates in Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan.

The signatures were all collected at a total cost of $-0- to the LP!

In particular, kudos to our candidate for Mayor, Joseph Dobrian, who collected 3,000 signatures on his own. And further kudos to the entire Brooklyn team, headed by Gary Popkin, which generated 6,000 more signatures. And thanks too to Dan Halloran running for City Council in Queens who brought petitions with over 1500 signatures for his City Council candidacy on the Libertarian line. 

The results of the hard work of all our volunteers was truly fantastic. Now on to the campaigns to educate the sheeple in New York that there’s an alternative to King Mike and his cronies!

Mark Axinn
Secretary-Treasurer, Manhattan Libertarian Party

Health Care Debate: Plenty of Free Market Solutions

Few people would deny that something needs to change in the US health care system.  Reasonable people can disagree about how to go about it but the major divide comes down to whether you respect others rights to their opinion or instead prefer to solve problems by force.  Our rulers would have us believe  the health care situation is one more example where free markets need the help of wise an noble legislators but there was no health care crisis before massive government intervention.  As Harry Browne used to point out, before Medicare health care was cheap and accessible. Doctors made house calls.  The problem didn’t exist until government became the single biggest buyer of health care. 

There are plenty of easy effective steps that would lead to far lower costs and far easier access and they have been out there for years but Government these days won’t even consider any action that reduces their reach.  

The solution can’t just throw taxpayer money at an even bigger bureaucracy.  It has to address supply and it has to have real competition.  The solution is reducing taxes and regulation not increasing them.

I’ve already blogged about pushing the issue back to the states which is how the welfare problem was solved.  I’ve already blogged about making health insurance purchased by individuals tax equivalent to that purchased by employers and I’ve already blogged about Rand Paul’s comments about health care. Here is a link to an article by Hans-Hermann Hoppe  with a set of sensible effective suggestions.  When did President Obama address these suggestions?  Are they coming up at the town halls?  Maybe it’s up to us to make sure they do.

Does Anyone Really Want to Fix Healthcare

Seems to me a significant percentage of Americans don’t really care much about health.  Many of us smoke, drink, are overweight, eat the wrong things and don’t exercise.  of course there are many health conscious Americans who don’t fall into any of those categories.   But  a lot do.    Why should the taxpayer cover their health care?  I hear the argument that some sacrifice is necessary so that we can solve the health care crisis but why should the taxpayer be the first to sacrifice to pay for the health care of those who don’t seem to  care enough to lose weight, quit smoking, eat right and exercise.  Of course we will need a new cabinet level agency with authority to police all manner of behavior – let’s call it the Department of Health Security and we will give them authority to tell you what to eat , how much you should weigh and how many crunches to do each morning. If you get a good report card from them then the government will guaranty that you will live to be 100 and pay for someone to wipe your nose for you.

Obesity costs more even than smoking.  Even if you argue that the taxpayer needs to pony up – how do you argue that Chubby has a right to Joe Sixpack’s money even before Joe has covered his own retirement?  Well maybe we should socialize Joe’s retirement?  Wait – even before Fred puts his kids through college?  Ok college is good – let’s socialize that too.  We already socialized K thru 12. Then there is access to broadband… and housing.  Shouldn’t Johnny have access to a sports program?  and Janey?   Someone told me ex-cons could get free Viagra.  It might make them less likely to commit a violent crime – right?

Seems like everyone needs everything and why isn’t that their human right?  I have the right to be fat, smoke, drink, lay on the couch and to do so at taxpayer expense.   Sounds good to me.   Why am I still sitting at my desk again?  It’s 11 am on a Friday – I should be at the bar eating a juicy burger and downing beers.  Too bad I can’t smoke in the bar.

Or.. we could have a society where people take responsibility for their own lives, where it’s still considered a virtue to pay your own bills,  to buy a house you can pay for and to work in a job where customers and not taxpayers pay your salary.   Naw  – that’s just silly.

Is The Stimulus Working?

Dutifully fulfilling it’s role as chief propagandist for the State, today’s New York Times declares that 

It is clearly too soon to know for sure. But the evidence is now pointing pretty strongly in one direction: history books may conclude that the financial crisis of 2008 turned out to be far less bad than it could have been and that Washington deserved much of the credit. 

That statement belongs on the editorial page, not the front page and it is clearly irresponsible journalism, if it is journalism at all.  It is so full of bias and personal judgments that I am surprised even the Times printed it.

The bulk of the article simply recounts statistics indicating that the worst of the recession might be over.  In the last few column inches it tots up the jobs in the auto, health and state and local governments that the stimulus has supposedly created. It’s quite probable that many of these jobs came about directly because of stimulus money.  And it’s a great thing that some people will have some money they wouldn’t otherwise have. But suggesting that this proves the stimulus is working, or that the government has done something good doesn’t even begin to follow logically.

I will grant that the stimulus created some jobs that wouldn’t have existed otherwise.  But how many did it destroy in the process?  Moving money from one place to another can’t actually create wealth unless you move it from a less productive place to a more productive place. The government has successfully moved ( or begun to move) a couple of trillion dollars from one place to another but there is no proof it’s creating any wealth.  Its just giving it to people the politicians think will reward them with votes and taking it from people the politicians think wouldn’t ever vote for them anyway or who are too clueless to realize they have been swindled.   The people who would never vote for the current ruling class would be conservative and libertarian tax payers and of course future generations.  The clueless class? – Well that’s where the New York Times comes in.   Let’s take the same people who created what is possibly the worst economic crisis since at least the Great Depression (remember Obama was in the same Senate that helped create this crisis) wait till the crisis seems to have run it’s course (if it has) and then credit them with saving us.

For the Times article to be anything less than pure propaganda it would have to show that:

1. these guys didn’t cause the problem

2. their actions improved the short term situation

3. their actions didn’t hurt us in the long run.

4. they have the right to take from one person and give to another.

While they might have a long shot chance at number 2, they don’t even attempt the other three. 

The auto industry is a great example.  I remember being a kid in the ’60s hearing the news about Johnson administration controls on imports of small fuel efficient European cars.  Fast forward half a century to a failed auto industry, war in the middle east and a huge argument about global warming.  Does bailing about the auto industry REALLY HELP US?  All it does is stop some short term bleeding – which MIGHT be ok in the short run.  But it solves nothing.  

How many jobs do you think didn’t happen because the government injected so much fear and uncertainty into the economy? How many jobs will tax increases destroy?  How many productive jobs in the private sector will be displaced by moving the money from taxpayers to counterproductive governments?

So before we start handing out credit to the guys that created the problem let’s think about the costs of their actions, not just the short-run superficial benefits.  But of course then the Times wouldn’t be doing their job as part of the statist propaganda machine.