Some interesting happenings in the LP Party by Fremdfirma

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Some interesting happenings in the LP Party

POSTED BY: FREMDFIRMA
UPDATED: Thursday, May 1, 2008 04:18
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Tuesday, April 29, 2008 7:16 AM

Apparently some folk within the Libertarian party found out where some of the money was coming from, resulting in a bit of infighting, snarkery and a public statement most curious in nature.

http://www.lp.org/media/article_578.shtml

Lew Rockwell touches on some of the behind the scenes issues with this here...

http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/020742.html

But my suspicion is that certain of those, err.. more radical folk were informed of what some of those "foundations" shovelling money into the party WERE, and threw it into the faces of those running things.

Call it a hunch..

-F

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Tuesday, April 29, 2008 10:28 AM

FLETCH2

You did it AGAIN.

Do us a favour don't post these coy little "I'm an insider I know what it *really* means" posts unless you actually say what the thing is actually about. This has been about the fifth time you've done this. We get it, you keep an eye on some exotic stuff, but if you dont clue us in to what that is you reduce these posts to WTF? articles for most of us.

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Tuesday, April 29, 2008 1:06 PM

FREMDFIRMA

Gah!, My apologies for that one Fletch, sometimes I forget other folk don't have a semi-eidetic memory - this was referring to a convo on this board a while back where I mentioned to SargeX and Jack that one of my issues with the Libertarian Party was that they took money from what amounts to, for lack of a better word, freak fronts.

They're slick about it, mind you, usually named such and such fund or so and so foundation, and the money is washed pretty good - kind of like the way Disney flooded the "Free Speech Coalition" with cash just in time to challenge and dismantle certain child protection law one day before Patrick Naughton was due to be sentenced under it for some very nasty business.

Most of the Lib party was totally in the dark about it, but some of them knew where that money was coming from, it was traced back to third party billing sites like Landslide, Billcards, Trust-bill, I-bill, CCbill, Cardbilling and Lancelot Security, and other than Landslide Inc, who's owner is doing 1400 years right now thanks to Marcus Lawson, formerly of US Customs, all themselves disposable fronts.

I mention those in particular as a shout out to former State Attorney General and now MI Governor Jennifer Granholm, who strangled a whole nest of victimisers by cutting off the money tap when she filed cease-and-desist against those six.

The way it works, they collect the money and split it with sites offering some fairly horrific, not to mention illegal, content, claim their own hands are clean since they have nothing to do with the product, and then roll the money by "donating" it to one of their non-profit "funds" or "foundations" which then uses it politically to sabotage child protection laws, stuff like the incest exception loophole, which reduced abusing your own kids to a mere probation offense in many states, a loophole Protect.org has been trying like hell to close since their inception.

But now that the background is out of the way, the topic at hand - the Lib party some years back needed money, they needed a lot of it and needed it very quick, and chose at the time to turn a blind eye to where it was coming from, since those fronts decided they had a good chance of carrying their own agenda by stealth under the banner of Libertarians dislike of regulation, and offered a rather substantive chunk of change up front with the promise of continued financing.

And they took the money.
And predictably, yours truly went semi-ballistic and stormed out of the Party in a rage.

Recently certain documentation has come to light illustrating that particular money trail, from what I hear, and fell into the hands of the more anarcho-leftist branch of the Party, which went on some kind of hissy fit about it, and two days later, this press release shows up.

Not being party to their inner workings anymore, as I am really, really, REALLY not welcome around there, I can only surmise that someone threatened to make a public issue out of it, and they kicked this press release out as a pre-emptive measure.

Again, my apologies, I just thought folks would remember that particular discussion more vividly is all.

Any time I forget something like that Fletch, don't whatever feel guilty about rapping my knuckles over it a bit, I got a bad habit of assuming everyone else has that kind of memory for details, is all...

Got a bad habit of assuming everyone else can see in the dark too, occasionally leading to unintentional hilarity.

Sorry bout that.

-F

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Tuesday, April 29, 2008 7:50 PM

FLETCH2

So, to summarize. Various internet billing companies that process essentially payments for child porn sites, filter this money through various foundations, some of which form some kind of political action commitee to advance these companies commercial interests. Knowing that Libertarians are not big on government regulation some of these foundations have pumped money into the Libertarian party and some of it's causes in the hope that this would mokey wench legislation detrimental to their bottom line.

Most Libertarians have not followed the paper trail too closely and now that some of them have it's causing friction in the party between those that took the money and those that see this as a sell out of higher principles.

Good so far?

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Wednesday, April 30, 2008 8:37 AM

FREMDFIRMA

Exactamundo.

Thus leading to this public statement, which struck a lot of people as strange, since when was the last time you saw the LP calling for more federal regulation ?

Sorry for being obtuse earlier.

-F

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Wednesday, April 30, 2008 9:01 AM

CANTTAKESKY

Wow, Fletch. That is a really good summary.

Frem, I know how you feel about this issue. But for me, the line is not so clear that a political party owes favors to those who give them money.

For example, if I were a political candidate, and NAMBLA wanted to donate $10,000 to me, guess what? I'd take it, and happily too. And when I get into office, I'd support all the laws that crack down pedophilia and other violations of sovereignty. I have no problems "stiffing" these people, if you will. What's NAMBLA going to do? Why shouldn't I take their money and help put a hole in their pocket, if I never make any promises to them in exchange, see? If I never solicited the money, I don't owe them anything.

Granted, psychologically speaking, most people would feel beholden to financial backers for future favors. But what if the candidate or political party feels no moral obligation to serve the interests of certain donors? Then why not?

Anyway, as long as the LP never stoops down to any philosophical or material support of pedophilia and rape, I don't have a problem supporting them regardless of who they might have accepted money from.

Just my opinion.

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Wednesday, April 30, 2008 2:30 PM

FREMDFIRMA

Well, politically, it's not just that, see.

If the LP party "stiffs" them or backs out, they can pick one of those disposable fronts and throw it under the bus...

And name names, use a proxy to "expose" all over the media who the LP took money from, and cause substantial damage to them politically.

That is, of course, once you have taken the money, how they pull the leash, you see.

As for when it is offered, this is a velvet glove/iron fist methodology.

The velvet glove is the money, do our bidding and we pay well, and here is X amount of money to prove it...

But if you refuse, ha!
Then X amount of money goes straight into your opponents pocket, and you will be unable to defend yourself against the advertisement blitz that will pay for, because we all know americans are stupid and will vote for the one who blows the most cash buying their sympathies.

A tactic refined and perfected by every PAC out there, and a set-piece engagement offered in the same fashion, although not so many words, by PACs run by a foreign gov't that shall not be named.

It's kind of a reverse protection racket combined with straight blackmail once the money has changed hands.

This press release might signal a substantive section of the LP party's intent to stiff them and cut them off, and more power to em, but pulling for more feddie regs is a bad way to do it, you ask me.

-F

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Wednesday, April 30, 2008 2:48 PM

CANTTAKESKY

Quote:
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
This press release might signal a substantive section of the LP party's intent to stiff them and cut them off, and more power to em, but pulling for more feddie regs is a bad way to do it, you ask me.

I see what you're saying: blackmail.

I know blackmail and politics don't go well together. But again, if it were me, I wouldn't care. The record of my ACTIONS against certain policies speaks for itself, regardless of who happened to have given me money. Most of this velvet glove/iron fist thing applies to people who have a real chance of getting elected, and want the money to keep coming.

But Libertarians don't have any real hopes of getting elected, so the blackmail and strings attached don't have nearly the same significance. It is a lot easier to stiff them when your real career is not on the line.

Anyway, I see this PR as exactly that: a public commitment to stiff them, and showing them how far the LP is willing to go to stiff them. I think the PR is a bad tactic, sounds more like a betrayal of their own principles. I would prefer they make a strong stand at the local and state level. But I'd rather they did this than actually support the loopholes and such those freaks were looking for.

I don't know. I'm not on the inside of the LP anymore, now that I'm living in South America.

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Wednesday, April 30, 2008 9:47 PM

FREMDFIRMA

If you saw the sums involved, CTS, you'd understand - thanks to our failure to hack them off at the knees when we had the chance to effectively DO it, in 1991, 1993, 1995 and 1997, this industry has enough money to be politically influential, and the staggering amount of money they can funnel into a campaign using legal dodges and multiple fronts is quite shocking.

Landslide, Inc's association with a single site, for less than one year netted them 1.4 million, pure profit.

And there's no fear anymore of doing it, making that bust caused the destruction of the office that performed it and ruined the careers of all involved (some... Political... folk were on the customer list obtained in the warrant) - so now they just file injunctions or cease and desist, and the bastards fold up and reform under a new name and continue biz within 24 hours, most of em.

That ties in with the USDOJ March Audit, apparently the FBI simply flings a cease-and-desist and marks the case closed without further investigation, so they just rotate the fronts when that happens, which means some folk are making HUGE sums of money, we're talkin oil company huge, right ?

And they have the infrastructure to break it up into legal size chunks and shovel it on like coal, which is what they do for individual candidates, some of whom have no idea who they're taking money from, mind you, just that they figure that candidate is useful to them or may be in the future.

As for parties, not sure what the financial cap on a to-party donation is, but between all of that it's enough money to make any politician less honest than Ron Paul salivate on the spot.

I just wish to hell they were a little less technically savvy, cause I sure as hell wouldn't feel bad about robbing the SOBs, it's not like they'd report it, though they might try buying a hit, one would presume.

-Frem

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Thursday, May 1, 2008 4:18 AM

CANTTAKESKY

Quote:
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
though they might try buying a hit, one would presume.

That is the only thing that would concern me. I don't care about blackmail, but I do want to live. I guess it's not a good idea to take money or otherwise associate with people who have absolutely no morals. Come to think of it, I wouldn't take money from the mob--cause no matter how I feel about the money, it boils down to how THEY feel about the money.

I am very sorry that the LP had that lapse in judgment to have taken that money. But I know the folks in LP leadership. They're good people. They made a mistake, as people do, but I think this PR shows they are trying to get back on the right track, albeit in a sloppy way. Or maybe they have a reason for it; messages to third parties often don't make sense to folks are not not in on it.

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