Any bill calling itself a “RESTRICT” act on Communications CANNOT be pro-First Amendment or good Libertarian news. While banning Chinese surveillance of US consumers (through spying apps like TikTok) may be a good thing, using overreaching legislation to vastly expand US surveillance and control is ridiculous. Rand Paul, Reason, Tucker Carlson, Substack journalists and the below Quartering podcast agrees:

Reason’s humorous take on the film genre:

The video below are highlights of a discussion about the ballot problems of 2022 and possible solutions being explored by LPNY and other activists. This was from a presentation in a live meetup via online call on March 14, summary is courtesy Cameron Weber and Hardfire:

The Washington Post complains that attempts to enforce future COVID or other pandemic lockdown polices are being successfully prevented by conservative, libertarian and legal groups. The Gateway Pundit observes that WP “is deeply upset that Conservatives and Libertarians are standing in the way of future pandemic lockdowns. This is an excellent reminder that the liberal media gleefully supported shutting down the United States during COVID and would absolutely love to see it happen again. If Conservatives and Libertarians are standing in the way, they deserve our thanks and admiration.”  Some excerpts:

…Conservative and libertarian forces have defanged much of the nation’s public health system through legislation and litigation as the world staggers into the fourth year of Covid… The movement to curtail public health powers successfully tapped into a populist rejection of pandemic measures following widespread anger and confusion over the government response to Covid. Grass-roots-backed candidates ran for county commissions and local health boards on the platform of dismantling health departments’ authority. Republican legislators and attorneys general, religious liberty groups and the legal arms of libertarian think tanks filed lawsuits and wrote new laws modeled after legislation promoted by groups such as the American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative, corporate-backed influence in statehouses across the country…

Those seeking to dismantle public health powers say they’re fighting back against an intrusion on their rights by unelected bureaucrats who overstepped amid a national crisis. “We don’t want to concentrate power in a single set of hands,” said Rick Esenberg, head of the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, a libertarian law firm that won a state Supreme Court case barring health officials from closing schools. “It’s a usurpation of the legislative role.” More…

Join us on Saturday, March 11, 2023 at 12:00 pm (noon) to explore the topic of “From Iraq to Ukraine—20 Years of US Intervention” and the prospects for new military adventurism escalating in 2023. QL President and former LPNY Chair and US Senate candidate John Clifton (possible additional guests TBA) will lead a discussion as to the wisdom of baiting the Russian bear by expanding the proxy war in Ukraine, continuing to vaguely confront China on Taiwan, or supporting the resumption of hostilities in the Mideast. The propaganda narratives used to promote entering these conflicts, from Iraq to present, will also be reviewed.

Clifton asks who mainly benefits from all this warfare, besides the MIC (the military industrial complex)? “Who’s on first—which one of these powder kegs will pop into full war? Can the US/NATO maintain the “unipolar” geo-political world of the last few generations (where it controls foreign affairs), or have we evolved into a “multipolar” world where multiple super powers rule?” Note:  The two Libertarian entities in Queens (QL and LP Queens) are unifying as one LPQC, with the combined group serving as the county committee of LPNY! Progress on this new development will be discussed at the March meeting.

Details and Directions

Based on a dialogue that began at QL’s February 11 meeting with Larry Sharpe, which members of QL and the LP of Queens attended, both groups have at last decided to explore becoming one official entity, the Libertarian Party of Queens County (LPQC), as early as March of this year. The unification planned would basically be a “true merge” of both their practices, by means of the existing members of QL being absorbed into LP Queens, and LP Queens adopting QL’s current format of holding monthly physical meetings (at OBA). Members of the two groups will make up the officer positions, under one administration.

The deliberations would, once completed, restore the presence of LPQC as one official entity in a combined county committee of the LPNY, while moving past the division existing between some state committee members of the 2010’s and the original LPQC, that led to the de-chartering of the latter in late 2016. Then-LPQC objected to the circumstances of that action in a lengthy article documenting the history of the dispute. While the LP chartered the LP of Queens (or Queens LP) as the official county committee for the area, both groups have claimed the title “LPQC” since then—the original due to its long history and continuous activity, and the current group due to its recognized status.

QL President John Clifton is expected to be the new Chair of LPQC after the adoption of the merge agreement. Additional details about the unified LPQC will be announced in the coming days, and discussed at the March 11 QL meeting.  “Queens Libertarians” (the brand, and the site) is also expected to continue as a promotional arm of the county committee. It appears a new day is starting for libertarian activism and advocacy in Queens, under one umbrella!

Rep. Ritchie Torres (D, Bronx, one district over from AOC) , faces constituent heat over his non-response to the story published by acclaimed journalist Seymour Hersh that the US blew up the Nordstream 2 pipeline. Such a report should at least justify Congress investigating it as an act of US aggression that could provoke a war. But in the new politics of evading accountability, some closet chicken-hawks don’t seem to want to go there:

Antiwar.com contributor Dave DeCamp joins QL President John Clifton and Brooklyn Vlad to exchange libertarian views on Cameron Weber’s “Hardfire” show, about parallels between the expanding proxy war in Ukraine, and the previous escalation of the US intervention in Vietnam. Clifton will further discuss the Ukraine situation at the Queens Libertarians March 11 meeting:

The Outreach and Communications Director of the LPNY replies to Governor Hochul’s State of the State address:

Join us on Saturday, February 11, 2023 at 12:00 pm (noon) to explore the topic of “Lessons Learned” from the Libertarian Party campaigns of 2022. LPNY Candidate for Governor Larry Sharpe returns to speak much more extensively on the political issues and challenges that emerged with his campaign, and how the party can overcome those obstacles come the 2024 cycle. Among topics reviewed will be Sharpe’s coalition approach, the petition drive, the legal battle, how to organize fundraising and activists to secure 50 state ballot status for the LP in ’24, and more.

The meeting will be at our new regular location at OBA Mediterranean Grill at 104-02 Metropolitan Ave in Forest Hills (not the OBA on Austin St). It will also feature a short general business meeting where several items will be voted on. QL ball caps will again be available for new paid members. See you all there!   Details and Directions

In light of the recent highly publicized beat down, the below civil libertarian analysis by Reason is quite timely. Meanwhile Liz Wheeler asks, was the Nichols hyper coverage done to distract from the larger story about the video exposing Pfizer?:

The incredible video just revealed by Project Veritas on pharma giant Pfizer (confirming they are making more potent versions of COVID, to sell their “vaccine”), and the rollout (announced by WEF) of brain monitoring tech, is covered by OAN’s Alison Steinberg. What kind of political liberty do we have if we are subject to this kind of corporate hustle and fraud, and omni-surveillance?:

Below is the full text of the remarks Dr. Phil Schoenberg made at the January 2023 QL meeting, plus an additional poem he wrote on “Donald Trump the Dump.” Phil restates his fully negative assessment of both Trump’s history and personality, as well as his future (so much so, readers may want to read an article arguing for Trump’s good character for balance). Whatever, libertarians will likely be debating Orange Man’s political impact for ages to come:

Donald Trump the Dump © 2023 by Philip Ernest Schoenberg, PhD

I am Donald Trump
King of the Dump
Because I know when to pump
I learned from my pop
On how to be on top
I learned from my pap
On how to take your crap
I have a gift
I know how to grift
I know how to take the heat
When I cheat
God is a joke
I know how to take your poke

and make you broke
I am rich

Because I know how to ditch

I expect you to attack

but I will not have your back
I do the crime

But you will do the time

I expect you to be brave

while I dig your grave
I made the world a better place
Full of lace and grace
For me but not for thee

People think I’m nice

but I’m cold as ice
I am the king of the hill
Because I know how to chill
When I am a pill

The Rise and Fall of President Donald Trump: The Why © 2023 by Philip Ernest Schoenberg, PhD

I. Preface: My Decision

On election day, 2016, as I waited to vote, I debated with myself on whom I should choose to be president. As an expert on presidents, I thought I knew all about Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump as equally dubious and sleazy characters. I decided to vote for Donald Trump (1) as a game-changer to shake up the political establishment and (2) the election polls predicted Hillary Clinton would win New York State. Therefore, I thought my protest vote would be harmless. Like millions of others, I had never expected Donald John Trump to win or take us on the wild ride that he did as the 45th President of the United States of America.

II. Trump’s Disconcerting, Outrageous, Effective Public Relations Launch as a Presidential Candidate

Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law, in his memoirs, remembers June 16, 2015 as a most memorable day. Donald Trump declared he was running for president. Trump supposedly tossed away a prepared script in favor of a supposed off-scripted racist comment on Mexican illegals as rapists. While this provocative statement is not explicitly racist, it demonstrated Trump’s tendency to go right up to the defamatory line that he has repeatedly crossed and still crosses. His supposedly off-the-cuff remarks are never spontaneous because they are designed to get attention, provoke controversy and stir up the media. Kushner learned from Trump that the cheering and applauding crowd in the NYC Trump Tower lobby were professional actors hired for the occasion. While the media denounced his racist and politically incorrect comments, Trump found his public who resonated with his ugly, demagogic words. Trump had told the masses what they wanted to hear. He was off and running to become their president…

Read the rest

Unless you’ve just “died suddenly,” as per the now popular viral search term, you’ve probably noticed the large number of people with no known medical history, who have suffered cardiac issues or stroke attacks recently. Could it all be a goof, or could it be the Jab? Or as authoritarians would say, “trust us, there’s nothing to see here, move along…”

Paul Craig Roberts on the civil liberties nightmare in DC of two years ago. His and Tucker Carlson’s comments are based on videos and documentaries that demonstrate the violations of protestors’ rights, and law enforcement’s highly selective approach to the evidence. As per several political polls, pro-liberty populists protested what over half the public feels was a clearly stolen election. A few of them “trespassed” the Capitol building (despite signs they were let in), and the establishment has vilified and demonized them ever since:

“The alleged “January 6 insurrection” is entirely an orchestrated event. The presstitutes have given a completely fabricated account that bears zero relationship to what happened. This documentary by the Epoch Times, a new large online and print newspaper that is filling the role abandoned by the US media of objective reporting, is a font of truthful information backed up by visual evidence. Here are a few of the actual facts. The police behaved as thugs throughout. The police intentionally did their best to provoke a peaceful crowd to violence by shooting into their midst plastic grenades filled with plastic shrapnel. The police, if indeed they were police, broke every rule of police behavior in their efforts to provoke the crowd into violence.

They were helped by provocateurs, none of whom have been arrested or questioned. These efforts had little success. So they then killed purely gratuitously two women. Ashley Babbitt was gratuitously murdered by a black police officer for no other reason than to produce the aura of violence that required deadly police force. Another woman was murdered by black police as the documentary shows clearly. Neither of the women were doing anything to justify the use of death-dealing force against them. In neither case was there any investigation of the police use of excessive force. The Justice (sic) Department gave a free pass to the murderers. None of the required procedures that are required when people are killed by police were followed. In the case of Derick Chauvin they were excessively applied. We have a two-tiered system of justice in which the application of law depends on race…”  Read more