independentsforkerry.org

IPR contacted the Socialist Equality Party’s  presidential nominee Jerry White with three questions about his campaign.  Though White did respond initially, party chairman Joe Kishore answered instead.

The Socialist Equality Party is a Trotskyist party affiliated with the International Committee of the Fourth International. In 2008, it nominated Jerry White, who was also the party’s 1996 presidential nominee.  In protest of ballot access laws, the party did not appear on any ballots in 2008.

IPR: How is the Socialist Equality Party different from other Socialist parties such as the Party for Socialism and Liberation and Socialist Party USA?

Kishore: There are many groups that describe themselves as socialist, and we will be writing more on these tendencies in our election coverage. There are, however, basic political differences that separate the SEP from these organizations. The SEP, for example, advocates a break with the official trade unions and the establishment of independent rank-and-file committees to fight against the dictates of the corporations. We oppose any conception that the Democratic Party can be pushed to the left. Our program is based on an international perspective. We oppose identity politics, which seeks to divide workers along racial or gender lines, rather than uniting them on the basis of their common class interests. A more detailed presentation of the perspective of the SEP can be found in our program (socialequality.com/program) and in our statement of principles (http://socialequality.com/story/socialist-equality-party-statement-principles).

IPR: The Socialist Equality Party did not appear on any state ballots for the 2008 presidential election.  Will this change in 2012? Are there any ballot access efforts at this time?

Kishore: We will be seeking ballot access in some states. However, anti-democratic ballot  laws make it almost impossible for third parties to get ballot access in many states. In those cases, we will be running an aggressive write-in campaign.

IPR: What are some of your policy proposals? How would you implement these as president?

Kishore: The basic outline of our election can be found here: http://socialequality.com/node/2059

We insist that workers have basic social rights, including the right to a job, the right to a livable income, the right to education, health care and a secure retirement. We call for a multi-trillion dollar public works program to put to work everyone who needs a job. Such a program will also serve to rebuild cities and infrastructure and meet the needs of the entire population. It must be paid for through a massive redistribution of the wealth. The giant banks and major corporations must be transformed into publicly-owned entities, controlled democratically by working people.

Two points to stress, however: 1) It is not for us a matter of simply winning office and implementing policy as one person. The entire political system is undemocratic and devoted to upholding the interests of the capitalist class. Our election campaign is aimed at fighting for an independent political program of the working class, in opposition to this political system. We are fighting to build a mass movement of the working class, which seeks the abolition of capitalism and its replacement by a social system based on human need, not private profit–i.e., socialism. Socialism can only be achieved through mass social struggles. 2) We fight for the international unity of the working class. The interests of workers in every country are fundamentally the same, and socialism is impossible in the United States alone.

Independent Political Report

This email from Garland Favorito of VoterGA is packed with information. It includes a mention of the Macon Telegraph article that we posted below, updates on legislation to decrease Georgia’s signature requirements and information on the persecution of a sitting independent Georgia legislator.

VoterGa Supporters,

Here are some significant updates on the legislative front:

First, there is no significant movement on verifiable voting legislation in this session, however, no legislation is needed to move Georgia to verifiable voting equipment. Existing law supports verifiable optical scan equipment, paper ballots and electronic voting machines with VVPAT (Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail). Code changes would only be needed to implement precinct audit procedures but those procedures are not technically possible until the machines have been replaced. We have met with Secretary Kemp and one of the Governor’s policy directors to explain the potential solutions that we believe are viable. We expect to meet with the Secretary again in the next week or two to provide an update on our findings and stress the need to act..

Second, thanks to John Fortuin from Defenders of Democracy, a video tape of the SB 377 hearing is now available at Vimeo.com. SB 377 attempted to place an unprecedented new restriction that would require candidate petition signers to show an ID to the petitioner who is typically a total stranger, thus making it an already difficult task essentially impossible  The video that shows how our testimony was able to thwart this unprecedented new restriction introduced by Sen. Buddy Carter, is available here:

Vimeo SB377 Hearing

Third, thanks to reporter Maggie Lee, the Macon Telegraph produced one of the first in depth articles by a Georgia city newspaper regarding the ridiculous restrictions placed on candidates running for Georgia office. It is available here:

Macon  telegraph ballot access article

This topic was previously the near exclusive domain of Matthew Cardinale and the Atlanta Progressive News. An example of his most recent article on this subject, HB 949 and the current legislative session is here:

Atlanta Progressive News ballot access article

Fourth, in spite of some rather negative and potentially misleading comments in the Macon Telegraph article from Rep. Mark Hamilton (R-Cumming), the chairman of the House Government Affairs Committee that hears election bills, HB 949 is on the General House Calendar for Monday, March 5 and the ballot access community is supportive of the minor petitioning improvements that the bill offers.  Georgia currently has the most restrictive petitioning requirements for district races in the entire country. The requirements are 10 times more restrictive than the national average of all other states combined. HB 949 would move Georgia from the worst in the country to 49^th and still leave district races 7 times more restrictive that the national average of all other states. We have consistently pointed out that this proposed improvement is wholly inadequate but we do not oppose the change. The text of the bill is here:.

HB 949

Fifth, we were unable to get a hearing from Rep. Mark Hamilton for HB 494, the “real ballot access bill”. HB 494 proposes to remove candidate petitioning requirements altogether just as Florida did successfully in 1999 and it allows any Georgian to run for office by paying the standard filing fee that a Democrat or Republican would pay. If freedom and equality sound like common sense principles of good American government, you might want to explain that to the chairman sometime in the future in hopes that he may keep that in mind for Georgia next year if he retains his current position.

HB 494

Sixth, HB 494 author, Rusty Kidd, is now under investigation by the Attorney General’s office after being referred by the State Election Board for 17 questionable signatures out of 1,500 collected in his recent petition drive. Rep. Kidd, an independent in the Georgia legislature, was forced by law to petition for his reelection despite the fact that he was a sitting Georgia legislator! HB 949 will solve this problem for independent incumbents like Rep. Kidd in the future but that does not necessarily help Rep Kidd now. His case, SEB2010-000067, was heard by the State Election Board on Tuesday, February 29^th in Macon. Maggie Lee was there to cover the story with this article:

Macon Telegraph Rusty Kidd SEB Article

The case summary is here:

SEB Case No. 2010-000067 Baldwin County (Petition) - Chris Harvey presented this case and recommended that the board bind the case over to the Attorney General’s Office.

Chairman Kemp recuses himself from the case due to his connection to Representative Kidd on the Election Advisory Council.

Kent Webb made a motion to accept a document from Mr. Harvey, Rusty Simpson seconded; the motion passed unanimously 3 – 0.

The public speaker was Representative E. Culver “Rusty” Kidd (respondent).

Kent Webb made a motion to accept a document from Representative Kidd, Rusty Simpson seconded; the motion passed unanimously 3 – 0.

Kent Webb made a motion to bind SEB Case No. 2010-000067 to the Attorney General’s Office, Rusty Simpson seconded; the motion passed unanimously 3 – 0.

Chairman Kemp calls for the Re-Presentation to SEB cases.

Finally, the petitioning case against Rep. Kidd should be taken seriously. Those of you who have read my previous Emails and posts know that the State Election Board is extremely political. Former Savannah area councilman, Jeff Rayno, was falsely accused of petition forgery and referred to the Attorney General’s office for investigation without evidence of a single forged signature!. After being referred with no evidence by board member, Kent Webb and former Secretary, Karen Handel, he was forced to make three trips to State Election Board meetings before the board finally admitted that they had no case against him. A sitting councilwoman, Helen Stone, who submitted the original complaint actually testified before the board that none should be let go “until it can be proved they had nothing to do with the forgeries”! One board, member actually had to explain to her that: “This is America and the accused person does not have to prove his innocence” Excerpts of this amazing hearing can be found by searching the VoterGa Complaint page for “excerpts” here:

Rayno SEB Complaint Page (search for “excerpts”)

The full meeting transcript is here:

First Rayno SEB hearing transcript

We will be watching Rep Kidd’s case closely and reporting on any new developments.

Garland

www.Voterga.org

404 664-4044

Permission to Reprint Granted

VoterGa is an all volunteer, non-partisan, non-profit, 501C3 organization

Your contributions are fully tax deductible and used for legal expenses

Independent Political Report

Paul Gottfried, a prominent and ridiculously prolific paleoconservative, (search his name at Amazon and see what I mean) encourages Ron Paul to run third party in his latest essay. The essay addresses Romney, Santorum and Paul. Below is the relevant part about a Paul third party run:

The only way Ron Paul can have any clout at the national level is through a third-party challenge. He has no reason to imagine that the GOP will make room for him or his son. A better way to shake up things than by living with an empty hope is to seize the spoiler’s role. Make it hard on the GOP establishment to go on ignoring the real small-government conservatives. But this is only possible if Ron Paul acts boldly, by causing the GOP to lose disastrously in November.

Gottfried seems to accept at face value the idea of a Romney Paul primary alliance, but I know others have disputed that any such alliance is in place.

Independent Political Report

From NorthumberlandView.ca:
The Green Party is calling for a public inquiry into the fraudulent robodials and a referendum on electoral reform.
Suggesting that Canada’s first-past-the-post system is highly vulnerable to electoral fraud, the party is calling for reforms that would ensure parties hold a number of seats that is proportional to the number of [...]
Green Party Watch

From the Toledo Free Press:
Running for any seat in the Green Party is more like an obstacle course than a race.
First, you need to gather signatures to appear on the ballot. That number depends on what the desired seat is, but for the U.S. Senate election you’d need at least 500. (Major parties [...]
Green Party Watch

From OaklandNorth.net:
The Oakland Green Party held a public forum Friday evening at Humanist Hall in downtown Oakland, where members of other political parties as well as members of the public were invited to brainstorm ideas for Oakland’s future and form an alliance before the next city government election.
The Green Party panel [...]
Green Party Watch

Here paleoish conservative blogger Daniel Larison discusses Edward Luce’s Financial Times article on Americans Elect. (Registration is required to get to the actual FT article.) Suffice it to say that Luce is hopeful and Larison is not.

The volatility inside the GOP primary electorate does not mean that there would be automatic support in polls for a “centrist” third-party challenger. When “very conservative” voters launch a half dozen candidates into fleeting contention with Romney because they cannot abide the former governor, it does not follow that there is an opportunity for a “centrist” candidate to poll in double digits.

Read more…

Independent Political Report

INDEPENDENT REDISTRICTING
Lawmakers Pledge to Reform, But Gerrymandering Keeps Getting Worse (by John Avlon, Daily Beast) In New York, 186 state legislators swore to support non-partisan redistricting efforts when they ran for office in the angry, anti-incumbent year of 2010. Most came down with convenient amnesia when they got back to Albany. The brinksmanship has continued despite promises by Governor Andrew Cuomo to veto nakedly partisan district lines and the efforts of good government group coalitions like ReShapeNY (on which, full disclosure, I serve on the advisory board.) Not only are New York’s redistricting maps still not set, initial glimpses have shown the same old partisan games, with potential rivals drawn out into different districts by incumbents seeking to preserve their power at almost any cost. Mediators and judges are now looming over the legislative impasse. One key dynamic to watch is whether a deal is struck that would at least try to move a state constitutional change forward to create an independent commission in ten years’ time. The principle of short-term self-interest predictably outpaces ethics or honor. New York is one of only two states in the nation to have not yet even voted on lines that will be on the ballot this fall.

The Hankster

FRISCO — Saying the economy is intrinsically intertwined with the environment, U.S. Sen. Mark Udall rolled out a proposal Sunday to designate 236,000 acres of new wilderness in central Colorado and establish a 20,000-acre national monument along the Browns Canyon stretch of the Arkansas River.

He called on the public to help him craft a pair of public-lands bills.

In the first — the Central Mountains Outdoor Heritage Act — the Democratic senator wants to consider 32 pockets in Eagle, Pitkin and Summit counties for wilderness protection, many of them additions to Holy Cross, Eagles Nest and Maroon Bells-Snowmass areas. Udall said he envisions a bill that would foster “a world-class destination for outdoor recreation while protecting pre-existing uses,” such as the Colorado National Guard’s high-altitude helicopter training area.

Draft maps for the proposal are largely based off of Eagle and Summit County wilderness plans that U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, D-Colorado, submitted to the House two years ago, along with input regarding Pitkin County from Carbondale-based Wilderness Workshop. The three counties comprise a veritable paradise for skiers, hikers, cyclists, mountain bikers, snowmobilers, hunters and fishermen.

“Many of these areas have been exhaustively vetted and debated,” Udall said.

Sen. Mark Udall in Frisco on Sunday. (Photo by Troy Hooper)

The second bill — the Arkansas River Canyon National Monument and Browns Canyon Wilderness – borrows from former U.S. Rep. Joel Hefley, R-Colorado, in identifying wilderness on both sides of the iconic river between Salida and Buena Vista in south-central Colorado. Hefley introduced a similar bill in 2006 but the legislation didn’t get very far. Hefley’s successor, Rep. Doug Lamborn, abandoned the plan.

“A national monument designation would put a star on the map, drawing more visitors to the area’s world-class river rafting and outdoor recreating activities and support our local tourism economy,” Udall said against a backdrop of blue skies and snow-covered mountains.

As he spoke, cross-country skiers snaked around a meadow in the distance. Giggling children raced inner tubes down a nearby hill. And snowboarders in SUVs passed by on their way to Breckenridge.

“The outdoors is an important part of our quality of life here in Colorado,” Udall continued. “For many outfitters and small business owners the preservation of our state’s majestic mountains and valleys is vital for their livelihoods.” He called for “a collaborative community driven process.”

Eagle County Commissioner Jon Stavney, Summit County Commissioner Dan Gibbs and Breckenridge Mayor Dr. John Warner also spoke in favor of protecting more of Colorado’s rugged landscape, and they emphasized how it serves as the backbone of their economies.

“Future generations will … judge our wisdom by the places we protect,” Stavney said.

As a member of the Senate’s Subcommittee on National Parks and co-chairman of the Outdoor Recreation Caucus, Udall plans to leverage his leadership “to take this [proposal] to the next level.”

Browns Canyon (Image: Friends of Browns Canyon)

Getting Colorado’s conservative congressmen on board could prove difficult. Not only did Lamborn fail to see Hefley’s vision through, he and U.S. Reps. Scott Tipton, Cory Gardner and Mike Coffman have a history of voting against public land protections and for allowing GOP-friendly industrialists to mine minerals and harvest forests.

Udall does have the assistance of Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colorado, who revived a plan to better protect public land in the San Juan Mountains with Udall in September. That bill, which would declare roughly 61,000 acres of southwestern Colorado as federal wilderness or special management areas, had died in the 111th Congress.

Whether the 112th Congress is any better for wilderness remains to be seen.

Another ally for Udall is Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colorado.

“Coloradans want to preserve their quality of life and their opportunities,” said DeGette, who has spearheaded similar measures. “With efforts in the U.S. House and now the U.S. Senate, our state’s precious lands are that much closer to being protected. I look forward to working with Senator Udall to set forth a balanced approach to protecting some of the last remaining wild places in Colorado.”

The Department of Interior also supports several aspects of Udall’s plan.

Udall said it could take several months, or longer, before legislation is introduced in the Senate.

“I don’t have a deadline. Of course if we’re standing here 10 years from now, we’ve fallen short.”

The Colorado Independent

On January 23, 2012, Ron Paul Radio started broadcasting as a source of information and discussion for the principles of liberty as taught by Congressman Ron Paul. It currently has 22 hosts and twenty different programs, discussing monetary policies, civil liberties, non-interventionism in foreign policy and other topics which pertain to the events and issues in this country. The programs are varied, and, curiously, the hosts list political persuasions from “Democratic Tea-Partier” and “Voluntaryist/Agorist”, as well as featuring several men who have been long-time activists in the Libertarian Party.

The current incarnation of Ron Paul Radio started when Hank Xavier, a long time political activist and media entrepreneur realized that several top level domains were available for the Ron Paul Radio brand. After Xavier had purchased the .net and the .org domain names over a year prior, Xavier’s business partner Corey Moore, a student at Kent State University in Ohio majoring in electronic media communications and long time libertarian activist, made the decision to use them to revive the Ron Paul Radio Network. Moore subsequently posted to The Daily Paul website to gauge the community and was surprised to discover that there was indeed a great deal of interest in the project. After receiving some seed money from a generous donor, Moore decided to move forward as the General Manager and Technical Director of the project, later bringing on Xavier to act as Station Manager. Together, the two men designed and built the website while Moore built the broadcast infrastructure from the ground up and Xavier got busy managing the administration of the network. In Jan 2011 Xavier finalized the deal to purchase the premium top level domain name and ronpaulradio.net became ronpaulradio.com. Moore and Xavier have over 10 years of combined web based media production experience; both men have had various featured radio programs on several networks. Moore is most well known for hosting a program and podcast called “The Voice of Radical Dissent” as well as having been a whistleblower regarding elements with the Libertarian Party establishment. Xavier, otherwise known as Hx, is a well known radio commentator online, often remembered for his fiery rhetoric and radical ideas. Their stated purpose is to further the principles of Dr. Ron Paul and to stay on message. After the election, their plan is to keep the discussion of these principles going, but plan to make a transition to a brand name that is not restricted to strictly representing the views of Dr.Paul.

Jake Digman co-hosts a show with Nicholas Burdohan called “The Diggs Show”. Their show features discussions and guests with many different political views. Jake has a long history with the LP of Ohio, and is currently running for Summit County Central Committee. He has a colorful professional history, including being ring announcer for NAAFS Cage Fighting TV show . Nicholas is currently Executive Director of the Summit County Libertarian Party.”The Digs Show” can be heard Saturdays 12 to 2 PM Eastern time.

 
On Sundays, you can hear Mr. Alan Pyeatt on his “Liberty Lighthouse Project”. He discusses current events from an historical perspective, bringing a clear understanding of how our founding fathers planned for and championed the principals of personal liberty. He is on between 4 and 5 PM Eastern on Sundays, and will expand to 2 hours soon. Alan is a civil engineer who was raised in Texas, but resides in California. He has many years of experience in music, radio, and film. He ran for Congress in 2008, and is currently a member of the California Executive Committee of the Libertarian Party.

Libertarian John Jay Myers from Texas hosts a weekday program with Republican Austrian School economist Jarrod Atkinson. They discuss current events from a Libertarian standpoint. Their show, called “Freedom Fried”, airs Monday through Friday from 3 to 4 Eastern time.

Some of the other hosts and programs you can currently hear on Ron Paul Radio are Scott Horton of Anti-war Radio; Sovereign Curtis, with discussion of Free State Project in New Hampshire; David Nickerson’s “Comedy Caucus”. and “Freedom Files” with James Burns. Programs are available on podcast shortly after they’re aired.

 
You can listen to Ron Paul Radio here. If you’re interested in supporting the station, or possibly becoming a host yourself, contact Hank Xavier at hx@ronpaulradio.com or coreymoore@gmail.com.

Independent Political Report