Posted on 10/31/2004 12:43:54 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
There's more than one Texan on the ballot for president this year.
Libertarian Michael Badnarik the only third-party or independent presidential candidate on the Texas ballot is from Austin.
Badnarik campaigned in Houston on Saturday and will spend the rest of his time on the trail in his home state.
"I'm a legitimate candidate from a legitimate party," he said at a gathering of about 25 people at a Clear Lake-area Fuddruckers.
Badnarik is actually on the ballot in more states than Ralph Nader. Badnarik is on 48 ballots. Nader is on 35.
Election Day could be a watershed year for the party, Badnarik said, if it is able to garner 1 million votes.
He's been traveling the country since January; he packed up his place in Austin, put all of his belongings in storage and hit the road.
Within five months he put 25,000 miles on his car.
He tries to get media attention wherever he goes, often doing six interviews a day with local media.
He has been largely ignored by the national press.
Badnarik was arrested in St. Louis for trying to gain admittance to the presidential debate.
"It's been like living on a roller coaster without getting off," he said of his bid for president.
He's spent about $1 million on his campaign, with $300,000 going toward TV ads in a few states, primarily New Mexico, Nevada and Arizona.
Badnarik is running, he said, because he can't vote for President Bush or Democratic candidate John Kerry and respect himself in the morning.
He cannot support a candidate who will continue the war in Iraq or operate government in a deficit, he said.
Badnarik, a computer consultant, stresses individual rights over government intervention, and limited regulation of business.
He says the war in Iraq is a failure and that there is no exit strategy. He has maintained that Libertarian philosophy supports gay marriages, arguing that government should not decide who can engage in a marriage contract.
The federal government's job is limited to three things, he said national defense, coining money and operating the post office. He says the government should not have a Department of Education, the Food and Drug Administration or the Environmental Protection Agency.
Badnarik says he wants to cost both Bush and Kerry the election, but at the same time he isn't packing his bags for the White House just yet.
"We are just beginning this fight," he said. "We will continue to exist, and we will restore liberty."
kristen.mack@chron.com
Bingo! And he's being supported by many of his fans around here...despite his obvious agenda of being nothing more then a spoiler.
Dirty Money from Soros? By Cliff Kincaid | October 28, 2004
In a major development that has national implications, a political party backed by billionaire leftist George Soros has been caught illegally involving itself in a New York Democratic primary, in order to defeat a tough-on-drugs District Attorney. Soros, who favors legalization of dangerous drugs, has been spending millions of dollars to put John Kerry in the White House.
The pro-Soros national media have refused to examine the implications of a ruling by New York State Supreme Court Justice Bernard Malone. He ruled that it was improper for the Soros-backed Working Families Party to get involved in a Democratic primary for DA and he referred the case to local prosecutors and New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer for a possible criminal investigation.
Using money from the Soros-funded Drug Policy Alliance Network, the Working Families Party influenced that DA race with mass mailings on behalf of David Soares, who was described by UPI as the "pro-drug legalization candidate for district attorney of Albany County." Soares is opposed to tough drug laws and wants drug criminals treated more leniently. Thanks to the money provided by Soros, he defeated incumbent District Attorney Paul Clyne in the Democratic primary. At the time of Clyne's defeat, Ethan Nadelmann of the Soros-funded Drug Policy Alliance Network said he was proud that his group had "contributed to this race." He went on to say that "what happened in Albany" has "national resonance." That suggested to some that Soros, if he is successful in putting John Kerry in the White House, would change the nation's anti-drug policy.
Soros, who lives in New York, has also contributed $150,000 to a California ballot measure, proposition 66, to overturn the three-strikes law, which mandates prison terms of 25-years-to-life for defendants convicted of a third felony. Proposition 66 would remove several crimes from the "serious felony" list. Voters passed the law in the wake of the 1993 murder of 12-year old Polly Klaas by a paroled felon. The law has been credited with a 32 percent decline in California's crime rate, versus a 13 percent drop for the rest of the nation.
Soros apparently believes that too many drug users and abusers have been put in prison under the law. But Proposition 66 won't just free drug traffickers and dopers. The website threestrikes.org has published the mug shots and rap sheets of criminals currently serving time under Three Strikes sentencing guidelines that will be released or have their sentences reduced if the measure passes.
One of them, Dean Bandarras-Ross, is a killer, once sentenced to life in prison and then released, who has a history of sexual violence. He is now being prosecuted for giving false or misleading information while registering as a sex offender. If convicted under the three-strikes law, he could get 25-years-to-life. But under Proposition 66, his sentence could be no more than five years, and he would be required to serve only half. From Albany to California and the nation as a whole, George Soros is throwing his money around. And the media have given him a free pass from scrutiny.
I'm with you on that. THEY call themselves "true" conservatives. Me, I don't see any difference between them and anyone else working to elect John Kerry.
Yes,that's but one of the published stories. :-)
I know. I posted several stories about Soros' unsavory conduct on the annual Mr. Leroy Dopitarian Tribute thread. They sure do get defensive of their sugar daddy when the truth is revealed.
Or accuse you of making baseless assumptions...despite the LP's own press release.
That too.
What point are you trying to make?
You'd said that Harry Browne claimed that America "deserved" to be attacked. He didn't. You were confusing causality with moral blame. Browne said that America's interventionist actions caused Muslim anger at the US, not that America morally deserved 9/11.
Being rich is not an action. Walking down a dangerous alley or meddling in foreign countries' affairs is.
A member in good standing of FORTRESS AMERICA,are you? And you use a nic claiming to be a "Commie Basher"? And just HOW,pray tell,did YOU ever "bash" a Commie...with your inability to read/comprehend/write cogent,logical English?
ROTFLMSO
That's odd. My Post #213 was in response to Cultural Jihad's #212 -- which immeadiately preceded it. I don't know how it came posted to your ealier post. Might be a computer glitch.
That said, I don't see anything so awful about Fortress America. May not be best for some of our "allies," but if it's best for America, well, shouldn't that be the priority concern?
What is our mission? Free Republic is dedicated to reversing the trend of unconstitutional government expansion and is advocating a complete restoration of our constitutional republic. Listed below are some of the issues we feel strongly about. Basically, we believe that the Founders designed our system of government in the form of a constitutionally limited republic, with maximum freedom intended for the people and minimum government control or interference into our personal lives and business affairs. The united states of America was intended to be a federation of sovereign states, each with its own constitution and state government. Governments at all levels -- federal, state and local -- were to be controlled by the people. Our Constitution explicitly restricts the power of our federal government; and our Bill of Rights guarantees that NO government may infringe upon our God given unalienable rights. This is to ensure that the real power remains close to home, with the states, the local governments and always in the hands of the people. We the People have granted our federal government limited powers to oversee certain things, such as national defense, interstate commerce, the postal service, the coining of money, and the operation of a court system. Most other powers now in the hands of the federal government were illegally usurped from the states and from the people. Somehow, over the years, our guiding principles of law, as set forth in the Constitution, have been eroded to the point that the federal government now has total control -- leaving the states impotent and the people as captive servants to the federal government. This must be reversed if we are to survive as a free Republic and a free people. We at Free Republic are determined to return the Constitution to its rightful place as the Supreme Law of the land as the Founders intended.
Name one.
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