AUSTIN, TEXAS – February 23, 2010 — The Libertarian State Leadership Alliance will be holding its annual conference this weekend from February 26th to February 28th in Austin at the Radisson North Hotel. The conference is open to anyone who has an interest in the future direction of the Libertarian Party. Party leaders from across the United States meet once per year to share best practices and set goals.
Last Friday, 2008 Libertarian presidential nominee Bob Barr spoke at the CPAC conference in Washington, DC. According to several sources, the conservative crowd booed when he said that waterboarding is torture, and that civilian trials may be preferable to military tribunals. According to the Huffington Post:
“There is nothing magical about a military tribunal,” Barr said, as boos from the audience began cascading around him. “They don’t have, necessarily, better lawyers than in a civilian sector. I think I have a lot more faith in our U.S. attorneys who are non political, than my colleagues on the other side of this debate do. We can try them. We should try them. That is precisely… what our law provides for. And if next time we are faced with a situation we say: ‘Oh, you know, we want to have them go to the military. Let them torture them for a while. It’s not enhanced interrogation techniques. Waterboarding is torture. How would you like to be waterboarded? Try that!”
At RealClearPolitics.com, Jeremy Lott points that although Republicans and Democrats have been doing everything they can to grow government in recent years, we’ve seen some progress toward liberty on several fronts:
Below is a link to several pages from the upcoming issue of LP News, including information about the 2010 Libertarian National Convention in St. Louis, and a registration form. Feel free to print and distribute this information.
As noted earlier, on January 19, 2010, the South Florida Tea Party, Inc., had filed a federal lawsuit, demanding that the ballot-qualified Tea Party change its name. On February 17, the South Florida Tea Party, Inc., filed an amended complaint. Read more »
We learned today that the new Republican senator from Massachusetts, Scott Brown, plans to vote with Democrats in favor of a big-government jobs bill. It’s too bad Massachusetts voters missed the opportunity to elect Libertarian Joe Kennedy.
As you might know, today is the 278th birthday of George Washington. I expect you agree that Washington had an excellent attitude about the office of the presidency (he had a pretty humble view of that office) and about government in general.
On February 20, the Columbus Dispatch wrote an article about the efforts of the Ohio Libertarian Party:
The party that advocates the small — small taxes, small government, small infringements on personal freedom — is trying to grow up and play with the big boys.
Seemingly better organized, and riding a wave of anti-government sentiment fueled by a poor economy, rising deficits and a national Tea Party movement, Libertarians want to harness the public’s dissatisfaction with the two major parties to become a true force in Ohio politics.
Libertarians are running in every nonjudicial statewide race and have filed in a number of congressional and state legislative races where, even if their chances of victory are remote, some think they could play a role in close outcomes that could help determine which party controls both Congress and the Ohio House.
On February 20, James Traficant said on his radio show that he is no longer a Democrat, that he is an independent, and that he may run for Congress this year. See this story. Thanks to Carter Momberger for the link. Traficant was a 9-term Democratic member of Congress from Ohio.
Also see this story, which says that Traficant is too late to get his name on any primary ballot in any event, but he is free to file as an independent if he does so by early May. He would need about 2,500 signatures in the typical U.S. House district.
