Indeed, the support among the public and House for auditing the Fed is almost 100% … but Democratic Senate leader Reid has vowed to kill an audit (even though he previously supported it).
The American people are sick of both the Republican and Democratic party, and yearn for something different. See this, this and this.
No wonder … the mainstream Democratic and Republican parties agree on most matters which affect American lives the most directly. Here, here, herehere and here. And – as this 4-minute video shows – they both ignore the desires of their own bases.
The Founding Fathers warned – at the very birth of our nation – against a two-party system as being destructive to liberty.
For example, the Republican and Democratic parties have long formed Gentlemen’s agreements – through the “Presidential Debate Commission” – on what topics are “off-limits” (and which journalists can even ask questions) during presidential debates:
The Presidential Debate Commission (PDC) is run by former chairmen of the Democratic and Republican parties. The debates almost always exclude third-party candidates.
Gary Johnson is looking to change that.
The Libertarian candidate for president – who will be on all 50 states’ ballots this election, and who is currently polling at around 5% of the vote – Johnson (and his vice presidential running mate, retired judge Jim Gray) have filed an antitrust lawsuit against the PDC for excluding them from the debates:
The Gov. Gary Johnson/Judge Jim Gray Campaign has filed an antitrust lawsuit against the Democrats, Republicans, & the Commission on Presidential Debates for antitrust and anticompetitive acts. The voters deserve competition!
The lawsuit comes after the PDC’s failure to respond to the following letter from Johnson last month:
Dear [Commission Member]
I am writing to request that the national Commission on Presidential Debates reconsider your current – and exclusionary – requirements for participation in this Fall’s all-important Presidential and Vice-Presidential debates.
I am well aware of the history and genesis of the Commission, including the reality that it was created largely by the respective national leadership of the Democrat and Republican Parties. While I respect and understand the intention to provide a reasonable and theoretically nonpartisan structure for the presidential debate process, I would suggest that the Commission’s founding, organization and policies are heavily skewed toward limiting the debates to the two so-called major parties.
That is unfortunate, and frankly, out of touch with the electorate. You rely very heavily on polling data to determine who may participate in your debates, yet your use of criteria that are clearly designed to limit participation to the Republican and the Democrat nominee ignore the fact that many credible polls indicate that a full one-third of the electorate do not clearly identify with either of those parties. Rather, they are independents whose voting choices are not determined by party affiliation.
That one-third of the voters, as well as independent-thinking Republicans and Democrats, deserve an opportunity to see and hear a credible “third party” candidate. I understand that there are a great many “third party” candidates, and that a line must be drawn somewhere. However, the simple reality of our Electoral College system draws that line in a very straightforward and fair way – a reality that is reflected in your existing criteria. If a candidate is not on the ballot in a sufficient number of states to be elected by the Electoral College, it is perfectly logical to not include that candidate in a national debate. If, on other hand, a candidate IS on the ballot in enough states to be elected, there i s no logic by which that candidate should be excluded.
Nowhere in the Constitution or in law is it written that our President must be a Democrat or a Republican. However, it IS written that a candidate must receive a majority of the votes – or at least 50% – cast by electors, and that any candidate who does so, and otherwise meets the Constitution’s requirements, may be President.
As the Libertarian Party’s nominees for Vice-President and President, Judge Jim Gray and I have already qualified to be on the ballot in more than enough states to obtain a majority in the Electoral College, and we are the only candidates other than the Republican and Democrat nominees to have done so, or who are likely to do so. In fact, we fully intend and expect to be on the ballots of all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
However, the Commission has chosen to impose yet another requirement for participation: 15% in selected public opinion polls. Unlike your other requirements, this polling performance criterion is entirely arbitrary and based, frankly, on nothing other than an apparent attempt to limit participation to the Democrat and the Republican.
Requiring a certain level of approval in the polls has nothing to do with fitness to serve, experience or credibility as a potential President. Rather, it has everything to do with the hundreds of millions of dollars available to and spent by the two major party candidates, the self-fulfilling bias of the news media against the viability of third party candidates, and an ill-founded belief that past dominance of the Republican and Democrat Parties should somehow be a template for the future.
In all due respect, it is not the proper role of a non-elected, private and tax-exempt organization to narrow the voters’ choices to only the two major party candidates – which is the net effect of your arbitrary polling requirement. To the contrary, debates are the one element of modern campaigns and elections that should be immune to unfair advantages based upon funding and party structure. Yet, it is clear that the Commission’s criteria have both the intent and the effect of limiting voters’ choices to the candidates of the two major parties who, in fact, created the Commission in the first place.
Eliminating the arbitrary polling requirement would align the Commission and its procedure for deciding who may participate in the critical debates with fairness and true nonpartisanship, which was the purported intent behind the Commission’s creation. As of right now, eliminating that requirement would not disrupt the process or make it unmanageable. Rather, it would simply allow the participation of a two-term governor who has more executive experience than Messrs. Obama and Romney combined, who has garnered sufficiently broad support to be on the ballot in more than enough states to achieve a majority in the Electoral College, and who, without the help of party resources and special interests, has attracted enough financial support to qualify for presidential campaign matching funds.
I urge and request you to remove the partisanship from the debates, and allow the voters an opportunity to hear from all of the qualified candidates – not just those who happen to be a Democrat or a Republican.
Sept. 21, 2012, Saint Paul, Minn. — Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson’s campaign today filed an anti-trust lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Central District of California challenging Johnson’s exclusion from upcoming debates sponsored by the Commission on Presidential Debates. The Commission announced earlier Friday that invitations to the debates were being extended only to Mitt Romney and Barack Obama.
I'd just call Johnson a boob and be done with it but that would be a gross and unwarranted insult to all the boobs out there, most of which are nice to look at (at minimum anyway.)
Let's look at the alleged merits of this:
The claim is made that the Office of the President is an "interstate" commercial matter. Like hell it is. Further, the Office of the President isn't "trade" (at least it damn well better not be!)
The claim is made that the private Democrat and Republican parties "conspired to restrain trade both in ideas and in commerce." Oh really? Ideas are now "interstate commerce" and they're "restrained" because two private parties decided not to invite you into their tent? Never mind that a political contest is not commerce in the first place.
The Sherman Act exists to prevent the monopolization of a marketplace. We can argue for and against that all day long, but what we can't argue in this instance is that even if the commission keeps Johnson off the stage on national TV that it constitutes a monopoly. In point of fact Johnson and his supporters have spammed all matter of social media, including Facebook and Twitter, and are certainly free to put forward whatever positions and points they wish via any media they and their supporters wish to pay for. Indeed, that's exactly what Johnson says he's collecting donations for -- first to "buy him a podium" and then to "run ads."
Well Gary? That was just a political promise -- right? And we know how much those are worth.
But I cannot let this go without getting into the outrageously-dripping hypocrisy of Johnson's position in this regard.
First, hard-core Libertarians have argued forever that anti-trust laws should not exist in the first place, and that private-property rights trump them. I happen to disagree, incidentally, but this is what the Libertarian Party says in it's own platformat a national level:
Property rights are entitled to the same protection as all other human rights. The owners of property have the full right to control, use, dispose of, or in any manner enjoy, their property without interference, until and unless the exercise of their control infringes the valid rights of others. We oppose all controls on wages, prices, rents, profits, production, and interest rates. We advocate the repeal of all laws banning or restricting the advertising of prices, products, or services. We oppose all violations of the right to private property, liberty of contract, and freedom of trade. The right to trade includes the right not to trade — for any reasons whatsoever. Where property, including land, has been taken from its rightful owners by the government or private action in violation of individual rights, we favor restitution to the rightful owners.
So Mr. Hypocrite, having run on the National Platform as the Presidential Candidate, which was adopted at the very convention in which you accepted the nomination and therefore you did so knowing the expected behavior you would have to endorse and condone you then piss all over that very same document as soon as you become ass-hurt because you didn't get what you wanted.
That clause in the platform is a real problem in my view, in that it presumes many things that simply aren't so. Like, for instance, that there really are alternatives in all cases where trade might be restrained. It's not hard to imagine that there might not be -- for instance, in the case of a constrained water supply that a group of people monopolize and then cut off to certain parts of a county, effectively destroying the land's value and forcing people to either move or die. This is the exact reason why such laws exist, and yet there are people in the Libertarian Party who take the ham-fisted and intellectually-vapid position that no protection against these sorts of assaults is appropriate under the law. This is the same insanity that infests the National Party's position on trade and immigration; the so-called "Party of Principle" devolves rather quickly away from "we do not believe in initiation of force" and adds on the end of that sentence "where we can see it; it's perfectly fine if you do it in China where it's out of our eyesight."
But in this particular case it is neither here nor there, as Johnson ran for President on this platform and thus adopted it.
That's what running on a national ticket and being nominated by a national party complete with its platform means.
I have long argued that Johnson isn't really a Libertarian at all; he's a utilitarian and will ramrod the white-hot poker of the banksters up your kiester exactly as will and have both Democrats and Republicans. Force and fraud are tools that Gary is happy to see used so long as they go his way, not things to be eschewed or proscribed. He has taken utterly-incomprehensible positions on financial fraud and foreign policy for someone who claims to be Libertarian, with the latter including his assertion that we should go kill Kony (who has never done anything to America or Americans.)
For those who forget I interviewed Johnson in 2010 on blogtalk for an entire hour. I said at the time that I had to withhold my endorsement of both him and what he was trying to do, as I was simply not convinced that he was sincere in any meaningful way when it came to fixing what's broken in America.
The long list of articles I have penned on him since were designed to elicit some sort of positive response that would lead me to change my mind. After all, I sure as hell cannot vote for Obama again after all the lies he told and Mitt Romney is both a gun banner and a bankster stooge.
Unfortunately Gary Johnson has failed in this regard. I called for him to withdraw from the race in February before the party made its selection when, immediately following his "Nobody committed any crimes" line of crap, credible evidence was discovered that 84% of foreclosures in one county of California alone appeared to contain violations of the law. Johnson said nothing about this -- not then and not since -- and that was enough for me. From there the hits just kept piling up and now we have this insult as the final cherry on the cheesecake.
If you are Libertarian -- either formally or in your leanings -- you cannot vote for this man. I predict that this suit will be properly dismissed as both frivolous and wholly without merit as there is no causal link to commerce and consumers; after all votes cannot be legally traded in commerce.
That is how it should be, that is what I expect, and given that this stunt demonstrates nothing more than taking a whiz on the Party Platform that Johnson claims to be running under it certainly appears appropriate for National and the State Parties to issue formal resolutions of condemnation, censure and non-support.
I'm willing to bet they refuse and instead cheer despite the blatant and outrageous hypocrisy this clowncar of a campaign displays and by refusing to issue those condemnations they will confirm that the so-called "Party of Principle" is just another pack of political liars.
i really admire ben swann....i am afraid however he is going to meet with the four shots to the head while his hands are tied behind his back as he jumps off a bridge to commit suicide....i have watched him ambush these guys after he agrees to their off limit topics and than hit them with a follow up...thanks ben swann for your courage
How Do You Spell HYPOCRISY (Gary Johnson)
The title is what I posted last night on Twitter when I saw news of this.... I would refrain from writing on it at all, but it became a topic of conversation on the forum, so here we go....
I'd just call Johnson a boob and be done with it but that would be a gross and unwarranted insult to all the boobs out there, most of which are nice to look at (at minimum anyway.)
Let's look at the alleged merits of this:
The Sherman Act exists to prevent the monopolization of a marketplace. We can argue for and against that all day long, but what we can't argue in this instance is that even if the commission keeps Johnson off the stage on national TV that it constitutes a monopoly. In point of fact Johnson and his supporters have spammed all matter of social media, including Facebook and Twitter, and are certainly free to put forward whatever positions and points they wish via any media they and their supporters wish to pay for. Indeed, that's exactly what Johnson says he's collecting donations for -- first to "buy him a podium" and then to "run ads."
Well Gary? That was just a political promise -- right? And we know how much those are worth.
But I cannot let this go without getting into the outrageously-dripping hypocrisy of Johnson's position in this regard.
First, hard-core Libertarians have argued forever that anti-trust laws should not exist in the first place, and that private-property rights trump them. I happen to disagree, incidentally, but this is what the Libertarian Party says in it's own platform at a national level:
So Mr. Hypocrite, having run on the National Platform as the Presidential Candidate, which was adopted at the very convention in which you accepted the nomination and therefore you did so knowing the expected behavior you would have to endorse and condone you then piss all over that very same document as soon as you become ass-hurt because you didn't get what you wanted.
That clause in the platform is a real problem in my view, in that it presumes many things that simply aren't so. Like, for instance, that there really are alternatives in all cases where trade might be restrained. It's not hard to imagine that there might not be -- for instance, in the case of a constrained water supply that a group of people monopolize and then cut off to certain parts of a county, effectively destroying the land's value and forcing people to either move or die. This is the exact reason why such laws exist, and yet there are people in the Libertarian Party who take the ham-fisted and intellectually-vapid position that no protection against these sorts of assaults is appropriate under the law. This is the same insanity that infests the National Party's position on trade and immigration; the so-called "Party of Principle" devolves rather quickly away from "we do not believe in initiation of force" and adds on the end of that sentence "where we can see it; it's perfectly fine if you do it in China where it's out of our eyesight."
But in this particular case it is neither here nor there, as Johnson ran for President on this platform and thus adopted it.
That's what running on a national ticket and being nominated by a national party complete with its platform means.
I have long argued that Johnson isn't really a Libertarian at all; he's a utilitarian and will ramrod the white-hot poker of the banksters up your kiester exactly as will and have both Democrats and Republicans. Force and fraud are tools that Gary is happy to see used so long as they go his way, not things to be eschewed or proscribed. He has taken utterly-incomprehensible positions on financial fraud and foreign policy for someone who claims to be Libertarian, with the latter including his assertion that we should go kill Kony (who has never done anything to America or Americans.)
For those who forget I interviewed Johnson in 2010 on blogtalk for an entire hour. I said at the time that I had to withhold my endorsement of both him and what he was trying to do, as I was simply not convinced that he was sincere in any meaningful way when it came to fixing what's broken in America.
The long list of articles I have penned on him since were designed to elicit some sort of positive response that would lead me to change my mind. After all, I sure as hell cannot vote for Obama again after all the lies he told and Mitt Romney is both a gun banner and a bankster stooge.
Unfortunately Gary Johnson has failed in this regard. I called for him to withdraw from the race in February before the party made its selection when, immediately following his "Nobody committed any crimes" line of crap, credible evidence was discovered that 84% of foreclosures in one county of California alone appeared to contain violations of the law. Johnson said nothing about this -- not then and not since -- and that was enough for me. From there the hits just kept piling up and now we have this insult as the final cherry on the cheesecake.
If you are Libertarian -- either formally or in your leanings -- you cannot vote for this man. I predict that this suit will be properly dismissed as both frivolous and wholly without merit as there is no causal link to commerce and consumers; after all votes cannot be legally traded in commerce.
That is how it should be, that is what I expect, and given that this stunt demonstrates nothing more than taking a whiz on the Party Platform that Johnson claims to be running under it certainly appears appropriate for National and the State Parties to issue formal resolutions of condemnation, censure and non-support.
I'm willing to bet they refuse and instead cheer despite the blatant and outrageous hypocrisy this clowncar of a campaign displays and by refusing to issue those condemnations they will confirm that the so-called "Party of Principle" is just another pack of political liars.
Goodbye National.
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=211859
ESTABLISHMENTLORI
One World bullshit you can't have it both ways so a personal attack just shows that you have nothing of substance to offer
End the friggin Fed. May Bernanke RIH
Good Luck, Gary
Feel free to speak plainly here, our last bastion of free speech. Like this:
End the fucking Fed. May the traitorous cunt Beranke forever rot in hell.
I was thinking BIH...but I get it now
...and Ben Swann should ask the questions.
Did he say the Fed, which is a private bank...on Fox?
Nice. Keep it coming...
i really admire ben swann....i am afraid however he is going to meet with the four shots to the head while his hands are tied behind his back as he jumps off a bridge to commit suicide....i have watched him ambush these guys after he agrees to their off limit topics and than hit them with a follow up...thanks ben swann for your courage