A Republican Woman asks why Democrats do not demand Impeachment

“The tea was held upstairs, past open doors that held the portraits of First Ladies and mementos of previous administrations.”



I wrote the above to appear in a newsletter for the National Federation of Republican Women soon after the tea. I had gotten my invitation to the White House Tea as a Regent for NFRW and because I had donated to No Child Left Behind. The sandwiches were delicious – but subsequent events have persuaded me that to remain loyal to America I need to ask that Laura's husband be impeached. Since it is clear the Republicans are not going to clean their own house I am urging Democrats to act now and remove both President Bush and Vice President Cheney from office.

As a long time Republican, who worked for Barry Goldwater, I have watched with dismay as events play out in the Administration of George W. Bush and Richard Cheney. The reasons grow more compelling every day.

It is not that our military are dying in a war, but that the war was sold with lies and that the real reason over 2,500 Americans and God knows now many Iraqis have been killed is to stop the flow of oil to France and Russia. Those countries had just signed an oil deal with Saddam Hussein when the war began.

As events played out it became gut wrenchingly obvious to me that Bush and Cheney had not just overlooked their oaths of office; they had shredded the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, documents that any American should respect. Torture in the name of freedom? Taping Americans in the name of security? Someone has obviously lost their mind or is following an agenda that has nothing to do with their rhetoric.

I understand why Republicans can't take this necessary step; the Republican Party was quietly taken over by the NeoCons who run the Bush Administration, starting a while ago.
In California they marched into the Republican State Convention several years back and just took over, overthrowing leadership that really represented the grassroots. Exerting control happens in many different ways and Rove most probably made sure of that first.

Republicans, the kind of people who believed and lived the ideas of Barry Goldwater, low taxation, local government, and individual rights, have been marginalized throughout the Republican Party. The only people left in positions of authority, for the most part, are either NeoCons or NeoCon sympathizers. Long time organizations like the Republican Assemblies, the John Birch Society, and the newly formed Republican Liberty Caucus despise Bush and understand that we stand on the brink of fascism. They do nothing but wring their hands, unfortunately. Some of that is probably fear; some comes from the Republican Command, “Thou shalt not speak evil of another Republican.” I disagree obviously.

I have always felt that political parties are just tools used to work for an agenda agreed on by those who are active. If we owe loyalty to anything it is to the principles for which America was founded. Today we have confused the word, 'rights,' with 'privileges.' Rights are not a list of specifics, they are the acknowledgment that each of us is born possessed of inherent rights to act, own the property we earn, and to be free in our own persons. That is Jefferson's, “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Converting those God given rights to privileges made all of us subject to government when the whole idea was that our freedom existed before any government we adopted as a tool for ordering our human world.

Loyalty to a political party should never be stronger than your loyalty to that original vision of a people coming together to govern themselves, using persuasion and consent. Members of Congress should burn their party membership cards before being sworn. It is as if you felt loyalty to your hammer, a tool, instead of to the family you love who live in the house you built using that tool.

I have been wondering for a long time why Democrats have not taken action. John Conyers has proposed a censure, a good start. Others outside Congress are talking about impeachment. But nothing happens.

Why is the Democratic faction of Congress tip toeing around, pretending that all is well in Congressland?

I have a nasty streak of cynicism so answers did occur to me. I hope I am wrong, but my reason says I am dead on.

The Democratic contingent of Congress spends its time watching the steady roll of fascism through America's Institutions, silent where you would expect outrage, because they are all too aware that if they speak out their own dirty laundry will be dragged out for examination. They watched the appointment of federal judges carefully steered through the process of ratification through the system who had been solicited by the Federalist Society. Founded in 1982 by Republicans and Libertarians that organization had an agenda that includes lofty rhetoric that states, “ that the state exists to preserve freedom, that the separation of governmental powers is central to our Constitution, and that it is emphatically the province and duty of the judiciary to say what the law is, not what it should be.”

That is what they say. One wonders if they ever read it. This is one of those times when rhetoric is used as cover, I suppose. The actions of the Federalists included placing judges with a political agenda who do as they are told. Clarence Thomas was their shining moment and the destruction of Anita Hill business as usual. Time and several thorough books have determined the truth of those questions.

I think it likely that Democrats serving in Congress cringe at the idea of an investigation into matters they know will not stand the light of day in a court overseen by one of these Federalist graduates. The meaning of 'is' does not even come close to not being able to see the difference between the separation of the branches of government and the monolithic state that confronts our eyes today.

Remember the downcast eyes of Teddy Kennedy during the Clarence Thomas hearings. There is a reason that Democrats are afraid to speak out.

Democrats are vulnerable and they know it. Some of them probably wonder what the NSA picked up in its tapings or what kind of home movies Bush gets from his operatives and if they played starring roles. Not all of them have that kind of worries; I am sure there are good, decent, honest Congressmen on both sides of the isle. But there are enough to make it impossible for any counter move to be successful. Enough is all the NeoCons needed.

If an individual Congressman has dirty laundry he is vulnerable. He can be depended on to be quiet on those issues that really matter and the censure and impeachment matter. If this Congress fails we will lose more than the illusion that the Democratic Party is at least marginally competent as a tool of political action.

I used to believe that there was a vast Left-Wing conspiracy! Ha! A conspiracy implies effective organization.

Impeachment matters; removing this administration is essential if America is to reclaim the vision that summoned it into being, if it is to again be the means by which a people govern themselves.

No president has ever violated the Bill of Rights, the Constitution, and the other tenets of American thought as thoroughly as the weedeating wonder who occupies the White House today.

Any Democrat who asked to be re-elected to Congress without having signed on to the Censure by Conyers, promised to work for it, and then put his or her name to a bill of impeachment is a traitor to freedom and to America. I am a Republican and I am telling you the truth. I wish those in my own party would step up to the plate, but I do not expect it.

Our lives and the future of our country depend on taking action. Now.

In 1776 a group of men, supported by their wives who would also suffer, pledged, “Their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor,” on a venture that looked impossible. The world expected us to fail; instead we won the Revolution and then lost the battle for freedom with the Great Compromise that ignored the inherent rights of blacks and women.

I suspect that the Founders know that now and hope that we will do better.

The Founders were mostly well off or at least middle class. Life and doing the right thing is about risk and they understood what they could lose. Life is temporary, honor is forever. They were imperfect and so are we. They had the courage to do what had to be done. Do we?

If the Democratic Delegation to Congress is afraid they should remember that the Constitution and Bill of Rights is precisely what they are sworn to protect. If doing that means they risk having their sins exposed to public sight then they should remember that the only two people who matter already know; they themselves and God.

Speak out, act, risk what is only yours on trust anyway. The courage must come, as always, from individuals. For a moment imagine what might be possible. What if those who are controlled by guilty secrets came forward and simply admitted what has been hidden? What if these with guilty consciences offered to make amends for any wrongs they have done?
Confessed to those they had harmed? Asked forgiveness? That would be a powerful statement that would leave them feeling better about themselves and on a firmer footing with everyone around them – and with God. Their fellow members could support and encourage them. Many would find that much would be forgiven them. It would be a revival of American trust, something much needed by all of us today.

America, needs clean, open, politics and the means for ensuring that the government we pay for does not become the government that owns us. Impeachment is necessary; impeachment is appropriate.

I suggest that the Democrats in Congress get off their duffs and get started. Forget your favorite entree in the Congressional Dining room; forget that plush retirement; forget the junkets and perks. Your country needs you NOW. Time is short and should not be wasted.

A Republican woman told you so.

How New Yorkers can stop the NeoCons

Matthew 7:5 - “You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.”


New York State is legend for the corruption of its government. Some New Yorkers might prickle at that but they know it is all too true. In some instances in other places corruption is incidental, arising from one individual or a small number of individuals who abuse their power.

But in New York the story is more complex. That corruption has been enabled by the political structure built mostly by those who identify themselves as Democrats. The abuse of power in New York City, through the court system, legislatively, and woven into every other imaginable avenue, is just a part of life there.

It was not always this way; and many good people have worked to change this from all political perspectives, but they have failed. The power that comes with corruption, like a gold ring grabbed from a wooden horse on the carousel, became an accepted part of life in the Big Apple. No amount of clean up by either party has done much to change that.

Corruption is everywhere government touches the lives of the people, placing all of us at risk both by that system and even more gravely by those who are taking advantage of the opportunities such corruption makes possible.

What starts in places like New York; ends at the doors of the White House and Congress. The NeoCons are the most efficient crooks but New York lead the way.

The Garson case in Brooklyn revealed not just one case of judicial corruption but a system of corruption that tied back to the appointment of judges by, surprise, the Democratic Party. Not a NeoCon was in sight – but the reliance of women and children on a dispassionate and judicial oversight for their lives had been converted to a market in pull. The tapping of a judge, carrying on business as usual by extorting cash from a desperate mother, was carried out by one courageous woman, Frieda Haminov. She had been discouraged and threatened by authorities and carried out her expose despite the official hostility. Her acts resulted in one cover up after another; little changed in spite of the overwhelming evidence.

Good people are still at risk when circumstances force them into the court system.

The legislature is no different. Ada L. Smith, Democratic State Senator for Queens, continues her battering and vitriol, showering abuse down on her office staff while she continues to rake in the monetary benefits from her position. No NeoCon handed her the phone she flung at her last victim.

New Yorkers know their system is corrupt. In New York there is nothing that is not for sale from the bench or the legislature. But there is nothing that the people can do to enact change as things stand today. Systemic corruption means that those in control have become part of a system that uses the government to funnel wealth into their own pockets. Greed trumps goodness every time.

Those elected to Federal office from New York came up through that system and to succeed played that system successfully, thus picking up the same nasty habits and destructive values that hopefully will limit Old Ada's career. The most successful of these go on to Washington D. C.
Therefore, those who secured their power in New York now serving mostly themselves in Congress, are not, shall we say, the kind of people who can afford to throw stones at the NeoCons.

Congress is a glass house.

If the Democratic Party is to save itself and offer a solution to the growing Nazism of the NeoCons Democrats with the balls and determination need to take action and the first item on that agenda should be cleaning up their own house. They need to change the Democratic Party. Do they have the courage? The jury is out; Las Vegas might refuse to make odds on that one.
Corruption in one place transfers everywhere.

There is a reason why the Democratic contingent of Congress spends its time watching the steady roll of fascism through America's Institutions, silent where you would expect outrage. Several generations of stealing less and a solid addiction to the benefits of power has made them vulnerable to the charges that would be leveled at them if they dared speak out. Some of them probably wonder what the NSA picked up in its tapings or what kind of home movies Bush gets from his operatives. Not all of them have that kind of worries, but enough to make it impossible for any counter move to be successful. Enough is all the NeoCons need.

If an individual Congressman has dirty laundry he is vulnerable. He can be depended on to be quiet on those issues that really matter. Otherwise he is free to benefit from his position. The NeoCons don't mind a little sharing.

At an elemental level this is not a partisan problem – but the divides of politics have worked well to build that perception.

There is no question that Republicans also need to act; they need to clean up their own party as well. But for them this is far more difficult. None NeoCons lack any control over their political infrastructure, Many of them, now still stuck in denial, are experiencing a deer-in-the-headlights moment. The Democrats, on the other hand, must deal only with the more mundane, garden variety kind of corruption. Sort of homey after watching the NeoCons operate, isn't it?

Are Democrats up to that challenge? Their grass roots, peeling away just like many Republicans, are giving up hope. The courage must come, as always, from individuals. For a moment imagine what might be possible. What if those who are controlled by guilty secrets came forward and simply admitted what has been hidden? What if they offered to make amends for any wrongs they have done? Confessed to those they had harmed? Asked forgiveness? That would be a powerful statement that would leave them feeling better about themselves and on a firmer footing with everyone around them – and with God. Their fellow members could support and encourage them. Many would find that much would be forgiven them. It would be a revival of American trust, something much needed – and not just in New York.

New York, and all of America, needs Clean, Open, Politics and the means for ensuring that the government we pay for does not become the government that owns us.

Clean, open, politics is not rocket science. In fact, it need not be difficult. During the last two hundred years Americans have created all of the tools needed to accomplish that goal. Those tools are the accountability and enforceability we expect from insurance agents, dog walkers, house cleaners, brokers and other professionals. We trust those elected to legislatures and courts with things far more valuable than entrusted to any house cleaner. Why do we fail to ensure they are bonded? When elected officials steal, either directly or by holding a garage sale on our rights as Americans, there must be accountability.

We, not they, have the rights recognized by the Declaration of Independence. We, not they, are sovereign.

A bond should cover the cost of removing them from office by recall or other ethically appropriate method. If you lie you leave should be a basic assumption of accepting political office, and not just the next term, immediately. Tom Delay should not only be gone he should be bankrupted by liability and now working at MacDonald's.

It is time for installing Accountability 101 in government. While the Democratic Party starts looking for the rags and cleaner for that housecleaning job on itself Americans need to dig in and ensure the job gets done in every possible way. Coming clean is one way, the other is coming together. We must close the political divides between right and left, keeping in mind that we are one people.

Some of us are already working on that.

Coalition for Clean, Open, Politics, a growing group of fed up Americans is forming, determined to return control to the people by exacting accountability for those in government. Promises made must be promises kept. To do that we need to extract enforceable promises from hopeful candidates and we need to bond them, ensuring the means for removal are available.

When real control is again vested directly in the people the moral hazard of government as it is today will be less of a temptation to the ethically challenged, and that will be a good thing.


Co-chairs, Mike Hersh Mikehersh@mikehersh.com, Dem.; Melinda Pillsbury-Foster the.melinda@yahoo.com, Rep.; Robert Hughes, vanhighz@gmail.com, Rep.

John Fund and the Truth: On Trial in New York

On Friday morning, in the Superior Court of Manhattan, John Fund will face the consequences for his own actions. John Fund lied, slandered, libeled, and used his power in concerted attempts to destroy those who refused to be silenced. He is practiced in the skills of deception having studied under a master of that political art form, Karl Rove.

Our trust in justice does not die all at once, it seeps out through hundreds and thousands of small wounds over a long time.

The process of Justice in America has not been swift; it has been four long years. It is not certain; Robert Morganthau refused to prosecute the criminal case without explanation.

But in this case the victim has finally managed to have her day in
court.

John Fund is being sued for battery, theft, and other causes; not the kind of action one generally thinks of politically relevant.

The victim of his violence and lies is Morgan Pillsbury Gell. Morgan, now married, is near term with her second child.

Traveling to New York for the trial was not easy for her – but she was determined. Mrs. Gell went on with her life through a battery of slanders and libels extruded by John Fund and his friends. This moment of hope may be short-lived. No one in the media much cares; no one seems to see how this case highlights the problems we confront with the whole of politics in America today.

She is just another battered woman. This is not important. Or is it?

Civilized people need to know there will be justice for all.

Justice is something we often misunderstand. It is not about vengeance, it is about restoring balance, about affirming the sense that we can trust the world to be reasonable, if not always kind.

Jesus said that none of us are asked to carry burdens that are too heavy for us to bear; a system of justice should ensure that we carry only the burdens we have created and not the burdens imposed by others by deceit, coercion, and violence. Four years is a long time to wait.

Justice is important to us as individuals and to America as the nation of which each of us is a part. It is something for which we hunger today because it has never been harder to come by.

On Tuesday, John Fund refused to participate in arbitration; a few minutes later he, the attorneys, his victim, and the judge were seated in a courtroom and potential jurors were filling out the forms that will help determine if they will be empaneled to hear the case. Wednesday empaneling was finished; the trial started.

John did not think he should have to be bothered with a trial. After all, he is routinely briefed by the White House. Important people cannot be held accountable -- at least that is what Fund believes, and he has his reasons for holding such a belief. This is what our present administration has taught him by their own behavior.

For Important People there is no accountability.

John thinks he cannot be held accountable for his lies because he an essential cog in the slick machine of the Bush Administration and the Neoconservative movement. He is, after all, briefed by the White House.

Important people are different; we should all see that. Important people hold a little card that says, “FREE LIE,” to be used at will as often as necessary. They are printed on a special press by Karl Rove and handed out to all the Important People.

Fund has seen George W. Bush evade responsibility for far larger lies with bluster. He has seen Karl Rove evade facing justice for an arguable act of treason with a smirk and a gloat. So John has reason for his beliefs. Our political system affirms his right to lie as necessary so that he can continue to work as a political operative for this administration.

“Important people, ” what we used to think of as “public servants,” view themselves differently today. Not for them a simple transparent honesty, not on the national level and not on the local level in New York, the same state that has ignored the violence done by State Senator Ada L. Smith. Smith has thus far evaded justice on the charges she has battered a growing number of her office staff over the last several years, the last one just a few weeks ago. This Administration may have fine-tuned lying and evasion to a science but they are not the ones who wrote the book.

The deceptive practices are the same in every case. Lie, use larger lies, stifle the truth through threats, financial pressure; Destroy reputations, kill trust. As long as you win it does not matter. The core players wrote the rule book and all are briefed by someone.

John has been briefed since before George W. Bush was 'elected' president in 2000. He was being briefed when he put out the rumor that John McCain had a black love child, the rumor that killed the McCain candidacy in South Carolina. When John McCain burst into the Wall Street Journal to exact some retribution, John hid under his desk. Fund does not like physical encounters with people who are larger or stronger than himself. Morgan is just over five feet tall. John is around six feet three.

Fund's whole ego and being is tied up in being an Important Person, briefed by the White House. He worked hard to get where he is today.

John's first article sold for $3,000.00 to the Reader's Digest around 1982. He used the anguished confession he received from a woman who was working at the Reagan White House to buy his ticket to the East Coast. She thought he was her friend. In Washington D. C. he began working for Rowland Evans and Robert Novak; today Novak remains his friend and mentor. That article destroyed the woman's career; Fund said that what she had told him was just the truth; he had done nothing for which he needed to apologize.

For a long time John's favorite saying was, “The truth will set you free.” Fund does not say that anymore. That FREE LIE card changes your outlook.

In the beginning John had other ways of evading accountability. Then he just broke down in tears and cried, eliciting sympathy. This was his reaction when Eric Garris confronted him on the lie he had run successfully for school board in Sacramento. In fact, he had never been a candidate and had reported someone else's race as his own. Found out, he cried and begged Garris to conceal the truth. Garris did that until just a few months ago, an act he now regrets.

John went on to a rich career at the Wall Street Journal and, after the sordid details of his affair with Morgan became public, OpinionJournal.com. He never gave Eric Garris another thought and certainly never helped him. Fund was going to be Important.

Being a political operative means that lying, planting false information, and such are just part of your routine work. That is work that came very naturally to John Fund.

Americans have seen the same deceptive practices used in the Valerie Plame case, with the claims that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, the claim that took us into a war that has killed over 2,500 Americans, uncounted Iraqis, and is costing trillions of dollars that flow night and day into the corporate coffers of Halliburton through no bid, cost plus contracts. Nice work if you can get it.

The same deceptive practices that dragged us into war were used in a case of domestic violence in New York City to bail out a man whose start up the ladder of 'success' came at the cost of another person's career. That and the tears have really paid off for John. He still cries as necessary.

Don't expect to see much about the Fund – Pillsbury Trial in the mainstream media. Notice who pays those media salaries. America's media has slowly over the last decade been acquired by the same corporate interests who funded the Bush campaigns. The American media is, in fact, a significant segment of the Bush Core Constituency.

Journalists may want to cover it but doing so could cost them their jobs.

So In New York, the city that witnessed the trial of John Peter Zenger in 1735 and so gave us the First Amendment, the issues of honesty by those entrusted with power is yet again on point. Honesty, integrity and simple justice are things all of us ordinary, unimportant, people grow hungrier for every single day. We know we are unimportant, we are not briefed by the White House.

When will Americans be ready to demand the honesty and justice for which we pay so dearly? When will New York weep for the honor and courage lost to the past?

I think that day is coming sooner than John Fund, Karl Rove, or George Bush realizes.

John was right about one thing. If you know the truth it will set you free.

Get off the Grids; Organize Locally; Build Coalition – and remember that honesty matters, Jesus, an person not briefed by any White House, said so.

How to Boot the NeoCons and Reboot America

As the summer approaches events within the intimate world of the NeoCons move towards some as yet unseen crisis. The doubtful face of of a 'terrorist' is paraded across the screens of the world. Was he Zargawi? If so, did it really matter? The desperation of this administration for distraction is palpable.

While Ann Coulter claws toward another best seller, positioning her self as a real Christian, what response would Jesus have to her harangues as she uses the gouged and bloodied emotions of 9/11 victims as the grease on her chariot? At the same time this administration has asked that she be accorded counsel in her felonious activities in Florida.

Blood and diatribe have always sold before. Will they still sell when Coulter's good looks are obviously on the wane and her aggressive nastiness is on the rise? Or will Coulter be abandoned by those to whom her injection of spin have been so valuable?

At the same time those concerned about the honesty of the election process watch the curious unfolding of an election aftermath in San Diego that sent the chilling message that there are many ways to steal elections. There, the Busby/Bilbray election for the U. S. House, 50th District, is still an election with votes, numbers varying, to be counted, if those ballots can be found and identified.

At the same time other matters are finally moving towards a long awaited conclusion. The John Fund trial has been scheduled in New York. Fund is finally going to face a jury over the accusations that he battered his live-in girl friend, Morgan Pillsbury.

In Nevada Leola McConnell, the professional dominatrix whose love slave,William Bennett, has continued to be prominent in the world of Neocons, has declared her candidacy for Governor of that state.

From foreign policy to the highly personal, the world of the Neocons has become a minefield of potential explosions, any one of which could set off more reverberations.

And in the highest echelons of both the Democratic and Republican Parties the most important points for discussion are how to use the eminent demise of Neoconism for their own purposes. As the danger from this administration wanes, the danger from their wannabe replacements is on the rise.

There is no reason to believe , given the past history of either party, that the purposes of anyone now in politics will include rescinding the ceaseless attacks on the rights of Americans. America must face the fact that while Democrats stole less they set up the scenario that the NeoCons took to its logical conclusion.

Never have the American people seen more clearly that if the answer is politics then it must have been the dumbest question anyone ever asked.

The time has come to look at real alternatives, chief among these a unifying move to a coalition that crosses party bounds. Party politics is as morally bankrupt as this administration. We need a real change, not of those in office but a change of who controls our lives.

The right answer is us.

The original Revolutionary War vision was not for a centralized state; it was for a people who governed themselves. It was not for political parties, who use power for their own ends, but for local governance, and individual rights for all of us. That vision was obscured with the failure of the founders to ignore the rights of blacks and women with the “Great Compromise” in 1789. From then on it was just a matter of time. If we refuse to acknowledge our mistakes then there is no learning curve and no hope for real progress.

The reaction to the tragedies of slavery and the subsequent, continuous violations of individual rights for women and the erosion of moral virtue in government during and after the Civil War eventually brought about the promising and attractive theories of Herbert Croly, whose book, written in 1909, The Promise of American Life, begot the Liberal of today. The road to hell is paved with by the good intentioned who failed to examine the causes of past failures before installing mistake 102.5. Icons, generally passing into history unquestioned, can cause a lot of problems.

Did centralized government work? No, it opened up more opportunities for the corporatization of what remained of our freedoms. The Left also needs to take responsibility for sloppy thinking and for not seeing what was happening before their eyes.

Right and Left, there is blame enough to go around. Instead of wasting time with blame we need to examine those mistakes with candor and reboot. To have installed a new, untested program, like Progressivism, as government served only to obfuscate the mistakes of the past, adding new mistakes on top.

Today, we better understand the need to examine theory, beta test, and apply such standards as impact reports before cheerfully operating on the lives of millions.

That is the past. Now, we need to do better.

We are all Citizens of the United States. The idea that we owed loyalty to a Party or to the jingoistic and power serving icons constructed to distract us from our Founding vision refuted the real loyalty we owe to that unrealized dream.

When you look to the White House, Congress, or the Supreme Court for relief remember you are giving them power they have always abused.

America became the voice that called to those who hungered for freedom and opportunity not because of government but because through the acts of individuals, using the opportunities a partial freedom created, individuals realized some small part of that original vision despite government – and only here had that vision been accessible to everyone.

As Americans and as individuals we need to take action. We need a common agenda we can carry out as individuals, choosing freedom and making our own communities true to the original vision. Those means are in our hands right now.

Get off the grids. Examine who profits when you continue to use the technologies owned and controlled by those Bush acknowledged as his “Core Constituents.” The mega corporations bleed us from every part of our lives. You can change that. Technologies to go off grid are available now and more are on the way.

Turn off the faucet and let them find their own water.

They know all too well that it is not us dependent on them but they who depend on us for the payments on their islands in the Caribbean and the other symbols of their ill gotten gains. You fire them when you turn off the faucet and get off the grids.

Look at your own community. You can make it better, make it work as people helping each other. And finally, build unity. Forget party politics. That is a game that has played into their hands and the time for playing their games is over.

We can and will hold them accountable. Everything they have done makes them liable. It is time Ann Coulter had to get an honest job, maybe working at MacDonald's handing out Big Macs; let her look into eyes that see her for what she is. Let John Fund have a place slinging fries; Karl Rove and company can take clean up duty or staff the drive through line. And then George W. Bush and family can do the pick up duty outside. Prison is too good for them For once in their lives let them understand.

America, an idea whose time is coming - as soon as we reboot the system.

How the NeoCons make War on all of us

Get this graphic on a tee-shirt or mug.




Melanie Morgan, recovered gambling addict and San Francisco talk show host, announced two days ago that her new project, Censure Carter, will be launching a series of TV ads urging that Congress take up the issue of censuring Jimmy Carter for sympathizing with the Palestinians.
Morgan is in this way fulfilling her obligations as one in the string of political tools activated by John Fund to carry out the strategic disinformation campaigns for his NeoCon employers.

Morgan's lackluster career took off when she was recruited by Fund several years ago and since then she has found a new faith, NeoConism. A frequently hosted speaker at events put on by such front groups as Political Vanguard, Morgan is just another in a series of individuals to hook her hopes not to the truth but to doing the nasty work of this White House.

Under fire from all sides this White House desperately needs to create the appearance that Republicans are united behind George Bush. On the front page of Political Vanguard you learn to your amazement that George Bush has an approval rating of 40.5%. Doubtless these figures came directly from Karl Rove and reflect his immediate family members.

Faux websites, phoney organizations, constructed and populated, are a long time political weapon used in many ways by the NeoCons. During the last part of the 2004 Presidential Campaign a website, purporting to represent swift boat vets was launched to create the appearance that Kerry lacked support from other veterans. And this was most likely so, but the vehemence of the attacks from SwiftBoatVets.com can be traced to the NeoCons.

Sen. Zell Miller presented an award to the group at a banquet sponsored by the American Conservative Union. On their blog page two hard line NeoCon co-travelers are the first two authorities cited on “ the implications of John McCain’s preference for “clean government” over the First Amendment.” Those are George Will and Ed Crane of Cato.

Naturally, the event was covered favorably by Fox News. Miller is quoted there as saying, "The swift boat veterans performed an invaluable service to America," Miller said in a statement. "These veterans took a lot of undeserved criticism for daring to speak the truth." One wonders what they risked given the toothlessness of the liberal establishment.

Much of this is already known, though in the way of the flow of events, mostly forgotten. A quick read of the excellent article by Joe Conason, appearing on Salon.com shortly after the events, helps us see the connections that activated this particular attack.

Not that Kerry did not deserve to have his military service questioned; his brief hiatus in the combat zone cast no credit on him. He used it as a political tool himself, while still in the service and when he grabbed the Democratic nomination. Myself, lacking a candidate I could vote for chose to vote for someone who, if she was ever a politician is now a good one, namely Susan B. Anthony. Do not forget that still after over two centuries such as John Kerry still have failed to simply affirm in Constitutional law the inherent rights of women.

As I write another such attack in going on, still unnoticed except by those stalwart veterans who are feeling the impact, on the Veteran's Party. Philip Meskin, a Vietnam Vet has worked assiduously to start a party that would stand up for American's Veterans for years. In 2003 he succeeded. The bogus Veteran's Party has even claimed to be the original; impossible given their own charges. But doubtless Rove told them the big lie works.

Now, doubtless because that party threatens to bring attention to the plight of Veterans who return from service to slow deaths of neglect, suffering from diseases caused by their service, that voice must be stifled. Neither major party is to be trusted. The means in this case is a website that copies the information obtained on the Meskin site and launches claims of wrongdoing that are clearly bogus; these are debunked with letters from the agencies receiving the complaints.

These bogus sites usually look far more professional than do those that are genuine. The Morgan site is an exception; it went up after this correlation was noticed.

When asked what effect this had on his work to help veterans Meskin said, “This is destroying our ability to save veterans in every imaginable way.” Meskin has himself spent countless hours in this work both before and after he started the Veteran's party.

But the point here is the use of bogus organizations as political weapons to skew opinion at critical junctures as events unfold and also to understand the cadre of individual employed in that ugly work.

John Fund, Melanie Morgan and those named in the Conason article are only a few of the cadre of operatives whose livelihoods depend on destroying organizations and individuals trying to achieve positive change unfriendly to the NeoCon goals or who represent threats to NeoCons power.

You can expect that now that they are under fire for the first tile the NeoCons will be launching more similar attacks. Be warned.

The American people need to understand. They need to 'get' how the Constitution was meant to work and how the conversion that predates the NeoCons was orchestrated and by whom.
One step on that path is to understand what George Bush has actually done. His activities are not just politically destructive they have been criminal. What is needed is not impeachment but prosecution for criminal offenses.

Therefore the people will put George W. Bush on Trial in the Court of Conscience.

There are many reasons that those in positions of trust failed to act. They are, as are all of us, all too willing to overlook what is inconvenient. It is a fact of human nature that we can usually see and accept corruption when we see it elsewhere. But when we confront evidence that our own lives and jobs and egos are on the line the blinders go up.

When the corruption reached the highest level and those paid and trusted to do the right thing saw the end of their own perks on the horizon they were frozen in the headlights, vainly looking for any other way out. That is where they are now. The only exit is truth and that they cannot face.

This time,we the people, have to do it ourselves. The vision of America that is true, the one that whispers to us still that we are all equal and none are above the law, for that vision we must be prepared to act.

Get off the Grids, Organize locally, Build Coalition, Try George W. Bush for Racketeering.
May God bless the journey that leads us to freedom.

The Justice Coalition, a long existing organization with a record for taking corrupt judges off the bench, has activated to provide for Americans a demonstration of how the justice system should work. Bush is the first example. To contact them e-mail: the.melinda@yahoo.com

Hear Melinda at BBSRadio.com, Fridays, at 4pm PT on The Spiritual Politician. Bringing government, a human tool, into alignment with our spiritual natures.

Coulter's War: Ann Coulter acknowledges the covert NeoCon war on Americans

What was that sound on the phone just now? A NSA goon slurping his coffee? We are all wondering if that is static we hear on the line today or Big Brother. And we have also learned that Big Brother has a sister, and her name is Ann Coulter.

In her most recent rant Ann Coulter, not satisfied with the blood bath going on in Iraq and the violations of individual rights perpetuated by the Bush Administration, calls for open war between Republicans and, evidently, everyone else on the face of the Earth and questions the masculinity of Republicans who fail to hit the barricades in behalf of the NeoCon agenda. This is ironic since more every day have gender questions about Coulter herself. So in the name of transparency in media I have a proposal to answer those questions for all time. More on that in a moment.

Reading too much Coulter is emotionally debilitating but I hung on long enough to get the real point. Coulter is finally admitting that the NeoCons have long been applying the techniques of war to the political process and, their days numbered, are now frantic to send the Real Republicans, to take up their weapons and throw themselves into the battle against NeoConism's enemies. Ann is trying to counter the hasty retreat of so many who once trusted them by questioning their manhood. This makes her own gender a legitimate question.

Coulter's trembling finger was pointed at the Democrats as she said, “For a political party that grasps the concept of victory against foreign enemies, Republicans can't seem to grasp that concept when it comes to domestic enemies. Instead of taking a page from Sun-tzu's "Art of War," when it comes to fighting liberals, American conservatives prefer the Jimmy Carter unconditional-surrender strategy.” In her new book she evidently suggests a 12 step program for those Republican Men reluctant to die maintaining her lucrative constituency.

For Coulter if it is not a NeoCon it is a liberal. This does keep things simple for her.

The liberals are never that organized or effective.

Coulter starts her screed with slams, only moderately amusing, against the Kennedys, Patrick and Old Teddy. As she careens on you can almost see the white froth dripping from her lips. She manages to position Rush Limbaugh as a martyr to drug laws, characterizing Rush's prosecution for the illicit use of prescription drugs as political persecution. Who was it who has continued the Drug War Atrocities? Perhaps Ann should check her facts. NeoCons never met a war they didn't love.

We all know that Coulter is very much in favor of the continuing debilitations of the War on Drugs, an activity that lines the pockets of the greedy and grasping all the way from the White House on down.

The leadership in both the Democratic and Republican Parties are all for the largess they realize from that war on us; this is not a partisan issue and far more us, the people, versus all of the leadership from both parties and their corporate cronies.

In a sick way Coulter's rant is actually rather funny. It is as if in 1941 Adolph Hitler, the SS standing firmly behind him, decided to pick a fight with a local Kindergarten class. Nothing the Democratic Party has done has even been an effective defense for longer than I can remember and Ann herself has apostatized them as too wimpy to be believed. This is not inappropriate.

I once bought the fiction that there was a Vast Left Wing Conspiracy when I was active as a Republican, I was chagrined to discover that the worst I could find were individuals with doubtful ethics, non-existent personal morals, and short range personal agendas that went no further than the next election or even their next lobbyist funded jaunt. If they are larcenous at least they are not efficient about it.

Joe Conason was right. The Democrats steal less.

It was a hard truth to acknowledge but the fact is that the Republican Party was the first fatality in the present War on Americans launched by the NeoCons and supported through the amazing vitriol, lies, and misdirection, of such as Ann Coulter and John Fund. Ann does the screaming, Fund does the scheming.

Real Republicans are still twitching, but those among them who have kept their ideological grounding intact are now beginning to understand who stole freedom.

Karl Rove perfected his use of the myriad of bureaus and institutions along with his application of policy as a profit center to augment the donations from corporations while still flexing his flabby muscles down in Texas.

The war against Americans has been covert up until now and really, it is nice of Coulter to bring the truth out in the open. That admission is a sign of NeoCon desperation.

Was Clinton a womanizer? Yep. That made him eminently attackable and attack the NeoCons did through such institutions as the Wall Street Journal and the practiced offices of John Fund who has spent the last thirty years grasping for the gold ring of wealth and power, using the weapons of deceit, manipulation, and war to create himself as someone he never was. (Catch the Interview) Coulter has described liberals as 'girly' since 9/11 and has consistently used 'boys' instead of men and 'girls' instead of women. Why is that? Could this focus originate in her own gender confusion?

The gender bent of Coulter's rant also brought to mind another story that is picking up steam through the diligent efforts of Dan Borchers, a Conservative Republican who has voiced many questions about Coulter.

Is Ann Coulter a female? While the answer would appear to be obvious; she is after all, blond, curvy, and attractive, real affirmation is not in evidence. Coulter is a fag hag, her best friends are gay. She has never married or evidently been in a long term relationship and she has had no children and is nearly menopausal.

So is she or isn't she female? Rumors includes the titillating piece of gossip that she might not really know herself. Coulter could have been born with both and had her parents pick wrong. It happens. That would explain the hysterically violent tone in her writing and other signs noted elsewhere. So how can Coulter prove her gender?

I suggest that we turn to the Daughters of the American Revolution. They can oversee a DNA test that will settle the question This is appropriate because Ann is a member of that rectitudinous body and if the lovely Ann is not really female the DAR would certainly want to know that so her membership could be shifted to the Sons of the American Revolution. That would made for interesting meetings.

Inquiring minds want to know and all it takes is a swab from the inside of the mouth, not nearly as intrusive as Ann's rhetoric I might add.

Now, about the balance of Ann's article aimed at selling her book and stoking the fires of Republican Manhood. Perhaps if the test proves what so many believe Ann can be the first to sign up for her own course on Manhood as she leads her own militia of macho renewed Republicans over the top, if any can be enlisted in 'her' campaign.

Historically, real men declared war before the hostilities began. In this, as in so many things, the NeoCons are 'different.' But what can you expect from NeoConning cowards who have never faced the real thing?

Catch the interview of Melinda Pillsbury-Foster by Gene Gaudette this Friday at 4PM, PDT on BBSRadio.com. Melinda, the host of the Spiritual Politician, will turn the mike over to Gene for an interview on The Real John Fund.

Boobs, Panties, and Courage: How honest elections could change Alabama

A woman's voice for freedom in the birthplace of Rosa Parks and Helen Keller.

As Americans deal with the issue of honest elections, feeling for good reason, that an honest election may well be an impossibility today, the citizens of Alabama are confronting the most interesting and provocative choice that has faced them for a good long time.

It is happening in the race for governor of the Camellia State.

The Civil Rights Movement started in Alabama, where Rosa Parks made her stand. So conflict over the issues of individual rights hold place in the minds of its people. A generation ago the issue was the vote for Black Americans. Today the issue is still elections and the individual rights that either die from the steady encroachment of government or are sustained and renewed through the action of courageous individuals.

As with Rosa Parks, Loretta Nall got a wake up call on the nature of government and took action. Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of the bus, Loretta Nall defied the powers and then had the audacity to refuse to back down. After writing a letter on the issue of drug legalization Nall's house was raided. Nall, refusing to be intimidated, came outside to photograph the black helicopter hovering overhead. Standing trial before a judge she was convicted of simple possession of a tiny amount of pot and paraphernalia; she has appealed, the only way she could have a trial by jury. She and her supporters expect that she will be exonerated.

But that did not end her physical confrontations with despotism in Alabama. While visiting her brother at the State Correctional Facility both she and her mother were forced to have their underclothing checked by the Commissar the Panties Believe it or not, Alabama has determined that not wearing panties under your pants is cause to deny visiting privileges to the mothers and sisters of those they incarcerate. Loretta came away determined that bureaucrats would learn that they are hired hands, working for the people. After that, the twin issues of the panties she does not wear and the plenitude with which God endowed her, became campaign issues and fundraising opportunities to this plucky activist. As America's original revolutionaries learned, you use what you have to do the job.


Loretta Nall is not your typical gubernatorial candidate in any way. Along with being well endowed she is articulate, focused, dedicated, and honest. George W. Bush is not what the Founders had in mind when they created the office of President of the United States. Loretta Nall,is the mother of two; her husband stays home and she works to support them. Her formal education ended with a GED; she married when she was 16. She is a long time activist for individual rights. She is as different from the power elite now infesting government, especially Washington D. C., as is possible and nothing about her is as different from the D. C. Elite as her values.

She describes herself as 'dirt poor.' Certainly she is far from wealthy; she did not come from a family that could routinely buy of judges and viewed the public coffers as her own personal piggy bank. She has never owned a football team.

Loretta has always worked for a living, something George W. Bush doesn't really understand. His core constituency is Mega Corporations; Nall's is, well, Alabamans. The economy of Alabama lags behind that of most of states. Alabama's people are, according to Ms. Nall, characterized by their wish that government, particularly the Feds who inflicted Reconstruction on them and theirs, should jump in a hold and pull the top in after them. Running as a Libertarian, Ms. Nall sees her fellow Alabamans are people who really want to do the right thing – when government does not make that impossible. The values of most Alabamans, good Christians, are very different than the values asserted through their government.

In a recent interview Loretta Nall commented, 'If what Jesus wanted was for us to live our beliefs, and if you live by what He did and said, you have to stop using government to push people around. Thomas Jefferson said in the Declaration of Independence that our rights are there before government. Therefore how can government tell us what to do in every part, or any part, of our lives, as long as we do the right thing towards others?” A novel idea. Ms. Nall, an atheist herself, firmly believes that the original message of Jesus, to use only persuasion to get your way; offer loving support to everyone, remains true today.

Nall's activism has been in the area of drug legalization and she has been all across the country speaking out on the right of the people to use marijuana as a medicinal aid – and to smoke it if they choose.

Americans have more questions about government every day.

Americans all over the country are beginning to question both the two party system that has delivered them choosing the lesser of evils and to a government that has converted them from individuals possessing there inherent rights enunciated by Jefferson to 'economic units' dependent on the will of an all powerful government.

If the electoral system in Alabama is as honest as it should be, and the people speak, then the people may well choose a very different exemplar of American values to lead them. Loretta could be Governor of Alabama. Loretta understands the problems that the people of Alabama face today as no other candidate could.

Such an election would be revolutionary. But for the people to make their will known the vote must be honest. All Americans are now asking themselves, in the face of the many assaults on the electoral system, if an honest election is even possible. But while the people of Alabama admire courage the political establishment there is grouped among those who want to win at any price.

Until the 1970s all you had to do to become a political party in Alabama was to call the Secretary of State's office and ask to have the name of your party placed on the ballot. That remains true today. In Alabama you can still have a party but you can't run candidates; they are happy to list your selection. But unless you fulfill the ballot access requirements that have become increasingly onerous since the first time someone but a Republican of Democrat actually won you must petition for every candidate for every election.

Alabama's political establishment is like that. This is the state that also shaved a few numbers off Pi to make it come out even.

Asked to comment on ballot access for the gubernatorial race in Alabama Richard Winger, the most prominent expert on the subject said, “Alabama is the worst state in the country for all state wide races for third party candidates.”

Alabama changes the rules every time a different political party looks like it is again going to crack into the Good 'Ol Boys Club. The changes are rammed through the legislature with no debate and with no consideration of 'fairness' or the access guaranteed by the Constitution. Since the 70s the percentage of signatures to place a new party on the ballot has risen from 1% to 3% of the voting population with the time requirement shortening until it is nearly impossible. This is a foot ball game played in Alabama with the goal post for the opposition to be located in California.

Ms. Nall and her supporters are determined, however. Her campaign headquarters receive more calls than can be returned from Alabamans registered in the major parties who hope they will have the opportunity to vote for her instead. Alabamans, like all Americans, are searching for honesty and for the hope of freedom in a world gone mad.

Now we are awaiting word that Alabama has dispensed with voting machines and, in an attempt to save money, will instead call the White House to find out what outcome they would like to see declared.

Ms. Nall will be a guest on the Spiritual Politician this Friday, May 5th, at 4pm PDT at BBSRadio.com to talk about her race and the state of freedom in America today.

How the Libertarians lost Liberty: John Fund, Justin Raimondo, and the history of the Libertarian Party

In Justin Raimondo's article titled, John Fund vs. the Truth, online yesterday morning at antiwar.com, Justin illuminates the many failings of Fund, former WSJ editorial page editor and now columnist for that increasingly questionable publication. If you examine the publications that have been used as tools for planting opinion and values useful to NeoCons for the past 50 years the WSJ will always be high on the list.

In the first paragraph of his article Justin links to an article by John Connelly titled, Sex, Lies, and the Tape, from 2001 which recounts the story of Fund's involvement with my daughter, Morgan Pillsbury and includes a transcript of the tape Morgan made to persuade me that she was telling the truth about their relationship in autumn of 1999. I had refused to believe her since her own veracity had proven to be questionable. I thought I could trust John, at least personally. I also thought that both Eric Garris and Justin Raimondo were my friends. Wrong on all counts.

The tape proved that everything Morgan said about Fund was true. So while I was caring for my son, still recovering from two near fatal brain injuries, I had to deal with John Fund. Life does not stop while you deal with more crises.

Morgan was having problems recovering from the abortion. Fund refused to help her. He refused to take my calls and bounced my e-mails. I faxed him a letter since I knew the WSJ had only one central fax number. The letter was probably copied several times before it reached his office. He unblocked. Fund then told me his behavior had been wrong and he intended to marry Morgan after the 2000 election. It could not be before then because They, meaning the Clintons, were out to get him. What he wanted was to shut me up. Their relationship continued and generated a stack of e-mails about 15 inches thick. Morgan printed them out to show me and read me some of them. It was a strange relationship, no doubt. Try telling your child, once grown, what they should and should not do.

The article Connelly wrote in 2001 had originally been intended for Talk Magazine. It ended up on Weasel Search because of threats from Fund's attorney. Over the next years Fund persuaded such journalistic giants as Eric Alterman, Gail Heriot, Wendy Mac Elroy, and then the Gimpy Jogger from Sacramento to support him by attacking Morgan and myself with articles written without ever calling to check a fact. Fund has been working his way down the food chain of the world of journalism. Given the present long term prospects of the NeoCons I expect the next attacks to come from his local Aryan Brotherhood Chapter's newsletter. One of Fund's childhood idols was Adolph Hitler according to one of his oldest friends. That is another interest Fund shares with many NeoCons. To be fair, Fund also has a life long interest in Star Trek and Star Wars. His first job was organizing those conventions. That was probably his most relevant training for his future career.

Fund has also used both the carrot and stick treatment to kill other articles set to appear in such magazines as Elle. The journalists involved received far better paid positions as soon as the stories were killed, one at the WSJ; amazing coincidence!

Fund's behavior launched a chain of events that would eventually cause him to be fired by the Wall Street Journal. I have never turned tail on a fight over principle or for the people I love and I never will. It began because of Morgan but later I realized much more was involved.

The WSJ knew the truth about Fund even as they ran interference for him over the years. They had their reasons.

I had met and dated Fund while I was Southern California Vice Chairman for the LPC in the early 1980s. He had met Morgan and my other children while she was still a small girl. The romantic aspect of our relationship had ended in the mid 80s; I married someone else but I thought we were friends.

This is where the personal story becomes useful for understanding both the NeoCons and the problems we face in evicting them from power. Writing about these events would be pointless if there were not lessons still to be learned.

All human activity provides invaluable insights into the character of those with whom we live and must work. Overlooking these insights extracts future costs. But it is vital that we know the truth about those with whom we deal. I have long since stopped expecting anyone to help; but neither do I ignore the obvious.

This is what forces me to take both Justin Raimondo and Eric Garris to task for their own judgment in covering for John Fund, for their questionable journalism, and for their lack of personal ethics. I have known both of them for a long time.

I met Eric at the LPC convention in Burlingame in 1975. We discovered we had both graduated from Venice High School. I met Justin Raimondo at the 1981 National Libertarian Convention in Denver, Colorado when Eric introduced him to me. Over the years I watched their activities. It was clear that they had some things in common with John Fund. In the tiny world of Libertarianism they were living out their desire to relive the protests of the 60s. They always wanted to be the most radical. Their internal caucus to the LP was, in fact, the Radical Caucus. But that should raise the question of what 'radical' actually means.

Is 'radical' just loud and obnoxious or is radical effective change in the desired direction?

They had cut their teeth on the Anti War Movement back when Eric was a teenager. But to be anti war is not necessarily to be for peace and the methods they used politically within the LP created far more chaos that consensus. Their endeavors spun off factions like a rabbit breeds. What nourishes the ego rarely nurtures liberty; they are clearly living out an early fantasy at antiwar.com. For me the point is a society that uses honest persuasion, not deceit and manipulation. I am convinced you can not use deceit, manipulation and violence to achieve that goal. I never agreed with their tactics though I believed them to be friends.

Towards the end of his article Justin retails a story on Fund that reveals that Fund lied about his candidacy for the school board in Sacramento in the late 1970s. During the campaign period Fund gave reports on his campaign's progress at a local Libertarian meeting. Fund pointed to it as a model for Libertarian campaigns and tried to claim credit when the two way race was lost, telling other Libertarians he had gotten 46% of the vote. He had never filed papers. Garris discovered this and confronted Fund, who cried.

Presumably, out of sympathy, Garris kept the story quiet and failed to make this known in Libertarian Party circles. I was a state officer then and had never heard the story until yesterday morning. In fact, Fund told me about his 'successful candidacy' in the first conversation we had in 1981. The next year Fund was hired as Executive Director for the LPC. Eric evidently failed to disclose these facts to those hiring Fund, either.

That was 1982. Later that year, using his augmented resume, Fund moved to the East Coast to work for Evans and Novak and to increase his income he began ghost writing for the Star. Fund first told me and then, obviously worried, asked me not to tell anyone. In the same conversation Fund urged me to register to vote multiple times, telling me he did this himself, since this allowed him to claim membership both as a Republican and as a Libertarian. Fund had already started his investigative endeavors in the area of ballot fraud.

John Fund has used lies all of his life and is expert in persuading others and presenting a slightly pathetic front when it is useful. He also has learned other forms of deceitful behavior to get his way and formulated a consistent strategic approach to enable him to cover up his own bizarre behavior.

Consider the effect Fund's success must have had on Eric and Justin. When Fund was climbing his way to the top both Eric and Justin were scratching to made ends meet in their attempts to be professional, and compensated, activists. The whiny little dweeb had out done them.

Justin styles himself as a journalist. But this article does not adhere to journalist standards.
Justin noted that Fund spent much of the '90s rolling in the muck of Monica-gate but the link goes not to the many attacks orchestrated by Fund on the White House, beginning with the attacks on Vince Foster through White Water and Monica to the articles accusing Blumenthal of spousal abuse, but to another article about Fund's relationship with my daughter. This one, written by Lloyd Grove, appeared in the Washington Post in early 2002.

Two questions came to mind. Why would Raimondo have used this link instead reporting on Fund's work as a political operative with the Wall Street Journal? Why would he use an irrelevant link that points to me and my daughter? For the record when this erupted I contacted many old friends in the Movement asking for advice. I also contacted Eric for advise. He told he he sympathized with Fund.

Eric Garris is editor of antiwar.com. Justin Raimondo is that journal's most prominent writer. Presumably, Garris read this article in advance of its posting. The article by Justin Raimondo is the first 'outing' of Fund by two Libertarian Insiders who also admit to knowing he was a NeoCon as early as the mid 1990s except for what I have written myself. That has been a lot.

If Fund was to be outed, why did they wait until it is clear that the whole NeoCon Cabal is in serious trouble? As you read Justin's article you can put several possible constructions on the content and timing. Either Raimondo equates Monica's clearly consensual relationship with Clinton, however inappropriate, with a case of domestic violence, or they have decided that because of the development of events their early knowledge is best used now. Morgan and I are thrown in as convenient color, useful to titillate but ideologically irrelevant. After all, what do women matter?

Why would two men, presumably concerned for the rights of all individuals do this? Why if they had belatedly decided to note I was right would they fail to contact me? Perhaps it is the culture of the LP itself. Perhaps it is the characters of the two individuals involved.

The Freedom Movement is curiously schizophrenic on a variety of topics, and women and their rights are among those issues. If you examine the list of Libertarian heroes who have worked for the emancipation of individuals notably absent are such women as Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Alice Paul. All of these women were effective. Alice Paul originated the practices of civil disobedience later used by Mohandas K. Gandhi and is so credited in his autobiography. Paul's organizational genius gave women the right to vote in 1921.

But present and accounted on Libertarian Hero lists are such NeoCon flacks as Wendy Mac Elroy. Mac Elroy positions herself as a feminist but, by definition is actually a masculinist. Mac Elroy owes her gig at Fox to her article slamming both Morgan and myself, again without checking with either of us. I have known Mac Elroy as long as I have known Eric and Justin. The hope of profit is a powerful motivator.

The definition for 'feminist' is one who works for equality between the genders. If you endorse the use of the State in its present form this leads you to the use of legislation to enforce outcomes. If you endorse the original mission statement written by Jefferson you believe that the State should have made no laws relating to personal behavior or individual rights. That interpretation would have freed slaves and given women equal standing at the time of the Constitution. If you are a Libertarian, presumably, you want everyone to have the same standing under law.

But never expect slave-owners to voluntarily accept the emancipation of 'their' property without kicking up a fuss.

It is well known by those in the Freedom Movement that women are very scarce in their ranks. Most activists complain about this both because they want them around to work, though be quiet, and to date. Why would women join an organization that ignores their right to equal standing under the Constitution?

Justin, and Eric, missed several points; having, until the War in Iraq, made their livings as professional activists of a movement that has disconnected ideology from reality, that is not difficult.

There is plenty to say about what Fund did during the Clinton Administration, and if Justin meant to use my insights, presumably routine journalistic protocols would necessitate his getting in touch with me directly. He did not, even though through my own blog, How the NeoCons Stole Freedom, I am readily available. If Justin had communicated with me I would have been delighted. I have forgiven their behavior many times before. I would have shared the many insights I have gained and shown him interesting documents that were formerly the property of John Fund. I would have told him about my conversations with William Bennett's dominatrix. We could have talked about NeoCon tactics, of which I know much. None of that happened. No e-mail appeared; the phone did not ring. As indicated, this is not the first time Eric and Justin have disappointed such ordinary expectations. I was not surprised when Lew Rockwell, a longtime Libertarian friend, sent Justin's article on to me.

I started studying organizational dynamics and the strategies of war as applied to politics when I formally left the LP in 1988. The NeoCons can all be identified by the observable fact that they use the same strategies over and over again. What is true for Rove is also true for Fund. When you understand their organization you see how they have learned from each other.

Justin is wrong about Fund's importance. I would once have agreed with Justin, but I changed my mind, having studied the indicators. Working as an independent political operative and entrusted with writing the book explaining the strange outcomes of the elections in 2000 and 2004 Fund, is a real insider in the same league as William Bennett. But I see no indication that Bennett 'runs' a string of other operatives, which is what Fund clearly does. Fund and Matt Drudge invented out of whole cloth the rumor that Blumenthal beat his wife having found an article about another Blumenthal who did.

John got drunk one night and confided this in Morgan when the law suit settled. All in all the NeoCons had done well out of the attack. Many well intentioned Republicans and Libertarians contributed to the Drudge Defense Fund. The NeoCons understand about making it pay.

Fund learned directly from Karl Rove if the similarity in tactics means anything.

In Fund's case he uses virulent attacks, invented 'facts,' planted stories that are manufactured, and when caught either 'confesses' with teary eyes or finds someone to blame. Failing that he engages in covert personal attacks made in 'confidence' and with many sighs and tears. Those to whom the 'confessions' are made tend to be sympathetic. This obviously worked well on Garris in the late 1970s. I suspect, but I cannot know, that Garris's unhelpful position when I called for help came from the hope he still might profit from his 'friendship' with Fund. Garris is very pragmatic. Perhaps Garris felt that Fund 'owed' him for his silence on the matter of the election. The timing of this article does not change my opinion on any of the parties; the NeoCons, including Fund, are in trouble and now is the time to talk if there is profit to be made from that material.

Fund is a political operative working independently and at will. He is routinely briefed by the White House.

In the first years of the Clinton Presidency Fund called me up several times to plant stories. One was about the black love child Clinton refused to acknowledge. Later, Fund called me up to tell me about the tattoo Paula Jones could identify on the Presidential genitals. None of those stories turned out to be true. But Fund clearly wanted them repeated, and, at the time, I was living in Santa Barbara and active in the National Federation of Republican Women; any such rumor repeated, by me, would have been circulating nationally in a matter of hours.

I had by then begun to wonder about Fund. His unwillingness to examine the scandals involving Hillsdale College about which I informed him while my youngest daughter, Ayn, was a student there from 1993 – 1997 were of grave concern.

Fund, by his own report to myself and Morgan, privately claimed credit for Vince Foster's suicide and engaged in barrage after barrage against the Clinton White House. This was clearly part of a strategy to burnish the NeoCon political position; Fund had been closely involved with planning for the Contract with America in 1994. You can track the attacks Media Matters article dated Thu, Jun 2, 2005 here on some issues. Even after Clinton was out of office the attacks continued. On January 15th 2001, an article commenting on the virulence of a WSJ editorial of January 5th 2001, demanding an indictment of Clinton, appears in the World Socialist Web Site.

Those are the links that should have been in Justin's article.

The reasons the attacks continued are personal for Fund. He does not like to lose and that I know well.

No one ever called and asked me to confirm or deny any fact or comment before publishing. I hope that changes. I am not expecting it. After so many years of having Fund use any means to destroy my credibility I have come to see people's motivations far more clearly and dispassionately. A is still A.

I have always offered to document what I say, many records, including the letter proving when Fund was fired from the Wall Street Journal, exist. Fund left that letter on the floor of Morgan's apartment in New York in the winter of 2002. She had then left him; he hunted her down and moved in with her. Morgan has reams of papers and other tape recordings.

For the record, if called to testify regarding the domestic violence, I would testify under oath tothe following: I saw Morgan's injuries, bruises and blood, and twice heard her being battered over the phone. Fund bellows when he batters. Eric was not interested in the police reports.

What each of us do, and fail to do, has consequences. The consistency of behavior over time, something we think of as modus operandi, are like finger prints of the soul.

When Fund sought the job of Executive Director for the Libertarian Party of California Eric Garris and Justin Raimondo knew about his having lied. It was then in the immediate past. For any other organization this would have disqualified the potential employee. Presumably, they wanted the LP to have the best possible Executive Director. Why then did they remain silent? That is a question they should answer.

Let us consider what the Libertarian Party was in 1982 and what it is today.

Today, the Libertarian Party is as dead as a door knob as a tool for political change. What happened to the LP has happened to other movements and organizations with the potential for change over the last century. Some of it was done to them; some they did themselves. Over and over again movements for change and reform have been extinguished or misdirected. The means through which such organizations are marginalized bear close examination.

Always follow the money and power because greed does not lie.

The potential and power the LP represented in the late 70s and early 80s was sucked into the service of the then still unidentified NeoCon Cabal. Not surprisingly, John Fund was one of the political operatives who made that conversion possible. I suspect from his excited phone calls through that period that his potential was recognized by Novak, leading to his placement at the WSJ and then his apprenticeship to Rove. Along with serving as a political operative he also worked as a recruiter, finding eager and talented Libertarians who could be hired on and converted.

Fund was not working alone. The Freedom Movement began with ideas intended to return control to individuals. Those ideas, including privatization, deregulation, outsourcing and others, were intended to allow individuals more choice and ensure accountability for all of us. Instead, accountability and profit were decoupled and the resulting policies, garbed in the original rhetoric, were sold to Congress through such outlets as Cato Institute.

Edward H. Crane, III told fellow Libertarians at the National Convention in 1977 he was going to D. C. to get rich. He meant it. He found someone interested spending hard cash to redirect the power of Libertarianism, Koch Industries. Koch Industries remains the prime funder for that think tank still today and has been a partner for Halliburton since Vietnam. Today it continues to profit, providing substandard contracting to both Federal and State governments on a basis that marks them as very special providers.

This was a very conscious venture and exactly parallels previous take overs by the same interests in the early days of the United Nations, the Environmental Movement, and in early libertarian ventures such as the John Birch Society.

Fredrick Koch, then owner of Koch Industries, was on the board for the JBS and in that generation William F. Buckley did the dirty work of marginalizing that organization. Koch's role has never been examined but should be. Koch had had questionable dealings with the Soviet Union during WW II and his focus was far more on profit than on ideology.

Buckley also launched attacks against two other major forces then formulating opinion in the Conservative Movement, Murray Rothbard, an eminent Austrian Economist, and Ayn Rand, the author of Atlas Shrugged. Both of these thinkers would become foundational influences in the new wave of libertarianism that flowed out of the failed Goldwater Campaign.

Rothbard, a founder for Cato, was illegally fired from that position in 1981. Today he is not even mentioned in their history.

At the time those of us involved in the Movement assumed this arose from a personality conflict. Many people conflicted with Ed Crane. What has emerged since tells a very different story. The principles of Austrian Economics as enunciated by Rothbard, made his work the worst possible tool to carry out their plans. Instead, you see the public rise in stature of Milton Friedman, whose ideas allowed the manipulation of the economy through policy.

If the clerk always shorts your change you had better conclude it is not an accident.

The Libertarian Party became vulnerable because its message was no longer backed by the gold of action but its rhetoric held a promise for which Americans still hunger today. But then it was only rhetoric and so the LP was vulnerable to the host of parasites who flooded in to live off the twitching corpse that had held such promise. Such 'activists' as Michael Emerling Cloud and a host of others made a living while freedom died.

No human organization can expect to be immune from causality. If there is profit and power to be had without accountability then the least ethical will show up and hire on. While Libertarian leaders claimed they could live productive lives without government they failed to install Discernment 101 and Justice 100 in their own organization, refusing to see the chain of events that made the present failure inevitable.

Ignoring history, they have recycled failure.

Stupidity will always be its own reward. Today the LP is a social club rattling around in the structure of a political party and most Libertarians, like deer-in-the-headlights, have no idea what went wrong.

Directly, you can thank Ed Crane and John Fund, who sold out for straight profit and power, and the host of hired hands who turned off their discernment in the service of their 401Ks. Indirectly you can thank such as Eric Garris and Justin Raimondo who have historically been very willing to ignore the inconvenient facts when it looked like there might be profit from power in the offing.

Freedom is the one thing you can not have until you give it to everyone. If you really believe that government is not the answer then stop talking and build a real alternative.

Get off the Grids. Organize Locally. Build Coalition.

As Susan B. said, "Failure is Impossible." She took the long view and so do I.

The San Francisco Earthquake and Fire: What one man saw and learned

On April 18, 2006, San Francisco will commemorate the centennial of the San Francisco Earthquake and Fire, an event that leveled that city. The number of people who died has never been more than estimated. The other loses of various kinds ran into what today would be billions of dollars.

On that first day this photo was taken from the St. Francis Hotel, showing the city in flames. Less than 24 hours later the St. Francis would also have been gutted.

Behind that crumbling facade of human invention stood a man with an active, analytical mind. One man taking action would change what others refused to see because of those tragic days. Arthur C. Pillsbury would capture in film a lesson that would change all of our lives. The sound and sight of a city burning awakened him to a human truth.

The accompanying photo went out around the globe, carrying the enormity of the event to human eyes. As catastrophic as that event was it vanishes into nothingness compared to the specter we face today from our own government.

Some disasters are natural; some happen because of what we fail to understand.
The San Francisco Earthquake and Fire was an event that began as a natural disaster. The plates of the Earth slipped, readjusting themselves and for hundreds of miles the resultant impact was felt. But that devastation and loss passed the boundaries of what is natural, multiplied by the corruption of San Francisco's government.

San Francisco had no disaster plan because the corrupt city administration was far more interested in continuing to enjoy the graft and privileges that come with power. Emergency workers were untrained; the preparations that had long been asked for had never been enacted. Many buildings blown up to create fire breaks simply burst into flame, spreading the conflagration and destruction. Both looters and the innocent were gunned down by the military contingent that would never be held accountable. The corrupt officials also evaded liability.
Accountability is something government learned to avoid early on.

San Francisco survived. Eventually sanity returned and the people came together to rebuild. Sometimes even in the face of completely incompetent care the patient lives.
The image above was taken by Arthur C, Pillsbury on that first day. It was a day that changed his life's focus.

Pillsbury had just left his job as the photojournalist at the San Francisco Examiner to start his own photography business, the Pillsbury Picture Company, a month before. For the next weeks he caught the immediacy of events as people struggled to survive and save what they could from the consuming flames. His developing facility, located in Oakland, was the only one functioning. Orders poured in from across the globe.

Later the same year he used the profits from the San Francisco photos to achieve a long time goal and bought the Studio of the Three Arrows in Yosemite.

Pillsbury was an engineer who majored in Mechanical Engineering at Stanford He had invented a specimen slicer for the microscope and circuit panorama camera before leaving college. He was not the kind of guy to settle for systems and tools that did not work as expected.
In Yosemite he found other systems that were failing to do their jobs.

The Cavalry, then in charge of the Park, had long made a practice of mowing the meadows to provide fodder for their horses. Pillsbury noticed that the number of wild flower species was decreasing every year in those areas and also that the Cavalry was not concerned. So, applying his skills as an inventor he built the first lapse-time camera to be used with plants, producing the first motion picture image of a wild flower gracefully raising its head to the sun. By than he had been showing and narrating nature films for two years.

Now the wild flowers could speak for themselves.

That first lapse-time movie was made to persuade those in power to do the right thing and stop the mowing and move towards conservation.

Arthur C. Pillsbury believed that all people need is the truth. If they saw the reality, he believed, they will choose to do the right thing voluntarily. He was right about most people, most of the time.

After seeing the film those in power stopped the mowing the same day. The year was 1912.
Most of us do the right thing if we know what that is. But sometimes failing to do the right thing is not a mistake; sometimes there is another agenda. Pillsbury assumed that when those in power must be mistaken or lack understanding or simply be too lazy to care. Those were possibilities that made sense to him; but that was an incomplete understanding. When those in power are acting on another agenda they cannot be changed with the truth.

The photo Pillsbury took that you see here, one of hundreds, shows both the power of nature unleashed on a city and the power of corruption by government unchecked. Most people did not understand the risk they faced, having delegated that work to the city government.

Pillsbury learned one essential lesson from what he observed. He decided to make sure that the people themselves had direct access to the information they needed. In 1912 he invented the lapse-time camera to connect people to the world of wild flowers, which had been overlooked even by such conservationists as John Muir. Muir's energies were focused on saving the Hetch Hetchy, a battle he lost.

Pillsbury kept working. He began lecturing and showing his motion pictures. Eventually he would speak at every major town forum and every university of note, including MIT. He expanded his lectures every year, adding new films and insights. He was determined that the miracles of the natural world be understood, that their truth be accessible to everyone.
In 1927 Arthur Pillsbury completed the invention of the microscopic motion picture camera. Seeing the world beyond the scope of the human eye awakened people to another aspect of nature. After that time there was an explosion in related research.

Pillsbury went on to build the first X-ray motion picture camera and the underwater motion picture camera opening up more new vistas. Pillsbury refused to patent his inventions. He wanted their use to become common to all of us. He had solved the problem he identified during those hideous days when San Francisco burned.

Arthur C. Pillsbury died in Oakland in 1946. The scope of human vision had expanded, thanks to his inventions and tireless lecturing. He had made nature visible as it had never been before but that was not enough. He had not calculated for the impact of those greedy for money and power.
Government had not changed; it continued an upward trend for control coupled with the corruption. Those who profited through generations came to accept this as their prerogative.
We need to see government for what it is; a system that has been converted from service provider to wealth source for those who control it.

Disaster is endemic to all politics and for the same reasons. Coupling a lack of accountability with the temptation to take always draws those inclined to steal.

Katrina has illustrated just how bad it can be within our own shores; Iraq has demonstrated how bad America can be when the tools of corruption are applied internationally. These are not examples of incompetence, rather they illustrate sophisticated schemes for converting the institutions of government into profit centers for those holding power.

Government is efficiently doing exactly what those in power want it to do.

Our Founders did not expect this government to last 20 years. They viewed the government they established as a kind of model needing beta testing, expecting it to operate within a set of defined and limiting principles.

Government is not supposed to be doing anything we can do ourselves. In the Bill of Rights Numbers 9 and 10 make that clear. So why did government steadily take over jobs being handled privately?

For the same reason bank robbers rob banks. That is where the money is.
We are unused to the idea that we can examine government and change the tools we use to carry out what we want done. But that right is ours whenever we choose; that is enunciated in the Declaration of Independence.

The present state of government would have shocked our Founders.

Consider what life looked like to Founders at the turn of that century.

Our Founders lived and died in a world of small shop owners, farmers, and craftspeople. Homes and businesses provided for their own needs. Innovation came with its own rewards and problems and people learned by seeing what worked and what didn't. That is the classical form for the transmission of human wisdom, used even by chimps with no governmental intervention.

The tools for government the Founders assembled assumed a population that controlled most of the infrastructure directly through town government and through the people's power of purchase. Corporations did not exist in their present form. Our Founders failed to see the ramifications of allowing legislation that brought the actions of individuals under the control of government. They were imperfect as are all of us. They did not hand us a finished product but one that needed to be tested and repaired.

But some things they did right.

Until the end of the Nineteenth Century all school children studied the Bill of Rights and read the Federalist Papers. They knew, therefore, what their rights were supposed to be. Understanding the operating principles, as we can see, is a critical factor.
When people know it is much harder to delude them. But politicians were persistent. They had a lot to gain.

Katrina illustrated a lot of things about government today. It took a week from the time the storm hit to announce plans for redevelopment; people were still awaiting emergency help but 'gentrification' of the area was already planned. Today families who have tried to return have been refused access to their homes and property. If you watch what those in power do, instead of believing their rhetoric the truth seeps through. Government consumed through taxes the resources that should have protected New Orleans.

What has been proved is that Americans would have been better served to keep the FEMA money within local areas to fund local emergency services. Because every level of government above the local was more corrupt in New Orleans last year there was none of the oversight residents expected and believed they had paid for. Those funds went into other pockets.
Big government did not come into existence because the people could not find ways to handle their problems as the country grew and the complexity of their society increased. It came into existence because those in government were greedy and the citizens were both too trusting and did not understand that government is just a contracting service center; that knowledge had been withdrawn.

So what can we do to clean up this mess?

Their system has been designed to create our perpetual and inescapable dependence. We can change that.

Get off the Grids – there are a lot of them and they include energy, oil, credit, the monetary morass, our health needs and so on. The good news is that this can be done. The means are out there, waiting our use. Despite the persistent and devious attempts to keep us nailed in place human innovation has made the exits available and affordable.

That is probably hard to believe, but it is true. The depth and scope of human innovation and our ability to work together can solve problems that would destroy lesser species. That points us back to a world that would have made more sense to our Founders, one where community and conscience are central.

Organize Locally – Many of the organizational tools we need already exist and have been in place for generations.
The original plan was built on the idea of communities working together to ensure their needs were met. In the last 200 years Americans have learned how to work together on the local level. They can apply those skills to new tasks.

Most of us spend far more time working in the Little League, Lions Club, Elks, Rotary, Soroptomists, churches, and other groups that spend their time doing good than we do paying attention to government anyway. You often see this criticized as a cause of the problem. Actually, it shows that most of us know what really matters by voting with our own time and resources when confronted with the morass of government.

The same organizations that help the homeless, funded locally and staffed with volunteers, can undertake the other work we need done to ensure the continuation of the social safety nets we all want in place.

Build Coalition – When you look at the distrust and resistance that came with the team mentality of politics you have to wonder why it mattered in the first place. People registered as Democrats, Republicans, Green, or Libertarian who focus on making their communities better have more in common with each other than they do with those in positions of power within their political parties. All politicians, with just enough exceptions to prove the point, are more vested in acquiring power and cash than in eliminating the means by which power and cash are accumulated.

The San Francisco Earthquake and Fire shattered lives, destroyed property, and raised a challenge to the people of San Francisco that they heard and answered. We need to remember that. Today's challenge is far greater but despite the predations of government and their core constituency, mega corporations, we have many more resources in the battle we face that did our Founders. Generations of American innovation is there, like a vast and untapped bank account, ready to work.

The greedy already know what the real game is. It has been going on for a long time. The rest of us need to get busy making sure that alternatives are available.
Once you see the Emperor's new clothes there is no going back.

Disasters of the natural kind happen. But we don't have to accept human government as an act of God, we can change course.

The American Revolution has taken a hiatus. Ours started in 1775 with the Shot Heard Round the World on April 19th.. That revolution, intended to replace government by monarchy by governance through the tools chosen and controlled directly by the people, remains to be finished.

We, the people, retain the right to change government to secure our inherent rights and together, moving past the chasms that divide us, it can be so. That was the original vision for America. It is time to finish what well intended people began.

Arthur C. Pillsbury would be glad we figured it out.

One copy of the photo above has been donated to The Community Resource Project, an organization presently forming to ensure that off grid alternatives become available to mainstream Americans. You can view that auction on e-bay. For further information contact: thecommunitysite@yahoo.com