January 17, 2008
No Racism, Just Sleazy Politics
Reason is a libertarian magazine of long standing. They now have an article up speculating on the origin of the infamous Ron Paul newsletters. I think Reason's explanation makes a lot of sense of the situation. They note that many veterans of the libertarian movement suspect Lew Rockwell was involved. Though Rockwell denies writing the articles, Reason brings up some interesting points about the history of Rockwell and another individual by the name of Murray Rothbard. The name Jeff Tucker also came up in association with the newsletters. This is the general picture: these people, Rockwell, Rothbard, and Tucker, apparently...
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September 5, 2007
Washington Primary System Case to be Heard By Supreme Court
The Washington Primary System case has been accepted by the supreme court and is, in fact, the very first case on the Supreme Court docket for the upcoming season, which begins Monday October first. All the documents are now online (the newest ones are at the bottom), including the reply briefs by the Republican, Democratic, and Libertarian Parties, and amicus briefs by the California Democratic Party (the plaintiff in the most important precedent, regarding California's blanket primary, which resembled Washington's original blanket primary), and the Democratic National Committee. Summaries of the arguments of each brief follow: The State of Washington...
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January 25, 2007
Washington Primary System Case Appealed to Supreme Court
The State of Washington and the Washington State Grange have appealed the Ninth Circuit Court's
ruling against I-872, the initiative of the people, authored by the Grange, establishing Washington's non-partisan "top-two" primary. The system was struck down by the district court and the Ninth Circuit after complaints by the Republican, Demcoratic, and Libertarian Parties. All the associated documents are
here (see the bottom of the page...
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November 8, 2006
Election Results
Well, the two Libertarian candidates I was watching most closely (Bruce Guthrie for senate from Washington and Michael Badnarik for congress from Texas) did not do nearly as well as I had hoped they might, but the election results are, in my opinion, far from being a total loss. Firstly, we have a Democratic house and an evenly split or Democratic senate, with a Republican president. This is good in two ways: (1) the Democrats have enough power to stop Bush from pushing his terrible ideas through the legislature, but not enough power to push their own terrible ideas through...
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March 23, 2006
The Invisible Hand Newsletter
I was recently introduced to The Invisible Hand, a newsletter being put out by the Rutgers Libertarians (that would be Rutgers University, in New Jersey). The first edition came out last November and was distributed at two campuses in New Jersey. Now the group wants to get a wider distribution, by having individuals and groups on various college campuses throughout the country print the newsletter from the internet and distribute it. I am planning to submit an article on positive rights and why libertarians don't believe in them (based on this post) for the next issue, which is due out...
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February 8, 2006
Update on Washington Primary System Case
The Ninth Circuit has still not released its decision in the Washington primary system case, but a WMA of the oral arguments is now online. The 45 minute audio file is worth listening to for a summary of the arguments. There is not a lot of legal jargon, and it is not boring. On the other hand, there is really nothing new here ...
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February 2, 2006
Status of Washington's Primary System
In September, I blogged on the present state of Washington's "top two" primary system. In brief, after being sued by the Republican, Democratic, and Libertarian parties to invalidate the "blanket primary," which allowed voters to vote for any one candidate for each office in the primary, regardless of party, and then sent the top vote getter from each party to the final election, voters passed on initiative a "top two" primary which permitted candidates for so-called "partisan" offices to list their party preference, but otherwise ignored parties, sending the top two vote-getters to the final election. In this system, we...
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September 9, 2005
Washington Initiative 872 Unconstitutional?!
So I got a ballot today for a county special election, and was looking on the web for more information about the proposition when I made a shocking discovery: On July 15, 2005, Washington initiative 872 was declared unconstitutional in federal court! What does this mean? Let me tell you...
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