It has been months now since the new healthcare reform bill was passed into law. As is so typical, this massive piece of legislation was passed with a sense of urgency so acute that leadership declared America could not afford to wait until legislators, their staff and the general public had time to thoroughly read the bill.

The truth comes out eventually, however. Much like the recently discovered exemption from Freedom of Information Act requirements for the SEC that was slipped into the equally massive and “urgent” financial reform bill, we are finally seeing what other insidiousness has been hiding in the fine print of the healthcare reform bill. It seems that all provisions in this poorly written and poorly conceived monstrosity need to be repealed as soon as possible.

One such disaster-waiting-to-happen is one of the revenue generating provisions used to claim that the healthcare reform bill was “paid for.” $17 billion in additional tax revenues is supposed to come from an onerous new IRS reporting requirement that any taxpayer with business income who spends over $600 in one year with one business will have to report those expenditures to the IRS. Mind you, this is a cumulative total of $600 in transactions in one year. This will involve so much extra accounting and paperwork that the IRS claims it will be unable to deal with it effectively, and even the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (to whom it should be a boon) has come out against it! Apparently they realize they will actually lose customers, especially small businesses, to bankruptcy because of this!

Gold dealers are especially alarmed by this provision, as most of their transactions easily top $600. This represents a significant outlay of time and paperwork and no additional revenue for businesses with which to hire people. Not to mention this makes every business a de facto IRS agent, as if they didn’t have enough to worry about already!

Of course, there is a tremendous outcry against this. Several other legislators also see how unreasonable this is and are trying to repeal it. However, this would simply mean that $17 billion in healthcare funding will have to come from somewhere else, and there are no good options. Taxes from some other equally bad collection scheme? Borrowing and more debt? Creating more money from thin air and adding to inflationary pressures?

The best answer, of course, would be to repeal the entire health care law, along with all other unconstitutional spending. But Congress is more likely to continue the shell game to cover the fact that we are broke and can afford none of this.

This whole idea of “paying for” new programs is a political euphemism that suggests that raising taxes is just as good as cutting spending since neither one increases the national debt. Raising taxes and overwhelming small businesses with paperwork and regulations still increases governmental burden on our fragile economy. But this is our government’s idea of “fiscal restraint” in action. Washington needs to stop creating new programs and spending so much money. That would be true fiscal restraint.

Lew Rockwell, the founder of the Mises Institute and the most popular liberty-oriented website in the world, LewRockwell.com, has endorsed Keene’s activism! In an hour-long interview on Keene’s syndicated talk radio show, Free Talk Live, Lew called Keene “The northern capital of libertarianism” and suggested it was the “epicenter” of NH liberty activism. Lew identified himself as an “enthusiastic supporter” of the Free State Project, saying, “I definitely endorse the Free State Project”. About Keene, he said “[i] especially like what you guys are doing in Keene”, adding that activists “do amazing things here”.

Thank you Lew for your visit to Keene, the great interview, and the excellent endorsements. I’m adding them to the top of our Endorsements section of the 130 Reasons to Move to Keene!

All able bodied Americans ages 18 to 42 may have to report to Obama for 2 years of forced labor, NY government using Google Earth to find illegal swimming pools, the federal government requiring colleges to stop illegal file sharing, and a man wrongfully convicted of rape 27 years ago will be held in jail for an extra day so he doesn’t “freak out.”

http://www.freemindstv.com

Liberty-minded people called “Talkback” on WKBK last week to discuss KPD’s lemonade stand crackdown and the city council drinking game. Local activist supporter David calls in to share his thoughts about Keene’s liberty activists. One of the local “dissenters” group calls in as well.

Grab the archive.

Please join us for our weekly chat and calling sessions on Saturday mornings from 9a-12p. If you’re in the Keene area you can tune in to WKBK 1290 AM or 104.1 FM. The Talkback discussion thread is here on the Free Keene Forum.

David K was recently in Nashua District Court for his arrest at the Nashua 420 rally during Liberty Forum. He explained to the court exactly why he did what he did that day.

Click for Audio of David’s Closing Speech and Verdict

Text of Speech:

I do not expect to be acquitted, so it is very important that I be allowed to explain the events and why they occurred on March 20th 2010. I am accused of what is essentially civil disobedience not for myself, but on behalf of another individual, so this explanation will have some personal beliefs that are philosophical in nature, please hear me out. This will take about 5 or so minutes.

Of course this trial is all about what I did on March 20 2010. But let me start with the following first;
Lewis Labatue was arrested for smoking pot, I believed the arrest was wrong, so knowing I could not stop it, attempted to delay it and to demonstrate the cruelty and violence behind the arrest. I did this by choosing to stand in front of the car that was to transport Mr. Labatue. I chose this form of civil disobedience in the spirit of Dr. Martin Luther Kings teachings. I did no violence, made no effort to harm anyone, but the means I chose achieved both ends. It did delay the law enforcers aggression, and the law enforcers over the top reaction to it was classic, and demonstrated the cruelty and violence that lay at the foundation of the war on people who use some drugs better, than 80 years of preaching prohibition era rethoric. In fact, only releasing the attack dog or pepper spraying my eyes would have demonstrated the basic inhumanity of the law enforcers aggression against peaceful people better.

It is a shame to put one man in a cage for a nonviolent so-called crime, that is, to separate him from society, it is tyranny when thousands are put in cages for nonviolent so-called crimes.

The war on people who use some drugs has been going on for all of my 28 years. Every single argument I could make based on logic and fact has been repeated elsewhere ad nauseam since they were used to argue for the repeal of alcohol prohibition some 80 or so years ago. History repeats because humans are a violent species that believes the Utopian ideal that if one uses enough of the right kinds of force all our troubles will be fixed. A sad and common truism of history, is that humans rarely learn from history.

It is a shame that to right any wrong, a great deal of suffering must take place. Every new law is an attempt to ‘fix’ a bad one. Do you ever ask yourself, how many otherwise peaceful individuals were hurt by the bad law, before it was finally ‘fixed’….. How many families were disrupted, how many children cried, how many jobs lost, because it took awhile for a bad law to be fixed?….. Because humans frequently try to remake the wheel in terms of right and wrong, Our law-books are a pile of broken wheels. They are monuments of mistakes, all of them backed up with force. Right and wrong do not change just because a law enforcer tells me if I don’t comply he is going to hurt me. Right and wrong do not change because a majority votes one way or another. How can the people, any people, no matter how big the majority, make the government do what they as individuals cannot do?….. Of course, they do all the time, and that brings us back to the monuments of mistakes and bad laws leading to untold amounts of suffering.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Right and wrong, law and order, and basic societal stability are not new concepts, and are in fact thousands of years old. So when basically violent and stupid humans do occasionally learn from history, they notice customs that when followed tend to produce a more peaceful and prosperous society. These customs came to be called natural law. Natural Law understanding and acceptance was probably strongest in colonial era America, and it is deeply ingrained in the colonial era literature, and custom. Natural law concepts are found in every society and virtually every religion. This commonality is how it came to be called natural law, because it is law that is naturally occuring. Murder and theft are not illegal because some government says it should be, it has always been wrong to harm another. It is not a failure of natural law that in typically male dominated human society that rape was not always considered illegal. It is a failure of people of goodwill to stop those who would harm any women, because it has always been wrong to harm another, it does not matter what some words on paper, or some person in authority says. The same could be said of human slavery, and jim crow racism and segregation. Why on earth did it take so long to put an end to such crueltry?

Where were the law enforcers when women were treated as property, and minorities were treated as animals?….. Unfortunately they were usually upholding the unjust system. More monuments of mistakes, and a trail of tears at the base of the monument.

Natural law is taught in the bible, and was socially accepted and generally followed and taught to the next generation, in fact, you were without doubt, taught it as a child, and of course is reflected in the following places:

The Jewish and Christian bible write them as love your neighbor as you love God, do not bear false witness, do not kill, do not steal, Do undo others, etc. Natural law concepts are found in every society and virtually every religion. This commonality is how it came to be called natural law, because it is law that is naturally occuring.

The United States Declaration of independence is a bible of natural law thoughts and affirmations. It refers to “unalienable rights”, and “laws of nature”, and a clear recognition that government can become destructive to these ends.

In the United States Constitution most of the Bill or rights outline principles that are directly derived from natural law, including the most ignored amendment in the US Constitution the 9th amendment that states:
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. Ratified 12/15/1791.

and or course the N H Constitution has the following to say:

Article 1. [Equality of Men; Origin and Object of Government.] All men are born equally free and independent; therefore, all government of right originates from the people, is founded in consent, and instituted for the general good.
[Art.] 2. [Natural Rights.] All men have certain natural, essential, and inherent rights – among which are, the enjoying and defending life and liberty; acquiring, possessing, and protecting, property; and, in a word, of seeking and obtaining happiness. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by this state on account of race, creed, color, sex or national origin.
[Art.] 3. [Society, its Organization and Purposes.] When men enter into a state of society, they surrender up some of their natural rights to that society, in order to ensure the protection of others; and, without such an equivalent, the surrender is void.
[Art.] 4. [Rights of Conscience Unalienable.] Among the natural rights, some are, in their very nature unalienable, because no equivalent can be given or received for them. Of this kind are the Rights of Conscience.
[Art.] 10. [Right of Revolution.] Government being instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security, of the whole community, and not for the private interest or emolument of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, whenever the ends of government are perverted, and public liberty manifestly endangered, and all other means of redress are ineffectual, the people may, and of right ought to reform the old, or establish a new government. The doctrine of nonresistance against arbitrary power, and oppression, is absurd, slavish, and destructive of the good and happiness of mankind.

With the influence of the great writer Richard J. Maybury, I have distilled the basics of natural law into the following 3;

1. ‘Do not do unto others’ as you do not want done to you. (The basis of Reciprocal Rights, Mercy and Equality)
2. ‘Do not commit fraud’. (Contractual Law, basis of stability and long term planning)
3. ‘Do not encroach’ on other individuals or their property. (Tort Law, basis of peace, goodwill)

Natural law tells you not to harm, it does not tell you to be nice, or to give your money to others, or to do what your mother wants you to do. It is essentially negativist in concept, to harm is an action, or in the case of negligence, unwise accidental action, and if no harmful actions are done, than you have justice, as well as peace, goodwill, and general prosperity. If I assault a person, or threaten to assault a person, or interfere with the peaceful and private activities of another, I am guilty of violating natural law. However, if I interfere with a person who is actively harming another who has harmed no one, I am in fact, attempting to uphold natural law. If government law tells you to harm another individual who has harmed or threatened no one, then defiance of government law is compliance with natural law. This is not anarchy, but rather it is the basis for a profound respect for human rights and natural law.

The destruction and damage to peoples lives far in excess of anything a drug itself does, must stop. Drug prohibition has gone on long enough and must end, and the struggle to end it must start somewhere. Since redress seems to be ineffectual, to quote the NH constitution;
The doctrine of nonresistance against arbitrary power, and oppression, is absurd, slavish, and destructive of the good and happiness of mankind. As the ends will always be influenced by the means used, and frequently dictated by the means, I have chosen peaceful civil dis., openly, honestly, and while it is hard to have brotherly love for a violent oppressor, I hold no malice towards them.

In Summary, the Law Enforcers harmed Mr. Labatue by arresting him for a crime in which there is no victim. In doing so the Law Enforcers were committing aggression against him, thus violating natural law. I believe the individuals who work for the state of NH have been in rebellion of natural law long enough, and that it was time to exercise the Right or Rebellion by doing peaceful civil dis in the form of blockading the car being used to transport Mr. Labatue to a cage.
I am sorry that I inconvenienced the law enforcers, and I am glad that no injury came to them, despite the anger of my friends that day who were witnessing. As part of my civil disobedience I will not pay fines to an aggressive gov’t so that they can continue to aggress, but I will accept jail, or community service that does not benefit any gov’t agency.

Check out the information provided by the Conspiracy as we look at how a current issue — that there are murderers on the run in Yellowstone Park — sheds light on a larger principle: the right to self-defense. Here, Gardner Goldsmith reviews some of the history of the Second Amendment, and he goes further, asking a simple moral question: Why should some people tell other people whether they can hold a weapon, or anything else, in their hands?

Be Seeing You!

[Audio clip: view full post to listen]

Last night a group of peace-loving activists decided to spread their message using sidewalk chalk, a medium constantly used on the sidewalks of downtown Keene, and which can be removed by a light rainfall or lawn sprinkler.  However, according to the always factual Keene Sentinel, when used to apply pro-peace messages to pro-violence monuments, this once harmless and not even semi permanent art form takes on the properties of vandalism.

Central Square defaced By Kyle Jarvis
Sentinel Staff

Published: Thursday, August 12, 2010

The Civil War Monument in Central Square was defaced with political messages.

The monument, which features a statue of a soldier, was discovered this morning to have been drawn on with sidewalk chalk.

“Obama lied,” and “stop paying taxes” were written in chalk, along with “taxes>theft” and peace symbols.

A peace symbol was also drawn on one of the cannons in the park, and a fuse box had the words “stop paying taxes.”

Several other statements were also written in chalk on the sidewalks in the park, including “innocent people don’t belong in cages,” and “no victim, no crime.”

It’s unclear whether the messages written in the area of the monument are related to those written on the sidewalk, or whether the same people were involved.

The chalk was washed off the monument this morning.

See the article here.

Here are some photos of the beautiful activist artwork that brightened up Keene Central Square.  More can be found at the Keene Central Square’s Nightcap Facebook Page. Here’s a direct link to all the photos.

Here’s a PDF of a letter that Capuzzo sent me from jail in Massachusetts. I’ve just shipped him a copy of Dr. Mary Ruwart’s “Healing our World” and Lysander Spooner’s “No Treason”. You can give him something to do in there by sending him (and other NH activists like Rich Paul) mail via mail-to-jail!

On WKBK yesterday morning, politician Bob Guida, who is running for “US Representative” was on with Al Kulas. As much as I wanted to ask him about his desire for a police state (”immigration” being his excuse), I decided to go with secession questions. Here’s the archive.

Keene Sentinel columnist Steve Gilbert has written a piece appearing in today’s paper:

So what do you make of Free Keene? Any idea what it wants?

The local group — it may or may not be an arm of the N.H. Free State Project — gleefully moved into City Council chambers last week with its so-called “Keene City Hall drinking game.”

In it, several members of Free Keene wanted to give the appearance of drinking bottled beer during the City Council meeting, though “not a beer” was printed on the labels.

As expected, the mayor, city councilors and police were unable to ignore what most of us would consider a spectacle of disrespect and took action.

Two people at the meeting were arrested on charges of disorderly conduct, a commonplace result of the group’s actions over the last year or so.

Like a recurring dance, Free Keene’s members routinely challenge — you could even say taunt — local police to arrest them as they straddle the line of the law.

Sometimes police move in and make arrests; many times they don’t.

Their actions haven’t directly endangered the public, but they do potentially tie up police if more serious situations are developing across the city. And that has happened.

Free Keene members want to wring publicity out of their actions, from stories in the press to videos they shoot themselves and post on their website, freekeene.com. No doubt they’d love to catch the police in a moment of anger, trip them up, so to speak, and capture it on camera.

It’s pretty obvious the police, in turn, are using restraint. It’s like a strange cat-and-mouse cartoon, with the mouse trying to tempt the cat into something foolhardy.

Free Keene members also appear regularly on Cheshire TV, host a syndicated radio talk show on WKBK and are regular callers on talk shows hosted by others.

Hard to say how many people are Free Keene members, but the same dozen or so are consistently seen and heard in a city of more than 22,000.

At the Pumpkin Festival last October, when the daily “4:20” pot smoking protests were percolating in Central Square, hundreds of festival-goers watched police arrest four people accused of smoking marijuana in front of city hall.

In the interim, we’ve witnessed several demonstrations of disobedience, including the recent baring of breasts in Central Square.

Thursday’s “drinking game” seems to have ratcheted things up a bit. The story was picked up by the Associated Press and went national — I read it on the websites of the Houston Chronicle and Toronto Sun. It’s a great way for Free Keene to attract recruits from around the country.

Free Keene’s own detailed website is updated constantly and the “drinking game” right now is a huge feature, complete with video. And since the first one was such a success, well, you know what’s coming.

“Plans are in the works for the next City Council drinking game, Aug. 19th, 7 p.m. Mark your calendar, it’s going to be a special event,” was posted this morning.

So what do you think of Free Keene?

In talking with many people in breakfast nooks over the weekend, ball games during the week and downtown at lunchtime, it seems the group doesn’t have much public support.

Interestingly, “petulant” is used quite a bit. Many say they are perturbed that group members are trying to embarrass Keene. And there is anger that Central Square is often used as the group’s staging area.

When you see online reader comments in out-of-town newspapers, it’s apparent quite a few people think Keene is bubbling over with “loonies.”

Free Keene uses the phrase “peaceful evolution,” in describing its goals. Liberty, individual rights and less government are all blanket catchphrases under that philosophy.

As for the Free State Project, an initiative to attract 20,000 pro-liberty activists to New Hampshire, it seems considerably tamer than Free Keene. It claims its primary goal is to get like-minded people to move here, but emphasizes not through civil disobedience.

You can see the philosophical similarities and differences through their websites.

Both even double as quasi chambers of commerce, as they try to attract new members. The Free State Project touts 101 reasons to move to New Hampshire and Free Keene touts 130-plus reasons to move to Keene. Dozens of them highlight the best our regions have to offer, outside of government and politics.

Free Keene even has these nuggets on its website: “Keene cops not as nasty as bigger cities like Manchester.”

And, “Keene bureaucrats tend to not be as unfriendly as bureaucrats in other cities.”

But here’s the kicker, and the absolute truth:

“Establishment confused, angry, and unsure of what to do about liberty activism in Keene. … It must be frustrating to be a bureaucrat or politician in Keene.”

by William L. Anderson

As one who often writes about courts and prosecutorial misconduct, I must admit to having no confidence anymore in American judges having any integrity at all. One of the defining moments for me came in the Tonya Craft case in North Georgia when the judge, Brian House, literally took cues from the prosecutors during the trial, as they gave him hand signals and other indications of what he needed to do in certain situations.

read more

Here’s the video the people calling themselves “The City of Keene” don’t want you to see:

After reviewing their city council rules, city ordinances, and state laws; Dale Pregent seems to have made up the rules barring alcoholic beverage containers (not containing alcohol) in order to target free speech. When the Police Chief Ken Meola is unable to determine what is in the closed containers held by Ian  Freeman and Sam Dodson, they were arrested for refusing to consent to search. The video clearly shows, Heika – who consented to the search – being told “your fine”  as she remained in the meeting drinking from her bottle.

Let’s not forget they did all of this on live TV with the community watching.  Plans are in the works for the next City Council Drinking game, Aug. 19th, 7pm. Mark your calendar, it’s going to be a special event.

Keeniac Adam Mueller IS Uncle Sam:

See more vids at LibertyonTour.com

Our friend, super activist, and Keene resident Rich Paul continues to sit in jail (on purpose) in brave protest of the horrible drug war that infects our society.  The drug war is the justification used by the government to steal a great deal of our freedom and is from my experience largely attributable to why so many people feel that the police hurt more than help.  Like many brave souls before him, Rich continues to live without freedom so that one day a bad law/policy may come to a crashing end.

A Free Talk Live website contributor (thanks Xpansive) has submitted the following video to the new and improved FTL website which allows the listeners to suggest show content.  I find the video touching…  and I think that everyone, especially drug war supporters, should watch it.  If you do not want to use mind altering substances, that is a respectable decision…   just please don’t attack peaceful people who choose opposite.

by Bretigne Shaffer

So now the cheerleaders for war would have us believe that they are more concerned for the welfare of Afghan civilians than are those who wish to end the US occupation.

First we have White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs sanctimoniously imploring the editors of Wikileaks not to post more information that the administration believes might endanger the lives of local Afghan informants:

"You have Taliban spokesmen in the region today saying they're combing through those documents to find people that are cooperating with American and international forces," said Gibbs. "They're looking through those for names, they said they know how to punish those people."

read more

Howdy!

Welcome back to the Conspiracy, where we plot and plan and scheme and conspire for a freer world. In this program, El G Grande nails down many of the breaking stories that are key to seeing beyond the curtain of gubment, that help us understand the difference between a free society and the government. In this show, Gard discusses the news that more Afghan civilians dies in July than in the month prior, the news that Americans are being photographed naked in airports and the pics are being kept by the gubment, and the fact that the number of federal mortgage “aid” recipients who are defaulting on their loans is six times higher than originally reported!

NICE!

Enjoy, and work for freedom!

Join us at www.libertyconspiracy.com!

Be Seeing You!

[Audio clip: view full post to listen]

Last week the National Bureau of Economic Research published a report on the effect of civilian casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq that confirmed what critics of our foreign policy have been saying for years: the killing of civilians, although unintentional, angers other civilians and prompts them to seek revenge. This should be self-evident.

The Central Intelligence Agency has long acknowledged and analyzed the concept of blowback in our foreign policy. It still amazes me that so many think that attacks against our soldiers occupying hostile foreign lands are motivated by hatred toward our system of government at home or by the religion of the attackers. In fact, most of the anger towards us is rooted in reactions towards seeing their mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers and other loved ones being killed by a foreign army. No matter our intentions, the violence of our militarism in foreign lands causes those residents to seek revenge if innocents are killed. One does not have to be Muslim to react this way, just human.

Our battle in Afghanistan resembles the battle against the many-headed Hydra monster in Greek mythology. According to Former General Stanley McChrystal’s so-called insurgent math, for every insurgent killed, 10 more insurgents are created by the collateral damage to civilians. Every coalition attack leads to 6 retaliatory attacks against our troops within the following six weeks, according to the NBER report. These retaliatory attacks must then be acted on by our troops, leading to still more attacks, and so it goes. Violence begets more violence. Eventually more and more Afghanis will view American troops with hostility and seek revenge for the death of a loved one. Meanwhile, we are bleeding ourselves dry, militarily and economically.

Some say if we leave, the Taliban will be strengthened. However, those who make that claim ignore the numerous ways our interventionist foreign policy has strengthened groups like the Taliban over the years. I’ve already pointed out how we serve as excellent recruiters for them by killing civilians. Last week I pointed out how our foreign aid, to Pakistan specifically, makes it into Taliban coffers. And of course we provided the Taliban with aid and resources in the 1980s, when they were our strategic allies against the Soviet Union. For example — our CIA supplied them with Stinger missiles to use against the Soviets, which are strikingly similar to the ones now allegedly used against us on the same battlefield, according to those Wikileaks documents. As usual, our friends have a funny way of turning against us. Manuel Noriega and Saddam Hussein are also prime examples. Yet Congress never seems to acknowledge the blowback that results from our interventionism of the past.

Our war against the Taliban is going about as well as our war on drugs, or our war on poverty, or any of our government’s wars — they all tend to create more of the thing they purport to eradicate, thereby dodging any excuse to draw down and come to an end. It is hard to imagine ever “winning” anything this way.

We have done enough damage in Afghanistan, both to the Afghan people, and to ourselves. It’s time to re-evaluate the situation. It’s time to come home.

NPR:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129077277

AP:
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/bizarre/7144804.html

The Toronto Sun (theirs is the best story outside of NH, as they actually bothered to look at FreeKeene.com for our perspective on things):
http://www.torontosun.com/news/world/2010/08/08/14962111.html

New Yorkers are rolling in the aisles. The summer of our discontent (economic, political, you name it) has been made glorious circus by the race for the governor’s seat. A clown car of candidates is lurching round the ring. This year’s Volkswagen — or is it a Volt? — is almost totally filled by state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. His war chest is bulging, his poll numbers mighty. When New York’s venerable Republican machine chose former Congressman Rick Lazio as challenger to Cuomo they knew what they were doing. Who can forget how Lazio wiped the floor with Hillary Clinton in the alternate reality version of the 2000 senate race?

Annoyingly, Lazio won’t be the sole candidate in the Republican primary. Carl Paladino, a wealthy Buffalo-based developer, has managed to shoulder his way onto the ballot.

Paladino paints himself a political outsider. Using the Tea Party as launching pad, recycling Howard Beale’s “mad as hell” line from Network. (I wish populists, genuine and otherwise, would give that line a rest; they never seem to realize that Beale, though a sympathetic character, was supposed to be insane.) Political outsider Paladino rents miles of office space to government in a state where public contracts are typically 4 Cronies Only. Tenants include the Department of Transportation, the Department of Environmental Conservation, the State Thruway Authority, the State University of New York (SUNY) and the state Assembly. Paladino’s multi-million dollar leases are long time affairs. Think decades. Taxpayers can’t renegotiate. The Department of Transportation alone pays $94,000 a month for digs in depressed post-industrial Buffalo. Paladino’s other properties include commercial strips and residential developments blessed with tax breaks such as Empire Development Zone (EDZ) property tax abatements.

(New York’s EDZ program was recently jettisoned; too much waste, too few results. Taxpayers who picked up the slack won’t receive refunds.)

Carl Paladino gives as good as he gets. The almost half-a-mil in known donations he’s doled out directly and through assorted corporations and partnerships to a host of pols from both parties for the last ten years were “donations to good government.”* Take heart cynics! If Paladino managed to find so many worthy public servants in New York, reform must be just around the corner. Paladino’s political philosophy includes the belief that reform might best be accomplished by “a benevolent dictator.”

Like, how fresh an attitude is that for a New York pol?

Almost as fresh as madcap political consultant Roger Stone. His minions have been spotted advising Paladino. Stone goes back to Nixon. (Nixon’s face is tattooed on his back I kid you not.) Stone has another horse in the race; Manhattan madam Kristin Davis. Davis is running on a libertarian platform, though not the official Libertarian ticket. (The official Libertarian candidate is Warren Redlich, an attorney from Guilderland in Albany County.) Davis was allegedly one of the pimps and pimpettes who supplied X Governor Eliot Spitzer with hookers. Despite her qualifications and an upbeat platform focused on legalizing drugs, prostitution, and gay marriage, Davis doesn’t look likely to win. At present she’s not even on the ballot.

Carl Paladino is currently behind Rick Lazio in polls. But the gap is closing. (Losing the primary might be a silver lining for Lazio. Word has it he’s been offered a role on Mad Men, playing a Don Draper underling.) Both are far behind Andrew Cuomo. But Cuomo’s numbers have dipped slightly. Hey — anything can happen in New York. See Eliot Spitzer.

In 2006, when Andrew Cuomo was running for state attorney general, the office Spitzer held before becoming governor, Cuomo campaign lit featured a pic of a large pair of shoes headlined “Elliot Spitzer is Leaving Some Very Big Shoes to Fill.” No mention of Spitzer’s black socks. Which he allegedly kept on while trysting with hookers. Spitzer fessed to his ho habit after a paper trail of his laundered payments surfaced but the sock story may be apocryphal. It was spread by his obsessive arch foe, Roger Stone. (Stone’s blog still dishes Spitz.) Despite the foe thing, Stone hung in the same hooker circles as Spitzer and claimed to have heard the sock story straight from the horse’s mouth.

New York pols are nothing if not classy.

Though Andrew Cuomo seems shovel-ready for office, contributions continue to swell his war chest. (Lazio is sweeping up peanuts and Paladino is largely self-propelled.) Hard to figure why Cuomo’s contributors, an inordinate number of whom represent NYC real estate interests, think he still needs to campaign. He’s been stumping for years. Take those listening tours he went on as attorney general under his Community Partnership Initiative. I attended his August, 2008 appearance in Albany, the seat of state government. The crush of pols, bureaucrats, public contractors, and nonprofit players obviously saw Attorney General Cuomo as governor-in-waiting. Fealty was necessary. In Cuomo’s speech he inveighed against the growing trend of cynicism about government. He also joked about the $100 million he’d delivered to Albany Mayor Jerry Jennings when he (Cuomo) was head of HUD. A cynic sitting behind me (We Are Everywhere!) hissed “I’d like to know where it all went.”

Cuomo’s generosity to Albany/Jennings wasn’t singular. As HUD head, Cuomo made 25 visits to New York, about 5 times more than he made to other states.** In 2001, Cuomo’s final year at HUD, he announced that New York would receive $170 million for economic development along the Erie Canal. In 2002, Cuomo attempted to become Democratic candidate for governor of New York but lost out to Buffalo-based H. Carl McCall, the former state comptroller. As for the Erie Canal, info surfaced in 2003 that the quasi-public Canal Corporation, a sub entity of the quasi-public New York State Thruway Authority, had sold the shoreline development rights to a supporter of Republican Governor George Pataki for $30,000 via a bid process shrouded in murk. State Comptroller (then) Carl Hevesi rescinded the deal and Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, after investigating the matter thoroughly, gave the execs at the Canal Authority in Buffalo a real tongue lashing.

Earlier this year it seemed as if Andrew Cuomo might gift Albany Mayor Jerry Jennings anew. Making Jennings his running mate in the lieutenant governor slot. But Rochester Mayor Robert Duffy got the nod. (Cuomo cares about the whole state not just NYC.) This wasn’t the first time Jennings was rumored to be movin’ on up, only to remain mayor-for-life. 17 years and counting. Jennings was a big supporter of “Hillary!” for prez. Buzz was “Hillary!” would transport him to DC. Alas. No go. In my early blogging days I wrote quite a bit about Albany under Mayor Jennings. Then I got bored and moved out of town. How long can you go on about decrepit political machines, crony development deals, massive mortgage frauds, neglected blue collar neighborhoods, police scandals, drug trade, and violent crime? Who wants to be carper-for-life? Still, Jennings as potential lieutenant governor would have revitalized my interest.

Being lieutenant governor of New York is a laid back gig. Not much work, swell perks. State senator David Paterson said it all when Eliot Spitzer picked him for the job in 2006, “You get to fart in the executive bathroom.” (New York pols are nothing if not classy.) Spitzer’s resignation in early 2008 under a heap of scandal — but no criminal charges — forced Dave out of the bathroom and into the governor’s mansion. When Paterson mounted the throne it looked as if he might be the right man for the job. He seemed at ease with himself, able to work with others. A refreshing change after Spitzer, who’d been revealed as a petulant carpet chewer better at creating bad blood than being a negotiator or leader.

The relief was brief.

By 2009, after a series of political missteps Paterson’s popularity was seriously sagging. None the less, he was planning to run for governor in 2010. Which would have meant a primary contest for Andrew Cuomo against New York’s first African-American governor. Not only does Cuomo dislike contests (he prefers to be crowned) the racial politics would have been sticky. Cuomo played coy, making no formal announcement. Meanwhile other folks got busy. President Obama urged Paterson to drop out of the race, ostensibly fearing Paterson would hurt other NY Democrats come election day. Paterson refused. In early 2010 the New York Times, after weeks of hinting at bombshell revelations, pooped out a few Paterson scandals that by Empire State standards were barely there. But the cloud lingered in the minds of corruption-weary New Yorkers. And as the state budget collapsed on Paterson’s head he morphed into yet another petulant carpet chewer better at creating bad blood than being a negotiator or leader. Take his dealings with the state employee unions…

Disclosure: I’m pro-union. In both the private and public sector. Which is one reason why I’ll never be totally on board with conservatism or libertarianism or with the type of liberalism that’s gonzo for globalism. Yeah, unions are sometimes excessive and/or contribute to public corruption. But I just can’t get past my cynical suspicion that if it weren’t for unions American workers — both unionized and non — would be doing the dollar a day rag. In the case of public employee unions, the rights of labor and the rights of taxpayers have to be balanced. The budget crisis in New York State is pressing and it’s fair for union members to make sacrifices. It would also be fair if the state’s government-empowered developers gave up their tax breaks. And how about clawing back a few billion from New York’s multitudinous quasi-public authorities and corporations? As Eliot Spitzer said re the Canal Corporation, “These public authorities are to government what the off-balance-sheet partnerships were to Enron: It’s where you hide stuff.”***

But I digress. The subject is Governor Paterson. Paterson has done much of his negotiating with state employee unions in the news media. Dropping policy announcements like bombs. Making threats one day, then backing off the next. His state worker furlough plan failed when challenged in court (which Paterson and his staff should have anticipated) but still cost state government time and money as managers and administrators prepared for a massive disruption which never occurred. Paterson has been equally smooth on other fronts. For example, he shut down dozens of state parks as a budget cutting measure. A number of the targeted parks are tourism engines in financially strapped rural areas or the only places for outdoor recreation near urban ones. After a public outcry Paterson reopened the parks, covering the cost of operation by dipping into the state’s Environmental Protection Fund. Which he could have done from the start. But holding the parks hostage made the dip go down more easily.

Governor Paterson took office with the public strongly behind him. Now most New Yorkers can’t wait to see him go. Paterson likes to say he’s had to make tough budget cuts and doing so is always unpopular. Some truth there, but the real turn-off was how poorly he handled the process. He’s no longer taken seriously, just seriously disliked. As a negotiator, Paterson is petty, bullying, and erratic. As a leader, he’s proved incapable of inspiring New Yorkers to pull together in a crisis. And oh yeah — he’s long gone from the governor’s race. Andrew Cuomo is the only Dem big dog left standing.

Incidentally, if you don’t think Cuomo is capable of being a carpet chewer you don’t know his history.

King Cuomo, Lazio the Lesser, Paladino For The People. Which will it be? Gee. If it weren’t for the Roger Stone connection (that Nixon tattoo spooks me) I’d go for Kristin. Even as a write-in. At least she looks good — in a pimpette sort of way. And did I mention that she supports gun rights?

Carola Von Hoffmannstahl-Solomonoff
Mondo QT

*Is New York Ready for Carl Paladino?, Robert J. McCarthy and Tom Precious, Buffalo News 04/04/10

**HUD Scandals, Tad DeHaven, Downsizing the Federal Government, Cato Institute

***The Govercutor, Chris Smith, The City Politic, New York Magazine, 05/21/05

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