Bob Barr's letter to Libertarians about his potential run for US PRESIDENT

Dear friend,

I want your opinion and guidance.

What progress can a president make in four years? How about eight? Will the change be lasting?

Those are some of the questions that I wrestled with when developing my issue stances as part of my presidential exploratory committee.

I asked similar questions of myself while in Congress, especially when faced with a tough vote.

Sheer principle drives me to always take the path of liberty but it also drives me to be honest with myself to realize that sticking to principle means making lemonade when given a handful of lemons.

I'll give you a good example, which was my vote for the USA PATRIOT Act. As much it pained me, I cast an "aye" vote for the very piece of legislation that I oppose today. I could have easily voted against it and, believe me, I wanted to.

At the time of the vote, a few weeks after the attacks of September 11th, it was clear that law enforcement had a need to quickly identify and confront additional terrorists threats. There was also a need to protect our liberties in the future, long after an immediate threat had passed.

Rather than casting a no vote, I used the influence that I had with my fellow members of Congress and negotiated a sunset provision for some of the most intrusive aspects of the USA PATRIOT Act. This led to a requirement to reauthorize those provisions, which put those issues back on the table and up for debate long after I left Congress.

In a recent Newsweek article about Bob Barr, George Will wrote of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law: "If libertarian voters cost McCain the presidency, that will be condign punishment."

Since Bob formed his presidential exploratory committee, the news has been on CNN, Hannity and Colmes, C-SPAN and a variety of other programs. Please visit his website to catch up on how the mainstream media is reacting to Bob's threat to status quo politics in Washington, DC.

The same situation applies to the Defense of Marriage Act, which I authored in order to short circuit the Republican Party's powerful move to ban gay marriage on the Constitutional level. My plan worked. States maintain their rights in relation to same-sex marriage and civil unions.

In a perfect nation, the government would have no role at all in marriage. It is a private, personal contract between two consenting adults to be recognized by the church and society. . . not the state.

In a perfect nation, there would also be no personal taxes and everyone would agree to play nice and respect the privacy, property and life of another.

The pressing reality is that the perfect nation and the perfect government do not exist. It is something that lovers of liberty must fight for, step-by-step and day-by-day.

As a libertarian, I believe in maximum liberty. You should be free to live your life as you choose. You should be free to make decisions, right or wrong, in the way that you see is best for yourself and your family. That freedom should be sustained as long as you do not use force or fraud against another.

Libertarianism is a simple philosophy that balances peace and responsibility. I do believe that one day we can live under such a society. However, we have a long and rocky road ahead to get there.

That is why it is important that we always choose the path of liberty. We will be faced with blocks and hurdles but even if inching forward, we must make progress down a road to freedom.

That is why I have formed the Barr 2008 Presidential Exploratory Committee. The choices offered by the two major parties are steps away from freedom, not toward freedom.

We need a better choice for America.

In my opinion, a strong libertarian candidate is that better choice.

I ask that you help me decide on entering this race by showing your strong support for a potential presidential run.

I passionately feel that the time for real change is now and I am confident that a strong Libertarian presidential campaign will have a lasting impact for liberty in our nation.

It is up to you to show me if that is possible.

Please send me a message so that I can send them in a message of liberty in 2008.

Visit BobBarr2008.com to let your voice be heard and to make a generous donation today. Also please take advantage of the features of my web site to tell your friends and family about this effort.

I deeply appreciate your time and your support.

In Liberty,

Bob

Paid for by Barr 2008 Presidential Exploratory Committee.

Federal law requires us to report the name address, and name of employer and occupation for any individual whose aggregate contributions total over $200 in a calendar year. Corporate contributions and gifts from foreign nationals are prohibited. Personal Credit Card gifts only. Contributions are not tax deductible for income tax purposes. Limit of $2,300 per person per election and $4,600 per couple if signed by both parties and drawn on a jointly held bank account. For more information on legal requirements click here.

Arash Markazi: Kobe relishes being�back in the hunt - Arash Markazi - SI.com

First, Speedo's new swim suit, the Racer LZR comes out but is called illegal as it is only in limited production and not available to all athletes. And, there is the cloud of wonder if it breaks the rules by offering some boyancy.

Now comes Kobe and his new sneaker, not yet released. It will put spring in his jump.

Oh my gosh. What will the competitors do now? Rocket packs to jet around the court?

Arash Markazi: Kobe relishes being�back in the hunt - Arash Markazi - SI.com: "If the ad for the Nike Hyperdunk seems off-the-wall, Bryant's description of the shoe, which won't be released until July, just before he wears them in the Olympics, is equally bizarre.

'I'm a Discovery Channel lunatic,' he says. 'I get a lot of inspiration from animals and sharks and how they use their natural abilities. I wanted to incorporate that into my shoe. If I get too Jedi on you, let me know, but I get into a room with the designers and I'm telling them about myself and how I play. When they come back with this shoe, it's literally a part of you, if that makes any sense whatsoever.'"

In other Olympic news -- golf does NOT need to become an Olympic sport again.

WPIAL : Coaching Openings -- Golf anyone?

Here is an easy job for someone who wants to get out on the links more next year!

WPIAL : Coaching Openings: "CENTRAL CATHOLIC looking for Head Junior Varsity Boys Golf Coach. Previous experience coaching preferred by not necessary. Candidates must have all current clearances. Must be available to work afternoons. Contact Corey O'Connor at 412/613-8982. Deadline July 3, 2008.

Hi Corey!

Shaler hires Gordon as offensive coordinator - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

Thank goodness.

Shaler hires Gordon as offensive coordinator - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: "Former Penn Hills football coach Neil Gordon will be back on the sidelines next season as Shaler's offensive coordinator."

Remember the Titans!

Where's My Refund?

Where's My Refund?: "To get to your personal refund information, be ready to enter your:

*
Social Security Number (or IRS Individual Taxpayer Identification Number)
*
Filing status (Single, Married Filing Joint Return, Married Filing Separate Return, Head of Household, or Qualifying Widow(er))
*
Exact refund amount shown on your return"

Camp Wellstone to host a session in Northern Va

If you want to work full-time in the political world, as a candidate, a campaign manager or a local organizer, this is a great educational opportunity.

Wellstone Action - Camp Wellstone: Camp Wellstone
Camp Wellstone: Northern Virginia from 5/9 - 5/11/08

Register today!

Backpacker Magazine - Enjoy Pittsburgh in 60 Minutes

Backpacker Magazine - Enjoy Pittsburgh in 60 Minutes: With plans for the world's longest urban linear park (it'll cover 128 miles along the city's rivers) in the works, Pittsburgh is quickly becoming a serious bike town. Get a preview on a 25-mile circuit starting at the Smithfield Street Bridge. Pedal the Eliza Furnace Trail upriver to the Panther Hollow Trail. Follow this rolling macadam to the 300-acre Schenley Park for a lung-burning one-mile loop. Then lollipop back onto Panther and head toward the city again on Eliza Furnace. bike-pgh.org

New Chairs for City Council on various committees

City Council redo of its committee structure.

Harris = Public Works
Deasy = Intergovernmental Affairs
Kraus = Public Safety
Motznik = General Governmental Services (internal, purchasing)
Payne = Human Resources (employee benefits)
Dowd = Urban Recreation
Peduto = Finance and Law
Burgess = Land Use and Economic Development

No big news.

Shields = council's president.

The only thing that stands out in my view is the tiny assignment given to Jim Motiznik. Perhaps if he behaves for the next six month's they'll put some added burden into his realm of responsibility: I'd suggest push-carts and stadium vendors / ticket scalpers got into the domain of the committee of General Governmental Services.

Matress Factory, greening, Earth Day

Paperless memberships to this blog, Mark Rauterkus and Running Mates, have been offered, in honor of Earth Day, for the past 25 years.

This paperless membership program was the first in the history of the internet.

Pittsburgh Earth Day . com

Stop Teacher Strikes Website

Stop Teacher Strikes Website 2008 CANDIDATE SURVEY

Rhode Island Univ. Eliminate Men's Swimming

CollegeSwimming.com::Rhode Island Latest to Eliminate Men's Swimming: "The University of Rhode Island announced that four NCAA Division I intercollegiate athletics programs will be discontinued, effective at the end of the 2007-08 academic year. Sports affected will be: men's swimming, men's tennis and field hockey. The discontinuation of gymnastics had been previously announced.

This is your brain on Council: Theory: 'An obstacle downstream propagates upstream.

Vedana - Eric Case's Weblog 'An obstacle downstream propagates upstream. If you're not allowed to implement new ideas, you stop having them. And vice versa.

When you can do whatever you want, you have more ideas about what to do.

So working for yourself makes your brain more powerful in the same way a low-restriction exhaust system makes an engine more powerful.'

That explains most of what happens on Grant Street and the people there.

In a time of crisis, the ones that made the crisis are least capable of fixing it.

City Council for Dummies -- or -- is it "of" ??

Hello Sir:

My name is "d" (name NUKED BY BLOGMASTER). This is rather unusual but I was wondering if you could help explain to me how our city council works.

I spend a good amount of time reading and your name seems to pop up frequently around causes I feel strongly about as well. While I am not a registered Libertarian, I do hold many of their beliefs about personal freedom and responsibility.

I guess I finally got fed up when I read the article in the PG about Councilman Burgess proposed use of discretionary funds. How can a government use public funds for something that does not benefit the entire community? From what I gather, he is going to give this foundation around $212,000. That is enough to employ four full time police officers for his district for an entire year.

This is just another example of the people making decisions in this city being poorly qualified for the position.

Last week, a house in the North Side was riddled with bullets from an assault rifle. This is the North Side, not the Gaza Strip. Also last week, task force officers were shot at during an arrest in St. Clair Village. Yet all last week, the council spent their time arguing the schematics of billboard legislation.

I know this is a big rant and your not at all responsible, but I guess I was just hoping to hear that someone else out there is fed up with status quo here and cares about this city enough to make changes.

Thank you for your time sir and I am sorry if this makes very little sense.

My reply via email:

Yes, life in Pittsburgh is fragile. We need to stay involved -- and do better in our government.

I've been ranting for years. It is good to know that some of the ranting helps -- and it is nice to know others listen from time to time.

First thing -- I'll take your rant below and turn it into a blog posting. And, I'll send you an invite to post on my blog. When you get rants like this -- we need to share them. Too many times, people don't care. So, apathy is the worst and first hurdle.

Next, if you'd want to be a Libertarian -- join us. But, that isn't necessary. I've got friends from all around the political landscape.

Call if you wish.....

My extended reply for the blog:

So, do you want to hear how city council is to work or should I explain what happens now. The way council behaves today and in the recent decades is NOT how it should happen. Hence, the city is in a terrible pickle.

Generally, council meets on Tuesdays to cast final votes. The standing committee meeting is on Wednesdays. Most of the council meetings and public hearings as well as post agendas are listed at my Google Calendar. You can subscribe to it and follow along. Feel free to go there and give them a piece of your mind as they often seem to miss place large chunks of theirs.

The meetings are to begin at 10 am -- but they never do. They are tardy and too timid to turn on the video cameras and audio before the start of the meeting. That would insure that the meetings happened on time.

On the Tuesday meetings members of city council give out a lot of proclamations. These are ways to kiss butt to mucky mucks in the community and endear votes in the future. The meetings then start 30 or 50 minutes later than the normal 20 minutes delay those days.

The purpose of city council is to pass legislation and to control the purse strings. The members of council like to play administrative roles too, and that is a big problem. Council should not be 3-1-1 operators. The role of council is to legislate. Write ordinances. And, of course, protect the public purse.

So, you are justified to be outraged with the $200K give-a-way of money by the new member on council, Rev. Ricky Burgess to a nonprofit.

City council has slush funds and other money tucked into remote parts of the city budgets, going back to 2001 era even. They spend some of that money in 2008. But, it came from 2003. Go figure.

Council members have been know to be crooked too. Twanda is in jail. Just ask some, like Tonya or Bruce about the one's that went before them.

Folly happens weekly. In most instances they run around in circles like a dog that chases its tail. The big issues of the city get little or no attention.

Perhaps it is a lack of common sense, creativity or real-world experience.

Generally, if you are good at council -- or if you are bad at council -- you get promoted to another role in government. Council is a stepping stone -- and you know who gets stepped upon -- the citizens and often public trust. But, at least there is a revolving door of sorts.

Now I'm not the smartest guy in the world either. I understand that. I've run for council twice -- both as a Libertarian. That's a sure fire way to 'not get the job' because only those of the D party win elections in Pittsburgh. But, my goals have never been to win the election as it is to fix the city. The city gets far along on the pathway to healing itself the day a "Libertarian" gets elected to public office, be it mayor, controller or member of city council.

Breaking the status quo by winning elections from outside of the D-party would be a huge break from tradition. Frankly, I don't want to walk in the legacy of what the local Ds have done to our city. I'd much rather raise a bit of dissent as best I can and avoid their slime.

But, there are many, many ways to help. Different strokes for different folks. Do what you can. And, don't burn out.

My ranting about Rev. Burgess and his give-a-way is below. Scroll down a few posts.

Water Polo Match from Saturday at Chatham with bonus clinic

This file comes from Blip.TV in Qucktime and takes a LONG time to load. it works, but it might take a couple of hours to load. Tip. Open a new tab in your browser and walk away. Turn down the volume on the computer.

Click To Play

Alan Keyes to announce break with GOP in Hazleton, PA :: AlanKeyes.com

Alan Keyes to announce break with GOP in Hazleton, PA :: AlanKeyes.com Alan Keyes to announce break with GOP in Hazleton, PA

HAZLETON, Penn. — Former Republican presidential candidate Alan Keyes has chosen April 15 to make a major announcement of his intentions, following indications he has broken with the GOP.

A life-long Republican who has increasingly cited the party's failure to match conservative rhetoric with actual performance in the political arena, Keyes said he will reveal his reasons for departing the GOP at a press conference scheduled for 8:30 pm ET, at the Best Western Genetti Inn in Hazleton, PA.

Radio gossip goes 'bitter'

Marty Griffin, KDKA Radio, says Pat Ford is making the rounds setting up TV news interviews. Perhaps he'll make a counter attack.

Ford is still getting paid.

That story about Barack Obama's "bitter" remark that got the pundits roaring this weekend was broken by citizen journalist Mayhill Fowler at the HuffPost's OffTheBus. An Obama supporter, Fowler didn't nearly anticipate the firestorm her post would cause. Her editor Marc Cooper describes the process of developing and posting the piece, noting that Fowler "employs a highly-personalized, reflective narrative style to her unconventional reporting – an approach that would be, indeed, non-grata, within the official campaign reporting bubble. It violates almost all of the conventions of traditional reporting (though not its ethical code) and that's what makes it all so damn interesting." Have we reached a new phase in journalism when a piece from an "amateur" can incite such a firestorm?

Fight high cost of textbooks with Open Source Ways

I've been a book publisher and a college book store worker. Some of the books that I put into the marketplace were used as college text books.

In recent years -- I've been an advocate of open source content and open source ways.

This is what victory looks like!

Faculty members fight high cost of textbooks: "He and hundreds of other faculty members have signed a statement of intent to use free, online, open-source textbooks whenever academically appropriate.

It is GREAT to see front page coverage of open source advancements.

By the way, I had "open source" planks within my run for public office since the year 2000.

Meanwhile, in another education story in today's newspaper, on the front page of the local section, is the story that Pgh Public Schools is extending the school day by 10-minutes starting in the fall of 2008.

The benefit for education would be 100-times greater if schools and the PPS district would shift to OPEN SOURCE materials compared to the extending of the school day by 10-minutes.

All the computers should be running on open source operating systems.

All the text books should be in migration to open-source licenses.

All the content generated by the district should be placed firmly into the public domain. And, those rich landscapes of insights need to be harvested, bundled, toiled with and turned to for every task.

City school day to be 10 minutes longer Pittsburgh Public Schools officials are hoping it will give them a new opportunity to show that every minute counts in the race to raise student achievement.

We should raise student achievement. And, I feel student achievement would soar to a much higher level by going to OPEN SOURCE materials throughout our public schools. This open source approach would do more than longer school days (by 10 blasted minutes) and do more to help the budgets as well.

Tartans : Extra! Extra! Read all about it!

The Tartan Online : Extra! Extra! Read all about it!“Extra! Extra! Read all about it!” was picked as the theme of Spring Carnival 2008. Many committee chairs believed that this theme would give organizations much freedom and flexibility in choosing a Booth topic.

On Friday, we went to see some improve at CMU. Our week included water polo at Chatham and W&J, a student tour at Duquesne Nursing, comedy at CMU, teaching at Pitt (of course), a seminar at USC (Upper St. Clair). Lots of college stuff can fill your week(s) in Pittsburgh.

Ron Paul's visit to Gettysburg

The Patriot News http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2008/04/ron_paul_campaigns_in_gettysbu.html
The Chambersburg Public Opinion http://www.publicopiniononline.com/ci_8865018
The York Daily Record (linked to by York Dispatch) http://www.inyork.com/local/ci_8896953
The Evening Sun http://www.eveningsun.com/ci_8901481

CBS 21 http://youtube.com/watch?v=oQjCSG-zDyg
NBC 8 http://www.wgal.com/video/15857028/index.html
ABC 27 http://www.whtm.com/news/stories/0408/510772_video.html
FOX 43 http://fox43.trb.com/news/?track=nav

Here are some video links of the Gettysburg rally to pass amongst our fellow Paul supporters.
Media Spot

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHmfgSwm9t4

Main Presentation
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/1238338/ron_paul_gettysburg_college_4_11_2008_p1_of_2/

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/1238938/ron_paul_gettysburg_college_4_11_2008_p2_of_2/

Here is another video link, this is from the press conference
http://www.vimeo.com/890032

Pittsburgh Pist-Gazette says "Thank You." I say I'm not convinced.

Pittsburgh Pist-Gazette: "One battle behind you, God knows how many more lie ahead. But together you can do it.

So far they delayed the building of a mega electronic sign on a new building.

I'll hold off on the praise and saying 'thank you' until there is something of serious consequence accomplished.

For example, I'll scream "thanks" under the clock at Kaufman's once there is a new law that FORBIDS all NO BID CONTRACTS for the city and all associated authorities.

Yes, this isn't just about the sign. And, it isn't just about what they claim to be 'due process' with the proper zoning board meetings. This is about 'No Bid Contracts.'

Getting to the roots of the real problems is what I'm wishing for from those five you mentioned. I've seen nothing to signal that they are headed for an attack on the roots of problems. I still only see them batting at the leaves on the tree of suffering.