In honor of Labor Day, apparently, media outlets have been putting in overtime, catching up to the trail left by Howie Rich and Americans for Limited Government in a swath of states across the country. Probably the biggest news of the long weekend came this morning, when the network pulled up stakes and abandoned Missouri, cutting its losses after spending $1.3 million there to place a so-called Taxpayer Bill of Rights on the ballot. But in other quarters the story is just heating up, with newspapers in Oklahoma, California and Nevada belatedly uncovering the network's spending in ballot initiatives, a new list of municipal leaders and state economists announcing opposition to proposed TABOR measures, and a new poll showing that more Mainers now oppose TABOR than support it.
And especially for those looking for the cherry on top, there's a twee report on last month's national lovefest of Americans for Limited Government in Chicago. What's the punchline? The reporter's travel expenses were paid for by... Americans for Limited Government! Wonder if ALG offered the same reimbursement to Laura Oppenheimer of The Oregonian, or Nichole Aksamit and Paul Goodsell of the Omaha World-Herald?
We've got a lot of ground to cover tonight, so let's get right to it.
It's officially over for the Howie Rich network in Missouri. Earlier this summer, after petition circulators delivered messy product to the Secretary of State's office, the petitions were disqualified for not comporting with state law. When the state-based organization supported by ALG, Missourians in Charge, appealed the secretary's decision in circuit court, a Cole County judge upheld her ruling. According to the Associated Press in Jefferson City today, MIA "wanted to appeal to the Missouri Supreme Court but the state's highest court sent the cases back to the Western District appeals court." (Check my math here http://www.ky3.com/....)
Patrick Tuohey, the "group organizer," saw the writing on the wall. Rather than pursue any more legal action - and seeing the clock running out on Missouri's deadline for getting measures on the ballot - Tuohey filed to quit the matter altogether.
Cost to Howie Rich's ALG? At least $1.3 million, according to a Capitol Weekly article published in July here http://www.capitolweekly.net/....
Add to that the loss of about $1.5 million that Rich and several associates raised to get TABOR on the ballot in Oklahoma, which was described in court documents outlined here http://www.dailykos.com/.... The Oklahoma Supreme Court nixed that project last Thursday, agreeing with a court referee that petitions included too many invalid signatures and that National Voter Outreach, the company paid to collect those signatures, violated Oklahoma law by bringing in professional signature-gatherers from out of state.
"Rick Carpenter of Oklahomans in Action said his Tulsa-based group received more than $1 million for the petition drive and about 99 percent of the money came from one source - Americans for Limited Government," reported KOTV-TV in Oklahoma City on Saturday. "That group is headed by Howard Rich, a New York real estate investor and political activist who also headed U.S. Term Limits, which was involved in passing a proposal to limit the terms of legislators in several states in the 1990s, including Oklahoma."
Despite the big dollars coming from OUTside the state, Carpenter told KOTV that the real support for the measure came from INside the state. "He aid the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs, a conservative group, was at the forefront of the TABOR movement in Oklahoma and the idea got rolling after OCPA official Brandon Dutcher attended a 2005 meeting of `'think tank types'' in Virginia." (Oh, I'm sorry, I misinterpreted what he said, then. He must have meant the real support for the measure came from INside the state of Virginia. But no, that doesn't make sense either. Either Oklahomans wanted this thing from the start, or it was hatched outside Oklahoma and imported using outsider dollars. You can't have it both ways...)
"Ironically, two of OCPA's board members - former Oklahoma Attorney General G.T. Blankenship and Tulsa businessman John Brock - were among the group of business leaders that filed the lawsuit challenging TABOR that led to the Supreme Court decision," says KOTV-TV. "Leaders of the group said it would hurt the state's progress by limiting the ability of the Legislature to properly fund roads, schools, health care and other vital services."
Wow. When the people who are with you AREN'T with you anymore, it's time to see where you went off the road.
Sadly, representatives of National Voter Outreach aren't there to help you with the map, either. "The Associated Press attempted to contact NVO for comment on the court ruling, but calls were not returned," KOTV says.
The Durant Democrat reiterates the news here http://www.durantdemocrat.com/... and reminds us that Chief Justice Joseph Watt promised to issue an "official opinion... specifically addressing the issues of signers' numerical insufficiency and of illegal activities of out-of-state circulators." It also notes that shortly before the court announced its ruling, OK Sen. Randy Brogdon of Owasso "held a news conference to announce formation of Oklahomans for Good Government, a group that planned to raise funds and drum up political support to pass the proposal..."
At least one Oklahoma lawmaker found wisdom in the court's ruling. Senate President Pro Tem Mike Morgan of Stillwater remembered that "TABOR was a disaster for Colorado - one that Oklahoma doesn't need to repeat. I also think this decision sends a a clear signal that Oklahoma will not allow out-of-state interests to manipulate public policy in our state."
But Brogdon told the Democrat "he is not giving up on TABOR and would use his new organization to launch another petition campaign." In fact, its report quotes Brogdon saying, "If we have to get another 300,000 signatures, we'll go get them and start this all over again. I've been probably more motivated and energized here in the last five minutes than in six months. We're moving ahead."
Whew, that's commitment. All nine justices of the state Supreme Court vote to stop your activity, and you respond by announcing to redouble your efforts. Wonder what would motivate a man to behave so? Heart, surely, and dogged determination. Tenacity. An iron will.
But an investigative report by the Tulsa World suggests a different influence here http://www.tulsaworld.com/.... "...Oklahomans in Action received $105,000 -- all but $2,844 of everything it took in this year -- from Americans for Limited Government of Glenview, Ill. That organization's chairman, New York developer Howard Rich, is also the largest contributor to the campaign of state Sen. Randy Brogdon, R-Owasso, TABOR's leading advocate in Oklahoma," write not one but three of Tulsa World's reporters, Randy Krehbiel, Mick Hinton and Curtis Killman. "Rich is associated with a number of Libertarian enterprises including the Cato Institute."
None of this matters to OIA's Rick Carpenter, who blames flaws in the system. "The fact that a funding source was found outside the state is irreverent to me." (That's a cut-and-pasted quote, so I assume he meant to use that word.) "It was an opportunity to make changes that we want to make in government and we would be fools not to take it."
Rather than find fault in the strategy of adopting out-of-state money with out-of-state agendas, KOTV reports, "Carpenter said changes need to be made in the initiative process in Oklahoma. He said he sat through days of hearings before the Supreme Court referee and was confused about exactly what the requirements are for someone to circulate initiative petitions. `I still don't know what a qualified elector or a bona fide resident is,' he said."
Well, I didn't know that either until I looked in the Oklahoma statutes online and found §2-15-68.B.2, "A qualified elector shall be a registered voter of the county," here http://www2.lsb.state.ok.us/... and a legal definition in §19-19 stating "That he or she is a citizen of the United States, is over the age of eighteen years, that he or she has been for one year last past a bona fide resident of this state, of the county six months, and in _ precinct thirty (30) days next preceding this date; that he or she came to his or her present residence from _ and is a legally qualified elector in the precinct on this day and has not voted in the election," here http://www2.lsb.state.ok.us/.... I don't know, maybe I just got lucky.
Now, on to California, where the Berkeley Daily Planet gives scope to truth yet again, here
http://www.berkeleydaily.org/... placing our man Howie Rich squarely in the shoes of Howard Jarvis, and standing him side-by-side with Howard Amahnson. It's a wealth of Howards.
"What Howard Jarvis started, Howard Rich aims to finish. Rich, an elusive New York developer, has been bankrolling initiatives aimed at stripping state and local governments of their power to limit development. His California measure, Proposition 90, masks that agenda. It's portrayed as simply a ban on government eminent domain actions that take private property and hand it over to developers for private use. And the strategy seems to be paying off. With comparatively little media coverage to date, the measure has managed to win the support of a strong cross-section of California voters."
Support for his measure "should be music to the ears of Rich, a wealthy New York developer and hard core property rights libertarian, who primed the Prop. 90 pump with a $1.5 million donation from his Fund for Democracy."
"The second largest contributor is Howard Ahmanson, the fundamentalist advocate of theocracy who is also the primary bankroll for the so-called Intelligent Design campaign--a movement which seeks to replace Charles Darwin's theory of `evolution by natural selection' with a divinely ordained process."
Whoa. If he's got God on his side, then he's got saints and apostles comin' up from behind, to quote philosopher Annie Lennox. But wait: "Fundamentalist"? "Theocracy"? Is this Libertarianism? Surely not. So what's Rich's motive?
"Rich himself has acknowledged that his priority is not eminent domain but the elimination of what he calls `government takings,' actions that impose controls on property development. While the measure does limit the seizure of homes by eminent domain to a narrow range of public necessity cases, Proposition 90 would also allow developers to sue any time local governments tried to minimize the size or impact of the projects they planned."
AHA, so this is about letting developers do what they want to do OR paying them handsomely if you deny them the right to do it! Rich is a real estate investor. Is that it?
"According to Priority Focus, the newsletter of the League of California Cities, if a voter initiative limited a developer who wanted to build a 2,000-home subdivision to only 500, the developer would be entitled to sue for the value of the 1,500 homes he could build if they were permitted under previous zoning. And in the case of eminent domain actions, the former owner would be entitle to payment at value of the land under the new use, even if the use were barred to private owners. ...Thus, new regulations to reduce zoning, limit height, or otherwise minimize development impacts would provide grounds for costly lawsuits."
Crikey. This is so much bigger than just eminent domain. How'd they get this past voters without voters asking a lot of questions?
"...the biggest beneficiaries of Proposition 13 have been corporations, who typically sell their property stores, plants, warehouses, apartment Buildings and other facilities far less frequently than individual homeowners. The ballot argument prepared by supporters pushes the eminent domain angle in much the same way. The cases cited are the owner of a Mexican restaurant who lost his business through eminent domain so a Mercedes dealer could tear it down and build a parking lot; a luggage store owner whose business was taken to make way for a hotel; and a pastor whose church was threatened with an action so a city could sponsor a condo development. The arguments mention nothing about potentially litigious developers."
Man, o man. That's sneaky.
Of course, a whole host of organizations have come out against this measure, but who besides Howie is for it?
"Another organizational supporter is Americans for Limited Government, which turns out to be one of Rich's organizations and a supporter of school vouchers," says the Berkeley Daily Planet. But of course. "According to the most recent campaign filings, Rich and his allies have raised at least $2,135,000, with the largest single donation, $1.5 million, coming from Rich's Fund for Democracy on March 10. Montanans in Action chipped in $600,000 on May 8. It's a group Shane Goldmacher at Capitol Weekly News in Sacramento reports is closely allied with Rich."
Tell us about Howard Ahmanson, who has God on his side. "Howard Ahmanson's Fieldstead & Company kicked in $200,000 on April 27. Ahmanson is the primary sponsor of the Discovery Institute, the institutional home base of `Intelligent Design' theory. Fieldstead--which is Ahmanson's middle name--also funds many conservative religious groups."
I know, I know, you're probably discounting the source, right? The Berkeley Daily Planet? Voice of the liberal elite? Let me see what I can find you from Scripps News Service, an objective purveyor of information if there was one.
Proposition 90 "starts with a legitimate worry - also about homeownership - and ends with a sledgehammer remedy. It's a Pandora's box of trouble," says Peter Schrag of Scripps News. "Proposition 90, largely funded by a deep-pockets New York libertarian named Howie Rich, isn't officially about property taxes. Its declared purpose is stopping cities, counties and redevelopment agencies from condemning private property and then turning it over to some other private entity for redevelopment - a shopping mall, maybe, to revitalize a moribund downtown area, or a hotel - even if it's deemed for a `public purpose.' But Proposition 90 isn't just about eminent domain. Buried in it are `takings' booby traps that throw into question a wide array of future regulations, zoning decisions and other actions that `result in substantial loss to private property.' The initiative allows regulation to protect public health and safety, but says nothing about protecting the environment or public welfare.
Booby traps, he says here http://www.scrippsnews.com/.... "It also says that if private property is taken `for any proprietary government purpose . . . the property shall be valued at the use to which the government intends to put the property if such use results in a higher value for the land taken'."
"That appears to mean that slumlords must be compensated not at the value of the condemned housing, but at the value of the property under the convention center or affordable housing units that replace it. Nor could a city turn the housing over to a private agency - say a church or social organization - even if such an agency was a more efficient operator of the project. Even backers of Proposition 90 concede that there'll be plenty of litigation to clarify the ambiguities and apparent contradictions in the law."
Now that's clever. Californians will be paying slumlords the value of nice luxury properties for their squalid tenements, thanks to the team of Howie, Howard and Howard.
Wait, do they really get the credit? There seems to be some confusion about where the measure came from: "Assemblywoman Mimi Walters, R-Laguna Niguel, honorary chair of `Protect Our Homes,' and other backers of Proposition 90 are a little vague about who drafted it. Most of the language was taken from bills that were blocked in the Legislature, they say, and reviewed by lawyers for the Chicago-based Americans for Limited Government, which Rich chairs. The big money for Proposition 90 so far has come largely from Rich-funded groups: $1.5 million from his Fund for Democracy and $600,000 from an organization called Montanans in Action - manna from Montana. Rich, a board member of the libertarian Cato Institute and chairman of U.S. Term Limits, is also underwriting similar measures and/or tax limitation and school voucher efforts in a dozen other states, from Arizona to South Carolina."
"In Securities and Exchange Commission filings, he's described as `involved in securities management, venture capital, real estate and business consulting.' In an e-mail he said that there are "thousands of local activists across the country working to protect essential freedoms ... and I am happy that I can help them.' But will the initiatives really put voters `back in charge,' as he said? Or will it be lawyers, slumlords, speculators and polluters?"
He's just happy to help. Happy to help. `Cause it's all about the ideology!
And now the Arizona Republic is discovering Howie Rich's generosity too.
"Americans for Limited Government, a national group headed by New York real estate mogul Howard Rich, has poured nearly $900,000 into an Arizona initiative campaign to strengthen private-property rights. The Chicago-based group is the primary financial backer of the local group HOPE (Home Owners Protection Effort), which is supporting Proposition 207 on the Nov. 7 general election ballot. The proposition, similar to ones being supported across the country by Americans for Limited Government, would limit the ability of governments to take property through eminent domain. It also would require that property owners be compensated when a government action, such as zoning decisions or environmental regulations, diminishes their property value," writes Amanda Crawford of the Republic here http://www.azcentral.com/....
"According to HOPE's campaign-finance report filed this week, Americans for Limited Government was the only contributor to the campaign since June 1. The group gave $740,000 between June 1 and Aug. 23. Prior to that, the campaign received just one donation directly from an Arizona `homeowner': $100 from Lori Klein, who is the campaign's executive director. The only other campaign contributor so far is a group known as the Fund for Democracy, also headed by Rich, which contributed $34,500 to the effort prior to June 1."
Hey, that's Lori Klein, who is now Mrs. Laird J. Maxwell, as mentioned here
http://www.hartwilliams.com/... and here www.lairdandlori.com. They met at one of ALG's government-destruction shindigs, you know. (Congratulations, you two.)
So, ALG kicked in three-quarters of a million bucks, on top of Howie's own $35,000, and Lori added a hundred bucks, which makes it a home-grown Arizona ballot initiative. There you go.
"But she said the campaign would be looking for local contributions soon because most of the money has already been spent on collecting signatures to qualify for the ballot. She said the campaign needs to raise about $500,000 more." `Cause the ideology is expensive, I guess.
The Republic has found ONE Arizonan who disagrees, though; you know there's always one dissenting voice, sort of like a modern day Tiresias.
"Paul Barnes, an Arcadia neighborhood advocate..., said voters should be concerned about the out-of-state money backing Proposition 207. `This is not a home-grown item,' he said. `It's not a good thing when outside money can come into the state and buy signatures and then this gets represented as something that is direly needed for Arizona'."
What's so bad about outsiders coming into Arizona and buying signatures? Mr. Barnes must've read Tim Vanderpool's article in the Tucson Weekly, which described the interaction between a signature-gatherer and the signature-victim on the street.
"Apparently concerned that such a takings initiative wouldn't outright pass here, the Arizona measure has instead been hitched to the emotionally charged eminent-domain issue. Similar strategies are being used in several states throughout the West. Critics call it a classic bait-and-switch. `There are two issues here,' says Scotty Johnson, with Defenders of Wildlife in Tucson. `There's the eminent-domain issue, which is a very separate issue from the property-rights issues. At a national level, there are attempts to bring these two together, to confuse the voters'."
"Even a former worker with the Tucson signature-gathering crew describes the petition as deceptive," Vanderpool writes here http://www.tucsonweekly.com/.... "It was designed so that all that most people see is the eminent-domain stuff," he quotes a woman who asked not to be identified. "It's only when you go into further that you see all the land-use restrictions."
So that's a bait-and-switch. I was wondering. And the Oklahoma statutes online didn't define THAT anywhere that I could find.
Vanderpool decided to do some direct questioning of the petition circulators, he writes sp he stopped by their storefront operation and walked in. "When I entered their offices, however, staffers sitting at long banquet tables refused to talk. When I attempted to question petition gatherers mingling around the curb, a woman trotted out and ordered them inside. She then summoned a pair of police officers from across the street. The unnamed, former petition-passer says she faced the same stonewalling. `I asked my trainer several times, Who's paying for this? And she wouldn't tell me. Or she would mentioned five or six sources that were completely different from one another'."
"In fact, the petitioners were working for a contract organization called National Voter Outreach, and funds for that work were largely provided by a murky, Chicago-based group called Americans for Limited Government. According to its latest filings with the Arizona Secretary of State's office, AZ HOPE has received $827,000 in contributions from the Chicago group--including hundreds of thousands in the last couple of months."
"Heather Wilhelm, a spokeswoman with Americans for Limited Government, says -- (Uh-oh. You see where this is going.) her organization just wants to lend a hand. `We're here to help out local groups. I think the Kelo (decision) was a wake-up call for everyone around America that property rights are on shaky ground. So we have people from around the country e-mailing us for help. We're proud of what they're doing on the ground there in Arizona, and we're happy to help them out'."
Turning back east, things have heated up in Maine. Ron Schmidt, associate professor of political science at the University of Southern Maine, tells the Press-Herald that TABOR's "likely to stand out" in voters' minds this year. Trouble is, says Christopher St. John, director of the Maine Center for Economic Policy, there's a dearth of full disclosure. "The challenge for proponents is to tell the truth," St. John said. "Their message to date is that this is simple, and it won't lead to cuts. It is a simple message and an attractive one, but it isn't true," he says here http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/....
Reporter Trevor Maxwell quotes Larry Benoit, campaign director for Citizens United, and Benoit quotes a study released by the Maine Municipal Association in June. Message: Kids will suffer worst under TABOR. "When you apply the formulas, roughly 35 percent, or 172 of Maine municipalities, would actually have outright budget cuts to comply," Benoit said. "Thirty-one percent of schools would face budget cuts."
And on the heels of such fact-based analysis comes such caterwauling as you never before heard, crying foul on Benoit's "interpretation."
Maxwell writes, "Those who wrote and support the bill, though, say it never requires cuts. The worst that can happen, they say, is flat funding year to year."
But Benoit's "interpretation" gets the attention of Kimberly Whipkey, a college student with a sister in public school. "I'm worried that the implications of this formula will mean severe spending cutbacks for the things Mainers care about, like education, health care and public safety."
And a slightly larger number of Mainers feel the way Whipkey does than the number who disagree, according to a new MainePulse survey found here http://business.mainetoday.com/.... According to the survey, 44 percent of Mainers would vote no on TABOR, and 42 percent would vote yes. Fourteen percent are still undecided.
That suggests that the public denouncements of TABOR by a host of Maine's brand-name leaders is having an effect on the listening public. Members of the Bangor City Council directed City Manager Edward Barrett to draft a public resolution against TABOR for the council's approval, says the Bangor News here
http://www.bangornews.com/... and Lincoln County Administrator Jim McMahon said TABOR will make it hard to house inmates in jail, here http://www.mainelincolncountynews.com/....
That's all we need: This guy running around loose in Maine because budget cuts made it impossible to incarcerate him http://news.mainetoday.com/....
Paul Warner, Oregon's chief economist, sounds the same theme in a Sunday's lead editorial in The Oregonian, here http://www.oregonlive.com/....
"No one can tell you all that Measure 48, the spending limit on the November ballot, would do in Oregon," write the editors. "Not the anti-tax activists who wrote it. Not the national conservative groups that have bankrolled it. Not even the best analysts in state government who have evaluated it. Paul Warner, the state's widely respected legislative revenue officer, sought to explain Measure 48 to legislators last week. He said the measure, if adopted in 1999, already would have stripped $5 billion from the state budget, and projected that if it is approved now, it would reduce spending by $8 billion by 2011-13."
"Warner cautioned that intense legal fights will ensue about precisely what government spending would be covered. He predicted many unintended consequences, with the state rushing to privatize services or foist them onto local governments to remove them from the cap. Yet Warner was only giving the Legislature educated guesses, just like everyone else now telling Oregonians what Measure 48 would do if voters approve it Nov. 7. What we have here is a classic Oregon initiative, a deceptively simple idea, a few new paragraphs proposed for the state constitution, and a radical change in law and practice that hardly anyone who votes in November will fully understand."
"To us, Measure 48 looks like a noose for state government, schools and universities, an anti-government gimmick that could choke off this state's future. Its sponsors say it is just a rope line meant to restrain state government. Whatever it is, it would take years to untangle all the legal and political disputes."
If you think that's far-fetched, pick up the Mail Tribune and read about the dead man who has a claim under the LAST ballot measure foisted on Oregon by Oregonians in Action, here http://www.mailtribune.com/.... That's right: A dead man may be able to claim dividends from the city of Ashland and state of Oregon under the so-called takings law adopted there in 2004.
Under laws being promoted across the land by Howie Rich of New York City, even death is no barrier to profit-making.
In Nevada, Rich is getting a two-fer: TABOR AND a takings measure. And Erin Neff of the Review-Journal caught on last month, here http://www.reviewjournal.com/.... "The only thing green in the grass-roots efforts behind two statewide ballot initiatives is the flow of cash from a New York City millionaire. His name is Howard Rich, and he's lived up to his last name thanks to a successful career in real estate development. Now he's plunking down millions of dollars from Maine to California to impart his conservative view of government on states where he doesn't live."
"The [Tax and Spending Control, same as TABOR] TASC initiative owes its survival to $625,000 it received from Americans for Limited Government. Aside from that cash, TASC received just $47,000 in relatively small in-state donations. The bulk of the $625,000 was paid to TASC in May so the Nevada group could fund a professional signature-gathering operation," Neff writes.
"Las Vegas attorney Kermitt Waters first bankrolled the PISTOL initiative, saying he could not sit with the Kelo decision as legal precedent. `I'd been carrying the main weight of it,' Waters said. `Howard offered to help me'."
Howard offered to help, he said.
"Rich has pledged to match Waters' money 50-50, PISTOL proponent and GOP attorney general candidate Don Chairez said. Waters has put in $90,000 of his own money already, with Americans for Limited Government making three large donations to the effort. The group wrote checks for $45,378 on Feb. 22, added $32,000 on April 14 and donated $91,000 on June 23.
Are there any limits to this man's generosity?
Well, " `Howard's agreed to pay half of everything we spend, except for our expensive Democratic PR guy', Chairez told Neff, referring to the campaign spokesman he and Waters have hired."
I guess there are limits in everything.
"Rich's foray into eminent domain in Nevada has been relatively cheap so far. He's also backing initiatives in Arizona, Idaho, Missouri, Montana, Oklahoma and Washington to the tune of $2.5 million and has thrown an additional $1.5 million at one in California, according to an article by Shane Goldmacher in California's `Capitol Weekly'."
"Rich also has contributed to the conservative Club for Growth political action committee, which has endorsed Republican Sharron Angle in the fight for Nevada's open 2nd Congressional District seat. Her tireless campaigning aside, Angle's candidacy would be dead without the Club for Growth, which has funded her television ads, attracted donations from around the country and thrown in at least 19 separate direct donations to Angle, according to Federal Election Commission reports. Angle's own initiative, a California-style cap on property taxes that took a back seat to her congressional bid, never found a sugar daddy like Rich and didn't come close to qualifying for the ballot."
A sugar daddy, says Erin Neff of the Las Vegas Review Journal.
And finally tonight, the cherry on top. Freelance writer Shawn Macomber of Boston has a feature in the current edition of American Spectator that sketches his visit to the Americans for Limited Government soiree in Chicago last month. Good times were had by all, according to Macomber. Samuel Adams was celebrated by Maine's Mary Adams and others. When Macomber brings us to the nub of his reportage, he paints the faintest shimmer of blandishment: "Once the bad news was out, though, the rest of the conference -- save Senator Tom Coburn's closing address -- belonged to the little known activists fighting mostly unsung battles against Big Government encroachment in North Dakota, Maine, Michigan, Illinois, and several other states. These were the stories that made the trip to Chicago worthwhile because it was not about furthering the cult of personality of some politician or another but rather about a philosophical and moral stand in favor of individual liberty made all the more romantic by the hitherto lack of recompense."
Yes, the principle of it all! Yes, the glory of the stand! The idea, I say! We live but by the idea!
What idea?
" `Liberty will not be restored as a gift from our fake representatives in Washington'," O'Keefe said during his Friday night address. `We were not born to be subjects of a government in London or D.C.' "
Yes, THAT idea! It is the very air we breathe! Breathe it! The idea!
"Stirring stuff, no doubt," Macomber avers. The only impediment to achievement of THE IDEA, he laments, is the "political establishment [which] does not always take kindly to voters taking an end run around them."
No, it is evil, this political establishment. And we need the FREE PRESS, I believe, by God, the FREE and OBJECTIVE PRESS to inform the uninformed, to read the words to the illiterate - nay, to bring FIRE from the gods to the people, with which to lead them out of Plato's cave (or was that Cato's palaver?). Yes, yes, this I believe. The words we speak are things to eat, for the love of Pete.
"It's good," he concludes, does Shawn Macomber, " to see so many people interested in a principled opposition."
Indeed it is.
And then, the kind editor of American Spectator adds the curl to the end of this bob.
"Shawn Macomber is a 2006 Phillips Foundation Journalism fellow. The ALG compensated his travel to the conference discussed here."
Ahem. Read it for yourself here http://www.spectator.org/.... Then, to review the other illustrious fellows of the Phillips Foundation, go here http://www.thephillipsfoundation.org/.... We may assume, I assume, that the Heather Wilhelm who joins Macomber in this rare company is the same Heather Wilhelm who delivers Howie Rich's words to a waiting world as spokesperson for ALG itself, the same ALG that paid the airfare for the freelance writer it handpicked from a select group of approved "fellows" that it helps to sponsor.
Sigh.